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Alhazred posted:Its like a reading a section written by someone who knows that things are funny but not why. I find them amusing as a comedic break to the awful things that are happening elsewhere, and not as grating as, say, Brandon Sanderson's attempts to write witty dialog. Alhazred posted:The characterization of the Crippled God isn't really good. In some books he's mustache twirling bad guy, in others he's a messiah like character. I thought this was intentional. That he's supposed to be a (relatively) benign god who is trapped by a bunch of assholes for selfish reasons, tortured, split into pieces, drained of power, and just generally poo poo on for thousands or hundreds of thousands of years and this makes him mad at everyone and a nihilist. In the end he was never supposed to be there, so he only real answer was to kick him out so the planet could heal.
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Jan 23, 2020 19:31
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The Shore was needed because it was the culminations of the Tiste Andii’s journey. Also the last stand of the Shake and the “This time humans are dying for you” speech are some of my favorite parts of the book.
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Jan 23, 2020 19:41
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Jaxyon posted:I thought this was intentional. That he's supposed to be a (relatively) benign god who is trapped by a bunch of assholes for selfish reasons, tortured, split into pieces, drained of power, and just generally poo poo on for thousands or hundreds of thousands of years and this makes him mad at everyone and a nihilist. I get that, but I thought it was poorly done. There is no transition between him being the malazan skeletor and being the malazan messiah. Ethiser posted:The Shore was needed because it was the culminations of the Tiste Andii’s journey. Also the last stand of the Shake and the “This time humans are dying for you” speech are some of my favorite parts of the book. I actually liked the Shore bit. It was full of fun things (like the Shake army beginning to chant "not yours" and Sharl) but it's in a book that's already buckling under it's weight of the plot and it would be better if it was in another book so it could've been allowed to be it's own thing.
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Jan 23, 2020 20:03
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Alhazred posted:I get that, but I thought it was poorly done. There is no transition between him being the malazan skeletor and being the malazan messiah. I think that lack of transition is precisely what makes it so impactful. Erikson is intentionally ambiguous about many things from different character point of views, so suddenly finding out that Tavore is out to help the Crippled God makes you second guess whether there are things you're not aware of. (Which, it turns out, is very much the case.)
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Jan 23, 2020 20:09
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I get what Erikson was going for and the transition works with me(I'm largely OK with his "I didn't tell you everything" style), but I also get why folks might not like it. Playing Tavore as a cypher with essentially no visible motive until the last book strikes me as a bit of a cop-out for the author.
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Jan 23, 2020 20:18
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Jan posted:I think that lack of transition is precisely what makes it so impactful. Erikson is intentionally ambiguous about many things from different character point of views, so suddenly finding out that Tavore is out to help the Crippled God makes you second guess whether there are things you're not aware of. (Which, it turns out, is very much the case.) Skipping the character development of a character is just lazy writing IMO.
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Jan 23, 2020 20:33
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Alhazred posted:I get that, but I thought it was poorly done. There is no transition between him being the malazan skeletor and being the malazan messiah. I also felt some whiplash from this character turnabout. It wasn't so much taking him from "bad" to "good", which I thought was a neat twist given Tavore's arc (I think calling it an arc is generous, but I digress) as it was the shift in tone of his dialogue. He went from a coughing, robed husk in a tent who was lovely and shifty to everyone, to a benevolent, gentle giant. It was bizarre. I felt like I had missed a major scene at some point.
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Jan 23, 2020 20:44
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Ben Nerevarine posted:I also felt some whiplash from this character turnabout. It wasn't so much taking him from "bad" to "good", which I thought was a neat twist given Tavore's arc (I think calling it an arc is generous, but I digress) as it was the shift in tone of his dialogue. He went from a coughing, robed husk in a tent who was lovely and shifty to everyone, to a benevolent, gentle giant. It was bizarre. I felt like I had missed a major scene at some point. It's supposed to be about how people aren't inherently bad but get molded into bad people by how they're treated, which is a theme that he covers many times in the series in varying quality, such as the Pannion Seer, Felisin Younger, the Imass. He has several characters state that the CG is the result of a lot of bad poo poo and wasn't necessarily evil but I get that showing is better than telling when writing.
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Jan 23, 2020 20:59
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Ben Nerevarine posted:I also felt some whiplash from this character turnabout. It wasn't so much taking him from "bad" to "good", which I thought was a neat twist given Tavore's arc (I think calling it an arc is generous, but I digress) as it was the shift in tone of his dialogue. He went from a coughing, robed husk in a tent who was lovely and shifty to everyone, to a benevolent, gentle giant. It was bizarre. I felt like I had missed a major scene at some point. It's also the acts of the Bonehunters, being willing to sacrifice so much for him. In RG, Silchas debates with a Edur priest whether their worship of the CG as a malicious cripple might be forcing him to assume that shape. Paran accepts the House of Chains into the Deck (remember how he spent a whole book considering that, with no actual discussion of what it would do? God MoI gets under my skin) which allows the Bonehunters to usurp positions in the House instead of it being a big messy free-for-all, and that dedication is what re-shapes his nature. Tavore is portrayed much like a Shield Anvil - holding on to the fears and strains of the Bonehunters in order to relate them to the Crippled God. Of course this is all hinted and inferred and spread over several million words, and there's barely any hints about Shadowthrone's involvement. Telling might not be as good as showing, but telling is way better than have to decrypt the story before you can enjoy it. Jaxyon posted:Playing Tavore as a cypher with essentially no visible motive until the last book strikes me as a bit of a cop-out for the author. The best hint that Tavore's personality is all an act is when she almost cracks a smile at Lostara bullshitting her about Nefarias Bredd coming up with the Bonehunters motto because she know's everything that's going on, so surely knows that he doesn't exist. Which again, is an inch of characterisation spread over a mile of novel. I love the density of these books, and its neat that there's loads of these details to pick up on a second read. But part of me strongly feels that these kinds of basic plot and characterisation are much too important too bury like that.
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Jan 23, 2020 21:39
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Granted I inhaled the series pretty quickly, but I thought the reasons for the change in the Crippled God from being an rear end in a top hat to an okay guy was pretty well laid out. He was in constant pain from the way he was brought into the world and fragmented, as well as being incompatible with the world itself. He was dragged there for selfish reasons by people seeking to use him. It makes sense that he would be trying to inflict pain on the inhabitants of the world that did that to him, including and especially those who worship him. Then as the Bonehunters reveal how much they're willing to sacrifice to get him home his preconceptions about the nature of these foreign creatures changes. Add this to what's been said about Erikson's repeated theme of gods being reshaped by the way they are viewed by their worshipers and his change of heart and his heel-turn doesn't seem so sudden or unearned. I don't think the addition of the House of Chains to the Deck contributed to his change of nature as much as just made him follow the rules of the world they inhabit, prevent his cancer from affecting Burn, and make their plan possible.
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Jan 24, 2020 00:01
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The House of Chains itself could be used as an indicator - the Crippled God started with some real assholes there but by DoD it's pretty much all good guys.
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Jan 24, 2020 00:06
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anilEhilated posted:The House of Chains itself could be used as an indicator - the Crippled God started with some real assholes there but by DoD it's pretty much all good guys. Worth pointing out that none of that is explicit, the only stated members of House Chains are all pretty bad people like Skinner, Poleil, Bidithal, Kallor
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Jan 24, 2020 01:49
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Fairly sure it's either in the DoD card reading scene or in an addendum somewhere, but by the end it's mostly Bridgeburners. Tavore as Consort, Fiddler as Leper, Banaschar as Fool, Karsa as Knight, things like that. Admittedly, I have no idea explicit it is, unreliable narrators doing doing card readings is like unreliability squared. Plus it's been a while. anilEhilated fucked around with this message at 14:42 on Jan 24, 2020 |
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Jan 24, 2020 14:37
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anilEhilated posted:Fairly sure it's either in the DoD card reading scene or in an addendum somewhere, but by the end it's mostly Bridgeburners. Tavore as Consort, Fiddler as Leper, Banaschar as Fool, Karsa as Knight, things like that. It's right at the end of tCG. But it would have worked so much better if they'd done it in the DoD reading scene - everybody is all tense wondering what's going on, the Errant is getting worked up, then bam! Hedge is the Leper of Chains, bam! Fiddler is Mason of Chains, double bam! Blistig is the Fool in Chains and also just a fool. You'd actually have foreshadowing, and could pick apart the mystery as the book went on. Instead the reading only highlights Banaschar as the Fool in Chains - which i always took as a jibe about his alcoholism. All the other cards are stuff the reader already knows (Sandalath as Queen of Dark, Quick Ben as Mage of Dark). Telorast and Curdle suddenly turning into dragons is one of my favourite "wait, what?" moments in the series though.
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Jan 24, 2020 17:02
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I really liked in the battle at the spire when Fener gets killed, everybody gets mortal and Tool realizing how hosed they are
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Jan 24, 2020 18:13
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...And I somehow got both the people and the army name wrong. Go me. Anyhow, lot of the seemingly irrelevant bits (the Shore, most of TtH) are recontextualized in the Kharkanas prequels. Not that it's an excuse, but Erikson at least tried to show them in new perspective.
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Jan 24, 2020 20:03
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Personally, I'd have considered the Tiste Andii parts complete at the end of Toll The Hounds. Of course, that would have rendered the Tiste Liosan as 'sub-Mr Bean self-satirizing morons', which doesn't exactly fit their status as 'Chekhov's other other gun'. As for the whole switcheroo with Kaminsod, it's mostly built-up on from Reapers Gale onwards and probably the key is the conversation between Shadowthrone and Karsa in TTH, Chapter 14. I quote from the Tor.com re-read quote:Acceptable levels of misery and suffering… Acceptable? Who the gently caress says any level is acceptable? It's really-well done, in that it's set-up to look like they're all talking about how this impacts on ordinary people (i.e. the ones who'd want to pray to a Crippled God), but it could also be about the most recent chaining of Kaminsod, given that it's clear that some gods have benefited from the chaining in terms of their own power, but also the impact it's having on Kaminsod in the long-run given that we know that Shadowthrone and Cotillion were opposed to the re-chaining, when it happened albeit, in their case, mostly in terms of how the other gods might come after them in the future
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Jan 25, 2020 02:29
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I'm still on Toll The Hounds. 13% Complete and I'm at KALLOR. BOOO. However, the Redeemer(aka, my cinnamon roll) is the only person that is keeping me interested. So is Darujhistan. It doesn't help that a mobile dress-up game(Love Nikki) has eaten my soul. Sheesh.
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Jan 25, 2020 23:09
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anilEhilated posted:...And I somehow got both the people and the army name wrong. Go me. They change too, just to keep you on your toes. Banaschar is Fool in the reading, but gets assigned "Cripple, he whose mind must crawl to serve the sacred life within him" by the Unbound.
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Jan 25, 2020 23:24
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Pleiades posted:I'm still on Toll The Hounds. 13% Complete and I'm at KALLOR. BOOO. However, the Redeemer(aka, my cinnamon roll) is the only person that is keeping me interested. So is Darujhistan. Darujhistan delenda est. In Toll the Hounds it's a boring place for boring people.
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Jan 26, 2020 14:00
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So there's just no resolution to Felisin Younger's arc.
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Jan 26, 2020 15:20
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Alhazred posted:Darujhistan delenda est. As for Felisin Younger, there's no resolution in the Book of the Fallen. She still seems to be a figure of power so it's possible that Erikson or ICE will return to her story in books that take place afterwards.
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Jan 26, 2020 15:26
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Alhazred posted:So there's just no resolution to Felisin Younger's arc. She's the hedonist that Paran leaves to die in DoD or Crippled God. loving all day and doing drugs till you die of a plague is a kind of resolution.
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Jan 26, 2020 16:02
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anilEhilated posted:Preach the word. To me its a cop out to have a character arc being resolved in spin-off book. If you can't do it in the span of 1200 pages you shouldn't do it all.
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Jan 26, 2020 16:36
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Alhazred posted:Darujhistan delenda est. In Toll the Hounds it's a boring place for boring people. I dunno. It interests me. I always liked the place and the people involved. It's how I got hooked into Gardens of the Moon. As for Felisin Younger, well, there is a new trilogy, so there could be a resolution there.
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Jan 26, 2020 20:40
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Pleiades posted:I dunno. It interests me. I always liked the place and the people involved. It's how I got hooked into Gardens of the Moon. I liked the city In Gardens of the Moon, but In TtH nothing of interest happens there. Its where plotlines goes to die.
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Jan 27, 2020 16:50
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Alhazred posted:I liked the city In Gardens of the Moon, but In TtH nothing of interest happens there. Its where plotlines goes to die. I think you mean, it's where elder Tiste Andii Ascendants go to die. 
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Jan 28, 2020 19:13
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Jan posted:I think you mean, it's where elder Tiste Andii Ascendants go to die. See Darujhistan, and die.
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Jan 31, 2020 19:26
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Apparently this happened
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Feb 12, 2020 02:47
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O man what was the $$$ difficulty?
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Feb 12, 2020 02:56
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I think it was who wrote the Xanth books.
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Feb 12, 2020 03:26
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Toughy posted:O man what was the $$$ difficulty? $1200 Here's the video, stats at like 15:00 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4nhfvYoCw7c
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Feb 12, 2020 19:01
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It's no surprise that no one got it. I mean, I forgot what it was and I've READ the series. Well, still on Toll the Hounds. Still, I forgot WARRENS! 
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Feb 13, 2020 01:07
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It's ok I'm sure they're not important.
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Feb 13, 2020 07:45
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How did they not get that question? YOu don't need any Malazan knowledge to know that rabbits live in burrows known as warrens.
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Feb 13, 2020 18:10
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Kchama posted:How did they not get that question? YOu don't need any Malazan knowledge to know that rabbits live in burrows known as warrens. This is what I loving hate about Jeopardy's questions (answers). The first half is always really technical/specific, but often worded in a really convoluted way, and then the second half is completely trivial. I'm certain that people only get questions like this wrong because they're too bamboozled by the first half, and don't have the headspace to ignore that bit and look at the really easy bit. Which is understandable, given the time pressure and tense environment. And apparently it's frowned upon to buzz-in halfway through them reading the question? Not actually against the rules, but considered (somehow) to be unsporting, so if you do know the answer to the really difficult bit of the question it doesn't actually give you any advantage. Basically any quiz show that isn't either The Chase or Only Connect can go gently caress itself. Edit: Although I will give Jeopardy credit for its niche nerd jokes. A while back they had a much more subtle Malazan reference:  And this classic Star Trek one: 
Strom Cuzewon fucked around with this message at 18:31 on Feb 13, 2020 |
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Feb 13, 2020 18:25
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You actually can't buzz in until the question is finished. There are lights that either go on or turn off (I forget which) when you're allowed to buzz in. If you buzz in too early then you get a delay before you can buzz again. A lot of practice time for the best contestants goes into buzzer training to hone their reflexes. Most of the contestants in the tournament of champions know the answers to the questions, but someone usually dominates the field because their reflexes are quicker.
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Feb 14, 2020 15:21
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Re-reading the 'Path to Ascendancy' books and one of the nice things is being able to skip 90% of the Tayschrenn scenes in the second book. I mean, does any character get narrative blowjobs as gently caressing as Tayschrenn? He goes from a spectacularly naive researcher to a literal god despite doing basically nothing in the text beyond committing what is probably the series' most bloodthirsty example of friendly fire - for which he benefits from an entirely unbelievable retcon - when he annihilates the Bridgeburners. Quick Ben is constantly getting shat on by anyone not a Bridgeburner/Bonehunter for being all talk, but Tayschrenn sails by on like 99.5% reputation pretty much up to the point he 'generously' takes over from K'rul. What a oval office.
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Feb 26, 2020 23:37
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Yeah, that's a character that never made any sense to me. One possible explanation is that he was SE or ICE's favorite to roleplay so maybe they kept rewriting him to be better and better? ICE has a way of making you hate the characters he wants you to love.
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Feb 27, 2020 11:25
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anilEhilated posted:Yeah, that's a character that never made any sense to me. One possible explanation is that he was SE or ICE's favorite to roleplay so maybe they kept rewriting him to be better and better? Fireball-loving evocation wizard with ridiculous stats whom he would not stop playing. "Oh you're going to be playing Tayshrenn this game again....cool....wonder what you're going to do in fights....."
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Feb 28, 2020 19:06
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