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Talian League Objectives

#1 User is offline   Anommandaris 

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Posted 21 August 2014 - 10:39 AM

Hi guys

So i've just finished reading RotCG. I've read all erickson books so i started with the rest.

As i was finishing the book, when
Spoiler
i started to wonder what the hell did the Talian League hope to achieve in the first place...

Let me explain. The Crimson Guard had an objective - to depose Laseen and destroy the empire. But the majority of the "old guard" helped build that empire in the first place. I don't believe they would want the actual empire destroyed. We are told again and again how things were before the empire, just take the Seti vs Li Heng as an example. And yet, the old guard don't seem to have a game plan other than to depose Laseen. What then? Does Urko or Toc take the throne? Not in a million years, they appear to not wanting it and they don't possess the stature for it.

So one would be left to assume that if they were successful, the empire would be no more. We'd have Quon Tali, Seti, Wickans Plains, Dal Hon and the Kan confederacy again.

I always thought they that they wanted to depose Laseen more or less for what happened with Kellanved, not that they wanted to destroy the empire itself..
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#2 User is offline   D'iversify 

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Posted 21 August 2014 - 03:04 PM

View PostAnommandaris, on 21 August 2014 - 10:39 AM, said:

Hi guys

So i've just finished reading RotCG. I've read all erickson books so i started with the rest.

As i was finishing the book, when
Spoiler
i started to wonder what the hell did the Talian League hope to achieve in the first place...

Let me explain. The Crimson Guard had an objective - to depose Laseen and destroy the empire. But the majority of the "old guard" helped build that empire in the first place. I don't believe they would want the actual empire destroyed. We are told again and again how things were before the empire, just take the Seti vs Li Heng as an example. And yet, the old guard don't seem to have a game plan other than to depose Laseen. What then? Does Urko or Toc take the throne? Not in a million years, they appear to not wanting it and they don't possess the stature for it.

So one would be left to assume that if they were successful, the empire would be no more. We'd have Quon Tali, Seti, Wickans Plains, Dal Hon and the Kan confederacy again.

I always thought they that they wanted to depose Laseen more or less for what happened with Kellanved, not that they wanted to destroy the empire itself..
I think the Old Guard's motivations are more personal and nebulous but can be largely put down to revenge on Laseen. Some among them may have scrambled for power in the case of victory, but quite a few of the others seem as if they would have wandered off without a care for what followed once Laseen was deposed. As for the Talian League, it was in the main as I understood it a fairly disparate alliance of Talian groups who basically were united only by their opposition to Unta's political hegemony and centralist rule (a product by and large of Laseen's paranoia, distrust of all but her inner circle and use of tyranny, e.g. purges against the nobles, use of the Claw as secret police). I think, yes, what would have been left over if they had been successful would have been a politically disunified Quon Tali, with the result that the various statelets would then have turned on each other and battled for supremacy, with the most probably result having been a shift of power from Unta in the east to Quon Tali in the west, though how long that would hold and whether the new Talian empire would have been able to reunite the rest of the subcontinent in time to assert power over Malazan holdings outside of the subcontinent is another question. So, all in all, the Talian league and the Old Guard do not seem to have had any unified long term strategy, but that's not entirely unlike many an insurrection that has occurred in Earth's human history, so I don't see it as a problem that such is the case in Erikson's world.
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#3 User is offline   Andorion 

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Posted 21 August 2014 - 05:09 PM

View PostD, on 21 August 2014 - 03:04 PM, said:

View PostAnommandaris, on 21 August 2014 - 10:39 AM, said:

Hi guys

So i've just finished reading RotCG. I've read all erickson books so i started with the rest.

As i was finishing the book, when
Spoiler
i started to wonder what the hell did the Talian League hope to achieve in the first place...

Let me explain. The Crimson Guard had an objective - to depose Laseen and destroy the empire. But the majority of the "old guard" helped build that empire in the first place. I don't believe they would want the actual empire destroyed. We are told again and again how things were before the empire, just take the Seti vs Li Heng as an example. And yet, the old guard don't seem to have a game plan other than to depose Laseen. What then? Does Urko or Toc take the throne? Not in a million years, they appear to not wanting it and they don't possess the stature for it.

So one would be left to assume that if they were successful, the empire would be no more. We'd have Quon Tali, Seti, Wickans Plains, Dal Hon and the Kan confederacy again.

I always thought they that they wanted to depose Laseen more or less for what happened with Kellanved, not that they wanted to destroy the empire itself..
I think the Old Guard's motivations are more personal and nebulous but can be largely put down to revenge on Laseen. Some among them may have scrambled for power in the case of victory, but quite a few of the others seem as if they would have wandered off without a care for what followed once Laseen was deposed. As for the Talian League, it was in the main as I understood it a fairly disparate alliance of Talian groups who basically were united only by their opposition to Unta's political hegemony and centralist rule (a product by and large of Laseen's paranoia, distrust of all but her inner circle and use of tyranny, e.g. purges against the nobles, use of the Claw as secret police). I think, yes, what would have been left over if they had been successful would have been a politically disunified Quon Tali, with the result that the various statelets would then have turned on each other and battled for supremacy, with the most probably result having been a shift of power from Unta in the east to Quon Tali in the west, though how long that would hold and whether the new Talian empire would have been able to reunite the rest of the subcontinent in time to assert power over Malazan holdings outside of the subcontinent is another question. So, all in all, the Talian league and the Old Guard do not seem to have had any unified long term strategy, but that's not entirely unlike many an insurrection that has occurred in Earth's human history, so I don't see it as a problem that such is the case in Erikson's world.


Precisely.
most insurrections go like "Let,s overthrow the bloody tyrant because the bloody tyranny is intolerable" Then they go ahead, overthrow the tyrant and now that they have upset the applecart theres nobody to collect up all the apples anymore cause nobody thought to plan ahead.

In the RotCG case I don't think they had any definite idea because as I understand it the major point of the revolt was to protest the overlordship of the empire and then return to the earlier separate state system. The Old Guard I suspect took advantage of this to further their plot of overthrowing Laseen but they may have had some kind of strategy in mind.
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#4 User is offline   HoosierDaddy 

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Posted 21 August 2014 - 09:58 PM

Ghelel would be the figurehead of an empire ran by the Old Guard who had their own pet provinces/people.
Trouble arrives when the opponents to such a system institute its extreme opposite, where individualism becomes godlike and sacrosanct, and no greater service to any other ideal (including community) is possible. In such a system rapacious greed thrives behind the guise of freedom, and the worst aspects of human nature come to the fore....
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#5 User is offline   tiam 

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Posted 30 August 2014 - 02:50 PM

View PostHoosierDaddy, on 21 August 2014 - 09:58 PM, said:

Ghelel would be the figurehead of an empire ran by the Old Guard who had their own pet provinces/people.


This

There was a support structure there but yes I see what OP means. That Rel can swindle his way in does highlight a lack of a charismatic leader
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