The Malazan Book of the Fallen: Too many wor'ds.

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Infinite Karma: Oct 23, 2004; Good as dead

Question (or maybe theory?) on Mother Dark (TTH/DoD spoiler) Was the gate existing within Dragnipur imprisoning Mother Dark? Not the same way as the people killed by it, but more like how powerful souls were needed to open gates, the rent in Morn, etc. Everyone thinks she "turned away" over betrayal by Anomander and Draconus, but doesn't she return immediately when Dragnipur is shattered, and then learn what Anomander did?

# ¿ Mar 8, 2011 21:49

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# ¿ Apr 26, 2024 14:14

Infinite Karma: Oct 23, 2004; Good as dead

zokie posted:

Still the dude does have the Sceptre of Darkness. Re-reading the scene (p.59-60 in my book) where he re-appears, I get the crazy theory of him being the creation of Draconus and Mother Dark taking souls chained within Dragnipur and chaining them to one body. With the chains and him telling the 'Mother' she could/should have kept him as a child...

I finally got to this scene with Quick Ben, and it seems much more like he is related to the Shake or the Edur with the way he talks about Mother and Father. Someone in DoD (Yedan Derryg?) mentions that Scar Bandaris was the last surviving Edur prince after the original war on the First Shore, which means Scabandari isn't the original Father Shadow. Quick could still be the real Father Shadow, which fits his personality to a tee.

He mentions what Anomander did in TTH, and how Nimander will have to get the Sceptre of Darkness from him if he wants it, and the phrasing makes it sounds like he's not an Andii himself. Yedan also mentioned that the Edur were somehow the Andii's way out of Kurald Galain after MD/FL turned away, so his involvement on the side of Shadow fits. Maybe he stole the Sceptre (or used it legitimately) to make a way out.

He also mentions how he almost finished them off, which seems to be referring to the K'Chain races, who were the first target of Tiste aggression on Wu.

# ¿ Mar 15, 2011 02:43

Infinite Karma: Oct 23, 2004; Good as dead

Decius posted:

I agree it would have been pretty interesting, however I disagree saying that any instance of Ubala kicking rear end is a waste.
By the way, I still wonder how well Ubala can keep Icarium's anger in check since he doesn't even really know about it and what it can do.

That might be irrelevant if Ublala is as perfect as he seems. Didn't Mappo keep Icarium from going into his rage for all the time they were together, until the Path of Hands at the Azath? He did it by being a good and honest friend for all that time, instead of manipulating him like the Nameless Ones wanted.

If Ublala does a good job, he won't ever have to know Icarium's anger is a thing to be worried about.

# ¿ Apr 9, 2011 04:03

Infinite Karma: Oct 23, 2004; Good as dead

I am pretty sure most of the stupid names for Malazans like 'Surly' are Braven Toothisms. He seems to have trained anyone who is anyone, and nobody gets spared one of his nicknames.

# ¿ May 11, 2011 20:46

Infinite Karma: Oct 23, 2004; Good as dead

Vanilla Mint Ice posted:

Not really, their plan was obviously to let the desert gently caress them over but WJ won't go down so easily. Probably by the point that the mages realized they got a heck of a hound on their tail they were already so weak that it became a game of chicken. The scary Bridgeburners didn't exist before the desert.

IIRC Ben was the youngest and weakest of the high mages and I don't think he anticipated that he'll get their souls. IIRC the other mages gave it to him when they saw no chances of themself getting out of the desert alive.

The mages were originally planning to run away from the dying Seven Cities so they probably hoped to only be in the desert long enough to weaken their pursuers which then they'll swoop down and finish them quickly and leave the continent with no one chasing them.

I read this as a game with Kalam and Ben on the same side. After the sly winks and nods between Whiskeyjack, Kalam, and Ben at the end, I absolutely thought that Ben brought the other high mages into the desert as a grand plan to get all of their souls. The part where the Bridgeburners came out the other side might have been a surprise, but the entire point was for Kalam to lead them just close enough to threaten the older mages, but just far enough that they would all have time to soul shift into Ben.

# ¿ Jul 4, 2011 21:45

Infinite Karma: Oct 23, 2004; Good as dead

Fleshpeg posted:

I imagine it's difficult to strike a balance between spending time fleshing out characters and their backstories and advancing the main plot. Part of it is a byproduct of the genre where things like falling in love happen under the backdrop of huge dramatic events. For it to be more realistic, you'd have to insert a lot of interaction during relatively mundane events, but there's only so much of that you can have without straying from the primary narrative. Unfortunately, the story of Lostara Yil and her man's 3 first awkward dates really can't make the cut.

I do remember some forshadowing of the Seren and Trull in their first interactions in Midnight Tides. They're both strong willed people who don't feel that they belong to their respective societies. I agree with you about Lostara's romance though. A lot of the blame has to go to her gradually turning into someone who is primarily there for exposition in the last couple books.

Nobody's mentioned the Stonny/Gruntle romance plot? That one was really well done. Two people who care about each other, but have enough flaws and enough pride to always end up apart. They are like Crokus/Apsalar only believable.

# ¿ Jul 30, 2011 19:00

Infinite Karma: Oct 23, 2004; Good as dead

Must be all those ochre potsherds that are crunching underfoot?

# ¿ Jul 31, 2011 02:06

Infinite Karma: Oct 23, 2004; Good as dead

LtSmash posted:

One thing I just put together over the weekend about Draconus (TCG spoilers) was what the christ his new sword was, where he got it, and how he was so loving powerful with it that he killed Kilamandaros an elder goddess like it weren't no thing.

Aeons ago chaos was besieging Kurald Galain, the realm of Mother Dark. Draconus was her consort and if chaos breached Kurald Galain Mother Dark would die or lose all her power or something horrible. With the dual purpose of saving Mother Dark and punishing her for taking father light over himself Draconus forged dragnipur to contain the gate of Kurald Galain and draw chaos eternally after it, happily keeping all the other warrens safe from chaos as well. The gate itself is the bone shatteringly cold void at the heart of dragnipur that Ganoes could hardly approach for fear of its power.

Eventually Anomander sacrifices himself freeing the gate, earning the forgiveness of mother dark, ending dragnipur and freeing those that survived chaos. When Draconus returns he freezes the area as completely as Omtose Phellack and has a sword that bleeds darkness. While Mother Dark allows the tiste andii to return to Kurald Galain by placing the gate in black coral she either willingly or not yields the power of it to Draconus which he fashions into a sword to replace the one he lost ages ago to Anomander.

No wonder everyone is so loving afraid of him.

With everybody so angry at him about betraying Mother Dark and Anomander seemingly having some soul-crushing secrets that he is keeping about that whole series of events, I actually think it's less complex than that. It seems like Draconus turned Mother Dark (or imprisoned her to power it) INTO Dragnipur. So when all the Andii think she turned away, she really was just locked up without warning them. And Anomander was complicit in betraying her for his big grand plan.

When he sacrifices himself to close the gate, she forgives him for the betrayal, and when Dragnipur is shattered, she is freed.

Or maybe she really did just disappear for a jillion years and reappeared at a convenient moment.

# ¿ Aug 24, 2011 03:33

Infinite Karma: Oct 23, 2004; Good as dead

LtSmash posted:

I'm pretty sure Silchas Ruin says that Draconus didn't make dragnipur/fight anomander until after mother dark had left them. And wasn't mother dark acting through Aranatha for a while before Nimander realized it in TtH?

Also the Anomander part doesn't make much sense to me. He's spent millennia trying to keep his people from succumbing to ennui, fighting wars for causes that were not their own to keep his followers from crumbling under the weight of the pointlessness of existence. It seems a bit of a stretch that he would wait hundreds of thousands of years setting up the plan to free mother dark. I guess he could have done everything to atone for it and taken so long to accept what he had to do but I got the feeling that he had always been mostly that way.

Erikson loves the unreliable narrator. But Silchas doesn't have to be wrong for Mother Dark to be noticed missing before Dragnipur showed up, since she would have to be imprisoned finnest-style before the power can be harnessed.

The reason Rake's plan made sense was that He needed a powerful weapon to kill all the bad guys he killed over the millennia. Without Dragnipur he wouldn't have been able to take down all those dragons and gods. But when Dragnipur eventually was broken to save Kurald Galain, all of the bad guys would have been let loose. Likewise, all of the dead bad guys in Hood's realm would have gone free when Hood died. So the masterstroke was letting Chaos devour all of those nasty things juuuust before the gate got sealed and Dragnipur got shattered.

# ¿ Aug 24, 2011 06:20

Infinite Karma: Oct 23, 2004; Good as dead

Electronico6 posted:

Now that you mention yeah, I forgot about the soletaken dude and a host of other dudes. There's just a bunch of events and characters that are as old as gently caress that it's hard to try to wrap your mind around it.

I think this part is emphasizing how basically all of the narrators are unreliable. Even the million year old elder gods and dragons still believe in their own creation myths and ethnocentric rah-rah propaganda - none of them know the real origin of the Malazan universe or how it all fits together. For instance the Tiste Andii believe that Darkness was the real-deal primordial place, and all of the other warrens/realms/whatever sprang from Darkness. But at the same time, the oldest Tiste Andii traveled to Burn's world full of Jaghut and K'chains and other Elder Gods, and clearly that world had a lot going on independent of Kurald Galain.

As far as mythology goes, it's like a dozen worlds all got created independently, and then linked up and started screwing with each other. Even the First Hero soletaken like Ryllandras aren't nearly as old as the gods like Hood who were being badass before humans even existed. Things were so screwed up when Hood was mortal that Hood probably had to go to war with a metaphorical concept to create death in the first place. Before that who knows what the gently caress happened to you when your head got cut off or you got devoured by chaos. It's absurdly abstract, but then you see Hood sitting on a throne and making sarcastic jokes and biting peoples' faces off, so it's not like the story was just made up.

# ¿ Sep 24, 2011 04:37

Infinite Karma: Oct 23, 2004; Good as dead

Duh-eevers.

# ¿ Sep 28, 2011 03:48

Infinite Karma: Oct 23, 2004; Good as dead

Lyer posted:

I love how in most of the books, there's always a character or two that's built up to be some hardass, only to get the poo poo stomped out of them pretty easily.

The T'lan Imass that Stonny's kid befriends in TTH (I think?) is the best for this. All of this ominous foreshadowing and renegade warrior on hidden paths stuff, obsessed with vengeance and Chomp. Into the Azath he goes. Should have stayed on that path, amigo.

# ¿ Sep 29, 2011 20:27

Infinite Karma: Oct 23, 2004; Good as dead

Fuzzy Mammal posted:

Actually, I think it's Tellas? The Tiste Liosan warren, since they Liosan go chasing them in HoC. You find out later that it's her too more directly but damned if I can remember where.

Also consensus last time was Lostara Yil?

Isn't Lostara Yil dark-skinned and tattooed? That's got to be Apsalar.

# ¿ Dec 21, 2011 06:31

Infinite Karma: Oct 23, 2004; Good as dead

Stew Man Chew posted:

I so very badly want the Letherii in Midnight Tides and their relationship with the Tiste Edur to be a veiled jab at American consumerism but I just don't think there's the will to be allegorical while Erikson struggles to maintain the sheer scope of his story telling.

Erikson goes out of his way to say that the Letherii aren't a jab at American consumerism. in his interviews. It's a very common perception of that part of the story, and he doesn't say it's unintentional, as much as he says the theme is timeless and not linked specifically to the current political climate.

# ¿ Jan 22, 2012 19:38

Infinite Karma: Oct 23, 2004; Good as dead

IncendiaC posted:

DoD You're half right. The "quitters" the Snake refer to are Inquisitors, which certainly have some characteristics and abilities of Assail. You can probably figure out that the Assail "power" is in their voice. RAFO on that. A really minor piece of trivia from the beginning of TCG: Inquisitors are not full-blood Assail. Half-bloods do have some power in their voice but it's nowhere near pure Assail power.

I'm probably wasting my time mentioning this (it seemed obvious to me anyway, even if it's incorrect), but I'm fairly sure the "quitters" are the childish misunderstanding of "quieters". The Assail use voice and sound power, so quieting is doubly appropriate to refer to them genociding people.

# ¿ Jun 18, 2012 04:05

Infinite Karma: Oct 23, 2004; Good as dead

the least weasel posted:

How would they get those mixed up? They only look vaguely similar in writing, not in sound or meaning.

They are illiterate nine-year-olds? The only difference is how you pronounce the similar vowel sound. Kids also say pisketti instead of spaghetti.

# ¿ Jun 18, 2012 19:45

Infinite Karma: Oct 23, 2004; Good as dead

NovemberMike posted:

That was probably "chaining" and not "fall", and there have been multiple chainings, at least one recently.

I'm pretty sure the fall was in the hundred-thousand year range, not the hundreds. But Dessembrae is one of the more confusing chronological beings. He's probably sort of like the various gods of war - one falls by the wayside and another one takes his place.

# ¿ Jun 27, 2012 00:45

Infinite Karma: Oct 23, 2004; Good as dead

I didn't read O, S, T, but I'd imagine it's because the Moranth are bizarre foreign creatures, and it took the Malazan Marines to do anything effective (you know, the greatest army the world had ever known?). Whatever badass stuff they had in TCG might have even been built by Malazan engineers.

# ¿ Jul 2, 2012 16:08

Infinite Karma: Oct 23, 2004; Good as dead

PlushCow posted:

You'll find out some about them in the last two books, so keep reading. You should probably have an idea about the Kchain Chemalle's history, a lot of their stuff was sprinkled throughout the novels when they'd show up and if I'm remembering correctly most of the history of the Forkrul Assail in the series is learned in the last novel.

So keep on! Avoid spoilers! And then ask when you're all done

Without offering any spoilers, a lot of the elder races don't ever have a big "reveal" beyond piecing together themes and snippets that fill things in. Where they come from is always nebulous, but more because the books tend towards the mortal peoples' POV and not the elder gods and other people who might know for sure.

And then The Kharkanas trilogy comes out and turns all of that "history" on its head. There are a lot of reveals that dwarf everything in the main ten books, and it's just on book one.

# ¿ Apr 28, 2013 00:12

Infinite Karma: Oct 23, 2004; Good as dead

anilEhilated posted:

Gothos is amazing and I wish we got more of him. One of my favorite bits of Malazan trivia about him, although I don't remember where exactly it's mentioned - you know Gothos' Folly, the big book of everything secret, magical unusual and philosophical that someone occassionally finds a couple of scrolls (from approximately several hundred) from? That was his suicide note.

He also disproved Jaghut society. He gathered everyone up, gave a big speech on why everyone should stop being a part of a social culture, and they all just said, "huh, I guess he's right. I'll grab my stuff and wander into the woods forever." He's the ultimate goon: he won a debate on the internet and changed everyone's minds.

# ¿ Oct 29, 2014 17:29

Infinite Karma: Oct 23, 2004; Good as dead

Habibi posted:

Like I commented the last time that came up, I choose to believe it's something more interesting than just tough shells - like the curvature of turtle shells being suited to redirecting impacts.

I guessed it was more like bubble wrap. Punch a shell, it cracks, but absorbs the impact. And maybe the shells interlock from that direction and distribute the punch over a wide enough area that you don't die instantly.

# ¿ Nov 7, 2014 16:04

Infinite Karma: Oct 23, 2004; Good as dead

If we're speculating, there's definitely a connection between Chaos (which dragons and their blood seem to embody) and magic. And we know that the names of some of the chained dragons are the same as the warrens, which seem to be aspected towards the dragons chained there.

Maybe it's something like the chained dragons bleeding into their own little dreamworld pokeballs, and K'rul helps connect mages to the dragons through their dreams, where the mages can suck in a little bit of dragon blood to do magic. Hell, if Burn is sleeping, maybe there is some kind of Inception thing going on where the world is going to end when she wakes up because the Malazan world is her dreamworld, not because the earth is literally going to wake up with volcanoes and tsunamis.

# ¿ Nov 8, 2014 01:17

Infinite Karma: Oct 23, 2004; Good as dead

Spite and Envy are pretty unlikeable, especially if you make it to Forge of Darkness. Don't root for them.

# ¿ Jan 11, 2015 18:30

Infinite Karma: Oct 23, 2004; Good as dead

Cardiac posted:

Yeah, Kallor is the only one known as High King, but he can't be an Azathanai. It doesn't seem likely, and timeline-wise I have always seen him as later than the Tiste.

As for Dragnipur, it seems too early, but not impossible.

As for Tiam, Grizzin Farl says 2 Azathanai went to explore the Vitr and one is T'riss.
Tiam is the Mother of Dragons, and dragons are supposed to be close to Chaos. We also see 9 dragons break free of the Vitr at the end of FoD.
We also know that a lot of Tiste will become Soletaken by some form of interaction with Tiam, probably sex, and that dragons will play a part in what happens.
There also seems to be a difference in how Tiste become dragons, since Rake and Korlat/Orfantal are on different power levels.
It all seems to point to Tiam being a part of this, and she has never made an appearance in any of the books.

The Soletaken Tiste supposedly drank the blood of T'iam, and Rake drank first and deepest. Vitr is too close to vitae, i.e. blood, to be a coincidence that the Dragons came from there, and drinking Dragon blood turned a bunch of Tiste into Dragons.

If we're going to speculate, I'm speculating that T'iam is a place/thing and not a living being. Maybe it's what they call the gate to Chaos. But regardless, nobody seems to want to let Chaos run around unchecked, so maybe the Soletaken Tiste drank T'iam's blood (whatever that actually is) to bottle it up, and the Dragon abilities are a side-effect, rather than the main purpose. That fits with the mopey melancholy burden attitude the Andii have better, I think.

# ¿ Jan 19, 2015 19:59

Infinite Karma: Oct 23, 2004; Good as dead

Shadowthrone didn't actually take the throne, IIRC. He ascended, and it looks like he hid the throne so nobody else could take it, but he apparently gamed the system to take control of Shadow without whatever the price is of actually taking the throne.

Edgewalker is probably the Azathanai aspected to Shadow, who got good and screwed up when Shadow got shattered. Maybe with some sort of combination exile (so he can't actually enter Shadow) and chaining (so he can't actually leave Shadow). That last part is obviously speculation based on that NoK quote.

# ¿ Jan 21, 2015 02:55

Infinite Karma: Oct 23, 2004; Good as dead

I don't know if it's common knowledge around here, but Amazon has Fall of Light listed as releasing in about 2 weeks. Get ready to have the world flipped upside down again...

Habibi posted:

That's a description that applies to plenty of less annoying and more interesting characters throughout both series, but, I suppose, if you relate to spitefully annoying people with poor decision making skills, then yes.

Re: the rest, I just assumed Tavore knew, and there was consequently no plot reason to bring it up.

My memory might be shaky, but I remember getting the impression (in TCG) that she knew the whole time, and it was implied at just the right moment to make you see exactly how thoroughly she bore her burdens.

# ¿ Jan 28, 2015 19:13

Infinite Karma: Oct 23, 2004; Good as dead

Fenrir posted:

But they're such good characters though...

I'm so down with a good comedy duo, although I really dunno what's gonna beat (Memories of Ice) Toc and Tool, or for that matter also literally everything Gruntle ever says or does, no matter who the straight man/woman is - sometimes it's Stonny, sometimes it's Iktovian, sometimes it's (insert random people here)

In a weird way it reminded me of the best moments of the later Dragonlance books - Mirror and Razor. Man, I would read a thousand page novel about those two just doing silly poo poo all day. The whole time I read that poo poo I was waiting for the next Mirror/Razor chapter.

Dear god I'm not touching those black bars, Something just tells me they're far beyond book 4.

Hellian and her whole squad should be in the running.

# ¿ May 27, 2015 22:27

Infinite Karma: Oct 23, 2004; Good as dead

Habibi posted:

The two most common theories I've seen are:

1) He is Tayschrenn (who has gone by the name Artanthos)
2) He has some connection to Quick Ben, potentially by way of one of the souls within him (has to do with his perspective on the Spar of Andii)

So it's pretty much a given he turns out to be a distant ancestor of Hedge.

I just thought of it now, but he could be Edgewalker. Some connection to Shadow and Elder Gods (being half-Darkness/Draconus), an undead kind of vibe from hanging out with Jaghuts before/during the war on death. And, y'know, walking around the edges of Kurald Galain.

# ¿ Sep 10, 2015 19:32

Infinite Karma: Oct 23, 2004; Good as dead

zeal posted:

I really like this one, even if I think the Quick Ben angle is a lot more likely.

The only thing is, Arathan doesn't seem to know magic.

# ¿ Sep 11, 2015 06:04

Infinite Karma: Oct 23, 2004; Good as dead

rejutka posted:

Nope,

Errastas is shiteing on about whatever he's shiteing on about and BOOM! Spear outta nowhere. Hello Babby Sengar

Nope. Just as Errastas is about to blood sacrifice an orphanage to get himself a turkey sandwich, Udinaas appears out of the sky, turned into a soketaken dragon, and eats the bastard. "That's for Feather Witch," he whispers, before flying into the gate to Starvald Demelain, sealing it and finally ending the threat of Chaos.

# ¿ Oct 27, 2015 18:42

Infinite Karma: Oct 23, 2004; Good as dead

It also condemned the meta-idea (even outside the novel) of the "noble savage." The Barghast are a violent and cruel and barbaric culture, not some Garden of Eden tribe full of lost wisdom. It's easy to get caught up in their apparent honor or genuineness when compared to the duplicity of the "civilized" Malazans and Letherii. For a while, you look at the Barghast as role models... and then you get the brutal reminder that they truly are savage and just as horrible as (and even worse than) the rest of the world.

# ¿ Nov 24, 2015 19:47

Infinite Karma: Oct 23, 2004; Good as dead

Why is it Dancer's Lament if the main blurb is about Kalam and Quick Ben (and Ben's extra 6 souls) pre-Bridgeburner adventures?

# ¿ Dec 2, 2015 20:23

Infinite Karma: Oct 23, 2004; Good as dead

rejutka posted:

Eh? It's about Dancer and Kellanved.

Spooky how similar it is to Kalam/QB then.

# ¿ Dec 2, 2015 20:58

Infinite Karma: Oct 23, 2004; Good as dead

Mustang posted:

Just finished Bonehunters. gently caress Malick Rel. I accidentally spoilered myself about him during Deadhouse Gates because I couldn't remember who the "Jhistal" guy is. I can't believe Erikson makes this douche the Emperor!.

I took Mallick Rel's side plot as showing that the Malazan Emperor is a red herring. People want to be Emperor, but that's not where the real power lies. Surly becomes Empress, and then realizes that it's a useless position. I wouldn't be surprised to find out that she followed in Kellanved/Dancer's footsteps and got deposed on purpose once she figured out how things really work.

# ¿ Dec 25, 2015 16:57

Infinite Karma: Oct 23, 2004; Good as dead

It's very likely that one of the Azathanai is going to have created humans, I'd say. Or else they might be descendants of the Tiste who didn't become Liosan or Edur or Andii and another race, like the Imass.

# ¿ Feb 1, 2016 21:49

Infinite Karma: Oct 23, 2004; Good as dead

Tommofork posted:

llinois Smith, Forge is before the ritual and the war. You might want to avoid reading the spoilers as more is revealed during the book.

Yeah, Burn was the most powerful Dog-Runner witch and she is sleeping in a temple underground. As she's slept she's become wooden and started putting out roots. I'm pretty sure there's also references in the book to Jaghut being naughty and dominating Dog-Runners, sowing the seeds of the future war.

I'm still feeling confident that the Malazan world with "Burn's Sleep" is a dream realm like the Refugium that Udinaas lived in. Time and space are different in those worlds, so millennia could pass to the Malazans, with much less time for the Tiste and Azathanai. And all of the warren worlds that are connected in FoD could still be connected, but not without magic from the dream world. Obviously, it would be Burn's dream, so when a magic hammer is supposed to be able to wake her and end the world, that would be what literally happens.

# ¿ Mar 16, 2016 23:22

Infinite Karma: Oct 23, 2004; Good as dead

anilEhilated posted:

I believe that is all but explicitely stated in MoI, yeah. Dream logic is also a way of handwaving time inconsistencies.

It is? I sure didn't connect those dots in MoI.

# ¿ Mar 17, 2016 01:14

Infinite Karma: Oct 23, 2004; Good as dead

It's the rest of the Edur drama that really drags. Most of the Edur seem intent on failing to develop as both characters, and as plot devices. Trull and Tehol are always pretty interesting, they just don't get enough screen time at the beginning.

# ¿ Apr 7, 2016 00:59

Infinite Karma: Oct 23, 2004; Good as dead

Donkey posted:

I'm partial to "Hunn Raal hosed a cookfire."

I was going to post exactly this.

# ¿ Apr 29, 2016 21:14

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# ¿ Apr 26, 2024 14:14

Infinite Karma: Oct 23, 2004; Good as dead

So Fall of Light, re: Tiste society The Azathanai repeatedly go on about how they've create mortal races over and over again, and they can never seem to get it right. Tiste society seems really hosed up, and cold and distant, and Orfantal made it all make sense. "Why aren't Tiste children allowed to know their mothers?" Other than Anomander, Andarist, and Silchas, the Tiste don't have families. Draconus built a society, and made Mother Dark into every Tiste's mother, with the idea that it would make all of the Tiste into a big family. Without really understanding that most families don't actually get along very well. It's really too bad that Draconus and Mother Dark don't have POV portions.

But the big Azathanai mystery that nobody seems ready to cop to is, who created the Jaghut? And is Icarium an Azathanai? Raest mentions the wonder of beginning anew, cleansed of all history, and where every crime is escaped. That sounds exactly like Icarium to me - it makes it sound like his amnesia is self-inflicted.

# ¿ May 13, 2016 20:28

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