[Bliss]

Ok so they are called the Forkrul Assail and it has been bugging me since i first heard it. if we break up their name it becomes for krul assail. so we know that krul's blood gave birth to the warrens and people have been messing with warrens for a real long time, using them to do basically whatever they want. and we have this race of people called forkrul assail and they basically have this crazy sense of peace and justice where they try and eradicate basically anything they think they can. almost as if their perfect world is a world where no one and nothing can do anything bad with warrens because they are. i know thats a stretch but because im not SE thats the best i can do. the definition of assail is:

as·sail (-sl)
tr.v. as·sailed, as·sail·ing, as·sails
1. To attack with or as if with violent blows; assault.
2. To attack verbally, as with ridicule or censure. See Synonyms at attack.
3. To trouble; beset: was assailed by doubts.

so we know, one: the forkrul assail are extremely violent creatures. two, near the end of DoD we find out that the forkrul assail can be amazingly effected by the power of someones voice or words, see badalle, and thats the second one. and not for sure be we can speculate that krul has had and still does have doubts about whether he did the right thing in making the warrens. so my question is this, are they called forkrul assail because they assail other creatures for krul? to eliminate all the people and things twisting and warping his warrens.

ill be quiet now while someone promptly destroys my argument.

[Bliss]

Bliss, on 07 October 2009 - 02:00 AM, said:

Ok so they are called the Forkrul Assail and it has been bugging me since i first heard it. if we break up their name it becomes for krul assail.
so we know that krul's blood gave birth to the warrens.
people have been messing with warrens for a real long time, using them to do basically whatever they want.
we know there is this race of people called forkrul assail and they basically have this crazy sense of peace and justice. they try and eradicate basically anything they think they can, almost as if their perfect world is a world where no one and nothing can do anything with warrens because they are dead. i know thats a stretch to make the connection but because im not SE thats the best i can do.
the definition of assail is:

as·sail (-sl)
tr.v. as·sailed, as·sail·ing, as·sails
1. To attack with or as if with violent blows; assault.
2. To attack verbally, as with ridicule or censure. See Synonyms at attack.
3. To trouble; beset: was assailed by doubts.

so we know, one: the forkrul assail are extremely violent creatures.
two, near the end of DoD we find out that the forkrul assail can be amazingly effected by the power of someones voice or words, see badalle, and thats the second one.
and three, we can speculate that krul has had and still does have doubts about whether he did the right thing in making the warrens.
so my question is this, are they called forkrul assail because they assail other creatures for krul? to eliminate all the people and things twisting and warping his warrens.

ill be quiet now while someone promptly destroys my argument.

[MTS]

It's a nice theory, but if it were true, the FA would have tried to eliminate the Crippled God rather than drain his power. They are beholden to Kilmandaros and Sechul Lath, not K'rul. You're drawing too long a bow with the name, I think. Plus their justice is aimed at preserving peace, not keeping the warrens stable. Their targets are generally indiscriminate, and don't always have a magical focus, such as the fight in MT with Serenity.

[HoosierDaddy]

Actually, I thought that the Assail were planning on "adjudicating" Kaminsod, and were, therefore, planning on eradicating him, like everything else they judge.

What they intend, and what Knuckles and Kilmandaros plan are not necessarily mutual.

[MTS]

That could be the case, but I doubt Kilmandaros and Knuckles have left room for that possibility to occur. Still, there are other examples. They could have helped against the feral Eleint, the wars in Emurlahn, the OD...if they were concerned with maintaining the integrity of the warrens, we would have heard more of their involvement in such.

Although I guess you could counter that with the question 'why did Silchas Ruin think they needed to be killed?' Their meddling could have proved troublesome for the Soletaken Eleint.

[blackzoid]

In my opinion, they were behind the Hounds of Light's attempt to take Dragnipur at the end of TTH.
When the Hounds arrive on the scene, the narration explicitly mentions that Dragnipur is a weapon of perfect Justice.

[Flawed]

Forkrul assail are one of the elder peoples. So they were around before Krul split his veins. Unless they had a different name before the creation of the new warrens it doesn't seem to fit.

i got the impression that the " forkrul assail " that badeel soundly trumped were not true forkrul assail but half human half assail.

there were not described in the right manner. and why would the human children walking the waste not mention any details about the assail child mincing about amongst them?

the only reference really made was that the assail child was naturally stronger because of her heritage

This post has been edited by Flawed: 08 October 2009 - 11:05 AM

[Mentalist]

I think the FA girl (Brader-something) said somewhere that she was hiding her "true nature" from the kids.
I took it to mena she was maintaining a disguise over her physical features that'd make her look like an Assail.

I'm not sure about whether or not the Kolanse FA are pure or not, b/c it's the only mention of them we get where they are not alone.
all previous encounters (Calm, Serenity and the one on the road of Gallan) are by themselves, and the first two are ancient to boot.

We are told that the FAs were already "scattered" (MT prologue) and "losing their way" (RG prologue) by the time KE got sundered.

According to Badalle's memories, the Kolanse bunch came from the North--could it be that they were also thawed as part of the unravelling of Gothos' ritual?

[HoosierDaddy]

Possibly, Ment. The FA are pretty damned hard to kill up until Dust, when the Watch eviscerates one quickly (perhaps due to ancient, Tistean knowledge) and then Badalle's sonic fucking beat down. However, in another thread about Badalle, and as the end of DoD shows, Badalle is pretty fucking bad ass, magicly speaking.

As per Mappo's statement on "assuring peace" as the Assailian goal: What's more peaceful than a world where there is no one to fight each other. Seriously, their "peace" equates to annihilation. That's inferred over and over again.

Were the Kolansi Assail full blooded? Why not? Because Badalle smoked some of them? Because Brayderal hadn't come into her powers yet as a FA? Who else, other than FA, would kill EVERYONE, including children, instead of just wiping out the threats as most others would do. The Snake is an indication of children fleeing "adjudication" by the FA.

[diabloswrath]

HoosierDaddy, on 11 October 2009 - 06:19 AM, said:

Who else, other than FA, would kill EVERYONE, including children, instead of just wiping out the threats as most others would do.

The easy answer to that is the Tlan Imass, they did that with the Jaghut. Nom Kala,"Now, we are become slayers of children" page 868 DoD.

[Mentalist]

the difference being, T'lan Imass actually killed.

the Kolanse FAs just told entire peoples to "die" and they would literally starve themselves to death.

T'lan werre quick about killing. FAs don't seem to share that.

also, let's keep in mind that according to Redmask in RG, Kolanse was already a dying land, because its people were cutting down trees, etc, and the desert was destroying their farmlands.

it could be that FAs came down form the North as answer to some desperate prayers--some bright-eyed fanatics summoning and awakening an ancient legendary race they've heard only scraps about.

[Bliss]

it still bugs me about the name. as if the series wasnt hard enough to understand he's got to mess around with names too. how come we can find the links between all the different names for destriant but a name like for-krul-assail has nothing to do with krul the god....
steven erikson seems to enjoy making people go "oh for christ's sake.....i was wrong?".