[Leadslinger]

Someone has to give us a background of Kharkanas if we are ever going to get a book about it......
Endest was that someone. Rake isn't allowed yet to pour out his thoughts and knowledge for us.

[Grey Sword]

I was greatly disturbed by the fields of scarecrows and the Kelyk drinking, but found the Dying God's relation to the rest of the series a little confusing.

Also, I don't like it when a story arc has people travelling or sitting around for 4/5 of the book, and then boom-boom-boom a ton of action happens right at the end. I know its a good way to introduce character development, world building and encounters, but this arc seemed particularly slow to develop.

In Nimander's group, we get a whole lot of other people saying what a great leader Nimander is (with no apparent justification), and whole lot of Andii wallowing in their own angst in Black Coral.

Just think about how much misery could have been spared if the Tiste Andii had gotten off their duffs for a short time and gotten rid of the bandits.

It sounded to me like Rake was saying "don't worry about the raping and pillaging, the dragon will get to that when she feels like it, and by the way we need to allow certain plot points to properly develop..."

I did like the Kallor sequences though - they added depth (and perhaps a bit of sympathy?) to one who was just an evil bastard before (now he's an evil bastard with issues)!

And regarding Nimander - I unfortunately didn't re-read any books before reading Toll the Hounds, and therefore I couldn't really remember who Nimander was! He clearly didn't make much of an impression on me.

[Dolmen 2.0]

I enjoyed the dying God arc with no certain justification. I'm not overly critical about eriksons books coz I feel good direction in them and even the weakest characters have multiple facets.

In this arc I saw a lot of reason for Anomanders sacrifice. it connected smoothly at the end by Aranatha returning along with mother dark (rake knew she had mother dark in her. he took the gamble of his life on the faith nimander would bring her to the andii people. That spoke volumes for the group and Rakes faith in them, not such a bad dad afterall eh?)

Loved that Gothos wasn't a cut and dry Jaghut. I love that the survivors of the Jaghut are all totally random from each other and gothos did not disapoint, infact he seemed sneakier and more sideways than kallor ever was.

The Dying God arc is definately not over, clip still remains and the tie in with the crippled god is probably ahead in the conclusive book arcs. I had no qualms with the dying god. the horrific idea of a God that hooked you on to him like Crack was VERY interesting to read. very glad it survived coz dont like the thought of a CG showdown against the World, there should be chaos all over the show, I like that Erikson used the DG to spread teh love.

[Cropsalar]

The DG arc was a bit of both worlds for me;

I liked how Nimander developed, and how there a tension building up regarding his role, his acceptance into his role as a leader, and what i thought was going to be his transformation into power during the final sequence against DG, hopefully coming out all confident and non-whiny. Unfortunately it all built up to Nimander pretty much doing nothing at the end. *sigh*

The scarecrows were cool, very visual, pretty much just awesome. As was mentions of Bellurdan and Hairlock ( Nice to hear old names ) although their tie-ins to the tale were confusing at best. I too thought something to do with Icarium was about to happen ( what with the machine and all ) but no!

Mother Dark part? confusing....

Clip? Annoying.

Him being possesed? OBVIOUS.

Kallor? Brilliant. He was great in this book, especially considering Spinnock Durav in the scene towards the end, how sad he was at having to face him and how he left him alive. A whole new, and entirely welcome side to Kallor who i now quite like! ( and have NEARLY forgiven for killing Whiskeyjack )
It was also awesome to finally get an idea of Kallors power!

How he killed the dragon at the end so easily though? stupid :/

Basically, Nimander bit was good, but could have been awesome if he turned badass at the end. Gothos ruled. DG was kinda confusing, both good and bad. Also Endest Silann should have finally realised he was still powerful and kicked Clips ass.

[Grey Sword]

Cropsalar, on May 31 2009, 02:42 PM, said:

[Kallor] How he killed the dragon at the end so easily though? stupid :/

Seriously! How badly did that dragon (what was his name again? Was that Orfantal?) want to die? You don't just pick up Kallor and fly off with him!

[Dolmen 2.0]

Grey Sword, on Jun 1 2009, 05:15 AM, said:

Cropsalar, on May 31 2009, 02:42 PM, said:

[Kallor] How he killed the dragon at the end so easily though? stupid :/

Seriously! How badly did that dragon (what was his name again? Was that Orfantal?) want to die? You don't just pick up Kallor and fly off with him!

To this I agree. even kallor would die from a bite. thats all it needed.
Did they chase him for so long just to play catch? also whats up with
Korlats reaction to orfantals death? I expected more there I must admit.

-just a simple CHOMP. wheres my head? kallor out.

[chill]

Errm... anyone else hates Salind? The whiny little brat that somehow outsmarts Seerdomin and spins Spin's ( ) head around?
Almost as irritating as the Mhybe. Seriously.
The only useful role she played is showing how kelyk influences the mind, and even that was wrapped in endless monologues. And to think the little bitch could kill Seerdomin and Itkovian (the guy didn't impress me that much, but he's pretty cool).

Some badass high priestess... They simply took her, raped her and poured some kelyk into her mouth and she's done for. Come on.

[coltainereborn]

I am on my 2nd read through tth, and i admit the first time i read it I was not that impressed.
But reading through the Dying God arc this second time I am actaully gettiing more out of it.

I agree with several other posts that this arc is for giving nimander and the other andii a background. When they left the wandering Isle they were kept from the fighting and it left the impression that they were weak or unskilled fighters(at least to me). But the scene at Bastion shows that they are pretty much bad asses.

Also Nimander is kind of a whiner and "oh poor me " kind of character, and I think this story shows how he goes through a change, He is almost adoledcent in his thoughts and feelings for much of the time we have seen him, and dealing with the Dying God, and meeting kallor, and Gothos and freeing the Azath builder all help him mature and learn, in short Grow UP.

However I do still feel that this is the main reason for this Arc and so the detaials seem a litle thrown together. Almost as if he [erickson]said- I need a force for Nimander to fight, oh how about I ressurect Belladuran and Hairlock, blend them togheter in Chaos and have them hijacked by yet another god from another realm that somehow ends up stranded in their world. Perfect

[dawnkiller]

coltainereborn, on Jun 4 2009, 01:32 PM, said:

However I do still feel that this is the main reason for this Arc and so the detaials seem a litle thrown together. Almost as if he [erickson]said- I need a force for Nimander to fight, oh how about I ressurect Belladuran and Hairlock, blend them togheter in Chaos and have them hijacked by yet another god from another realm that somehow ends up stranded in their world. Perfect

I don't know, I was looking back through Memories of Ice a bit ago and very early on there was a conversation between a few chars regarding Silverfox, and how they perceived mostly Tattersail, but with an underlying sharpness that was Nightchill. Bellurdan, it was concluded, seemed so faint that they suspected he only existed in the mind of Nightchill, and the chapter-ending cliffhanger was sometihng like "So what . . . happened to Bellurdan?". The Dying God thing didn't come out of nowhere -- his return was foreshadowed very, very early on.

That said, while I'll say it didn't come out of nowhere I confess I felt it ended a little abruptly. Especially annoying was the fact we never really knew Bellurdan beforehand, and the glimpse we did get in GotM made the childish outburst a true WTF moment. I would have liked to see more of him as a character, not just as the (nicely creepy) background. My hope is that, as with a lot of SE's stuff, the Dying God will serve as a lead-in to other things, presumable to be picked up in the next book or two. Like how we started hearing stuff about the Seguleh and the KCCM in MoI and they gradually started getting more relevant.

[Excellence]

Grey Sword, you MUST read Nimander's scenes in Reaper's Gale. Not only are they styled completely differently from everyone's pov, they're beautifully written.

Is this called second person writing? If it is, it's lyrically superb. His thoughts are his prose.

"So what . . . happened to Bellurdan?". The Dying God thing didn't come out of nowhere -- his return was foreshadowed very, very early on.

I remember that... I was expecting him to reappear. That he did out of character was a nice suprise.

This post has been edited by Excellence: 09 June 2009 - 09:08 AM

[Salt-Man Z]

Excellence, on Jun 9 2009, 04:05 AM, said:

Is this called second person writing?

No, second-person would be in the style of the old Choose-Your-Own-Adventures books: "You walk into a room..."

First-person uses "I".
Second-person uses "you".
Third-person uses "he"/"she".

[coltainereborn]

Just finished second read of TTH, and he dying god arc makes a lot more sense reading the whole thing through(big surprise). the one thing I completely forgot about is that aparrently Mother Dark had possessed Aranatha and is now back w/ the Andi.

[Ain't_It_Just_]

How many of Nimander's crew are still alive?

[Urizen]

Ain't_It_Just_, on Jun 13 2009, 12:24 AM, said:

How many of Nimander's crew are still alive?

Nimander, Skintick, Nenanda and Desra. Aranatha might not count, seeing how she's Mother Dark now...

[clanless]

I found the whole dying god vs Redeemer part of the arc fascinating. It was like they both had a lot in common,neither of them expected much of thier worshippers. They were both trying to expand/redefine thier roles. And both of them had as #1 servants ex pannion domin guys.And maybe stretching the point a bit but neither expected much from thier servants. My 2 cents anyways.