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cptn_dr posted:Though it doesn't explain how Dessembrae was at the Chaining. That never really made sense to me. There's been more than one Chaining. The gods had recently redone it before the series started. That's when Hood swiped Dassem's daughter and pissed him off.
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Nov 18, 2016 08:03
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SansPants posted:There's been more than one Chaining. The gods had recently redone it before the series started. That's when Hood swiped Dassem's daughter and pissed him off. Ohhhh. That makes sense. Somehow I completely missed that.
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Nov 18, 2016 08:28
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See, the problem is that while a number of things are "loose" a lot of others have actually an answer. The problem is that you never know where the line is drawn. And about the Tiste Andii family trees... Just wait Forge of Darkness to reshape everything. It not worth trying to put together the pieces before.
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Nov 19, 2016 11:50
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So I'm at Stonewielder and god drat ICE leveled up his Writing skill!
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Nov 19, 2016 23:23
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Would you say he has... Ascended? 
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Nov 20, 2016 02:18
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turboraton posted:So I'm at Stonewielder and god drat ICE leveled up his Writing skill! He got lucky. You still have Assail to read.
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Nov 20, 2016 08:13
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Cardiac posted:He got lucky. Regarding the Andii family trees - keep at it, you're definitely puzzling something out. And please post your reactions when you start reading Forge of Darkness. On the First Empire and Beast Hold/Tellan business: Kilava is (I think this is a pretty safe spoiler by MT, it's addressed in I think MoI?)innocent of that. She never went through the ritual, as evidenced by her not being undead and her somewhat strained relations with other Imass, they consider her a renegade. Mind you, she's still a walking disaster. anilEhilated fucked around with this message at 11:49 on Nov 20, 2016 |
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Nov 20, 2016 11:44
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anilEhilated posted:Pretty much. OST and BnB are polarizing but there's zero loving excuse for the avalanche of disappointment that is Assail. If she had done a better job of convince them that the Ritual was a bad idea, then the First Empire wouldn't have been able to do whatever vaguely mysterious soletaken thing they did to gently caress themselves up. I'm not sure I'll have the energy for books outside the main series, especially as after Bonehunters has just revealed that The missing Segulah, Moc, AND the entirety of the T'orrud Cabal are (probably) near-immortal near-ascendants which is such an absurd swerve from the previous foreshadowing that I'm starting to doubt if its actually worth the effort of puzzling stuff out.
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Nov 20, 2016 15:18
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One thing about Erikson's prose that makes me groan is how he repeats a statement to emphasize its emotional power.
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Nov 23, 2016 00:06
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snoremac posted:One thing about Erikson's prose that makes me groan is how he repeats a statement to emphasize its emotional power.
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Nov 23, 2016 01:12
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snoremac posted:One thing about Erikson's prose that makes me groan is how he repeats a statement to emphasize its emotional power.
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Nov 23, 2016 01:21
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The repeated part would just be "He repeats a statement to emphasize its emotional power." Or, in italics, "We all repeat statements to emphasize their emotional power. In this world of dust and death. Of dust and death."
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Nov 23, 2016 01:53
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See that's literally how my own thinking will go, repeating or dwelling on something, so it seems natural to me. 
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Nov 23, 2016 03:12
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I absolutely love Rhulad's design and story. An Emperor with gold on his flesh, undying and with a sword permanent sword. The Tiste Edur already look badass but Rhulad is a notch above. He is the perfect character to rule Letherii he is coveted with the very material that their society is built upon. Surprisingly I hated young Naive Rhulad more than the maniac psychopath one because you can understand his pain and you even see him care for his people but being forced to do the CG's bidding. Rhulad is also a big manchild at times but it is also the fault of the hosed up Edur society where your basically a beta if you haven't murdered anyone. Seriously even though his moral compass is totally twisted he is much easier to read about than Trull who even though he is a good character and is badass in his own right he's way too whiny and self reflective. He never tries to understand his brothers point of view and thinks about doing the "right thing" even though there is no real right thing to do. Such as the war between Edur/Letherii would have happened anyway. I haven't finished Midnight Tides my opinion will probably change. Also are Letherii basically Americans but caricatured? A society of debt and pure capitalism which for SE seem to be the worst sides of Western societies.
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Nov 23, 2016 05:18
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Letheras being America is the least subtle metaphor in a series not known for its subtle metaphors
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Nov 23, 2016 05:43
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Now that you mention it, the torture stuff in Reaper's Gale must have felt very topical at the time.
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Nov 23, 2016 06:25
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Lether is a metaphor for all of us. For all of us.
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Nov 23, 2016 09:38
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I thought he stated that Lether was based around the decline of the Roman empire? The fact that it also reflects American society is just icing on the cake.
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Nov 23, 2016 15:21
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snoremac posted:The repeated part would just be "He repeats a statement to emphasize its emotional power." Thus. "We all repeat statements to emphasize their emotional power. In this world of dust and death. Of dust and death."Thus. ftfy Also "preternatural" I hate that word.
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Nov 23, 2016 15:26
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Strom Cuzewon posted:ftfy Why? It's a similar but different concept from supernatural. E: after god knows how long following this thread, the thread title still gets a laugh out of me. 
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Nov 23, 2016 19:21
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Knobb Manwich posted:Why? It's a similar but different concept from supernatural. Because the whole idea of preternatural as opposed to natural/supernatural is based on a really medieval idea about how the world works and what is/isn't miraculous or not. And the whole idea of natural vs preternatural vs supernatural doesn't really make any sense in the context of a high-magic epic-fantasy, where every Tom, Dick and Ha'Rry is a semi-human half-immortal demi-god. It also sounds silly.
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Nov 23, 2016 19:42
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Gravity Cant Apple posted:I thought he stated that Lether was based around the decline of the Roman empire? The fact that it also reflects American society is just icing on the cake. The Roman Empire assimilated the people it conquered thoroughly when it conquered them while taking things they were good at. I feel the Letherii only did the latter with the Bluerose horse riding technology being an example of that. In Midnight Tides it doesn't feel like the conquered people feel like true Letherii. Romans were so good at assimilating people there is a word for it Romanization or in the case of US Americanization. Also there is the fact that Roman society was built upon slavery and we don't really see that in Letheras. I am sure the indebted are basically slaves but it is never precisely said that they are or how they get rid of it. The drownings does seem very similar to the Roman Colliseum which was a big event culturally, financially you can see people betting on who would survive and what not. Slavery actually seems more a core component of Edur society than Lether. That's why I feel Lether seems more a direct comparison to USA than Rome which is infact built upon debt which is perfectly normal in any ultra capitalistic country such as US.
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Nov 23, 2016 23:18
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Ulio posted:The Roman Empire assimilated the people it conquered thoroughly when it conquered them while taking things they were good at. I feel the Letherii only did the latter with the Bluerose horse riding technology being an example of that. In Midnight Tides it doesn't feel like the conquered people feel like true Letherii. Romans were so good at assimilating people there is a word for it Romanization or in the case of US Americanization. They didn't do a very good job of taking the riding technology. I loved the joke about the stirrups being crap. An anthropologist like Erikson will have certainly come across the (probably bullshit) theory about how stirrups were responsible for the entire creation of feudalism, and I can imagine the poo poo-eating grin he had when he came up with that gag.
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Nov 23, 2016 23:29
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Strom Cuzewon posted:Because the whole idea of preternatural as opposed to natural/supernatural is based on a really medieval idea about how the world works and what is/isn't miraculous or not. And the whole idea of natural vs preternatural vs supernatural doesn't really make any sense in the context of a high-magic epic-fantasy, where every Tom, Dick and Ha'Rry is a semi-human half-immortal demi-god. A setting where every dickhead is half immortal with high magic is the perfect place for the word, to distinguish between those who a really loving good and those who have magical help. It sounds silly because it hasn't been flogged to death and beyond by pop culture.
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Nov 23, 2016 23:55
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Holy poo poo Stonewielder is so loving good!
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Nov 24, 2016 01:22
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In previous reads of House of Chains I'd not noticed, or at least failed to retain, that the Whirlwind Goddess thought Kilava and Onrack's hankerin in the caves the night before the the Ritual resulted in the human race. I mean, she's totally insane, and since we do actually see Onrack and Kilava's kid much later she's flat wrong, but it paints the whole whirlwind cult in a new light if the relentless bloodshed is all because the goddess was taking her rage out on she species she thought stemmed from Onrack's infidelity.
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Nov 24, 2016 07:11
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Gravity Cant Apple posted:I thought he stated that Lether was based around the decline of the Roman empire? The fact that it also reflects American society is just icing on the cake.
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Nov 24, 2016 07:56
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Lunchmeat Larry posted:Letheras being America is the least subtle metaphor in a series not known for its subtle metaphors We've already discussed this. http://lifeasahuman.com/2011/feature/steven-eriksons-notes-on-a-crisis-part-x-if-it-hurts-like-hell/ quote:This brings me, at long last, to my portrayal of the Empire of Lether starting in the fifth novel in the Malazan sequence, Midnight Tides. The reason this subject is on my mind is that, once again, I have been asked in a Q&A whether that empire and its political and economic system was intended as a commentary on the United States. Each time I am asked this question, my response is no. So, let’s take this as definitive: there were two major themes in that novel, the first being about siblings and the journeys made by two sets of three brothers, and the second being about inequity.
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Nov 25, 2016 04:10
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Haha for sure my man 
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Nov 25, 2016 05:09
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Finished The Crippled God. The last third picks up a lot. It's surprising how nearly every person's role in the final convergence is satisfying and doesn't feel perfunctory. The only thing I find odd is how cast to the side Ganoes is after Bonehunters and how he's just one player among many in the end. He didn't even get his own little bit in the epilogue but Crokus did? It's strange. No ending for Karsa either, though there's the trilogy I guess. Question: Why did Cotillion kill TCG? Wasn't he about to leave the planet forever? EDIT: The Wiki says he killed him to release him from the human body. The reversal of TCG into a figure of sympathy was nice. As was Tavore finally breaking down. The funniest joke was how gravely the sappers regarded the Sapper's Torment. Where did Draconus disappear to? The first two thirds were laborious reading because of the amount of ponderousness and sentimentality. I think the series is at its best from books 2-6, and I'd put 8 on the same level. snoremac fucked around with this message at 06:58 on Nov 26, 2016 |
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Nov 26, 2016 06:29
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Keeping the supposed trilogy in mind, what's disappointing about Karsa is how he's fantastically built up as one of the most important characters, and it seems like he's destined to do something huge in the future to the point where killing Rhulad merely felt like a stepping stone on his journey, and then he just falls to the wayside and becomes a minor player in TtH and TCG. So it will be very disappointing if his trilogy never happens.
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Nov 26, 2016 06:55
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Eh, I think it'd be perfectly in style for him to just get killed by a stray crossbow bolt or sometihng. But the trilogy is still planned and since Erikson seems to be writing at a pretty steady pace I wouldn't rule it out in a couple years. Now go read Forge and enjoy everything you thought you knew about the Tiste lovingly torn apart.
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Nov 26, 2016 12:51
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What is the consensus on Fall of Light now? I remember people being disappointed so I held off. I instead completed my re-read of the original series and am now reading Forge again. Is it mainly middle book syndrome, philosophical droning and or something else?
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Nov 26, 2016 17:39
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I liked it a lot, but a lot of people were miffed by the way Erikson handled its climactic battle.
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Nov 26, 2016 17:58
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zeal posted:In previous reads of House of Chains I'd not noticed, or at least failed to retain, that the Whirlwind Goddess thought Kilava and Onrack's hankerin in the caves the night before the the Ritual resulted in the human race. I mean, she's totally insane, and since we do actually see Onrack and Kilava's kid much later she's flat wrong, but it paints the whole whirlwind cult in a new light if the relentless bloodshed is all because the goddess was taking her rage out on she species she thought stemmed from Onrack's infidelity. I somehow didn't pick up on this - where does it say that about Ms. Raraku? Also is Bottle's grandmother Rigga the Wax Witch? They're both Itko Kanese, and the way he remembers her seems to line up with her brief portrayal. They also both refer to the "prod and pull", whereas somewhere between most and all the other characters talk about the Lord's Push. Also also, given how there's a direct correlation between unnecessary verbosity and absurd power (Kruppe, Iskaral Pust, Tehol/Bugg) I'm putting tenbux on Ormologan and his frog critic as both being secret ascendants. Probably some shamanistic sympathetic magic through their paintings - which could be the Deck of Dragons, the weird puppetry that Ben and Bottle both do, or an offshoot from Onrack's forbidden paintings. Also also also, loving mules. Both Kruppe and Pust have seemingly super-intelligent yet super-lazy mules. And I cannot tell if this is evidence of some hidden meaning, or if Erikson is just trolling. Strom Cuzewon fucked around with this message at 02:06 on Nov 27, 2016 |
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Nov 27, 2016 01:54
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No one knows about the mules. Speculation is they are Shadowthrone and Dancer's soletaken forms.
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Nov 27, 2016 02:53
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The first chapter of Forge of Darkness feels like the start of a Victorian novel. I like it! Cool to read of Mother Dark as an actual corporeal being and not just some vague entity characters yell at from time to time. snoremac fucked around with this message at 03:20 on Nov 27, 2016 |
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Nov 27, 2016 03:18
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Finally finished Midnight Tides, I'll probably read Night of Knives next since it is much smaller and recommended after Tides. I actually didn't like Midnight Tides that much at the start because it meant I had to read about a whole new place and characters. Basically felt like a totally unrelated story for the first few chapters but by the end this book became one of my favorite in Malazan series. Erikson has such big balls basically changing the whole cast and story in the 5th book of the series. This only makes the story telling better and more epic. Truly showing that it isn't just as Malazan vs Rebels or House Shadow vs w.e else gods. There is so much going on in this series its incredible.
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Nov 27, 2016 07:34
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Skip Night of Knives. Its terrible, adds nothing to the story, and is just so so so so bad.
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Nov 27, 2016 12:24
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Spermy Smurf posted:No one knows about the mules. That is dangerously plausible, and suggests they've got more of a hand in Darujistan than we've been lead to believe.
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Nov 27, 2016 12:46
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