[sigpig]

Like any series, there are some characters I love, some I hate (whether intentional or not), and some I simply have a hard time reading because I dislike them so much.
Felesin. Spoiled little rich-girl who treats everyone worse than shit, sells herself in a futile attempt to gain favour with the slavers, sells herself (again) to the chief slave (and, apparently, everyone else) in an attempt to gain favour and food for her (unknown) bodyguard and Heboric. Gets hooked on drugs, turns into en even more disgraceful human being, tries to sleep herself to the top, fails miserably, fights her rescuers, continues to treat them like shit, attempts to kill one (or both)) of them, and is a general pain in the ass for an entire book. Then she's co-opted into a rebellion as (what amounts to be) a Shield Anvil for the WG (Leoman as Mortal Sword? No idea of who the Destriant would be) and "leads" the rebellion into utter defeat at the hands of her hated sister (who did everything within her power to protect her in the first place).
Felisin Fatter. See above, but with the added bonus of being mutilated by Bidithal and getting Heboric minced by the Unbound. She takes the drug addiction up a few notches too.
The Errant. Guy never seems to get over himself. Pain in the ass for hundreds of thousands of years. Can't keep it in his pants.
Knuckles and Killy. Heck - ALL the FA. Maybe I need to read the "Novels" again, but they never really seemed to be fleshed-out as a race. Same with the K'Chains.
Rhulad is simply an ass-hat and his name sounds like the French term for coleslaw, Hull Beddict is a virtual non-entity that takes up too many pages of nothing.

These are the main ones that, to me, are simply a tedious slog to read. I am sure there are others, as I am reading MoI right now on my re-read.
If anyone can help to change my mind...

[amphibian]

Imagine yourself to be a thirteen year old rich girl who saw her entire family murdered with her older sister assisting the murderers. Then imagine the subsequent imprisonment to a hellhole of a place with a deserved reputation that the work and conditions kills workers after a few years. You have no money. You have no power. You have no friends. You have no education worth a damn here.

What do you do? Who do you trust? What value is the future when your life is at risk right now? What principles are worth keeping at the risk of survival?

Erikson wrote several of these characters to be obtuse and to challenge the reader. His stories are meant to find compassion even for the hurtful, the damaged, and the casualties of decisions/actions bigger than a person or small group of people can cope with.

Maybe now the Felisin chapters are a slog. Maybe your perspective will change as you gain life experiences and empathy. I know I felt the Myhbe chapters could be dour - until I came into contact with people who had serious diseases that were slowly killing them well before their preferred time.

[Dadding]

I've been re-reading some of Erikson's essays lately and I think "From a Wounded Place" might help anyone appreciate Felisin a little bit more.

[D'ivers Leopard Sith]

Dadding, on 31 January 2023 - 09:15 PM, said:

I've been re-reading some of Erikson's essays lately and I think "From a Wounded Place" might help anyone appreciate Felisin a little bit more.

Thank you for this, it’s always a pleasure to see the hints of the writer’s intentions being made clear in essays like this.
On the topic though, you have perfectly allowed Erikson to answer the why of Felisin. Her story was easily the hardest to digest at the beginning of a fantasy series because we usually come to fantasy seeking escape and bad assery. Here though we were challenged to look at the human condition with compassion and it sets the tone going forward, there are so many unlikeable characters in the series but the question, I believe, Erikson is asking of us the reader is where (and why) is your empathy?

[D'ivers Leopard Sith]

sigpig, on 31 January 2023 - 08:27 PM, said:

Rhulad is simply an ass-hat and his name sounds like the French term for coleslaw, Hull Beddict is a virtual non-entity that takes up too many pages of nothing.

These are the main ones that, to me, are simply a tedious slog to read. I am sure there are others, as I am reading MoI right now on my re-read.
If anyone can help to change my mind...

Midnight Tides is one of my favourite books in the series because at this point Erikson has shown us he can write bad ass scenes with badass characters that get us hyped but he’s also shown that he writes to appeal to something else in us as well, he has something profound to say basically. Characters like Rhulad are intentionally horrible but like the discussion with Felisin you have to empathise with what was done to them or is being done to them so you can ask “How would I behave if all these horrible things happened to me in the context of the family he grew up in and with the reversal of situations because of the manipulation of Hannan Mosag?” Basically I’m saying definitely reread because there’s a lot of nuance and complexity in these stories. It’s all there to help you further understand the philosophy of Erikson but also to help you re look at real people and look at the gray areas that is their lives and yours too.

[ContrarianMalazanReader]

Let me add my voice to the choir.

Felisin (and to a lesser extent Felisin Younger) was the only character I genuinely empathized with throughout the entire series. Her story in the Otataral Mines is part of the reason I can't bring myself to read DG again, because it hits me so hard, and it also made me hate Heboric and Baudin, especially Baudin since Tavore specifically hired him to protect his sister yet he doesn't seem to be the least bit concerned about Felisin's wellbeing, and even goes as far as to take advantage of her just to prove to himself that she's nothing but a whore. I agree with what Ganoes says in MoI, that it would have been far more merciful to just execute Felisin and spare her the whole nasty ordeal.

Felisin is a young wealthy girl whose intellectual pursuits and know-how have no place in the hive of scum and villainy she's thrown into, and therefore has no other currency to barter with other than her physically attractive body.

Just thinking about her story gets me really worked up, and I guess it's because I've experienced a similar loss of privilege, though nowhere near as horrible. I guess that's why I feel like one of the few who can relate to Felisin's story.

[sigpig]

amphibian, on 31 January 2023 - 09:07 PM, said:

Maybe your perspective will change as you gain life experiences and empathy. I know I felt the Myhbe chapters could be dour - until I came into contact with people who had serious diseases that were slowly killing them well before their preferred time.

I'm going to be polite and ask you to NOT make assumptions about me. You have no idea of my life experiences, nor my capacity for empathy. So BACK OFF.
My perspective is that she was an overbread spoiled Noble, who looked at comoners as less than the dirt beneath her feet. A true product of her environment. Her disdain and contempt for both Heboric and Baudin from the beginning was despicable. Could things have been different if they had told her about their plans? Possibly, but I certainly wouldn't trust a brat like Felisin to keep anything secret. Ganoes was correct, a quick death would have been better for all involved.
I actually have a LOT of empathy for the Mhybe - Silverfox had a lot to answer for. What I can't understand is why the Rhivi didn't do anything for her. You would think the spirits could have funneled her some life-force or something so that her daughter didn't vampire her to death. How hard would it have been for SF to actually TALK to her "mom"? BTW - I like how the Mhybe is the "Sleeping Goddess" for the "new" Beast Hold.

Rhulad reminds me of Prince Harry these days - a whining "spare" with daddy issues.

[Dadding]

sigpig, on 09 February 2023 - 12:26 AM, said:

amphibian, on 31 January 2023 - 09:07 PM, said:

Maybe your perspective will change as you gain life experiences and empathy. I know I felt the Myhbe chapters could be dour - until I came into contact with people who had serious diseases that were slowly killing them well before their preferred time.

I'm going to be polite and ask you to NOT make assumptions about me. You have no idea of my life experiences, nor my capacity for empathy. So BACK OFF.
My perspective is that she was an overbread spoiled Noble, who looked at comoners as less than the dirt beneath her feet. A true product of her environment. Her disdain and contempt for both Heboric and Baudin from the beginning was despicable. Could things have been different if they had told her about their plans? Possibly, but I certainly wouldn't trust a brat like Felisin to keep anything secret. Ganoes was correct, a quick death would have been better for all involved.

We’re all broken people trying to get by in a broken world, and yet we should try to forgive each other anyway. Felisin might be more broken than most when the book begins, she’s certainly more broken than most by the end. When she injures others, we should ask what good she thought was going to come of her actions - what relief she was hoping to buy from her circumstances. Her coping mechanisms are warped by her experiences, and we should feel compassion for that, instead of outrage or anger.

If someone steals your bike maybe it’s to pawn for drugs to make their life a little bit more bearable. if someone cuts you off in traffic maybe it’s because their partner is in the hospital. If someone is driving a huge SUV and blocks your parking space maybe it’s because that car is the only way they feel safe on the road after a terrible accident. I think Erikson is writing a character who acts like this, and asking us to understand why. Feeling compassion for the “Fallen” is sort of what the series is all about.

But if Erikson’s essay above didn’t convince you, I don’t think I will.

[sigpig]

Dude, it's OK to disagree with authors.

I have lived with depression since very early childhood.I have, a few times, come close to ending my life if only to ease the pain I was in.I have had a dependance on powerful opiates in order to deal with pain control, so I fully understand the demons of the ILLNESS of addiction and dependancy.Afte re-reading that essay, perhaps Eirkson erred in not making that change. We simply didn't know that her head was on the chopping block until much later in the series. Perhaps if SOMEBODY SIMPLY TOLD HER that she could be DEAD, things might have been a little different - at least for her, Baudin, and Heboric. She made her decisions. In spite of her, they were rescued.

As for Apsalar? FFS she had been posessed by Cotillion for the purpose of killing Laseen. Kind of makes me think that she would be a "little" messed-up in her head-space.