[Black Company]

In Quick Ben's discussion with...whoever, he mentions Mother, Father, and then goes back and forth between "we's", "us", "you two" and I don't know who's who or even who's who...

[Ceda Cicero]

My best guess (and at this point, it is certainly just a guess) is that he's speaking to Mother Dark, and the father he speaks of is Draconus. I think it's pretty indisputable that Mother Dark is his mother - dad seems a little less clear, but again, my thinking is that Draconus is the best bet.

[Mentalist]

maybe one of the souls in him.


but Quick is ultimately human. the entire point of the series is, don't fuck with humans. we're weak, but can't do incredible things. and we're the best cheaters in the universe.

[D'rek]

It's also possible that he is talking to MD and FL without actually being their child. For all we know he acquired those sceptres less than a year prior!

[Illuyankas]

HE'S THE SON OF TRULL AND THE ERES

HA DIDN'T EXPECT THAT ONE DID YOU

[havenophear]

He has a mortal sister and we have flashbacks of him as a kid. I was fine with him being "mysterious" and all right up until that scene in TCG where he whines about "being among the mortals for so long..." or some such. That introduced, in the last book, a ton of questions about him that I was pretty sure were not going to be addressed, let alone answered. And they were not. Yet, anyway.

Maybe it's one of the souls inside him, maybe he's a reincarnated Andii, who knows. Maybe there will be a snarky, too clever by half character in the Kharkanas trilogy that bears a striking resemblance...

[worry]

I admit it, I am the father.

[Sinisdar Toste]

worrywort, on 25 August 2011 - 11:43 PM, said:

I admit it, I am the father.

No, I am the father!

anyhoo, the problem here is this: when you have 12 souls from 12 different people... who do you call mom and dad? you've got 12 choices!!

[worry]

[iRFNA]

Mentalist, on 23 March 2011 - 11:56 PM, said:

maybe one of the souls in him.


but Quick is ultimately human. the entire point of the series is, don't fuck with humans. we're weak, but can't do incredible things. and we're the best cheaters in the universe.

I laughed.

Still calling it: one of QB's souls is the majority of Andarist's, along with his power. It's true, I tell you. TRUE!

[QuickTidal]

I had a strong urge to just come in here and post "your mother".

[rhulad]

Bah, I had that same urge.

[Migol]

Here's a wild thought:

Quick Ben is the son of Mother Dark and Draconus...but not by each other



He has multiple souls in him after all. 1 soul could be MD and random male fling/father light), and 1 could be say Draconus and a tiste andii priestess.

[IgnatiusKruppe]

It seems like he's saying that his father is either in collusion with him or inside of him.

I still feel like the whole thing about soul-slurping the mage cabal in Raraku was a red herring and that he & kalam have been in collusion for quite a bit longer
than we tend to think (not that he's quicks dad... well..maybe. wouldn't put it past those crazy guys)

I still don't even know what race Draconus is, outside of "God" - he has a beard though! I 100% picture him as Michaelangelo's God

But if we're trying to peg 2 ascendants for his parents, there really isn't any need for us to already be acquainted with the second one.
If there is an Ascendant just to play patron to Assassins or to embody the uniqueness of Cold Nights, I'd have to assume that there are a buttload more
deities both young and old out there. Where's the God of Blades? of Roads? etc,etc. Perhaps they were destroyed and their strength folded into some
other Ascendants or their mind (or what passes for one) drifted from mundane concerns until they blended into the very fabric of their aspect or they moved to another plane.
One of those Knuckles/Errant/Kila conversations about the Errant's summons left a bad taste in my mouth. When after listing a few Elders, one of which
is the Lady of friggin *Spiders* for Hood's sake, they act as if the gathering of Gods is almost complete but there are a handful of others hidden.. I just have a hard
time suspending disbelief in a world where the Goddess of Spiders can be one of a few dozen deities. Someone is dissembling.

I need to read the parts with the list of Gods that Brys received at some point and see if I can make any sense of this diminished Fermi Paradox.

[Tempest]

It appears that Delat is a name well known in the pantheon, and while speculatively I'd be down with Ben being born of Mother Dark by X-capacity (he IS BLACK, right?), it could well be a figurative use as well.
I believe, that in his Andii trilogy, if he is more than a simple human with a nasty penchant for soul-shifting, brief mention or reference will somehow be made by Erikson. Otherwise, Imma go ahead and assume he's talking through a soul, or is just being respectful of his elders. 'Cause, you know, QB is totally the respectful type.

[Tempest]

IgnatiusKruppe, on 22 October 2011 - 03:39 AM, said:

One of those Knuckles/Errant/Kila conversations about the Errant's summons left a bad taste in my mouth. When after listing a few Elders, one of which
is the Lady of friggin *Spiders* for Hood's sake, they act as if the gathering of Gods is almost complete but there are a handful of others hidden.. I just have a hard
time suspending disbelief in a world where the Goddess of Spiders can be one of a few dozen deities. Someone is dissembling.

Also, I'd compare it to the Roman pantheon. I don't think there's too much to it. Just Gods by whatever the people worshipping consider worth worship. For instance, there was that Roman God (Janus?) that just watched doorways. Come on, that totes trumps spiders.

And I think that the "spiders" translates more to weaving than anything else, and the hidden stuff within weaving and whatnot. It would indeed make more sense than people worshipping spiders straight up. Spiders are just the easy physical manifestation.

Simultaneously, though, you could well be right. We know that, at any rate, there are more than a few dozen deities because of the random local ones like the (ironic) deity of Olives in Y'Ghatan (this is again similar to Polytheistic tradition of our olden days), or the forgotten Barghast Gods, and indeed Brys's mad set of random Gods. So, when the Errant boasts that he's getting everyone, he's probably just meaning everyone in his sphere of understanding, though I doubt he's the type to accept his understanding as less than complete.

[worry]

The Elder Gods are a weird bunch. They do seem to think of themselves as a pantheon, but to the exclusion of some of their contemporaries and even predecessors. They also come from different origins: some are apparently otherworldly energies made (aspected) flesh through the shaping of mortal worship, apparently, while others are actually once-mortal ascendants who nevertheless represent specific concepts/aspects. I don't think there are hard and fast rules for the Elder Gods besides their general era, their acknowledgment of each other, and their acceptance of blood sacrifice.

As far as QB goes, I think TBH is the best source of info, even topping TCG. We know he has an older sister, one who's chosen to essentially stay out of the action while QB wants to be a shaper of it. In a lot of ways she seems like a fairly normal human, but even she seems to know her own (abandoned) potential and her brother's (accepted) potential. It seems plausible that they are both substantially older than they appear. Just not sure if TBH pinpoints the era of QB's childhood. The fact that she's apparently a cult-hopper, seeking something out there, is curious...perhaps she's been doing so for centuries and not just years?

If QB is his apparent age, there are some interesting tidbits in TBH. For one, as a young child (his sister remembers) he had a dream that he had died and yet continued to walk the earth, having forgotten something important. Does he have the soul of a dead ascendant perhaps? Are the souls he got in Raraku the only ones within him? I dunno. I also have a rough hypothesis, mentioned elsewhere and not particularly rich with evidence, that he and his sis are descendants in some Tiste royal line (either Andii or the believed-exterminated Edur line). But that doesn't really explain his talking to Mother and Father. TBH also includes a conversation between QB and Shadowthrone in which ST says "Threads. Such as those you take greatest pleasure in spinning, Adaephon Delat? Of course. It is your finest talent, the weaving of impossible skeins." And so on. Just a wild conjecture I thought I'd throw out there, but perhaps Quick Ben's mom is Ardata?

Anyway, it's always very possible he's talking about Mother Dark and Father Light, and Anomander, and Nimander (the son of her son). He might have some relation to Andarist, or he might have relation to another TA unknown. He talks in TCG as if he's both a human, and a stranger among humans.

[IgnatiusKruppe]

I still can't decide if I'd be more impressed if Erikson tied all the Quick Ben hints into something that makes sense or if he had the balls to never tie that knot.

:What does he mean by "Ah, Mother, it's old blood, I don't deny it. Old and thin.. Tell Father I make no apologies for my choice - why should I? No matter. The
two of us did the best I could"

The first time I read it, i thought it meant Quick's dad was within him, now i'm leaning more towards it being Draconus who I suspect is Father something or other.

[IgnatiusKruppe]

Back to the Gods..


For example, where is the Sword/Blade God? Sure, sharp pointy things are used in war, but they're also scythes & fish knives and etc etc. People worship swords, people
thank them and massage them and name them and hang them over the hearth and form cults around them. Obviously, any theoretical God of Swords would have a target on
his or her back, and presumably there would have been at least a few of them over the last half million years or so, but it's not like swords are a quaint remembrance of the past.

The best I can think of is that a lot of 'representitive' Gods are in the same boat as Pinosel & Urso Hoobutt. Still corporeal, but disconnected from the worship cycle- it's telling
that Mael was acquainted with them as he'd surely welcome a disconnection from the web of greasy greedy humanity.

And I'd also guess that all those gods live in Darujhistan. Pretty city.

[Ben Delat]

In that conversation with mother dark he mentions his blood is old and thin, thin blood implies he is not a pure child of mother dark as would be Anomander and all her other first children. When he mentions "almost got them all" I beieve he is referring to the souls within him and the access to all the warrens consuming those souls gave him, as in he was collecting warrens(access to them anyway). He also uses Kurald Galain several times which is said to be impossible without some andii blood in you, heck he uses it the first time we meet him when soul shifting Hairlock, tattersail recognizes the warren he is using as elder, although I can't remember if she specifically states Galain.

The contradicting part is the flashback to his childhood and mortal sister(and assuming more mortal family) but that doesn't make him truely mortal, just that he or his parents chose for him to grow up a mortal life.

Id have to read the conversation one more time when he is at the Spire of Andii but the impression I got was he had to be at least part Andii to even get to the spire?

So yes I believe Mother dark had a hand in things, maybe she got with a mortal lover for a while when her Consort(Draconus) was not around/turned away/in Draginpur or wherever.

Who knows, maybe he is an ascendant being, of MD and Draconus, in human guise(like L'oric), Ruthan Gud sure did recognize his full name as someone to have "sat at the table with the gods" like himself.

I would love an entire book, or maybe even a trilogy about quick, his life and the hundred unanswered questions we have about him at the end of it all.