[Sinisdar Toste]

SiriusL, on 12 May 2011 - 07:33 PM, said:

Punchy Pete, on 10 May 2011 - 03:08 PM, said:

I really don't believe QB cannot remember. He says that to Paran, but he's being disingenuous. He forgot he used to be a High Priest of Shadow? And burned his raiment? He does have a history of hiding his past, after all.

And yet there's that quote from the CG at the end of...tCG...where he mentions something about forgetting his past upon ascension. Probably should have the book on hand before I post, so I'm winging it.

But the implication there and elsewhere is that ascending tends to make one forget about what it was like to be a regular mortal.

Mason of Death, on 24 May 2011 - 11:34 PM, said:

So Shadowthrone forget about QB, is the logic I assume you're ending with here. Which doesn't work, for obvious reasons. Or are you saying that QB ascended, which shouldn't work for obvious reasons too.

mainly because QB did not ascend, and ST did not forget Quick Ben, because in GotM when he realizes who he's talking to, he loses it. what ascending makes you forget, imo, is the things that mortals have to deal with, by virtue of their mortality. food, water, sleep, sickness, etc. not your past. if that was so, how could ST and Cot continue their plot after they became rulers of shadow?

[Shansteeth]

The only thoughts I can really add about Quick:



He is insane. I believe QB is one of the characters who sort of got a boost later on, and was not originally intended to be such a centerpiece of the story, so there had to be some "quick" thinking as the story went along.



I don't think we can trust even flashbacks.



The only safe thing to say about QB is that everything we "know" is wrong or at least jumbled up among his souls. I think the actual Ben is ancient, and he was maybe doing a sort of nightchill routine popping up throughout history. He was of "middling" power in Raraku and Seven Cities because he wouldn't be able to unleash his true power. Once he absorbed the souls of the other mages, things went haywire. There is no question that Ben is in "control" of the actions, but I think the absorbtion of the souls twisted EVERYTHING. The rubbing of the face is not a soulshift or anything, I think it is accessing information. The souls are no longer seperate in the least. The seven city mages have original Ben Delat memories, so when the physical form of Ben Delat and his brain don't know an answer outright, another one of those souls is sort of breaking through the clamour in his head with the correct memory, and when they are talking about certain ancient details it causes that sort of face rub thing.

This would also explain why he never actually shifts into his soletaken form: He can't. There is absolutely no reason he should NOT have shifted on multiple occassions(when facing icarium for instance - he had the time and a good reason to shift into soletaken form instead of releasing his warrens like that. - the reason is that he can't. The souls are to messed up and intermixed and since 11 of his 10 souls could NOT shapeshift and everything is so fragmented(raraku was a messed up fragment of ke and may have contributed to this) he just CANT shapeshift.

[Sinisdar Toste]

unless at some point he just bursts from all the power and the souls pop back out as d'ivers. that would be sick.

but i think your theory is a pretty good one. though it's hard to forget about his sister. i still think that the man whose face we know was once just a nasty little brat who knew too much about sorcery for his own good, who then became the poster child for Quick Ben "the Enigma" Adaephon Delat.

This post has been edited by Sinisdar Toste: 04 June 2011 - 06:17 PM

[Silk]

alternatively he could be like Tomas from the riftwar series by Feist and is the sum total of all the others inside him and is one with them just as Tomas and Ashen-Shugar ............. *chuckle* ....... but then again maybe not

[IgnatiusKruppe]

I think the only reason that Quick Ben dragged the soon-to-be-Bridgeburners across Raraku is to anneal them in the same way that Stormy & Gesler were. Putting them on the road to ascension in some way. It just doesn't make sense why they would be running across Raraku when everyone is always talking about how the Empire loves to turn enemies into allies, and obviously QB was willing to work with the empire, so why the whole chase? Unless the whole point of going through Raraku was to eat him some souls & fulfill his destiniez with the Bridgeburners.

i'm into the QB as a inner-shifter idea

[Shansteeth]

IgnatiusKruppe, on 06 June 2011 - 12:15 AM, said:

I think the only reason that Quick Ben dragged the soon-to-be-Bridgeburners across Raraku is to anneal them in the same way that Stormy & Gesler were. Putting them on the road to ascension in some way. It just doesn't make sense why they would be running across Raraku when everyone is always talking about how the Empire loves to turn enemies into allies, and obviously QB was willing to work with the empire, so why the whole chase? Unless the whole point of going through Raraku was to eat him some souls & fulfill his destiniez with the Bridgeburners.

i'm into the QB as a inner-shifter idea

I like where that goes. I think it would be more likely QB was going through Raraku for a reason that actually had nothing to do with the Malazans or the BridgeBurners. Raraku being a fragmented piece of KE....QB clearly being deeply involved with shadow?



Also while QB clearly can think very far into the future and connect overall threads, he has a penchant to "make it up as he goes" on achieving those far reaching goals. Perhaps the BridgeBurners averted his attention from whatever in Raraku and he just took advantage of the situation.


Maybe his reasons for going to Raraku were to try and do what Dancer and Big K did but since that fragment was occupied it wasnt possible?



interesting road to travel and we should talk more about it

[Sudden Benjamin]

hello, newbie here,

personally I think the mages in Raraku had taken a pretty nasty hiding by Dassem and/or Kellanved's High Mages.
they could have been a bit too exhausted to shift into a warren and gap the scene, so they had to take the ignomious task of running across a desert like plebs.
they would have realised that they were dead mages walking(running) and turned to Quick Ben, not only because he was the youngest and fittest, but also because he was profficiant in soul shifting and other witch style magic, which is constantly reffered to as an ancient and almost dead art.
its not inconvievable that none of the others knew a damn thing about non warren magic.
and at the end of the day, Quick was easily the most awesome out of all of them, just in general.
I also think Quick and Kalam were always planning to collaborate, they were working together in Raraku after all and Kalam could always have led the bridgeburners on a merry goosechase

as a side note, I'm glad to see the fowl puns on this thread have finally had their swan song.

that is all.

[champ]

tCG page 59/60...

Quote

...'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 that it confused me, was he referring to his Father - the two of them - or to himself directly which didnt really make sense..? But then...

Quote

'We're stil here, but then, we did what you both wanted. We almost got them all. The one thing none of us expected was how it would change us.'
He glanced back again, momentarily. 'And it has.'

Wild speculation...

QB has twin souls inside of him - could be Adaephon & Delat not Adaephon Delat - who were tasked with collecting a list of souls by MD & mystery Father! Or if not a list of souls, a list of needed power-ups!

[Gatekeeper]

I won't respond because I loathe you, Champ.





On a more serious note, I like what you did there, very good.

[Cougar]

I have to say that I'd always assumed that QB was a kind of Gestalt entity - ie: the personality we see is not one dominant personality, but rather the product of the melding of multiple personalities - Tiste Andii, Liosan, Jhag (or is it Jhagut) and a whole bunch of humans. Therefore I don't think he selects between the various personalities.

[worry]

That's interesting, but do you think that is simply post-Raraku? That's really the curious thing about him, is what he was before then that made him so special.

[Cougar]

Well, that is the question I guess. Presumably, at some point he was a single soul in a single body. Whether he aquired several souls before Raraku and then added another few during the journey is really the issue. I'd have to go look at the books, but I feel he has too many souls within him for him to have aquired them all from the cadre of mages.

Anyone like to correct me or say how many there were in Raraku.

[champ]

Cougar, on 17 June 2011 - 09:02 AM, said:

Well, that is the question I guess. Presumably, at some point he was a single soul in a single body. Whether he aquired several souls before Raraku and then added another few during the journey is really the issue. I'd have to go look at the books, but I feel he has too many souls within him for him to have aquired them all from the cadre of mages.

Anyone like to correct me or say how many there were in Raraku.

WJ to Rake MoI...

Quote

...Delat and eleven other mages made up the Protectors Cadre...
...The Protector's cadre, seeing the death of their master and the shattering of the army, fled

Quote

...They remain together,' the guide rumbled. 'I would have thought they'd split… and force you to do the same...
...Eleven mages on foot, without supplies, fleeing across a lifeless desert, the hunt should have been completed quickly...

And taken from Encyclopedia...

His body holds 12 souls

Kebharla, she was more a scholar than a mage - ( MoI, p.356)

Renisha, a sorcerer of High Meanas

Keluger, A Septime Priest of D'riss, the Worm of Autumn

Narkal, the warrior-mage, sworn to Fener and aspirant to the god's Mortal Sword

Ullan, the Soletaken priestess of Soliel

Set'alahd Crool, a Jhag half blood who'd once driven Dassem Ultor back half a dozen steps in furious counter attack, his sword shining with the blessing of some unknown ascendant.

Etra, a mistress of the Rashan warren

Birith'erah, mage of the Serc warren who could pull storms down from the sky

Gellid, witch of the Tennes warren

2 further bodies (unnamed)

edit

The 2 unnamed souls was what made me wonder and post my earlier comment

This post has been edited by champ: 17 June 2011 - 11:16 AM

[Cougar]

I think WJ is unlikely to be wrong about that so I guess we have to assume he was a whole single souled chap before Raraku, but it does leave us with the idea that at least one of the remaining souls was Tiste Andii, I'm inclined to believe the other is liosan (assuming that they aren't represented above).

I'm sorry to be vague I'm not at home to look this shit up.

[JohnO]

I still can't help thinking quick bens just captain jack sparrow in disguise, however, the list of quicks souls above- is that from the books, can't recall such a list being given.

[Gatekeeper]

It was given.

[Sinisdar Toste]

Gatekeeper, on 19 June 2011 - 10:50 PM, said:

It was given.

in MoI, when rake and WJ become besties

[Hoods Breath]

Maybe he's simply a soletaken human(oid). If D'ivers are "many which are one", does it follow that soletaken is "one from many"?

Soletaken has never fully been explained, neither has QB's soul absorbing desert trek through Raraku.

I am a little annoyed that after reading 10 books in this series, we never did a reveal of what QB is or what he's up to.

[Ilona]

Hoods Breath, on 20 June 2011 - 03:57 PM, said:

Maybe he's simply a soletaken human(oid). If D'ivers are "many which are one", does it follow that soletaken is "one from many"?

Soletaken has never fully been explained, neither has QB's soul absorbing desert trek through Raraku.

I am a little annoyed that after reading 10 books in this series, we never did a reveal of what QB is or what he's up to.

Soletaken is a simple shapeshifter (or as simple as such magic goes in Erikson's universe); one humanoid veers into one target creature. D'ivers is a shapeshifter that upon veering becomes a pack of the target creatures. There's been one example that I can remember of the "reverse D'ivers" and that would be when Gruntle and his legion veered together to form one giant tiger, in MoI, and it did not have any specific name, probably because there was no known precedent or it was at least very rare.

[Sinisdar Toste]

Hoods Breath, on 20 June 2011 - 03:57 PM, said:

Maybe he's simply a soletaken human(oid). If D'ivers are "many which are one", does it follow that soletaken is "one from many"?

Soletaken has never fully been explained, neither has QB's soul absorbing desert trek through Raraku.

I am a little annoyed that after reading 10 books in this series, we never did a reveal of what QB is or what he's up to.

the problem with doing a reveal of what QB is, is which part do you reveal? i mean, he's got a jhag soul, a soletaken soul, various other high mages souls, at least one andii soul...

revealing all that would take a trilogy, at least. each soul has it's history.

what he's up to has been clear from MoI. saving burn from the crippled gods poison. i loved his smug little monologue at the end, where he's thinking 'i totally saved burn. me! i rule.'