[Arielas]

I just finished RotCG and found myself with some questions I couldnt resolve about the Avowed. How hard are they to kill? It seems ICE gives some double standards throughout the book. He goes from Skinner (who, granted, probably is on the extreme edge of their power limit since he has some "bonuses" due to his patronage by Ardata) to the ones that Laseen kills barehanded. In some passages, Avowed live with multiple crossbow bolts and fatal wounds to normal human while continuing to fight. We watch Black get lambasted by cargo and dropped into the harbor but Laseen manages to kill one with a hit to the throat. Iron Bars gets completely beaten down by the slave ship guards and shot in the chest at close range with a crossbow bolt but lives. Not to mention getting slashed across the throat by the Seguleh. Multiple descriptions of Avowed being capable of fighting with fatal wounds clearly have been afflicted on them. So if they are the human equal of Tlan Imass, being that you damn near have to dismember and/or take their head (see the example of Stoops being run through by Skinner but not killed until we assume he is beheaded) how does Laseen kill them?


r/s
Arielas

[Aptorian]

As far as I recall the ones Laseen killed were both with blows to the neck. Broken windpipe = No air, body dies. Broken spinal cord = no body functions, body dies.

These are different from just getting an internal organ run through. I'm sure hitting an avowed in the heart or brain with a knife of quarrel would also kill them.

[Arielas]

The problem with that theory is that a center mass shot with a crossbow bolt would surely cause you to bleed out faster than dying due to lack of oxygen. Now imagine being run through with multiple ones. It didnt seem like the Avowed had instant healing where the damage was mending as it happened. They needed time to recover or a healer to get them going again.


r/s
Arielas

[MTS]

I think you'll recall that the Avowed Possum sees her kill was fucked up pretty badly before she gets on the scene.

Quote

Yet the fighting continued. Stiff with pain, Possum crossed carefully to a window looking out , on the rubbish-strewn enclosure behind the tenement. There the Avowed duelled a single Claw. Possum stared. Run, you damned fool! Who was this idiot? He’d not authorized any lone hunters this night. The man - woman - Possum corrected himself, had elected to face the Avowed barehanded. Possum could not understand it, the highest, most exacting of the disciplines taught at the Claw creches and the Academy, yes, but against an armoured opponent wielding a longsword? Granted, the Avowed moved rather awkwardly having been thrust through the back and front scores of times by Possum and his own guards before managing to cut them all down, but still bare hands against iron mail?

[Arielas]

MTS, on 21 February 2010 - 06:24 PM, said:

I think you'll recall that the Avowed Possum sees her kill was fucked up pretty badly before she gets on the scene.

Quote

Yet the fighting continued. Stiff with pain, Possum crossed carefully to a window looking out , on the rubbish-strewn enclosure behind the tenement. There the Avowed duelled a single Claw. Possum stared. Run, you damned fool! Who was this idiot? He'd not authorized any lone hunters this night. The man - woman - Possum corrected himself, had elected to face the Avowed barehanded. Possum could not understand it, the highest, most exacting of the disciplines taught at the Claw creches and the Academy, yes, but against an armoured opponent wielding a longsword? Granted, the Avowed moved rather awkwardly having been thrust through the back and front scores of times by Possum and his own guards before managing to cut them all down, but still bare hands against iron mail?

I can see that one being able to be taken down by Laseen being that he was already weakened but further in the book during the final battles it is said she hunted down 5 more Avowed? Its either Laseen is using more than physical skills or the Avowed have a premise issue with their character design

r/s
Arielas

[D'rek]

Laseen is just that good - think of her blows as kung-fu master blows that deliver crap loads of damage. Plus, as said, her blows are probably in precise weak points that deliver instant death or insane crippling. Sure, if a normal person is crossbow'd in the gut they'll bleed out and die for sure, but an Avowed doesn't necessarily need blood to keep going, or else regenerates their own blood faster than it'll bleed out from a dozen wounds, or something else. Either way, the Vow keeps them alive so long as they aren't dying more-or-less instantly.

Furthermore, not all Avowed are the same. Obviously some are better swordsmen than others, but additionally they all have different levels of force of will, so a Black is not necessarily equal to an Iron Bars.

[Sinisdar Toste]

i think you're just underestimating how good of an assassin laseen is. while dancer watched kellenveds back, surly stalked their enemies and put them in the ground. she's possibly in the top five of assassins, we just haven't seen her do much. this is what ICE's point was in showing us that duel. she's a surgeon with her kicks and punches

[Silencer]

Yeah, Surly is often underestimated - even her appearance (barefoot, plain, small) belies her position as Empress, and that extends to her skills as well.

Laseen is both precise and powerful when it comes to her physical abilities, and in this way she can deliver multiple injuries that would normally kill a person individually. In the case of the Avowed we see her fight, she simply inflicts so much damage to him that he becomes crippled, and thus unable to fight - he then asks her to finish it (we presume), and so she does. At this point, it becomes murky as to whether that final blow was what did the Avowed in simply by virtue of location and type, or whether it was that the Avowed was allowing it to kill him - he no longer had the will to survive such an injury.

But either way, there is no reason Laseen could not have gone on and done that to five more Avowed, the only limitation there would be her stamina and time. Though it's also possible that the other Avowed were caught unawares (if that, then it's quite possible she just snuck up behind them and snapped their necks, assuming such a move would have finished them instantly/quickly).

Then again, you have the contrast of Iron Bars in MT, and Iron Bars in RotCG - in one, he stands against five Tarthenal gods, in the other a lone Seguleh somewhere in the top one thousand nearly takes him out. Different styles, of course, and he was somewhat weakened in RotCG already, however a major contrast, in many ways. It's two authors, total coherency is not guaranteed.

[HoosierDaddy]

Well, I think it would be beneficial to view them from the point that they were of different levels of efficacy before the Vow. Though they have all had their efficacy raised by the Vow, some have benefited more from it.

And, Laseen is bad-ass. As others have shown.

[D'rek]

Silencer, on 22 February 2010 - 01:52 AM, said:

Then again, you have the contrast of Iron Bars in MT, and Iron Bars in RotCG - in one, he stands against five Tarthenal gods, in the other a lone Seguleh somewhere in the top one thousand nearly takes him out. Different styles, of course, and he was somewhat weakened in RotCG already, however a major contrast, in many ways. It's two authors, total coherency is not guaranteed.

I wouldn't say it's a contrast at all - there's nothing to say the Seregahl had any sort of finesse or particular skill with a sword, they were just massively strong, tough, and with plenty of endurance. Iron Bars is a pretty good swordsman, but not one of the absolute best. He's better and faster than the Seregahl easily, and the massive force of will that he gets from the Vow keeps him nimble, energetic and able to keep fighting after receiving some blows from the Seregahl. That force of will is great and all, but he's just plain not in the same league of swordsman as Oru, and force of will doesn't count for much in a 2-second-long duel of finesse and agility. Basically, I'd say the Vow could only help him in that duel by the benefits he receives to his heightened reflexes and speed, but the endurance and will that Iron Bars is a lot better at aren't very useful in that situation.

[WhiskeyJackDaniels]

If an Avowed takes a major injury it hampers them basically the same as a normal strong person (excepting instant death apparently in Stoops case). The thing that sets them apart is if they get a couple of seconds to rest, the essentially recharge all their batteries. Iron Bars was almost done against the Tarthenal until Ublala showed up and distracted them. He got a couple seconds to rest then, and stepped back up as refreshed as when he started. Plus Iron Bars had Corlo distracting the Tarthenal and allowing him to dodge more of their blows. Against someone like Laseen or a ranked Seguleh, the blows would come so quickly that an Avowed doesn't really have the time to regenerate their strength. If Laseen broke a wriste, elbow, neck the other elbow a nose and snapped a knee inside of 10 seconds (which I definitely think she's capable of) then the Avowed wouldn't actually be able to move before she finished them off.

[Silencer]

@D'rek, true, there is nothing to indicate that the Seregahl were particularly good fighters, however I'm thinking more along the lines of the fact that they're ascended, and so don't tire or suffer from wounds as much (pretty much negating the Vow's benefits), and also, well...there's five of them. Compare the speed of the Seguleh's attacks to the timing of five people attempting to stab you at once? Blocking all five attacks is probably even harder, and they'll come faster and with less predictable cohesion than the lone, more skilled swordsman.

Now, an ability to quickly regenerate would be interesting, except that the Avowed Laseen was fighting had that opportunity when they briefly talked. While regaining one's wind and stamina over a short period of time is no doubt an advantage, but they are also shown to be incredibly resilient to otherwise mortal wounds, and fast recovery from exhaustion would not account for that - you'd need fast healing, and by all accounts we haven't seen that. After all, what of Cowl, when he fights Topper? Between his appearance in the Deadhouse grounds and Topper's arrival, he had enough time to recover...so why the melodramatic suicide?

Potentially, this is a similar situation to the one-off mention of Dragnipur's light-wound-is-death ability. We never see that again, and so it's possible the disparities noted are a RotCG'ism, too. Then again, maybe not...plenty of possibilities presented in this thread, after all.

[knight of shadows]

I would also like to point out that Iron Bars was still healing from his injuries which possibly would of hindered his speed and even just his general ability to use his sword as effectively as usually could. Not to say that if he wasn't injured he would of dominated the seguleh but he might of been a little quicker and may not of been in as much difficulty as he was.

[Soulessdreamer]

I think the discrepancy you see can be explaianed by the type of injury. A blow like Surly's which kills instantly dosen't allow the vow to preserve life but anything not instantly fatal dose.

I have a character like this in a game, anything that dosen't outright kill him no matter how fucked up he is, is eventually recoverable from weather in days or weeks.

TTFN

[Malaclypse]

Quote

. An Avowed could indeed
die, if sufficiently damaged. It was, he believed, a matter of will as much
as anything else. And he had known Iron Bars for a long time, although
not as long as he had known other of the Avowed. To his mind, however,
there was no other who could compare with Iron Bars, when it
came to sheer will.

[Deragoth]

I think people are just underestimating Laseen. She is one of the "old guard", who include Urko (chokes out Ryllandaras), Topper (made Cowl run away), and many others. They are most certainly on their way to ascension if not already there. It's the first time we've really seen her in action, so maybe a sense of disbelief precludes the obvious.

[borstalboy]

the power comparisons r ridiculous. it's not possible to accord any power rankings. u may comb all the books for examples, but it'll avail u nothin.
the authors can just kill off any characters to serve the storyline. face it. if the end doesn't live up to some readers' estimate of that character, then too bad. in fact, this is a recurring theme throughout the series... the hounds in GotM, deragoth in HoC, cowl in RotCG, etc.
cowl was so anti-climactic... the guy is built up as the uber-assasin cum high mage. he disposed of the andii hunters in GotM with impunity, some chap reckons (in TtH i think) that cowl once drove away silanah over blackwood with his barrage of magery, people keep extolling his awesomeness throughout the series... but, in the end, he just wusses out...

[Ulrik]

Yep, ICE´s  Cowl descension is sad. Tha man clashed with Anomander and forces were even (probably)...and got screwed by Topper? Sorry, I dont buy it...jesus, Topper isnt sappeur, that would be reasonable, but this...




But i disagree with "authors write it this way, live with it". OK, we have to, but MBoF is based on pretty stable view of some characters and powers. Always is here "dont mess with mortals" but Seguleh and CG inconsistency is IMO too wide. Seguleh society is in its nature league table of "how good he/she is". And now, different Seguleh shows different skills, sometimes against this "ladder". For me its lil, not so important,  fail.

[borstalboy]

Ulrik, on 15 March 2010 - 12:11 PM, said:

Yep, ICE´s Cowl descension is sad. Tha man clashed with Anomander and forces were even (probably)...and got screwed by Topper? Sorry, I dont buy it...jesus, Topper isnt sappeur, that would be reasonable, but this...




But i disagree with "authors write it this way, live with it". OK, we have to, but MBoF is based on pretty stable view of some characters and powers. Always is here "dont mess with mortals" but Seguleh and CG inconsistency is IMO too wide. Seguleh society is in its nature league table of "how good he/she is". And now, different Seguleh shows different skills, sometimes against this "ladder". For me its lil, not so important, fail.

yes there is a definite cut-off between the powers n the run-of-the-mills in the sense that nameless marines don't stand a chance against a Hound or seguleh can chop up armies by the dozens n in turn be held in thrall by a powerful ascendant...
but the powers of the characters r relative n fluctuate throughout the series, n r always secondary to the story... a character may be shown as very powerful at one point n may l8r die in a pretty tame (relatively) manner, just coz it's part in the story has been deemed over...
take the case of treach: (most?) powerful soletaken first hero, killed by two undead KCs (ignominiously easy) needed to die coz the story demanded a new war god. this guy once defeated ol' rylly outside li heng.
now, RotCG demands an uber-badass; enter rylly who manages to wipe out a lotta trained soldiers just like that, n this is after a looooong incarceration...
so, the point is, the authors can n will manipulate the "power levels" of the characters to guide the story into whichever direction they wanna...

[D'rek]

You guys just need to think outside the box more.

Ulrik, on 15 March 2010 - 12:11 PM, said:

Yep, ICE´s Cowl descension is sad. Tha man clashed with Anomander and forces were even (probably)...and got screwed by Topper? Sorry, I dont buy it...jesus, Topper isnt sappeur, that would be reasonable, but this...

Who ever said Rake and Cowl were even close to being even? Cowl was doing what Cowl always does - jump around from warren to warren appearing in places randomly, firing off some attacks and jumping again. His style is one that leads well to self-preservation, and obviously he has enough brute strength to do some notable damage, but that doesn't make him the equal of Rake. I picture the Rake hunting Cowl bit more like Rake detecting Cowl, firing enormous waves at him while Cowl shoots back a little something and quickly jumps away to some other part of the continent. Rinse and repeat. Tays on the other hand went toe-to-toe with Rake head-on, plus the distraction of the Nightchill-Bellurdan betrayal. I could easily see Tay being much stronger than Cowl.

Ulrik, on 15 March 2010 - 12:11 PM, said:

And now, different Seguleh shows different skills, sometimes against this "ladder". For me its lil, not so important, fail.

You mean because there are exiled/renegade Seguleh who are good fighters but not on the Seguleh ladder? of course not, they're exiles! Rell was banned from Seguleh fighting because he disputed a duel judging. Who knows what that duel was, maybe he was chellenging the 4th or something. It's clearly said that Rell was damned good for someone as young as he.

borstalboy, on 16 March 2010 - 07:36 PM, said:

take the case of treach: (most?) powerful soletaken first hero, killed by two undead KCs (ignominiously easy) needed to die coz the story demanded a new war god. this guy once defeated ol' rylly outside li heng.

as QB explains, Treach had gone insane from his Soletakenness and receded in his tiger form for centuries. Where once he could probably summon immense power and rapid healing from his First Hero-ness, his mind was now addled and he more or less thought of himself as just a tiger.

borstalboy, on 16 March 2010 - 07:36 PM, said:

now, RotCG demands an uber-badass; enter rylly who manages to wipe out a lotta trained soldiers just like that, n this is after a looooong incarceration...

I don't see why a giant man-jackal of rage would be easy to kill just because he'd been incarcerated for a while. He doesn't need to eat or drink or exercise to stay healthy, so why would it weaken him?