[Spectrum]

Hello.

I've been thinking... does SE not like dragons?

We have met several dragons in the books, and while they're always described as fearsome and powerful, they seem to be quite ineffectual when seen in actual combat. Consider the evidence:

1. Gardens of the Moon: Silanah and four Tiste Andii Draconean Soletaken challenge Raest. He chases them off.
2. Gardens of the Moon: Anomander Rake veers into draconean form and flies over Darujhistan, but he doesn't accomplish anything, and AFAIR sembles back to humanoid form to fight the Malazan demon.
3. Memories of Ice: Anomander Rake veers into draconean form to harry the Tenescowri, which should be a trivial task. But Anaster somehow poisons him, and Rake shies away. Then he sembles in order to kill the witches.
4. Reaper's Gale: In the prologue, Scabandari Bloodeye, in draconean form, fights Kilmandaros and Mael, and is killed.
5. Reaper's Gale: Menandore, Sheltatha Lore and Sukul Ankhadu face two measly humans (Quick Ben and Hedge), and all three end up badly wounded and getting killed soon after.
6. Reaper's Gale: In the ultimate anticlimax to this book, Silchas Ruin faces (again) a bunch of measly humans and gets his butt handed to him.

What gives? Does SE have a problem with dragons?

What do you think?

[Mentalist]

Sigh...
power is always relative
repeat; power is aleways relative.

1) Silanah and the Andii soletaken are fighting the greates Jahut Tyrant ever--the strongest among his race.

2) Rake veers, and so does the demon. Don't remember the specifics, but its dragon v. Dragon.

3) The Witches of the Dead Seed use CG's chaos power. And Rake wipes out several k of Tenescowri with a single sweep, then focuses all power on the chaos witches. when he sembles, it's to Dragnipur' them, to get their powerful souls to work on his wagon.

4) Scabby just fought an army of K'Chain and he faces off against TWO EGs. Overkill? I think so.

5) QB had the element of surprise. He brought them down with his rock spikes, at which point they started a dragon catfight.then Hedge threw a cusser at them, and Moranth munitions don't go well with magic. Also, Sukul got out just fine, and was later only killed,b/c the two Bonecasters had the element of surprise.

6) Scabby got owned by 2 cussers. He had no idea wtf a cusser is. Power is relative.

Also, you forget Olar Ethil, biggest dragon out there. she never gets owned, and she has power for sure--Kulp feels it channeled through him in DG.

So, in conclusion, power is always relative.

[thesalus]

Yes, yes he does. (In a way)

Quote

You ask for more on the Crimson Guard and on dragons. Here's a secret truth -- I don't like fantasies all about dragons. Never did. Or, more precisely, I don't much like what's been done to them to date. They're not horses, dammit! And I'm not a fan of the AD&D version, either. I never bought breathing fire or any other technically absurd ability. It strikes me (and maybe not with any claim to originality either) that a dragon can only exist via the essence of magic. That's how they fly. That's how they attack. And, by extension, that's how they think and see the world. Thus far, we've been on the edge. They're always busy doing their own stuff. At the same time, they will become much more relevant later in the series. Hopefully in an original way.

Link

[Optimus Prime]

thesalus;283676 said:

Yes, yes he does. (In a way)



Link

Thesalus has it absolutely right. SE hates how Dragons have been turned into flying horses who breath fire. He doesn't like the Dragonlance Idea of dragons, or many other fantasy author's views.

[Sinisdar Toste]

i was actually gonna start a thread at some point discussing the various treatments of dragons in fantasy novels. i agree that the traditional flying human vehicle that breathes death is somewhat hackneyed and cliche. that being said i really enjoyed anne mccaffreys twisting of that role into a mutual bond for survival in her pern series. granted the dragons were genetically engineered from a smaller species, but very original nonetheless.

SE takes the top spot of course, for dragons in his book are much more than anyone else has ever thought of in a fantasy setting, it's not even very clear exactly what their role is yet, but we do have edgewalkers assurances that "dragon are at the heart of all that is to come"

[Aptorian]

Spectrum;283669 said:

Hello.

I've been thinking... does SE not like dragons?

We have met several dragons in the books, and while they're always described as fearsome and powerful, they seem to be quite ineffectual when seen in actual combat. Consider the evidence:

1. Gardens of the Moon: Silanah and four Tiste Andii Draconean Soletaken challenge Raest. He chases them off.
2. Gardens of the Moon: Anomander Rake veers into draconean form and flies over Darujhistan, but he doesn't accomplish anything, and AFAIR sembles back to humanoid form to fight the Malazan demon.
3. Memories of Ice: Anomander Rake veers into draconean form to harry the Tenescowri, which should be a trivial task. But Anaster somehow poisons him, and Rake shies away. Then he sembles in order to kill the witches.
4. Reaper's Gale: In the prologue, Scabandari Bloodeye, in draconean form, fights Kilmandaros and Mael, and is killed.
5. Reaper's Gale: Menandore, Sheltatha Lore and Sukul Ankhadu face two measly humans (Quick Ben and Hedge), and all three end up badly wounded and getting killed soon after.
6. Reaper's Gale: In the ultimate anticlimax to this book, Silchas Ruin faces (again) a bunch of measly humans and gets his butt handed to him.

What gives? Does SE have a problem with dragons?

What do you think?

I'll add a few points to Kuds list,

1: As far as I remember, only one of the dragons fighting Raest is a true Eleint, that would be Silannah. And of course, they're just dragons. Dragons are impressive in silly medieval fantasy settings like Hobb and GRRMs storries because you only have trebuches and knights in shinning armor to fight them. In Eriksons world they're up against a motherfucking Tyrant. A creature that beggers gods, rules continents and makes kings.

2, Like Ruins apprehension about veering in RG, Rake has enough sense to change back into humanoid form before they destroy half the city. No matter what, the Andii Soletaken are strongest in their draconian form.

3. Rake just disentigrated a couples thousand people and sent a peasant army of 300.000 on the run. The reason to why Anaster hurts him is that the child does possess some power. He'd completely corrupt, anathema to life or something, he burns the skin of the dragon.

4. One dragon against freaking Kilmandaros and Mael? Two Elder Gods, one of them so scary she has to be mindfucked otherwise she SMASHES HER WAY OUT OF AN AZATH!, Elder Gods in their prime, hundreds of thousands of years before the younger gods and warrens emerge.

Scabby was an idiot and he was weakened by the KCCM battle aswell, something Ruin also realised.

5. Quick won that engagement because the dragons were arrogant and sure in their victory. They weren't even prepared. I'll compare what QB did to the american forces in Iraq. Imagine 3 M1 tanks rolling down a road in Baghdad, three fucking armored death machines able to desintegrate a couple of blocks in short order. Then suddenly roadside bombs go off, lifting them up tearing their tracks and imobilising them and a barage of anti-tank rockets are thrown into them.

Did the tanks lose because they were less power full than 5 humans with explosives or because they were caught unaware?

6. Again, Ruin is unsuspecting. He thinks he's arriving to a city that sleeps, instead he finds a city under siege. He expects no more resistance than what he got in the eldertimes, instead there's a fucking crazyman with a crossbow of death waiting for him. And his crazy friend with 12 warrens.

[Venerus]

Aptorian;283702 said:

1: As far as I remember, only one of the dragons fighting Raest is a true Eleint, that would be Silannah. And of course, they're just dragons. Dragons are impressive in silly medieval fantasy settings like Hobb and GRRMs storries because you only have trebuches and knights in shinning armor to fight them. In Eriksons world they're up against a motherfucking Tyrant. A creature that beggers gods, rules continents and makes kings.

Interesting that you list the making of kings as the third demonstration of Raest's powers. That would imply you think it the greatest -- are you a bit of a rex-o-phobe, Apt?

[Optimus Prime]

About Ruin losing to QB and the other BB's, Kud's absolutely right, he has no idea that the cusser is going TO FUCKING EXPLODE.

Ruin's been locked up for so long, he's going to have to re-learn everything. It isn't the same world that he was imprisoned in.

[Mentalist]

Thanks to Apt + Xander for eloquent support of my points

ANd seriously, this is why I dislike all those "10 most powerful beings/fighters/mages/you-name-them" threads--they're all ridiculously relative. SE makes an effort to make it similar to out own world--all things are relative. and "power is relative", when applied to the malazan setting, should be as much of a mantra as "the role in the reading =/= place in the house"

[amphibian]

kud13;283715 said:

Thanks to Apt + Xander for eloquent support of my points

ANd seriously, this is why I dislike all those "10 most powerful beings/fighters/mages/you-name-them" threads--they're all ridiculously relative. SE makes an effort to make it similar to out own world--all things are relative. and "power is relative", when applied to the malazan setting, should be as much of a mantra as "the role in the reading =/= place in the house"

What those threads do is allow generous people like Dancer to slowly guide the fanboys onto the path of righteous reading. Listing isn't evil, but if done right, it lets nuance into the discussion and lets people hear things they've forgotten or missed and see things in a new light.

However, there's no argument against Biggie as the best rapper of all time.

[Gwynn ap Nudd]

kud13;283673 said:

Sigh...
power is always relative
repeat; power is aleways relative.

1) Silanah and the Andii soletaken are fighting the greates Jahut Tyrant ever--the strongest among his race.

2) Rake veers, and so does the demon. Don't remember the specifics, but its dragon v. Dragon.

3) The Witches of the Dead Seed use CG's chaos power. And Rake wipes out several k of Tenescowri with a single sweep, then focuses all power on the chaos witches. when he sembles, it's to Dragnipur' them, to get their powerful souls to work on his wagon.

4) Scabby just fought an army of K'Chain and he faces off against TWO EGs. Overkill? I think so.

5) QB had the element of surprise. He brought them down with his rock spikes, at which point they started a dragon catfight.then Hedge threw a cusser at them, and Moranth munitions don't go well with magic. Also, Sukul got out just fine, and was later only killed,b/c the two Bonecasters had the element of surprise.

6) Scabby got owned by 2 cussers. He had no idea wtf a cusser is. Power is relative.

Also, you forget Olar Ethil, biggest dragon out there. she never gets owned, and she has power for sure--Kulp feels it channeled through him in DG.

So, in conclusion, power is always relative.

I think this proves nothing more than that dragons aren't very powerful in terms of SE's universe.

To add to the OP's list we have also seen a number of dead and imprisoned dragons. Rake, the ascendant soletaken andi, along with the help of one elder goddess, stomps uncounted dragons in cleansing shadow.

A trio of imprisoned dragons, two ghost dragons and a crucified dragon all make appearances in the last few books. Basically, dragons get stomped and die all over the place.

We have yet to see a main character actually be seriously scared of a dragon
IIRC, and we haven't seen any dragon other than Rake (who also happens to be one of Mother Dark's first children and could be a god if he wanted to) actually win a fight.

Point by point

1) I do not remember ever seeing anything stating Raest was "the geates [sic] Jahut Tyrant ever--the strongest among his race." He was a powerful tyrant. If there is a quote please add it. Regardless, in many fantasy worlds, dragons are the penultimate and any other race's best would still fall short.

2-4) I don't think the OP had a relevant argument.

5) There should have been no underestimation of QB on the part of the tiste soletaken. Only one of them had been cut of from events, and if they can underestimate a mage that much they should have died a long time ago.

6) Once again, that a cusser is that powerful against magic/a dragon is only in the SE universe. This would have been shrugged of by any dragon (not just one who, like Rake, is one of the first children of the creatr diety and could probably be a god if he wanted).

[Illuyankas]

Don't forget the scene in the MT prologue where Ruin, after tearing a Matron into eety beety pieces, goes off in draconian form and blows the shit out of more than one skykeep by himself. Fully-powered and crewed skykeeps, after taking on one of the strongest entities we've heard of.

Incidentally, I'd think some good anti-KCCM tactics would be to avoid the Matron's sorcery as much as you can until you kill as many of her spawn as you can before killing her. Assuming a Matron's sorcery can be dodged without moving continents.

[amphibian]

Gwynn ap Nudd;283819 said:

1) I do not remember ever seeing anything stating Raest was "the geates [sic] Jahut Tyrant ever--the strongest among his race." He was a powerful tyrant. If there is a quote please add it. Regardless, in many fantasy worlds, dragons are the penultimate and any other race's best would still fall short.

Raest was, if I recall correctly, the reason the Tlan Imass became T'Lan. I did a quick search and found what I believe to be an old post on this forum - perhaps written by someone named Calot. Here's an edited version:

Quote

He once had an empire of thousands of enslaved Imass, who worshipped him. He is mentioned in both Gothos' Folly (Gothos) and Rumour Born (Fisher). Mammot was the expert on him.

Chapter 10
> Tattersail talks to Bellurdan. He tells her that in some scrolls of Gothos' Folly mention is made of a Jaghut Tyrant who "enslaved the land around it- all living things- for close to three thousand years" (p331).

Book 5 - Chapter 14
> Tool tells Lorn about how he intends to enter the barrow, by using the Tellan warren. He also tells her Raest is "capable of destroying this continent. It can slave all living upon it" (p447).

> We learn Raest's history (591-3). His mother proclaimed the Sundering of Blood to cut her ties with him. Trying to control other Jaghut was not successful neither was trying to control nature. In his anger he "laid waste to the land, driving into extinction many species". Then he came across the Imass, while they were still mortal. He managed to control an empire of Imass until other Jaghut came together to destroy his empire and to imprison him.

Chapter 22
> Raest manages to drive the dragons away, and tries to kill Silanah (p632) but instead walks into one of Kruppe's dreams and finds himself helpless. Here Tool attacks him with his sword and K'rul tries to talk him round "In this age even a mortal can kill you" (p635). Instead he moves into Mammot's body, which he had managed to take possession of after all in the barrow.

In short, Raest was so powerful and malevolent that the Jaghut, as a race, and T'Lan Imass put aside their differences and imprisoned him. Even without the bulk of his power (in the Finnest), he smacked down four dragons and fended off absurd amounts of magic and just barely failed to escape the Azath.

Gwynn ap Nudd;283819 said:

5) There should have been no underestimation of QB on the part of the tiste soletaken. Only one of them had been cut of from events, and if they can underestimate a mage that much they should have died a long time ago.

I am not sure, but I believe the two that were not imprisoned spent most of their time on Lether, where the Holds are still the way people do magic. Quick Ben works through warrens and perhaps that was the key to his successful attacks on the the dragons.

[Mentalist]

Actually, the Imass became T'lan AFTER the imprisonment of Raest--in the prologue of MoI the Jaghut Mother recalls being on of those who helped to imprison him--and hten the Imass turned against them

[Aptorian]

Gwynn ap Nudd;283819 said:

6) Once again, that a cusser is that powerful against magic/a dragon is only in the SE universe. This would have been shrugged of by any dragon (not just one who, like Rake, is one of the first children of the creatr diety and could probably be a god if he wanted).

I mostly disagree with what you're saying in the abpve post, Nudd, but this point doesn't even make sense.

"Only in the SE universe", what does this mean? I didn't think we were discussing dragons outside the Malazan books since THAT WOULD MAKE NO SENSE

In what fantasy world, where you have any kind of logic, is a dragon able to survive a magic destroying explosion that can blow up a building? Most fanatsy dragons I know can be killed with siege weapons, so when you throw a claymore mine in their face, it ought to hurt. In any rate the three sisters and the tiste brothers are special. If you notice neither the impact of the explosive munitions or the power of the magical waves is enough to kill them or incapacitate them. Serious bodydamage only slows them, it's only after decapitation/brain mushing or complete obliteration that they are dead.

[Cougar]

Gwynn ap Nudd;283819 said:

5) There should have been no underestimation of QB on the part of the tiste soletaken. Only one of them had been cut of from events, and if they can underestimate a mage that much they should have died a long time ago.

6) Once again, that a cusser is that powerful against magic/a dragon is only in the SE universe. This would have been shrugged of by any dragon (not just one who, like Rake, is one of the first children of the creatr diety and could probably be a god if he wanted).

Point 5) You're wrong, QB isn't a celebrity, most of his friends don't know the level of his power, he has kept himself well hidden and shys away from overt displays of power to specifically not attract unwanted attention. Moreover, as stated the siters have not necessarily been anywhere that they would have learned about QB.

6) What? Well that makes no sense, we are in the SE universe end of story.

The treatment of dragons is part of the continuing theme which is that elder power whilst incredibly potent and elemental can be out thought and out gunned by supposed lesser magic and ingenuity. Personally I feel that SE is attempting to break with the traditional modes of fantasy (he's said it enough times) where Elder = powerful, younger = weak.

[Svaran]

thesalus;283676 said:

Yes, yes he does. (In a way)



Link

So basically he see's dragons the way that they are portrayed in the classic Earthsea series.

[Gwynn ap Nudd]

Cougar;283934 said:

Point 5) You're wrong, QB isn't a celebrity, most of his friends don't know the level of his power, he has kept himself well hidden and shys away from overt displays of power to specifically not attract unwanted attention. Moreover, as stated the siters have not necessarily been anywhere that they would have learned about QB.

6) What? Well that makes no sense, we are in the SE universe end of story.

The treatment of dragons is part of the continuing theme which is that elder power whilst incredibly potent and elemental can be out thought and out gunned by supposed lesser magic and ingenuity. Personally I feel that SE is attempting to break with the traditional modes of fantasy (he's said it enough times) where Elder = powerful, younger = weak.

5) It's not an issue of any of them knowing QB specifically, it's about knowing the power a human mage could possess. It seems pretty clear there have been some vastly powerful ones kicking around off and on for thousands of years.

6) Considering the point is that dragons are portrayed as being weaker in SEs universe as compared to others, comparisons to other fantasy are definately relevant.

While it may be part of the continuing theme, the theme doesn't always hold true. Younger powers have yet to show they can go toe to toe with jaghut, the KCCM, T'lan Imass (possibly excepting Assail once we find out what's going on there), etc.

[Venerus]

Gwynn ap Nudd;285367 said:

While it may be part of the continuing theme, the theme doesn't always hold true. Younger powers have yet to show they can go toe to toe with jaghut, the KCCM, T'lan Imass (possibly excepting Assail once we find out what's going on there), etc.

Jaghut -- Raest. Kruppe wins.
KCCM -- The Seguleh
T'lan Imass -- Karsa, Hedge

[Mentalist]

Gwynn ap Nudd;285367 said:

5) It's not an issue of any of them knowing QB specifically, it's about knowing the power a human mage could possess. It seems pretty clear there have been some vastly powerful ones kicking around off and on for thousands of years.

6) Considering the point is that dragons are portrayed as being weaker in SEs universe as compared to others, comparisons to other fantasy are definately relevant.

While it may be part of the continuing theme, the theme doesn't always hold true. Younger powers have yet to show they can go toe to toe with jaghut, the KCCM, T'lan Imass (possibly excepting Assail once we find out what's going on there), etc.

T'lan Imass themselves admit that the time of uber-powers is gone--when they ask Silverfox to release them in MoI, they say that "times have changed and no single tyrant is capable of conquering the entire world anymore"
this goes hand in hand with the theme that old powerhouses that build up a reputation no longer get challenged, so they can grow decadent while retaining their reputation--untill they're smacked down with reality all of a sudden, which is what happened with QB and the sisters.