[Dolorous Menhir]

sigh: but Draconus is an Elder God, and when the sword is broken he will be freed. You can't talk about "death" for Elder Gods in the same as for humans, or even the HoS.

[fan_83]

in that case the same could be said for all the victims in dragnipur as their souls haven;t gone through hoods gate they can;t be called dead.. and since the t'ay souls hasn;t gone through hoods gate either, they went into t&F realm, they can;t be called dead either

i agree taht the case for draconus being dead maybe weak but until the sword is broken we don;t know how draconus will come out.. will he come out with a body or will he come out as a wisp of spirit and be pulled straight through into hoods gate due to milennia being imprisoned in the sword.. the point is we don;t know

[namo]

fan_83 said:

once the soul leave hte body, the person is dead by malaz standard..

Many seem to consider that Scabandari isn't dead...

But the main counter-example is Duiker. Or Hairlock. And Raest. Basically all techniques of soul-shifting.

[GingerBreadMan]

In the Malaz world life extends to the soul, so until the soul is dragged through Hood's Gate or an alternative then they are not dead.

[Dark Mac]

According to that idea, Ganoes never died, because he never went through Hood's Gate. You could even say the same about Bairoth Gild and Delum Thord (sp?). Death is not much of a problem in the Malazan world though. The Bridgeburners all died, and they're still having a ball. Same with Rhulad, or Kellenved and Dancer.

And Oponn does say that Dragnipur kills people, so there you go.

[fan_83]

you mean now we have to come up with a proper defnition of dead.. damm

i will go start a new topic...

[Dravon]

In the malazan world beings can die and then still go on to another form be it reborn, ascend, ghost. Infact Hoods Gate has nothing to do with a being dieing or not (unless Hood has a hand in their death) its just where most the dead end up. That is if the being isnt smart/powerful enough to evade Hoods power. Whats my point: even if they go on to do other things They still died.

[GingerBreadMan]

Don't see how they died. We have seen that the soul is the essence of the person, as such the person doesn't die until its soul does.

In the Malaz world the person is the soul, not the body.

[Dark Mac]

But the soul can't die. Ever. It just moves from one place to another. Even if it goes through Hood's Gate it's still around.

[Dravon]

@Gingerbreadman-Don't see how they died. We have seen that the soul is the essence of the person, as such the person doesn't die until its soul does.

In the Malaz world the person is the soul, not the body.

Depending on your belief's the same could be said for RL, but in the end (be it in Malaz or RL) if your mind dies and your heart stops your "body" is dead. The soul being eternal can not die so cant be dead at anytime.

[GingerBreadMan]

Well thats the thing, we don't know if there are souls in RL while we KNOW there are in the Malaz world.

And how do we know souls cannot die in the Malaz World? I would venture a guess and say that they can.

[QuickBenDelat]

GingerBreadMan said:

Well thats the thing, we don't know if there are souls in RL while we KNOW there are in the Malaz world.

And how do we know souls cannot die in the Malaz World? I would venture a guess and say that they can.

To the contrary, we havent seen any indication of a soul dying. All we have seen is the soul going from one dimension to another. Look at Toc/Anester. Tocs body is dead yet Toc is still alive.
Dead, in Wu, means the expiration of the body, not the soul. This holds true until some one can show me that souls too can die.

[Dinivan]

I think what really happens to a soul generally after the death (if not transferred to another body) is a major plotline in the book. It's first tipped in MoI where Envy asks Toc 'what if Hood does nothing with the souls?' or some such. Then there is in BH more evident the CG who promises some kind of reward in the afterlife or compensation for suffering.

It seems to me that SE keeps us in the dark on this topic because it may be essential for the battle between the CG and the other gods. And which side the most humans choose. or something like that. And he only gives us little hints that there is something, but we won't know.

Btw i think it's not possible to annihilate a soul. It's the eternal thing there. For instance, if a soul can be destroyed, an eternity spend with holding a wound in the warren together would do it. And it doesn't. So it concludes that the souls are by potential some knitting stuff for the very substance of the different layers of reality.

Or something equally pathetic.

[Illuyankas]

Maknavox said:

Itkovian destroyed rath'feners soul with the reve.

Actualy, he didn't. He sent it to where Fener would have been, but it was taken by a foreign god who tried to make something wonderful from this 'gift', but Rath'Fener's flesh couldn't contain it. So Itkovian took his soul into his embrace, along with the rest of Capustan's dead, and presumably took them with him when he died. So it's still intact.

[dktorode]

I think souls were destroyed when the bagharst spirits were shielding quickben and mallet from the CG taint....I remeber quickben asking the sticksnare doll thing (cant remember his name) if he was willing to sacrifice all those souls when he saw how the souls were getting torn to pieces! dont have the book on hand so dont know the details of what happend but i do remember that souls were dying...i think

[GingerBreadMan]

I'm pretty sure we have seen souls die, but i cannot remember pages or anything.

[Dark Mac]

Regardless of whether it can die, the fact remains that most don't...and you're not suggesting that the vast majority of Wu's citizens are immortal, are you?

[SQUAREROOT]

When the Tiste Edur were attacking the Malazan fleet in BH Karsa's companion is horrified because the magic they were about unleash on the 14th's fleet would have torn there souls apart.

[GingerBreadMan]

Dark Mac said:

Regardless of whether it can die, the fact remains that most don't...and you're not suggesting that the vast majority of Wu's citizens are immortal, are you?

Actually I am, how else can you describe them?

In the Malaz world what makes a person seems to be their soul, we have tons of evidence of the soul being the person while the body seems to be a shell.

When people die, they continue on as normal except they have no body, they retain their ability to think/talk/interact etc...


So yes, it seems they are in fact immortal in many ways. As far as I am concerned, dying is more than just the death of your body but the death of your mind/personality which is clearly not the case in Wu.