Malazan Empire: Few questions - Malazan Empire

***SPOILERS up to Chapter 17 or so***

Ok so I'm listening to this on audiobook which makes going back and trying to find specific passages a massive pain.

If there's no explanation yet just say that I don't want any spoilers please! I just want to see if I missed anything .

1) Why was Hairlock so bent on killing Paran + Tattersail after the confrontation with Gear? Was it only because Tattersail warned Gear to escape before Hairlock stole his soul? (from my understanding)
2) Why was Sorry named as such? (before her "de-possession" and name change --- I *just* reached this point in the book)
3) How did Sorry go from the scene of her possession at the beginning of the book to being part of the "squad". I totally blanked on this.
3) Why did the Empress want Sorry dead and how did she know that Sorry was a tool of the Rope? Did Paran have any understanding of why he was supposed to kill her?

Also -- could anyone point me to or just straight up quote the descriptions of the following chars (unless we haven't been given one yet at this point). I don't want to just google it because when I did this with one character I got spoiled on a few things just from the first line in the search... :/

1) Sorry/Apsalar
2) Paran
3) Whiskeyjack
4) Lorn
5) Quick Ben
6) Assassin friend of Crokus (forgetting his name atm)
7) Murillio

Thanks!

Noxos, on 18 February 2015 - 08:07 AM, said:

1. Hairlock basically went insane after the ritual. As the book progressed he went further and firther out of control. The fact the Paran and Tattersail opposed him, was enough motive for him.
2. Blanking on this.
3. If you remember, ther was a scene early on, when Sorry signs on into the army.
4. After the massacre at Itko Kan, which was clearly a supernatural phenomena, the Adjuncts investigations revealed that only two people of the massacre area were missing and not dead, those two being Sorry and her father. The Empress concluded that they had been kidnapped for a purpose. The rest is not clearly stated, but it can be inferred, that with the help of magical heavyweights like Tayshcrenn, the Empress understood that the most likely culprits were Shadowthrone and the Rope, and that one of the best way to use the captured humans was infiltration.

Not sure what you want in the description. At this stage anything beyond what you know will be spoilers.

Noxos, on 18 February 2015 - 08:07 AM, said:

In addition to the answers Andorian posted...

2) Sorry was named by Cotillion in Chapter one (UK MMPB p.18). If you r-read that scene, he wasn't altogether certain about wanting to posses her but Ammanas using names forced the issue. Maybe there is a kind of apology in the name.

Descriptions (I think these bits are in the chapters you have read)
1) Sorry/Apsalar - slanted black eyes and black hair
2) Paran - black hair, broad back, 'easy to look on'
3) Whiskeyjack - scarred face, grey eyes, looked young for his age
4) Lorn - young, lithe, long auburn hair
5) Quick Ben - tall, dark skinned with a lean face
6) Assassin friend of Crokus - If you mean Rallick Nom - tall, dark skinned, black hair sometimes braided, narrow clean shaven face
7) Murillio - tall, lanky, attractive

Also, interestingly, the first words the fishergirl says are 'I'm Sorry'... which may have something to do with it.

That and Cotillions quirky sense of humour.

Noxos, on 18 February 2015 - 08:07 AM, said:

Hairlock went nuts.

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It's the only thing she says to Cotillion and how he feels about the possession.

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She wanders up to a Malazan army recruiter and signs on. The rest happens off screen til we see her again with the squad.

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Adjunct Lorn figured out that there was one missing body from the Hounds massacre - a young girl. She also found out that a young girl signed up with a recruiter just after.
Lorn knew the massacre was the work of Shadow, so she connected the dots and sent Paran hunting. Paran wasn't told more than that the girl was a risk, iirc.

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Nope, but from memory/personal visual...

1) Sorry/Apsalar - maybe 16, Itko Kanese (Asian), small/lithe, attractive but gives off a dangerous as fuck vibe most of the time.

2) Paran - early 20s, white guy, dark hair, normal height/build for a soldier, attractive.


3) Whiskeyjack - late 40s/early50 white guy but tanned and wrinkled, buff for a soldier but not huge, grey/black hair and beard, semi-trimmed. Just oozes authority and leadershipness.

4) Lorn - early 20s, white, normal height/build, athletic. I vaguely recall her eyes are something special shiny blue'ish.


5) Quick Ben - mid-30s, black/brown, tall, skinny but athletic.

6) Assassin friend of Crokus (forgetting his name atm) - Rallick Nom - mid/late 30s, white, tall, buff, looks like someone you don't mess with.


7) Murillio - white, early 40s but looks younger, dark hair light eyes, slim, athletic, considered very attractive.

I think it's worth remembering that Erikson deliberately tries to avoid whitewashing in his characters. To that end, we shouldn't just presume the undescribed characters (e.g. Whiskeyjack, Paran) are white (because that is the typical fantasy trope, especially when the characters populate a medieval world as in GotM).

I'd agree Sorry is East Asian-looking.

Paran is from Quon Tali, which is known more for it's mix of darker skin colours than anything else. Maybe it's just his being a noble (and of course Tavore and Felisin, who brings into mind suggestions of the innocent (to start with) white noble girl suffering) that makes me think he's white, but we can't bet on it.

We are given no skin colour description for Whiskeyjack in the GotM prologue. Again, we hear grizzled veteran and think white, but if we assume he's from Quon Tali, he probably isn't. Fiddler, of course, being from Falar, has red hair and pale skin.

Re-reading chapter 1 of GotM, Lorn does have auburn hair, and is from Malaz. The auburn hair seems to suggest white skin, but I can't remember what skin colour Malazan islanders have.

Quick Ben is from Seven Cities, so very dark.

And finally, I think Darujhistan has a vaguely Mediterranean feel, so maybe Daru people are tanned? But then we have no info about the Gadrobi people who also live in Darujhistan.

Thanks guys, really appreciate all your answers.

So I take it Hairlock's insanity was due to the soulshift thing? (IIRC this practice was described as being risky at some point?)

Noxos, on 19 February 2015 - 01:37 AM, said:

My impression is that he was not exactly the most stable chap to begin with, then the soulshift happened, then he went jumping off into warrens and I believe somewhere along the way he encountered chaos so.... yeah insanity was kind of inevitable

My question is-how can you manage this series on audiobook? That must be a struggle to understand anything. Do you generally prefer audiobooks to booky books? I have a mate who only uses audiobooks and he thinks everyone else is insane for not doing it that way. Different learning types I suppose.

Keysi, on 26 February 2015 - 11:44 PM, said:

I have an hour long commute to work (so 2 hours both ways) every day, that's when I listen to it. I don't have the time to sit down and read really at the moment. I think I'm actually following things better than if I were straight reading it. The only tough portions are when Erickson's giving a very detailed description of something (which happens a lot). Those I usually have to hit the rewind button on a couple times. This is actually the first time I've tried an audiobook. It's a pretty cool experience actually. The guy doing the voices is really good at it, though I dislike how's he's voiced Kalam (my only complaint really).

New thing I'm confused about: Why does Anomander Rake want to kill the coin-bearer? I remember something a few chapters back something along the lines of "him just wanting to meddle/screw with the gods' plans", is that the only reason?

Andorion, on 19 February 2015 - 01:42 AM, said:

I think he was even deliberately delving into chaos. Don't forget that chaos is the realm between the warrens, which is what Hairlock had devoted a lot of time and study to and allowed him to jump around between warrens and avoid detection by e.g. Tayshrenn. Add to him being not the most stable of characters to begin with and you have a car crash on your hands.

Noxos, on 27 February 2015 - 07:32 AM, said:

Rake is simply trying to cut as many players out of the game as possible. Thus why he wants to kill the coinbearer (removing Oponn) and why he confronts Shadowthrone.

Ok so I just finished the part where the tyrant is killed (apparently at least) at the party. I was confused during the scene where Paran talks to Cotillion after being picked up in the jaws of one of the hounds. Cotillion says that Shadowthrone regrets leaving Paran "outside Hood's gates" (i.e. alive I'm guessing?) to the loss of two hounds. Why is Shadowthrone holding Paran responsible for the death of two hounds? It was Rake that killed them and Paran that "freed" them (putting that in quotes because it hasn't been explained yet what happened to them after they disappear from the warren in the sword)

This post has been edited by Noxos: 05 March 2015 - 09:05 AM

In that same passage that Cortillion mentions Shadowthrone's regret, Paran wonders whether to explain that he did "free" them:

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Shadowthrone doesn't know what has happened to them, beyond their death at the hands of Rake and Draginpur.

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Shadowthrone apparently intended to use Paran as an unwilling agent, spying on his opposition by following Paran, but that came to naught, as Oponn released their hold on Paran:

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In that time, Gear was stabbed, and Doan and Ganrod were killed by Rake, both scenes in which Paran was directly involved, and his death may have avoided this.