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ZombieLenin posted:I finished it last night, the only truly not perfectly resolved for the protagonists seems to be Trull dying and Rhulad getting consigned to oblivion.  quote:As for Letheras being based on Ancient Rome... Maybe tangentially. Erickson uses Tehol Beddict as a mouth piece for Marx's labor value theory. quote:If anyone in this series is a stand in for Rome it's the Malazans. Habibi fucked around with this message at 18:58 on Nov 3, 2014 |
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Nov 3, 2014 18:56
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ZombieLenin posted:In addition, a lot of attention is given to the intricate nature of the the Letharii financial system, the role of the banks, and the commodification of everything--including labor. Hell no. Perhaps I'm mistaken but didn't the Romans use debt fairly heavily within their economy - they had a major credit crisis in 33AD. I agree on the senate and the role of religion but overall Lethar had a far stronger late Rome feel than the Malazan empire, which could almost be the Persian Empire from an internal perspective (aka how they treat conquered communities, their views on religious freedom, etc). Actually I think something you might be talking past each other on - the answer also depends on which era of Rome you're talking about. Malaz is more comparable to early Rome if anything, whereas Lether has more parallels with later Rome. e: actually I really have no reason to spoiler any of this 
Baudin fucked around with this message at 19:25 on Nov 3, 2014 |
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Nov 3, 2014 19:21
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Halfway through The Crippled God. Just get to the drat fireworks factory already! I still enjoy the series but I think Erikson kind of disappeared up his own butt in the last three books. Character has devolved into endless philosophizing such that it's difficult to tell anyone apart. Everyone says the same drat things. edt: Nevermimd, the book just got way better. Tokelau All Star fucked around with this message at 09:29 on Nov 5, 2014 |
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Nov 5, 2014 08:17
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Tokelau All Star posted:Character has devolved into endless philosophizing such that it's difficult to tell anyone apart. Everyone says the same drat things. I'm only a third of the way through Dust of Dreams and this sums up the entire series for me so far. It's pages of pages of "Where is this going?" followed by "Oh my gosh I can't believe that just happened!" The most recent was the death of Tool. I suppose it was inevitable, in hindsight.
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Nov 5, 2014 15:25
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Tokelau All Star posted:Halfway through The Crippled God. Just get to the drat fireworks factory already! Hahaha Yeah Erikson's setups started taking longer but his payoffs also become loving huge
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Nov 5, 2014 15:36
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Honestly, I thought he hit his worst at TtH; the final two books at least have an interesting setting. But that could be just my general hatred for everything Darujhistan.
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Nov 5, 2014 15:39
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anilEhilated posted:Honestly, I thought he hit his worst at TtH; the final two books at least have an interesting setting. But that could be just my general hatred for everything Darujhistan. This is a pretty common and fair opinion, not least because TtH, IIRC, is the book narrated by Kruppe. Unsurprisingly, it drags like all hell in places and yeah the philosophizing definitely ramps up.
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Nov 5, 2014 16:03
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Why did the Adjunct march most of her entire army to death in the desert? Especially since she had Mael's dagger.
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Nov 5, 2014 16:12
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He needed to show the readers just what length people would go to please this plain looking ordinary woman who has no special gift and no commanding presence. No, there's no reason, it's pointless and dumb. I am at the same point in my reread right now and it's just so dumb I dont get it.
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Nov 5, 2014 16:22
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Vaguely remember it being either roughly halfway so needed to be rationed, to meet up with D'rek in the form of the Snake, or both. It's been a while though.
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Nov 5, 2014 16:26
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Tavore's 「CHARISMA」 always kind of confused me.
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Nov 5, 2014 16:56
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amuayse posted:Tavore's 「CHARISMA」 always kind of confused me. start thinking of her as a downs syndrome child and everything starts making sense.
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Nov 5, 2014 17:00
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Spermy Smurf posted:He needed to show the readers just what length people would go to please this plain looking ordinary woman who has no special gift and no commanding presence. No, there's no reason, it's pointless and dumb. I am at the same point in my reread right now and it's just so dumb I dont get it. The fact that the author goes out of his way to harp on that may indicate that it's intentional.
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Nov 5, 2014 20:42
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amuayse posted:Why did the Adjunct march most of her entire army to death in the desert? Especially since she had Mael's dagger. I'm not sure I understand the question. They were marching out to a particular destination. Mael's gift wouldn't have helped had it been used earlier.
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Nov 6, 2014 02:01
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Habibi posted:I'm not sure I understand the question. They were marching out to a particular destination. Mael's gift wouldn't have helped had it been used earlier. The destination ended up being "Wherever she stuck her sword." This is what we don't understand. She could have taken the heart back to Pale, Malaz City, or any place in the entire world and stuck her sword down to call the dragon. No reason to cross the glass desert, and certainly no reason to wait till her army is weak and dying of dehydration with 12hrs left to live before using Maels gift. Use it two days previous, save thousands, have an army in better fighting shape....or just stay behind on the far edge of the glass desert because no way could the Assail army cross it to stop her.
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Nov 6, 2014 04:09
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Spermy Smurf posted:The destination ended up being "Wherever she stuck her sword." This is what we don't understand. She could have taken the heart back to Pale, Malaz City, or any place in the entire world and stuck her sword down to call the dragon. No reason to cross the glass desert, and certainly no reason to wait till her army is weak and dying of dehydration with 12hrs left to live before using Maels gift. Use it two days previous, save thousands, have an army in better fighting shape....or just stay behind on the far edge of the glass desert because no way could the Assail army cross it to stop her. I thought they went through the desert mainly to create another front to fight the Assail on and no one would ever expect an army to come from that direction.
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Nov 6, 2014 04:30
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Spermy Smurf posted:The destination ended up being "Wherever she stuck her sword." This is what we don't understand. She could have taken the heart Where do you think the heart was?
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Nov 6, 2014 04:30
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There's no reason to think that Tavore just forgot about or decided not to use the dagger, as opposed to the place she used it being the only place it worked at. Either because the dagger's magic was blocked by the glass desert, or because it was drawing up water from underground and that was where an ocean used to be or something.
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Nov 6, 2014 05:58
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Segway Rave posted:There's no reason to think that Tavore just forgot about or decided not to use the dagger, as opposed to the place she used it being the only place it worked at. Either because the dagger's magic was blocked by the glass desert, or because it was drawing up water from underground and that was where an ocean used to be or something. From a mystical standpoint, I thought I recalled something about the dagger only being used at the last desperate moment. As a practical matter, you can only carry so much water with you, but I don't have a clear recollection of how much time passed between the ritual and their stand.
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Nov 6, 2014 07:34
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Habibi posted:Where do you think the heart was? In the Shi'gul Assassins hands? Which could be taken anywhere...? Did I miss something huge about making the Crippled God whole again?
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Nov 6, 2014 13:35
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Spermy Smurf posted:In the Shi'gul Assassins hands? Which could be taken anywhere...? Did I miss something huge about making the Crippled God whole again? I think Kalam had already attracted the otataral dragon with his sword, and it was a pretty time sensitive thing, with Korobas about to be killed or absorbed by Tiam or whatever was going on there. Plus, you know, convergences.
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Nov 6, 2014 14:09
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Stayed up all night finishing The Crippled God. Thoughts - How the hell is Olar Ethil also Burn? This just doesn't make any sense to me. The Crippled God is poisoning Burn, who is also the whole world, so she went to sleep. If Burn wakes up then everyone dies. But here's Olar Ethil just walking around doing poo poo. What? I really liked Torrent. He was one of the better character arcs introduced late in the series. After all the build up of Amby Bole's fists of iron, I was really hoping to see him punch out a Forkrul Assail. Made me think back to Memories of Ice (I'm probably remembering this all wrong), when it was a big mystery how the Mott Irregulars took down the giant condor that was murdering everyone: a bunch of them just jumped on it and beat the poo poo out of it.
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Nov 6, 2014 14:16
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I'm pretty sure Olar Ethil is just full of poo poo but Forge of Darkness might give some more insight (I haven't actually read it yet)
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Nov 6, 2014 15:19
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I haven't read it in quite a while but IIRC the idea was to set up the mother of all convergences, which required Korabas, D'rek and the heart in the same place. I'd also assume Gu'rull's operational range is somewhat limited.
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Nov 6, 2014 16:04
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Spermy Smurf posted:In the Shi'gul Assassins hands? Which could be taken anywhere...? Did I miss something huge about making the Crippled God whole again? The heart was originally in the hands of the FA, from whom the assassin stole it not long before the finale, iirc.
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Nov 6, 2014 18:10
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Tokelau All Star posted:Stayed up all night finishing The Crippled God. Thoughts - Levitate posted:I'm pretty sure Olar Ethil is just full of poo poo Ding ding ding. Her words to Torrent (?) are just wind.
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Nov 6, 2014 18:12
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Ok, what do I read now? Which ICE book is generally considered the best one? I'm thinking either going on to Forge of Darkness or ICE's Darujhistan book.
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Nov 6, 2014 20:08
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Tokelau All Star posted:Ok, what do I read now? Which ICE book is generally considered the best one? I'm thinking either going on to Forge of Darkness or ICE's Darujhistan book. If you've just finishes the main series I would recommend Forge, as it's probably best read with the series as fresh in your mind as possible. Orb, Sceptre, Throne, ICEs Darujistan book, which is IMO his best, can be left for next.
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Nov 6, 2014 21:09
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On the other hand, if you read Forge of Darnkess next, it'll make the wait for Fall of Light that much more difficult since you'll undoubtedly be left wanting more!
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Nov 6, 2014 23:53
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The Ninth Layer posted:On the other hand, if you read Forge of Darnkess next, it'll make the wait for Fall of Light that much more difficult since you'll undoubtedly be left wanting more! That's when you start reading Gardens of the Moon again.
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Nov 6, 2014 23:55
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Spermy Smurf posted:Quoting myself from page 128. I was just rereading the series again and could the answer to why turtle shells are great armor against the Forkrul Assail is simply the noise? Spax walking around the queen is continuously mentioned with how loud it is. If they can't hear, it takes away the assails voice power right? Ganeos did it with cotton in his ears at one point for fucks sake. It may not be about un-punchability and more to do with their Voice? Quoting myself again. I did not realize but in my latest reread in crippled god they specifically say why: Brother Diligence says: "the weapons of the FA are our hands and feet - the Gillankai devised an armor to blunt our blows..." Must be pretty tough turtle shells...
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Nov 7, 2014 02:36
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Spermy Smurf posted:Quoting myself again. I did not realize but in my latest reread in crippled god they specifically say why: 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.
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Nov 7, 2014 03:19
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I just think that Tavore's whole plan involving half her army dying to dehydration was almost pointlessly risky, even if it did make a good story.
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Nov 7, 2014 04:50
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amuayse posted:I just think that Tavore's whole plan involving half her army dying to dehydration was almost pointlessly risky, even if it did make a good story. It was the best bad idea they had.
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Nov 7, 2014 05:55
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Spermy Smurf posted:Quoting myself again. I did not realize but in my latest reread in crippled god they specifically say why: Speaking of the FA, both Calm and Serenity from HoC and MT makes an appearance in TCG? Or do I mix them up. Also, Kettle is the daughter of Trull and Eres'al? In MT it is described that Kettle remember coming from a desert guided by Nameless Ones and having the right blood. In HoC Trull is raped by Eres'al. I just finished MT for the third time, and it is among the best books in the series. Also, the only book where the Crimson Guard is not boring.
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Nov 7, 2014 09:26
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Cardiac posted:I just finished MT for the third time, and it is among the best books in the series. Also, the only book where the Crimson Guard is not boring. Ain't it the truth? I'm about 2/3 through Assail, and the Crimson Guard have spent the whole book being a bunch of dumb idiots. Iron Bars is one of the best characters in MT, but in ICE's hands, he's just one of a long succession of braindead goofs that we're somehow supposed to care about.
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Nov 7, 2014 09:45
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Cardiac posted:Speaking of the FA, both Calm and Serenity from HoC and MT makes an appearance in TCG? Or do I mix them up. MT is actually my favorite book in the series, among other reasons because it introduces my favorite character, Udinaas.
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Nov 7, 2014 11:31
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anilEhilated posted:No. IIRC, Kettle's soul is Forkrul Assail, either half-blood or true. So she'd have to have come through the desert from Kolanse. I forgot about Kolanse.... drat these deserts. So, do we actually meet Trull and Eres'als child, since that rape had to be for a reason? I am apparently on a Erikson reading binge at the moment, since I went straight to Bonehunters from MT. Also, neither Draconus or Osserc is going to win any Daddy of the Year awards.
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Nov 7, 2014 12:56
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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.
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Nov 7, 2014 16:04
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Cardiac posted:I forgot about Kolanse.... drat these deserts. And of course, there's what's arguably one of the constants of the Malazan universe: Osserc is a dork.
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Nov 7, 2014 17:52
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