[Migol]

...which lead to very little or nothing in this book

SE is a tricky one.

1) Draconus-He stepped into the world and annihilated two armies as a sort of "whoops, stepped in the wrong place" sort of thing in the process. Created a sword made of pure darkness, and had all the elder gods, mages, people of power and so on puking in their boots with headaches and terror. You figured that he'd play a huge part in the finale of this book, oh and there was the bit about Quick Ben being the only one who could stand up to him (!!??!?!).

Result-Kilmandaros suddenly realizes that she's a terrified little girl after seemingly being the "destroyer" God capable of standing toe to toe with Rake previously, runs away. He catches her anyway, kills her. Not horrible, but definitely less than we expected.

2) Rudd Elalle-"Surpasses" Silchas (Anomander's Brother) without him knowing, is scaring the beejesus out of Olar Ethil, seems extremely powerful and has a lot of foreshadowing (the whole "hands of fire" bit).

Result-Hides in a Cave while all the action is going down. Also, the guy he "surpassed" explains that he's an ancient and could easily dominate his mind while they were veered.

3) Bottle-There was an awful lot of foreshadowing with him and the Eres who used to be T'amber...whatever happened to her btw, did I miss it? Also the wickans saying that he was more important to the adjunct than quick ben and friends combined. He didn't actually end up doing anything though aside from some conversations with Ruthan Gudd about tongue in cheek uses of "elder".

4) The Elder Gods-"Alright, we just need to free this Otataral Dragon...OH %@&^ Draconus is Back! We'd better free the Dragon even quicker! That'll solve everything!"

Result-They suddenly go all suicidal and terrified at the drop of a hat.

Others you guys thought were going to come up big and never did?

[Sinisdar Toste]

olar ethil

remember that whole deranged speech? the earth awakened in fury blah blah blah? well, an arrow in the eye can fuck up even a gods day.

i kind of liked how some of these huge build ups came to nothing though. it seemed wiser on draconus and rud elalles parts to avoid the convergence. what purpose would they have served, being there? it also continued the theme of the little guys, the mortals, showing what they can do, which has been around since book one.

Though i was slightly surprised with kilimandaros' sudden loss of will. i mean, sure, nobody (except apparently QB and rake) can stand up to a guy who is night incarnate, but i thought she would have at least stood and punched back a bit.

[Urizen]

Migol, on 05 March 2011 - 06:40 PM, said:

...which lead to very little or nothing in this book

SE is a tricky one.

1) Draconus-He stepped into the world and annihilated two armies as a sort of "whoops, stepped in the wrong place" sort of thing in the process. Created a sword made of pure darkness, and had all the elder gods, mages, people of power and so on puking in their boots with headaches and terror. You figured that he'd play a huge part in the finale of this book, oh and there was the bit about Quick Ben being the only one who could stand up to him (!!??!?!).

2) Rudd Elalle-"Surpasses" Silchas (Anomander's Brother) without him knowing, is scaring the beejesus out of Olar Ethil, seems extremely powerful and has a lot of foreshadowing (the whole "hands of fire" bit).

Result-Hides in a Cave while all the action is going down.Also, the guy he "surpassed" explains that he's an ancient and could easily dominate his mind while they were veered.

With regards to Draconus, He was about to play a suitably large of the finale( probably mucking up everybodys differnt plans) but Shadowthorne intervenes and convinces him to sit this one out.

The Rud Elalle thing about him surpassing Silchas might have been all in his own head. Or more likely, he "surpasses" Ruin as a person but not nessecerly as fighter/more powerful being.

[Blacksox]

Sinisdar Toste, on 05 March 2011 - 08:30 PM, said:

Though i was slightly surprised with kilimandaros' sudden loss of will. i mean, sure, nobody (except apparently QB and rake) can stand up to a guy who is night incarnate, but i thought she would have at least stood and punched back a bit.

Yes, Kilimandaros was a big disappointment.

I think it was more than just fear of Draconus that did her in though. From her points of view it is obvious she thinks she f'd up big time freeing Korabas, and not just because Draconus is going to lay the smack down on her for doing it. I sinced real guilt and shame from her for her actions, it was like she was scared that Draconus was going to kill her, but at the same time new she deserved it.

Not saying she could have beaten Draconus under any curcumstances, but she was certainly in no state of mind to battle Draconus. If Kilimandaros had been in one of her "righteous" rampages at the time I believe it would have been a much more epic confrontation.

[Salt-Man Z]

The Eres'al is this mystical time-traveling creature who Deus Ex Machinas her way through TB. Figured she would have shown up again at the end, or at least we'd be given some hint as to what the heck her deal was. Nope.

[Ceda Cicero]

Hate to say it, but Icarium's warrens. That was not only made out to be a hugely significant event in DoD, it was also the culmination of Icarium's story.

They were mentioned all of 2-3 times early in tCG, then never again. Even the idea that Grub and Sinn were two key practitioners of those warrens was hardly broached (if at all) - Grub doesn't actively use any magic in tCG, and Sinn is very consistently described as drawing on Telas - not one of Iccy's warrens - throughout the book.

If not for all that, I would've been totally, 100% satisfied with the ending to his and Mappo's arc. But just because with DoD all these crazy new cans of worms were opened with Icarium, not developed at all in Book 10, and he's just back to his old self for the 2 pages we see him conscious in tCG, it felt kind of irrelevant. (Although to be fair, I have really come to enjoy reading Iccy's portions on rereads in DoD.)

[Sinisdar Toste]

Cicero, on 06 March 2011 - 11:31 PM, said:

Hate to say it, but Icarium's warrens. That was not only made out to be a hugely significant event in DoD, it was also the culmination of Icarium's story.

They were mentioned all of 2-3 times early in tCG, then never again. Even the idea that Grub and Sinn were two key practitioners of those warrens was hardly broached (if at all) - Grub doesn't actively use any magic in tCG, and Sinn is very consistently described as drawing on Telas - not one of Iccy's warrens - throughout the book.

If not for all that, I would've been totally, 100% satisfied with the ending to his and Mappo's arc. But just because with DoD all these crazy new cans of worms were opened with Icarium, not developed at all in Book 10, and he's just back to his old self for the 2 pages we see him conscious in tCG, it felt kind of irrelevant. (Although to be fair, I have really come to enjoy reading Iccy's portions on rereads in DoD.)

Sinn ends up using one of the new warrens to overcome stormy, iirc. stormy is battling through her fire and then it changes suddenly and he says something like "this isn't telas!" then, kaput - end o' story

i also kind of thought that badalle had been using one of the new warrens all along, thats why it worked in the glass desert.

[Ceda Cicero]

Sinisdar Toste, on 07 March 2011 - 02:51 AM, said:

Cicero, on 06 March 2011 - 11:31 PM, said:

Hate to say it, but Icarium's warrens. That was not only made out to be a hugely significant event in DoD, it was also the culmination of Icarium's story.

They were mentioned all of 2-3 times early in tCG, then never again. Even the idea that Grub and Sinn were two key practitioners of those warrens was hardly broached (if at all) - Grub doesn't actively use any magic in tCG, and Sinn is very consistently described as drawing on Telas - not one of Iccy's warrens - throughout the book.

If not for all that, I would've been totally, 100% satisfied with the ending to his and Mappo's arc. But just because with DoD all these crazy new cans of worms were opened with Icarium, not developed at all in Book 10, and he's just back to his old self for the 2 pages we see him conscious in tCG, it felt kind of irrelevant. (Although to be fair, I have really come to enjoy reading Iccy's portions on rereads in DoD.)

Sinn ends up using one of the new warrens to overcome stormy, iirc. stormy is battling through her fire and then it changes suddenly and he says something like "this isn't telas!" then, kaput - end o' story

i also kind of thought that badalle had been using one of the new warrens all along, thats why it worked in the glass desert.

Stormy just vaguely observes that Sinn's power shifts, at least to such a degree that he can't withstand it. And the other comment about it not being Telas comes from Hood, who offhandedly says it could destroy them all. You're not wrong, but to me it's still too few and too inferential mention for something that seemed to be a huge deal in DoD - both contextually so with Quick and Aranict and every other mage talking about it consistently throughout - and more broadly so, across the series with it seeming to be the penultimate point to some extremely crucial significance of Icarium/his history with the Azath and NOs for the series.

[Migol]

Salt-Man Z, on 06 March 2011 - 11:13 PM, said:

The Eres'al is this mystical time-traveling creature who Deus Ex Machinas her way through TB. Figured she would have shown up again at the end, or at least we'd be given some hint as to what the heck her deal was. Nope.

Ok, so I didn't just miss her dying somewhere then? Good grief, did SE just forget about one of the main plot points?

I mean, she saved the entire army at least a couple of times, was obviously the adjunct's sole confident, and was pushing them the whole way. Was involved with the "uber conspiracy" from the beginning. Not even a whisper of her in this book though? At the very least she could have expended herself to bring back bottle (instead of QB's "threads"), it would have taken maybe a page.

[Ceda Cicero]

Migol, on 07 March 2011 - 04:51 AM, said:

Salt-Man Z, on 06 March 2011 - 11:13 PM, said:

The Eres'al is this mystical time-traveling creature who Deus Ex Machinas her way through TB. Figured she would have shown up again at the end, or at least we'd be given some hint as to what the heck her deal was. Nope.

Ok, so I didn't just miss her dying somewhere then? Good grief, did SE just forget about one of the main plot points?

I mean, she saved the entire army at least a couple of times, was obviously the adjunct's sole confident, and was pushing them the whole way. Was involved with the "uber conspiracy" from the beginning. Not even a whisper of her in this book though? At the very least she could have expended herself to bring back bottle (instead of QB's "threads"), it would have taken maybe a page.

It is curious that she gets no mention at all, especially with Bottle still around.

Still, to say that she was "pushing the the whole way" and was Tavore's sole confidante is, I think, a little inaccurate. That was true at one time KINDA in the sense that T'amber was an avatar of the Eres'al (remember, not just a manifestation - T'amber was a priestess of T'riss before she was ever Eres'al possessed or whatever) BUT Tavore did not know that the Eres'al was acting through T'amber. Grub tells Lostara Yil when T'amber dies and the Eres'al departs in tBH that the Adjunct can never know. I think after T'amber died, the Eres'al's direct line to Tavore ceased to be for all intents and purposes.

And as to how she knew all that she knew, well, turns out she's a Talon, and we can infer pretty clearly that she was conspiring with Shadowthrone and Cots ("I am a child of the Emperor.")