[TemperTantrum]

Hi all,

First time poster (so please be gentle!) and long time lurker here. Firstly, this website has been invaluable in helping to make sense of all the goings on and whoddunits in the series. I started reading just before Midnight Tides came out and have been checking the forums since then after every book thinking 'whut? What just happened?' so thank you to everyone who's contributed (especially the long term posters).

Secondly, there be spoilers below!

Currently on my first reread of Fall of Light having found it quite heavy going the first time, I ended up rereading the entire series with ICE's novels and FoD before picking up FoL again and have got to the part where Serap is berating the two soldiers in the tavern in Neret Sorr. The exchange goes something like this (p187 of the Bantam Press UK edition);

'...What company are you two in?'
Ninth, sir, in Hallyd Bahann's Silvers.'
'His Silvers.' Serap smiled. 'How Hallyd likes his pompous nicknames.'...'Well then, when you do tell Hallyd, be sure to hang around, in case your mention reminds him of when I laughed outright in his face. Silvers, Golds! Why not shave your heads and call yourself Pearls? Or, for the more useless ones in your company, the Shiny Rocks'.


This is followed up on p199 when Hunn Raal is gathering guards to take into Neret Sorr after Serap is killed; 'He left her to take care of the maid and set out across the compound towards the barracks. By rota, a company of Hallyd Bahann's Golds were quartered there, five squads in all'.


Now, the point of the post (minus cryptic titles to avoid spoilers) was have we just been given a potential insight into the birth/history of the Moranth? Apologies I don't have e-books so I'm running off memory but I'm fairly sure there's a discussion in Orb, Sceptre, Throne where the Moranth Emissary is talking to Torvald Nom and mentions that there was a cessation of hostilities between the Tiste Edur and the Barghast from their fighting on the sea such that they eventually became one people. I'm somewhat hazy on the details admittedly but I do remember there being links between the Moranth now and Shadow.


If we run with it, it's not beyond possibility that parts of Hallyd Bahann's elite units either desert , are broken and flee or just become disillusioned such that their skin turns grey and they no longer consider themselves part of the those units or Urusander's army but hang on to the martial history of the Legion and the distinctive ranks to the point where, when we see the Moranth in the main series, they've taken it to another level by dividing their entire communities into these ranks (no Pearl or Shiny Rocks yet, sadly). It's a bit of a stretch given the Silver in the main series are meant to be the Moranth mages but after that amount of time, who's to say what's been garbled as to who wears what and why.


It could also be why the Moranth never remove their armour, some form of collective shame that from Urusander's Legion and being Tiste Liosan they became the Big Bad Deniers against whom they fought so hard as being a threat to MD and the realm. From the descriptions I can't see much of a link between the armour types as I seem to recall the Moranth armour being described as insect like but after a few thousand years that's not surprising things would change and move on.


Sorry, I know it's a bit all over the place but I'm at work and trying to get this written down before it flies out of my head.


Comments and observations welcome!

[Abyss]

Welcome to the forum!

Cool theory.

I see why it might be considered a stretch, but iirc, in MoI a Moranth suggests that the Moranth are linked to the Edur. Run that link back to the original Tiste race, and the fact that in FoL we're seeing Tiste already committed to Dark or Light shift to Edur, and it's not ridiculous. Far from it it's the kind of thing - like the Jaghut playing with the Bole toys in FoD - that SE would do.

[gandrin]

I agree, very nice pickup.

It certainly makes as much (or more) sense as a bored Azathanai making dolls, or another inventing new breeds of giants. The Moranth always seemed like the triumph of technology, whereas all the rest of the races relied upon various boundless magic. So to have them start without an Azathanai makes sense.

[TemperTantrum]

Thanks Abyss

At first I thought I was reading too much into it with the first quote but by the second part I thought 'ah, okay, we've got the gold'. Couple it with the revelation in Dancer's Lament that Shalmanat is a' daughter of light' originally part of Osserc's(?) command, it's not unimaginable that you have remnants of the division out there as well. Doubt we'll get more confirmation later but you never know.

On that note, as we see a lot of the Deniers in the forests around Kharkanas, I thought perhaps if there was a fusion of the two (ex-Legion cum Edur and 'traditional' Deniers) then it makes sense for their home to be within Cloud Forest. Would be a nice throwback.

On a side note regarding the Deniers, if seemed to me after rereading FoD and Glyph's introduction and meeting with Narad that the villagers Kadaspala comes across before meeting the Legion soldiers in FoD where he talks about painting a child's face is in fact Glyph's village and his family. The way he describes the child's broken neck and the part burned woman seem pretty consistent (again, sorry for lack of quote fu). Anyone have any thoughts on that?

[TemperTantrum]

Sorry, rather than start a new thread I thought I'd throw this part in here;

Towards the end of Fall of Light, when the doctor and clerk (?) from House Dracons are talking and discussing the state of the realm, there's a throwaway comment made that the other hostage in the Citadel who we see in Rise Herat's first introduction in FoD is running around the place, gone 'feral' by chronic neglect. In Toll the Hounds the High Priestess mentions Feral being an assassin who isolates herself in a tower. It got me wondering whether this hostage who everyone ignored is the same assassin referred to in TTH and because everyone has forgotten her name (or she just doesn't respond to it) they've taken to calling her Feral. Especially if we view her tower as a replacement for her tower when she was a hostage.

[worry]

I am also in that camp. She's already seemingly fearless in FoD (her name is Legyl Behust, btw, for those who want to find the scene), and as sweet as little Orfantal is we know he does become a trained killer, so if Legyl is raised and trained alongside him it makes sense she'd be Feral.

[NaturesNapkin]

Ah well spotted. I feel a Malazan re-read coming on, it'll be my third time round. I've left it long enough.

[Gorefest]

The moranth theory is a very nice spot, but I thought that we had already learned in MBotF that the moranth were descended from the Imass, like the Barghast? Although that of course does not exclude a cross with e.g. the Edur, this link would place their origins a lot earlier than we were led to believe previously.

[worry]

They aren't just descendants, they're "hybrids". The Moranth are Imass/Edur and the Barghast are Imass/TTT, if I remember correctly. They were all having sex on boats or something like that.

[Gorefest]

I suddenly recalled a FoL reference to Barghast as well, wasn't Vix considering creating them or something like that? A mix of thelomen, trell, and dog runners. So yeah, i guess on second thought 'descendant' in the biological sense of the word doesnt really fit anyway.

[Kremson]

Gonna say rancept becomes fener

[Kremson]

Arathan and korya either become one or have a child -quick Ben
edgewalker - FL/ scrilan drol
Ruthann gudd- arathan if he isn't part of quick
kilomandaros is icy mom
also think rake and draco he a deal like rake and hood for draco to pads the sword to rake and help in the grand scheme and negate kallor curse
on that kallor is the high king for sure IMO
probably is azathnaiavspelled wrong but anyway that's why he us cursed to a mortal life unending so probably is human aspect azth guy. Question ion is the world of kharkanas EU or what

[Kremson]

God I can't spell EU is wu. The rest I think can be sorted out

[Kremson]

Kremson, on 11 March 2017 - 06:28 PM, said:

God I can't spell EU is wu. The rest I think can be sorted out

[Kremson]

Quick korya is quick been therory. When quick wakes when he is four from the nightmare where he he is a corspe running saying I have forgotten something. Well that's when one of korya 12 lifetimes ends and how silverfox creation happened korya soul found quick in a dream and when quick finally stops rambling bout being lost and forgetting boom korya has soul shifted into his new young body that is an adept and boom quick been/korya is born

[Nevyn]

From MOI:

Cafal grunted. 'The Moranth speak the language of the Barghast shouldermen - the holy tongue - the language that rose from the pit of darkness from whence all thought and all words first came. The Moranth claim kinship to the Barghast - they call us their Fallen Kin. But it is they who have fallen, not us. They who have found a shadowed forest in which to live. They who have embraced the alchemies of the T'isten'ur. They who made peace with the demons long ago, exchanging secrets, before retreating into their mountain fastnesses and hiding for ever behind their insect masks'


So from the sound of things, common descent with the Barghast, but embracing Tiste culture, so it could be a both right kind of thing. Where some early Barghast or relatives thereof work with early Edur broken away from the Legion, and among other things adopt both their alchemy (to make munitions) and perhaps their military structure.

Certainly a good find. Typical ambiguous SE easter egg.