[bhok'arala]

that's not terrifying. just...disturbing. i guess we'll really know when the world is ending then...

[Abyss]

In the MoI prologue we see Kilava just post-giving birth to her son, presumably that she hid in the Refugium or else he ended up there eventually.

(there's a bit of a timeline issue there, because the human First Empire wouldn't have been around at the time of the MoI prologue, and it was the failed FE shapeshifter Ritual that caused the Bonecaster to dump her clan's souls into/next to Starvald Demelain where they populated the Refugium - so was Kilava/Onrack's son alone in there for millenia? More likely he was somewhere else until he moved there eventually....the timeline is not important, the timeline is not important...)

Point being, there's your pregnant Imass and since we could assume Kilava and Onrack will be making up for a few hundred thou years of abstinence, we may yet see it again....


Btw, iirc it was the domination and subsequent overthrow of several Jaghut Tyrants that led to the Imass Jihads against the Jaghut race. The Imass were the agressors only in that they got tired of being subjugated and decided genocide was a logical way to prevent that.


I still think the Whilrwind Goddess was rambling and the human race didn't originate with Onrack and Kilava.

Back to the Tasse, what the above does show is that races can evolve and crossbreed, and just for good measure, certain elements of races can show up generations after the race has otherwise ceased to exist as a living breathing gene pool.

So what are the Tasse? We have basically two theories...

A splinter of the Deragoth domesticated Eres race, left behind when the Deragoth went wherever; or,

A lost tribe of Tiste.


But given the history of species crossbreeding and even the timetravel element, the Tasse could as easily be some variation of both or neither.

I come back to the whole 'this realm could not nourish them' thing... that just doesn't strike me as a food supply issue. Something was fundamentally wrong for them, which goes back to an other-warren link.


- Abyss, like Darwin with better fashion sense.

[OtataralDragon]

The quote is actually "This land could not feed them."

Either way, there's no way around that this is an ancient legend. It's been passed down among the Gral since before the Fall of the First Empire! How many generations is that? Even in a culture steeped in oral history, there would still have been any number of things changing along the way. Little details like, oh, whether the Tasse had fur, and how many there were, and the exact words the stranger used, and how he looked, and...

This is not like a story being told by Rake, or Mael, or a T'lan Imass - it's not told by someone who's been there. It's more comparable to the Awl'dan tale of the Shamans of the Antlers - kernels of truth, but you can only pinpoint them if you have the background knowledge about the T'lan Ritual to help you.

[Abyss]

OtataralDragon;320994 said:

The quote is actually "This land could not feed them."

Either way, there's no way around that this is an ancient legend. It's been passed down among the Gral since before the Fall of the First Empire! How many generations is that? Even in a culture steeped in oral history, there would still have been any number of things changing along the way. Little details like, oh, whether the Tasse had fur, and how many there were, and the exact words the stranger used, and how he looked, and...

This is not like a story being told by Rake, or Mael, or a T'lan Imass - it's not told by someone who's been there. It's more comparable to the Awl'dan tale of the Shamans of the Antlers - kernels of truth, but you can only pinpoint them if you have the background knowledge about the T'lan Ritual to help you.

Agreed.
And just to add, per Lady Envy in MoI, even the various immortals' memories can be of debatable accuracy.

- Abyss, ...at least, i think i am...

[D'rek]

As much as I don't think the land-can't-feed-them is supposed to be taken literally, either, I can't help but point out:

RG, on p. 460 in Bantam trade paperback, said:

Among all four of the Tasse the signs of dehydration and malnutrition were obvious -
...
They found ancient terraces that had once held crops, the soil now lifeless, barely able to sustain dry desert scrub. They found stone-lined channels to collect rainwater that no longer came.
...

[Abyss]

Hmmm... those ARE good points.

- Abyss, if all else fails, falls back on the smilarity of 'Tiste' and 'Tasse'...

[acarl]

My thoughts on the whole matter from a previous thread;

http://malazanworld....read.php?t=8281

[bhok'arala]

the land could not feed them might mean that:

the land was bare, no crops
the magic was gone, like some parts in lether
maybe it meant something more cryptic like how spirits and memories are stored in the ground

[Abyss]

bhok said:

the land could not feed them might mean that:

the land was bare, no crops
the magic was gone, like some parts in lether
maybe it meant something more cryptic like how spirits and memories are stored in the ground

Agreed, but also problemtic, because we see the Leth Edur basically prospered, albeit in a live-off-the-land sort of way.

On the other hand, the Nerek, corrupted by the Letherii, became something more primitive and pathetic.

And just to complicate it, it's 7C we're talking about, which is a whole other category of continent.

Much is made in DG and MoI over how loss of contact with a tribe/people's ancestors/gods/spirits has a negative effect.

The description from the Gral legend suggests the Tasse were once a more effective society. We also know 7C has had climate and geo-something shifts over time that moved rivers and ruined forests.

So... it's still wide open to interpretation.

- Abyss, notes crap, that didn't help at all....

[Ain't_It_Just_]

Abyss;323482 said:

The description from the Gral legend suggests the Tasse were once a more effective society. We also know 7C has had climate and geo-something shifts over time that moved rivers and ruined forests.

I smell a reason called Raraku....

[Raraku]

Who me???
Nah but seriously
i think you have a good point. There has almost always been an Azath in Raraku and only here it actually does something to the surroundings (unlike Deadhouse or the Azath in Letheras) The fact that the Azaths (1st the one that Iccy blew up and then Tremolor ... spelling) in Raraku hold a torn part of a warren seems to effect everything around that area

[dolfanuk]

perhaps the tasse are a branch of tiste, perhaps they are pure tiste, unaspected. shadow light and dark in one.

i love crazy theories, no quotes or logic to mess things up lol

[Aptorian]

Why wont people believe that they're some kind of Eres'al descendants? The small scene with them implies they're connected to the Deragoth. We've heard of no such connection with any other race.

[Abyss]

Aptorian;338743 said:

Why wont people believe that they're some kind of Eres'al descendants? The small scene with them implies they're connected to the Deragoth. We've heard of no such connection with any other race.

Shush you with your silly 'evidence' and 'proof'. We haven't heard anything to prove there was NOT any such connection!!!!

- Abyss, never allows the facts to interfere with baseless speculation... unless it's someone else's...

[bhok'arala]

the best way to win an argument is by starting in the right.

there is nothing worse than the annoyance of a good example. - mark twain.

[Ain't_It_Just_]

Perhaps if we read something about the part after (possibly) Dessimbelackis's appearance, we would learn something.

[Lisheo]

Yes indeed. I can barely remember that scene but I got the impression the Tasse were part-blood Eres from the Deragoth link...

[bhok'arala]

OtataralDragon;316662 said:

Ch. 15, p. 651 pb.

Seven terrible hounds emerged to surround the child, and a man appeared. His shoulders so broad as to make him seem hunched, he was wearing an ankle-length coat of blued chain, his black hair long and unbound. Cold blue eyes fixed upon Sidilack and he spoke in the language of the First Empire. "They were the last. I do not decry your slaughter. They lived in fear. This land - not their own - could not feed them. Abandoned by the Deragoth and their kind, they had failed in life's struggle." He turned to regard the child. "But this one I will take."


Language of the FE, and a connection to the Deragoth, suggests Dessimbelackis. Abandoned by Deragoth suggests Eres. There's no mention of fur in the description of the Tasse, though - but then who knows for how many generations the legend has been passed down, and how much has been lost or changed.

have we just restarted the conversation again?

[Aptorian]

No. Connected to the Deragoth = Eres'al.

[Ain't_It_Just_]

I mean after that part. With Sidilack. Maybe there's a clue or something.