[arclight]

First off the hi all,


Secondly, my crazy theories

DRACONUS
Draconus is actually Azathanai representative of darkness. Arathan is his son through an unknown mother. We know Arathan`s daughter has a strange hue to her skin through Olar Ethil. This leads me to believe that Arathan`s mother is the Azathanai representative of light (since we know Father Light is Urusander). Arathan is the joining of Dark and Light and that would make his daughter - Menandore, Draconus`s granddaughter and Daughter Dawn, the moment when darkness and light mix.

On the wild and crazy theory side, what if it truly was Father Dark and Mother Light, and since Draconus raised someone else to be his avatar-like creation in the form of Mother Dark, T`riss came along to balance the equation and created Father Light. Hence why Old Man Moon said Ardata and Sister Dreams (who is T`riss) were so concerned and intended to interfere. Speculation at its finest.



BURN

Burn becomes the representative of earth-magic, hence Caladan later carrying Burn`s hammer and unleashing Tennes. It was also said in previous books that Caladan had woken Burn before. What if Burn awakening is something cataclysmic like volcanoes erupting and destroying an island. Eventually Burn would go to sleep again and the land would quieten and the clock/timeline would start again - explaining why in Malazan time`s it`s only been X years since Burn fell asleep.



DOG-RUNNERS

The Dog-runners are the T`lan Imass pre-vow. From the description provided by Rancept, they sound awfully familiar. Also the Jaghut who disagreed with Hood about civilization went among the Dog-runners. What if the vow of the T`lan Imass was to eliminate the Jaghut - but they did not know there were more out there until after they had eliminated the Tyrants and they believed the only way for the vow to end was to eliminate the Jaghut - all of them. So the reason why the continue to hunt Jaghut is an attempt to end the vow - once all the Jaghut are gone, the vow will be no more.



That`s what I got now.



Thanks

[Aptorian]

Unless we go back to some older age long before the Azathanai came out of the Vitr and built their settlement, I don't think there is or has been any "gods" of Light or Dark before this business with the Tiste begins.

From what we understand about the world at this point there are no real gods and no real aspects yet. Nobody has claimed anything (except maybe Moon Man and Olar Ethil). The warrens if they exist in any tangible form at this point have yet to be claimed and used for any kind of power. The Azathanai are waiting around to chose what to become.

Draconus isn't really a god of Darkness. He gives it to "Mother" as a gift and in turn gives himself over to her and her new aspect. If anything he probably belongs to the night. What was the title he was known as? The Suzerain of... Night? Dark?

This post has been edited by Crustaceous Apt: 07 November 2013 - 07:06 PM

[king in chains]

i was wondering if the tiste are an elder race like the jaghut? Its just that SE never depicted them as such

This post has been edited by king in chains: 07 November 2013 - 10:34 PM

[worry]

What do you mean?

[Aptorian]

I think he might be referring to the 4 founding races origin myth? Or maybe the fact that in FOD the Tiste seem very young while the Jaghut, FA and Tel Akai, etc have obviously already established themselves.

[worry]

Ahhh, I see. I guess the answer to that is that "Elder race" is just one imperfect frame of reference. There's no essential attribute to "elder" beyond someone -- a human historian/anthropologist perhaps -- concluding that a people existed in a particular era. There's not really a way to depict anything as "elder" except to say it shared the era with other things you call "elder". I mean you can call cockroaches Elder Bugs, and if you called dinosaurs Elder Birdlizards, then you might have communicated an inference to somebody else (these things (co-)existed at a time long before now).

[D'rek]

Even though FoD depicts the Tiste, Thel Akai, Jaghut, Dog-Runners and pre-Jheck all living together in one realm, there's many, many flashbacks and references to the Tiste as invaders or strangers, coming to Wu from elsewhere. There's some vague rumourings of similar for the Jaghut and K'Chain, but not nearly as concretely as for the Tiste. So even if FoD has this bunch of races together, I expect at some point a division occuring, whether it be a fracturing of the realms or something else, and it will end up with Jaghut, Imass, K'Chain and Forkrul Assail on Wu or arriving in Wu long before the Tiste migrations to Wu, and that is why those four are the "founding races".

[amphibian]

Forge of Darkness takes place in a time for the Tiste in which they have history so old that Hun Raal considers the details lost to time. The large animals have mostly been killed and so on.

To put forth a bad analogy, I believe FoD takes place at roughly the end of the Ice Age for humans in terms of time passed and the times to come. Even then, the Jaghut already have abandoned their city and the Tiste have old ruins. I believe the Jaghut and the Jheck are older than the Tiste, but as yet no concrete proof exists.

I also speculate that Mother Dark's true name starts with Aranatha. Anomander named his son Nimander, after his father. Or perhaps the murderous one was named after her, but I doubt that for some reason.

[king in chains]

thanks for all the replies

[Abyss]

amphibian, on 08 November 2013 - 07:14 AM, said:

Forge of Darkness takes place in a time for the Tiste in which they have history so old that Hun Raal considers the details lost to time. The large animals have mostly been killed and so on.
...

I took it from the referencs to slag pits and deforestation that the Tiste as a civilization were beginning to stagnate. I vaguely think there were some references to low birth rates and long life spans as well, more or less setting the stage for the 'tired' Tiste Andii Rake was trying to keep motivated in the MBF.

It will be interesting to see if/how/why the aspecting of Dark doesn't shake (pun intended) the Andii as much as Light moves the Liosan to radicalization. Also, we don't really know much about pre-MT prologue Edur.

[Aptorian]

I still think the longevity of the Andii and the age of their civilization was a weak point of the novel. You'd think a culture where everyone lives to at least a thousand if they don't die from unfortunate circumstances would have some radical differences in their culture and phillosophical outlook on life compared to mankind.

[amphibian]

Abyss, on 08 November 2013 - 03:49 PM, said:

I took it from the referencs to slag pits and deforestation that the Tiste as a civilization were beginning to stagnate. I vaguely think there were some references to low birth rates and long life spans as well, more or less setting the stage for the 'tired' Tiste Andii Rake was trying to keep motivated in the MBF.

It will be interesting to see if/how/why the aspecting of Dark doesn't shake (pun intended) the Andii as much as Light moves the Liosan to radicalization. Also, we don't really know much about pre-MT prologue Edur.

The civilization had long since stagnated. The decades since the brief Jheck incursion and the Forkrul Assail war were brief revivals of Tiste society/culture, but they came at such cost that the Drukorlas House basically collapsed in on itself (probably representative of most of the minor houses). The forests and the animals are exhausted near the Tiste. The mines on Draconus's property are mostly played out, except for the one that still has something in there. There's very little left in terms of natural resources or room to expand for the Tiste.

Crustaceous Apt, on 08 November 2013 - 04:13 PM, said:

I still think the longevity of the Andii and the age of their civilization was a weak point of the novel. You'd think a culture where everyone lives to at least a thousand if they don't die from unfortunate circumstances would have some radical differences in their culture and phillosophical outlook on life compared to mankind.

The point of their being long lived and having all the philosophical stuff is that they still don't give a shit about natural resources. They were never the awe-inspiring stewards of the land or anything of the kind. They were essentially regular people and short-sighted as regular people will be. Sagander, the tutor, spouts a load of complete nonsense about poor people being correctly poor because they'd internalized some sort of external weakness and rich people hadn't. A page later, he gets his shit fucked up, but the point is that a super-educated tutor to perhaps the second richest heir of a house out there is talking this stuff without much worry about being wrong.

The Tiste's longevity meant less to them than it did to the Jaghut, who appear to have near universally recognized or discovered all kinds of awesome stuff - before the Lord of Hate said something to make them all despair and give everything up. So the Tiste never had any sort of enlightened viewpoint. The Jaghut possibly did, but threw it away because Gothos was enough of a technically correct asshole to convince them all to do that.

Hah. I really like this stuff on the re-read and discussion/consideration amongst us readers.

[sting01]

Long lived will mean almost stagnant for us, short lived mamals. How many of you can tell about your ancestors doing roughtly 2200 before today? Who amongst can build a house that will stand 1 000 years and still housing your heirs after that time?

Because my mother familly, I can answer yes to both questions; and it allow me also to imagine my life span streching from Alesia battle (were 2 of my ancestors were amongst the famed arverni guards) up to now, passing another who was Pope rioughtly 1 000 years ago (more 900 years ago) and his brother who build the house where I grew up. Imagining such a life span make me understand I would not have the wills/gutts/witt they had/showed, and it is our short time were we are efficient that in fact drive us.

Long lived , we would act like the komodo dragoons, move slowly and often we will think and weight actions instead of acting/building/procreating. To love really a woman, you must do so like if you will die by the morrow said the poet, and I believe so.

But did the Andii suffer that, or did the Andii suffer the fact they did lost some primal innocence? The destruction of the forest, the killing of the wild, the emptiness of the mines are most certainly a way to describe that everyon and everything must not take all, because in doing so a limit will be crossed and after that it will be no retrun possible. I believe , and it was Anomander belief too, the Andii understood they crossed that border, and because their is no way back to innocence then best is to simply lay, sleep and die. To that Anomander tried a basic cure, similar to Dasem' stabbing by Temper; he tried to reactivate the most primal functions of the brain (survival) and by placing the Andii in front of a violent death , to have them react ... to make them feel alive when in front of death.

The jaghuts ... well they are jaghuts, they dwelves on hymalaya of thinking, while me humble worm I barely stride on the shore of the ocean, so I did not try to understand , neither could I if I tried too.

[worry]

That last sentence might be one of your best translation efforts ever, sting01. But I still get your overall point, I think.

[sting01]

worry, on 28 November 2013 - 08:34 PM, said:

That last sentence might be one of your best translation efforts ever, sting01. But I still get your overall point, I think.

You baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaad with me, now I am crying a river because of you, my feelings are hurt, you made me throw away the toys I just got from Father Crismas

hahahahahahaha

[Blend]

arclight, on 07 November 2013 - 06:45 PM, said:

...(since we know Father Light is Urusander)...

I wouldn't necessary say we KNOW that. We assume that based on what has happened so far, but I don't think it can be said to be quite confirmed yet. I think something's going to happen to Urusander and Hun Rahl's going to take his place, personally... Not that this has much to do with the rest of the thread, but I wanted to add my $0.02.

[prq]

arclight, on 07 November 2013 - 06:45 PM, said:

DOG-RUNNERS

The Dog-runners are the T`lan Imass pre-vow. From the description provided by Rancept, they sound awfully familiar. Also the Jaghut who disagreed with Hood about civilization went among the Dog-runners. What if the vow of the T`lan Imass was to eliminate the Jaghut - but they did not know there were more out there until after they had eliminated the Tyrants and they believed the only way for the vow to end was to eliminate the Jaghut - all of them. So the reason why the continue to hunt Jaghut is an attempt to end the vow - once all the Jaghut are gone, the vow will be no more.

I would say the Jaghut who disagreed with Hood and went amongst the Dog-runners, became the Jaghut tyrants.

[Gorefest]

D, on 08 November 2013 - 05:32 AM, said:

Even though FoD depicts the Tiste, Thel Akai, Jaghut, Dog-Runners and pre-Jheck all living together in one realm, there's many, many flashbacks and references to the Tiste as invaders or strangers, coming to Wu from elsewhere. There's some vague rumourings of similar for the Jaghut and K'Chain, but not nearly as concretely as for the Tiste. So even if FoD has this bunch of races together, I expect at some point a division occuring, whether it be a fracturing of the realms or something else, and it will end up with Jaghut, Imass, K'Chain and Forkrul Assail on Wu or arriving in Wu long before the Tiste migrations to Wu, and that is why those four are the "founding races".

Well, as this topic has been kicked up I'd like to chip in on this way past its time. As I understand it, the realm/world that we read about in FoD is not the same one as the Malazan world/Wu/Burn. In the Malazan world, the 'old' races include the KCM and the FA, which both do not feature (so far) in the Kharkanas trilogy. Also, the Shake and Sandalath/Nimander travel by warren to Kharkanas, implying that Kharkanas itself and Lightfall are in a separate realm.

So at some point between FoD and GotM the Tiste (or at least the Andi and Edur) cross over to the Malazan realm, possibly to escape or avoid further bloodshed in their war with the Liosan, only to stumble upon the KCM on the Letherii continent and attack them (from DoD: "Sandalath, why did you Tiste war against the K'Chain Che'Malle?" "Why? Because the were different.". "I see. and they fought against you in turn. Because you were different, or because you were invading their world?"). At some point before that migration, possibly quite a long time before that migration, the Jaghut, dog-runner (Imass) and pre-Jheck had already made that same journey. Either what we see in FoD of these races is only part of the entire population and others have already crossed over, or their migration will happen in the (near) future (although that would make the time lines even more shaky).

Or (and here we get kinky) somehow the Kharkanas realm gets split or severed during the Tiste civil war, "dumping" the Jaghut, dog-runners and Jheck into the Malazan world (or even creating the Malazan world) whereas the fragment that the Tiste war takes place in (Kharkanas and its surroundings) gets separated completely and maybe due to the magic used in the war 'time' in this fragment slows down drastically (Jaghut tinkering?) compared to the Malazan fragment, which means that by the time the Andi and Edur exit this realm to 'rejoin' the Jaghut and Imass (who in the meantime have themselves been joined or realm-merged with the KCM, TTT and FA realm), thousands of years will have passed and they will be seen as new invaders.

What I don't really get is, assuming my understanding of events isn't completely out of whack, how a victory of the Liosan at Lightfall would then have an impact on events on the Malazan realm, unless Kharkanas itself forms a permanent gate back into the Malazan realm?

This post has been edited by Gorefest: 28 August 2014 - 04:02 PM

[worry]

Not addressing your whole post, the Road of Gallan is the path between Kharkanas and the mortal world. It's already got TL and FA along it, as the Shake find out in DoD.

[DaddyDraconus]

Hmm... As to how the FA / Jaghut get to Wu before the Tiste races, I think we may find the fact that Burn manifested herself in Kurald Galain holds relevancy. Which begs the question what is a Wu god doing in that realm? She isn't elder or hasn't been named as such and she has contemparary worshipers in MBotF. I believe we will find out more of this and it will link somehow to the treachery/ambitions/lies of Olar Ethil who already seems to be dipping her feet into Wu with the Dog Runners

This post has been edited by DaddyDraconus: 17 September 2014 - 01:42 AM