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

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Vanilla Mint Ice: Jul 17, 2007; A raccoon is not finished when he is defeated. He is finished when he quits.

When you think about it, there really are some people with silly amount of power that could've single handily influenced the story if they had decided to act...

Gothos freezes the world, stopping the Crippled God and the Malazan Empire dead in their tracks. Book ends on page one, and page two is a sight of Karsa sitting cross-legged on the frozen wasteland with his chin on his hands.

# ¿ Jul 24, 2011 02:22

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# ¿ May 16, 2024 01:26

Vanilla Mint Ice: Jul 17, 2007; A raccoon is not finished when he is defeated. He is finished when he quits.

It's also written by ICE which is a fatal flaw already.

# ¿ Jul 26, 2011 20:01

Vanilla Mint Ice: Jul 17, 2007; A raccoon is not finished when he is defeated. He is finished when he quits.

hello clarice posted:

I finally finished the entire series and have read through this thread. I am a lot more clear now about what happened at the end of TCG (though it was just a jumbled mess for a while). I have a lot of problems with the unresolved plot points and I'm really really hoping that Karsa Orlog finally gets to do something awesome. I kept reading through the book going "KILL THE CRIPPLED GOD JUMP FROM THE SKY AND SLICE HIM IN HAAAALLLLLFFFFF" or something. He'd vowed to end him, it just seemed so anticlimactic that he was like "Oh an old guy now I'm going to kill Fener" (??). The worst part for me, though, was Bottle. I kept waiting and waiting for Bottle to bust out and do something amazing but other than possessing a bunch of birds and tearing his soul apart against the KCCM he really didn't do anything against the Assail - right? I didn't miss something?

Karsa's story continues in the future Toblakai series, which I think will be written by Erikson after he finishes with Rake's past. The extent of his involvement in the Fallen series seems to be his role as the Knight of Chains, so it is understandable that his whole I'm going to destroy civilization thing is beyond the scope of the series.

Vanilla Mint Ice fucked around with this message at 23:47 on Jul 29, 2011

# ¿ Jul 29, 2011 23:45

Vanilla Mint Ice: Jul 17, 2007; A raccoon is not finished when he is defeated. He is finished when he quits.

I'm curious on your position in love, in your opinion what then would be an acceptable way of convincing you that someone fell in love with someone else? Would they have to save them from an evil lord's castle or avenge their parents' death to be a valid enough reason for someone to love someone else? Not trying to make fun of you, just curious what is a good enough reason to you.

# ¿ Jul 30, 2011 04:18

Vanilla Mint Ice: Jul 17, 2007; A raccoon is not finished when he is defeated. He is finished when he quits.

That's pretty depressing.

# ¿ Sep 10, 2011 18:22

Vanilla Mint Ice: Jul 17, 2007; A raccoon is not finished when he is defeated. He is finished when he quits.

Speaking of Burn, I wonder what the hell does she do when she's not in sleep/dream mode or whatever. What exactly does a living earth do daily, eat and get fatter/make more land? Kill people trying to drill/damage the earth? Maybe that's part of the reason why why human-types thrived while the nature types like Imass died out because no one was stopping their recklessness with the land.

# ¿ Sep 23, 2011 19:32

Vanilla Mint Ice: Jul 17, 2007; A raccoon is not finished when he is defeated. He is finished when he quits.

Electronico6 posted:

Also most likely spoilers for the entire series I think Hood is one of the oldest creatures in the series. Probably more so than K'rull.

No he's not, he was just a king of their people before he settled into that role. There were other people who can even recall their war.

# ¿ Sep 23, 2011 19:51

Vanilla Mint Ice: Jul 17, 2007; A raccoon is not finished when he is defeated. He is finished when he quits.

LtSmash posted:

God drat, re-reading all that again made me remember how much of bad asses the Imasses were. That's some cold hard unyielding poo poo right there.

# ¿ Sep 28, 2011 02:08

Vanilla Mint Ice: Jul 17, 2007; A raccoon is not finished when he is defeated. He is finished when he quits.

LtSmash posted:

Yeah, the Imass are a serious contender for the title of most cold unrelenting hardasses, and there are plenty of other hardasses in the series. (series spoilers) I think in most other fantasy books they would probably qualify as the ancient evil. They chose to start a generations long war of genocide as vengeance for the actions of a few Jaghut who were abhorrent to the rest. Facing defeat, or rather not being able to advance, they turned themselves into immortal undead and resumed their genocide.

But not only are they unrelenting dicks to the Jaghut they give no fucks for anyone. Human First Empire messing with the beast ritual? Don't intervene or warn them just kill everyone after the fact (and by there own admission only 'many' humans went mad, not all). Other T'lan Imass damaged too much to keep fighting? No release from immortality, but if their death lead to killing Jaghut they got their skull put somewhere with a view, forever.

This made me remember a certain quote, and I would love if anyone remembered which book and chapter it was from so I can reread the whole passage, which basically was an T'lan Imass talking back against someone saying how the last time someone hosed with their people they genocided them.

And I think in any other book they would qualify as an ancient evil. Powerful ancient undeads? Check. Indiscriminate murderers of children and woman? Check. GENOCIDE? Check. What's cool is how Erikson somehow makes us sympathizes with the plight of these deadly murderers to a certain degree. In some other book the reader would probably do a fist pump at the part where Silverfox fucks them over.

# ¿ Sep 28, 2011 09:38

Vanilla Mint Ice: Jul 17, 2007; A raccoon is not finished when he is defeated. He is finished when he quits.

LtSmash posted:

Whats even better is arguably the malazans would be the evil empire. Kellanvad was basically a mad wizard who unleashed immortal genocidal undead to conquer nearby kingdoms and then used the subjugated people to build armies to relentlessly expand to everywhere they could. Even when he was mortal he had a reputation of being insane because everything was plots within plots. He was only overthrown because he lusted for more power (warren of shadow + the azath) and allowed his treacherous underlings to consolidate power in his absence. Laseen isn't exactly a kind ruler considering a lot of the mayhem was planned.
[/spoiler]

To be fair, he only used the T'lan Imass once and never again. We never got the reasons why from the man himself but other people concluded the T'lan were just too brutally effective to use as weapons of war.

Also, I didn't read Knives of Night but I thought Kellanvad and Dancer let themselves get overthrown because they didn't want to be seen possessing too many thrones at once especially since they figured out how to get the shadow throne.

# ¿ Sep 28, 2011 19:28

Vanilla Mint Ice: Jul 17, 2007; A raccoon is not finished when he is defeated. He is finished when he quits.

Hopefully the trilogy covers the period before Anomander's people started suffering from ennui-emo.

# ¿ Oct 2, 2011 05:50

Vanilla Mint Ice: Jul 17, 2007; A raccoon is not finished when he is defeated. He is finished when he quits.

Just soldier through it, hopefully soon you'll start picking up names of people and slowly begin to see the picture unfold.

Then the book will slam you in your dick and take place in a different location with a completely different set of characters.

We've all been through it.

# ¿ Oct 21, 2011 05:47

Vanilla Mint Ice: Jul 17, 2007; A raccoon is not finished when he is defeated. He is finished when he quits.

WeWereSchizo posted:

He complained about the characterization of the God of Death, and he was talking about Shadowthrone. If he's not reading closely enough to tell the difference between Hood and Shadowthrone, two characters whose only similarity is that they rule their respective Houses, then it doesn't really matter how well he articulates his point.

Ehhh it does make him look inattentive but it's not a big deal. What is a weird/silly thing to say imho though is the same complaint where he complained that the God of Shadow speaks like a tosser so the characterization is bad because gods aren't supposed to speak like tossers or because other gods don't speak like a tosser??? The natural conclusion that should've come out of reading the God of Shadow speak like a tosser should have been... well maybe the dude is a tosser but instead he folded up his arms, shook his head and said no, this poo poo is stupid because gods [from my viewpoint] should not speak like tossers.

# ¿ Oct 27, 2011 06:11

Vanilla Mint Ice: Jul 17, 2007; A raccoon is not finished when he is defeated. He is finished when he quits.

I think Kallor is worse since he didn't left anyone he enslaved alive to rebel against him.

# ¿ Oct 27, 2011 16:40

Vanilla Mint Ice: Jul 17, 2007; A raccoon is not finished when he is defeated. He is finished when he quits.

WeWereSchizo posted:

Isn't it also brought up later that the Jaghut relationship with the K'Chain Che'malle was essentially the same as the Imass relationship with the Jaghut?

I don't think so because the K'Chain as a whole was pretty broken up and near extinct from fighting the united armies of darkness and shadow and also from fighting the multi jointed justice freaks.

The only race they really hosed were puny human tribes.

Vanilla Mint Ice fucked around with this message at 23:05 on Oct 27, 2011

# ¿ Oct 27, 2011 23:02

Vanilla Mint Ice: Jul 17, 2007; A raccoon is not finished when he is defeated. He is finished when he quits.

I-I actually did not realize at all that was the perspective he was trying to write for them. Welp guess it's another to look out for in the re-reads!

# ¿ Dec 3, 2011 05:45

Vanilla Mint Ice: Jul 17, 2007; A raccoon is not finished when he is defeated. He is finished when he quits.

I think you're confusing and mixing several different characters and events, or maybe I am. Either way, Burn is basically Mother Earth.

# ¿ Dec 10, 2011 06:09

Vanilla Mint Ice: Jul 17, 2007; A raccoon is not finished when he is defeated. He is finished when he quits.

Keep it in spoilers man.

# ¿ Jan 10, 2012 22:06

Vanilla Mint Ice: Jul 17, 2007; A raccoon is not finished when he is defeated. He is finished when he quits.

No. Only the prologue is.

# ¿ Jan 14, 2012 07:36

Vanilla Mint Ice: Jul 17, 2007; A raccoon is not finished when he is defeated. He is finished when he quits.

That boat is the best, it was just so weird and out there when you first read about it and it's not until the fourth and fifth book that you know what hell the deal with it was.

# ¿ Jan 21, 2012 04:40

Vanilla Mint Ice: Jul 17, 2007; A raccoon is not finished when he is defeated. He is finished when he quits.

Don't tell him that man, then he'll be instantly aware when he starts reading MT.

And as a side note/rant, I personally feel discovering the link between MT and the books before it was so cool that I get annoyed whenever someone innocently asks when MT takes place and someone just gives them a straight answer.

Vanilla Mint Ice fucked around with this message at 06:11 on Jan 27, 2012

# ¿ Jan 27, 2012 06:07

Vanilla Mint Ice: Jul 17, 2007; A raccoon is not finished when he is defeated. He is finished when he quits.

I think we can conclude names in general are all pretty dumb. But to me what is important is not whether the names are dumb or not but whether the names are memorable. I personally liked the contrast between having names like K'Chain Che'Malle and Anomander Rake and then having people named Quick Ben and Smiles wandering around. A name like Drizzt Do'Urden will always stick even after you're done reading the book, which is especially important for Malazan since there's multiple books. But someone named like John or Mary you'll forget right away. Unless you add Snow to their name or something apparently and always call them by their full name.

All the philosophy is a very valid complaint but it's unrelated since someone dismissing the book early on would not see them.

Vanilla Mint Ice fucked around with this message at 09:02 on Jan 31, 2012

# ¿ Jan 31, 2012 09:00

Vanilla Mint Ice: Jul 17, 2007; A raccoon is not finished when he is defeated. He is finished when he quits.

Unfortunately or not, how House of Chains is written pretty much sets the structure for how the rest of the books are written, except for the little payoff bit. And the storyline and cast of it pretty much becomes the main one.

# ¿ Feb 2, 2012 01:50

Vanilla Mint Ice: Jul 17, 2007; A raccoon is not finished when he is defeated. He is finished when he quits.

Dogs and donkeys are pretty special in the world of Malazan.

# ¿ Feb 16, 2012 05:28

Vanilla Mint Ice: Jul 17, 2007; A raccoon is not finished when he is defeated. He is finished when he quits.

Sons of Darkness.

That blurb sounds so silly, if I hadn't read Malazan and gotten interested with Erikson I would've not given a book with that kind of description a second glance.

# ¿ Mar 16, 2012 17:14

Vanilla Mint Ice: Jul 17, 2007; A raccoon is not finished when he is defeated. He is finished when he quits.

But an editor wouldn't have known it would go nowhere at the tenth book though.

# ¿ Mar 24, 2012 03:25

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# ¿ May 16, 2024 01:26

Vanilla Mint Ice: Jul 17, 2007; A raccoon is not finished when he is defeated. He is finished when he quits.

I'll scald you; why the hell wouldn't you finish reading TCG first. Are you maybe afraid of ending the tale and that's what is keeping you from finishing the last book of a ten book monster? Sure it has a slow start up like the last few books but I can't see how someone who enjoyed the last 9 books would be able to stop turning the page to see how all the pieces finally fit together into one big climax. I just can't see it. Finish TCG.

# ¿ Aug 17, 2012 22:33

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