[Veilside]

I wouldn't be all that surprised if that was the end of QB, we've seen plent of other important characters die, so why not QB too?

I can't wait to see what happened post Lostara's shadow dance, bloody cliffhanger!

[tiam]

QB could be dead. I dont think he is but tbh ppl have been thinking hes virtually indestructable after the Iccy battle proven by the three sisters scene in RG. But tbh the last hundred pages of DOD made Iccy seem not that powerful at all. which was kinda annoying

[Veilside]

He was hit by the full power of the entire KCNR army, and the resulting crater was described as resembling that of hundreds of cussers, so he'd really have had to pull an amazing feat to get away from that one.

As far as Iccy being weak, he was single handedly controlling a skykeep, managed to wipe two out and plug the warren hole, underwhelming, maybe, but certainly not weak.

This post has been edited by Veilside: 25 August 2009 - 12:33 PM

[Illuyankas]

Iccy was also still dealing with the other personalities getting in the way, especially at the end when Feather Witch showed him the eye.

[presumingpete]

was this the first book with no direct scenes with shadowthrone and cotillion? It seems strange they would have nothing to do with anything in the book at all. I know they had their hands full in Darujhistan at the time (ignoring the wacky timeline obviously) but for them not to have even made any kind of appearence is a bit odd. Maybe they were afeared they didnt have the power to handle what was coming? I still dont buy the whole 'it was a random event thing' - none of the mages could sense anything ahead because it was fogged. Maybe they were in the wrong place at the wrong time but it doesn't mean nobody could sense it. The bolkando mage with the queens daughter could sense there was something wrong because she was far away - well the errant was even further away and much much stronger, I have a feeling he gave them a push.

The timeline which bugs so many people doesn't really bother me. For some reason it always makes me thing of The Dark Tower and time being in drift, meaning that in some places time moves differently. The world has moved on etc.

oh yeah does anyone care that karsa isnt going to be Eriksons books again? i was a bit put out at first when i heard that but it makes sense now, there would be no room for him. I'm not even sure we'll see Ganoes again - wasnt he in the middle of a battle back in tth, which even by eriksons timeline couldn't have tbeen the KCNR .

I have a feeling erikson will be a git and not even tell us about who survived until halfway through the last book. The remaining bonehunters will make a cameo appearance

This post has been edited by presumingpete: 25 August 2009 - 01:08 PM

[tiam]

yeh ok he coud command a g'ould mothership that makes him knowledgable and very old. You know what i mean tho. If hed not have been in the tower and had been on the opposite flank of the Letherii an had let loose how far would he have gotten. The power levels in this book have been thrown around and im not sure if its a surprise or just an inconsistency. Sinn can now drop a sky keep ok fine but the FA thing really bothered me as did alot of this book.

I need a reread nuff said. Hpefully itll all make sense again.

[presumingpete]

well didnt they say that the warrens were freaky in the wastelands - could this have screwed the power levels up?

[Veilside]

How exactly have the power levels been "thrown around"? Power levels aren't static, and characters can always have an off day, it's certainly been shown in previous books.

What bothered you about the FA thing? And which particular thing? The Watch killing one or some being killed by a mage?

This post has been edited by Veilside: 25 August 2009 - 01:13 PM

[tiam]

id say mostly the watch. Im sure that girl will turn out to be something razzle dazzle but the FA the watch fought seemed to be a fairly standard FA like the one that dropped Karsa and Trull and Co. It seems like, as someone said on another thrad, they have been watered down to give the human armies a better chance. It may turn out there half FA half human or some such plotline but even then unless the Watch turns out to be EG of toast id say its odd. As for characters having an off day its not even that. The entire book was essentially about how the Braghast were bastards and the phrase hobble was thrown around so many times. Again i think im angry simply because i know this is a link book but power levels seem inconsistent. Theres no way Someone didnt see 40000 NR with space ships coming. It was foreshadowed in a 10 page scene in BH and a bit later on in RG when Menandore syas 'Skykeep' to which the Errant or someone replies 'ah it has begun'

Another incnsistency is the fact that Setchul Lath is pparently Oppons rival and father. In MT the Errant is the arbter of fate or some such and now Erikson has found way to turn the Errant into something else. I know this board well enough to know that everyone is going to have a decent reasoning for all this and you may be right and ill likely et my words after a reread. But at the moment id say this was th worst one of the series. Even behind BH

Edit- And i love TTH btw

This post has been edited by tiam: 25 August 2009 - 02:14 PM

[drinksinbars]

@tiam - well the shake arent human. the fa that fought karsa and the one that fought trull were imprisoned and upon release fought the aforementioned battles. therefore they were trapped by magic much as int he azath and couldnt die. the ones in this novel were battling their way across a lifeless desert and unlike the snake didnt devour each other to survive (could call on using the name snake, snake devouring itself, infinity symbol and all that stuff).

knuckles was mention in mt, but the errant did appear as the nudge behind the scenes although more specific than knuckles than just luck. but i think i recall mael saying to the errant that the twins had assumed his role, only in rg did he come forward as master of the holds i think.

[tiam]

ok. The shake arent human. LIke i said before lets say the Watch is the most Andiian Shake ever. Would you put Spinnock Durav (a better swordsman than the watch we can only beleive) to win against an FA? No simply because even in that extreme example with the Watch being the best and strongest shake the FA have shown to beat KArsa and 2 other Teblor and , more importantly, a fully readied Trull, Rhulad on probably half strength and Fear. All of whom are on very decent levels of skill. It just bothered me thats all.

yes knuckles was mentioned in MT but there definitely a bit in in MT when the Errant notices the twins and is deemd to have been Usurped

[Illuyankas]

A Karsa and a Trull who are at the start of their respective journeys towards actual power. And not all FA are the same.

As for Sechul Lath, I think he was usurped by Errastas first and made Oponn as a bit of revenge.

[tiam]

I dunno Illy i got the impression he was done with that game. He says h was weary and says something like ' i left that game to the twins' so i dont think that was quite right.

Yes all FAs are not the same but to simply have them been killed by average swordsmen seems like a plot device to get rid of their power before the BH (or whoever) get to Kolanse and go toe to toe with them

[drinksinbars]

tiam, on Aug 25 2009, 03:43 PM, said:

I dunno Illy i got the impression he was done with that game. He says h was weary and says something like ' i left that game to the twins' so i dont think that was quite right.

Yes all FAs are not the same but to simply have them been killed by average swordsmen seems like a plot device to get rid of their power before the BH (or whoever) get to Kolanse and go toe to toe with them

well karsa never fought the fa, and neither did bairoth. only delum attacked.

the errant has grown quite considerably as a character since ibeing introduced. it wouldnt be the first time.

[blackzoid]

Silchas Ruin stated quite specifically that FA were very difficult to kill. That only draconic like creatures or other creatures with great powercould do it.
Lets not forget that Calm slaughtered thousands of T'lan Imass and made the stone bridge out of their bones. Plus Icarium had to throw a huge rock on one, and it didn't die.


I don't mind the FA being vulernable to the BH's new KCCM allies, the KCCM are tough enough I guess, but a mortal man even with part Tiste Andii power should be no match to one. Unles he had some kind of magic sword I guess.
if there is not a good reason for this, then the term "watering-down" is applicable I think.
This wasn't magic being used against the FA, like Ruin versus the cussers+Quick Ben, this is an issue of their physical toughness, which was very different in previous examples.

This post has been edited by blackzoid: 25 August 2009 - 03:07 PM

[Epiph]

tiam, on Aug 25 2009, 09:43 AM, said:

Yes all FAs are not the same but to simply have them been killed by average swordsmen seems like a plot device to get rid of their power before the BH (or whoever) get to Kolanse and go toe to toe with them

Now that all the talk of power levels has begun, I really wish I'd marked the page of the part of DoD that seemed to directly address power levels and ho'd wins. But I can't even remember who was discussing it. Maybe Ruin. But the gist was that power levels and comparisons between fighters are silly, because each fight is a singular event with countless little differences that add up to the larger fight. It was a good quote and I'm kicking myself over and over for not marking it.

That said, I tend to view the sudden rise of a seemingly average character not as unbelievable, but as evidence given to us that this character is special. And there seems to be a whole lot of power in the Shake and their memories. No Andii has managed to get back to Kharkanas since they left, and Twilight led thousands back. The Watch knew there would be Liosan hunting them, knew what an FA was, had already been shown to be bad ass enough to murder hundreds of witches and warlocks...and I wouldn't assume that after the first couple of kills, they weren't aware of what he was doing and trying to stop him. I think more than it being unbelievable that the Watch could so easily kill a FA and bunch of Liosan, it is Erikson setting up just how powerful Yeddin Derrig is. Also, if the Liosan were able to kill FA in the Wars of Justice, but it took Icarium and armies of T'lan Imass to defeat and imprison...Calm? Karsa's FA...it stands to reason that she was an exceptional FA. Since things DID kill them, it seems logical that the ones who weren't killed but were imprisoned were more powerful than average FAs.

[Veilside]

tiam, on Aug 25 2009, 03:12 PM, said:

id say mostly the watch. Im sure that girl will turn out to be something razzle dazzle but the FA the watch fought seemed to be a fairly standard FA like the one that dropped Karsa and Trull and Co. It seems like, as someone said on another thrad, they have been watered down to give the human armies a better chance. It may turn out there half FA half human or some such plotline but even then unless the Watch turns out to be EG of toast id say its odd. As for characters having an off day its not even that. The entire book was essentially about how the Braghast were bastards and the phrase hobble was thrown around so many times. Again i think im angry simply because i know this is a link book but power levels seem inconsistent. Theres no way Someone didnt see 40000 NR with space ships coming. It was foreshadowed in a 10 page scene in BH and a bit later on in RG when Menandore syas 'Skykeep' to which the Errant or someone replies 'ah it has begun'

Another incnsistency is the fact that Setchul Lath is pparently Oppons rival and father. In MT the Errant is the arbter of fate or some such and now Erikson has found way to turn the Errant into something else. I know this board well enough to know that everyone is going to have a decent reasoning for all this and you may be right and ill likely et my words after a reread. But at the moment id say this was th worst one of the series. Even behind BH

Edit- And i love TTH btw

The Watch, too, seems to be more than your standard human, not only does he and Twilight somehow know things that happened hundreds of thousands of years in the past, they're also respectively quite powerful (as seen by the witches turning young by drinking Twilight's blood). So clearly, they're far more than just human.
The whole book? I don't know which version you're reading, but in mine I had plenty of things in between the various Barghast bits. Like any of the other books in the series, SE goes off on a tangent and we're left to theorise about why that is, once we understand what Olar Ethil's motivation with Tool was, we'll understand better why there were so many bits about the Barghast, because obviously they're intertwined.

What's so hard to believe about Knuckles being Oppon's father? The Errant has always been about the push, always serving his own ends, whereas Knuckles describes himself as being more about balance, grant someone a healthy baby and someone else's child is going to have to suffer, etc.

tiam, on Aug 25 2009, 03:37 PM, said:

ok. The shake arent human. LIke i said before lets say the Watch is the most Andiian Shake ever. Would you put Spinnock Durav (a better swordsman than the watch we can only beleive) to win against an FA? No simply because even in that extreme example with the Watch being the best and strongest shake the FA have shown to beat KArsa and 2 other Teblor and , more importantly, a fully readied Trull, Rhulad on probably half strength and Fear. All of whom are on very decent levels of skill. It just bothered me thats all.

yes knuckles was mentioned in MT but there definitely a bit in in MT when the Errant notices the twins and is deemd to have been Usurped

What exactly are you basing your comparison of? We've seen absolutely no hard evidence that suggest either one is better than the other, so there's no point theorising on that point.
All of those characters you mentioned were beaten by an FA at the start of their journeys, frankly we don't know how much of a fight the FA can put up against a stronger oponnent, the demons the accompanied Trull, Fear and Rhulad certainly put a beating onto that particular FA, and plenty of characters can be theorised to be as strong as those demons.

blackzoid, on Aug 25 2009, 04:04 PM, said:

Silchas Ruin stated quite specifically that FA were very difficult to kill. That only draconic like creatures or other creatures with great powercould do it.
Lets not forget that Calm slaughtered thousands of T'lan Imass and made the stone bridge out of their bones. Plus Icarium had to throw a huge rock on one, and it didn't die.


I don't mind the FA being vulernable to the BH's new KCCM allies, the KCCM are tough enough I guess, but a mortal man even with part Tiste Andii power should be no match to one. Unles he had some kind of magic sword I guess.
if there is not a good reason for this, then the term "watering-down" is applicable I think.
This wasn't magic being used against the FA, like Ruin versus the cussers+Quick Ben, this is an issue of their physical toughness, which was very different in previous examples.

Do we know it was just Calm, I always assumed it was a Jaghut they were after, the FA just had the mischance of being at the wrong place at the wrong time and got beat down along with the Jaghut.

We've seen no evidence of their toughness in previous books, only that they're extremely nimble, catch thm off guard and presumably they're as weak as they've appeared in this book.

[Raatchi]

Totally agree about how weak the FA seemed to be, crossing that desert etc. Calm was under a rock for 100,000 years and then after a few mintues just healed up fine n beat the shit out of a TTT.

I can only think of 3 reasons;

1) Watering down their strength for a fight with the BH or somesuch - but why bother? they have K'Chain Che'malle, it would have been easier (less noticeable) to power them up instead

2) they weren't full blood FA - seems possible to me. There was mention earlier in the book about FA & mortals, although no idea where abouts and can't remember exactly what was said

3) the land they were walking through, kolanse, has been seriously fucked up by magic and it killls people a lot quicker - dunno if that fits in with the sister's thoughts on why the human children were so much stronger than them, but we know something baad has happened down that way.

Ill be happy if its 2) or 3) but not if its reason 1).

[fafner]

I see the FA by the watch as a power drunk fight like the witches that where dancing also the more they go back on the road the more of there powers awaken and the ones by the snake maybe making the gate has weaken them a lot

This post has been edited by fafner: 25 August 2009 - 04:28 PM

[presumingpete]

i see calm being an especially nasty FA thats why it was under a rock