[WinterPhoenix]

the broken, on 29 April 2016 - 04:09 PM, said:

Worth noting: We do not get Rake's POV in GOTM. We get Baruk's point of view, talking to Rake, who is trying to convince him that he's powerful enough to protect his city.

This is one of my favourite book out of all the Malazan series, including SE's.

I would actually rank Topper over Kalam. Pearl says he might win 'knife to knife' but Topper isn't going to use knives, he'll just skewer him with Kurald Galain, which Otataral won't help with. Topper's battle with Cowl started in Quon and ended in Malaz City. Kalam is probably better in a physical fight, but that doesn't mean he'd win.

The Avowed mage said Tayschrenn 'challenged' Anomander, which, regardless of whether he could beat him toe to toe, is true, he did challenge Anomander, while dealing with his own treacherous allies. Moon's Spawn took too much damage and withdrew which was Tay's goal from the beginning, and Rake couldn't squash Tayschrenn flat and protect his home. By the end of the engagement he was practically alone, but wasn't squashed flat. While being more powerful, Rake lost that engagement.

Topper is specifically waiting for Cowl to make a move, he's been preparing for this fight for a long time. He's likely not on Cowl's radar as a threat.

Skinner is being lazy because his armour is impenetrable.

The thing is, people don't have flat power levels, it varies by the day and how much preparation they've been doing, whether they're paying attention, what else they've been doing that day.

When the second Avowed makes essentially the same point you have made, just more succinctly, they also say that Rake would have killed Tay one on one. But the first remains unconvinced, meaning that she believes there is a chance that even one on one Tay wouldn't come off the worse, which is a mighty impressive level of power she believes him to have. While I am convinced that Rake would squash him one on one, she is not, and frankly she must know more about him than we do. It is definitely an impressive level of power she is willing to believe he has, way more impressive than has been shown, even with all the very powerful stuff we have seen - Pale, confronting Yathengar etc.

I'll give you that magery would probably skewer things in favour of Topper over Kalam, I still feel as though from the comparisons given Cowl is supposed to be both a better hand to hand fighter and far better mage than Topper, his confrontation with Silanah would seem to confirm this, I'm not that the element of surprise or any level of preparation would really elevate Topper to Cowl's or Dancer's levels - I mention Dancer because Cowl is favourably compared to him more than once.

And yes I realised that flat power levels do not exist, I concede that above, which I why I said from the beginning that I know such things aren't really worthy of a serious intellectual exercise, however, the consequences of tell over show and too malleable power levels is getting thrown out of the story (for me at least) which is mostly what I wished to foster discussion about.

Very good point about Cowl not being a POV character Kanese, it's true I guess that the majority of people who have seen Cowl's most fearsome displays are no longer alive to let the reader know.

Oponn, I do remember reading about Karsa being another player, Erikson mentions it in a really good set of comments on the re-read at Tor. It was really cool to hear about Erikson's surprise at the player (who he doesn't name) deciding to simply spear Binadas in his chair, because he was getting frustrated at all the stuff that was being thrown in Karsa's way.

[worry]

Isn't Cowl the POV character when he and Skinner go to the edges between Thyrrlan and Thyr (or Telas -- I forget)? I guess it's a one-off. But as I've probably said elsewhere, I think this book (and a few of ICE's others) would be improved by the occasional one-off POV, just to flesh things out more (in particular w/ the Crimson Guard).

[WinterPhoenix]

Oponn Relationship, on 29 April 2016 - 09:33 PM, said:

Isn't Cowl the POV character when he and Skinner go to the edges between Thyrrlan and Thyr (or Telas -- I forget)? I guess it's a one-off. But as I've probably said elsewhere, I think this book (and a few of ICE's others) would be improved by the occasional one-off POV, just to flesh things out more (in particular w/ the Crimson Guard).

Yeah he kinda is, its a fairly short section and there's no real exploration of his thoughts and such tbh, mostly it is just decrying Skinner's recklessness if I have my memories right. I believe it is Thyrlan/Liosan, the description seems to match that of the warren that Trull and Onrack go through with the other T'Lan Imass, when the T'Lan kill Loric's familiar in HoC - also Pearl and Lostara as well - but perhaps even more deadly, as Cowl speaks about how his wards wom't hold forever under such assault and really wants Skinner to leave. The presence that bursts Cowl's wards, sends them both flying across the tower room and even makes Skinner's armour smoulder, is Osric I think. When Skinner says who he is, his title, the presence says something like 'These title's are meaningless, you are not he, that much is clear' I assumed the 'he' in question is Kyle, considering the scenes in Shadow House with Osric and Kyle later in the book.

I couldn't agree with you more though about the POV's. We'll see how I feel going forward, (eventually, at my current pace it'll be sometime next year before I'm done :/)

[the broken]

Here's the scene:

Quote

"Challenged Anomander," Lor-Sinn breathed, "Lord of Moon's Spawn."

Kyle watched Opal shake her mop of curly auburn hair. "Hubris. The ascendant held back."

Opal gestured to the field "And risk such consequences?"

Lor-Sinn, Kyle could tell, remained unconvinced.

Then they get distracted.

Nothing there about Rake would have killed Tay one on one. Opal is pointing at the rift, indicating that both of them going all out could have opened up a hole in reality
Lor Sinn believes that Tayschrenn 'challenged' Rake, which I read as 'put up a decent fight', rather than 'has a chance of winning

Given that crimson guard is the first time we see Topper fight, I'm not sure we can definitively put him below Dancer et al.

Cowl strikes me as a different kind of mage than Tayschrenn, he doesn't stand on a hill and dominate a battlefield, he comes out of a warren, strikes, and warrens away, then strikes from somewhere else.

IIRC the scene with Silanah,

Spoiler

she's roasting some soldiers, and then Cowl hits her with magery from an unknown position. Rake hunts him, but doesn't seem to be able to corner him into a straight fight. It doesn't look like a straight battle of magic so much as eluding him in a hunt.

[WinterPhoenix]

Ah we differ on the use of the words 'challenged' and 'hubris' here I believe. While it certainly is the case that challenged doesn't necessarily mean 'had a chance of beating', it's her reaction at the end of the brief conversation, remaining unconvinced that it was mere hubris on his part as Opal says, that leads me to believe she definitely meant the word in a manner a whole lot more even that 'putting up a decent fight'. Furthermore, the use of the word breathed to describe how she said the word, conveys a tone almost of awe behind her words. On the matter of Opal's choice of word in 'Hubris', I read this as Opal scoffing at Lor-Sinn's belief that Tayschrenn could hold up to Rake, i.e she believes if 'the ascendant' hadn't held back, Tay would be dead. Now you could obviously legitimately argue why I am attributing more weight to the one Avowed mage that believes he could hold up to Rake, than the one who obviously doesn't, seeing as they are both quite clearly of similar, if not identical rank, surely both their beliefs are of equal merit. It's the idea that anyone so obviously well informed on the subject matter (that is magery, not necessarily Tay specifically, though it's made clear Tay and the guard have had run-ins in the past that obviously doesn't mean they automatically know everything about him) believes at all that Tay and Rake are of a similar order of magnitude when it comes to pure magery. I desperately want to see the events that led Lor-Sinn to hold this belief, or at least feel as though it could be true.

As for Topper, it seems a generally held belief within the Malazan world that Dancer is/was the greatest assassin, better even than Laseen, and by extension Topper as well. Though I would agree that there isn't enough first hand evidence to really evaluate Topper's skills, therein lays the ridiculousness of trying to order a list by power levels in a cast of such epic proportions. It's not as though I want a neatly ordered list to satisfy a crippling OCD, I merely feel a little dragged out of the story when my expectations heretofore are given such a decided kick-in.

I do want to point out that I haven't had this novel ruined for me by something as silly as power levels - in fact I wouldn't say I've had it ruined at all, it's just not as good as Erikson's novels, with the exception of GotM, in my honest opinion - this was just one subject I wished to foster discussion about. I don't have a low opinion of this novel relative to the fantasy genre, merely relative to the Malazan series thus far, and from the great improvement between NoK and RotCG I am excited to read Stonewielder and beyond to see if the trend continues.

EDIYT: Just to say, I completely agree with your analysis regarding Cowl/Tayschrenn differences and the Cowl Silanah incident. Though I do tend to believe that the levels of power show to both successfully drive away a pure-blood Eleint and elude Rake so effectively, are simply not shown in this novel, not at all, and should be enough to overwhelm Topper. Oh and I concede your point above, I was wrong to say 'they say Rake would have killed Tay' they obviously say no such thing, though I do believe that is the intended meaning behind Opal's scoff.

This post has been edited by WinterPhoenix: 30 April 2016 - 01:59 AM

[Andorion]

WinterPhoenix, on 30 April 2016 - 01:52 AM, said:

Ah we differ on the use of the words 'challenged' and 'hubris' here I believe. While it certainly is the case that challenged doesn't necessarily mean 'had a chance of beating', it's her reaction at the end of the brief conversation, remaining unconvinced that it was mere hubris on his part as Opal says, that leads me to believe she definitely meant the word in a manner a whole lot more even that 'putting up a decent fight'. Furthermore, the use of the word breathed to describe how she said the word, conveys a tone almost of awe behind her words. On the matter of Opal's choice of word in 'Hubris', I read this as Opal scoffing at Lor-Sinn's belief that Tayschrenn could hold up to Rake, i.e she believes if 'the ascendant' hadn't held back, Tay would be dead. Now you could obviously legitimately argue why I am attributing more weight to the one Avowed mage that believes he could hold up to Rake, than the one who obviously doesn't, seeing as they are both quite clearly of similar, if not identical rank, surely both their beliefs are of equal merit. It's the idea that anyone so obviously well informed on the subject matter (that is magery, not necessarily Tay specifically, though it's made clear Tay and the guard have had run-ins in the past that obviously doesn't mean they automatically know everything about him) believes at all that Tay and Rake are of a similar order of magnitude when it comes to pure magery. I desperately want to see the events that led Lor-Sinn to hold this belief, or at least feel as though it could be true.

As for Topper, it seems a generally held belief within the Malazan world that Dancer is/was the greatest assassin, better even than Laseen, and by extension Topper as well. Though I would agree that there isn't enough first hand evidence to really evaluate Topper's skills, therein lays the ridiculousness of trying to order a list by power levels in a cast of such epic proportions. It's not as though I want a neatly ordered list to satisfy a crippling OCD, I merely feel a little dragged out of the story when my expectations heretofore are given such a decided kick-in.

I do want to point out that I haven't had this novel ruined for me by something as silly as power levels - in fact I wouldn't say I've had it ruined at all, it's just not as good as Erikson's novels, with the exception of GotM, in my honest opinion - this was just one subject I wished to foster discussion about. I don't have a low opinion of this novel relative to the fantasy genre, merely relative to the Malazan series thus far, and from the great improvement between NoK and RotCG I am excited to read Stonewielder and beyond to see if the trend continues.

EDIYT: Just to say, I completely agree with your analysis regarding Cowl/Tayschrenn differences and the Cowl Silanah incident. Though I do tend to believe that the levels of power show to both successfully drive away a pure-blood Eleint and elude Rake so effectively, are simply not shown in this novel, not at all, and should be enough to overwhelm Topper. Oh and I concede your point above, I was wrong to say 'they say Rake would have killed Tay' they obviously say no such thing, though I do believe that is the intended meaning behind Opal's scoff.

Regarding Topper Kalam and Dancer, I think there was a scene in DG where somebody says not even Dancer when looking at Kalams skills

[worry]

Nah, that was just someone in the DG subforum commenting on my skills.

[WinterPhoenix]

Oponn Relationship, on 30 April 2016 - 02:31 AM, said:

Nah, that was just someone in the DG subforum commenting on my skills.

I couldn't possibly comment...

[Kanese S's]

the broken, on 29 April 2016 - 04:09 PM, said:

Worth noting: We do not get Rake's POV in GOTM. We get Baruk's point of view, talking to Rake, who is trying to convince him that he's powerful enough to protect his city.

This is one of my favourite book out of all the Malazan series, including SE's.

I would actually rank Topper over Kalam. Pearl says he might win 'knife to knife' but Topper isn't going to use knives, he'll just skewer him with Kurald Galain, which Otataral won't help with. Topper's battle with Cowl started in Quon and ended in Malaz City. Kalam is probably better in a physical fight, but that doesn't mean he'd win.

The Avowed mage said Tayschrenn 'challenged' Anomander, which, regardless of whether he could beat him toe to toe, is true, he did challenge Anomander, while dealing with his own treacherous allies. Moon's Spawn took too much damage and withdrew which was Tay's goal from the beginning, and Rake couldn't squash Tayschrenn flat and protect his home. By the end of the engagement he was practically alone, but wasn't squashed flat. While being more powerful, Rake lost that engagement.

Topper is specifically waiting for Cowl to make a move, he's been preparing for this fight for a long time. He's likely not on Cowl's radar as a threat.

Skinner is being lazy because his armour is impenetrable.

The thing is, people don't have flat power levels, it varies by the day and how much preparation they've been doing, whether they're paying attention, what else they've been doing that day.

I think it's worth pointing out, also, that Rake may have been unable to squash Tayschrenn without harming the city of Pale considerably. Given that defending Pale was the purpose for giving battle in the first place, and that Anomander doesn't seem like a "destroy the village in order to save it" kind of guy, it seems reasonable that while Rake might win in an all out one on one fight with Tay in the middle of nowhere, in the specific situation, Tay may have outmaneuvered him, knowing that Rake wouldn't risk destroying the city just to beat a Malazan high mage.

WinterPhoenix, on 29 April 2016 - 09:11 PM, said:

the broken, on 29 April 2016 - 04:09 PM, said:

Worth noting: We do not get Rake's POV in GOTM. We get Baruk's point of view, talking to Rake, who is trying to convince him that he's powerful enough to protect his city.

This is one of my favourite book out of all the Malazan series, including SE's.

I would actually rank Topper over Kalam. Pearl says he might win 'knife to knife' but Topper isn't going to use knives, he'll just skewer him with Kurald Galain, which Otataral won't help with. Topper's battle with Cowl started in Quon and ended in Malaz City. Kalam is probably better in a physical fight, but that doesn't mean he'd win.

The Avowed mage said Tayschrenn 'challenged' Anomander, which, regardless of whether he could beat him toe to toe, is true, he did challenge Anomander, while dealing with his own treacherous allies. Moon's Spawn took too much damage and withdrew which was Tay's goal from the beginning, and Rake couldn't squash Tayschrenn flat and protect his home. By the end of the engagement he was practically alone, but wasn't squashed flat. While being more powerful, Rake lost that engagement.

Topper is specifically waiting for Cowl to make a move, he's been preparing for this fight for a long time. He's likely not on Cowl's radar as a threat.

Skinner is being lazy because his armour is impenetrable.

The thing is, people don't have flat power levels, it varies by the day and how much preparation they've been doing, whether they're paying attention, what else they've been doing that day.

When the second Avowed makes essentially the same point you have made, just more succinctly, they also say that Rake would have killed Tay one on one. But the first remains unconvinced, meaning that she believes there is a chance that even one on one Tay wouldn't come off the worse, which is a mighty impressive level of power she believes him to have. While I am convinced that Rake would squash him one on one, she is not, and frankly she must know more about him than we do. It is definitely an impressive level of power she is willing to believe he has, way more impressive than has been shown, even with all the very powerful stuff we have seen - Pale, confronting Yathengar etc.

I'll give you that magery would probably skewer things in favour of Topper over Kalam, I still feel as though from the comparisons given Cowl is supposed to be both a better hand to hand fighter and far better mage than Topper, his confrontation with Silanah would seem to confirm this, I'm not that the element of surprise or any level of preparation would really elevate Topper to Cowl's or Dancer's levels - I mention Dancer because Cowl is favourably compared to him more than once.

And yes I realised that flat power levels do not exist, I concede that above, which I why I said from the beginning that I know such things aren't really worthy of a serious intellectual exercise, however, the consequences of tell over show and too malleable power levels is getting thrown out of the story (for me at least) which is mostly what I wished to foster discussion about.

Very good point about Cowl not being a POV character Kanese, it's true I guess that the majority of people who have seen Cowl's most fearsome displays are no longer alive to let the reader know.

Oponn, I do remember reading about Karsa being another player, Erikson mentions it in a really good set of comments on the re-read at Tor. It was really cool to hear about Erikson's surprise at the player (who he doesn't name) deciding to simply spear Binadas in his chair, because he was getting frustrated at all the stuff that was being thrown in Karsa's way.

I would consider the Crimson Guard to be fairly good judges of both Rake's and Tay's abilities, given that they'd fought alongside the former, against the latter, quite a bit at this point. Also, when he confronted Yath, Yath was kinda not even really Yath any more at that point but the focal point of a sorcerous storm beyond anyone's control.

You could say that Topper "leveled up." What leapt out of the Imperial Warren in RotCG was not the Topper that Cowl knew. Seemingly, Topper had spent a long time preparing specifically to fight Cowl. Also worth noting that I don't think we'd actually seen Topper fight before RotCG (we hadn't seen Laseen fight either, and it turned out she was pretty badass). We don't know how far below Laseen Topper was in skill, either. It might have only been a slight advantage. And Topper was expecting the fight, while Cowl clearly wasn't. The way it read to me, Topper never let Cowl recover fully from that initial shock. Also Cowl may very well have declined somewhat due to lack of fighting the Talon and the Claw all the time as he had done years before. Cowl was expecting to fight Laseen, who's a very different fighter from Topper.

[the broken]

Assassination by nature is kind of blurry with regard to power levels, because if it's done really well, nobody knows it's you.

Tay's battle plan hinged on Rake being unwilling to let Moon's Spawn be destroyed just to kill him. Rake was doing the same thing with the Malazan forces, but Tay was willing to sacrifice them. So he did outmaneuver him, albeit at a very high cost.

[Kanese S's]

the broken, on 12 May 2016 - 08:39 PM, said:

Assassination by nature is kind of blurry with regard to power levels, because if it's done really well, nobody knows it's you.

Tay's battle plan hinged on Rake being unwilling to let Moon's Spawn be destroyed just to kill him. Rake was doing the same thing with the Malazan forces, but Tay was willing to sacrifice them. So he did outmaneuver him, albeit at a very high cost.

I think it's worth noting that if Moon's Spawn fell, Pale would be destroyed. Rake was unwilling to have such a hollow victory.