[Abyss]

Iirc, one of his souls is part Tiste, not wholly.
Likely Andii since he uses Kurald Galain a few times in earlier books.

[Abey1245]

TCG reread and I found when Ruthan Gudd suddenly realizes that Adaephon Delat is Quick Ben... one of those names is definitely Elder since he recognizes it. I LOVE the fact that he is then so HAPPY to realize it's him and that he's involved in the whole scene and it gives Ruthan "new hope". Gads, what history do these two have together?? Or at least, that one name/soul in Quick Ben that he knows from the old days?

[Abey1245]

Also hope we see his TA soul explained a bit in the Kharkanas series!

[Abey1245]

He is quoted as saying he has the 12 souls inside him and that some of them are OLD. With regards to his quote (to Mother Dark?): tell Father the two of us did the best I could... I think that he was born into his human family already harbouring one of those ancient souls, kind of a two in one deal. So two to begin with and then absorbed the other 11 mages... so I am assuming that he is not including "himself" in the list of 12 souls.

[Z'ress]

Quick was the reason the bridgeburners were who they were. as they chased him through the desert he took the soul of each mage that died as he went. Quicks no soultaken. shit hes the hardest character to follow being the high mage of house shadow untill he tricked shadowthrone and being the high mage of the empire and obviously he really lets lose in the crippled god.

[Abey1245]

Question: If Ruthan Gudd knows enough to tell Tavore to keep her Otataral sword sheathed or it will "summon" Korabas, then why does QB encourage Kalam to keep using his Otataral knife? Does he WANT Korabas to find them? He knows she will be summoned by its unsheathing... seems pretty risky seeing as how she negates all around her. Can he have already had a plan in mind to avoid being dragon dinner?

[ArchieVist]

Gatekeeper said:

I caught a wiff of it the first time through tCG, the second time it was really setting in, but the re-re-read spot read sold it to me : Quick Ben shapeshifts right in front of our eyes in tCG. I've been waiting (along with a lot of you I'm sure) for Quick Ben's Soletaken form to be revealed. Along this line I once read in an interview Steve said in response to the question "What shapeshifter form is Quick Ben really?" he retorted "When have we NEVER seen Quick Ben shape shift?" at the time I took this as Quick was a wiley bastard, as we all know. But when we see Quick with Paran for the first time in tCG, we get alot of sentences like:

"Not really. Just out of practice. Lost touch with being subtle, I think." QB
Paran immediately thinks it's an odd thing to say.

There is more back and forth between Ganoes and Quick, a subtle word-fight, and then,

Quick Ben....RUBBED AT HIS EYES, and said "Ganoes Paran, what are we? Here, what are we?"
Ganoes replies that they are soldiers of the Emperor, and always were.

and THEN, Ganoes pins Quick with a question,

"How much do you already know?" Ganoes
Quick Ben RUBBED VIGOROUSLY AT HIS FACE, AS IF TRYING TO REARRANGE HIS OWN FEATURES.
Ganoes then thinks "AND MAYBE, BECOME SOMEONE ELSE."

Then Quick says that hes not all that well informed, because Shadowthrone is pissed about "a past slight" but Quick can't remember what slight it was. He seems to be telling the truth, and if it was the mortal Quick Ben, he would of course remember the various reasons ST would be pissed.

Now SE gives us I think the final piece, after some conversation about just who Quick is, Ganoes caps it by saying
"Yet, out of necessity, YOU ALL WORK TOGETHER, for a common purpose."

That really sealed it for me. Through the rest of the chapter, Quick says other odd things like "I guess I already knew that." As well as more face rubbing and outright emotional changes. I think it was SE tipping his hat to us about Quick, and if it was, it was a master stroke.



What I'm getting at: Quick Ben "Shape shifts" through his different "souls" in this chapter. Every time he rubs his face, or eyes, or out right doesn't know things he should know, or Ganoes Paran the MotDoD, says something like "He's trying to rearrange his face, to become another person perhaps?" Quick Ben is "shifting" from one of his souls to the next. I think it applies nicely to SE saying that Quick "Shapeshifts" all the time. I apparently did the same thing when I thought this post would make sense to everyone.

Necroing this thread because Erikson gave this theory some credence when asked about it in a recent interview with The Amalgam Podcast (see 1:10:00).

Quote

Well, more will be coming evident in Walk in Shadow, so I don't want to go too much into that. Because I write every scene like a short story, so if somebody's making a particular gesture or they have a habitual gesture, there's a reason for it. That's as far as I'll go on that.

It's an interesting interview and if anyone wants to know the origin of Quick Ben's name, it's covered about the 45 minute mark.