[Dream Theater]

By all means I wish to keep this spoiler free, but I will reference some characters and gods to illustrate my points and a couple spoilers will undoubtedly crop up. I have not read past book 5.

My question comes about as I struggle to get a handle on just how powerful the gods and demigods in the series are. I am well aware of the Personae Dramaticus but that does little to distinguish the power potential of characters.

One other disclaimer: it is not always necessary to have an illustration of "this god can kick this god's butt", etc. Sometimes it is an excellent plot device to keep these things vague and I love how the series at times has a very powerful character toppled because it was caught flat-footed or simply mobbed. But while avoiding the chance that ranking the gods would devolve into something silly, it would be nice to have a frame of reference for the god's power potential. Especially considering there are about three thousand different dieties in the series.

For instance, in GotM alone, you have Opon, Shadowthrone, and Hood (among many, many others). I get the sense that Hood is one of the most potent dieties, Shadowthrone certainly has some potency but Opon seems fairly weak. Yes, Opon is very capable of some notable intercession but I seem to remember he and she later getting SPOILERS killed/beaten/or maybe just embarrassed (cannot quite remember).

Then you have the Worm of Fall, the Boar of Summer, etc. I have utterly forgotten who they are and what their deal is, but they are examples of more gods in the series.

Then you later learn of the Jaghut being veritable gods, Anomander Rake is insanely powerful but even he seems to be like, the follower of some female diety (Mother Dark or some such thing???).

And then, to top it all off, you have The Crippled God who seems to be the arch-nemisis (but again, this is just me conjecturing...and looking at the book titles). My head is beginning to hurt.

So now, to bring my rambling to an end, let me first ask anyone kind enough to respond - should I even care about the power hierarchy? Is there even a hard, fast one that I'll learn as I read? Thoughts/opinions?

[L'oric]

 Dream Theater, on 24 January 2012 - 03:04 PM, said:

By all means I wish to keep this spoiler free, but I will reference some characters and gods to illustrate my points and a couple spoilers will undoubtedly crop up. I have not read past book 5.

My question comes about as I struggle to get a handle on just how powerful the gods and demigods in the series are. I am well aware of the Personae Dramaticus but that does little to distinguish the power potential of characters.

One other disclaimer: it is not always necessary to have an illustration of "this god can kick this god's butt", etc. Sometimes it is an excellent plot device to keep these things vague and I love how the series at times has a very powerful character toppled because it was caught flat-footed or simply mobbed. But while avoiding the chance that ranking the gods would devolve into something silly, it would be nice to have a frame of reference for the god's power potential. Especially considering there are about three thousand different dieties in the series.

For instance, in GotM alone, you have Opon, Shadowthrone, and Hood (among many, many others). I get the sense that Hood is one of the most potent dieties, Shadowthrone certainly has some potency but Opon seems fairly weak. Yes, Opon is very capable of some notable intercession but I seem to remember he and she later getting SPOILERS killed/beaten/or maybe just embarrassed (cannot quite remember).

Then you have the Worm of Fall, the Boar of Summer, etc. I have utterly forgotten who they are and what their deal is, but they are examples of more gods in the series.

Then you later learn of the Jaghut being veritable gods, Anomander Rake is insanely powerful but even he seems to be like, the follower of some female diety (Mother Dark or some such thing???).

And then, to top it all off, you have The Crippled God who seems to be the arch-nemisis (but again, this is just me conjecturing...and looking at the book titles). My head is beginning to hurt.

So now, to bring my rambling to an end, let me first ask anyone kind enough to respond - should I even care about the power hierarchy? Is there even a hard, fast one that I'll learn as I read? Thoughts/opinions?

I think that the Gods and their power is really secondary in this series. As one of the main themes is that messing with mortals ends up with the gods on the losing end.

That being said. Another theme in the books is that at the right time and place one god will be more powerful because of the occassion.

Now that I got the disclaimers out of the way. The Crippled God and the Elder Gods seem to be the most powerful. Krul Nightchill Draconus and then maybe Mael on top of the food chain.

Sincerely

[Use Of Weapons]

The crucial thing to remember is that, in their own bailiwick, each god is paramount. The manoeuvring often comes down to them trying to move whatever conflict they are involved in into their own sphere of power, and others resisting that move.

[Binder of Demons]

The one thing I always keep in mind when seeing questions like this, is that when Erikson was asked to choose one "god" as a "Shaved Knuckle" to use a phrase from the series, he went with GOTHOS. Not any of the usual elder Gods mentioned, or the other sundry Ascendants. He chose GOTHOS. Considering the power we've seen from other Jaghut in the series, if Gothos weren't such a depressed figure, imagine what he could do (the remnants of just one of his rituals has had repercussions for hundreds of thousands of years).

Other than that, it really does seem to be a giant game of "rock, paper, scissors". I have a personal fondness for MAEL as I have respect for, and am in awe of the power of the sea in our world. I like the continuing mystery of DRACONUS' power, and just what he/it is capable of. When it comes to any hierarchy, he'd have to be taken seriously as he comes across as one of the more martial of the "gods". Father Light and Mother Dark are just too much of an unknown at this point as we don't really have a clue for how they interact with the world.

But I think I'll side with Erikson on this and go with GOTHOS

[worry]

I agree with all of the above, but I'll tell you who sucks though, is Mowri. Get off your butt, Mowri!

[Dream Theater]

Thank you much for the posts. I had somewhat suspected (and I think I alluded to it in my original post) that it does depend on what terms any particular god is being engaged on which will subsequently dictate how potent their powers are. A very excellent way to present them if I do say so myself.

Another commenter mentioned how the series demonstrates how gods often get burned when they try to influence mortals. I do not have any clue who Kruppe really is, where he came from, etc but..


Spoilers

When he encounters and thrashes the Jaghut at the end of GotM, that was impressive.

[tiam]

 worrywort, on 24 January 2012 - 09:35 PM, said:

I agree with all of the above, but I'll tell you who sucks though, is Mowri. Get off your butt, Mowri!

Got nothing on Beru and Nerruse. Or Shedenul for thatmatter. Atleast Mowri was in the HOC.

Kruppe merely facilitated Raests demise using Tool and the power of his dreams. That being said he did orchestrate events

[Studlock]

I have always thought it went like Mother Dark-Father Light-->Elder Gods--->Hood-->other younger gods and powerful ascendents-------->your every day ascendents. And then I added the fact that in Wu basically anyone could defeat/outsmart/kill anyone else so I only used my system as a guide line rather than something like the Greek pantheon where Zeus is number one no matter what (except fate).

This post has been edited by Studlock: 25 January 2012 - 09:42 AM

[wullagaru]

wouldnt it be Krul? I mean he made the warrens and such

[Sinisdar Toste]

 wullagaru, on 01 February 2012 - 10:25 PM, said:

wouldnt it be Krul? I mean he made the warrens and such

he made the human paths, and he might have taken SD and KG into himself somehow to keep the system flowing, like a beating heart, but most elder warrens are beyond his purview. he might have made the warrens, but he controls nothing in them, and rarely acts directly.

This post has been edited by Sinisdar Toste: 03 February 2012 - 12:35 AM

[The Darklord]

Mother Dark is the most powerful Ascendant, hands down
Gothos is powerful i agree, but Mother Dark is an entity-force of nature.

[Tapper]

There is power and power. We see Hood in action just once as the God he is, and the impact is astonishing. By contrast, most of the Elders seem to be dependant on worship to not fade away from the intro of MoI, this also seems to be true with regard to D'rek, who, like Hood, is probably ancient but not elder.
Your average god seems to be a pretty distant figure, content to act through their worshippers (or not even that) and the rare individuals they bestow their power on, while they sit and play god in their private realms.

Secondly, godhood is an abstract term. Apparently, you can seize power (Shadowthrone) over a realm and become its god for as long as you sit there. You can also become a god if you are already an ascendant through worship (Cotillion being worshipped as patron god of assassins, with a remarkable lack of worship, btw - only Kalam calls on him once and that is when he is cursing).

Then, there are the odd creatures. Dal Hon "egyptian" like gods which are a blend of humanity and animals are mentioned at the least once - such creatures probably never existed but are imagined and worshipped, perhaps calling them into existence, even though they have no recognizable realm?

And what about Fener, for example? We see him, once as the Boar, once as an antropomorphic being, and in the second case he fits no race we know of.
Thus, was the Boar of Summer always around? He isn't Elder, as far as we know. In fact, with D'rek being the Worm of Autumn, it seems much more logical their origins are as a totem standing for a season, then being associated with some side-realms, being called into existence when worshipped, or having realms associated with their parents but toned down to only certain aspects. It's my own reasoning that this is also the case with the offspring of Elders, like Mael's daughters being different types of sea godesses but basically just deputies of his own realm, or like Osseric, who is Light aspected, and who has daughters that resemble certain stages of the sun's progress.

We also see a few mentions of gods that are afraid or in danger of having their realm invaded by other gods or ascendants (asn't that a thread by Rake at some point?), and we also see two gods being murdered in her own stronghold

Spoiler

(Raraku, Poliel)

.

As such, making rankings is a bit of nonsense. The sole conclusion seems to be that Chaos devours all and everything else is circumstantial. And that Rake and Osseric are apparently way more powerful than almost every god, perhaps also because they tapped into Chaos.

[worry]

I'd agree with a lot of that. I'd add Draconus (perhaps) alongside Rake and Osserc though, he seems a might bit more powerful than even his brethren.

I might also extend the "calling into existence" thing to most of those we know as gods. Maybe the mortal world came first and everything else, MD and all, became real retroactively. Who knows? But we can at least infer that a lot of these beings are shaped by the humans that worshiped them. It's not shocking that Draconus, he of Darkest Night, is a mean old boogie man for most of his existence, since humans are scared of the dark. And if the original worshippers of the ocean thought of it as a senile old woman then that's probably what Mael would be. Or at least the roles are shaped by worshipers, and ascendants who (voluntarily or not) fulfill those roles get shackled by mortal expectations. Rake is smart enough to reject those shackles, though I suppose you could say he picked up others along the way.

[wullagaru]

whats weird about Rake is that while not a god he apparently had worshippers of a sort in the bluerose Andii, (clip was supposedly his mortal sword) so where does that put him on the scale?

[worry]

He's kind of a god but he's not about to put up with their nonsense.

[D'rek]

 wullagaru, on 03 February 2012 - 10:22 PM, said:

whats weird about Rake is that while not a god he apparently had worshippers of a sort in the bluerose Andii, (clip was supposedly his mortal sword) so where does that put him on the scale?

Every person seens every other person as one of three things: a} just another person who is not a god at all to anyone (whether they are an Ascendant or not), b} someone who is a god for other people but not for this person themself, or c} this person's own god.

So ie Fiddler sees Rake as {a} because he doesn't know about the Bluerose Andii, and he sees Shadowthrone as {b} because he's well aware of the Shadow religion and temples, but doesn't worship him personally. The Bluerose Andii see Rake as {c} and if they walked into ST chilling on a street corner might see him as {a}.

So the use of the word "god" depends largely on a character's own knowledge and perspective, but whether one word is used or not doesn't change the actual abilities of the being in question. Those abilities are a combination of the being's own personal power (lots in the case of an Ascendant, but almost nothing in the case of a totemic god that only came into existance from its worship at all) and the power the being gains from their own worship (lots in the case of the widespread religion gods like Fener, QoD, ST, etc but much less for gods who are only worshipped by certain groups like Rake and Icarium).

[AnomanderRakeSoD]

It's a hierarchy, riddled semantic inconsistencies. Who and what a god is has absolutely no fixed reference in the Malazan world. Thus it is much more prudent to establish a hierarchy of entities. In terms of sheer destructive power you have Rake Osserc Draconus and Brood on a similar level at the top. In terms of other 'god-like' qualities - characters such as QB / Tays etc display more of said qualities than some established gods.

This post has been edited by AnomanderRakeSoD: 04 February 2012 - 08:28 PM

[Deadsmell]

Hmm this is an interesting topic. There is one thing that baffles me, and thats Icarium. Everyone the mention's him including gods fear him, as if he could snap a finger and they'd be dead. Does he fit in the top?

[Kanese S's]

There is no true hierarchy, partly because the pantheon isn't all that organized. It's not like some mythologies that have a definite "head god" and other subordinate gods. Their relative power is always fluctuating, shifting.

Hood starts off almost definitely more powerful than Shadowthrone, but certainly isn't by the end.

Fener starts as a powerful god, and we all know what happened after that.

At the same time, during the course of the series, some new gods take form. Treach/Trake/whatever wasn't a god at the start of the series, but by the end is a fairly powerful one.

The thing is there is no official hierarchy even within universe. For example, in the deck of dragons, the High Houses are equal in name, it is only in temporary, real world power that they differ. And the gods' relative power depends largely upon world events and such.

Some of the most consistently powerful/important/whatever, though, are (in no particular order)

Mother Dark (not active for much of the series, but definitely influential)
Father Light (not usually active)
Burn (asleep)
Kaminsod aka The Crippled God (active throughout the series, obviously)
Hood (little else is as consistent as death)
Shadowthrone & Cotillion (not a whole lot of brute force, but very good at manipulating events)
K'rul (again, not all that strong partly due to being largely forgotten, but with tons of experience and an ability to take the long view... and surprising humility that keeps him from overstepping)

Besides these, I would also list the following as important during parts of the series, though their power tends to shift around a bit more. Yes, Draconus and Nightchill are both elder, but neither is doing all that much at the start of the series and both are absent for most of it.

Mael (very very powerful, but rarely throws his weight around)
T'riss AKA the Queen of Dreams
Fener (initially, at least)
Trake/Treach (after Fener)
The Wolves of Winter (Later in the series)
D'rek the Worm of Autumn (Late in the series)
Draconus (Elder, but stuck chained to a wagon for most of the series, though will likely be immensely powerful in the pantheon after TCG)
Sister of Cold Nights/Nightchill (once incredibly powerful, but as of the series' beginning, hanging around as a high mage in the Malazan Empire's army... and we know what happened there...)
Poliel (Not as constantly a factor as some of the other gods, but very powerful when stirred to action... but also now very dead)
Soliel (Perhaps not as powerful as her counterpart was... but also much less dead)
Kilmandaros (a heavy hitter, but mainly active in the latter part of the series)
The Errant (powerful in Lether but also incredibly petty and only really active in the second half of the series)
Knuckles (same as above, though less powerful)
Oponn (often a factor, but less brute strength than a lot of the other gods)
Dryjhna (Very localized power)
Apsalar'a (Not someone to trifle with, but spends most of the series chained to a wagon)
The Guardians of the Dead (very powerful, but not a factor at first)

Then there are the "who are these guys and do they do anything?" crowd:

Beru (what does Beru even do?)
Mowri (seriously, what is this person even the deity of?)
Shedunul
Nerruse


I've no doubt mixed some things up and gotten some things inaccurately. It is rather late, after all.

[Aptorian]

 Kanese S, on 24 February 2012 - 09:41 AM, said:

Beru (what does Beru even do?) - Lord of storms as far as I recall. Most likely connected to Serc or the Sea.
Mowri (seriously, what is this person even the deity of?) - This was the beggar god right? Probably represents some more abstracts forms of power and worship, like poverty, humility, absence.
Shedunul - Another name for Soliel?
Nerruse - A sea god. Probably a daughter of Mael. Maybe just some ascended sea mage.


I've no doubt mixed some things up and gotten some things inaccurately. It is rather late, after all.