[Use Of Weapons]

Isn't there a warded portal somewhere whose wards got destroyed by a munition?

[Bauchelain the Evil]

In GotM Quick berates Hedge for throwing munitions at Raest.

Also, in MoI, Spindle is considered crazy for throwing munitions while opening his warren.

[Abstruse]

Miss Savage, on 15 June 2011 - 04:21 PM, said:

For example, I really never got my head around the whole storyline concerning the Awl and Redmask, and the revolution which developed in the East around Drene, and Toc the Younger who turns up to get butchered yet again. This funky storyline is then topped off with the miraculous appearance of the White Face Barghast, which nobody has heard of since the third book, and now they just happen to pop out of nowhere in Lether. It's only in the eighth book the reader learns rather early on that they have disappeared miraculously from where they were before.

The Barghast have been told to search for a battle.. (I think by their god).. they show up to find the orriginal battle where the Awl ran away, Tool recognizes the soldiers and believes that Toc is among them.. and so it becomes his quest to destroy both the Awl that betrayed Toc, and the Letherii who destroy"ed" him

What didn't make sense was that the long heralded champion of the Awl failed them and then got cut down by his bodyguards. I mean- did he want to ruin the Awl people? Was it revenge? Or was it that he just didn't have any idea about strategy or tactics? Or was he just unlucky? No clue as towards that- and normally, you can get an idea at what SE is trying to get at throughout all of his books.


The orriginal idea of using the mud to the Awl advantage is a good one.. (potentially).. I believe Redmask really DID want to bring honour back to the Awl, and that the K'Malle (sp?) killed him because they saw that the loss was coming..


Whilst I am aware that SE introduced yet another element which will play a role later on, as he has been doing all along, I found that in RG he didn't manage to work that out as well as in other books. In my opinion, it doesn't add anything to the story. It tasted somewhat of self-indulgence – yet another great idea which couldn't be left out, or a lot of pressure from the editors. Either way, it's a shame.

Frankly, I would have preferred to read one page of the conversation between Mael and the Errant rather than the whole 300 pages of the Awl and Redmask story.

I couldn't believe when Tehol Beddict got married to the scholar and the last scene with him as new Emperor is so cheesy. Cheap movie ending to that.

I don't even want to start about the death of Trull Sengar. The Knight of Shadow who stood against Icarium gets stabbed in the back by the lousiest character in this book. I mean, Kalam got at least a worthy last stand in the Mouse, and Trull- he got fucked all over until the end. Well, there's always the HOPE that he will turn up again, I figure that's what happens to a lot of other characters in the series.... If not, at least Seren Pedac has his child, so he does live on in a way, and his offspring seems to be under the protection of Mael.


I find his death to be totally useless.. there, I said it.. I totally agree with you.. and my boyfriend is right there with us.. he's read the entire series and STILL was outraged about this


Almost done… how Silchas Ruin gets his ass blown off above Letheras. WTF? He is the biggest meanest dragon of them all, he survives the Azath, all of his draconic relatives are shitting themselves since he has escaped the Azath, and then he gets blown into bits by the Bridgeburners. Now, I know that Fid and Co know what they're doing with Moranth fireworks, because after all, they are still alive.(Why didn't that happen in Pale, with a lot more Bridgeburners and other sappers around and a lot more Moranth munition at hand?) This temporary conclusion to the Silchas story line is ridiculous, in all seriousness, particularly because of the way he was first introduced. He is a the most draconic of the sons of Mother Dark, he is super intelligent and super powerful, now why would he fly all the way to Letheras when he could go and take the Crippled God on straight away?


Okay.. now, firstly i had to laugh about fid and co knowing what they're doing..

And.. as for pale, most of hte bridgeburners were wiped out at pale.. they were sabotaged by being sent into these tunnels which were essentially made to collapse on them..


And along the same lines: Quick Ben suddenly turns into this guy who smacks dragons before breakfast. When and how did that happen? I mean, he is a powerful wizard, no doubt, and superbly intelligent, but until now, he had not been portrayed as a mage who can take on dragons.

Quick tells Hedge that during his battle with Icarium he pushed himself beyond what he'd ever done before.. and that it made him stronger.. even to the point that I think it scared him.. which to be honest it kindof scares me too.. he was WAY more powerful that Erickson let on I think.. and now he's roaring with even more.. it's like having an electric wire with TOO MUCH pulse running through it.. it burns out and it's not pretty

The title Malazan Tales of the Fallen is ambiguous. I always understood it in terms of the Fallen God, not all the fallen people.

All in all, still worth the read. Just not as great a book as the others in the series.

I do hope also, that you enjoy the rest of the series.. it seems like after every book i'm left bawling, mad about someone dying.. mad about someone living.. but i'm hooked

[Toc Beddict]

I agree with previous posters that it isn't so much that Trull died. But the way he died. And I understand, the Errant and all that. But that just feels like a cop out. Don't get me wrong, Steven Erikson is my writing idol, but not EVERYTHING is going to be a gem. I think he just didn't deliver on this one particular thing out of millions of ones he has delivered on. It was....anti climatic. To say the very least. And it's so easy to write it off as the "Errants nudge" but having said that, I don't think there was any true way to kill Trull without it not feeling anti climatic. It was essentially a lose/lose situation, so he just flavored it with some irony.

Also, I whole-heartedly believe in the supremacy of the Moranth munitions. The Lether Empire is from the First Empire. It would be like traveling back to the Crusades with Grenades, Mines, and Automatic Machine Guns. Same unbalanced destruction due to superior weaponry. The other imbalance, old sorcery vs new sorcery I think has to do more with the fact that the Old Baddies have no clue what the Warrens are about, but the New Mages have had thousands of years to study and recognize the Holds. They wouldn't be any less powerful, they imbalance would simply lie in the KNOWLEDGE of each. Superior knowledge always wins out, especially because the New Mages usually have enough sense to let another old power do the fighting for them.

[tiam]

UseOfWeapons, on 14 July 2011 - 10:22 AM, said:

Isn't there a warded portal somewhere whose wards got destroyed by a munition?

HOC the gate to KT is blown open because all sorcery works on patterns thus destroy the pattern destroy the ward.

Trulls death was deliberately shit. As ive said before itwas the futility of his death and how his supposed death killed Rhulad inside. Trull comes tohonour hos brother but hes too late. Hes then killed by a no mark, the Knight of shadow defier of Icarium and the nicest guy in the world killed by a guy who its implied beats his wife and scares his own children into being bullies. Errant aside the futility of it was the point. I actually think its fits in well with the themes that Udinaas brings, not futility exactly but delusions of grandeur the great warrior being cut down in the name of glory and honour rather than in a squalid arena by a thug with a knife to the back.

As for the weaponry, the Letherii were the biggest shit in the pile ( no idea where that euphemism came from) but against the organisation of the Malazan marines it wasnt enough. We see in MT how important the mass mage fire is to the Letherii but in a guerilla war against illusion magic theyve never seen before they were outmatched. Its stated that the Letherii should have saturated the area with reserves by Cuttle and Fiddler (or gesler actually cant remember) but this was only used near the end of the campaign as Triban Gnol had plans. The Malazans were left to whittle down the Edur in preparation for a trap outside Letheras that would wipe out substantial Edur. So the malazans had a few technological advantages over the Letherii but their biggest advantage was disunity at Lether.

[Toc Beddict]

Part of those random acts was also the death of Triban Gnol. Shot by a startled Koryk. Lesser in significance than a larger than life character like Trull, but along the same lines. I thought the cutting off of his precious hands by Smiles was a nice irony by SE. That image of Smiles snarling like a dog over a bone gave me quite a chuckle. I agree with the futility of Trull's death being the point. Like I said before, there is no way for Erikson to kill off a character like Trull, whose storyline was "Over" as SE has said, that would satisfy the Trull fans. Someone so integral cannot have an ending to satisfy EVERYONE. Similarly to WJ's death. A small thing like a bum knee or not noticing a shadow of an owl. I think sense he knew there was no way to end Trull and satisfy everyone, he made it an analogy to futility. What I REALLY wanted to see was Bugg's (Maels) confrontation of the Errant. I think the Errant has departed from his simple "nudges" or had been departing before he killed Feather Witch. The trapping of Mael was a bit bigger than a nudge, but following the Errants logic, his overt actions were upsetting the balance. Granted, I'm no Errant fan and I think he's gone quite mad, but the link between him and Ganoes Paran is no less a very interesting one. Showing the capabilities of Paran in the future.