[Ain't_It_Just_]

Blend, on Jan 15 2009, 08:38 AM, said:

Hinter, on Jan 14 2009, 12:28 PM, said:

Ain't_It_Just_, on Jan 14 2009, 04:44 AM, said:

Greymane was a bit of a disapointment actually...we didn't discover anything about his backstory, except that he tried to draw a truce or something. What about Ipshank and Manask?

He was a Malazan (High?) Fist, in command of the Imperial forces on Korel. He saw the pointlessness of the conflict and tried and failed to arrange a truce, which is why he's now on the run from the Empire. There are hints that he's been around for a while and could be one of the old guard (not sure if that's fact or something I picked up on this board - it's all becoming a bit of a blur!)

I got more the impression that he, as High Fist, did something that was against Imperial orders because he wanted to save the lives of the people in his company or whatever. I don't think it was because of the truce specifically that he became renegade. It was all about saving the lives of the people under him. He's compassionate, and yet hard as steel! I loves Greymane!

Sounds like he did...but I reckon Greymane was a bit of an enigma. He didn't seem to owe any sort of loyalty towards anyone, despite being (in all likelihood) Old Guard.

[Dolorous Menhir]

So is anyone else sick of random unimportant characters suddenly turning out to be insanely powerful?

I'm thinking of Heuk & the Lost brothers, a.k.a. Kyle's nobody friends who are suddenly able to stand alongside Avowed

Characters like Sergeant Jumpy are much better.

This post has been edited by Dolorous Menhir: 15 January 2009 - 05:34 PM

[foolio]

Quote

So is anyone else sick of random unimportant characters suddenly turning out to be insanely powerful?

I'm thinking of Heuk & the Lost brothers, a.k.a. Kyle's nobody friends who are suddenly able to stand alongside Avowed

Characters like Sergeant Jumpy are much better.

So does Jumpy not qualify as random character suddenly turning out to be insanely powerful. Jumpy seems to be a malcontent that has never seen combat in the beginning, he gets into combat turns into a dominant heavy fighter, ruling in a phalnx type of formation when he has never fought in a formation, kills a bunch of heavies. He overcomes numerous injuries and then becomes a leader of Sappers that would make fiddler blush and basically saves the day for the imperial forces...didnt like it. But I do agree with your first statement, I do find it annoying.

[Ain't_It_Just_]

Fiddler is the Lord of the Sappers. He cannot be blushed by anyone.

[foolio]

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Fiddler is the Lord of the Sappers. He cannot be blushed by anyone.

OK, maybe it would have made him consider blushing, but in the end decided against it. You wouldnt recognize it because everyone mentioned in this book has grease, slime, etc covering their face.

[Hinter]

foolio, on Jan 15 2009, 08:47 PM, said:

So does Jumpy not qualify as random character suddenly turning out to be insanely powerful. Jumpy seems to be a malcontent that has never seen combat in the beginning, he gets into combat turns into a dominant heavy fighter, ruling in a phalnx type of formation when he has never fought in a formation, kills a bunch of heavies. He overcomes numerous injuries and then becomes a leader of Sappers that would make fiddler blush and basically saves the day for the imperial forces...didnt like it. But I do agree with your first statement, I do find it annoying.

I thinks its more of a case of Nait finding himself knee deep in shit, and having to grow up to get out of it. In the shield wall you either kill or get killed and he's at least had basic miltary training to fall back on. As for the sapper bit, I don't remember him doing anything particularly complicated, dug a few trenches, threw a few cussers and generally blew shit up. Nothing like Fidler and Cuttle's Drum in RG or blasting through the walls of Y'Ghatan in tBH.

I like Nait/Jumpy, I reckon he's one of ICE's better characters

[Dolorous Menhir]

foolio, on Jan 15 2009, 08:47 PM, said:

Quote

So is anyone else sick of random unimportant characters suddenly turning out to be insanely powerful?

I'm thinking of Heuk & the Lost brothers, a.k.a. Kyle's nobody friends who are suddenly able to stand alongside Avowed

Characters like Sergeant Jumpy are much better.

So does Jumpy not qualify as random character suddenly turning out to be insanely powerful. Jumpy seems to be a malcontent that has never seen combat in the beginning, he gets into combat turns into a dominant heavy fighter, ruling in a phalnx type of formation when he has never fought in a formation, kills a bunch of heavies. He overcomes numerous injuries and then becomes a leader of Sappers that would make fiddler blush and basically saves the day for the imperial forces...didnt like it. But I do agree with your first statement, I do find it annoying.

Totally disagree. Nait was a random unimportant character who (when faced with a life-or-death situation) was forced to change and act in a way that was easy to believe and accept. He was an ordinary soldier who turned out to be an excellent squad level leader and sapper.

Whereas Heuk was a random unimportant character, who got even less attention than Nait, who (to repeat myself) turned out to be an insanely powerful priest of an Elder warren for no discernable reason except to advance the interests of the plot. When he revealed his powers I didn't think "wow, how cool is that," I thought "oh great, someone else I don't even know or care about has turned up just in time to save the story, even though there was no buildup to this or any real need for it".

I think it is lazy writing to build up the Avowed as insanely powerful fighters who vastly outmatch any mortal, and then produce a scene where four ordinary guys are capable of exactly the same feats (Kyle and his buddies holding off an entire army).

[foolio]

Quote

So is anyone else sick of random unimportant characters suddenly turning out to be insanely powerful?

I'm thinking of Heuk & the Lost brothers, a.k.a. Kyle's nobody friends who are suddenly able to stand alongside Avowed

Characters like Sergeant Jumpy are much better.


So does Jumpy not qualify as random character suddenly turning out to be insanely powerful. Jumpy seems to be a malcontent that has never seen combat in the beginning, he gets into combat turns into a dominant heavy fighter, ruling in a phalnx type of formation when he has never fought in a formation, kills a bunch of heavies. He overcomes numerous injuries and then becomes a leader of Sappers that would make fiddler blush and basically saves the day for the imperial forces...didnt like it. But I do agree with your first statement, I do find it annoying.



Totally disagree. Nait was a random unimportant character who (when faced with a life-or-death situation) was forced to change and act in a way that was easy to believe and accept. He was an ordinary soldier who turned out to be an excellent squad level leader and sapper.

Whereas Heuk was a random unimportant character, who got even less attention than Nait, who (to repeat myself) turned out to be an insanely powerful priest of an Elder warren for no discernable reason except to advance the interests of the plot. When he revealed his powers I didn't think "wow, how cool is that," I thought "oh great, someone else I don't even know or care about has turned up just in time to save the story, even though there was no buildup to this or any real need for it".

I think it is lazy writing to build up the Avowed as insanely powerful fighters who vastly outmatch any mortal, and then produce a scene where four ordinary guys are capable of exactly the same feats (Kyle and his buddies holding off an entire army).

fair enough. I do agree with seemingly non-built up characters having crazy abilities is somewhat annoying. I just really had a problem with Jumpy getting the best of professional heavies in formation... Then on the opposite side of the spectrum you have k'azz who is built up but really offers nothing. Someone else said it best, I think this is from Hinter:

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*K'azz walks out of the cave and roars "Brethren! Attend!". Here we go, I'm thinking, he's now gonna do some serious shit, reconcile the guard and open up a 6-pack of whoopass on the empire, the old guard and anyone else who's pissed him off. But no, he goes and watches a few blokes defend a bridge. Talk about an anti-climax...

This post has been edited by foolio: 16 January 2009 - 06:26 PM

[Ain't_It_Just_]

Dolorous Menhir, on Jan 17 2009, 05:10 AM, said:

foolio, on Jan 15 2009, 08:47 PM, said:

Quote

So is anyone else sick of random unimportant characters suddenly turning out to be insanely powerful?

I'm thinking of Heuk & the Lost brothers, a.k.a. Kyle's nobody friends who are suddenly able to stand alongside Avowed

Characters like Sergeant Jumpy are much better.

So does Jumpy not qualify as random character suddenly turning out to be insanely powerful. Jumpy seems to be a malcontent that has never seen combat in the beginning, he gets into combat turns into a dominant heavy fighter, ruling in a phalnx type of formation when he has never fought in a formation, kills a bunch of heavies. He overcomes numerous injuries and then becomes a leader of Sappers that would make fiddler blush and basically saves the day for the imperial forces...didnt like it. But I do agree with your first statement, I do find it annoying.

Totally disagree. Nait was a random unimportant character who (when faced with a life-or-death situation) was forced to change and act in a way that was easy to believe and accept. He was an ordinary soldier who turned out to be an excellent squad level leader and sapper.

Whereas Heuk was a random unimportant character, who got even less attention than Nait, who (to repeat myself) turned out to be an insanely powerful priest of an Elder warren for no discernable reason except to advance the interests of the plot. When he revealed his powers I didn't think "wow, how cool is that," I thought "oh great, someone else I don't even know or care about has turned up just in time to save the story, even though there was no buildup to this or any real need for it".

I think it is lazy writing to build up the Avowed as insanely powerful fighters who vastly outmatch any mortal, and then produce a scene where four ordinary guys are capable of exactly the same feats (Kyle and his buddies holding off an entire army).

You've a good point...but on Kyle and company: they were in a bottleneck and as well as the Avowed (whose limits of superhumanity are not yet known) and his special sword from Osserc. Still, you have a very good point.

However, I don't agree with your assessment of Jumpy. Maybe he was lucky, maybe he was insane, but when he was in the shield-wall he was jammed in place, and could only fight one at a time. Although it must be said that it doesn't seem right that he survives considering his lack of experience.

[Dolorous Menhir]

I don't understand how people can treat Jumpy and Heuk as equivalents. Jumpy was fortunate enough to survive a battle and in the process gain some survival/leadership skills. Heuk came out of nowhere to display massive power that altered the course of the battle. These are not the same things.

This post has been edited by Dolorous Menhir: 18 January 2009 - 06:57 PM

[Ain't_It_Just_]

I just want to know who that Andii mage was..

[Sinisdar Toste]

the mysterious king of night? its frustrating to say the least

[Abyss]

As for the Lost bros, a couple of points:

Stalker wasn't originally buds with them, they just all happened to be from Assail and joined the Guard in the same investiture. When Stalker decides to break with the Guard and save Kyle, the two bros Coots and Badlands are part of the search party and he convinces them to come over as well.

My take on the three of them is that Assail is a fairly horrible place filled with fanatics and tyrants and ghosts and just general carnage and violence. The Guard comes along, looking for K'azz in all the wrong places. So a few locals, specifically Stalker and the other two that we know of, take the opportunity to hook up with the Guard and get the frak out of Dodge.

But lo and behold, the Guard turns out to have its own homicidal elitist tyrants (Skinner and Cowl) who are intent on setting themselves up as rulers of the world or such, and the Assail boys have already had enuf of that, so, given the opportunity to bail and AND save Kyle, whom they like, they roll.

Post RCG, at the moment they really have nothing else to do except follow Kyle to see what happens next.

foolio, on Jan 14 2009, 04:47 PM, said:

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He'd have kicked Skinner's arse if Skinner hadn't had magical armour.

I thought he said unequivocally to Shimmer that he cant beat Skinner...(shimmer/skinner-arghhh)

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He'll kick Dasems arse any time he feels like it

what? Really?

Clearly you all need a refresher. Go here: http://www.malazanempire.com/IPBforum/inde...showtopic=10474

foolio, on Jan 15 2009, 08:47 PM, said:

So is anyone else sick of random unimportant characters suddenly turning out to be insanely powerful?

I'm thinking of Heuk & the Lost brothers, a.k.a. Kyle's nobody friends who are suddenly able to stand alongside Avowed
....

Two points re Losties...:

1) they never stood 'alongside' the Avowed any more than any other non-avowed Guard did and,
2) as we saw again and again in RCG, the Avowed are far, far, from indestructible super soldiers. A tough enough, strong enough, skilled enough foe can beat them. Laseen beat like six. That said, we never actually saw Stalker, Coots or Badlands go directly against any Avowed, with the one exception of when they were rescuing Kyle and tried to jump a High Mage, who was either Avowed, Veil or both, i don't remember, but she bugged right outta there.

As for Heuk and others, this comment seems to stem from the notion that no one can do anything important, ever, unless we've had sixteen chapters of reading about them first. This strikes me as silly.

SE and ICE have created a huge, sprawling, complex world that has millions of years of history. It seems odd to love that element of the books but then dislike an element because 'we've never seen it before'.

Firstly, we've seen ALL the elements before - Kurald Galain, Draconus, power in blood, powerful individuals hiding themselves in the ranks, unexpected high mages (Sinn, Beak, Bottle (shut up, i know, i know) )... second, we've speculated about human high mages of elder warrens before, we've even seen Quick Ben at least access some of them and the TTG mages others.

So, at least as i see it, Heuk actually flows logically from what we do know leading up to his appearance. I like the fact that major story elements sometimes flow from things taking place 'off stage'.

Ain't_It_Just_, on Jan 20 2009, 03:48 AM, said:

I just want to know who that Andii mage was..

Sinisdar Toste, on Jan 20 2009, 01:43 PM, said:

the mysterious king of night? its frustrating to say the least

Again, there's no 'right' to know everything, always. It's great that the authors can draw us in but not tell us everything up front. You're SUPPOSED to want to know more.

My theory, for what its worth, is that Draconus has his own link to 'Darkness', and one aspect of that would be an appearance that resembles a Tiste Andii. Think about it... Maybe, as discussed in MT iirc, the Andii are not Mommy D's first kids. Maybe they just resemble one of them. Elder Gods change their appearance all the time. Plus, Heuks casting was a POWERFUL one, and Dragnipur was already weakening. If that was Draconus, why shouldn't some small aspect of him appear. And if it wasn't, well, there are enuf yet unseen Elder Gods, ascendents and powerful Andii seen and unseen who could be behind it.


Point being, sometimes its fun to NOT know everything.


- Abyss, barely knows his own name.