[Saidin]

I have compiled a list of what I consider to be unanswered questions that do not get resolved at the end of the 10 malazan books. I would like to note that I have not read anything else from this world, only the 10 books from GOTM to CG so please keep spoils in mind. Please feel free to address any and all questions, some are good some are less intriguing. I would like to make it clear how much I have enjoyed this series and consider it at the top of fantasy genre.

Unanswered Questions:
1. Kruppe-who is he, what is he, how does he have his power?Never Explained.
2. Father Light- who is he, where is he, have we met him? Never Elaborated on.
3. Osserc- Champion of light, why the falling out between him and Rake? Recluse, is that all we get?
4. Shadowthrone and Cotillion- I was under the impression their main goal was absolute power, yet all they were after was freeing the CG to put the other gods in check?
5. Azath- never fulling explained other than means of transportation/ascendancy. what of the hold of the azath? who were its members? we only met the mason, and kettle was...?
6.Tiam- materializes in CG and thats all? something more please?
7. The warrens- I was disappointed to not see more spots filled in the deck of dragons. there are so many positions never spoken of, the encyclopedia link on this page is under construction-help?
8. Burn-sleeping goddess, mother earth-does not olar ethil claim this title? how does that make sense, she is not asleep.
9. Coltaine- reborn for nothing?
10. Quick Ben- who the hell is this guy? Tiste Andii? Magi of Dark, god?
11. Scepter that Quick Ben takes- what are these? only talked about in a few pages, never brought up again-help?
12. Draconus- Elder God of what? A little more on his Daughters please?
13. Korlat- Mixed blood- whats the deal here?
14.Races- Elder races are the oldest, Tiste races are younger? how does this make sense before Dark and Light existed?
15. What of Laseen and the Empire-Mallick Rel? What happens?
16. Silver Fox is where? How does her story end?


Like I said I have not read any of the other erikson novels or esslemont books so if some questions are answered in those please just say so without spoiling-I plan on reading them. Enjoy.

This post has been edited by Saidin: 20 July 2011 - 03:14 AM

[amphibian]

I'll answer the ones I feel comfortable answering, so several will be chopped out:

 Saidin, on 20 July 2011 - 01:35 AM, said:

4. Shadowthrone and Cotillion- I was under the impression their main goal was absolute power, yet all they were after was freeing the CG to put the other gods in check?

I think Kellanved and Dancer were intending to tilt the age-old state of affairs irrevocably towards something better - which would change the game in their favor, as they're the best positioned to seize advantage of the changes. They're partly altruistic and partly selfish and it works out for the mortals and the gods to not be feeding on the Crippled Gods and to have less evil gods looking to screw over their worshippers.

Quote

7. The warrens- I was disappointed to not see more spots filled in the deck of dragons. there are so many positions never spoken of, the encyclopedia link on this page is under construction-help?

I suspect that filling the slots was something that Erikson grew less interested in over time. Having a position matters, but I think Erikson grew more interested in having some fuzziness and flexibility in his characters rather than a "this person is Mason, that person is Court Jester" etc. There's still positions assumed and lost, but I think that it started off as a concept that started mattering less and less as the series grew and changed.

Quote

12. Draconus- Elder God of what? A little more on his Daughters please?

I can't tell you what Draconus is Elder God of. His daughters are Envy and Spite. Envy's betrayal led to Rake's victory over Draconus and the imprisonment in Dragnipur.

Quote

13. Korlat- Mixed blood- whats the deal here?

Sandalath - Korlat's mother - had something happen to her when she was a hostage. She might have been raped by someone like Draconus or Tulas Shorn. We dunno who - but the answers relating to Quick Ben and the other Andii-connected things may come out in the Kharkanas trilogy that Erikson is currently writing.

Many of your questions have answers or more pieces of information in the Esslemont books. I suggest you read them. Good luck.

This post has been edited by amphibian: 20 July 2011 - 02:16 AM

[Kanese S's]

Korlat could also be referring to Tiam's blood in being not "pure," as it's heavily implied that those Tiste Andii who did become soletaken dragons don't necessarily still think it was a good idea.

[worry]

Agree with amph on those answers. I would also like to say that, as far as I can tell, Kruppe just happens to be an extraordinarily gifted mind with some powers as a mage as well, and he attracts the favor of some gods in the same way Tehol attracted Mael. I don't think he's "special" in any way we don't find out, he just gets to be "in" on things because he's so gifted.

The Elder Races are elder only in terms of terrestrial species, and only from certain perspectives (human historians? excavators?). I have no idea how the Tiste timeline fits in with the mortal planet's timeline. And the KCCM are possibly even aliens (right? I forget where that's mentioned). But we also know the TTTs are old, the Eres, etc.

[TaxManATX]

I'm going to avoid quoting and answering each questions individually and instead address the post in general.

It seems like you kinda missed the point. The story was about the Bonehunters' journey to free Kaminsod, and whatever you learned along the way was pretty much on a need to know basis. It's not necessary to know how Kruppe came to be Kruppe. It's only necessary to know that he 'is'.

With this in mind, the adventures in the world of Wu are far from over. Many of the characters you listed will most likely be in the Kharkanas or Darujhistan trilogies.

Edit: Also, according to the quoted text in this post, Draconus is the King of 'Eternal Night', whatever that is.

This post has been edited by TaxManATX: 20 July 2011 - 03:00 AM

[Saidin]

 Saidin, on 20 July 2011 - 03:07 AM, said:

 TaxManATX, on 20 July 2011 - 02:54 AM, said:

I'm going to avoid quoting and answering each questions individually and instead address the post in general.

It seems like you kinda missed the point. The story was about the Bonehunters' journey to free Kaminsod, and whatever you learned along the way was pretty much on a need to know basis. It's not necessary to know how Kruppe came to be Kruppe. It's only necessary to know that he 'is'.

With this in mind, the adventures in the world of Wu are far from over. Many of the characters you listed will most likely be in the Kharkanas or Darujhistan trilogies.

Edit: Also, according to the quoted text in this post, Draconus is the King of 'Eternal Night', whatever that is.

I didnt miss the point, I am addressing additional questions I had along the way. I think you might have missed the point of my post, sorry.

[HoosierDaddy]

 Saidin, on 20 July 2011 - 01:35 AM, said:

I have compiled a list of what I consider to be unanswered questions that do not get resolved at the end of the 10 malazan books. I would like to note that I have not read anything else from this world, only the 10 books from GOTM to CG so please keep spoils in mind. Please feel free to address any and all questions, some are good some are less intriguing. I would like to make it clear how much I have enjoyed this series and consider it the at the top of fantasy genre.

Unanswered Questions:
1. Kruppe-who is he, what is he, how does he have his power?Never Explained.

I assume will learn more information in the upcoming Darujhistan novel about Kruppe, but for there most part he's just a genius with powers in the Meanas, Shadow, area of the warrens from the scene in TtH where he's walking through the market stealing things left and right. Also, Amph did a good job of explaining his relationship with K'rul by comparing Mael and Tehol. The MoI quote about a god returning to the world who is fairly unpowerful finding the smartest person he knows to help him out.

Quote

2. Father Light- who is he, where is he, have we met him? Never Elaborated on.

Some people think he's Osseric as Osseric is described as an Elder God at times... but I think it's someone we've never seen much like Mother Dark.

Quote

3. Osserc- Champion of light, why the falling out between him and Rake? Recluse, is that all we get?

Live a few hundred thousand years and even your friends piss you off enough that you fight, lol. I think they are a good example of Light and Dark's eternal war personified, but Rake was also willing to do break the mold. You'll learn a little bit more about him in Return of the Crimson Guard by ICE.

Quote

4. Shadowthrone and Cotillion- I was under the impression their main goal was absolute power, yet all they were after was freeing the CG to put the other gods in check?

Without a world with people they wouldn't exactly have much to rule over would they? I think they discovered just how perilous the situation was in their wonderings in the Azath. Amph's answer is pretty good.

Quote

5. Azath- never fulling explained other than means of transportation/ascendancy. what of the hold of the azath? who were its members? we only met the mason, and kettle was...?

Toll brings about the disvovery of the Azathai, the Builder. Beyond that they are a measure of control over the vast forces in the universe. Kettle was a Guardian of the House in Letheras, but it died. All the houses have Guardians.

Quote

6.Tiam- materializes in CG and thats all? something more please?

I'm not sure how much more you want? TCG does a lot with the dragons and through them Tiam.

Quote

7. The warrens- I was disappointed to not see more spots filled in the deck of dragons. there are so many positions never spoken of, the encyclopedia link on this page is under construction-help?

Most of them are transitional with people acting in those roles as events dictate. Only the really powerful positions seem to have permanent members.

Quote

8. Burn-sleeping goddess, mother earth-does not olar ethil claim this title? how does that make sense, she is not asleep.

Speculation on Olar is in another thread on here. I'm of the opinion that she was crazy like a fox, but someone had the theory that because the Tellan ritual made her barren she wanted to claim the role of the mother aspects of the gods. I don't know. She isn't Burn, though.

Quote

9. Coltaine- reborn for nothing?

Read Return of the Crimson Guard by ICE.

Quote

10. Quick Ben- who the hell is this guy? Tiste Andii? Magi of Dark, god?

Ha. When you find out let us know because SE said we couldn't figure it out from the books in an interview.

Quote

11. Scepter that Quick Ben takes- what are these? only talked about in a few pages, never brought up again-help?

ICE might have more on this in the Darujhistan books. No idea.

Quote

12. Draconus- Elder God of what? A little more on his Daughters please?

Read ICE's books to get more info on Draconus.

Quote

13. Korlat- Mixed blood- whats the deal here?

I subscribe to the Sandalath raped as a hostage deal, but Kanese's idea is a different connotation that others think could be the case.

Quote

14.Races- Elder races are the oldest, Tiste races are younger? how does this make sense before Dark and Light existed?

Much of the Tiste history is subject to skepticism as Udinaas points out in RG. I think trying to figure out that timeline is impossible and they were probably co-existant without knowledge of one another.

Quote

15. What of Laseen and the Empire-Mallick Rel? What happens?

Read Return of the Crimson Guard by ICE.

Quote

16. Silver Fox is where? How does her story end?

The assumption is Assail, but we don't really know yet and probably won't til that book gets written by ICE.

[TaxManATX]

To get questions answered? That's what I assumed it was, my mistake if that was incorrect.

I do retract my statement about you missing the point, though. I missed the line where you said you enjoyed the series, which caused me to add subtext that wasn't there. I think I was anxious to get to the questions.

[LordofTheFallen]

Hosierdaddy answered pretty much all of them, but the answer to the one concerning the races is that the 4 elder races (Jaghut, Imass, Forkrul Assail, K"Chain Che'Malle) are indeed the first races on Wu, and the tiste races are from another world who invaded. (MoI, the convo between Silchas and Bloodeye at the very beginning, that is them invading the world.

So the tiste may very well be the oldest race in existance, but they are the youngest race in Wu.

[amphibian]

 LordofTheFallen, on 21 July 2011 - 04:14 AM, said:

Hosierdaddy answered pretty much all of them, but the answer to the one concerning the races is that the 4 elder races (Jaghut, Imass, Forkrul Assail, K"Chain Che'Malle) are indeed the first races on Wu, and the tiste races are from another world who invaded. (MoI, the convo between Silchas and Bloodeye at the very beginning, that is them invading the world.

There are the Eres'al as well.

[MTS]

And the Thel Akai.

[tiam]

Not to get into a timeline but theres an exceprt at the beginning of one of the chapters that says the founding races gave birth to civiliasation or had the most impact on Wu. There where others and we know from TCG that the Thel Akai were aforce to be reckoned with when the KCCM were dominant at least on Lether. This actually contradicts Erekos view in ROTCG that says they werent great warriors but lent their wisdom to Kallors enemies.

As for the Eresal they might always have been there, on the outskirts of everything. I didnt like how that plotline sort of fizzled out because Erikson ran out of uses for her atleast thats how it felt. She was a dues ex machina that just vanished.

This post has been edited by tiam: 21 July 2011 - 06:47 PM

[worry]

I'd suggest the Thel Akai were as Ereko said, but there had to have eventually been a transitional period between them and what eventually becomes the TTT, who are certainly warlike. I'd wager the threat of KCCM would be a good contender for catalyst.

[Sinisdar Toste]

 tiam, on 21 July 2011 - 06:43 PM, said:

Not to get into a timeline but theres an exceprt at the beginning of one of the chapters that says the founding races gave birth to civiliasation or had the most impact on Wu. There where others and we know from TCG that the Thel Akai were aforce to be reckoned with when the KCCM were dominant at least on Lether. This actually contradicts Erekos view in ROTCG that says they werent great warriors but lent their wisdom to Kallors enemies.

As for the Eresal they might always have been there, on the outskirts of everything. I didnt like how that plotline sort of fizzled out because Erikson ran out of uses for her atleast thats how it felt. She was a dues ex machina that just vanished.

i believe that in the most recent Q&A over at the Tor reread, someone posed a question regarding the Eres, and SE intimated that she still had a role to play in the future. my guess is that future books will somehow deal with her plans for Shadow and the un-sundering of KE. that's a massive plotline that wasn't addressed at all in tCG and i can't imagine either SE or ICE leaving it to wallow. i mean, the two of them do in fact rule Shadow Realm, in the form of ST and Cot, so you'd think that they'd want to write about it.

[Ceda Cicero]

 Sinisdar Toste, on 22 July 2011 - 03:54 AM, said:

 tiam, on 21 July 2011 - 06:43 PM, said:

Not to get into a timeline but theres an exceprt at the beginning of one of the chapters that says the founding races gave birth to civiliasation or had the most impact on Wu. There where others and we know from TCG that the Thel Akai were aforce to be reckoned with when the KCCM were dominant at least on Lether. This actually contradicts Erekos view in ROTCG that says they werent great warriors but lent their wisdom to Kallors enemies.

As for the Eresal they might always have been there, on the outskirts of everything. I didnt like how that plotline sort of fizzled out because Erikson ran out of uses for her atleast thats how it felt. She was a dues ex machina that just vanished.

i believe that in the most recent Q&A over at the Tor reread, someone posed a question regarding the Eres, and SE intimated that she still had a role to play in the future. my guess is that future books will somehow deal with her plans for Shadow and the un-sundering of KE. that's a massive plotline that wasn't addressed at all in tCG and i can't imagine either SE or ICE leaving it to wallow. i mean, the two of them do in fact rule Shadow Realm, in the form of ST and Cot, so you'd think that they'd want to write about it.

I expect we'll see the Eres and the Eres'al as early as ICE's Jacuruku novel. The fact that it's tentatively titled CITY IN THE JUNGLE (please God let it only be tentative please oh jesus ORB SCEPTRE THRONE isn't giving me a lot of hope) kinda makes room for a vague stretch: jungles have monkies and Eres'al are monkey-ish. Perhaps there's even an enclave of surviving Eres on Jacuruku?

And who knows how the Eres and Eres'al might be tied to Assail. That could factor into the whole human-threat-that's-capable-of-PWning-T'lan-Iass thing. I'm definitely stretching again here, but maybe humans on Assail evolved from Eres (as elsewhere) but something nasty happened during that evolution to produce some kinda crazy powerful humans.

This post has been edited by Ceda Cicero: 23 July 2011 - 03:31 AM

[LordofTheFallen]

It's kinda odd, cause the imass, jaghut, FA, and KCCM were always called the four founding races, yet the Eres'al and Thel Akai were around the same time. It might have been that there was a differance between founding and elder. The Thel Akai weren't really a dominant race (at least not compared to the four above) and the Eres'al were barely around at all.

It needed some clarification, but it seems that those four races were the ones that became most advanced in the way of a society. All the others were simply sideline guys.

[Ceda Cicero]

 LordofTheFallen, on 23 July 2011 - 03:18 AM, said:

It's kinda odd, cause the imass, jaghut, FA, and KCCM were always called the four founding races, yet the Eres'al and Thel Akai were around the same time. It might have been that there was a differance between founding and elder. The Thel Akai weren't really a dominant race (at least not compared to the four above) and the Eres'al were barely around at all.

It needed some clarification, but it seems that those four races were the ones that became most advanced in the way of a society. All the others were simply sideline guys.

There's also the trixy matter of the Deragoth who, according to a few passing mentions in the earlier books, particularly L'oric's trip through Raraku's memory, once dominated 7C and domesticated the Eres.

[LordofTheFallen]

Did dessimbelackis create the deragoth and bind his soul to them, or did they already exist and he bound his soul to them? Because if they were created during the beast ritual then they aren't as old as the imass and other races.

[worry]

Basically, they are probably the four races that left behind artifacts that humans could readily identify and distinguish. It is human academics in the Malazan empire who applied the term "Four Founding Races" to them. I doubt the Letherii think of them as the Four Founding Races, and they certainly didn't consider each other that when they were contemporaries. People read too much into what the phrase designates about them.

[worry]

 LordofTheFallen, on 23 July 2011 - 04:00 AM, said:

Did dessimbelackis create the deragoth and bind his soul to them, or did they already exist and he bound his soul to them? Because if they were created during the beast ritual then they aren't as old as the imass and other races.

Well, since they were around to domesticate the Eres, they certainly predate Imass and humans.