[tiam]

Didnt see a thread on solely this yet so...

What do we think? All the way through it seemed to be building to be a fake god similar to TTH and the kelyk. Then at the end it appeared to be a piece of the CG especially with Skinner stealing it and Blues throwaway comment near the end about him being the Shattered God.

To me the personalities seemed very different. Her clamping down on magic through the book, while fitting with the CG hatred of sorcery, shows direct power of a large area of land. While it is perfectly possible it doesnt seem to be the CG. The personality at the end when talking to Hiam about the Storm Wall simply being used to provide sacrifice to the Lady or to slow the Storm Riders down also didnt fit with the CG (which despite being predictable I enjoyed) who although Elder does not have the passion for blood oothers have. The vision to Hiam seemed to speak of fear and it appears the Storm Riders can destroy large chunks of the CG (if thats what they destroyed).

What is everyone elses take on this?

Anyway I was underwhelmed with this book, too few answers and as other have complained, didnt leave you with a resolution.

This post has been edited by tiam: 07 December 2010 - 03:39 PM

[champ]

See my thinking was that it was the Crippled God, the whole "flesh of my flesh" in the prologue pretty much answered the mystery for me... Either that or it was a "being" grown from the flesh of the Crippled God, like the Great Ravens...

Will add more depth when back home...

edit

No doubt my opinion will change on a re-read

This post has been edited by champooon: 07 December 2010 - 03:50 PM

[Aptorian]

Yeah, I agree that the ending/solution to Lady storyline was frustrating.

The way I see it, the Lady is an entity of her own, she is not the Crippled God, all though that certainly also is a possibility. How ever the Ladies power comes from these chunks of the CG. With out them she disappeared... or something... I have no idea. Maybe she is herself chained to that last remaining chunk of CG flesh and she is now forced to go with the disawoved.

Not a very satisfying end to the story at all.

[tiam]

Yes one throw away comment from Blues for a new god wasnt very satisfying.

The concept of her being a traditional spirit and drawing on a weakened fragmeent of the CG is plausible. However these fragments seem to have been destroyed by the Storm riders, who although suffered heavy casualties, seem to have destroyed an elemental in some form. This may be similar to the jaghut freezing the CG poison in MOI though and the SR seem to be aspected to the jaghut to some extent despite the Andii comment at the end.

No explanation at the end on the lady or the storm riders, or even Greymane, makes the ending poor. SE gives 1 answer and then 5 new quuestions but ICE only provided questions

[Sinisdar Toste]

in another thread i speculated that both the lady and the stormriders were some of the things that got dragged into Wu in the CG's wake, and that the Lady was a relative of the CG, thus explaining the flesh of my flesh remark.

[tiam]

Its plausible there bot CG entities in some form. But we really should have had some resolution on this now. A book set in Korelri and the Storm Wall should highlight what they are.

On other threads some people are taking it that as Skinner claimed to be stealing the entity masquarading as the Lady that she was in fact a fragment of the CG. I dont like this idea as such given the personality differences and level of power. Id like to believe the CG weve seen was the full god or atleast the largest fragment and he cannot deny sorcery to an entire continent.

[D'rek]

tiam, on 10 December 2010 - 12:32 AM, said:

On other threads some people are taking it that as Skinner claimed to be stealing the entity masquarading as the Lady that she was in fact a fragment of the CG. I dont like this idea as such given the personality differences and level of power. Id like to believe the CG weve seen was the full god or atleast the largest fragment and he cannot deny sorcery to an entire continent.

But doesn't it seem to fit rather well with the Great Ravens, who were also formed from the CG's fall and absorb sorceries?

[nacht]

To the sea-people, she is known as Shikshamil, the destroyer. Maybe she is Kilimandaros. Killly can take different forms and loves destroying stuff and is huge just like the lady.

[nacht]

sorry for the mistake. The correct name for the lady according to the sea people is Shrikasmil

[Erik Raditzky]

nacht, on 10 December 2010 - 05:26 AM, said:

Maybe she is Kilimandaros. Killly can take different forms and loves destroying stuff and is huge just like the lady

I dont think she is Kilimandaros, She has been locked up in an azath for god knos how long, plus I really don't think she would be worried about the stormriders so much so that she would have a wall built to protect her from them. It jsut doesn't fit her character in my opinion, she would be more likely to take them on, lance v fist, and I think she would probably win

[tiam]

Drek- I completely see why it could , and probably is tbh, the CG or some manifestation. But the level of power used to subdue sorcery over a continent suggests a power not available to the 'main' fragment of the CG. If it is the CG how could the StormRiders destory parts of him. The whole power masquardaing as the Lady comment suggests that its someone we know as the Lady but in a different guise. The rivalry with the QOD was also off putting and not in fitting with the CG and neither was the personality.

The sea people refering to her as the destroyer, coupled with the description at the start, points to Kilmandaros. It doesnt seem right though given her outright terror when talking to Hiam and doesnt fit with what weve already seen of her in SE's books. A difference in personality (like Dassem in TTH and Dassem in ROTCG) is acceptable but this being seems terrified of the Stormriders where as Kilmandaros is dropping dragons left right and centre in RG.

Personally it could be a fake god using the CG or someone we know, Nerruse maybe, escaping from the StormRiders and manifesting themselves in a different guise. It would be epicly hel;pful if we got any information at all about the Stormriders aims, nature, origins etc so we could accurately say why they were going after the lady but there was none. The biggest let down of the book for me was this.

[Imperial Historian]

My reading of it was this:

A being is drawn down by the korelian mages, and shatters into many pieces on korel.

One of these fragments is the being we know as the crippled god.

Various other of these fragments exist, some of these became the great ravens, another fragment seems to be in kolanse, and others in koreli. All these independent fragments seem to have developed and awareness of sorts.

The lady seems to be a fragment of the crippled god, which has gathered awareness and most importantly the fanatical worship of a large section of the korelian (the more we've learnt about this area, the more it seems wrong to call it the korelian subcontinent, but I can't think of any better catch all term, the shattered lands maybe?) subcontinent, a religion involving fanatical worship and blood sacrifice, both of which seem to involve a power boost for lack of a better term for the beings involved. This gave the lady the strength to eliminate other warren users in the area (interesting to note that the lady doesn't actually stop people being able to use the warrens, instead she simply unleashes her power on anyone she detects using the warrens, it would have been interesting to see whether osserc, anomander rake or even tays for example would have been prevented from accessing there power, after all we only saw relatively minor talents being inhibited in there magic use).

As such the ladys differences from the crippled god are to be expected, as though they were born from the same flesh, they developed differently, the CG can use the ladys power, but they are not the same by any means.

Re kilamandros, I initially suspected that the lady would end up being kilamandros, but there are too many discrepancies in character, timeline etc to make that possible, coupled with the references to the crippled god I think it's pretty clear that the lady is not killy.

[tiam]

IH- the CG is the most logical and plausible but there are problems with this. The image of the fish TTT woman at the beginning and the fact that the Storm Riders have been throwing themselves at the Korelri for five thousand years to get at something. To me it does not add up. While Im sure it will become apparent that it is the CG I think an awful lot to take. I accept that it could have simply been a manifestation that gained power. But why did she get Temal to build the Storm Wall and why do the sea folk call her the destroyer, which is apparently her true name.

There is too much contradictory information as far as im concerned.

[Stingray]

The 'Flesh of my flesh' remark seemed familiar to me from another source, so I Googled it, and it seems that in the bible Adam talks about Eve like that:

Quote

And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.
-- Genesis 2: 23 (KJV)

Which could imply that the CG was created out of the Lady.

Then there is a wedding song called Flesh of my Flesh which originates from the bible story:

Quote

You are flesh of my flesh
Bone of my bone
There's no one closer
You are flesh of my flesh
Bone of my bone
We are one

I do pledge my life to you
Forever and always
I will take good care of you
And shower you with praise

Others try and separate us
But they don't have a chance
No one else can take your place
No not even one

So maybe the CG and the Lady once lived in wedded bliss before being torn into a new realm....

...or maybe I'm reading too much into it!

[Abyss]

My take: when the CG fell (which we did see at the prologue) these particular chunks damaged the Stormriders home warren. The CG then stole something from them, power, their god, something, and then set him/herself up as a god on Korel, taking steps to ensure the Riders could never take revenge.

Remember that when we see the early korelri in the prologue, they already worship a 'Lady'. The CG just used that image to form the basis for worship, leading to the Stormwall, the murders and anything else he could draw power from.

Maybe after a few milenia the chunks had accumulated sufficient power and worship to be a god in its own right, separate from the CG and happy to stay that way until weakend by the loss of 2/3 of itself so the CG could send in the Disavowed to claim the last bit.

[Gothos]

I'll have to ask this with regards to the Lady: Why the exceptional enmity and rivalry with the Enchantress? Perhaps indeed the Lady is some 'other' someone/ascendant that usurped CG's bodyparts somehow. On the other hand, we have the Stormriders going after the fragments specifically, so maybe they're the CG's enemies, so it's not consistent.

Also. With this here, we have a precedent to what usurpation of CG's parts may have taken place in Kolanse.

[tiam]

The change and gender and personal hatred of the QOD makes me think it wasnt simply another guise of the CG. The usurpation of the flesh's power seems plausible enough but we cant really say anymore until we see whats happening in Kolanse. It would be good if it was a small spirit that was at war with Storm Riders that fled inland to utilise the CG but thats just an idea.

I really hope ICE doesnt leave it as it being the CG all along as hes not going to deal with it for another 2 years.

[Puck]

My thoughts on the QoD and the Lady.. I always had the feeling that the QoD is something like the malazan world's version of your typical fantasy mother-goddess [being worshipped by the Thel Akai, who are supposed to be one of the eldest or the eldest races on Wu, representing life, and all that stuff]. Naturally, a goddess that want's the land all for herself would see the QoD as somewhat of a mortal enemy. Also, the QoD represents life, while the Lady is nicknamed the Destroyer by those whom she couldn't get under her thumb.

[tiam]

Isee your point that in essence one trying to dominate the other would put them at odds. But it seemed more personal than that. Also I havnt read ROTCG in a while but dont the Thel Akai worship Burn or are guardians of Burn or something like that. I think Ereko was different from usual. Triss as an entity and even a god is fairly new while the Thel Akai are older than the Imass.

[Gothos]

Triss can't be any sort of 'mother goddess' whatsoever; she's too young. Remember she fooled around in a party with Rake and Brood before she ascended.