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

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > The Book Barn > The Malazan Book of the Fallen: Too many wor'ds.

Infinite Karma: Oct 23, 2004; Good as dead

All true about Icarium, but who the hell really knows? The characters who said those quotes in the main series heard the same legends as everyone else. They aren't the kind of narrators who even could give accurate information. And Azathanai can change their bodies to look like pretty much anything. Skillen Droe is an Azathanai in the form of a K'Chain Assassin.

# ¿ May 13, 2016 21:27

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# ¿ May 14, 2024 15:40

Infinite Karma: Oct 23, 2004; Good as dead

The point is that the Barghast aren't noble savages, they're just plain savages. You might be thinking they have a point, before that part of the story, but you probably don't much care for the Barghast afterwards.

# ¿ May 31, 2016 00:29

Infinite Karma: Oct 23, 2004; Good as dead

Cardiac posted:

The Barghast are pieces of poo poo and the whole idea of the noble savage have been flawed from the start, which Eriksson as an antropologist knows and I have always assumed it was his intention to show this in the books.
Primitive socities (with some very minor exceptions) are among the most brutal societies in the world.
Just look at how the Imass are handled, in no way is their ancient history about peaceful coexistence but rather full of conflict and overhunting.
Reading DoD and rereading MoI makes you look closer at what the Barghast actually do, and they are hardly more pleasant in MoI.

I'm am anthropologist too, I get it. And not that I'm disagreeing.

But the Barghast seem unpleasant in MoI, and then as you get to know them, they start to seem more sympathetic, and they aren't associated with the corruption and excesses of the civilized societies, and then you get honorable Tool in the mix, and the Barghast seem misunderstood, and you're really feeling hopeful about them.

And then the hobbling soundly refutes that. They're just as greedy and corrupt as the civilized societies, and disgustingly brutal to boot. It's shocking in how graphic and sudden it is, but also in making you reevaluate your (subtly earned) emotional investment in them as the good guys.

Infinite Karma fucked around with this message at 08:22 on May 31, 2016

# ¿ May 31, 2016 08:19

Infinite Karma: Oct 23, 2004; Good as dead

Fiddler had his crazy and aggressive horse in Seven Cities. It seemed like a foreshadowing to Karsa's super-horse, in hindsight.

# ¿ Jun 10, 2016 01:35

Infinite Karma: Oct 23, 2004; Good as dead

anilEhilated posted:

Come to think of that, I wouldn't be surprised if his experience with them was what started his path to being a tyrant. But yeah, Raest is always great.

Well, he outright said the he wanted to find a secluded spot to create a new civilization that "got things right" (to paraphrase). Obviously his methods of creating a perfect society made his subjects unhappy. With the single-mindedness of the Imass, it wouldn't be surprising if he was the only actual "Jaghut Tyrant," and the T'lan Imass went on a genocidal rampage just in case.

# ¿ Jun 12, 2016 19:17

Infinite Karma: Oct 23, 2004; Good as dead

ulmont posted:

Spoilers for the T'lan Imass from the Kharkanas trilogy: the Dog-Runners are the Imass. They haven't done the ritual yet, possibly because the Jaghut tyrants really haven't shown up yet either.

They did show Raest talking about his plans for the future. He pretty much said that he had plans to create a race to worship him, and to build a society that wasn't half-baked, like all the Azathanai-created races. It would make sense that he's the one and only tyrant, knowing what we saw of Jaghut in the Kharkanas trilogy so far. He might even be the Azathanai who created the Jaghut (but Gothos is more likely).

# ¿ Nov 30, 2016 23:13

Infinite Karma: Oct 23, 2004; Good as dead

ulmont posted:

It seems like the Ritual of Tellann and a holy war on the Jaghut would be massive overkill if there was only one tyrant.

That's kind of the point, the Imass aren't the good guys.

# ¿ Nov 30, 2016 23:42

Infinite Karma: Oct 23, 2004; Good as dead

ulmont posted:

I understand that there are no good guys.

I meant it less smugly, the Imass are remorseless, murderous fanatics, once you get to know them. And the Jaghut aren't just pacifists, they should have their picture in the dictionary next to the word. If anyone is "innocent" it's the Jaghut.

quote:

However, in the main-line of the text, there are many references to multiple tyrants, even if not that many.

"�Apart from a handful of Tyrants, the Jaghut were pacifists. Their only crime was to exist��"

�There were never more than but a handful of Tyrants among the Jaghut, woman.�

"Since when were Jaghut interested only in destruction? Not even the Tyrants ruled with such cruelty as you have."

Even the FOL quote I had up-thread refers to multiple tyrants.

I'm not disputing that people in the world think that there are multiple tyrants, it just seems foreshadowed that it didn't actually happen that way.

# ¿ Dec 1, 2016 00:34

Infinite Karma: Oct 23, 2004; Good as dead

Normally those are questions for the reader to ponder, but in MBotF, they are questions that the characters ponder, instead, and discover during the course of the books.

It's not that the questions are unknown or all correct, it's that the specifics vary. Some things were born gods, others Ascended and became gods, and others Ascended and didn't become gods. There are probably a few who became gods and didn't Ascend at all.

And the afterlife works in kind of the same way. Some people get to reincarnate, some get an afterlife, some turn into ghosts and haunt mortals. Characters in the books actively interfere with the specifics of death, with a variety of results. Just in the first book, you have Hairlock, Ganoes Paran, and Dragnipur offering pretty wildly different outcomes on what can happen when someone dies.

# ¿ Jan 11, 2017 17:18

Infinite Karma: Oct 23, 2004; Good as dead

Strom Cuzewon posted:

Then it turns out the Ribbers are dogs, and the Forkrul are Quitters. :mystery:

Although the cannibalism gave me absolute chills.

I think the trick is that Quitters are supposed to be kidspeak (which is itself chilling, with how grim the Snake plotline is) for "Quieters." Which sounds a lot more like a nickname for the Forkrul Assail.

# ¿ Jan 24, 2017 00:40

Infinite Karma: Oct 23, 2004; Good as dead

cptn_dr posted:

That makes sense too, but I always thought it was for Inquisitors.

Valid interpretation.

# ¿ Jan 24, 2017 01:45

Infinite Karma: Oct 23, 2004; Good as dead

FoL kinda suffered from slow-burning too many of the "big reveals," and not having Walk in Shadow to finish it up really sucks. T'iam and the Dragons (and the Tiste ascendant soletaken), and Hood's ascendancy are big mythic ties to the main series that didn't progress at all in FoL. Kurald Emurlahn being created and subsequently shattered is also huge in the Tiste mythology. The writing in the trilogy has been beautiful, but the plot is meandering at best.

# ¿ Nov 8, 2017 02:05

Infinite Karma: Oct 23, 2004; Good as dead

Strom Cuzewon posted:

What's weird with Sanderson is how it's not even much of a system - it's a list. Tin does X, Pewter does Y, but it's entirely arbitrary. It was kind of cool that I was able to figure out what the mysterious Eleventh Metal would do by looking at the gaps in the periodic table of magic, but the idea of a well thought-out system kind of breaks down when he just keeps piling on exception after exception with each new book.

I'm enjoying The Stormlight books so far, but this is absolutely the worst part of his writing. He's the only author that makes magic not seem magical at all. It makes sense from a scientific standpoint when you say that the flying dude isn't really flying, he's just pushing off against X thing in a very clever way, but there's no wonder there.

# ¿ Apr 19, 2018 18:04

Infinite Karma: Oct 23, 2004; Good as dead

Macdeo Lurjtux posted:

Short answer is, it�s wonky. The whole series is presented as a historical account, so true to form, there conflicting dates on accounts. According to dates printed in the books, MT happens about 4-6 years before the fall of Pale. The chapter where Trull is shorn is listed as 1159 Burn�s Sleep and the Fall of Pale is 1163.

It's even wonkier because Gothos's ritual froze time (in some weird "things still happen way") in Lether for most of history, and as the novels take place, Lether is thawing out and slowly starting to join the outside world's timeline.

# ¿ May 15, 2018 18:44

Infinite Karma: Oct 23, 2004; Good as dead

I think that's more The Watch being a frightening dude than the FA being weak.

# ¿ Aug 20, 2018 17:20

Infinite Karma: Oct 23, 2004; Good as dead

The books are so dense that it seems impossible to do even one movie per book without adapting (i.e. cutting) huge amounts of the story and characters. But if ASOIAF can make a successful TV show, Malazan could, too. 8-10 hours per book is probably writable. I know I'd watch it even if it was SyFy trash-tier production quality.

# ¿ Aug 24, 2018 18:30

Infinite Karma: Oct 23, 2004; Good as dead

Also, the Malazan soldiers kick rear end and do dangerous stuff on the regular, in between philosophy lectures. There's a lot more thunder and a lot less lightning in FoL.

# ¿ Sep 8, 2018 01:26

Infinite Karma: Oct 23, 2004; Good as dead

If they still do the drum while everyone else looks on in awe, I'd read it.

# ¿ Jan 21, 2019 01:19

Infinite Karma: Oct 23, 2004; Good as dead

anilEhilated posted:

I'm fairly sure the spoilered example is a retcon, by the way; weren't all Bridgeburners (apart from Fiddler) named by Braven Tooth?

I remember it was related to him stealing his sister from... Hood's temple? Like the whiskeyjack bird.

# ¿ Feb 26, 2019 17:14

Infinite Karma: Oct 23, 2004; Good as dead

Strom Cuzewon posted:

I like how much of a clusterfuck the racial descents are. Barghast, Trell and Human are all some vague mix of Toblakai, Jaghut and Imass, but nobody can agree on the exact mix, and even with full genomes you probably couldn't unpick them all.

On rereads and after later books, that seems like an unreliable narrator mythology. The Azathanai seem to create new races impulsively, and they keep riffing on the same theme (Barghast, Human, Imass, Moranth) trying to get it "right", and never do. Kilmandaros and Draconus get called out for it by their peers, and I wouldn't be surprised if Gothos and Skillen Droe are also the creators of their races, and possibly others before or after.

# ¿ Mar 12, 2019 16:57

Infinite Karma: Oct 23, 2004; Good as dead

Strom Cuzewon posted:

Oh yeah, that adds to the clusterfuck even more.

Didn't Skillen say he merely found the K'Chain though?

He kind of equivocated, it struck me as evasive, or even as if he was disassociated from reality a little. The K'chain practice genetic engineering and breeding and have advanced technology and it read more like "I stopped paying attention, and I found this weird civilization where I left my dumb dinosaurs."

Also found is very close to "founded" and also seems like the mistake Skillen might make in his mostly nonverbal state. Like he was saying "I gave the first push, they did all this on their own."

I could be reading too far into it though. Gothos isn't even explicitly a member of the club, but he fits the archetype.

Infinite Karma fucked around with this message at 17:46 on Mar 12, 2019

# ¿ Mar 12, 2019 17:44

Infinite Karma: Oct 23, 2004; Good as dead

cptn_dr posted:

You could tell me any insane bullshit about Gothos and I'd probably believe it.

It's not even that insane - he's probably the Azathanai who created the Jaghut instead of just a really powerful Jaghut.

# ¿ Mar 12, 2019 22:29

Infinite Karma: Oct 23, 2004; Good as dead

Sounds like he's gonna be the combination antagonist/John Galt that everyone in the actual story lives in the shadow of but doesn't need to be on-camera to influence events. Obviously there are going to be new main characters that interact with Karsa (or did in the past) that hundreds of pages will be devoted to.

# ¿ Mar 22, 2019 19:35

Infinite Karma: Oct 23, 2004; Good as dead

dwarf74 posted:

MBotF did it with the main character, Nefarias Bredd, staying offscreen until the final act.

You say that, but Tavore gets like 8 minutes of screen time in the whole series, and never a POV scene/chapter, and she's probably got a similar role to Karsa in the new series.

# ¿ Mar 25, 2019 00:04

Infinite Karma: Oct 23, 2004; Good as dead

Leospeare posted:

I hope the whole trilogy is two guys sitting around by the side of the road, waiting to meet a guy Karsa killed a month ago, who never arrives.

# ¿ Mar 25, 2019 04:57

Infinite Karma: Oct 23, 2004; Good as dead

1994 Toyota Celica posted:

I do love that Karsa's meeting with Binadas went down the way it did because Karsa's player was completely fed up with condescending foreigners.

Who hasn't had a few RPG moments where you're fed up with getting jerked around, and go on a rampage that's a bit of an overreaction?

# ¿ Mar 29, 2019 19:51

Infinite Karma: Oct 23, 2004; Good as dead

Idaho is (going to be, if they make sequels) so weird that you can't really go wrong with a guy like Momoa.

This casting for Dune is good, I don't know why anyone is complaining.

# ¿ Apr 16, 2019 23:12

Infinite Karma: Oct 23, 2004; Good as dead

User posted:

Let me explain that for you then: a large percentage of people enjoy when the casting for a movie adaptation of a book includes actors who credibly resemble, at least thematically, the characters as described in the book.

Dave Bautista as Feyd makes about as much sense as Peter Dinklage as Anomander Rake. It might be zany and fun and a good movie, but it would still be disappointing to people looking for a 7 foot tall black Elric.

Bautista is Beast Rabban, not Feyd. He's perfect for Rabban. Feyd needs to be weirdly pansexual and hedonistic, I agree Bautista would be a weird choice. Ed Skrein chewing the scenery like Daario Naharis from GoT would be how I imagine Feyd.

For Paul, Jessica, Gurney, The Baron, Rabban, Piter, Mohiam, Stilgar, and Yueh, they all seem pretty much perfect to me, I can effortlessly imagine them as the characters.

Leto and Chani seem more serious than Oscar Isaac and Zendaya typically come off, but I can also imagine their takes on the characters working.

Duncan Idaho is kind of a wildcard, he struck me as the chaotic underachiever who was also both charismatic and good at his job. Momoa isn't visually how I imagine Duncan, but his swagger fits the bill.

Infinite Karma fucked around with this message at 02:27 on Apr 17, 2019

# ¿ Apr 17, 2019 01:47

Infinite Karma: Oct 23, 2004; Good as dead

Jaxyon posted:

I enjoy Erikson but I found Fall of Light to be very hard to read, and just read a summary.

I read the whole thing and felt that same way. Not up to the usual page-turning Erikson standards.

# ¿ May 1, 2019 20:05

Infinite Karma: Oct 23, 2004; Good as dead

kingturnip posted:

Yeah, the thing that Liosan have that Silchas doesn't is 100% refined

Basically, the Kharkanas trilogy hosed up explaining that backstory and now we may never know because Walk in Shadow is shelved indefinitely. Everything in the MBotF main series about the Andii politics and families seems to be written in permanent euphemism.

# ¿ Jun 18, 2019 20:05

Infinite Karma: Oct 23, 2004; Good as dead

kingturnip posted:

I'm interested to see if he changes things up for Walk in Shadow (if/when he writes it) given that a bunch of readers apparently didn't bother with Fall of Light.
I certainly had my issues with the book (more so than Forge of Darkness) but they didn't relate to the story, just the way it was told.
So yeah, I'd be interested to see if he's looked for any feedback, or if he's confident(/stubborn) enough to do it his own way.

He can only change the tone so much without making the trilogy even more dissonant.

My problem is that he wrote a prequel series to show what happened in a mythic time that was hinted at during his million-word fantasy epic... and then didn't do that. He started his story at an uninteresting point and started presumably working towards an interesting point, but that interesting point never really came. So now he's either got one book to describe a Tiste diapora following their civil war, a Tiste Edur refugee movement (along with a magical awakening to make them Edur) and its subsequent "sundering", a Jaghut War on Death (that probably fails successfully somehow), the creation of magic/warrens by K'rul, a war against the dragons/T'iam that created a whole bunch of Tiste soletaken, and a plot for Draconus/Dragnipur that hasn't been foreshadowed enough for me to decide where it's going... or he wrote himself into a slow-burning corner where he can't actually tie up the plot threads he is halfway through, and the story has no climax.

# ¿ Jun 19, 2019 18:37

Infinite Karma: Oct 23, 2004; Good as dead

thumper57 posted:

Well first off, people always refer to Karsa as a "subversion" of the noble savage (including Erikson himself in that essay), I'll admit I don't really get how anything is being subverted - by subverting does he just mean playing it straight? Or is the big revelation the fact that Karsa's journey from barbaric society -> civilized society is a journey from disorganized atrocities -> organized atrocities? Am I too dumb for this subtlety, or is everyone just nodding sagely because they like how this big guy kills lots of stuff and bangs unwilling chicks till they like it?

It's a subversion because he isn't "noble" in his savagery or ignorance. There's no folksy wisdom or insight into civilization's flaws stemming from his caveman ways. He's just savage and ignorant and violent. And likewise, civilization doesn't make him horrible and petty like all the civilized people... it actually teaches him empathy. Erikson also messes with the noble savage trope with the Barghast. Common wisdom of the world is that they're gross, stupid savages, but once we get to know them, they seem above the petty politicking and backstabbing of the "civilized" Malazan, like maybe the simple warrior nomads could teach a lesson to the protagonists... and then oops nope, they actually are gross violent monsters and are no good.

# ¿ Jun 25, 2019 00:26

Infinite Karma: Oct 23, 2004; Good as dead

Alhazred posted:

But the rapes in Midnight Tides was used for plot movement or characterization. In Mayen's case is especially bad because it done so the male characters in the book could get some characterization.

Stonny Menackis had a whole character arc and big section of multiple books dealing with the terrible effects of rape, I feel like it was shown to be horrific without looking away (or being lewd), and then showed the broken lives that result from something so terrible.

# ¿ Jul 3, 2019 18:37

Infinite Karma: Oct 23, 2004; Good as dead

Alhazred posted:

That doesn't make what he did in Midnight Tides better.

It doesn't make MT better, but it makes me think that Erikson gets it. So I can dislike Midnight Tides for having pointless torture without disliking Erikson, I guess?

# ¿ Jul 3, 2019 19:18

Infinite Karma: Oct 23, 2004; Good as dead

AbysmalPeptoBismol posted:

Is this "1 male rape victim" made of straw? Stonny is a woman.

Udinaas, who had a pretty brutal powerlessness plot for a long time.

# ¿ Jul 3, 2019 20:05

Infinite Karma: Oct 23, 2004; Good as dead

Alhazred posted:

That's pretty much what I'm been saying. I generally like that malazan series so far, but there's some things in Midnight Tides that feels like a misstep.

Ublala Pung was pretty bad too.

# ¿ Jul 3, 2019 23:55

Infinite Karma: Oct 23, 2004; Good as dead

Man with Hat posted:

Speaking of MoI I'm rereading and wondering what you all think Garath might be?

Spoilers through Memories of Ice:

Garath is Lady Envy's dog friend who is the size of a hound of shadow. She says Garath could be a Hound of Shadow but is reluctant. Erikson has said that Garath was a thing that he made up in case he wanted more hounds but it never got any further than that so all speculation about this is just speculation.

I personally like the idea that it's one of the hounds Rake killed in GotM who, through dying, broke free from its bonds to Shadow who just doesn't want to come back. More likely is that it's just another type of hound that's not Darkness or Shadow aligned.

Spoilers from Fall of Light/Forge of Darkness:

Kagamandra Tulas (later Tulas Shorn) "adopted" a bunch of Jheleck hostages he calls pups. Jheleck are soletaken hounds that are described pretty much identically to the various Shadow/Darkness/Light Hounds, except they can semble into humans. So that's almost guaranteed to be the origin of the Hounds everyone is terrified of. If Garath isn't one of Tulas's hounds, he's probably another poor Jheleck/Jheck that got beaten until it forgot how to semble.

# ¿ Jul 18, 2019 18:08

Infinite Karma: Oct 23, 2004; Good as dead

Cardiac posted:

Soletaken in general seem to have issues with getting lost in their beast form, see Treach/Trake as example. So for Garath, that is not a bad hypothesis.

The locust swarm/Forkrul Assail God in the Glass Desert, too.

# ¿ Jul 18, 2019 18:31

Infinite Karma: Oct 23, 2004; Good as dead

Why torture a dog when you can torture a sentient person until they become your dog? That seems on-brand for Spite and Envy.

# ¿ Jul 18, 2019 19:03

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# ¿ May 14, 2024 15:40

Infinite Karma: Oct 23, 2004; Good as dead

Alhazred posted:

So far it seems like the 14th army is the type of army that can only perform under extreme circumstances but given enough leisure time they disintegrate completely.

pile of brown posted:

The boles are in kharkanas tho?

The Boles aren't in Kharkanas, but they are Part Jaghut, that's why they're so insane and powerful.

# ¿ Aug 2, 2019 21:23

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