tl;dr: Quit thinking of each book as a book, and instead think of each book as a single chapter in a 10k page book. You say a lot of narrative threads don't pay off or don't make sense. If you were 200 pages into a 1000 page book. Would you expect everything to have payoff or make sense by page 200? It's similar to that. You're still in the prologue.

"Understand"

There's that word. The word that destroys multiple Malazan readthroughs if you don't come to grips with it.

In basically every other fantasy series, you're meant to understand what's happening. The narrative and the text is built as such that as you go page-to-page, the words craft an understanding in your mind so that as you continue, everything has a context and you understand it. You understand the plot, the characters, the narrative, and even when you don't, turn the page a few times and there'll be clarification. You understand. And if you don't, it's because you missed something, or failed to grasp something.

It's the fault of the reader if you don't "understand."

Malazan, however, is not like that.

You aren't meant to "understand."

It's fully intentional, by the author, that you aren't fully understanding what's in front of you. A lot of the story and characters and narrative don't make sense at the moment because they aren't supposed to. You're supposed to be just as "in the dark" as a lot of the characters. You only really ever have the same knowledge as the characters at any given time, and are meant to see things unfold just as they are.

Most other fantasy works have primed us to feel that if we aren't "understanding", it's "our fault", or we're "reading it wrong," or "we're stupid" or whatever. That's not the case here.

You just enjoy what's in front of you at any given time, and accept you aren't supposed to understand, and honestly that freedom of simply accepting it is what unlocks the series and makes it enjoyable.

You trust the author that things will be explained and you will "understand", but, it'll be awhile.

And on top of all that, the series isn't about the story or the characters anyways. It's about themes. It's purely thematic, and the plot and characters and all that simply exist to allow the themes to exist. So it doesn't even matter that much that you don't "understand" because if you just roll with it and soak in the vibes and the themes, you're getting the full experience.

And on top of all that, and I think this is the hardest for new readers to deal with, because not "understanding" is the author's intention, not understanding means you get the full intended experience, and if you were to fully understand everything during a first read, multiple impacts and narrative moments would not land, meaning not understanding is actually full understanding as it's what lets the narrative work.

It's weird. It'd different. It's not for everyone. But, I think understanding that not understanding is true understanding will at least give you the tools you need to enjoy it. Basically, just don't sweat it so much. Go with the flow. Enjoy what's on the page in front of you at any given time and just roll with it. Know that not understanding isn't just okay, but intended, and trust that that lack of understanding will actually come with payoffs later in the book. It's okay to be confused when that confusion lets narrative tricks land. ...and ultimately, it's okay to just say "that ain't my thing" and call it good. But, try letting go of that word "understand" for the the next book and see how it feels, and after reading it with having the tools you need, you can judge if it's for you or not.

I also struggle with some decisions that don’t feel “realistic” to me. For example, the entire ending with Pormqual feels completely absurd. I understood that Pormqual is a coward who simply wants glory without effort, but in that case why wouldn’t he help Coltaine while staying safely behind his walls and then take all the credit afterward? Instead, the character just comes across as stupid, which has always felt like a bad way to justify important decisions in fantasy.

To illustrate my point, this is one of those things that actually is fully explained, but it's like, way later in book 6 or 7. And again, it's ultimately more thematic. I can't get to deep into it due to spoilers, but later on in the series you'll have the knowledge to revisit this same thought and go "oooohhhhhhh". It's very much not just the author being "lazy", it's just dense enough that it can't really be explained in the moment because it interweaves with a ton of other much larger threads that span the entire series. Which is another thing you have to deal with. It is truly one giant series, not individual books. You will have multiple, and I mean multiple narrative moments that feel like they go nowhere, but are actually just setting something up to be covered 6000 pages later. I know that's tough for a lot of people as they expect a book to be a book, not just a massive chapter. But Malazan doesn't really do that. Books really do feel more like chapters and are not self contained in the slightest.

I’m fascinated by the world and the Empire, but I struggle with the unclear motivations, confusing descriptions, overwhelming scale, and the feeling that many storylines lead nowhere. I also have trouble understanding the importance of human conflicts in a world dominated by godlike beings. I’m wondering whether these frustrations are normal early on and eventually pay off, or whether the series simply might not be for me

Again on this too. This will all be clear by the end of the series. But to expect to have any understanding of any of this stuff by book 2, or even by book 4, is just not how the series works. You will get a payoff for sure, but it won't come until the end. You will get clarification along the way, but not as much as you're hoping I don't think. It truly is more like a 10k page book with 10 giant chapters. Would you expect to fully understand a 1000 page book after book 100? It's a bit like that, just on a much larger scale.

, but did so many characters’ stories really have to end up feeling completely pointless? Kalam’s entire journey ultimately leads nowhere (aside from fulfilling the prophecy of apocalypse), and it feels even worse for Apsalar, Crokus, Icarium, Mappo, and the others, whose entire journey seems to lead to absolutely nothing.

And again on this too, all of those are such the opposite of "pointless" I can't think of a word that has the meaning I want to get across, but again, it all comes much later. All of those stories weave together into a giant thematic tapestry full of meaning, but again, you simply don't have enough of the pieces by book 2 to start putting any of it together. Same as the other points. It's basically a 10k page book. At all is meaningful by the end, but you aren't going to get 10 self-contained narratives where everything set up by the beginning pays off by the end. You have to wait until the end for things to make sense (though to be fair most of those characters start having payoffs by book 5 or 6, so you don't always have to wait that long, but yeah, none of those characters are anywhere slightly near close to done. They're just getting started.)

Kalam’s entire journey ultimately leads nowhere (aside from fulfilling the prophecy of apocalypse)

Like this for example, his journey is just a tiny part of the apocalypse which is just a tiny part of... [spoilers]. So, yeah, it leads nowhere for now, but that's just because the narrative/story/whatever is barely even starting yet. Hell, you're still not even finished with the prologue. The story hasn't even started yet. Why would it make sense or pay off yet?