Excidius, on 18 July 2015 - 12:16 AM, said:
I'm only just into Chapter 7, after
and there's a lot of focus on the K'Chain Che'Malle at the moment. The thing is, I can't help but think of them as ridiculous - a dinosaur type creature is something I have never seen in a medieval fantasy series before, so maybe it is a fear of the unknown, but I can't get into them existing at the time in this world. They seem to me like something I would create if someone said: "Hey, we have a world full of juicy mortals - feel free to design a godmodding creature that's only purpose is to kill them and wreak havok."
It also stems from them having blades for hands, if they were normal clawed reptiles then I might be able to cope with them as a sort of mount or mindless pet. The other races I've seen are all humanoid in nature and have the means to communicate with the humans, yet the Che'Malle are literally dinosaurs with blades instead of hands.
Also, with them showing no signs of intelligence thus far, they convey themselves as outright villains, which completely dispels the 'shades of grey' rather than 'black and white' morality of every conflict in the Malazan series I have witnessed. Am I being too pedantic, or does someone see where I am coming from?
Wait, hold up.
This series began with a massacre of a substantial coastal settlement by a few semi-sapient, otherworldly dog things... in that same book, there's a siege that involves a giant flying mountain, a dude's soul is transferred into a wooden puppet, there are giant, talking ravens, a sword that contains a whole other realm where people pull an enormous wagon forward endlessly, a house that just kinda
grows, and giant dragonflies that people ride around on. Oh, and fucking dragons.
The next book had an inexplicably large statue made seemingly entirely out of jade, a literal boar god, another dragon, a ship propelled by decapitated rowers, another weird-ass living house thing, and people who shapeshift into canids, a fuckload of rats, a bear, and a fucking swarm of blood-sucking flies, oh, and like the previous book, undead revenants who can turn to dust at any moment who have been around for thousands upon thousands upon thousands of years. Also people summoning demons just to fuck up their opponents.
And the idea of a sapient reptilian species is what bothers you? Seems an odd place to draw the line, in my opinion.
1. As others have said, it isn't medieval fantasy. It's fantasy, but the setting has little in common with medieval Europe type settings.
2. They mostly don't exist anymore, living. The ones you see in MoI have been raised from the dead via, essentially, necromancy. Why are the T'lan Imass, who are also undead, so much more eloquent than the KCCM in MoI? Probably because they turned themselves undead by choice, rather than having been dead for ages and then reanimated.
3. Again, these were reanimated. If you were going to reanimate some dead things to serve as your murder machines, you'd try for the most effective ones you could, right?
4. Kell hunters are the ones with blades for hands. Not all KCCM are kell hunters.
5. Again, they are revenants, reanimated corpses. You learn a lot more about the KCCM species and culture later in the series. Not every sapient race in fantasy needs to be humanoid. And they are certainly not black and white in morality later in the series. You will see.
Excidius, on 18 July 2015 - 12:35 PM, said:
I assumed it would be RAFO, but for now I can't help but let it kind of ruin the vibe of MoI so far.
I guess you're right at it not being medieval fantasy. You also kind of made it worse by reminding me these are zombie dinosaurs with blades for hands.
More like cursed mummies than zombies.
Abyss, on 18 July 2015 - 02:42 PM, said:
@Excidius - the short answer is RAFO, but you're expressing doubt and wanting more so let me point out a few things that maybe you missed on the read so far...
- the Kchain Chemalle are reptiles... But not necessarily dinosaurs;
- they are refd in an earlier book as being a Founding Race... Think about that... When the Imass and the Jaghut and whoever else were running around pre human empires, so were the Kchain;
The Kchain Gruntle and co encounter is undead... Which means someone raised it. Someone raised an ancient dead reptile with swords for hands from the dead and sent it out on a killing spree;
- Bauchelain calls it a 'Kell hunter'... If this kind of Kchain has a specific name, wonder what the other kinds are like?;- it has swords for arms...think about the implications of that for a second... Ancient civilization of reptiles who could graft swords onto the arms of their soldiers... I don't know how jaded a fantasy lit fan you are, but afaik there aren't a whole lot of books out there with races that do that sort of thing, let along races of reptile/dinosaur people... Who are dead...
Anyhow, if nothing else, if you're enjoying everything else abut the book, keep going, there's some brilliant stuff ahead and more about the Kchain that will get you past your misgivings if this doesn't.
All this.
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