[cerveza_fiesta]

yep, as the title suggests, why doesn't kallor die ever

I know he's cursed, and doesn't ascend, but what keeps his heart pumping and his skin from rotting off. SE always describes him as a withered old fart but then he whips out a greatsword and dukes it out with spinnock or whoever-the-hell happens to be in his way.

His description and his actions never match in my mind.

any thoughts?

[polishgenius]

Some answers here.

[cerveza_fiesta]

oh cool. thanks

[cerveza_fiesta]

so Kallor wasn't seen using the candles in TTH, but that's because he supposedly got his dose of candley goodness in MoI and doesn't need another for awhile?

I forgot about the candles entirely but it makes sense now. Question retracted.

[Traveller]

Yep... I didn't really notice that they were called century candles until TTh. I'm still not certain why he needs them if his curse keeps him going - Lisheo says they stop him from aging too much, but that would men that while the curse stops him from dying when, for example,

Spoiler

he gets run through with a sword

it doesn't stop him from dying of old age... which is surely the point of the curse.

[Osric]

To be honest the curse might have been more subtle, maybe he kept himself alive with the candles before that and he didnt age, maybe the curse meant that he would stay alive but as described he would "feel the ravages of time" or some such. So maybe before he never got older and his body stayed young but with this curse his body would age. And he couldnt ascend obviously, and he'd fail at everything.

I'm still not too sure about these curses, they seem more like prophecies than anything else. Was kallor's curse the reason Tay killed nightchill? Was his curse the reason Draconus got dragnipurred by Rake? Was the curse the reason K'rul lost his worshippers and faded into oblivion? k'rul admitted he could already feel the ending of his power, he said that right after the curse. Maybe it wasn't so much as a curse but more a prophecy. Kallor doesn't really seem to have that much magic anyway.. I dunno, just an idea.

But yeah, maybe the curse just made his body older while his candles kept him alive. Maybe the curse caused wiskeyjack's leg to break at that moment and save kallor, who knows..

[cerveza_fiesta]

ties in a bit with why he was so sad to attack Spinnock. He knew spinnock couldn't win and so he tried to persuade spinnock not to fight. Spinnock ended up delaying Kallor from a situation that actually could have killed him and so didn't make any major counterattack at kallor.

Kallor said after winning that spinnock had some chances to counterattack and didnt' use them. I know it seems convoluted, but maybe it's the curse working. It makes spinnock not counterattack so that he can just delay kallor a bit. The curse foresees somehow kallor's demise in darujistan and ensures that he will be delayed long enough to miss the action.

Anyways, it's a bit conspiracy theorist to figure that the curse works in that way. Not directly keeping Kallor alive but just inflencing his environment so it can't kill him. It's a neat take on it though. I like it. Ties in with Whiskeyjack's freak leg accident too. Also indicates why Kallor is so sad about fighting spinnock, as though he knows that the curse is just going to cause the honorable warrior to die.

[Traveller]

I like the idea that his environment/fate protects him due to the curse. Also, that Kallor seems regretful having to kill those who step before him - or 'stand in his way.'

Whiskeyjack was different though. He did stand in his way, almost forcing Kallor to kill him, but Hood also had it in for WJ for denying him his sister years before - Hood stopped Mallet from healing WJ's leg to get his own back. WJ never really had a chance against Kallor anyway... RotCG spoiler

Spoiler

Kallor survives getting spitted by Dassem - he would have survived against WJ too.

Kallor's curses are fairly specific, and did come true, like prophecys. The fact that K'rul has now returned, and Draconus is still alive (Nightchill lost out a bit!) doesn't mean the curses didn't work, they've been fulfilled.

[dktorode]

Like i said in another thread, the candles could be part of the curse. Kallor is using the candles to stay alive because the curse is making him use them.
Ofcourse kallor also wants to stay alive forever so its not like he wouldnt use them anyway. The curse was, in my opinion, that as long as kallor seeks power he will never get it, so he is doomed to try forever because it is not in his nature to ever give up.

This post has been edited by dktorode: 28 October 2008 - 01:02 PM

[Aral Fayle]

The whole curse business is very mysterious. I always thought that they were more of prophecies, but it's hard to ignore that there is power in them. That being said, I don't think you can randomly go around cursing people and expecting it to come true. As for the whole candle issue, I always thought they simply stalled/slowed down the process of aging. I assume that if Kallor were not using them, his existence would be similar to the T'lan Imass, eventually becoming broken down to the extent that he cannot function. In the end he would probably just be some skull doomed to watch the world pass by in front of him =P

[polishgenius]

 Traveller, on Oct 28 2008, 11:42 AM, said:

Yep... I didn't really notice that they were called century candles until TTh. I'm still not certain why he needs them if his curse keeps him going - Lisheo says they stop him from aging too much, but that would men that while the curse stops him from dying when, for example,

Spoiler

he gets run through with a sword

it doesn't stop him from dying of old age... which is surely the point of the curse.

Not necessarily: it could simply be that without the candles he'd end up like the T'lan Imass, a dessicated corpse thing. If I read it correctly, it's implied that (**RotcG Spoiler**)

Spoiler

the same is slowly happening to the Crimson Guard, although that seems very tentative and I can't think of a specific reason I thought that.

[Tarcanus]

I'm not so sure about Kallor's environment and nearby people being affected by the curse in order to keep Kallor alive. He just can't die. Whiskeyjack's leg giving out had a good reason, as specified earlier. When it comes to Spinnock Durav, he had a good reason as well - delaying Kallor. It wasn't that the curse kept Spinnock from going on the offensive, but that he was only there to delay Kallor - not to try to kill him. Rake would've known killing him was impossible, so why send his right hand man to die pointlessly?

[ch'arlz]

 Aral Fayle, on Oct 28 2008, 10:13 PM, said:

As for the whole candle issue, I always thought they simply stalled/slowed down the process of aging.

They rejuvenate, istm from the one passage in MoI (don't have my copy at hand at the moment).

This post has been edited by ch'arlz: 29 October 2008 - 04:48 PM

[Aptorian]

 Tarcanus, on Oct 29 2008, 05:16 PM, said:

I'm not so sure about Kallor's environment and nearby people being affected by the curse in order to keep Kallor alive. He just can't die. Whiskeyjack's leg giving out had a good reason, as specified earlier. When it comes to Spinnock Durav, he had a good reason as well - delaying Kallor. It wasn't that the curse kept Spinnock from going on the offensive, but that he was only there to delay Kallor - not to try to kill him. Rake would've known killing him was impossible, so why send his right hand man to die pointlessly?

Lets not get ahead of ouselves here. If you lop off Kallors head, he's dead and staying that way. The curse said "Mortal life unending". Meaning he's not going to die of a heart attack, but if you carve the heart out of his chest he's done and dead.

Kallor has probably used all kinds of weird chemicals and magical substances to keep himself going during the last hundred thousand years. I don't the curse is what lets him take a sword to the chest and survive. When he was shot in MoI some kind of weird fluid that wasn't blood came out of him. I'm guessing his body is nothing like a normal humans, the organs and muscle tissue has evolved/transformed into something very different over the years.

Spinnock was doing his best to stop Kallor and you only stop someone with a sword in one way, by trying to kill him with it. Kallor still kicked his ass and Kallor wasn't even trying to kill him.

[Aral Fayle]

I agree with Apt here, I seriously doubt the curse effecting the environment in any way, in order to "preserve" Kallor. The healing of WJ's leg was simply stalled through the years. I don't see how the curse could predict the fight between WJ and Kallor, and as a result keep the leg from being healed, just so his lunged wouldn't kill Kallor.

Ah Apt! You cause me to question new things! I never really gave any thought to what would happen to him if his head was chopped off..hmmm. I do agree in Kallor's body being change in some way from all the magic/potions he's used. I just figured he was like the T'lan Imass though, stabbed through the heart? pain, but no death. Head chopped off? Maybe it sits there for eternity, still aware =P

I figured "Mortal life unending" meant he cannot die and will never ascend. It's hard to know though, but life unending to me does not = death

[cerveza_fiesta]

I saw him as kind of a highlander I guess.

If you cut off his head or otherwise fatally wound him, he dies, but if his body is intact he will go on living forever.

not invincible, just immortal.

[dktorode]

 cerveza_fiesta, on Oct 30 2008, 03:11 PM, said:

I saw him as kind of a highlander I guess.

If you cut off his head or otherwise fatally wound him, he dies, but if his body is intact he will go on living forever.

not invincible, just immortal.

Thats the thing...he's not immortal.
He's mortal, which means he can die. He's just cursed to live forever AS a mortal.

Anyways, We can see that these curses are all...fading.
Draconis is out of the sword, K'rull has returned. And nightchill did die but not fully.
If you ask me, i would say that kallor's curse is also running out of gas.

[Abyss]

Bear in mind, in MoI, WJ's failed attack aside the two marines shot him up and stabbed him - he drew on power from the CG to deal with that so some form of healing and resistance to damage is in play, even if it's not what he had going before MoI.

I took the century candles as alchmical means of maintaining his health. Otherwise he would age and weaken but still not die. That said, i agree that he CAN die, butr has gotten very good at avoiding it.

- Abyss, should only be that good...

[Aptorian]

I don't think it's the CGs power that makes Kallor resistant to injury. Rather it's all the stuff that Kallor has ingestedover the years to make him immune to the ravages of aging.

[cerveza_fiesta]

 dktorode, on Oct 30 2008, 09:50 AM, said:

 cerveza_fiesta, on Oct 30 2008, 03:11 PM, said:

I saw him as kind of a highlander I guess.

If you cut off his head or otherwise fatally wound him, he dies, but if his body is intact he will go on living forever.

not invincible, just immortal.

Thats the thing...he's not immortal.
He's mortal, which means he can die. He's just cursed to live forever AS a mortal.

Anyways, We can see that these curses are all...fading.
Draconis is out of the sword, K'rull has returned. And nightchill did die but not fully.
If you ask me, i would say that kallor's curse is also running out of gas.

I think we're arguing semantics here.

I take immortal to mean exactly what you said

...he can die. He's just cursed to live forever AS a mortal (a la highlander)

invincible mans he can't be killed.

So kallor is immortal, not invincible

is all I was saying.