[Optimus Prime]

Exactly. All these ideas that any king/emperor/whatever could be a "good guy" or "nice" are silly because you have to be somewhat insane to want to be in charge in the first place.

You're talking about cutting the heart out of your numerous opponents and conquered provinces to keep control. That's not some fluffy character who likes kissing babies.

[Ammanas]

Xander;302156 said:

Back to the original topic, ST and Cot maybe thought that Dassem would take over the Empire....or hoped rather...and Laseen just jumped at the chance.

I thought that might be the case but --Cot's behavior on Drift Avalii seemed weird concerning Traveller. On the one hand, he seemed to avoid him and on the other he was insistent that Cutter give Vengeance to him.

Spoiler

I wondered(before reading NOK) whether Dassem might hold a grudge against Laseen's attempt to kill him. After all, he was all poised to ride off in the sunset and had Kell still actively been the Emperor, Dassem could have done just that without taking a bolt in the chest.

I thought that might be the motivation for avoiding a face to face with Dassem on ST/COT's part.

[amphibian]

I have always believed that Shadowthrone and Cotillion have been pretending to hate Laseen. I think that as new rulers of Shadow, they were not powerful enough to stand up to some of the more belligerent gods and pretended to be all up in Laseen's bizness to seem stupid and not important for a while.

They also got some bonuses out of the ruse: Kalam possibly close to ascension and in the Deadhouse, Apsalar went up a few levels, Paran is Master of the Deck, the horse tribes have been welded to Tavore's army, the Perish are allies and there are a few hundred less troops and assassins not under Laseen's direct control.

If this is a retcon, it's one of the best I've ever seen at creating more subtlety - accidental or not.

[Optimus Prime]

Oh ST and Cot have definitely had a hand in who became Master of the Deck and the strengthening of the Empire, though they still may not want Surly in charge.

They're trying to have their cake and eat it as well. Become Gods and rule as many realms as possible while at the same time still manipulating the moral realm as much as possible.

All for the grand scheme of controlling all thrones/warrens to challenge the CG?

[Mentalist]

Hmm
I'm not too sure about their connection to MotD--after all, Tattersail was supposed to become it, plus ST didn't seem too happy to be talking to Paran in tBH...

[Optimus Prime]

They wanted it to be a Malazan though, so they took what they could get. And when do you see Shadowthrone happy with anyone?

[Mentalist]

he was unhappy with the existance of a master as such, afaik....

[Ammanas]

kud13;302616 said:

he was unhappy with the existance of a master as such, afaik....

Yeah, "just the idea of a Master of the Deck makes me nauseous." was the quote, IIRC.

Why? Probably for the same reason he hates the Nameless Ones. Cuz ST doesn't like his secret schemes unimpeded and/or his attention diverted because as we've heard, "he's busy!"

Seriously, any one who has the rep Kell had as Emperor isn't going to like answering to anyone or being forced to do things like releasing the Hounds to prevent the Deragoth from trashing his realm.

[Shayed]

phart;301497 said:

Well written theory and could be right, problem is it could just be a mistake which happens from time to time in the series, for example rereading BH a couple of weeks ago, and at the start(of the book) Bottle is saying how he is really,really bad at illusions, he is watching someone else preparing for the seige and thinks how bad he is, then 500 pages later he is showing QB how to do it, before the e'seral (sp?) takes over.

These sorts of mistakes creep through in this series so it is hard sometimes to see if it is deliberate placement or an actual error.

I don't think Bottle is showing QB how to make the illusion itself, I think he's showing him how Hold-magic would look like. He does know more about Hold-magic than QB does. Iirc, he thinks QB is moving to fast with the illusion or something...

I could be wrong though...

[Optimus Prime]

Shadowthrone (or any of the Gods for that matter) wouldn't like a Master of the Deck because he is outside their influence. I'm just saying that IF there had to be a MotD, they wanted it to be Malazan.

I'm hoping we get a big insight into ST's true scheme in TtH, it will most likely answer a lot of our questions about just exactly what he is doing.

[Mentalist]

To be absolutely honest, with all the stuff going on, Shadowthrone's schemes are one of the last items I'd like to know more about. There are lots of other things that interest me more.

[phart]

Shayed;302740 said:

I don't think Bottle is showing QB how to make the illusion itself, I think he's showing him how Hold-magic would look like. He does know more about Hold-magic than QB does. Iirc, he thinks QB is moving to fast with the illusion or something...

I could be wrong though...

good point, never thought of it that way. Might be.

[Veilside]

Ammanas;301184 said:

I've always had this uneasy feeling that there was something strange about the animosity between Laseen and ST. Here's why:

1)In NOK, prior to the showdown, ST's sending tells Tays, "Anyone upstairs is a participant." During the showdown, Tays and co. are downstairs and ST's presence is described as "an overwhelming sense of pressure and a gravid deadly presence too large to grant her notice. A droplet of blood fell from Tays's nose." Sounds similar to what Paran experienced when Rake found him on the plains. The point being, a warren was opened, Rashan probably.

2) After the showdown, Tays goes upstairs and notes reddish dust on the floor. Well, it couldn't have been there when ST was, otherwise his warren wouldn't have worked.

1)At the beginning of GoTM, Lorn basically figures out the Rope's scheme within the first 30 pages. The pair who started the Malazan Empire couldn't be so careless unless ascension is a path to stupidity.

2) If ST/Cot wanted Laseen dead so badly, then it would have been most expedient to send the then seven Hounds after her. Who would have stopped them? Lorn? The Claw? Bah..both would have been dogfood in under ten seconds. Tays--not a chance against all seven. Or why bother with all that--ST appears in Malaz City without any hesitation--the Rope could surely do the same, appear wherever Laseen is and kill her.

3) Some would argue that sending the Hounds after her would have created a war against the Shadow realm or at least focused unwanted attention on it. Maybe but the fact that ST/COT were Kell/Dancer is a really, really poorly kept secret. In any event, the Rope killing her without any Hound caused collateral damage would remove the attention factor.

To make a long post just a bit longer--my conclusion/guess is ST and COT were already ascendants before the showdown--otherwise I don't see how COT in particular could have survived the fall. There was no chance they wouldn't survive the confrontation. My final guess is they knew ascension meant losing the Malazan throne but didn't want Laseen to be Empress. Maybe they thought Tays would take her out and that's why ST proclaims his hatred for Tays at the end of BH.

1. Obviously she threw down the o-dust once Kellanved was in the same room as her, it wasn't all spread about the place in advance.

2. I imagine Lorn would know exactly who ST and Cot are, certainly Laseen would and Tays definitely does at that point. I doubt Laseen would not notice something fishy about 2 new gods appearing the day after she's supposedly killed K and D. It certainly isn't hard to imagine that Lorn would know what house the hounds are linked with, and she could piece it together from there.

3.Maybe they didn't actually want to kill her, they've had ample opportunity to, but thenI also imagine that because Laseen knows exactly who they are she'd make sure she was protected against them and always has very good guards around her.

And I think ST hates Tays just because he's loyal to the Empire, not the throne.

[Ellestra]

I’ve said it before as I’m little obsessed by this – I think it’s just one big fake out.

I think ST and Laseen are actually working together and just pretending to be enemies.

It’s all very suspicious. Those assassinations that led nowhere. Pretend deaths. Ignoring facts.

I think by NoK both Emperor and Dancer were ascendands. They used the Azath and Shadowmoon to claim Meneas and become Gods. They could no longer rule in mortal realm because of other Gods. So they pretended to be overthrown – otherwise the others would suspect they still rule with Surly just a proxy. If they just left Empire to her other would never believe she is making decisions now. A regent not ruler.

There was something fishy with all those assassination attempts. Not only they didn’t succeed but Laseen knew it and didn’t do anything. She pretended they are all dead (Dassem too) while knowing it was otherwise. She even tells Tay, when he voices his doubts about Epmeror and Dancer’s death, that they are death because she says so.

I think it was all planned – the burst of Emperor’s magic, the otataral to counter it, the window jump.
Same with Sorry – ‘we plan to kill Empress but never even get anywhere close to her’. So everyone knows who ST and Rope used to be and how they hate Laseen and want to kill her. But was she ever in any real danger?

All as real as outlawing Dujek’s army.

[Dancer+]

I agree with Ellestra.

If Dancer wanted to kill Surly then he would have. I'm sorry but anything to the contrary is obsurd. In NoK in the room of Otataral Dancer and Kellanved killed, I believe, thirteen or fourteen claw at once. This was before Dancer got his rope too? There are countless other tales of his prowess.

They have a plan. Although ST has been pulling off a pretty good, I hate Laseen and want to kill her but I'm not going to act.

[Aptorian]

Two problems with your theory.

Why attempt to kill Dassem if it wasn't a real coup? It was originally Dancer, Kel and Dassem. They'd let him in on it if they made such an arrangement with Surly. NoK clearly shows that Surly was trying to kill him. You can't spin it in any other way. Dassem was not having any part of any game in that tent.

Why try and hide Sorry if the Empress was in on the game? Do you suspect other gods of having spies in the Malazan empires upper ranks? I hardly think so. It's not like Tay had a farming community killed so that he could pretend to be a flagcarrier.

[Dancer+]

I'll just throw a few things into light: Dassem was too powerful and had too much support for Surly to let linger, either way you spin it, Laseen is paranoid in the same way Kellanved is. The knowledge that Dassem might still be alive would have kept rumours in the air surrounding his whereabouts etc. Secrecy/getting Dassem out of the way worked favourably for both Laseen and Dassem, so below the depths it could have been a set up. Not beyond the question.

And as far as I'm concerned, Kellanved and Dassem Ultor never talked about anything in this vein. Dancer could always keep his mouth shut, I could easily see how Dassem wouldn't have been included. He wasn't needed...it's the Kellanved way.

The whole Sorry issue was complicated, in GotM, and it could have been done for various reasons. Why would Shadowthrone tell Laseen he had implemented this, much better to keep it as secret as possible. Absolute measures to be safe. We don't know the depths of their "alleged" plan, it could be a rough outline, not a step-by-step guide.

[D'rek]

Not a chance, in my opinion. There is far too much evidence against the idea of Surly being in on the conspiracy in the way they act, the things they do, etc.

Besides, this is Erikson, things have to be much more complex then a simple pre-arranged spectacle. I'd be more inclined to think that Surly knew Kel and Dancer were expecting her to attack them, and she knew they were coming anyway, and she even knew why they were doing so. She knew what they would do upon returning, and she knew that they knew what she would do when they returned. A big web of knowing what everyone was doing, but it was mutually beneficial to everyone in most ways and so they all went ahead with it, with only slight and subtle variations.

[Dancer+]

That's the idea, just for clarification when I'm defending this theory. I'm defending the theory that they are pursuing a mutual shared interest rather than they sat down and made a plan. They know what eachother is doing and they aren't interfering, and that basically equates to large similarities between the two situations.

[Ellestra]

Aptorian;313877 said:

Two problems with your theory.

Why attempt to kill Dassem if it wasn't a real coup? It was originally Dancer, Kel and Dassem. They'd let him in on it if they made such an arrangement with Surly. NoK clearly shows that Surly was trying to kill him. You can't spin it in any other way. Dassem was not having any part of any game in that tent.

Attempt on Dassem was as fishy as the one on the Emperor and Dancer.
Dassem wanted out but there was no way he could've just pack and leave. Not someone of his repute. And then there's a very convenient assassination attempt and everyone thinks his dead so he can go and travel the world not bothered by anyone.
However Surly, who tried yo killed him, knows he survived but pretends he died and does nothing to pursue him.

Aptorian;313877 said:

Why try and hide Sorry if the Empress was in on the game? Do you suspect other gods of having spies in the Malazan empires upper ranks? I hardly think so. It's not like Tay had a farming community killed so that he could pretend to be a flagcarrier.

To make the attempt more plausible. I don't think they meet to discuss every detail of the plan. Just general outlines were planned earlier. Everyone has to work out the details for themselves.
Not in the ranks but priests are everywhere. And other gods are watching their every move.
Tay's just a mortal. Stakes are not that high.