[QuickTidal]

Meh.

Timeline is probably the least important thing in the series.

Never bothered me one bit.

[tiam]

champ, on 24 January 2012 - 08:02 PM, said:

tiam, on 24 January 2012 - 07:23 PM, said:

Miss Savage quote- Isecond that. Tiime is relative after all. Maybe not so much from a human perspective, but on the cosmic scale. That, and then mix in some artistic freedom- et voilà! Kick back and enjoy the show.

I actually disagree with this completely. Everyone knows the timeline is knackered. You get to the end of the prologue of GOTM and the timeline doesnt make sense. But I dislike the fact that inconsistencies are added. While its very nice by saying 'time on a cosmic scale' ICE is regarded by SE as the better author with his head around the timeline atleast and this just has too many holes. This obv isnt a personal attack on you but I think the timeline should be discussed and a sort of basic chronology should be established.

I just think why needlessly add confusion, what are we now, 14-15 books into a cross-author series, a pattern has been set and established, yes mistakes have been made in the past but why repeat them again, the foundations are already there to work off so you would hope that there aren't any inconsistencies this far into the series, I guess it's just frustrating for some of us...

Thats exactly my point. Its like theyve acknowledged the timeline is awful yet seem to be adding more confusion to it. There is no damage limitation other than not putting specific dates down. Compromising the integrity of the world for Harllo was understandable as SE wanted him as a character at the centre of things and it worked well. This time its not just the timeline but inconsistencies and sloppiness.

This post has been edited by tiam: 24 January 2012 - 10:40 PM

[Werthead]

What was frustrating is that they did fix things. The DHG/MoI/MT anomaly (the timeline of the Edur boat in the Nascent that Karsa discovers vs. the Edur body that is found in the forest in MoI) was irritating but we on the board handwaved it away with, "Well, maybe time goes wonky in the Warrens." And then Erikson explicitly said in one of the later novels, "Time goes wonky in the Warrens,". Combined with Erikson apparently asking ICE to double-check his dates and timeline in THE BONEHUNTERS and REAPER'S GALE, that seemed to resolve all of the major problems up to that point and everything tracked. Then TOLL THE HOUNDS blew the lid off it again, and this time couldn't be handwaved away (since there is no evidence that Harllo or anyone involved spent any time at all in a Warren).

Yeah, you can ignore it, and that's the best solution all round, but finding an in-universe explanation is more fun

This post has been edited by Werthead: 24 January 2012 - 11:54 PM

[tiam]

Werthead, on 24 January 2012 - 11:54 PM, said:

What was frustrating is that they did fix things. The DHG/MoI/MT anomaly (the timeline of the Edur boat in the Nascent that Karsa discovers vs. the Edur body that is found in the forest in MoI) was irritating but we on the board handwaved it away with, "Well, maybe time goes wonky in the Warrens." And then Erikson explicitly said in one of the later novels, "Time goes wonky in the Warrens,". Combined with Erikson apparently asking ICE to double-check his dates and timeline in THE BONEHUNTERS and REAPER'S GALE, that seemed to resolve all of the major problems up to that point and everything tracked. Then TOLL THE HOUNDS blew the lid off it again, and this time couldn't be handwaved away (since there is no evidence that Harllo or anyone involved spent any time at all in a Warren).

Yeah, you can ignore it, and that's the best solution all round, but finding an in-universe explanation is more fun

Which is what we're all doing


Still I get the feeling thy reconciled the timeline, shit the bed with Harlo to shoehorn him into the plot and the ICE, who is supposed to be better than SE, went 'meh ill just play silly buggers now and not care and make up other stuff for teh lolz'.

[Paran]

The timeline is not important. The timeline is not important. The timeline is not important...

[jammerculture]

It blows me away how people are concerned with the passage of time. When were we ever told that TT age the same as humans? Or that humans age the same as humans in the malazan world. Or that the year has 365 days and four seasons in it. Or that different cultures in the woorld, or races for that matter have te same reckoning of time. Or that areas of te world that are connected to various warrens, or influenced by different warrens (jaghut ice fields, KE fragments), don't cause time to flow differently. Or that the whole story isn't told after the fact and therefore has inconsistencies like any history, (Babylonian kings lived for hundreds of years).

At the end of the day the world we are reading about is actually the dream of some sleeping woman. Why try to rationalize anything?

[tiam]

jammerculture, on 02 February 2012 - 04:49 AM, said:

It blows me away how people are concerned with the passage of time. When were we ever told that TT age the same as humans? Or that humans age the same as humans in the malazan world. Or that the year has 365 days and four seasons in it. Or that different cultures in the woorld, or races for that matter have te same reckoning of time. Or that areas of te world that are connected to various warrens, or influenced by different warrens (jaghut ice fields, KE fragments), don't cause time to flow differently. Or that the whole story isn't told after the fact and therefore has inconsistencies like any history, (Babylonian kings lived for hundreds of years).

At the end of the day the world we are reading about is actually the dream of some sleeping woman. Why try to rationalize anything?

Alot of the questions youve mentioned there we are actually told. TT (which I assume is Thelomen Toblakai) do not age as quickly as humans. Humans in the Malazan world around late forties are considered middle aged. Admiral Nok is roughly the sam age as Dujek which was late 70 when he died. He mentions his time in the Azath as the source of his longevity. Thus its pretty similar. They count there years and do have different seasons so its likely the same.

You can call 'a wizard did it' on alot of things but this thread is dedicated to gaining a level of understanding over the timeline so events can be put in place.

[jammerculture]

Seems to me this thread is about complaining. We all know the timeline is fubarred, SE has said it himself, so trying to gain a level of understanding over it is futile. Makes more sense to accept it based on one of the many things we don't know about the world and move on.

Besides if even one of the suggestions I made is correct then the timeline really osn't fubarred at all, just our understanding of time as it relates to the Malazan world.

[tiam]

jammerculture, on 03 February 2012 - 12:27 AM, said:

Seems to me this thread is about complaining. We all know the timeline is fubarred, SE has said it himself, so trying to gain a level of understanding over it is futile. Makes more sense to accept it based on one of the many things we don't know about the world and move on.

Besides if even one of the suggestions I made is correct then the timeline really osn't fubarred at all, just our understanding of time as it relates to the Malazan world.

If dont like a thread dedicated to putting the timeline back together than quite simply dont contribute to it. Instead of coming in and telling people what theyre doing is a waste of time simply dont comment.

Yes the timeline has always been a problem. If you read through this thread youll see how Werthead describes how the timeline was actually fixed to a certain extent until TTH with Harllo. As ive already mentioned upthread it easy to see why SE accelerated Harllos age as he wanted that particular character and it worked well. The problem alot of people had with this one is that ICE seems to have changed the timeline again. So while your not bothered at all by the timeline some are, as are the authors to an extent. So piecing together bits of information to gain a better understanding is part of the books.

[polishgenius]

jammerculture, on 03 February 2012 - 12:27 AM, said:

Besides if even one of the suggestions I made is correct then the timeline really osn't fubarred at all, just our understanding of time as it relates to the Malazan world.

Yeah, but they're not. Because even if SE and ICE were so stunningly incompetent or mean-spirited as to not divulge such a crucial bit of information after fourteen books in the series, which I doubt, they would not have come out and admitted that they FUBAR'd the timeline if they actually had an explanation for it hidden away all along.

[Orlion]

Here's how I look at it: ICE's timeline is as close to an actual timeline that we are going to get. This seems to follow the pattern he has of providing more information about the world than Erikson. Erikson will mess around with the timeline somewhat for the sake of the story he's telling. That's just the style of the Malazan Book of the Fallen. All it really holds to is "X happened before Y"... but in what relation? Well, that depends on what he wants to say.

A good example would be to harken to Greek Mythology. Esslemont is closer to what would be the 'accepted mythology of the time' that everyone would have grown up hearing. Erikson is closer to Sophocles or Homer who makes up stories within said mythology, irregardless of whether it technically goes against common knowledge or not. Hence, in Sophocles, Oedipus didn't know he killed his father and married his mother, whereas in mythology, he seems to actually know. Such knowledge didn't aid Sophocles in what he wanted to do, so he changed it unapologeticly. Erikson knows TtH ought to happen a year after., but he wants a six year old boy in the story... so he messes with the timeline.

In conclusion, if an 'official timeline' were ever released, I think we would find it agreed more with Esslemont than Erikson.

[Abyss]

the timeline is not important the timeline is not important the timeline is not important the timeline is not important the timeline is not important the timeline is not important
the timeline is not important wait Harllo is HOW OLD???? the timeline is not important the timeline is not important the timeline is not important the timeline is not important
the timeline is not important the timeline is not important the timeline is not important the timeline is not important the timeline is not important
the timeline is not important the timeline is not important the timeline is not important the timeline is not important
the timeline is not important the timeline is not important the timeline is not important
the timeline is not important the timeline is not important
- Abyss, the timeline is not important....

[Spoilsport Stonny]

I think all timeline thingies are okay. All the kids in the books grow up fast, so who's to say how time works in this book? Grub, Sinn, Harllo, The Orlong Rape Twins... I mean, the moon blew up and women's periods didn't go crazy, so the universe obviously works differently there. Also, there are ll kinds of magic areas where time works different, Antsy and the gang went through a couple different warrens before getting back, so more than 2 years could have passed, or whatever. I dunno. With all the trauma the malaz universe has endured, I imagine time to be alittle wonky, especially when you got the hairy time chick travelling throughout dimensions and taking various sperm samples.

[Mrs Savagely Wishy Washy]

It totally blows my mind that some of you keep the timelines of as well as all the storylines in your minds. I'm usually already really pleased with myself when I remember what happened on the previous page.

This post has been edited by Miss Savage: 13 February 2012 - 06:01 AM

[Paran]

Werthead, on 19 January 2012 - 10:12 PM, said:

So now it's one year since the events of TOLL THE HOUNDS and apparently TOLL THE HOUNDS took place one year after MEMORIES OF ICE.

WHAT THE HELL IS THIS I DON'T EVEN KNOW WHERE TO

Ahem.

Anyway, when TOLL THE HOUNDS came out, we were told that - somehow - 6 years had passed between MoI and TTH. Yet Karsa had teenage daughters. Although his impregnatory rampage in HoC took place maybe two years before MoI if we're very generous. Anyway, 6 years seemed way, way too long but it was difficult to handwave it away since one of the main POV characters in the book was a young boy born just after the events of MoI. Fans seemed to deal with this issue by ignoring it as best they could.

Now Esslemont - acknowledged by Erikson as generally having a better handle than him on the timeline - has retconned TTH's dating in OSB, but seems to have way overcompensated. Based on common sense and travelling times, TTH would work at 2 or maybe 3 at the most years after MoI. Saying it's now a year after MoI seems way too short for everything that happened in the interim.

I'm only 100 pages into the book, so I hold out hope that the massive discrepency will be explained as some kind of crazy Warren shenanigans before the end of the book.

Really, for a guy who pays so much attention to specifically what other authors say, you're being wilfully ignorant here.

SE: "The timeline is not important".

Seriously, don't quote me, but obviously neither he nor ICE think the timeline is that relevant to the story.

[tiam]

Paran, on 16 February 2012 - 09:08 AM, said:

Werthead, on 19 January 2012 - 10:12 PM, said:

So now it's one year since the events of TOLL THE HOUNDS and apparently TOLL THE HOUNDS took place one year after MEMORIES OF ICE.

WHAT THE HELL IS THIS I DON'T EVEN KNOW WHERE TO

Ahem.

Anyway, when TOLL THE HOUNDS came out, we were told that - somehow - 6 years had passed between MoI and TTH. Yet Karsa had teenage daughters. Although his impregnatory rampage in HoC took place maybe two years before MoI if we're very generous. Anyway, 6 years seemed way, way too long but it was difficult to handwave it away since one of the main POV characters in the book was a young boy born just after the events of MoI. Fans seemed to deal with this issue by ignoring it as best they could.

Now Esslemont - acknowledged by Erikson as generally having a better handle than him on the timeline - has retconned TTH's dating in OSB, but seems to have way overcompensated. Based on common sense and travelling times, TTH would work at 2 or maybe 3 at the most years after MoI. Saying it's now a year after MoI seems way too short for everything that happened in the interim.

I'm only 100 pages into the book, so I hold out hope that the massive discrepency will be explained as some kind of crazy Warren shenanigans before the end of the book.

Really, for a guy who pays so much attention to specifically what other authors say, you're being wilfully ignorant here.

SE: "The timeline is not important".

Seriously, don't quote me, but obviously neither he nor ICE think the timeline is that relevant to the story.

Hes hardly being ignorant. If you want to quote what the author says

WJ is staying dead
There are no HOL
ICE has a better grasp of the timeline than SE

Seriously, dont quote me, but obviously people who come into a thread dedicated to timeline inconsistencies and throw smug comments around are not relevant to the forum

[Paran]

Whiskey Jack is dead. Deal with it.

[amphibian]

Mostly dead is different from all dead!

[Aptorian]

Paran, on 16 February 2012 - 09:08 AM, said:

Really, for a guy who pays so much attention to specifically what other authors say, you're being wilfully ignorant here.

SE: "The timeline is not important".

Seriously, don't quote me, but obviously neither he nor ICE think the timeline is that relevant to the story.

Now, first of all, this is a discussion forum. We discuss things. Like the inconsistency of the time line. Because we find it interesting. Because we care. So there.

Second of all, the time line is pretty god damn important. It is jarring when you read a piece of information that is in conflict with known facts. It pulls you out of the moment and makes you question the rest of the information you have at your disposal. Consistency is an important part of story telling.

Now granted, the Malazan book series is a very complicated, intricate weave of storylines, which is why it is permissible that there are holes in the time line. You can accept it. But that doesn't change the fact that it is outrageous when time suddenly warps from several years to one year and back again.

EDIT: Also I quoted you out of spite.

This post has been edited by Aptorius: 21 February 2012 - 07:39 AM

[tiam]

Paran, on 21 February 2012 - 06:26 AM, said:

Whiskey Jack is dead. Deal with it.

Id like to point out hes still appeared in many of the books after his death. Also I like how you ignored the other two points I made when you didnt have a sassy comeback.


http://i0.kym-cdn.co....jpg?1321408042