[garden_rake]

doesnt it list the old guard in hoc, i dont have it handy so no quotes but it has duiker as one of the 'second wave' like dassem ultor doesnt it?

[Iron Bars]

Blind said:

I could be wrong, but I think it is said of Stormy and Gesler that they are old guard at some point. They seem to know Whiskeyjack rather well - Gesler complains that WJ was demoted before him.

Yes there old guard, but they never when near Deadhouse so there not part of the emperors family. Most of the veterans we meet are old guard and it seems to be a theme that most of the old guard were demoted when Laseen took over.

[Omras Ghum]

Killanthir said:

In any case, I don't recall seeing a comprehensive/definitive list of those that stayed in the Deadhouse with Kellanved ... ?

I think it's implicit in what Nok tells: he mentions that kellanved and the others went to the deadhouse before the Napans joined them so the Napans weren't in the deadhouse (propably)?

[Hume]

Hetan said:

It's difficult to answer that one.
The story Whiskeyjack relates to Rake doesn't really give any indication.
The events in Yghatan were a year prior to GotM?
Temper's thoughts put Dassem's pact with Hood at 75 -100 years prior to that - he recalls it as being during his grandfathers time. I don't think that's a spoiler:rolleyes:
hmm.. that would fall in with the length of the Emperor's reign...

@ Omras - We know from Admiral Nok that the Deadhouse granted them longevity.

The events in Yghatan I interpreted as being before even when malazan forces stepped on Genabackis.

[kettle]

Omras Ghum said:

I think it's implicit in what Nok tells: he mentions that kellanved and the others went to the deadhouse before the Napans joined them so the Napans weren't in the deadhouse (propably)?

the Napans did join them in the Deadhouse along with Toc the Elder, Dassem Ultor, Tayschrenn and Duiker, they all became the "family" of the Emperor.

[Omras Ghum]

allright, i reread, kettle is right!

[Tenaka Khan]

Yep, kettle's got right, I just reread the passage with Nok explaining things about the family (trade paperback p.209).

Guess I mixed up the Family and the Old Guard, clearly WJ was not one of the residents of the Deadhouse on Malaz. And I just rediscovered that Surly was actually of the Napan royal line, forgot about that...

I am still abit confused about Duiker however. In DG we learn that he was a soldier when Kellanved picked him out of the ranks to school him and make an Imperial Historian out of him. Yet, we learn from Nok that he was in fact a member of the Family... perhaps there was a break-up that has seen him expelled from the family into the ranks of a common soldier and Kellanved later reversed direction taking him close again... Any ideas? How does one end up as a common soldier after having been a member in one of the most exclusive gentlemen's (okay and gentlewomen's ) clubs there are in the Malaz world? Plus there was never a mention of Duiker being especially long lived or any other gifts granted from his stay in the Deadhouse (though I think I remember he had quite a talent concerning languages...).

[Cluracan AbSylvas]

Confusing Old Guard with Kellanved's "Family"?

My take-away was that the phrase "Old Guard" was used to describe the Old Order of Empire loyalists prior to Laseen's rise to fill the vacancy left by Kellanved and Dancer.

As a result, I would include Stormy, Duiker and others that didn't reside in Deadhouse and initiate the rise to Empire.

-- Clu

[Blind]

Duiker certainly didn't reside in Deadhouse: in DG he says that his life was lenghtened by alchemy, so he hasn't got the special longevity.

[Imperial Historian]

On the wholetime line of the deadhouse family and co...

for whiskeyjack to remember lasseen as a tavern maid in smielys tavern he'd have to be 100 plus years old (if we have the empire as being 100 years old), so for the events in raraku to occur when all the BB's were "young" they'd have to have been happening some time back at least 40 years i'd say.

However Dujek is mentioned as being a boy and recruiting the early members of the family who stayed in deadhouse, but he was said to have been 70 years old, which places a pretty large discrepancy in the timeline.

Duiker's inclusion in the deadhouse crowd by Nok also creates some problems as he was said to be a normal soldier form the ranks, and has said he was kept alive by various alchemies, so unless he was added to the "family" later then theres another discrepancy.

The discrepancies could perhaps be explained if dujek and duiker were the names of two important figures in early malazan history, and lots of children were named in there honour with dujek and duiker coming into the picture 20-30 years after the start of the malazan empire which woudl maybe resolve timeline issues.

I see "old gaurd" as refering to those who had spent most of there time in service under the emperor, not the empress.. and hence were loyal to him and not her.

[Blind]

Hetan said:

A reference for the alchemy thing would be nice... pretty please?

It's in chapter 12 of DG, (tpb p. 350): the various alchemies that keep me tottering on well past my prime.

[Trotts]

i think the discerepncy is whether duiker was part of the original cool crew, i.e. when kellnaved and co. were building up, or whether he came later, after the empire had been established and was just a grunt who kellnaved singled out.

[Iron Bars]

I think Duiker was part of the original crew. He was picked out of the ranks pretty early on, if I rember corectly even before the Empire had conqered the main continent. The question is when did the family go into the Deadhouse. Was this before they went on taking over Malaz island or was it just at a time when the emperor thought he had his core group complete.

[Omras Ghum]

they went there before the napans joined in - if i remember correctly shortly before they conquered malaz... though i'm not sure

[Entropic_existence]

Some kind of timeline (GoTism's aside) showing the major events referenced that take place before the series would be very nice. Even if dates are left out just the actual order of events and some idea of how long priot to the books some of them take place would be nice. But it's probably too much to hope for. It's obvious that no one reading the books really knows what the timeline should be, which makes me feel a bit better because I found it so damn confusing