Malazan Empire: Jaghut/Jhag/Toblakai question (again!) - Malazan Empire

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Jaghut/Jhag/Toblakai question (again!)

#1 User is offline   philospher77 

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Posted 10 September 2006 - 05:37 AM

Alright, I know that the general assumption is that the Jagh are halfbreed Jaghut/TTT, based upon Karsa's conversation with what's-her-name. However, I have been rereading GotM (and yeah, I know, stuff changed since then) and ran across a line from Bellurdan, the Thelomen Toblakai, that says that "as a Thelomen, I possess Jaghut blood, although Gothos would deny it". If this is true, it seems to imply that the other half of the Jagh is something not Toblakai, since the Toblakai are already some sort of crossbred Jaghut. Although that does raise an interesting question... what did the Jaghut cross with in order to create the Thelomen? The only races present at the time seem to be the Imass, the FA, and the Tiste. Maybe Jaghut x Imass gives the Toblakai, and Jaghut x FA gives Jagh? For some reason, I just can't see the Tiste crossing with Jaghut.

Thoughts?
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#2 User is offline   Aptorian 

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Posted 10 September 2006 - 06:13 AM

Could you quote that line in GotM? We don't know too much about Belurdan.

Maybe the "Thelomen" or just Belurdan himself are the product of Jaghut blood? The pure blood TTT seems to have died out long ago, probably before the age of man. Back then the real TTT could have mated with Jaghuts to create Jhags. But more importantly isn't a Jhag just any kind of crossbreed with Jaghut heritage?

Strange thing is, how important is this question even? Besides the jhag warrior soul in Quick Ben and of course Icarium we haven't heard much about them. Maybe Jhags are just a rare species. Like people like pearl with Andiiblood in his veins.
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#3 User is offline   philospher77 

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Posted 10 September 2006 - 06:39 AM

Apt;113901 said:

Could you quote that line in GotM? We don't know too much about Belurdan.


Sure. It's the bit right after Tattersail has been forced to leave her warren that she has been using to travel to Darujhistan, and Bellurdan has told her he's required to take her back to Tay or kill her. She's asking him about some scrolls Tay had him searching through.
==================
Belurdan hesitated only a moment. "Very well. Among the archives collected from the city's mages - all of whom were executed, as you know - were found some copied fragments of Gothos Folly, an ancient Jaghut tome -"
"I know of it," Tattersail interjected. "Go on."
"As a Thelomen, I possess Jaghut blood, though of course Gothos would deny it. The High Mage entrusted the examination of these writings to me. I was to seek out information concerning the burial of a Jaghut Tyrant, a burial that was in fact a prison."
=================
Page 301 in the hardcover copy I have. And, since Bellurdan goes on to tell Tattersail about the Tyrants, and the wars that the non-Tyrant Jaghut and Imass had with them, he seems to be pretty up on them. I do wonder about the use of the word "deny" in "Gothos would deny it". The common reading would be "Gothos would disagree", but it is possible that it could be the rarer meaning of "Gothos would disown it".
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Posted 10 September 2006 - 09:26 AM

'Barghast, Trell, Tartheno Toblakai...these are the surviving threads of Imass blood, no matter their claims to purity. '
My view is any of these could cross-breed with Jaghut to create Jhag.
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#5 User is offline   tiam 

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Posted 10 September 2006 - 10:24 AM

Is there a difference beetween Thelomen and Tartheno? I think there is because Tartheno are smaller and maybe thats why Bellurdan goes being a thelomen rather than simply stating being a toblakai.
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#6 User is offline   kaf09 

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Posted 10 September 2006 - 11:09 PM

tiam;113950 said:

Is there a difference beetween Thelomen and Tartheno? I think there is because Tartheno are smaller and maybe thats why Bellurdan goes being a thelomen rather than simply stating being a toblakai.



Tartheno are the same as Thelomen, as far as we can ascertain. Their full name is "Tartheno Thelomen Toblakai" - they survive as a relict(?) population in Genabackis, somehwere near where there is a mountain range called the "Tartheno Ranges".
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#7 User is offline   tiam 

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Posted 11 September 2006 - 05:22 AM

i know your probably right but i just thought that might be whats wrong with thier heritage. I thought maybe thelomen were maybe a more pure kind of Toblakai
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#8 User is offline   Abyss 

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Posted 11 September 2006 - 02:59 PM

Tartheno and Teblor are 'diluted' TTT bloodlines. Apparently not as big or as powerful as a full-blooded Thelomen Tarthenol Toblakai (sp). (Karsa being an exception, it would seem).

Jhag may be any half-blood Jaghut. I don't think it matters what the other half is.

Point being one way or another, except for FA and the K'Chain, EVERY race, human, non-human, and Tiste, seems able to crossbreed, which suggests some common genetic element. Sure, it's fantasy lit so the rules of genetics don't apply (ie: humans and apes share like 98% similar genes but cannot breed), but Bellurdan's comment above and the lengths SE goes to establish that these links exist suggest it's a bit more comples than your typical fantasy elf+human=half-elf convention.

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#9 User is offline   Coldnight 

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Posted 11 September 2006 - 06:39 PM

But the rules of genetics should apply as well as the rules of gravitation (Quorls should not be able to move not to speak about flying)! No matter is it fantasy or not. Tell me it's due to magic and I'll say it's OK, otherwise my poor heart of a biologist is bleeding :D.
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#10 User is offline   Aptorian 

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Posted 12 September 2006 - 10:38 AM

Coldnight;114756 said:

But the rules of genetics should apply as well as the rules of gravitation (Quorls should not be able to move not to speak about flying)! No matter is it fantasy or not. Tell me it's due to magic and I'll say it's OK, otherwise my poor heart of a biologist is bleeding :(.


It's been some years since my last biology leason. Why shouldn't a quorl be able to fly?

As long as their bodies are light enough and their wings are big enough why shouldn't they be able to move or fly? I remember the (awful) Mimic movies where it's said that insects don't become much bigger than your hand because they don't have lungs.

Besides known insect anatomy why shouldn't an insect be able to mass the size of a skyscraper?
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#11 User is offline   Dolorous Menhir 

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Posted 12 September 2006 - 11:05 AM

The strength of muscle does not increase linearly with increasing size.

Something that is twice as large is less than twice as strong, and more than twice as heavy.

In other words, there is a natural limit to the size of a flying animal - you cannot scale a fly, or a bird, up to an arbitrary size. Animals get heavier (with increasing size) faster than they get stronger, and so they are not able to fly - or, as they grow in size, move.

But this is fantasy.
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#12 User is offline   Sir Thursday 

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Posted 12 September 2006 - 12:45 PM

If you double, the width, height and length of an object, it is now 8 times the size. But the object in question would not, as Dolorous points out, have 8 times the lift. Thus scaling up doesn't work. The exception appears to be the Bumblebee - scientists as of yet cannot explain how it can be able to fly, as their wingspan and flapspeed (I don't know the technical term) shouldn't be able to support their body weight.

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#13 User is offline   Obdigore 

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Posted 12 September 2006 - 01:53 PM

its cuz their fuzzy. damn fuzzy bees.
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#14 User is offline   Aptorian 

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Posted 12 September 2006 - 02:40 PM

Dolorous Menhir;114971 said:

The strength of muscle does not increase linearly with increasing size.

Something that is twice as large is less than twice as strong, and more than twice as heavy.

In other words, there is a natural limit to the size of a flying animal - you cannot scale a fly, or a bird, up to an arbitrary size. Animals get heavier (with increasing size) faster than they get stronger, and so they are not able to fly - or, as they grow in size, move.

But this is fantasy.


Interesting... Still... I find it peculiar(sp?) that they can't get bigger as long as they have hollow bodies or something like that.

Nature is Cooky :(

About the bumble bee, I remember it is theorized, if not proven, that they fly by making somekind of vortex around themselves when they flap those little wings. I guess that their fuzzy hair is usefull for this aswell.
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#15 User is offline   McLovin 

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Posted 12 September 2006 - 02:45 PM

Based on what's been written, I think we can arrive at the following:

Jaghut + Imass = Thelomen
Jaghut + Thelomen = Jhag

You might be tempted to say that makes a Jhag three-fourths Jaghut, not half as is stated in the book. But, that doesn't take into account the possiblility of generations of inbreeding among Thelomen, which would have made them a separate species in their own right. Certainly the ice ages caused by the Jaghut Wars would have isolated pockets of half-Jaghuts long enough to enforce the necessary inbreeding. Once Thelomen became differentiated enough from their Jaghut-Imass ancestry (and not isolated), then they bred back with the Jaghut to create the Jhag.
OK, I think I got it, but just in case, can you say the whole thing over again? I wasn't really listening.
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#16 User is offline   Delat 

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Posted 14 September 2006 - 07:14 PM

On another tack what of the realtion betwixt Imass and human. It would seem that althougth simular they are not related. I wonder if they are the equivilant. Bonehunters sems to suggest Humans eveolved from the Eres. I get the feeling that the Imass while related may not have given rise to humans as certain aspects of SE descriptions of early human civilization and the fact that the trell and Barghast are considered the last threads of Imass blood rather than humans. The Imass like the tiste may not be indiginous to the realm and may have been from another warren. Thoughts?
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#17 User is offline   Illuyankas 

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Posted 14 September 2006 - 08:18 PM

The Imass evolved from the Eres, and humans evolved from the Imass, while the Barghast are Imass/TTT. I don't think many 'old' ascendants like humans very much...
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Posted 20 September 2006 - 11:06 AM

This is how i figure it

Jhag= virtually anything with Tlan blood (TT, barghast trell....bar human) x Jaghut

The beauty of Erikson is that where alot of us feel the descriptions are lacking or incomplete..."We can make our own mind up"
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Posted 23 September 2006 - 04:25 PM

The Malazan world is an awkward one to try and fit seemingly universal laws into like evolution, the passage of time or even gravity into. The past is like another country that you can visit and that follows you home and compares notes in your era.
It's like finding the city of Atlantis in the lake but worse when the Atlanteans come back to your place and criticise the shoddy brick-laying on your house.

Very little seems to have directly evolved from anything else, sure the Eres gave rise to the Imass and the Imass gave rise to Humans but there are no intermediates between those steps. (Now there's a thought, the Eres seems to exist in all times at once, would it be possible for her offspring with Trull to exist in the distant past and be responsible for the whole trail leading through Imass, Humans and eventually lead to a worthy successor to Shadow? Hmm...).

If it's not magic it's the inter-dimensionality of time. Maybe.
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#20 User is offline   Onrack the breakable 

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Posted 16 October 2006 - 10:16 PM

Dolorous Menhir;114971 said:

The strength of muscle does not increase linearly with increasing size.

Something that is twice as large is less than twice as strong, and more than twice as heavy.

In other words, there is a natural limit to the size of a flying animal - you cannot scale a fly, or a bird, up to an arbitrary size. Animals get heavier (with increasing size) faster than they get stronger, and so they are not able to fly - or, as they grow in size, move.

But this is fantasy.


That is true and my one point of disbelief about how devastating the K'chain are. They are small dinosaurs but that a few hundred can wipe out an army of 8000+ humans without taking much casualties (even being undead) is just way over the top. Even if we stretch imagination and let them be superhumanly big and strong they would have to be either very fragile (can dish out punishment but cant take much in return) or very slow. Its absurd but isn't SE an archieologist? Thats not much science there, alot of horse**** theories and stuff. He really should've had to take at least a few semesters of physics, biology, and chemistry. Maybe he just forgot it all.
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