[rant]

Goddamnit is DG ever a nesting doll of tragedy. I've re-read a couple times....but this is the first time I got the significance of the name on the note that Baruk's familiars find when they go to collect Duiker...kept me up thinking half the night.

It got me thinking about SE and tragedy in general.....and how he is just a master of it....he even has different flavours:

DG's Chain of Dogs is tragic with hopeful undertones (21 pilots) imo.
FoD/FoL is just unrelenting tragedy...ever step forward makes me want to scream at the characters to stop and do something different.
Trull.....my boy Trull.....sudden tragedy

tragedy tragedy....I've said the word so much it seems weird to me now.

Anyways, what are some other tragic plots you love (hate).

(On a [non-tragic?] side note......Corporal List dying multiple times in the mock battles, and then being one of the very last to die in the Fall.....just damn poetic)

[Zetubal]

I'm not quite sure what you mean by tragedy. I mean, that's a term with many different meanings. Can you elaborate?

Till then, I'll just give it a shot and see if I get you right on instinct:
I feel like Kallor in many ways resembles a tragic hero in the Shakespearian sense (all the way back to Greek mythology if you will) but it goes beyond classic. Some time ago I already wrote that in another thread, but the amazing thing about Kallor is that he is sort of a twofold tragic character. It's like his backstory is its own rather classic tragedy about a king who's eventually brought down for his hubris (a classic tragic flaw if there ever was one). But whereas most stories end with the tragic hero's inevitable downfall and punishment, with Kallor we actually get to see his misery after his initial downfall.

And all of a sudden, his tragic flaw becomes something that, for most other characters, is a cherished virtue: his humanity.
I find it so powerful to think that Kallor's curse ultimately means that all the things that we mortals hold in reverence (like compassion, and love) come to bite Kallor in the ass because his new fundamental tragic flaw is his inability to be less human. I think making humanity a curse is a great way of making his misery resonate with the reader.

This post has been edited by Zetubal: 01 December 2017 - 10:21 PM

[rant]

Zetubal, on 01 December 2017 - 09:23 PM, said:

I'm not quite sure what you mean by tragedy. I mean, that's a term with many different meanings. Can you elaborate?

Till then, I'll just give it a shot and see if I get you right on instinct:
I feel like Kallor in many ways resembles a tragic hero in the Shakespearian sense (all the way back to Greek mythology if you will) but it goes beyond classic. Some time ago I already wrote that in another thread, but the amazing thing about Kallor is that he is sort of a twofold tragic character. It's like his backstory is its own rather classic tragedy about a king who's eventually brought down for his hubris (a classic tragic flaw if there ever was one). But whereas most stories end with the tragic hero's inevitable downfall and punishment, with Kallor we actually get to see his misery after his initial downfall.

And all of a sudden, his tragic flaw becomes something that, for most other characters, is a cherished virtue: his humanity.
I find it so powerful to think that Kallor's curse ultimately means that all the things that we mortals hold in reverence (like compassion, and love) come to bite Kallor in the ass because his new fundamental tragic flaw is his inability to be less human. I think making humanity a curse is a great way of making his misery resonate with the reader.

You're right, I was thinking of tragedy specifically in the literary sense....but to be honest, I'm happy with letting people self-define tragedy.

I remember reading your original post about this, and agree with it and this brief post as well; Kallor definitely represents a tragic figure. One thing I think is interesting, is for the most part he is a very unsympathetic figure.

While I wasn't narrowing my thoughts exclusively to tragic figures, I think all of the examples I provided above could be considered within that framework depending on how loosely you defined 'figure'.

Trull is the easiest as he is a character with an obvious tragic flaw: familial duty. Just about every scrape he gets into is a result of the duty he feels towards his family (especially when you consider how easily he brings new people into his family)...and his death is explicitly the result of wanting to see what became of his family, and still mourning over the brother who really screwed him over.

Chain of dogs--recast figure to mean the malazan soldier (/wickans) doing their duty.

FoD/FoL--recast figure to represent tiste (humanity) with the tragic flaw of inability to communicate. Everything that happens in those books could have been avoided by better communication.

That said, I don't think tragedy need be limited to the tragic figure. Particularly within these books. As Erikson often deftly interweaves a variety of story-lines, some tragic, some not.
The over-arching point of my original post was that DG has more of the tragic storylines than not IMO.

[Zetubal]

I never much considered the fact that Kallor could be taken as an unsympathetic character. Or, at least, it never bothered me. And it definitely didn't make his story any less tragic.

As for the rest of what you said...well, I concur with the examples but (because of that) I'd have to disagree with your idea that tragedy needn't necessarily be limited to tragic figures. I actually feel that Erikson makes a very strong case for the opposite. See, since the MBotF lacks a distinct narrator's voice and is mostly focalized by its characters, it seems to me that tragedy can only occur on the individual level. Even in events of vast scopes like battles, Erikson always retains the narrow perspective of single characters caught in the fray. Therefore, anything tragic (mostly losses of one kind or the other) are only effectively portrayed inasmuch as they impact the POV-characters. This goes so far that sometimes Erikson uses single characters as focal points of larger dilemmas/tragic events. Midnight Tides has this undercurrent of the moral guilt that Lether has accumulated for its cruel annihilation of its conquered peoples. Now, one could say that this is a tragic event on a large scale. But the way it's made tragic in the novel is through showing Hull Beddict who seems to be the one person who is heartbroken by the, well, tragedy. Accordingly, if we as readers are supposed to take in the drama here, we can only really experience it through the suffering of one individual: Hull.
And that principle applies to pretty much every single tragic event: Erikson often glosses over the description of mass suffering and only really starts to evoke emotion in his readers when tragedy strikes a POV character.

I feel that all of this is in line with how he conceptualized the overarching story. In a recent interview Erikson stated that to him the MBotF can be summarized as a "plea for compassion". And that's really what's at the heart of his storytelling; it's all about single characters, minor players in the grand scheme of things who find the courage to act humanely against all odds. Tragedy is what occurs when these characters struggle with or against the odds.

[rant]

Yea, you're right. I've been thinking about that second to last line in my post for most of the morning ( /working, if my overlords are observing electronically), and been getting progressively more frustrated with it.

I think the quibble I still have is that I don't think the tragedy needs to be framed so mechanically as the literary/rhetorical device I was expounding on in my 2nd post. The point I was trying to make was that all the tragedy we see within the books does not need to be tied to an individual (or collective) flaw that leads to individual/ collective downfall (however that is described). I think we can shoe horn in a flaw if we wanted to....but that isn't necessary.

For example, the entire sub-plot of the Snake. There are no flaws associated with that tragedy (except maybe youth?), but Erikson keeps us tied to POV's to recognize the tragedy of lost innocence:

Badalle not understanding why Saddic carried a bag of things with him, Ruthan realizing they were toys....and all of the Bonehunters present breaking down when they realized Badalle didn't remember what toys were.

For me, that scene is the most tragic scene in the entire saga. And while it has the intimate psychological distance of POV's to experience it, it doesn't have the tragic flaw (I think).

This post has been edited by rant: 04 December 2017 - 03:57 PM

[Cause]

rant, on 01 December 2017 - 02:48 PM, said:

Goddamnit is DG ever a nesting doll of tragedy. I've re-read a couple times....but this is the first time I got the significance of the name on the note that Baruk's familiars find when they go to collect Duiker...kept me up thinking half the night.

Dammit I cant remember what you mean and its bugging me

[Zetubal]

Cause, on 06 December 2017 - 01:17 PM, said:

rant, on 01 December 2017 - 02:48 PM, said:

Goddamnit is DG ever a nesting doll of tragedy. I've re-read a couple times....but this is the first time I got the significance of the name on the note that Baruk's familiars find when they go to collect Duiker...kept me up thinking half the night.

Dammit I cant remember what you mean and its bugging me

Remember how there was this woman in the 7th who Duiker was romantically involved with during the Chain of Dogs...? He never asked her name but before Duiker took off with the refugee train close to Aren, she passed him a note and bade him to only read it later. He later witnessed her fall at Coltaine's last stand, and, as we know, Duiker was shortly thereafter crucified. So, he never got to read that note and it was found on his body.
It contained her name.

rant, on 04 December 2017 - 03:55 PM, said:

Yea, you're right. I've been thinking about that second to last line in my post for most of the morning ( /working, if my overlords are observing electronically), and been getting progressively more frustrated with it.

I think the quibble I still have is that I don't think the tragedy needs to be framed so mechanically as the literary/rhetorical device I was expounding on in my 2nd post. The point I was trying to make was that all the tragedy we see within the books does not need to be tied to an individual (or collective) flaw that leads to individual/ collective downfall (however that is described). I think we can shoe horn in a flaw if we wanted to....but that isn't necessary.

For example, the entire sub-plot of the Snake. There are no flaws associated with that tragedy (except maybe youth?), but Erikson keeps us tied to POV's to recognize the tragedy of lost innocence:

Badalle not understanding why Saddic carried a bag of things with him, Ruthan realizing they were toys....and all of the Bonehunters present breaking down when they realized Badalle didn't remember what toys were.

For me, that scene is the most tragic scene in the entire saga. And while it has the intimate psychological distance of POV's to experience it, it doesn't have the tragic flaw (I think).

Sorry for the belated response. I actually find your arguement to be quite compelling. Especially with the Snake serving as a prime example.

The only thing I can really add to that, is that I feel that this scene can also be interpreted in the vein of "tragedy manifesting in single, personal, anecdotal situations" because, once again, Erikson does not go for dramatization when we read about the Snake children dying in droves. Instead, the moment he picks to symbolize the magnitude of...loss of innocence... is this one fairly specific detail.

To wrap this up, here's my suggestion for some middle ground between what both of us are arguing: I'd maintain that Erikson is all about the small personal moments of tragedy and that usually he achieves tragic impact by letting us share the pain of individual characters. That said, I have to admit that on special moments he breaks that rule and lets us in on "collective feelings". Which, frankly, is so powerful because he only does that very sparingly. "All hail the marines", "the coldest iron he had ever seen", "The Wickans, the Wickans", dat toy scene, Silverfox refusing the T'lan Imass' plea, the Andii kneeling before Twilight.

This post has been edited by Zetubal: 06 December 2017 - 05:06 PM

[rant]

Consensus achieved!