[Fizish]

SE is partway through a written deconstruction of the passage shown above in the Life as a Human blog, but appears to have suspended his discussion pending more fan response on the blog. I don't know about the rest of you, but I found his first little bit of deconstruction fascinating and would love to hear more. If you too are interested, please join me in adding encouraging comments to the posts! Thanks!

http://lifeasahuman..../stevenerikson/

This post has been edited by Fizish: 10 April 2010 - 05:17 AM

[Jonny]

Erik Raditzky, on 06 April 2010 - 12:47 PM, said:

The question I want answered is...

The snake was in Icariums city last I checked, why did they leave? it had, y'know, fruit and stuff, if i was any of them i reckon i'd have stayed there, or at least took some fruit with me. So, I guess what i'm tryin to say is.....Are they idiots? suicidal perhaps? They were safe! now they're dyin again, Methinks Rutt should be impeached!

p.s Gothos, must say I'm lovin the Space Marine rep!! but you should know, The Blood Angels Rule All. FACT!!!

Loved this post ha, exactly what I was wondering. I don't buy that the fruit would have run out, to me it seemed like there was an enormous supply of the globe type things.
The snake segments I hated as well, damn.

[blackzoid]

10 chapters left!

[Kanubis]

I didn't mind the snake sections, but there you go...

Anyway, re-reading DoD at the minute, and it seemed that Badalle somehow witnessed Hetan's death, and I got the impression that she said something about taking her soul... or something... it was late. I just wondered if this would in any way come up again in the tCG.

[Blend]

Kanubis, on 20 April 2010 - 01:35 PM, said:

I didn't mind the snake sections, but there you go...

Anyway, re-reading DoD at the minute, and it seemed that Badalle somehow witnessed Hetan's death, and I got the impression that she said something about taking her soul... or something... it was late. I just wondered if this would in any way come up again in the tCG.

I don't remember that at all... Any chance you can pull a quote? Would be interesting if DoD wasn't the end of Hetan after all!

[blackzoid]

This is the quote


"Saddic, are you still alive? I have dreamed a thing. This thing was a vision, the death of a lizard-wolf lying curled on its side, the danger of bones beneath the sun. Listen to my dream, Saddic, and remember.
Greed is the knife in the sheath of ambition. You see the wicked gleam when you've drawn too close. Too close to get away, and as I told you: greed invites death, and now death takes her twice. This thing was a vision. She died not forty paces from her brother, and above her two armies war in the heavens, and beasts that are brothers are about to lock jaws upon each other's throat. Strange names, strange faces. Painted white like the Quitters. A man with sad eyes whose name is Sceptre Irkullas.
Such a sky, such a sky!
Greed and ambition, Saddic. Greed and treachery. Greed and justice. These are the reasons of fate, and every reason is a lie.
She was dead before dawn. I held her broken soul in my hands. I hold it still. As Rutt holds Held.
I knew a boy.
Absi, where are you?

Saddic listened, and then he said, 'Badalle, I am cold. Tell me again about the fires. The wonderful fires.'
But these fires were burned down to cinders and ash. The cold was the cold of another world.
Saddic, listen. I have seen a door. Opening."

[Blend]

That quote makes me think that the Snake is going to run into Hetan and Tool's boy, eventually, and that the boy will do something about Hetan's soul, which Badalle holds... Or something along those lines.

The other way you could look at it is that presumably the Beast Hold is kind of the T'Lan Imass equivalent of a Death Hold, so it's where the T'Lan Imass souls go when they're released (their memories created it right?). Perhaps Badalle is holding it for the Wolf Gods? Bah, I'm not too sure what to make of the above quote at all!

[ergault]

Aptorian, on 31 March 2010 - 05:48 PM, said:

D, on 31 March 2010 - 04:22 PM, said:

Puck, on 30 March 2010 - 04:16 PM, said:

I love Badalle and the Snake and am curious, where their story will lead them

To the K'chain Che'malle obviously... who else has claws?

I made a question about this in the "official life as a human blog" thread.

The KCCM have claws, so do the Great Ravens. We've also seen the Shake being born with claws, Poleil had claws, perhaps Soleil does as well? There's also the TTT En'karal champion of the Beast Throne. And for that matter both Togg and Fancy have claws and in connection with them you could say that their servants, the Grey Helm, also have claws. Both physically and spiritually. So does Trake, Gruntle and the followers of the Tiger of Summer.

The claws reference could also be metaphorical. It could simply mean someone with weapons, the Grey Helms, Bonehunters... Jheck?

Or perhaps it is a reference to the character of the one Bellale has taken them to. Someone dangerous or powerful.

i recall flies in abundance twice in thisstory...at the start of deadhouse gates..felisin paran had a encounter......bonehunters...when cutters group get attacked by t'lan imass

[Ceda Cicero]

What is the song Badalle references in the ending lines? After she says she's taking them to someone who has claws, "the power of the song still clung to her..."

Didn't Olar Ethil re-summon Tool and awaken the lost clans of T'lan Imass in DoD with a song? And, isn't it fair to say, Olar Ethil has claws?

[Bonehunter]

Not that this is going to happen but it would be freaking awesome if the butterflies were Sormo from DG reiterating in one of the Snake. That might make the snake worth reading.

[Blend]

Ciceronian, on 17 June 2010 - 06:38 PM, said:

What is the song Badalle references in the ending lines? After she says she's taking them to someone who has claws, "the power of the song still clung to her..."

Didn't Olar Ethil re-summon Tool and awaken the lost clans of T'lan Imass in DoD with a song? And, isn't it fair to say, Olar Ethil has claws?

As we saw in DoD, Badalle uses her magical powers by rapping... And rap is a form of song! I imagine it's the song she used to move the Snake to the new land they are in.

[D'rek]

ergault, on 02 May 2010 - 10:12 AM, said:

Aptorian, on 31 March 2010 - 05:48 PM, said:

D, on 31 March 2010 - 04:22 PM, said:

Puck, on 30 March 2010 - 04:16 PM, said:

I love Badalle and the Snake and am curious, where their story will lead them

To the K'chain Che'malle obviously... who else has claws?

I made a question about this in the "official life as a human blog" thread.

The KCCM have claws, so do the Great Ravens. We've also seen the Shake being born with claws, Poleil had claws, perhaps Soleil does as well? There's also the TTT En'karal champion of the Beast Throne. And for that matter both Togg and Fancy have claws and in connection with them you could say that their servants, the Grey Helm, also have claws. Both physically and spiritually. So does Trake, Gruntle and the followers of the Tiger of Summer.

The claws reference could also be metaphorical. It could simply mean someone with weapons, the Grey Helms, Bonehunters... Jheck?

Or perhaps it is a reference to the character of the one Bellale has taken them to. Someone dangerous or powerful.

i recall flies in abundance twice in thisstory...at the start of deadhouse gates..felisin paran had a encounter......bonehunters...when cutters group get attacked by t'lan imass

well Heboric was in the DoD prologue... and as SA of Treach you could say he has claws...

[Baudinsballs]

What if the Snake children ARE the Crippled God, little pieces of him that are being hunted and killed and ate because of the power to be had.

[buddhacat]

Jonny, on 10 April 2010 - 01:19 PM, said:

Erik Raditzky, on 06 April 2010 - 12:47 PM, said:

The question I want answered is...

The snake was in Icariums city last I checked, why did they leave? it had, y'know, fruit and stuff, if i was any of them i reckon i'd have stayed there, or at least took some fruit with me. So, I guess what i'm tryin to say is.....Are they idiots? suicidal perhaps? They were safe! now they're dyin again, Methinks Rutt should be impeached!

p.s Gothos, must say I'm lovin the Space Marine rep!! but you should know, The Blood Angels Rule All. FACT!!!

Loved this post ha, exactly what I was wondering. I don't buy that the fruit would have run out, to me it seemed like there was an enormous supply of the globe type things.
The snake segments I hated as well, damn.

For all of you who hate the Snake plotline, Badalle anticipated you:

In her head, Badalle was singing. She sensed the presence of others – not those ahead of her or those behind her – but ghostly things. Invisible eyes and veiled thoughts. An impatience, a harsh desire for judgement. As if the Snake’s very existence was an affront. To be ignored. Denied. Fled from.

But she would not permit any to escape. They did not have to like what they saw. They did not have to like her at all. Or Rutt or Held or Saddic or any of the bare thousand still alive. They could rail at her thoughts, at the poetry she found in the heart of suffering, as if it had no meaning to them, no value. No truth. They could do all of that; still she would not let them go.

I am as true as anything you have ever seen. A dying child, abandoned by the world. And I say this: there is nothing truer. Nothing.

As for the fruits in Icarius, it says, in so many words in DoD, that the supply would last only a few days.

[poeg]

Why do "claws" need to be literal? Two other children spawned by some necessity of events have shown theirs and they approach those of the elders in all but control. Why would not this "snake" which is also the raw spawn of circumstance find its fangs in two children we're already very much familiar with?

[Defiance]

Baudinsballs, on 06 August 2010 - 03:34 PM, said:

What if the Snake children ARE the Crippled God, little pieces of him that are being hunted and killed and ate because of the power to be had.

Very interesting thought, I love it.