[The Dark Wanderer]

This train of thought was started by Apt in another thread somewhere, but is mainly based around the prologue and this book so...

We know Apsalar'a is trapped in Dragnipur in the prologue. Apt mentioned that this explaisn why she's been missing from the pantheon for so long, but what about her brief re-appearance 100 years ago? Was she off wandering somewhere, came back and got Dragnipur'ed ? In which case where was she beforehand? Or did someone pretend to be her for some convulted reason? In which case who, why and what on Wu is she likely to think about that when she eventually gets out (yes I'm assuming she does)?

Any thoughts, oh wise ones?

EDIT:

Also interestingly both the Eres'al and Apsalar'a seem to have stolen fire.

[Mentalist]

could you please refresh my memory re: when was she last seen?
from what I gathered from the prologue, she got Dragnipur'ed for sneaking around the Moon's spawn, but hat could be totally and utterly wrong, ofc...

[SiriusL]

"BH UK Tpb, on p.40", said:

'..the Mistress of Thieves, who had vanished from the pantheon long ago, although, if the legends of Darujhistan held any truth, she had reappeared briefly less than a century past, only to vanish a second time.'

'An Imass? There are no iconic representations of the Mistress - which is odd enough, possibly a prohibition enforced by the temples. What are her symbols? oh yes. Footprints. And a veil'

Could be that she was wanted by Rake, and that's why she vanished. When she reappeared 100 years ago, he found her and imprisoned her. From her POV scene in the Prologue, it's hard to tell how long she'd been there. I'd almost argue that she seems to be a pretty recent addition.

[Adjutant Stormy~]

As I recall she was the (ex)-patron of the city of Y'Ghatan. Which, if my memory serves (and it usually doesn't) is thousands, thousands, upon thousands of years old. Upon thousands.

She could have been bouncing around that time. I then echo the sentiment- when did she reappear? -EDIT: Oh.

[Mentalist]

No, Y'ghatan's patron deity was a goddes of olives/olive oil, that was later replaced by QoD...She had a complicated name, beginning with "S"...
As for Darujhistan legend... not sure how credible that would be, really.

[Bauchelain the Evil]

The patron of Y'Ghatan is Scalissaraand yeah we don't know how much credible is the Darjuisatan legend.

[Nequam]

I think they do hold some truth.
And I also think we will find this out (or some of it) during her plot-line in TtH.

I want to know what she plans on doing once she gets out. Assuming she does.

[Venerus]

The Dark Wanderer;302736 said:

This train of thought was started by Apt in another thread somewhere, but is mainly based around the prologue and this book so...

We know Apsalar'a is trapped in Dragnipur in the prologue. Apt mentioned that this explaisn why she's been missing from the pantheon for so long, but what about her brief re-appearance 100 years ago? Was she off wandering somewhere, came back and got Dragnipur'ed ? In which case where was she beforehand? Or did someone pretend to be her for some convulted reason? In which case who, why and what on Wu is she likely to think about that when she eventually gets out (yes I'm assuming she does)?

Any thoughts, oh wise ones?

EDIT:

Also interestingly both the Eres'al and Apsalar'a seem to have stolen fire.

As Sirius pointed out, it's from tBH that we hear she was around, disappeared, was around again about a century ago, then vanished. No info as to why, or if it was even actually her. One possibility: The Nerek. Which leads to the second comment...

Apsalar is the daughter of the Eres'al (in genealogy, at least, and literally according to Nerek legends). The Nerek worship both of them. The Eres stole fire from someone, Apsalar stole fire from the Eres, and it got passed down to the Nerek somehow. Possibly, the Nerek legend is just based on the fact that Eres --> Imass --> Nerek. This is all from MT, btw.

[Abyss]

i'm thinking someone else took on the identity for the last appearance - that or an Apsalar time travel story in the future.

Apsalara is a non-Ritual'd Imass, which in itself is perplexing. She may have been amongst the seagoing clans who missed then Tellan Ritual, then subsequently ascended.

It would seem the only way to end up imprisonned in Dragnipur is by Rake stabbing you, and it seems odd that he would have stabbed a 'mere' thief, considering he's relatively selective with the sword when we see him use it (mages who betrayed him, demon lords trying to kill him, crazed dead seed witches...). I wonder what she did to so totally piss him off... perhaps she tried to steal the sword itself; that would be fitting irony and explain what she was doing on Moon's Spawn.

I liked her in that brief scene in the prologue. The image of this female imass ensconsced above an axle patiently scraping away at her chain adds an additional element to the usual image of inside Dragnipur.

- Abyss, wonders at the Eres link but suspects that's just mythology at work...

[Ammanas]

Abyss;303335 said:

i'm thinking someone else took on the identity for the last appearance - that or an Apsalar time travel story in the future.

Apsalara is a non-Ritual'd Imass, which in itself is perplexing. She may have been amongst the seagoing clans who missed then Tellan Ritual, then subsequently ascended.

It would seem the only way to end up imprisonned in Dragnipur is by Rake stabbing you, and it seems odd that he would have stabbed a 'mere' thief, considering he's relatively selective with the sword when we see him use it (mages who betrayed him, demon lords trying to kill him, crazed dead seed witches...). I wonder what she did to so totally piss him off... perhaps she tried to steal the sword itself; that would be fitting irony and explain what she was doing on Moon's Spawn.

In GoTM, Lorn recalls that the T'lan Imass are unable or unwilling to penetrate Moon's Spawn. Well, obviously, they are unwilling as Apsalar'a traveled there. Only way to get there is to the dust trick, right? So how can she have missed the Ritual?

Maybe she tried to steal Moon's Spawn itself, that might make him mad enough to veer, fly up there and kill her. Can you imagine the humiliation he'd suffer from Osric and everyone else? Rake, you LOST a skykeep? How could you lose a skykeep?

Rake doesn't know all its secrets but Apsalar'a might have discovered some of them.

[Aptorian]

Why would "dust-travel" be the only way for her to get into the moon? There's plenty other ways for her to have got up there - spells, warren travel, using flying beasts/insects, somehow hooking on to the moon with a grapeling hook, etc.

[Mentalist]

exactly--I mean, Kalam was climbing one, and he can't do Dust-tricks...

EDIT: incidentally, can her re-emergence foreshadow that Cutter the assassin will become Crokus the thief again?

[Aptorian]

but he did get help from Quick/Cots

[Mentalist]

yes, but she was a GODDESS...
plus, proffessional thief--I mean, honestly...

[SiriusL]

I'm thinking trampoline. We don't see enough of those in fantasy books anymore...

[Abyss]

SiriusL;303366 said:

I'm thinking trampoline. We don't see enough of those in fantasy books anymore...

If i ever write a fantasy novel, i'm totally including a Trampoline of Bouncing.

- Abyss, boing!

[D'rek]

or she made friends with a K'Chain and the lizard reversed gravity for her so she "fell" on Moon's spawn...

[Abyss]

Now that i think about it, the prologue does NOT state whether she's undead or not, or even whether she's Imass. We have only Telorast and Curdle's say-so on that, and they were insane.

And going one step further, we don't know whether Crockus' taking up 'Apsalar' as a patron goddess was the original imass or whoever reappeared in Darujhistan a hudredn years pre-books, or even if the two are the same...

So yes, there could very well be THREE Apsalar(a)s, and Crockus and the dragon lizard ghosts may not have been ref'ing the same one.


- Abyss,.... or AM i....?

[Ammanas]

Abyss;303522 said:

Now that i think about it, the prologue does NOT state whether she's undead or not, or even whether she's Imass. We have only Telorast and Curdle's say-so on that, and they were insane.

And going one step further, we don't know whether Crockus' taking up 'Apsalar' as a patron goddess was the original imass or whoever reappeared in Darujhistan a hudredn years pre-books, or even if the two are the same...

So yes, there could very well be THREE Apsalar(a)s, and Crockus and the dragon lizard ghosts may not have been ref'ing the same one.


- Abyss,.... or AM i....?

If there are three Apsalar'a, I'm grabbing the first one I see and slamming her face first, over and over, into the trampoline and watching her bounce higher and higher until she smacks into the underside of Moon's Spawn, dying from the impact. Oh, wait..Rake drowned Moon's Spawn. Well, any skykeep will do. Then we will be back to two Apsalar'a.!

How that's for a freakin WIN???

[Mentalist]

wrong thread, you FAIL...

to avoid spamming, there would clearly be TWO Apsalar'as and only ONE Apsalar--the post-Cotillion fishergirl....