[The Seguleh 46th]

foolio, on 23 February 2010 - 03:09 PM, said:

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i think tanakalian will surprise us all.

I kind of agree. It just seems like we are being pushed into thinking that he is traitorous or a villain too much. I think he will also surprise us.

Not sure if this has already been stated, but i like the fact that Tanakalain is deciding to choose whose pain he embraces. I wanna believe ITkovian states somewhere in TTH (as the Redeemer) that he wishes he would have chosen instead of simply embracing any and all. However cold that may be, its still very much human and/or mortal of Tanak to make that choice. Or rather, to be able to decide whether to make that choice when the time comes for whatever he's gonna do. Not gonna speculate on anything else regarding him, just i will be looking forward to his POVs very much!

[Glory Goat]

I can't help but wonder if the CG hasn't chosen well in Karsa, tbh. Karsa has gone through what the Crippled God has been through now, and already in his first book by the end he was sneering and vowing to break chains and whatnot - gets the CG free, don't it

If you were a god and had to like, beg your followers/nominated minion to do something, that'd end up badly and a gimme-three-wishes-first sorta thing.

And I can't wait to find out who is betraying what. Ideally Tan will be eaten by Gunth Mach as a small snack, but I know this will not happen. I'm also not that sure about who the Destriant was channeling, what with him turning into water melt a lá X-Men.

[Tattersail_]

Abyss, on 14 September 2010 - 04:45 PM, said:

Well that is the question... the Helms' Destriant certainly suggests that Tana' may not be working towards the same goal as Krughava. No one asked Setoc if she wanted to be Destriant to a couple of gods her home country didn't even recognize. In MoI Gruntle cheerfully disregarded Rath'Trake's orders that supposedly came from Trake. Heboric even appeared to have switched from Destriant to Shield Anvil by virtue of necessity. Dassem broke from Hood but appeared to retain a lot of the power that he held as Death's Knight. FW basically forced the Errant to take her as Destriant and then tried to force the SA role on Udinaas who denied it. And I'm fairly sure Rake never asked anyone to make Clip his mortal sword. All of which is to say, investing power in a mortal can happen a few different ways and the God/Ascendent isn't necessarily in 'control' of what happens next. Sure, Itkovian, Brukhalian and Karanadas were religious fanatics sworn to their god, but that is clearly not always the case and as with Karsa, a decision to invest a mortal can really backfire on the god.

Point taken, cannot come abck to this as I can only agree. reading Heboric's POV from the beginning of the book, it shows that the Wolves are watching, I cannot help but wonder what they want in all of this, I am re reading DoD so I am at the beginning again but what is their goal do you think? And as you pointed out above they may have no control over the decisions that mortals make but they can plan for them and that is why they have so many players within the game, maybe they have different people in different places ordained to do a certain thing, and if one fails then another one will try to succeed, that type of thing?

The thing is, the House of War is massive, it has the bridgeburners led by Iskar jarak. It has treach and all of his players, it has togg and fanderay and their players, it has the KCCM led by Gruntle and Stormy, if I rember correctly. Is this, as Heboric stated, A war between the Gods of War and Justice aka the FA and Jade Statues? is this the main theme now do you think, with tCG as the prize? Or the Saviour? Heboric said nothing can stand in the Jade Statues way, but maybe the Crippled God is the only one who can and he is the one that will step up to the plate?

[worry]

They're all gonna throw a luau with Fener as the main course.

[Sinisdar Toste]

not sure how you slot gesler and stormy and their che'malle into the house of war... if anything ges and stormy are linked to fire. tellann, thyr and maybe telas and thyrlann.

how cool would a high house fire be?

[Mcflury]

Sinisdar Toste, on 15 September 2010 - 04:44 PM, said:

how cool would a high house fire be?

I don't think it would be cool at all, it probably would be steaming HOT

[random marine doomed to die]

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Abyss said:
"Y'know... this could all go very very badly for the Wolves, given that their three remaining aspected mortals are likely at opposite purposes."

Who says that Togg and Fanderay agree on everything

Togg could be understandably quite angry with tCG: loss of an eye, trapped by himself for centuries/millenia (timeline is...) in the warren of Chaos. So all by himself with immense pain + in a place that drives you crazy(er). (i.e. Hairlock)

Fanderay's emotional trauma could have healed due to her time with Baaljagg and the running with a pack in the Baaljaag's dreams thing.





I agree with a lot of what you said, I can't formulate my thoughts so clearly.
Just nitpicking that one line

This post has been edited by random marine doomed to die: 15 September 2010 - 07:41 PM

[Tattersail_]

Sinisdar Toste, on 15 September 2010 - 04:44 PM, said:

not sure how you slot gesler and stormy and their che'malle into the house of war... if anything ges and stormy are linked to fire. tellann, thyr and maybe telas and thyrlann.

how cool would a high house fire be?

I got them because of the KCCM. I thought the Wolves are linked somehow to the KCCM but maybe that was just a thought

[Abyss]

No link between the Wolves and K'chain or the K'chain and HHW that we know of. Yet.

Stormy & Gesler were aspected to fire when they passed through Thyrllan which served as a link the K'chain Che'malle could accept in their mortal sword and sheild anvil, as the Thyrllan elder warren is linked to dragons, and the Che'malle worship dragons, more or less.

@Random marine - There's been absolutely nothing to suggest that he's particularly nuts or she's particularly 'healed'. We've also never seen an instance where Togg and Fander disagree. That said, you raise an interesting point since initially the Wolves together had two of each aspected mortal. The Grey Swords were wiped out which left the Grey Helms and then Setoc replaced the Helms' Destriant, but in theory at some point each Wolf God had their own 'set', altho no one ever distinguished except for Toc who had a stronger link to Togg having hosted him for a while. The Wolves could at any point choose to appoint a whole other set of D/MS/SA and we've seen that mortals don't necessarily act in the interests of their aspected god...

[HoosierDaddy]

I think the K'Chain were just randomly looking for ascended or nearly ascended humans. Redmask was just a badass and had nothing to do with dragons as far as we know. Seems to be geographically based limitations on who they can search for and use.

[Abyss]

H.D., on 16 September 2010 - 06:51 PM, said:

I think the K'Chain were just randomly looking for ascended or nearly ascended humans. ...Seems to be geographically based limitations on who they can search for and use.

So to speak. Kalyth doesn't appear to be ascended in any way prior to being aspected by the matron, and Redmask was a very, very skillful fighter but aside from being able to communicate with the K'chain and possibly a speed/strength power-up, he wasn't ascended either.

The K'chain are sent out not really knowing what they are looking for except that the Matron, perhaps prescient, knew useful mortals had to be out there somewhere. No one does any mystical scrying or warren searches or whatever altho it's inplied that part of the reason the Matron went bugnuts was that she was trying to determine the future, and we've been told more than once that's hard to do, risky and notoriously inaccurate.

Gu'rull kills his way through various candidates before he spots Stormy and Gesler and decides their KT aspect makes them acceptable.

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Redmask was just a badass and had nothing to do with dragons as far as we know.

Yep. he was a convenient experiment.

[random marine doomed to die]

@ Abyss

Yes, just bringing up something that popped in my head as I read that line. Hence my use of the word "could", as in might/maybe, in both lines.

[random marine doomed to die]

I'm a Corporal now? cool

[Excellence]

Maybe the Perish are aptly named. They are meant to perish at some point.

What could the destriant have seen at the beginning, that he journed too deeply into his warren and overused his body?

[worry]

While the KCCM may have nothing directly to do with War, Stormy and Gesler were both in the Fener cult way back when, and Fener is likely gonna be in play at this convergence. It doesn't necessarily define their allegiance in any one direction, but it does add an interesting wrinkle.

[The Seguleh 46th]

worrywort, on 24 September 2010 - 01:27 AM, said:

While the KCCM may have nothing directly to do with War, Stormy and Gesler were both in the Fener cult way back when, and Fener is likely gonna be in play at this convergence. It doesn't necessarily define their allegiance in any one direction, but it does add an interesting wrinkle.

I agree with this. To add to this, no character, as far as we know, has completely disavowed allegiance to Fener? More like resignation, if i have it right, since he's obviously been torn from his realm and position of power? Fener to me just seemed like a God that inspired loyalty, as (of course, i could be wrong) i don't remember any character aspected or what-have-you to him really saying anything bad or disingenuous regarding him and/or his patronage.

This post has been edited by The Seguleh 46th: 24 September 2010 - 03:05 AM

[SiriusL]

Quite aside from trying to imagine the specific plot of the ending (i.e., what the hell are ST/Cot up to?), Erikson seems to be really pushing this theme of war, justice, and compassion being at odds...or at least being completely subjective.

I'll have to dig up MoI from storage, but didn't Whiskeyjack and Rake have a discussion about justice versus compassion after Rake killed all the Mothers of the Dead Seed? Rake expressed similar thoughts to what Tanak' does--justice is up to the individual--there is no universal code.

Compare that with the Cult of the Redeemer at one extreme, then with the Forkrul Assail on the other. And throw it way back to the genocide by the T'lan Imass and how they now seem to be part of the Beast Hold/House of War.

Then compare all that with Paran's indecision about whether to sanction the House of Chains in MoI.

I can kind of see where this is going, but it's all pretty muddled in my mind. I think it plays still further into the "mortals vs. gods" theme, and I have a feeling one particular mortal is going to decide the fate of the Crippled God. It may be that mortals are the final arbiters of justice, not Gods, despite all their meddling and scheming. But then again, D'rek didn't seem to think so. Argh.

[Findarato]

SiriusL, on 30 September 2010 - 08:10 PM, said:

Quite aside from trying to imagine the specific plot of the ending (i.e., what the hell are ST/Cot up to?), Erikson seems to be really pushing this theme of war, justice, and compassion being at odds...or at least being completely subjective.

I'll have to dig up MoI from storage, but didn't Whiskeyjack and Rake have a discussion about justice versus compassion after Rake killed all the Mothers of the Dead Seed? Rake expressed similar thoughts to what Tanak' does--justice is up to the individual--there is no universal code.

Compare that with the Cult of the Redeemer at one extreme, then with the Forkrul Assail on the other. And throw it way back to the genocide by the T'lan Imass and how they now seem to be part of the Beast Hold/House of War.

Then compare all that with Paran's indecision about whether to sanction the House of Chains in MoI.

I can kind of see where this is going, but it's all pretty muddled in my mind. I think it plays still further into the "mortals vs. gods" theme, and I have a feeling one particular mortal is going to decide the fate of the Crippled God. It may be that mortals are the final arbiters of justice, not Gods, despite all their meddling and scheming. But then again, D'rek didn't seem to think so. Argh.

I think you wrote my own thoughts here. Although I am not good at speculation, I also believe it goes in the direction of mortals (either one or some particular) being decisive of the CG's fate.
And I have the feeling Tanakalian will do something quite unexpected. To my mind his scepticism of the traditional role of Shield Anvil is quite realistic. But we know nothing about Tavore's, or ST/Cot's plans, or the many other unknown factors.

[champ]

cant remember who says it or where but it's mentioned that only a mortal can truely kill an elder god...

[Sinisdar Toste]

champooon, on 01 October 2010 - 11:26 AM, said:

cant remember who says it or where but it's mentioned that only a mortal can truely kill an elder god...

i think it's in MoI, goes something like 'for such is the only end to immortality'

are you thinking that maybe tanak will be the CG's killer, or something else completely?