[Grief]

Lets just say him and Gothos are around equal and leave it there. That particular discussion has been done before.

[Aptorian]

Lets say that certain Jaghut Tyrants powerwise are potentially stronger than Rake. Raest is/was, he was a particularly nasty sort of Tyrant, Gothos is probably also on Raests level.

Rake suspects he would have died in a direct confrontation with Raest with the Finnest.

No reason to argue on that subject... unless you're a Rake fanboy.

[D'rek]

Olar Ethil is a bigger dragon than Rake, therefore Olar Ethil would beat Rake in a fight. It's true! There has been no occurences in the entire series either seen or eluded to where a smaller dragon has beaten a bigger one, regardless of whether they are actually in their dragon forms or not...

[muco]

Can of worms!! meh....we have opened a lot to fear this one.

Gothos, Raest and Hood immediately comes to my mind of beings with immense power. How exactly would some one kill these three...permanently?

[Grief]

Magic I expect.
Oh, and apt, quotes or it didn't happen

My recollection is that Rake said he'd win, but be severely weakened. I believe Tool also says this.
Both of them could level Daru(Rake and Raest)

At that level, I suspect the Raw power aspect is less important than the skill aspect, tbh. At that level, I doubt its even really measurable.

Oh, and D'rek, fairly certain Rake/Osserc would both beat Silchas.

Also,

Spoiler

Rake kills Tiam. Somehow suspect that she's bigger than him.

Anyhow, we've had the Rake vs Raest discussion before, so its kind of pointless.

[blackzoid]

Aptorian, on Feb 17 2009, 01:35 PM, said:

Lets say that certain Jaghut Tyrants powerwise are potentially stronger than Rake. Raest is/was, he was a particularly nasty sort of Tyrant, Gothos is probably also on Raests level.

Rake suspects he would have died in a direct confrontation with Raest with the Finnest.

No reason to argue on that subject... unless you're a Rake fanboy.

Gonna have to agree with Grief. That is most certainly not supported by the text.
Rake, the Malazan's etc all assume that Rake would be take out Raset but be severly weakened. Then they would have used the Demon that Rake did fight against at the end of GoTM.

[Aptorian]

Hmm, maybe I wasn't writting loud enough... RAKE THOUGHT HE MIGHT NOT BE ABLE TO FINISH THE JOB! ... How was that?

It doesn't matter that the Malazans or who ever thinks he'd just be weakened. Rake should know where his own limits are, and the most notorius Jaghut Tyrant would have been one of them.

I don't have my copy of GotM with me right now, but I believe it is one of his meetings with Baruk. He thinks he'll die trying because this particular Tyrant was a very nasty one, then someone else would finish the job.

[Bauchelain the Evil]

Yes Apt is right. He says that he isn't sure that he can beat Raest so he advise Baruk to be ready with his Cabal if he can't make it.

[D'rek]

Grief, on Feb 18 2009, 08:37 AM, said:

Oh, and D'rek, fairly certain Rake/Osserc would both beat Silchas.

Also,

Spoiler

Rake kills Tiam. Somehow suspect that she's bigger than him.

It doesn't matter that *you* think they'd beat Silchas, the point is that it hasn't happened. SE has never written a smaller dragon beating a bigger one.

Spoiler

He wasn't a dragon when that happened. This argument is void.

[Grief]

No for it to be void your then saying:

Spoiler

That he became weaker once dragon. He can kill Tiam without a dragon, but not when he's got the extra dragon power? Seriously?

Oh and Apt, he was not sure, but he certainly didn't know he'd fail, and I can quote if you wish. He was uncertain.

"There's no certainty in this, Baruk. That seems a fact particularly galling to you humans. You'd better learn to accept it."

So, he knows its bloody close between them, yes.
He doesn't think he'll die, he is uncertain.

[Aptorian]

God damn, rake fanboys...*mumble, mumble*

Seriously, it's Raest, who with most of his powers missing hurt Burn and kicked 5 dragons ass in one go. Who didn't die when blowed to bits. Who closed QBs warrens like a you swat a fly. Who messed up the undying mages of Darujistan. The tyrant whom the jaghut and imass had to team up to imprison.

Raest fully powered would have killed Rake, if Rake couldn't get at him with the sword.

[HoosierDaddy]

As I do with anything that has to do with GotM. It's possible that Raest's complete badassery was a minor glitch. Do we know the difference between, say Raest the Tyrant, and Gothos? Why isn't Gothos a Tyrant?

[D'rek]

HoosierDaddy, on Feb 18 2009, 04:30 PM, said:

As I do with anything that has to do with GotM. It's possible that Raest's complete badassery was a minor glitch. Do we know the difference between, say Raest the Tyrant, and Gothos? Why isn't Gothos a Tyrant?

That's cheap, discounting it as a GotMism. Pfft.

Gothos isn't a Tyrant because he doesn't enslave other beings and force their communities to worship him or some such thing. He has the power to do it, he just doesn't.

[HoosierDaddy]

Cheap, but not unprecedented by any means. So, the only difference is enslavement? Does that somehow enhance their power? If not, the only proof we have of Raest's power is GotM, where Tool has his own personal warren.

[D'rek]

Everything Raest does is powerful. I'm sure it takes a lot of power to stealthily corrupt an immortal mage of the T'orrud Cabal, or to fight 5 dragons. Heck, even his finnest was beating Tool by itself before Paran stepped in. I don't think you discount it as a GotMism simply for argument's sake if there's no particular reason to do so. The simplest explanation is that Raest is ridiculously potent.

P.S. Tool still has his Tellann bit in MoI, it's just reduced in efficacy because Silverfox is drawing on it.

[HoosierDaddy]

Ridiculously potent? Sure.

"Simply discounting it as a GotMism for argument's sake if there's no particular reason..." Is that outside GotM, we've seen that elder-magics are often sheer brute strength, while somehow Raest has the subtlety to overcome, in your words "an immortal mage of the T'orrud Cabal." Just seems a strange dichotomy.

[Grief]

Raests dragons were all soletaken.
Lets face it:

Spoiler

It doesn't take much to beat them. QB fucks up 3 fairly powerful soletaken. Orfantal gets killed by kallor

Rake on the other hand, takes on 3 true eleint at once, which is as far as we know, a far harder task than soletaken, unless they're Rake, Osserc, Olars level.

Oh, and you exagerate the Cabal thing.
Mammot sent his conciousness into the barrow, so all he ahd to do was overpower mammot, and hide himself.
Rake hid for hundreds of years as a guard guy.

And hurting burn aint ridiculously hard I wouldn't say.

When you can destroy cities, a focussed balst into the earth aint that much.

[D'rek]

Grief, on Feb 18 2009, 05:19 PM, said:

Raests dragons were all soletaken.
Lets face it:

Spoiler

It doesn't take much to beat them. QB fucks up 3 fairly powerful soletaken. Orfantal gets killed by kallor

Rake on the other hand, takes on 3 true eleint at once, which is as far as we know, a far harder task than soletaken, unless they're Rake, Osserc, Olars level.

Negative. Four of Raest's opposing dragons were TA soletaken, the fifth was Silanah, a true eleint, a Shaper of the Paths, who somehow was excepted from the last flight into SD.

and Rake's taking on 3 true eleint may have been with Kilmandaros working with him, as per the RG prologue...


Regardless, I don't see why it's hard to believe Raest is incredibly powerful. By his own words, the Jaghut forming an entire community with the sole purpose of bringing him down is something that had never happened, that Raest could never have imagined would happen...

This post has been edited by D'rek: 18 February 2009 - 10:33 PM

[Grief]

There is nothing to suggest killy was with him. They never refer to her, only him.
I'm not disputing Raest is powerful.
I put him up there with Rake, Gothos, etc.
He's about Rakes equal, thus rakes uncertainty.

But there's not much to suggest that he is definetely more powerful.

As for silanah:

Spoiler

Cowl beats her at one point. True dragons are far far more powerful than the TA soletaken, form what we know, so that fight Raest had was, at best, equal to Rake raking on 3 at once, and I'd say requires less powerful

And the community thing refers more imo to his cruelty, as well as power, rather than just power. They found him so abhorrent that they teamed up to make an end as final as possible. Possibly more final than death would be for raest, considering how death is in malaz.

[D'rek]

Well here's the kicker. Most of Raest's power was in his Finnest. When Rake said it would be a close thing between him and Raest, was he thinking of before or after Raest got the Finnest...