haroos, on 22 April 2010 - 08:03 PM, said:
just something i've been thinking about since i started a full reread.
my list is made up of people who chose to do evil things for their own gain, the crippled god for example isn't on my top 5 list, because i consider him insane.
so here goes :
1) tavore - the bitch sold her sister to slavery and prostitution, a 14 year old girl.
she had her parents killed.
this was done to secure her position as adjunct.
2) cowl - traitor, murderer, and while i think he is insane, it is still all a function of self service.
3) hairlock - he appeared in 1 book only, but the dude chucky creep was evil from 1 end to another.
4) the 2 necromancers, bauchelain and Korbal Broach, i'm not sure exactly what their purpose is, i have not read the books about them, but they are
what d&d refers to as lawful evil, basically, an evil that acts for specific reasons.
5) gorlas vidikan/malick rel, the soul of corruption, the bane of civilizaion, while being one of "us" the whole time.
in short, a realy good politician, in a psycho midevil world.
left out reluctantly are :
lasseen -
i never quite figured them out, the entanglement on genabackis was lasseen's attempt to remain an empire in qoun tali only ?
if so, she desired defeat for a greater good, if not, she was just an inept evil.
not sure.
tayscheren - i still don't understand if he sacrificed the bridgeburner or not, whether he played his own game or not, whether he was willing to make numerous sacrifices for
the greater good (based on the theory that he helped designate paran as master of the deck).
just not sure about him.
I like that you've made it all the way to TTH but seem to have missed a lot of the subtle details and character quirks that explain a lot of the actions in these books.
You could easily argue that there is no such thing as evil in the Malazan books. Good and Evil are in the eye of the beholder. It is a matter of viewpoint and philosophy. Few, if any character in these books can be said to be truly evil. I remember some thread, some where, where we talked about whether characters were white, grey or black. The only really evil characters I can remember being concluded were some body like Raest who is cruel and destructive just for the hell of it, and yet, this is in his nature.
Lets break your list down:
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1) tavore - the bitch sold her sister to slavery and prostitution, a 14 year old girl.
she had her parents killed.
this was done to secure her position as adjunct.
Tavore sent Felisin to the O-island because it was far away from the imperial eye, from which she would soon be able to free her again and buy her a new safe existence somewhere else. She sent Baudin, the son of a Talon (the enemies of the Empire), with Felisin to the island so that he could keep her "relatively" safe. Unfortunately the 7C descended into chaos. In HoC she sends Pearl and Lostara on a mission to locate or at least get a clue about the fate of Felisin.
As for the Parents. I can't recall the details, but the father died of a heart attack, right? It is a forum theory that his death was the price of Paran being brought back to life after being killed by Sorry. Can't recall the mothers fate. Anyway, the nobility was being culled, saving her parants would have been seen as weakness. Tavore, as the Adjunct, had to show strength and ruthlessness, her culling of her own family was the coin with which she bought the Empress confidence. She did what she could, which unfortunately wasn't much in the situation she was in.
We have never had a POV from Tavore as far as I recall (or have we later on?) so she is hard to figure out. From the outside she seems like a cold and calculating bitch of a High Fist. But she is very capable, very cunning and she does what she must. We have seen that she has a softer side, her love for her sister and T'amber, and a sense of humor however dry it may be.
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2) cowl - traitor, murderer, and while i think he is insane, it is still all a function of self service.
No doubt, Cowl seems like a very cold and very dark character. But how is he any different from Kelanved or Dancer? Both of whom he seems like an amalgam of. What Cowl and Skinner were doing in RCG seems evil, because it was a betrayal of the Vow and the Duke, but that is the way of Power. They wanted to create an empire centered around immortal, nearly indestructible soldiers dedicated to keeping the Empire alive for another thousand years with Cowl and Skinner as the Immortal Rulers of the realm. Did they do what they did for selfish reasons? Yeah, sure, partially, but what they were doing could also have ushered in a Golden age of stability for the Empire.
Traitor, murderer and insane could easily be applied to Quick Ben as well, you know.
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3) hairlock - he appeared in 1 book only, but the dude chucky creep was evil from 1 end to another.
We know very little of Hairlock. From what we saw he was an old, cantankerous mage who had little love for his contemporaries and even less for the Empire. The Sorcerous Enfilade at Pale nearly killed him and saw him trapped in a puppets form. From what we saw in GotM is was assumed that the Empire had attempted to get them all killed, The BBs and the Mages. Hairlock had been betrayed by the very Empire that he had been fighting for for more than a hundred years maybe.
So he seeks revenge. His anger consumes him. He becomes unhinged and starts drawing on Chaos which warps his mind. Getting cut in half and soul shifted into a wooden doll in the first place probably didn't help either. So he becomes insane.
Hairlock was not evil. Hairlock was a tragedy.
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4) the 2 necromancers, bauchelain and Korbal Broach, i'm not sure exactly what their purpose is, i have not read the books about them, but they are
what d&d refers to as lawful evil, basically, an evil that acts for specific reasons.
Ah yes. These two could easily qualify as true evil. But that is from our view point. Judged by our moral code and the set of values we are given by society. B&KB are scientists and scholars of the worst kind, they are driven by their own curiosity and ambitions. They do things for science and for power. Maybe more darker sides of their nature is revealed in some of the later B&KB books I haven't read, but from what I've seen, they don't do the things they do out of malice. They do them because they have a goal. To learn, to understand and to absorb. Life has no meaning to them, other people are but tools and ressources, but this is not because they are cruel, it is simply because they are indifferent.
If the two necromancers were truly evil they would have to take pleasure in the pain and chaos the cause, the wake of destruction and death they leave behind, but they don't. It's just an unfortunate result of the research. A minor annoyance if you will.
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5) gorlas vidikan/malick rel, the soul of corruption, the bane of civilizaion, while being one of "us" the whole time.
in short, a realy good politician, in a psycho midevil world.
Gorlas and Rel are two very different people.
Rel is truly a nasty people of work. But he is also a capable and shrewd power player. What he did initially to the empire, his betrayal during the 7C rebellion was revenge. The empire did its best to destroy his people. To him it was only fair that he payed the empire in kind.
As of the ending of RCG, which I wont reveal, Rel is in a whole new position. His actions from then on will serve much better to show just what kind of man he really is.
Gorlas on the other hand is nothing but a garden variety high born. His mindset is predictable. His actions nothing more than a symptom of his blood. Aristocracy, from the view point of the little man, will always seem cruel and indifferent. The unfortunate thing is that very few people born into power and wealth, brought up to think of themselves as more than the little man, will behave and act in a way that is good or just. Not because they are evil, but because it is their way. They are their own centers of the universe, they are brought up to think of others as toys.
So if Gorlas does something cruel, like killing a crippled man or cheating a dying one out of his money, it is not evil. It is good for the only person who matter, Gorlas himself.
As for the Empress and Tay. They are not evil in the least. They are servants of the Empire, each other them serving their own purpose. Laseen took rein of the empire when it lacked leadership and figure head. Kel and Dancer were absent for years if not decades at a time. So she took the empire for herself. In the mean time she managed to do passably well for herself. As ruler of an old school empire, there's no room for bleeding hearts. She sacrificed the Wickans for the sake of the Empires stability. Cruel and unjust? Certainly. Best for the empire? In the long run, who knows, but at the time it was exactly what was needed. Sacrifce the few for the sake of the many.
Tay is easily definable. He does what he thinks is good for the Empire, and as long as it doesn't hurt the empire in the long run, he will serve its ruler. It's as easy as that. He showed himself to be an incompetent commander in GotM, but what he did, like ordering the BBs into the tunnels under Pale, he did with the best intentions.
This post has been edited by Aptorian: 22 April 2010 - 09:01 PM
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