Malazan Empire: Avatars of imperfection (TCG spoilers) - Malazan Empire

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Avatars of imperfection (TCG spoilers) Attempt at the phylosophical core of the series

#1 User is offline   Lord of Jest 

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Posted 21 February 2019 - 11:53 PM

Have you ever indulged in pain? In suffering? Embracing pain itself? Have you ever dived into the deep, harsh waters of despair, and said, 'I can make a home of this'? Even for the briefest of moments?
Only to rise up again. To feel the sun's warmth once more. To see everything take its old, familiar shape once again, and feel safe.

Of course you have.

And have you not then felt the caress of a new god? A gentle, ephemeral touch that seemed to say, 'It's okay to suffer. It's okay to surrender. You are imperfect, as we all are, child. Fight no more'.

Of course you have.

And for a very brief, private moment, you quit yearning for compassion. It is at that very moment that you accept a new faith: the faith of the crippled. It doesn't matter that you discard that faith in the next moment. All that matters is that you embraced it.

Sound familiar?

Erikson very cleverly showed us how such a god will never starve. It grips us all sometime. It must be killed, punished, cast out. And how can that be done? Why, with the very weapon he makes us surrender: compassion.

Take classic myths of old to know that all famous figures from the past serve but one purpose: to act as a reflection of ourselves, to see a little of us in them, a little of them in us. We do not choose them as idols of faith because we feel compassion for what they did, what they suffered, no. We choose them as the idols of our failings. There's no empathy in the equation, only parallelism.

You see, when I started the series it seemed to be just a very (very) complex mess of gods in a game. Until the name of the Crippled God appeared for the first time. How helpless he ended up being, torn and twisted by the faith of millions who did not want a solution for their problems, who did not yearn for compassion. They embraced the chains, they absorbed the image of his reality, turning him into an immortal avatar, a perfect, convenient reflection of what they wanted to see.

Not an evil god, nor a good one. Just the perfect god to justify surrender.

This god was so powerful, his potential influence so devastating, that all other major gods chained him. Even the godess of earth, Burn, agreed by entering slumber.

What think you, friends? This is my first, humble post here besides just presenting myself the other day. I finished the series last week and it hit me deep.
I never hid my hurts.I never disguised my dreams.And I never lost my way.And only the fallen can rise again.
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#2 User is offline   Andorion 

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Posted 22 February 2019 - 01:30 AM

Good thoughts, but I don't think that's why the Crippled God was originally chained.

The gods of the Malazan universe were opportunistic. When the CG was fragmented and weak, they chained him so that they could gradually leach his power away. It was this chaining and leaching that further crippled the already broken god and embittered him to the point that he decided to embrace suffering as his motif.
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#3 User is offline   D'rek 

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Posted 22 February 2019 - 01:51 PM

View PostAndorion, on 22 February 2019 - 01:30 AM, said:

Good thoughts, but I don't think that's why the Crippled God was originally chained.

The gods of the Malazan universe were opportunistic. When the CG was fragmented and weak, they chained him so that they could gradually leach his power away. It was this chaining and leaching that further crippled the already broken god and embittered him to the point that he decided to embrace suffering as his motif.


But hey, who knows, maybe they counted on his chained suffering being an attractive and plentiful source of worshippers=power to leech from, rather than the pitiful amount of worshippers of love or pepsi-cola or whatever his original aspect was.

View Postworrywort, on 14 September 2012 - 08:07 PM, said:

I kinda love it when D'rek unleashes her nerd wrath, as I knew she would here. Sorry innocent bystanders, but someone's gotta be the kindling.
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#4 User is offline   Lord of Jest 

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Posted 22 February 2019 - 11:18 PM

View PostD, on 22 February 2019 - 01:51 PM, said:

But hey, who knows, maybe they counted on his chained suffering being an attractive and plentiful source of worshippers=power to leech from, rather than the pitiful amount of worshippers of love or pepsi-cola or whatever his original aspect was.


Indeed. That's my point: everything turned out to be so convenient. Both mortals and gods alike did nothing to solve the problem. They kept him chained, helpless, useless. They over-simplified the mechanics of any cult to obtain maximum profit.

Don't you guys think that civilization does this? And how often? Don't you think we do the same with certain convictions? Certain ideas to be kept unchanged for the sake of our own inner peace, chained by our own delusions. And as soon as they cannot be kept in that state, we discard them with little to no remorse and quickly find a new one to repeat the cycle. Every day, every time, we are slaves, and we enslave our convictions, give them shape. Isn't a god, an idea, supposed to fly free?
I never hid my hurts.I never disguised my dreams.And I never lost my way.And only the fallen can rise again.
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#5 User is offline   worry 

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Posted 23 February 2019 - 12:11 AM

Provide some examples please. Really get to the meat of this idea.
They came with white hands and left with red hands.
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#6 User is offline   D'rek 

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Posted 25 March 2019 - 08:35 PM

View PostLord of Jest, on 22 February 2019 - 11:18 PM, said:

Don't you guys think that civilization does this? And how often? Don't you think we do the same with certain convictions? Certain ideas to be kept unchanged for the sake of our own inner peace, chained by our own delusions. And as soon as they cannot be kept in that state, we discard them with little to no remorse and quickly find a new one to repeat the cycle. Every day, every time, we are slaves, and we enslave our convictions, give them shape. Isn't a god, an idea, supposed to fly free?


Sure, but "civilization" or "society" are on a separate plane of consciousness than what we, the components of them, experience as our own individual consciousnesses. How merciless and uncaring must I seem to the individual cells in my body that I scar and shed every day, relentlessly?

View Postworrywort, on 14 September 2012 - 08:07 PM, said:

I kinda love it when D'rek unleashes her nerd wrath, as I knew she would here. Sorry innocent bystanders, but someone's gotta be the kindling.
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