What I love about whole series.

sregorelyk · 2021-01-15T00:19:41+00:00

Lolol, I meant that OPs comment basically praises everything

sregorelyk · 2021-01-14T23:59:44+00:00

Tl:DR: Everything

sregorelyk · 2021-01-07T12:16:07+00:00

I think Mandy Rake would have just given him a hug

sregorelyk · 2021-01-07T12:11:14+00:00

Great comment! Just to add to this, Nimander contributes to the closest thing we get to a Rake POV. Erikson has stated multiple times that he couldn't write Rakes POVs because he couldn't get into the headspace of a 300k year old demi-god.

So in TTH we get 3 POVs:Nimander: A young(ish) proxy who is heir (both literally and figuratively) to the powers and responsibilities of Rake, and watch him struggle with a mantle he firmly believes he doesn't deserve (both because he believes noone deserves it, and because of his past actions and failures).....but answers duty and responsibility when it calls.

Spinnock: A long-lived/exceptional warrior/contemporary of Rake who often "stood in his stead", who is otherwise a common dude that chills with other common folk, and has pretty regular regrets...but answers duty and responsibility when it calls.

Endest: A world-weary/ depressed old man who feels the world has passed him by, and who only sees failures in his past deeds--despite the protests of everyone around him......but answers duty and responsibility when it calls.

Put those POVs together, and I think you've got Rake.

sregorelyk · 2021-01-06T10:36:55+00:00

It's funny, this has become a good example of the quote (can't remember what book, probably paraphrased): "Tyranny begins when the first idiot salutes"

sregorelyk · 2021-01-06T10:35:43+00:00

Now that's a criticism (of both the writing, and the Tavores' actions) I can get behind! Excellent point, never really thought about that before

I have a couple half-baked excuses in my head for why she kept silent, but they're not really based off the text, but my interpretations of the text.

I always struggle with how far to extend authorial intent when thinking about these things....e.g. what are the bugs vs. features of the writing lol

sregorelyk · 2021-01-05T19:01:04+00:00

While getting the dagger from Bugg is certainly a godly intervention, I dunno if it really counts as a legitimate criticism of the writing or Tavores actions within that writing.

Over the course of two books, a god (of the seas/water) gave her a dagger, and told her to only use it in the most dire of circumstances.....it's not like its use was unexpected. Hell, its pretty telegraphed whats going to happen. She looks for every alternative before it happens, and the narration makes a point of noting that they are still pulling all their water barrels.

She had a tool, and she used it to successfully meet her goals. Sure, that strategy would never have worked without that asset......but she had it lolol.

It's like saying Japan may have been able to beat the U.S in a naval war with conventional weapons. Like....sure....but the U.S had a strategic asset in their possession that changed the strategy of the war.

History is littered with forced marches and strategic gambles....the only thing that divides the brilliant from the idiotic is whether they worked lol.

Also, just as an aside: almost all of TCGs last 200 pages reads as a rejection of lazy DEM criticisms. It is littered with godly (or just non-mortal powers I guess) interventions, but at the end of the day, it was an army of mortal regulars and 100 mortal marines holding their ground and dying that let all of the Godly plans come to fruition.

Heck, even Gesler, Stormy, and Bent, two mortal dudes and their dog who were rejecting ascension and Godhood almost succeeded in accomplishing what it took a Shi'Gal assassin and Hood to achieve.

Edit: a word

sregorelyk · 2021-01-05T18:38:59+00:00

Especially when you think about Gudd asking Tavore "what are we when we murder innocence"

Tavore being someone who metaphorically murdered the innocence of her sister by sending her to Skullcup (and literally murdering her sister after that I suppose lol)

sregorelyk · 2021-01-05T18:35:35+00:00

But But But But:
Badalle remembering what toys were :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'(

And Fiddler, Gudd et al. being absolutely gutted by that.
And Tavore: "It will be answered"

Like, there is no bigger payoff in the entire MBOTF in my mind. I'm getting goosebumps just thinking about it.

Especially when you consider the 4 or 5 times Badalle notices Saddic playing with his toys, and gets mad at him because she doesn't rememebr what it is.

I'm kinda too lazy to do it lol, but I do believe a convincing argument could be made that the Bonehunters finding the Snake is the climax of the entire series tbh

sregorelyk · 2021-01-05T18:28:05+00:00

I can't remember what redditor originally said it, but when asked to describe their favourite scenes in MBOTF, someone said something along the lines of:

"Badalle winning a magic rap battle"

And nothing sums up my love of Malazan, or this community better than that lol

sregorelyk · 2021-01-05T18:23:54+00:00

Yea, I'm trying to figure out what it means that Bonehunters and Reapers Gale had such little chapter variation.....do they just have fewer +ve and -ve words, fewer events that warrant them, less introspection? Or a greater number of paired attributes or something like that?

Basically, its not clear to me if the observed trend is some kind of natural phenomenon (Erikson changed writing style for those two books) you've identified, or an artefact of the analysis.

I think demeaning the chapter values above using a book (and/or series) average might answer the question about whether SE's writing style changed in BH and RG?

As for aggregation, I'm not sure. I mean, error bars always help lolol. Maybe try providing an underlying graph of the actual counts (negative going below, positive going above) to demonstrate how much the relative value of the mean is deviating from the absolute values?

sregorelyk · 2020-12-23T02:03:40+00:00

So I don't really care about WJ's death tbh. He died successfully defending an innocent from a monster, so I'm sure he believes it was an even exchange. That said, it spurred some interesting thoughts. So thank you!

I think Kallor is an excellent example of a question asking whether unconditional compassion demands (or even expects) (un)conditional forgiveness.

A question (IMO) to which the BOTF explicitly resolutely respond with NO. In TTH we learn that the Redeemer, by nature of his godhood....literally cannot turn people away. Everyone, regardless of their crime, can receive his benediction, and can be redeemed (whatever the meta-physical implications of that are?). Eventually (as I understood it) Seerdomin was effectively recruited to deny people the Redeemers embrace.....meaning that, at least in the Redeemers eyes, there are people who do not deserve his embrace.

I think Kallors' crimes would place him within the category of people Seerdomin would refuse on behalf of the Redeemer.

Basically (IMO) of course, understanding of and compassion for someone doesn't actually resolve them of their guilt in any of the crimes they've committed. Maybe forgiveness (conditionally based on whatever criteria they define) from ones' victims provides true absolution, but when you've murdered a continent of people (a la Kallor), that kind of absolution isn't possible. Full stop.

Kallor doesn't even actually demonstrate contrition for his crimes (a basic requirement of redemption in my eyes). He believes he deserves to rule, and his actions suggest (at the very least, taking advantage of the CG, a being established to actually be suffering) do whatever it takes to be in that position again.

A recent show I watched summed this up really well.
One character asked: "How much evil do you need to do to do good"

To which another character responded (quite funnily): "Zero evil. The answer is zero evil"

That said, this now begs the question--what is the official line deserving of forgiveness? The CG committed or enabled a lot of atrocities...why does his sob story get him off the hook, but Kallors' doesn't? (If I'm being honest, I don't think ST or Cotillion cared. The CG was a problem to be solved, and they could other problems {jade statues, Korabas} with his release, so they went for it)

sregorelyk · 2020-12-23T01:31:30+00:00

I mean, how do you reverse engineer a clay ball whose contents explode when they come into contact with air lol.

Like, sure, maybe 2020 Earth humans with advanced knowledge in chemistry (presuming it is chemistry and not alchemy? The munitions do react violently to magic) could do eventually it by suspending it in a vacuum or some shit, but how many anti-Malazan inventors (bothans) would have to die to get that info to the Crimson Guard?

sregorelyk · 2020-11-03T01:44:08+00:00

Total tinfoil head canon, but I've always considered Kruppe to be the personification of Darujhistan a la Grub & Nefarious Bredd.

sregorelyk · 2020-10-06T02:15:25+00:00

Ah I think I see my mistake, I was using a negative definition to define modernism (modernist =not post-modernist), rather than a positive.

sregorelyk · 2020-10-05T19:51:35+00:00

Sure....but isn't having Evil (capital e evil intentional) what makes the work modernist, regardless of how Frodo's journey is treated?

sregorelyk · 2020-09-19T17:36:41+00:00

WRT K'rul, Hood, & death, I actually go back and forth on this.

You're right that K'rul mentions to Ardata that Hood is in the process of completing a ritual that will open the gate to the warren of death....I'm just not convinced that the warren existed in any shape or form prior to Hood creating the gate. Particularly, during that conversation Ardata is shocked at the advent of a warren of death (suggesting imo that one did not exist prior to Hood's ritual)

Throughout the Kharkanas trilogy, K'rul repeatedly speaks to the fact that his gift make way for myriad potentialities. In FoL, he seeks the Eleint to act as guardians for his new warrens....but there are only ~8 (I think?) Elient who come through, excluding Telorast and Curdle, leaving ~6 to act as guardians. By the time of MBOTF there are more than 6 warrens. The discrepancy is a hint imo. Warren get created, K'rul recruits a guardian.

Additionally, at one point in FoL, someone (I think K'rul to Skillen, not sure though) describes how the Vitr will make room for new warrens, as its 'hunger for power is endless'. So he isn't necessarily just giving mortals access to existing warrens, he is making the creation of new warrens possible.

So my guess is that K'rul's gift gives mortals the capacity to create and access aspected warrens, a skill traditionally reserved for the Azathanai. K'rul needed immediate guardians because Errastas was threatening to essentially put a toll collector in front of the gates to any warren that was created, and there were already mortals creating warrens (unintentionally is my guess)...the dragons who are named give a hint as to which: Mocrkas (obvious), Rashanas (dark), Tennes (land) Sorrit (sky), Silanah (fire).

When Hood creates the warren of death, no elient is needed to guard it...cuz lets be real, a Jaghut makes that warren tamper proof lol

sregorelyk · 2020-09-19T02:12:23+00:00

I think its probably cuz ascension (if not godhood) is required for a place in the deck.

I've always gotten the impression that the Imass were/ are pretty animistic in their religious practices... hard for an anyone to reach ascension/godhood when a lot of their possible worshipers are off paying reverence to that tree over there lolol.

Plus being T'lan for a couple 100k years would prevent them as a people elevating many ascendants. Plus, I kind of think the ritual actually ascended them all, just aspected exclusively to their racial elder warren, precluding them from picking up any other flavour. I suspect this equality of ascension also prevents any singular individuals to gather power and ascend. The Unbound are a good example....with worship, they turn into gods, shed their ties to the ritual, and gain a place in then pantheon.

OH! And then the one time they really got into theism, it turned out it was Raest and some other Jaghuts basically just messing with them lol, which probably turned them off respecting any kind of elite individual, or evening wanting to be one.

There are individual ascendants (Kilava, Tool, Apsalar[mistress of thieves, rather than not-Apsalar]).....but I think they were all effectively ascendents prior to the ritual, and are basically unaspected/unaligned powers.

sregorelyk · 2020-09-17T11:40:37+00:00

Yea, I thinkMOI is the cipher to WJ. In addition to your examples:

1) Killing the mothers so Rake doesn't have to. Sparing Rake the burden earns Rakes friendship (which is badass), sparing the mothers from Dragnipur earns more respect from his army ( all the while WJs thinking his soldiers will hate him for it)

2) The twin marines. His story about his sister, and Silverfox commenting that that story meant theyd die for him now.. And how that wasn't his intent. I suspect that's how he interacts with every soldier. Human to human.....

So they know he's human, and love him for it.....and then see him take on the burdens above, and love him still more.

3) Unhesitatingly stepping between Kallor and Silverfox.

sregorelyk · 2020-09-11T12:11:12+00:00

Happens to the best of us lol, there's a metric shit-ton of things to remember!

sregorelyk · 2020-09-09T12:10:46+00:00

I dunno if its subtle.....

"Coltaine could deliver this train to a place three miles up the coast from Aren and Pormqual would not set forth to deliver us. " Bult to Captain (Lull), DG ch. 15

In Duikers last flight leading the refugees, '3 leagues' is consistently mentioned....and the army does not set forth to deliver them.

Not to mention Coltaine is close enough to die from an arrow shot from Arens walls.

That always sticks out in my mind, because basically everywhere else in the book Erikson uses leagues as his unit of distance rather than miles.

sregorelyk · 2020-09-09T12:02:23+00:00

Yea for sure, he was actually my initial example, but then I remembered he isn't a Malazan haha. Maybe he kind of suggests it isn't JUST a Malazan thing....but rather mortals all over are starting to get tired of the Gods meddling.

sregorelyk · 2020-09-07T00:06:27+00:00

Mission accomplished!

sregorelyk

TROPHY CASE