[ContrarianMalazanReader]

What is your opinion on Empress Laseen? Frankly I don't know what to make of her as a person.

Based strictly on her actions as Empress I find her utterly despicable. She obviously excells at conquering, but is ill-suited to ruling. Her handling of the Wickans makes no sense whatsoever to me, and even lets Malick Rel play her like a fiddle on the matter. The only one of her ruthless actions that makes any sort of sense to me was her culling of the nobility, as evidenced by the inept Pormqual, who clearly made it all the way to High Fist thanks to his nobility connections, as Duiker notes he didn't even know how to ride a horse, hinting that the rot of the nobility was seeping into the military.

Another thing I find baffling about Laseen is how everyone is conspiring to depose her, but after RotCG they are now lamenting her death and how she was the one who held the Empire together, as voiced by Cartharon Crust in Assail. In the early books Ganoes is all in on overthrowing Laseen, but does a complete 180 in TCG and claims the Host are fighting in her name. What's the reason for such a drastic change of heart?

Now as person we are never made privvy to her POV, which wouldn't be a problem if the authors at least gave us a sense of what drives her. We never see Tavore's POV but at least we get a sense of her as a person and what motivates her, particularly in TCG, and you could say the same thing about Anomander Rake. We get no such thing with Laseen and I really have no idea what makes her tick. Empress Laseen remains a total cipher to me. The most I can tell about her as a person is that she does have a softer side as evindenced by her friendship with Possum, who is perhaps her only real friend, and we see how fiercely loyal Possum is and how deeply devastated he is after failing to protect her from assassination.

On a final note, if I were in charge of casting Laseen for live action adaptation my top pick would be Jennifer Lopez.

[the broken]

ContrarianMalazanReader, on 04 February 2023 - 06:47 PM, said:

What is your opinion on Empress Laseen? Frankly I don't know what to make of her as a person.

Based strictly on her actions as Empress I find her utterly despicable. She obviously excells at conquering, but is ill-suited to ruling. Her handling of the Wickans makes no sense whatsoever to me, and even lets Malick Rel play her like a fiddle on the matter. The only one of her ruthless actions that makes any sort of sense to me was her culling of the nobility, as evidenced by the inept Pormqual, who clearly made it all the way to High Fist thanks to his nobility connections, as Duiker notes he didn't even know how to ride a horse, hinting that the rot of the nobility was seeping into the military.

Another thing I find baffling about Laseen is how everyone is conspiring to depose her, but after RotCG they are now lamenting her death and how she was the one who held the Empire together, as voiced by Cartharon Crust in Assail. In the early books Ganoes is all in on overthrowing Laseen, but does a complete 180 in TCG and claims the Host are fighting in her name. What's the reason for such a drastic change of heart?

Now as person we are never made privvy to her POV, which wouldn't be a problem if the authors at least gave us a sense of what drives her. We never see Tavore's POV but at least we get a sense of her as a person and what motivates her, particularly in TCG, and you could say the same thing about Anomander Rake. We get no such thing with Laseen and I really have no idea what makes her tick. Empress Laseen remains a total cipher to me. The most I can tell about her as a person is that she does have a softer side as evindenced by her friendship with Possum, who is perhaps her only real friend, and we see how fiercely loyal Possum is and how deeply devastated he is after failing to protect her from assassination.

On a final note, if I were in charge of casting Laseen for live action adaptation my top pick would be Jennifer Lopez.

Great character, great Empress.

After she made a try for the throne, most of the Old Guard decide to vanish. Everyone assumes that Laseen has killed them, when in fact she let them go. This removes a bunch of the Empires best commanders and undermines loyalty to her. People like Gesler and Stormy also go into hiding. Given the shortage, she has get new officers from the Untan nobility, with the problem that it has been infiltrated by the Talons.

In ROTCG, the Old Guard re emerges in the belief that she's mismanaging the Empire, but by the end they realise they were wrong and fight for her against the CG. Their disappearance in the Empire's hour of need is what caused the instability that led to a led to a lot of the prior problems. The Old Guard vanishing led to people loyal to them being disloyal to Laseen in the belief that she had purged them, which snowballed all the way down.

The Wickans are simple, after Seven Cities rises, the Empire is short of food and needs the Wickan plains. It also distracts Mallick and the Untans because they think they're a soft target even though they are not.

[D'rek]

I kinda like the idea that in the end she's a relatively "ordinary" human who unfortunately followed in the steps of a bunch of people who were not only Ascendants, but literally became gods, too, so no matter what she did it wasn't going to live up to her predecessors. And this includes her having the ordinary human condition of fallibility. She didn't have some grand vision of the cosmos and foresight or the experience of centuries to help her perfectly walk the narrow line of ruling a grand Empire against a million hostile gods, aliens, and human politics. She was stuck in a palace getting outdated verbal reports that had passed through twelve hands before they reached her instead of having an all-mighty farseeing shadow warren tell her everything accurately and instantly. She had to deal with mortal concerns of health and assassination and managing faction influence, instead of living in a private Azath and being able to fireball anyone she didn't like. As a result... yeah, she screwed up, she got tricked by her administrators sometimes, she barely managed to hold the impossible empire together at all. Like any ordinary human would.

Though admittedly I think I'm conjuring a lot of this in my head, I don't think the book necessarily makes that case for her.

[Macros]

I've always maintained she's a terrible character.

Her justification for removing Kel and Dancer was that they could conquer but not rule, she runs the empire into the ground, gets the run around by everyone and their dog then gets herself killed taking on a job she should delegate.

None of the actions she undertakes suggest the terrifying competence she is supposed to posses.

[Gorefest]

Macros, on 08 February 2023 - 03:56 PM, said:

None of the actions she undertakes suggest the terrifying competence she is supposed to posses.

But surely that is actually one of the charms of the series? Unreliable narrators and incorrect mythology and folklore, tinged by the passing of time?

[ContrarianMalazanReader]

Macros, on 08 February 2023 - 03:56 PM, said:

I've always maintained she's a terrible character.

Her justification for removing Kel and Dancer was that they could conquer but not rule, she runs the empire into the ground, gets the run around by everyone and their dog then gets herself killed taking on a job she should delegate.

None of the actions she undertakes suggest the terrifying competence she is supposed to posses.

It's why I find it so baffling that certain characters are lamenting her death in latter books after being hellbent on overthrowing her.

[QuickTidal]

ContrarianMalazanReader, on 04 February 2023 - 06:47 PM, said:

On a final note, if I were in charge of casting Laseen for live action adaptation my top pick would be Jennifer Lopez.

The fuck?

You want a woman who can BARELY act to play this complex character?

Like sweet jeebus her filmography is a list of mostly middling movies 75% of which are irredeemable dreck. The only movie I personally feel is even worthwhile on her list is OUT OF SIGHT, and that's on the strength of the rest of the cast and Soderbergh's script and not remotely on her.

Her Wikipedia page actually has a whole section NAMED "Box Office Failures"....

[Gorefest]

Hold on, she did U-turn, didn't she? Great film.

[ContrarianMalazanReader]

Jennifer Lopez is pretty good in dramatic roles. Selena, U-Turn, Enough, etc. Hell, as schlocky as Anaconda was, at least she fully commited to the role and played her role straight.

[QuickTidal]

Gorefest, on 08 February 2023 - 05:21 PM, said:

Hold on, she did U-turn, didn't she? Great film.

It is, but it's an Oliver Stone flick FILLED with A-listers....it succeeds not because JLo is in it, but do to those other factors. Same true of stuff like ANACONDA....ensemble B-movie that succeeds despite her presence.

I can't find a movie where her role was so integral, or she acted well. Even in something abstract like THE CELL...her performance is juts this side of wooden.

SELENA is probably the only one worth anyone's time on that front, and even then the film only works because Jlo can actually sing and is Latin. The dialogue in it is middling at BEST.

Wanting to cast her as Laseen is nonsense.

I get if Mr Contrarian has a thing for her, that's fine... but she cannot act.

[ContrarianMalazanReader]

QuickTidal, on 08 February 2023 - 05:59 PM, said:

Gorefest, on 08 February 2023 - 05:21 PM, said:

Hold on, she did U-turn, didn't she? Great film.

I get if Mr Contrarian has a thing for her, that's fine... but she cannot act.

It's not that I have a thing for her. It's that when reading the books that's how I visualized Laseen looking like, nothing else. Besides Laseen is described as always being stone-faced, never once showing the slightest hint of emotion.

[champ]

ContrarianMalazanReader, on 08 February 2023 - 06:40 PM, said:

QuickTidal, on 08 February 2023 - 05:59 PM, said:

Gorefest, on 08 February 2023 - 05:21 PM, said:

Hold on, she did U-turn, didn't she? Great film.

I get if Mr Contrarian has a thing for her, that's fine... but she cannot act.

It's not that I have a thing for her. It's that when reading the books that's how I visualized Laseen looking like, nothing else. Besides Laseen is described as always being stone-faced, never once showing the slightest hint of emotion.

How'd you read...

Quote

A small woman with thin and unmemorable features, mousy hair kept short.

And get JLo?!

[Cyphon]

Everyone gets a screen adaptation glow up.

[ContrarianMalazanReader]

Cyphon, on 08 February 2023 - 08:08 PM, said:

Everyone gets a screen adaptation glow up.

Exactly. J-Lo looks pretty unremarkable without makeup.

[sigpig]

Cyphon, on 08 February 2023 - 08:08 PM, said:

Everyone gets a screen adaptation glow up.

I refutue it thus: Gollum.

[QuickTidal]

ContrarianMalazanReader, on 08 February 2023 - 08:30 PM, said:

Cyphon, on 08 February 2023 - 08:08 PM, said:

Everyone gets a screen adaptation glow up.

Exactly. J-Lo looks pretty unremarkable without makeup.

LOL, okay chief.

[fievelgoespostal]

Im doing a reread of the series now and I just started DG.

Is it possible that the whole thing with Mallick and Coltaine/Wickans was a scheme by Laseen to rid herself of Coltaine since he was loyal to Emperor Kell?

[Abyss]

We know losing 7C was problematic to Laseen, and Mallick and Korbolo actively work against her to force the situation where she has to sacrifice the Wickans. None of that lines up w a situation where losing Coltaine and his army was to her advantage.