[McTaco]

Hello again,

Just spit-balling here, but hear me out. SE, being an anthro/archaeo would have greater insight than other "pure" (otherwise unemployed) authors when it comes to how the past affects the future. He's trained to decipher the past, and often times the past is sitting directly beneath the present. Traditions can often extend down into the soil where they started and continue to flourish even when the now-practicing parties don't fully understand (or recall) their origins. We've seen this seep into his writing when it comes to the much-discussed "timeline" in MBotF. SE usually just dismisses inconsistencies in the timeline to "people don't always record things correctly, and facts can be skewed over time". Any other author and I'd say they're being lazy, but in SE's case he's seen the evidence of history and myth getting distorted until only ritual artifacts and stories remain.

With magic in MBotF, not only do we know that it's an ever-evolving system, but like animal/plant evolution it's survival of the fittest. Certain holds and warrens lose power, become less effective and sometimes disappear completely. Other, more organized (or more heavily "worshipped") warrens rise and take their place. It's with this in mind that I propose the primary, over-arching theme of MBotF is a commentary on the future of Earth, and our journey into a more techno-dependent world.

First, we have Icarium. He's an amnesiac capable of unimaginable power and destruction as well as creation. His inadvertent creation of a new system of magic that's heavily mechanized makes his whole arc feel very much like the birth of the internet. We have a global affecting, intensely powerful "engine" that can both create and destroy with impunity that has fundamentally changed the way we do everything; shop, eat, interact, celebrate, mourn, etc. As with the infancy of the internet, the baby steps were most certainly painful. We've seen this with Icarium's path of destruction and creation, both of which he's oblivious too. As the traditional ways of the Holds fade into obscurity, and the Warrens themselves are being spent, bent and used by the events within MBotF SE appears to be relating the loss of oral traditions (the Holds), and the decline of conventional information sharing in the forms of libraries, newspapers and magazines (the Warrens) to the rise of the new "machine", interconnectivity (Icarium's magic).

The second point to substantiate my theory comes in the form of the K'Chain. For much of the book they exist as a mysterious, powerful and terrifying force. The future can often be felt as mysterious and terrifying. We see that the K'Chain are really the only creatures not only using machines, but complex and powerful machines at that. It isn't until their existence is threatened that they join with the main plotline. They're mutable, evolving creatures that can adjust themselves and their purposes to work on a singular task with greater efficacy than any one individual could hope for. To continue the comparison, the long-tails would be our crowdsourcing millenials, and the short-tails would be the 4chan/reddit trolls borne of the same origin, but more apt to destruction rather than unification.

What this says to me is that SE is lamenting the loss of past traditions in the name of progress, but also appreciates the way in which progress and time (Icarium) have this way of being terrifying necessities that hold onto scraps of the past.

And while I appreciate the way MBotF started with ICE and SE, and that they probably didn't think of any of this while initially writing I can't help but feel like they were affected by what was going on in the world around them. How could they not? Much in the way Tolkien denied the roll the war played in his writing of the LotR, it'd be insane to assume it had zero effect on what he was creating.

Well, I hope that wasn't too long winded, and I hope it made some sense. Occasionally my brain moves faster than my fingers can type and I get out half ideas, and partial theories. If it made you think, then at least I've accomplished that much.

Cheers!

[Aptorian]

I think you could certainly read many of the above themes into the books however I think a few of your ideas are anachronistic. The series was conceived of in the 90s and the last book in the main series was released in 2011. While I am certain that Erikson has his finger on the pulse, I don't think millenials or the internet was a core concern of his when hammering out the stories.

However there are other broader and older themes that mirror your analysis. Erikson has himself in interviews mentioned his inspirations for the books. Like the decline of Western civilization, our past and continuing treatment of indigenous people, our lust for oil, America's imperialism, the wars in Iraq and Iran, etc.

[McTaco]

While I certainly agree about the millenials (it was inserted more for humour than anything else), and I agree that the internet wasn't a core concern I do feel that it was something creeping around in the back of his mind. Erikson was writing these books in a period of time that saw some of the most dramatic leaps and bounds in technology and I feel like that would have permeated the thoughts of an anthropologist.

I'm thinking less about "inspiration" and more about what's seeped into the subconscious of the writer, and out their pen (or keyboard as the case may be).

And yes, the themes you listed above are certainly present in the books. I'm more concerned with just Icarium, the K'Chain and how technology/machinery is represented in MBotF.

This post has been edited by McTaco: 14 September 2017 - 04:46 PM

[BlackMoranthofDoom]

McTaco, on 14 September 2017 - 04:45 PM, said:

While I certainly agree about the millenials (it was inserted more for humour than anything else), and I agree that the internet wasn't a core concern I do feel that it was something creeping around in the back of his mind. Erikson was writing these books in a period of time that saw some of the most dramatic leaps and bounds in technology and I feel like that would have permeated the thoughts of an anthropologist.

I'm thinking less about "inspiration" and more about what's seeped into the subconscious of the writer, and out their pen (or keyboard as the case may be).

And yes, the themes you listed above are certainly present in the books. I'm more concerned with just Icarium, the K'Chain and how technology/machinery is represented in MBotF.

The way magic is treated in the Malazan world is certainly interesting. Far too many fantasy series present it as a static supernatural source of power that permeates the world. In Malazan it goes through different stages and in fact as we saw with Lether some continents are held back. Perhaps that mirrors in some way the technological state of our world, where European powers were more advanced in their use of gunpowder, but behind certain cultures like the Aztecs when it came to systems of irrigation. The Letherii empire, despite being able to field impressive, raw chaotic magic was not able to compete with the more refined techniques used by the Malazans.
even if we go with the premise that the Letherii empire is inspired by the US (a point Steven has refuted) we can see strands where they are more advanced than the Malazans when it comes to how they view and handle their economy.
We can also draw a parallel between drownings and the sacrifices conducted by the Aztecs.


Perhaps not what you're looking for, but it's something that just crossed my mind in light of the discussion being held.

[McTaco]

Not looking for anything in particular, just engaging conversation. I felt like the Drownings were more like gladiatorial combat than ritual sacrifice. We saw with Ublala that if someone is able to beat the (unbeatable) parameters of the Drownings then they were set free. It had more to do with combining spectacle and "justice" as a means to control the populace than it did the death of the accused. Perhaps to that end it's even more like a hanging or a burning that gladiatorial combat, though not many people survive being hung.

I did like the way Erikson described the Letherii magic. In my mind it was always this grey, lightning-strewn, seething, border-line organic phenomenon that was conjured by the mages, but rarely shaped or controlled in any meaningful way.