[Kanese S's]

Makes sense. Also like the suggestion that the role was supposed to be that which Dancer had previously unofficially held.

[Use Of Weapons]

It's kinda sad that she felt the need to create the position that was essentially 'Empress's Best Friend'

[Sanctume]

A High Fist can have his own Adjunct too

[Bauchelain the Evil]

Sanctume, on 25 July 2011 - 08:56 PM, said:

A High Fist can have his own Adjunct too

Adjutant,not Adjunct. There's a difference

[Daemonwolf]

They are both basically the same thing, and Adjutant is a high ranking officers aide, the Adjunct is a position that Laseen has for the purpose of being her voice and will when she is not present.

it could be argued that in MOI Whiskeyjack was Dujek's adjunct.

[Kanese S's]

UseOfWeapons, on 25 July 2011 - 11:39 AM, said:

It's kinda sad that she felt the need to create the position that was essentially 'Empress's Best Friend'

This is true. Now I feel all sorry for her.

[MillionSpots]

Bauchelain the Evil, on 25 July 2011 - 09:07 PM, said:

Sanctume, on 25 July 2011 - 08:56 PM, said:

A High Fist can have his own Adjunct too

Adjutant,not Adjunct. There's a difference

Spoiler

Oh, but in Stonewielder, a certain High Fist has his own Adjunct.

[Kanese S's]

This is true. However, the thread is specifically about Adjuncts to the Empress, which I don't think Stormy was.

[Luzburg]

LordofTheFallen, on 23 July 2011 - 03:27 AM, said:

I'm suprised laseen allowed dom and rel to screw her so. Here we have a woman who was a master assassin and killed off most of her companions for the throne, yet when two guys (one of which is already blamed and imprisoned for the SC rebellion) show up and try to take it away, she offers almost no resistance. True, the claw was corrupted and rel had all his wards, but if she had to she could have smeared herself in otataral and killed him by hand. Then executed dom afterwards.

I really don't see how rel was able to simply walk in and take the control away from someone as powerful and ruthless as her.

Smearing herself in otataral sounds kind of sexy !! But its not really.

Otataral wouldn't work against Rel's Elder wards.

[Kanese S's]

True. Otataral seems not to work against elder sorcery. Mael is an elder god, ergo, Rel's magic would overcome Laseen's otataral.


I do think that smearing herself in it sounds kinda sexy in a way, though. Kinda appalled that I think that, in fact.

[LordofTheFallen]

Even if she couldn't personally take out Rel, simply having him as a "hero" doesn't automaticlly make him equal her in power. She could have slapped on a medal and said good job before kicking him back to Seven Cities. Besides, after Apsalar killed almost half the claw (specifically the ones working for Rel) he wouldn't have had as strong a hold on her. So she could have killed Dom and had some mages go after Rel.

[Kanese S's]

Personally, I think Rel and Dom should have been killed while still in Seven Cities or en route.

[Abyss]

UseOfWeapons, on 25 July 2011 - 11:39 AM, said:

It's kinda sad that she felt the need to create the position that was essentially 'Empress's Best Friend'

Hah! But accurate. In GotM the position is also ref'd as a key 'mage-killer', and Claw trained.

Strictly speaking, we don't know that Lorn was the first Adjunct, just the one in play as of GotM.

MillionSpots, on 26 July 2011 - 06:32 AM, said:

Bauchelain the Evil, on 25 July 2011 - 09:07 PM, said:

Sanctume, on 25 July 2011 - 08:56 PM, said:

A High Fist can have his own Adjunct too

Adjutant,not Adjunct. There's a difference

Spoiler

Oh, but in Stonewielder, a certain High Fist has his own Adjunct.

Exactly. And really, it's just a title. Like 'First Sword' or 'Champion', it only means whatever it's meant to mean.


Confirming upthread, Rel and Dom made their power play while Tavore was still actively Laseen's Adjunct. They wouldn't have allowed her to replace Tavore post TB with Dom in the First Sword role, and once that was sorted out in RCG, well... too late.

As for why they were able to make their play in the first place, the short version is that Laseen's reliance on the Claw made her vulnerable and Rel exploited that. Laseen turned the tables in the end, and may have just possibly been planning it that way from the beginning, albeit with a whole lot of sacrifices of loyal people along the way.

[worry]

The best laid plans of mice and men...etc.

[Kanese S's]

Now I kinda wonder how things would have gone if Laseen had somehow survived.

Not that Rel is actually doing that bad a job as Emperor, though. Even I still hate him and think he needs to die.

[Vengeance]

I was under the impression that "Adjunt" simply was the title that was used for the person who acted in the commanders stead as the commander would have acted. Which was why Laseen's adjunt's had to put aside their own feelings and conscience. They had to think like she did in order to act how she would act in the field.

I believe that this is also why Tavore continued to act how she did. If we look at how Laseen acted. How little she told anyone and how she would slowly set things up and not bother to explain the game she was playing. It is the same thing that Tavore was doing. That is why even after Laseen died Tavore was still doing exactly what Laseen would have done.

In the citadel Laseen probably would have walked away too, thus it was already a given that Tavore would walk away. Laseen would go after to punish the people who killed a lot of citizen. The message has to be sent that you don't fuck with the empire. Laseen would have known that there was a bigger game going on and that she had a role. After all she knew the emperor and knew that there was a much bigger game going on.

All in all I would say that Tavore was a much better representation of what a Adjunt is then Lorn was.

[LordofTheFallen]

Abyss, on 27 July 2011 - 03:54 PM, said:

As for why they were able to make their play in the first place, the short version is that Laseen's reliance on the Claw made her vulnerable and Rel exploited that. Laseen turned the tables in the end, and may have just possibly been planning it that way from the beginning, albeit with a whole lot of sacrifices of loyal people along the way.

How did Laseen turn the tables? She's dead and Rel is the emperor, that doesn't really seem like something she would have planned.

[nacht]

Lasseen was playing the game of thrones :-) That is why she "temporarily" needed the help of Mallick and Korbolo. Meanwhile Mallick was playing his own game with the Claw.
The biggest threat to an empire is a revolution by the people (You can see an example of the power of the mob in ROTCG)
Laseen's policies essentially ended up causing a famine. Her only way out was to seize the Wickan plains and redistribute them to the Talians (a divide and rule policy).
Unfortunately Coltaine's legacy made this impossible (He and the Wickans are much revered even in the 7C).
So she needed to actively revise history. Executing Korbolo and Mallick would not work in that respect and her gambit was to have them presented as Heroes instead (even though there was a risk of Mallick turning against her).

Now, she is hunting for allies who will go with her strategy and therefore approaches Tavore and Kalam. She wanted to give them a chance.
Unfortunately, Tavore decided not to play that game and Kalam could not go against Tavore. At that moment, Lasseen's downfall was assured.

What is really interesting is Tavore's decision. She had actively won Lasseen's trust by getting rid of the nobility that she was part off (even sacrificing her sister).
But for some reason, she could not support Lasseen on the Wickans and therefore no longer was the Adjunct (the will of the empress).

The reason might not simply be the love for Nil, Nether and the Wickans. I think she foresaw the existential threat posed by the crippled god to the world of Wu and decided that striking out on her own is the best option. Lasseen seemed to be to preoccupied with local politics.
In addition, I think in this respect Tavore was aligned with ST and Cots from the very beginning. ST and COTS at some point stopped worrying about their empire and started worrying about bigger things (which prompted Lasseen to take over)

This post has been edited by nacht: 30 July 2011 - 02:02 AM

[worry]

I pretty much agree with all of that. The unknown therefore is how much Laseen knew of the threat posed by TCG and by what measure it affected her choices. She seemed to somehow be either out of the loop or uncaring. Because playing the "game of thrones" under those circumstances just seem so incredibly petty. And the flipside of that coin is Tayschrenn. Rel and Dom are pretty easy to peg, but Laseen and Tays still remain fairly inscrutable even after everything we've seen. Tays seems to be part of ICE's big picture though, which may involve another existential threat we don't know about yet. But I still kind of fear, ultimately, that Laseen really did as poor a job as people think.

[D'rek]

nacht, on 30 July 2011 - 02:01 AM, said:

What is really interesting is Tavore's decision. She had actively won Lasseen's trust by getting rid of the nobility that she was part off (even sacrificing her sister).
But for some reason, she could not support Lasseen on the Wickans and therefore no longer was the Adjunct (the will of the empress).

The reason might not simply be the love for Nil, Nether and the Wickans. I think she foresaw the existential threat posed by the crippled god to the world of Wu and decided that striking out on her own is the best option. Lasseen seemed to be to preoccupied with local politics.
In addition, I think in this respect Tavore was aligned with ST and Cots from the very beginning. ST and COTS at some point stopped worrying about their empire and started worrying about bigger things (which prompted Lasseen to take over)

The possibility of a contrast between what Tavore knew and what Laseen knew of greater events in the world is an interesting issue. It's hard to imagine Laseen being unaware of what was going on in the world, considering how well informed her top generals are and the extremely specific knowledge she's been shown to have at other times. If you assume she did know of greater events in the world and the threat of TCG, then you have to believe that either Laseen is a terrible judge of character - and was therefore taken in by Dom and Rel and thought she could get Tavore and Kalam to help her - or that Laseen is an excellent judge of character - and was aware of Dom/Rel's manipulations, as well as knew that Kalam and Tavore would not accept Laseen's supposed offer.

With Tavore, it is not as easy to judge how much she knew of greater events at that time, but the later books seem to favour her knowing quite a bit and having already set herself the goal and plan of taking her army to Lether and opposing the FA and gods. But she already was planning this at the time, why bring the army back to Malaz City at all? Personally, I think Tavore was returning to Laseen with the expectation that Laseen would then issue her new orders to take the 14th to Lether and fulfill the same goals. She might even have expected to receive more reinforcements from the heart of the empire before setting out. This could be either because Tavore and Laseen had worked the plan out ahead of time, together. Or, it could be that Tavore simply expected Laseen to be aware of the danger, and Tavore had made sure her army was a fighting force ready for the challenge. In either case, when I see that meeting in Mock's Hold, I see Laseen and Tavore both knowing the next step Tavore must take, but feigning a Malazan-centric meeting for the sake of Dom and Rel. Beneath the feint, Laseen is telling Tavore that the Empire can't giver her any help, that it's all on Tavore's shoulders to save the world. And Tavore is telling Laseen that it will be done anyways.