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What's the deal with redmask? Is it ever explained?

#1 User is offline   CussersForChristmas 

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Posted 02 May 2011 - 06:22 AM

To be honest the whole Awl storyline bored the shit out of me, but then we get served up with that twist at the end of it that Redmask was Letherii,

There's his friction with the Awl elder and all that but I never picked up on anything more than that. Was there something I missed or is Redmask's identity just one of those mysteries that doesn't get solved?
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#2 User is offline   HoosierDaddy 

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Posted 02 May 2011 - 06:27 AM

View PostCussersForChristmas, on 02 May 2011 - 06:22 AM, said:

To be honest the whole Awl storyline bored the shit out of me, but then we get served up with that twist at the end of it that Redmask was Letherii,

There's his friction with the Awl elder and all that but I never picked up on anything more than that. Was there something I missed or is Redmask's identity just one of those mysteries that doesn't get solved?


Spoilers for all books, just in case. Because, books 9 and 10 should make this obvious.






Yeah, he was a Letherii adopted as an Awl, and the Elder tried to use it against him. Honestly, the real point of the Redmask storyline was the K'Chain Che'maille duo, and what the fuck they were doing there in the first place. In their history, they remembered the Awl as perhaps the most effective, and yet still pathetic, human adversaries. So, the Matron sought out a human leader for her armies and naturally sought an Awl, or an Awl naturally sought here in the "Wilds." Point being, it's an introduction to the Human-Che'Maille partnership that was critical to Dust of Dreams and The Crippled God.
Trouble arrives when the opponents to such a system institute its extreme opposite, where individualism becomes godlike and sacrosanct, and no greater service to any other ideal (including community) is possible. In such a system rapacious greed thrives behind the guise of freedom, and the worst aspects of human nature come to the fore....
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#3 User is offline   CussersForChristmas 

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Posted 02 May 2011 - 06:32 AM

I was just making sure there wasn't anything more to it than that, if it wasn't for SE using the Awl story line as a device to show how out of place the Edur were in the Letherii Empire and introducing the KCCM and their hunt for a mortal sword I don't think I could have stood it. A guy can only take so many instances of tribes being swallowed by civilization and grasping city folk before it gets old.

EDIT: Although I have to admit that his weapons were pretty cool

This post has been edited by CussersForChristmas: 02 May 2011 - 06:34 AM

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#4 User is offline   Karatallid 

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Posted 02 May 2011 - 06:43 AM

edit double post

This post has been edited by Karatallid: 02 May 2011 - 06:43 AM


#5 User is offline   Karatallid 

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Posted 02 May 2011 - 06:43 AM

i thought the awl storyline was just another excuse to be cruel to Toc...

#6 User is offline   Ulrik 

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Posted 02 May 2011 - 08:24 AM

View PostCussersForChristmas, on 02 May 2011 - 06:32 AM, said:

I was just making sure there wasn't anything more to it than that, if it wasn't for SE using the Awl story line as a device to show how out of place the Edur were in the Letherii Empire and introducing the KCCM and their hunt for a mortal sword I don't think I could have stood it. A guy can only take so many instances of tribes being swallowed by civilization and grasping city folk before it gets old.

EDIT: Although I have to admit that his weapons were pretty cool


Just? Its perfect reflection of constant culture clashes. In Awl part wasnt important Edur, but Awl itself, primitive tribe, unable to face stronger opponent. For me, saying it bores someone is like being bored by history itself. And its great piece of modern anti-cliche belletry. You have weaker tribe, destined leader with magnificent symbols...and his glorious charge against Letherii ends in dehumanizing slaughter in mud. Snap...romance faced reality and got beaten.

Personally, in books like MBoF I dont care how cool weapons are. For me is cooler how deep and appropriate world and its evolution is.

And of course, it will be reflected in DoD and TCG:)
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#7 User is offline   CussersForChristmas 

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Posted 02 May 2011 - 10:50 PM

View PostUlrik, on 02 May 2011 - 08:24 AM, said:

View PostCussersForChristmas, on 02 May 2011 - 06:32 AM, said:

I was just making sure there wasn't anything more to it than that, if it wasn't for SE using the Awl story line as a device to show how out of place the Edur were in the Letherii Empire and introducing the KCCM and their hunt for a mortal sword I don't think I could have stood it. A guy can only take so many instances of tribes being swallowed by civilization and grasping city folk before it gets old.

EDIT: Although I have to admit that his weapons were pretty cool


Just? Its perfect reflection of constant culture clashes. In Awl part wasnt important Edur, but Awl itself, primitive tribe, unable to face stronger opponent. For me, saying it bores someone is like being bored by history itself. And its great piece of modern anti-cliche belletry. You have weaker tribe, destined leader with magnificent symbols...and his glorious charge against Letherii ends in dehumanizing slaughter in mud. Snap...romance faced reality and got beaten.

Personally, in books like MBoF I dont care how cool weapons are. For me is cooler how deep and appropriate world and its evolution is.

And of course, it will be reflected in DoD and TCG:)


I'm sorry if I can't get as excited as you do about barbarians being driven off their lands by civilization for the umpteenth time in this series, the barghast, the rhivi, the edur, the imass that escaped the ritual, the eres, the teblor, etc. Redmask was an incredibly flat character and the awl were more of the same.
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#8 User is offline   Xerxes 

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Posted 28 November 2012 - 09:30 AM

When I finished the books I was a bit puzzled but the whole Redmask storyline. It seemed a bit pointless and an anticlimax.

Spoliers ahead:

If the KCCM has chosen him as their Mortal Sword, ok. Then they send him off, without his Destriant, to fight a pointless was against Lether. When the KCNR were their main enemies? Then he dies pointlessly as he is killed by his KCCM minders because they realise he is not who they though he was. Do what? Are you sure?
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#9 User is offline   Abyss 

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Posted 28 November 2012 - 02:25 PM

View PostCussersForChristmas, on 02 May 2011 - 10:50 PM, said:

...I'm sorry if I can't get as excited as you do about barbarians being driven off their lands by civilization for the umpteenth time in this series, the barghast, the rhivi, ...


Actually those tribes were never at risk of that in any book they feature in.
In MoI they got involved to avoid the Malazan takeover and then the pannion.
The Barghast in DoD were doing just fine against civilization and the Rhivi in RCG weren't at risk.

You're right about it being a theme in the other instances tho', because 'civilization sprawl' is an ongoing theme in these books.

View PostXerxes, on 28 November 2012 - 09:30 AM, said:

When I finished the books I was a bit puzzled but the whole Redmask storyline. It seemed a bit pointless and an anticlimax.

Spoliers ahead:

If the KCCM has chosen him as their Mortal Sword, ok. Then they send him off, without his Destriant, to fight a pointless was against Lether. When the KCNR were their main enemies? Then he dies pointlessly as he is killed by his KCCM minders because they realise he is not who they though he was. Do what? Are you sure?


Redmask was an experiment by the last K'chain Matron. He was captured, aspected/invested and sent off into the world to see what would happen, with the two K'chain to observe and 'guard' and eliminate him if it went wrong, which it did, as he ended up leading his people to death and going nuts. His focus was revenge, not leadership and not survival, so not what the K'Chain needed to link themselves to humans and ensure the survival of their race.
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#10 User is offline   Xerxes 

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Posted 28 November 2012 - 07:36 PM

View PostAbyss, on 28 November 2012 - 02:25 PM, said:

Redmask was an experiment by the last K'chain Matron. He was captured, aspected/invested and sent off into the world to see what would happen, with the two K'chain to observe and 'guard' and eliminate him if it went wrong, which it did, as he ended up leading his people to death and going nuts. His focus was revenge, not leadership and not survival, so not what the K'Chain needed to link themselves to humans and ensure the survival of their race.


Ah ok. So you're saying the KCCM matron developed her theory after the Redmask debacle? When we get the detail of her plan in TCG she wanted the humans to help save her people (or whatever the lizard collective noun is) there was a plan beyond just sending them out to start random uprisings.
But I can buy the experiment idea. I suppose that kind of makes sense. Thanks.
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Posted 28 November 2012 - 07:53 PM

View PostXerxes, on 28 November 2012 - 07:36 PM, said:

Ah ok. So you're saying the KCCM matron developed her theory after the Redmask debacle?...



As i see it, she saw the only way to ensure her people survive was to link them to humans somehow. She chose to do this by aspecting three humans in the way gods and ascendents sometimes do, via the MS/SA/D trio.

Redmask was her first attempt, an experiment that failed. The random uprising happened because of that failure.

In DoD we see a Destriant who appears to be a successful effort (tho curiously powerless), and later on effective, if somewhat cranky, Mortal Sword and Shield Anvil. The problem with Redmask apparently was the individual she chose, not the process itself.
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