Abyss, I can't help but notice your realization came about 2 days after I posted something similar to the Dragon thread...
Anyway, people wanted supporting quotes? Because I can bring the quotes. Some have been referenced already, but I took these as I read and felt I might as well throw 'em in anyway. Once in a while I'll bold things I thought especially relevant.
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Olar Ethil: 'From my ancient blood ran every stream of Soletaken and D'ivers. And my blood, ah, it was but half Imass, perhaps even less. I am old beyond your imagining, warrior. Older than this world. I lived in darkness, I walked in purest light, I cast curses upon shadow. My hands were chipped stone, my eyes spawned the first fires to huddle round, my legs spread to the first mortal child. I am known by so many names even I have forgotten most of them.
...Parts of me sleep, tormented by sickness. Others rail in the fury of summer storms. I am the drinker of birth waters. And blood. And the rain of weeping and the oil of ordeal. I did not lie, mortal, when I told you that the spirits of your worship are my children. I am the bringer of a land's bounty. I am the cruel thief of want, the sower of suffering.
So many names...Eran'ishal, Mother to the Eres'al -- my first and most sentimental of choices. Rath Evain to the Forkrul Assail. Stone Bitch to the Jaghut. I have had a face in darkness, a son in shadow, a bastard in light. I have been named the Mother Beneath the Mountains, Ayala Alalle who tends the Gardens of the Moon, for ever awaiting her lover. I am Burn the Sleeping Goddess, in whose dreams life flowers unending, even as those dreams twist into nightmares. I am scattered to the very edge of the Abyss, the possessor of more faces than any other Elder.'
Torrent: 'Perhaps you were once all those things, Olar Ethil. But not any more. It's all torn away from you, isn't it? Scattered and lost, when you gave up life -- when you chose to become this thing of bones--"
Olar Ethil: 'I am promised! The Stone Bitch shall awaken once more, in plague winds and devouring locusts, in wildfires and drowning dust and sand! And you will fall upon each other, rending flesh with teeth and nails! You will choose evil in fullest knowledge of what you do-- I am coming, mortal, the earth awakened to judgement! And you shall kneel, pleading, begging--your kind, human, shall make pathos your epitaph, for I will give you nothing, yield not a single instant of mercy!' --DoD p. 456-457
I'm not inclined to think all these claims are hyperbole, honestly -- mostly because it would make this cryptic exchange between Osserc and his daughters suddenly more relevant:
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'This is a dread mess. I would wash my hands of it - all of it.'
'But you can't. We're all poisoned by the mother's blood, after all--'
'Her daughters have fared worse than poison! There is nothing balanced to this shattering of selves. Look at us! Spiteful bitches - Tiam's squalling heads rearing up again and again, generation after generation! And what of you, Father? That she-nightmare sails out on feathered wings from the dark of another realm, legs spread oh so wide and inviting, and were you not first in line? Pure Osserc, First Son of Dark and Light, so precious! Yet there you were, weaving your blood with that whore - tell us, did you proclaim her your sister before or after you fucked her?'
'You shouldn't speak of your mother that way, Sukul. She died giving birth to you, after all--'
'She died giving birth to us all! Dies, and is reborn. Tiam and her children. Tiam and her lovers. Her thousand deaths, and yet nothing changes!' (MT p.196-197)
I'm not sure we're talking D'ivers as traditionally thought, but I think there is a degree of aspecting at work here. Some essence, I guess, that she imparts on her daughters -- unrelated to the megalomania that comes pre-packaged with Eleint blood. A "shattering of selves". Something like how Sechul Lath says he spawned the Twins to take over his sphere. They're all aspects of the same thing (chance), but they're also distinct personalities. Except I suspect that, with Tiam, certain personality traits are inherited as well. Specifically the ones that make the female aspects especially violent towards one another.
If I had to guess, and Olar Ethil is in fact speaking as an aspect of Tiam, I'd say Tiam's particular aspect is fecundity and the life cycle -- I mean, her defining features are gettin' it on, having kids, and dying. Olar Ethil indicates "she" controls plenty and poverty, and she can be gently dreaming or, you know, full-on plague-bringing. It honestly reminds me of the Kali/Durga/Parvati situation in Hinduism; the three vastly different faces of one.
Nature
is a bitch . . .
For convenience, here are some on Olar Ethil's role, relationship with other Elders, and her diminishment:
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'You imagine [you sense Olar Ethil], nothing more. Tiam's daughter did not outlive her mother-- this thing has embraced the Ritual of Tellann--she is less than she once was.'
'Less, and more, I think.' (DoD p.491)
'How did it go again? Your mother's lover and child both? Just how did you beget yourself, Olar Ethil?' (DoD p.492)
'You are worse than K'rul. More of a threat to us than Draconus, or Edgewalker. You are Eleint and you are T'lan Imass, and both were every beyond our control.' (DoD p.494)
'Bonecaster, I know your name. I know you are the Maker of the Ritual of Tellann. That without you all the will of the Imass would have achieved nothing. The One Voice was yours. You took a people and stole from them death itself.' (DoD p.647)
'You are only what you once were, that and nothing more. If Kilava wishes to remain undetected, so it shall be. You do not rule this world, Olar Ethil. You surrendered that privilege long ago, with your very own Ritual.' (DoD p.648)
'Why does she possess a hundred heads? It is to mock an impossible concord.' (DoD p.647)
Slightly back on the original topic (sort of), Olar Ethil speaks of D'ivers/Soletaken matters when confronting Telorast and Curdle:
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'Soletaken, or, I think, D'ivers, yes? Born as Tiste Andii, one woman, but two dragons . . . Impossible for most -- even among the Andii. Yet, you found a way, didn't you? The blood of the Eleint resists the fever of D'ivers. A ritual would have been necessary. But what kind? Not Kurald Galain, nor Kurald Emurlahn...' (DoD p.691)
Interesting that she singled out D'ivers in particular as being an impossibility (for most), and that she refers to it as a fever, as if that's even more unnatural than Soletaken. Perhaps it's some kind of reaction to that "splitting of selves"?
(I will also note that Curdle and Telorast being stuck into a single body isn't really all that weird -- I mean, Quick Ben timeshares with WAY more people. The only difference is that it resulted in the host-Andii becoming an eleint D'ivers.)
-- Rearing one of my own hundred heads