[Sanctume]

I don't see it as Tavore's bad plan but a good layer of the plot to allow convergence to happen.
When I read the series, I often try to picture the story in a gaming environment with role playing, and luck of dice rolls for the outcome of battles.
Perhaps some nudges from the Game Master to move the story along.

Tavore's plans by itself was not enough to defeat the FA, but every other component that go with or against it or parallel to it made the story telling satisfying.

[iixiong]

From what I can remember, Tavore was warned of betrayal so it would be best to separate the armies, with the most loyal guarding your back, so if one did turn she didn't have fight two armies. Not only that, everyone new huge power houses were moving about in the general area and it would have been really bad if all of Tavore's combined force were to run into one of Draconus's leisurely strolls. So splitting the army assured that at least one would be there to harass the FA armies and if they all survive the FA would have to defend three separate battle fronts at once.

[Nefarious_Bread]

Newbie question, but why would Korobas only fly toTavores Otataral blade, when there is an entire Island of the stuff, off the coast of 7c's??? surely "The Merciful" Emperor Rell would have a horde laying about as well.. rantish mc rant sorry for going off topic.

[worry]

Because it's closest, I'd imagine. Otataral Island is halfway around the world and she has thousands of dragons harrying her.

[Asharak]

My guess on Tavores planing process etc.:


She used the Perish to transport them to the continent, but as was shown at the end of "Dust of Dreams", she suspected treason in the future. She probably dident trust the Perish to stay loyal for long.

As for the plan to free the heart from the Forkrull Assail, I think Tavore changed her plans as she got more allies. It seams pretty clear that in the final version of her plans an important point was to devide the enemy forces. Her army combined with the K`Chain, Bolkando and Leatheri had no chance of defeating the Forkruls entire army in some sort of final battle. They would have been slaughtered easily. Deviding the enemy was essential.

That being said, she was insanely lucky with the appearence of Onos Tolans T`lan Imass army and Ganoes and the Host. Without them she and the entire plan would have failed.

[Orlion]

I wouldn't call it a bad plan... but it was desperate. The Frokul Assail were pretty damn close to completing their plans in wiping out humanity using power gained from Kaminsod's heart, while other gods seem to be rushing to finish off Kaminsod so that the Frokul Assail couldn't continue using him as a source of power. Meanwhile, we have comets of Kaminsod's followers hurtling towards Letherii on a collision course that would wipe out life as we and they knew it, with no guarantee that something could stand in the impact's way like in the Bonehunters. Something needed to happen, and needed to happen NOW. Tavore did what she could to nullify all these effects without concern for her self or her army.

Now, it's clear they had to arrive at a certain point to at least get the heart from the Frokul Assail. It's also apparent that gods and such would try to interfere if they thought their plans were being placed in jeopardy by the Bonehunters. As a result, I believe the crossing of the Glass Desert was necessary to not only fool the Frokul Assail, but to also travel unknown to the gods that would prefer that they failed.

[IgnatiusKruppe]

"She used the Perish to transport them to the continent, but as was shown at the end of "Dust of Dreams", she suspected treason in the future. She probably dident trust the Perish to stay loyal for long"

And that made sense from the beginning if she had any insight into the minds of the Wolves of Winter, who like the Forkrul Assail found the world to be a much nicer place before humans started sproutin
up like mushrooms on a poop pile. Even without the influence of Voice, they were fighting for people chosen by immortal animals.

Tavore just needed for everyone to underestimate the Bonehunters and humanity one last time. Granted, it's hard to take away the lesson of "Don't underestimate humanity!" when they would have long
since curled up in D'rek's belly if it wasn't for a couple timely assists by Mael, the sacrifice of the Son of Darkness, the Eleint, a badass Tartheno tipping the first dominos in a few chains that
ended up falling in their favor, a smattering of 'Demons' from various realms, a Talking Heads level "No way!" alliance between Imass & Jaghut, a conniving Forkrul Assail running contrary to the plans
of the rest, the Barghast, a nest of K'Chain Che Malle who conveniently put themselves under the command of two Bonehunter officers (Ooh, we see our crazy genetic experiment offspring demolished
your forces on their way to find us, would you like some new heavies? Gesler can totes command us!), a spear wielding Edur, a Stormrider, some Boles, the old God of Death who showed up because he got sick of the fucking justice, the new Gods of Death who also happened to be Malazan soldiers in life, the Shake, an ancient Bear God of War, the Aliens whispering in Heboric's ear, a couple other Gods, both elder and otherwise, a Jhag flying a spaceship, a Wickan cattle dog, a Hengese lapdog, the power of Kurmule Mulean and last but not least the sweet, sweet gifts of the Moranth.

Never underestimate humanity.......'s ability to strike a backroom deal and/or humble non-humans into assistance with their capacity to stand there and die in the thousands in a way that the few remaining Elders haven't witnessed since such noble courage finished whittling their own races down to stumps.

Maybe 1/100th of a percent of humans on the planet managed to wipe out a wide cross section of non-humans by finding a way to draw them into this conflict, on one side or another.

Thus with a single (extremely long and curvacious) stroke the Bonehunters managed to save the planet so that people can keep breeding like aforementioned poop mushrooms and also
destroyed or significantly weakened a laundry list of threats to Malazan Primacy. It continues as Silverfox gleefully smashes the T'lan Imass against Assail- just doing her part to keep the world
safe for Grub & Tehol's forthcoming Intercontinental Empire.

[Tempest]

This is over-analyzing at it's worst. We are not omniscient, so we simply cannot make the strategic decision ourselves. Furthermore, Erikson seems to intentionally keep knowledge of such intricacies from us in the same manner that Tavore does from the Bonehunters, so we really don't know all that much. Being speculative, and then critiquing (with no offense meant) appears to be to just be a waste of energy.

[worry]

Out of curiosity, what is over-analyzing at its best?

[Ceda Cicero]

Just a single, simple point I wanted to throw in here, the sailing question is resolved at least on the Letheras front in DoD. Tehol straight up tells Tavore they don't have a fleet large enough to transport the 14th, end of story. The fact that he sends some relief along with a hilarious message doesn't mean they had anywhere near enough ships to transpo everyone in Tavore's army.

[Tempest]

worrywort, on 23 October 2011 - 08:46 PM, said:

Out of curiosity, what is over-analyzing at its best?

Haha, I hope this butting of heads happens more often!

But I'll straight up concede that, imo, there is no "good" over-analyzing. I suppose that's why the "over" is there. I merely thought to stress my disdain some with that.

[Tempest]

Also, while the Bonehunters were travelling through the Glass desert to get to the Assail, is it plausible that perhaps Tavore saw some value in the Glass desert itself; was mayhaps searching for something or timing something. I know nothing actually indicates this, and that it was hell, but it was just one of those thoughts: if there was some benefit (non-tactical in terms of what has already been discussed) for her/Bonehunters/whatever in that travel, what might it have been?

[Kanese S's]

I think someone said before that the glass desert being "magically dead" was somewhat an advantage. The Malazan mages couldn't use their warrens very well there, but neither could anyone else. That means that once in the glass desert, no one could pop out of a warren, sneak up on, or even track the Bonehunters. Also, doing so might lead to the enemy dismissing them as a threat due to the harsh terrain and climate of the desert, thinking they'd just die. And then, upon emerging from a border that the enemy had thought was secure, causing a bit of panic at the very least enough to split off some of the forces guarding the heart.

[Otataral Toblakai]

I have always found that such 'illogic' or 'not going with the plan' or 'not following the reader's mindset' is what makes a book even more interesting. That said, I thought that Tavore should have been in the city since that battle was more epic. Plus, overall, this book seemed to me less epic (but awesome still!) than the previous one - the whole battle in hood's realm was proportionally bigger than this.

That said, s'just my opinion.

[IgnatiusKruppe]

I apologize for the formatting.. i've got a tiny netbook hooked up to a larger monitor, and occasionally it disregards
where I put line breaks!

[Blend]

Going back to the 'how much does Tavore know' question...

Let's keep in mind that Tavore had a bunch of different advisors, and met quite a few different people / groups of people on the way.

A few that come to mind right away - Lostara saw the Otataral dragon with Pearl while they were hunting for Felisin. So there could easily have been foreknowledge there. That being said, I don't know that that gives her an in for knowing that the Errant would be trying to free Korabas, but at least she could know ABOUT Korabas.

Quick Ben and she HAVE had a few talks. We never know exactly what they talk about, but I can imagine that she has managed to suck at least SOME info out of him.

T'Amber, prior to dying, seemed to have a lot of knowledge, which she shared with Tavore. It seemed to me that T'Amber was working for / associated with the Queen of Dreams. Though we don't see just how much QoD knows, she seems to have an idea of what's going on.

She had a conversation with Bugg (aka Mael), and there was a lot of things said between the lines there. Tavore is very prescient, I think she figured out who Mael was, and I think that she was smart enough to catch those little tidbits of information that Bugg and Tehol left unsaid.

The Unbound eventually join her, there's a group of T'lan who knew more about the state of things than most of Tavore's army, combined.

....

Anyway, you get the point, I'm sure, and I can't think of anymore off the top of my head. That being said, it's mentioned that Tavore is the world's foremost scholar on Ammanas and Dancer, aka Shadowthrone and Cotillion. If she really knows that much about them, and if she's really got the mind that she's said to have, I can see her having figured out, at least partly, what ST and Cots are up to.

[Abyss]

Blend, on 04 November 2011 - 08:09 PM, said:

...T'Amber, prior to dying, seemed to have a lot of knowledge, which she shared with Tavore. It seemed to me that T'Amber was working for / associated with the Queen of Dreams. Though we don't see just how much QoD knows, she seems to have an idea of what's going on....

I always figured that since T'amber was possessed by the Eres'al, she had access to visions at a minimum - kind of like Crokus at various points in the series - if not actual knowledge, and she shared that with T'avore.

The revelation that she was Talon also suggests cotillion, at least, was passing info to Tavore. Shadowthrone's chat with Ganoes in the porlogue suggests ST himself was certainly not.

[Moss]

Sorry if i missed something, but wasn't Quick Ben the man who schemed everything Tavore's been doing since TBH? Can't remember where in TCG, but at some point she stated to Ruthan Gudd (i think) that the plan to invade Lether is all Quick Ben's because of his vow to free Burn of the poisoning from the Chained One he gave in MOI.

[Ceda Cicero]

Moss, on 10 January 2012 - 04:28 PM, said:

Sorry if i missed something, but wasn't Quick Ben the man who schemed everything Tavore's been doing since TBH? Can't remember where in TCG, but at some point she stated to Ruthan Gudd (i think) that the plan to invade Lether is all Quick Ben's because of his vow to free Burn of the poisoning from the Chained One he gave in MOI.

I think QB joined forces with Tavore and the BH because of that vow, not so much he orchestrated the whole thing. The idea that the plan was his and his alone pretty openly contradicts the few things we know about Tavore's role (being a Talon, being set on the path of this convergence since "the day House Paran lost its only son" --whatever that means--clearly having worked with Rake and others, etc.)

[Moss]

Ceda Cicero, on 10 January 2012 - 07:17 PM, said:

...contradicts the few things we know about Tavore's role (being a Talon, being set on the path of this convergence since "the day House Paran lost its only son" --whatever that means--clearly having worked with Rake and others, etc.)

Oh, I completley missed that. Is it a fact or is it assumed because of Baudin?