[Mob]

I'm just mid-way through reading Stonewielder for the second time and something struck me. I wondered if anyone else has picked up on it.

Obviously, we know that there is a connection between the mysterious and enigmatic Stormriders, the subcontinent of Korel/Fist, and the pieces of the Crippled God there. But what?

On p. 287 in the UK edition, in the scene where Hiam is told that the Riders have appeared for the first time that winter, there is something interesting. Hiam dresses for battle and opens his window to look at the horizon. There he sees the tell-tale sign of approaching Riders - 'a bluish-green glow lit the horizon: the aura of the risen Stormriders'.

This instantly took me back to the very first page of the book, in the Elder Age. The fisherman, Uli, sees an 'unnatural green and blue aura' that 'bruised the sky'. This then builds, consuming almost all of the sky, before exploding. Pieces fall to earth with a deafening crash, wreaking devastation and a tidal wave that kills Uli. As everyone reading this will know, this was the fall of the Crippled God (and if there is any doubt, the first page makes clear that the scene takes place at the Height of the Jacuruku Crusades, i.e. Kallor's empire that prompted the calling of the Crippled God in a bid to stop him).

So, we have two green/blue skies, rendered that way by unnatural means. And green - jade - is obviously closely associated with the Crippled God and his followers/worshippers from the realm where he originated.

In The Crippled God, p. 1158, in the scene in the barrow where the reassembled Crippled God (Kaminsod) is speaking with K'rul, Mael and Heboric, he sees 'mounted warriors, glimmering GREEN and BLUE, tracking them from a distance'.

The Stormriders obviously get a couple of pieces of the Crippled God in Stonewielder, and this scene strongly implies that they have somehow brought them across the world, to the barrow, to contribute to the process of ending the Chaining.

The Stormriders seem positively alien. Might they be literal aliens, from the same realm as the Crippled God? Maybe they are his worshippers in the same way as those within the Jade Giants? Or perhaps they are actual lifeforms spawned by the CG in the same way that the Great Ravens were (also present at the end of The Crippled God)?

Apologies if this is silly, I am only 300 pages into the book and it's nearly three years since I originally read it.

[Wolfdrop]

I actually read Stonewielder before DoD and CG and never even noticed them bringing the pieces back in CG. Nice find!

[Andorion]

Mob, on 16 December 2014 - 10:06 AM, said:

I'm just mid-way through reading Stonewielder for the second time and something struck me. I wondered if anyone else has picked up on it.

Obviously, we know that there is a connection between the mysterious and enigmatic Stormriders, the subcontinent of Korel/Fist, and the pieces of the Crippled God there. But what?

On p. 287 in the UK edition, in the scene where Hiam is told that the Riders have appeared for the first time that winter, there is something interesting. Hiam dresses for battle and opens his window to look at the horizon. There he sees the tell-tale sign of approaching Riders - 'a bluish-green glow lit the horizon: the aura of the risen Stormriders'.

This instantly took me back to the very first page of the book, in the Elder Age. The fisherman, Uli, sees an 'unnatural green and blue aura' that 'bruised the sky'. This then builds, consuming almost all of the sky, before exploding. Pieces fall to earth with a deafening crash, wreaking devastation and a tidal wave that kills Uli. As everyone reading this will know, this was the fall of the Crippled God (and if there is any doubt, the first page makes clear that the scene takes place at the Height of the Jacuruku Crusades, i.e. Kallor's empire that prompted the calling of the Crippled God in a bid to stop him).

So, we have two green/blue skies, rendered that way by unnatural means. And green - jade - is obviously closely associated with the Crippled God and his followers/worshippers from the realm where he originated.

In The Crippled God, p. 1158, in the scene in the barrow where the reassembled Crippled God (Kaminsod) is speaking with K'rul, Mael and Heboric, he sees 'mounted warriors, glimmering GREEN and BLUE, tracking them from a distance'.

The Stormriders obviously get a couple of pieces of the Crippled God in Stonewielder, and this scene strongly implies that they have somehow brought them across the world, to the barrow, to contribute to the process of ending the Chaining.

The Stormriders seem positively alien. Might they be literal aliens, from the same realm as the Crippled God? Maybe they are his worshippers in the same way as those within the Jade Giants? Or perhaps they are actual lifeforms spawned by the CG in the same way that the Great Ravens were (also present at the end of The Crippled God)?

Apologies if this is silly, I am only 300 pages into the book and it's nearly three years since I originally read it.

Very nice theory. i am leaning heavily towards the idea that the stormriders are alien, or spawned by the Crippled God. There maybe something more related to this, but its slipping my mind at the moment.

[Mob]

Wolfdrop, on 16 December 2014 - 10:16 AM, said:

I actually read Stonewielder before DoD and CG and never even noticed them bringing the pieces back in CG. Nice find!

Thanks. Do you think it's plausible that the Stormriders are indeed servants/worshippers of the CG, or part of him a la the Great Ravens? I could be spouting nonsense here, but the green-blue thing with both the Crippled God (basically, jade against a blue sky) and then the Riders is difficult to ignore. Clearly deliberate on ICE's part, but to what end?

[Mob]

Andorion, on 16 December 2014 - 01:12 PM, said:

Very nice theory. i am leaning heavily towards the idea that the stormriders are alien, or spawned by the Crippled God. There maybe something more related to this, but its slipping my mind at the moment.

If you think of anything, please do let me know.

[D'rek]

Mod notice: moving this topic to The Crippled God sub-forum since TCG came out later than Stonewielder (and hence the OP has spoilers for people who haven't read TCG yet).

[Mob]

This has got me thinking (and, again, I'm only on page 300 of Stonewielder having not read the book for two and a half years): is Shadowthrone somehow behind the invasion of Fist that we see in the book?

I haven't come across any hints of that yet - at least none that caught my eye - but, given his objectives re: the Crippled God, it makes sense that he'd want/need to create a situation in which the pieces of the Crippled God held in Korel can be freed and taken to Kolanse (as above, there are seemingly Riders there in the crucial scene there at the end of The Crippled God, having delivered the fragments of Kaminsod to the barrow)


So as it would be in Shadowthrone's interests to instigate the invasion/provoke the Empire to attack Fist - indeed, his wider plan would be significantly hindered without it - are there any hints of this?

I suppose it's possible that some of the Malazan old guard still take orders from Shadowthrone (Nok?) and then pushed the new Emperor into an invasion but I could be reaching. On the other hand, if there is no Shadowthrone-directed conspiracy here, it's a pretty big coincidence that the Empire finally invaded at this crucial moment in Shadowthrone's effort to free Kaminsod and upend the whole Ascendant 'game'.

[D'rek]

It may not have been strictly necessary though. There are some pieces missing when the CG is given mortal form in TCG (some of his fingers are just little stubs and he is not very healthy). So looks like if they had not got those Lady pieces back they would have just dealt with the pieces they did have.

Still, you're right, it was helpful. And from TCG it doesn't seem like ST has any influence over Mallick Rel.

[Mob]

D, on 16 December 2014 - 04:59 PM, said:

Still, you're right, it was helpful. And from TCG it doesn't seem like ST has any influence over Mallick Rel.

Indeed. The possibility that Shadowthrone might have been manipulating events re: Korel/Fist, and had to refrain from letting Mallick Rell know about it, could also be inferred from his comments on p. 1188 of The Crippled God, where Shadowthrone wants to unleash his Hounds on the coastline of Itko Kan in a nod to the opening of Gardens of the Moon. Cotillion warns him not to, and Shadowthrone replies 'Why not? Remind that fop on the throne who's really running this game!' He obviously wanted to poke Mallick Rell, and let him know that it was him, Shadowthrone, doing it. A tough of pent up frustration? Cotillion implied that they would do this later ('Not yet').

Far from conclusive, but it's perhaps a possibility.

All of which is secondary, of course, to my original point about the relationship between the Riders and the Crippled God.

[Andorion]

That comment of Shadowthrone I interpret as referring to the broadr picture of the Malzan pantheon and world which has been manipulated on a very large scale by Shadowthrone and Cotillion. Its more of ST harking back to his Kellanved persona and considering making things rough for the new emperor, as well as being a throwback to what they did in the same spot in GotM when Laseen was on the throne and the Empire got drawn into the entire conflagration.

[Mob]

Andorion, on 16 December 2014 - 05:44 PM, said:

That comment of Shadowthrone I interpret as referring to the broadr picture of the Malzan pantheon and world which has been manipulated on a very large scale by Shadowthrone and Cotillion. Its more of ST harking back to his Kellanved persona and considering making things rough for the new emperor, as well as being a throwback to what they did in the same spot in GotM when Laseen was on the throne and the Empire got drawn into the entire conflagration.

You're almost certainly correct. That was absolutely my first reading of the relevant scene in The Crippled God.

[worry]

I'm lovin' it!

[Mob]

worry, on 16 December 2014 - 07:55 PM, said:

I'm lovin' it!

So you think I might be onto something?

[worry]

Have it your way.

[Twisty]

D, on 16 December 2014 - 04:59 PM, said:

It may not have been strictly necessary though. There are some pieces missing when the CG is given mortal form in TCG (some of his fingers are just little stubs and he is not very healthy). So looks like if they had not got those Lady pieces back they would have just dealt with the pieces they did have.

I think this is true. I was gonna say we know this to be true, but it's a matter of interpretation. Re-reading the section made me realise I could be wrong! I'll throw it in anyway:

(blood and bone spoilers)

Spoiler

I thought Celeste from Blood and Bone was a piece of the Crippled God that didn't rejoin before flying away. However, she tells Murk of her identity: "I find myself clinging to it. I feel that it is me. Even if it isn't." (p. 711 Bantam). It is this identity as Celeste - despite being a piece of tCG, as the Lady perhaps was - that wants to live on, and maybe her 'body' in the chest could reunite with Kaminsod.

Later, she tells Murk that "far to the west the Shattered God has been sent onward...as have I." (p. 823) Given that the chest Spite now carries, containing the piece of tCG that is Celeste, now contains dust (p. 834) we can assume that the CG part of Celeste got whisked away somehow to join the rest of him (although how this happens is a mystery - why involve the Stormriders to take apart the 3 pieces of the Lady if the pieces just magic back to Kaminsod at will?) and the identity of Celeste, that she worries is thin but is all she's got, unites with Himatan.

An alternative reading is that in order to unite with Himatan, Celeste herself rescued her 'body' from the chest, didn't unite at all with Kaminsod in Kolanse and joined completely with Himatan - in which case we have proof of D'rek's above claim that not all pieces of tCG reunite at the end.

[Mob]

Very interesting...

[D'rek]

Twisty, on 16 December 2014 - 09:34 PM, said:

D, on 16 December 2014 - 04:59 PM, said:

It may not have been strictly necessary though. There are some pieces missing when the CG is given mortal form in TCG (some of his fingers are just little stubs and he is not very healthy). So looks like if they had not got those Lady pieces back they would have just dealt with the pieces they did have.

I think this is true. I was gonna say we know this to be true, but it's a matter of interpretation. Re-reading the section made me realise I could be wrong! I'll throw it in anyway:

(blood and bone spoilers)

Spoiler

I thought Celeste from Blood and Bone was a piece of the Crippled God that didn't rejoin before flying away. However, she tells Murk of her identity: "I find myself clinging to it. I feel that it is me. Even if it isn't." (p. 711 Bantam). It is this identity as Celeste - despite being a piece of tCG, as the Lady perhaps was - that wants to live on, and maybe her 'body' in the chest could reunite with Kaminsod.

Later, she tells Murk that "far to the west the Shattered God has been sent onward...as have I." (p. 823) Given that the chest Spite now carries, containing the piece of tCG that is Celeste, now contains dust (p. 834) we can assume that the CG part of Celeste got whisked away somehow to join the rest of him (although how this happens is a mystery - why involve the Stormriders to take apart the 3 pieces of the Lady if the pieces just magic back to Kaminsod at will?) and the identity of Celeste, that she worries is thin but is all she's got, unites with Himatan.

An alternative reading is that in order to unite with Himatan, Celeste herself rescued her 'body' from the chest, didn't unite at all with Kaminsod in Kolanse and joined completely with Himatan - in which case we have proof of D'rek's above claim that not all pieces of tCG reunite at the end.

(B&B spoilers)

Spoiler

I don't think Celeste is meant to be any of the pieces of the Lady, I think she is a separate big piece. The Lady had 3 pieces, and Stormriders got 2 of them while Skinner took the third. As we see in B&B, Skinner has acquired several pieces and gave most of them to the CG's priest (so presumably those made it back to Kaminsod anyways).

Actually, my unsubstantiated pet theory is that Celeste is the largest piece from the first Chaining - after all, there are chains aplenty at the Dolmens of Tien where she is interred, and the site is very close to where the CG first fell.

In any case, it is absolutely still possible that Shadowthrone had a hand in orchestrating the Korel invasion to liberate those pieces of the CG. It's just a question of how. Maybe he spread word amongst some upper Malazans about the truth of the Sixth going rogue, and that forced Mallick to deal with them. Or maybe he was even whispering to Greymane.

[Abyss]

Some interesting theories there Mob...
Stormriders...alien, yes, but there's also the scene in NoK where one seems to be almost human and bleeds red. It's easy to assume they have a grudge against the CG, but your comment re TCG about them bringing pieces along makes me wonder if there isn't something to the worshipper theory. If the raiders were attacking the Stormwall to get at the Lady, it may not have been to kill her after all... Or rather, not to kill the chunk that created her... She may have had other feelings, hence building the wall and the Guard.
Celeste... No connection to the Lady I can see other than sharing origins as chunks of the CG.

Shadow throne... Totally possible... The whole 'rein in the rogue army' thing seemed unduly noble for Mallick Rel. The other possibility however is that the Cult of Burn or some other faction were looking to get Greymane and specifically his sword to the Wall to bring it down.

[Mob]

I just wish that ICE had been a little more forthcoming about the Riders and their place in his story. As it is, they remain one of the great unknowns of the series - and not in a satisfactory, Quick Ben sort of way. I would doubt that we're ever going to get any answers on this, either. Seems a frustrating mistake.

Abyss, you're right about the NoK scene. There are also hints of them looking almost human in Stonewielder, p. 295 (UK edition), where Bars smashes the helmet of a rider. Corlo relates that the Rider had 'a head much like that of any man, if pale and thin'.

One could point out that we don't know what the people from the CG's realm look like. It is conceivable that they might be humanoid too, perhaps 'pale and thin', seeing as nearly everyone in the series is humanoid (excepting certain giant lizards and dragons, of course).

Another, possibly bonkers, theory that just occurred to me is that the Riders are the descendants of those original inhabitants of Korel/Fist who were inundated when the Crippled God fell. I'm thinking of Uli in the prologue - the fisherman killed by a tidal wave. That would give them a grudge against the Crippled God, for wrecking their continent/homes. It would also explain their enmity towards the later inhabitants of the continent, who want to keep the Riders out. And it might explain why they are seemingly willing to help free the Crippled God, to get him out of the way.

The only problem with the theory is the obvious one: how did a bunch of primitive fishermen somehow end up as Stormriders with their magical powers and so on? Perhaps their exposure to the Crippled God's powers as he fell somehow transformed them. But that's just speculation and may be far-fetched. However, it would explain a number of points of motivation as described above. It would explain why they bleed red, and sound human ('Why are you killing us'?). And fishermen are sea-beings, if you like, in the same way the Riders are.


And it would also fit with one of the major recurrent textual themes of Stonewielder, the question of who lived in Korel/Fist first, and who the 'invaders' are (it's repeatedly made clear that the Malazans aren't the first 'invaders' - and indeed we see the first batch of invaders in the prologue, the men who meet the Lady and are tasked with building the Wall). The concept of invaders/outlanders is dealt with in every scene in the prologue, even thousands of years after the fall of the Crippled God - which has to be significant. The book is basically about successive generations of invaders contending for control of the continent, but none of them are the original inhabitants. We see those original inhabitants in the first scene (the fall of The Crippled God) and, in the very next scene, the Riders are assaulting the recently-arrived 'invaders' who go on to build the wall. There is no sign of the Riders in the first scene, i.e. before the fall.

This idea only just occurred to me. But now that I think about it, I like it.

We also know from Stonewielder, and Greymane's relation of a conversation with a Rider, that they speak a version of the Koreli language. In NoK, the old man who discovers a dying Rider at Malaz Isle relates that he speaks a 'halting Korelan'. Perhaps a primitive, original form of the dialect? The Rider at the end of NoK is described as having the flesh of a fish and a bad smell. The Lady, introduced at the very beginning of Stonewielder, is described as having a repulsive smell and flesh like 'a pale dead fish'.

Too much of a coincidence. There's some physical relationship here between the Riders and the Lady. It might be that my original theory is correct. Or it might be that the theory I ventured earlier in this post points in the right direction, with the original peoples of Korel, whether human fishermen or giant beings like the Lady, somehow being transformed/empowered by the fall of the Crippled God.

This post has been edited by Mob: 17 December 2014 - 09:21 AM

[Twisty]

D, on 17 December 2014 - 04:12 AM, said:

Twisty, on 16 December 2014 - 09:34 PM, said:

D, on 16 December 2014 - 04:59 PM, said:

It may not have been strictly necessary though. There are some pieces missing when the CG is given mortal form in TCG (some of his fingers are just little stubs and he is not very healthy). So looks like if they had not got those Lady pieces back they would have just dealt with the pieces they did have.

I think this is true. I was gonna say we know this to be true, but it's a matter of interpretation. Re-reading the section made me realise I could be wrong! I'll throw it in anyway:

(blood and bone spoilers)

Spoiler

I thought Celeste from Blood and Bone was a piece of the Crippled God that didn't rejoin before flying away. However, she tells Murk of her identity: "I find myself clinging to it. I feel that it is me. Even if it isn't." (p. 711 Bantam). It is this identity as Celeste - despite being a piece of tCG, as the Lady perhaps was - that wants to live on, and maybe her 'body' in the chest could reunite with Kaminsod.

Later, she tells Murk that "far to the west the Shattered God has been sent onward...as have I." (p. 823) Given that the chest Spite now carries, containing the piece of tCG that is Celeste, now contains dust (p. 834) we can assume that the CG part of Celeste got whisked away somehow to join the rest of him (although how this happens is a mystery - why involve the Stormriders to take apart the 3 pieces of the Lady if the pieces just magic back to Kaminsod at will?) and the identity of Celeste, that she worries is thin but is all she's got, unites with Himatan.

An alternative reading is that in order to unite with Himatan, Celeste herself rescued her 'body' from the chest, didn't unite at all with Kaminsod in Kolanse and joined completely with Himatan - in which case we have proof of D'rek's above claim that not all pieces of tCG reunite at the end.

(B&B spoilers)

Spoiler

I don't think Celeste is meant to be any of the pieces of the Lady, I think she is a separate big piece. The Lady had 3 pieces, and Stormriders got 2 of them while Skinner took the third. As we see in B&B, Skinner has acquired several pieces and gave most of them to the CG's priest (so presumably those made it back to Kaminsod anyways).

Actually, my unsubstantiated pet theory is that Celeste is the largest piece from the first Chaining - after all, there are chains aplenty at the Dolmens of Tien where she is interred, and the site is very close to where the CG first fell.

Sorry, my spoiler-y bit was unclear.
(B&B spoilers)

Spoiler

I know Celeste wasn't a part of the Lady; she was always in Jacuruku at the Dolmens. My point was it's interesting that whatever substance was in the chest Spite carried (the 'body' of Celeste, the piece of the CG) conveniently turned to ash (and joined Kaminsod in time to leave Wu) just by itself, while the recovery of the 3 pieces of the Lady (whoever manufactured that) necessitated the Stormriders/Malazans/Skinner & co etc convergence. Why didn't Kaminsod or whoever just dustify them too, saving everyone the trouble?