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"...Neither spoke for a time after that, until the god murmured, 'My poor Wickans...'
'They are not as vulnerable as you fear, Emperor. They will have Nil and Nether. They will have Temul, and when Temul is old, decades from now, he will have a young warrior to teach, whose name shall be Coltaine.' He clasped his hands behind his back, frowning down at the smoke-wreathed city as the first greying of dawn approached. 'If you would fear,' he said, 'fear for your own child.'
'I fear nothing-'
'Liar. You heard Temper step out of Coop's - and you fled.'
'Expedience!'
'Unquestionably....'''
First off, this passage is the only basis for people claiming Temper is Emperor Kellanved's son. There is no other supporting evidence in the books.
Secondly, this passage does not in any way imply that Temper and Kellanved are related. The only reason I can think of for all the people who claim it does is that it mentions Temper in close proximity to a reference to Shadowthrone's "own child". Note that it does not explicitly connect the two (child & Temper), just mentions them very close to each other.
Here's how the passage flows.
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He clasped his hands behind his back, frowning down at the smoke-wreathed city as the first greying of dawn approached. 'If you would fear,' he said, 'fear for your own child.'
Tays looks at the Malaz City, wounded heart of the weakened Empire, and warns the man who forged that Empire of the peril it is in. No doubt here. He means the Empire, which is Kellanved's creation, his "child".
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'I fear nothing-'
Shadowthrone denies he fears anything. Perhaps this means he thinks the Empire will endure, or at the least that he will. Or it could just be ST being obtuse.
This is the important part. Tays says:
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'Liar. You heard Temper step out of Coop's - and you fled.'
THIS IS A RESPONSE TO THE "FEAR" COMMENT.
Tays is objecting to Shadowthrone's statement that he fears nothing, by providing an example of something he fears. That something is Temper.
This has nothing at all to do with the "child" comment. Temper is something that ST fears, NOT his child.
And then Shadowthrone's response:
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'Expedience!'
Note, not "that's my boy" or "he is not my son" or "darn that boy makes me proud".
Why?
Because Temper is not his son. I wish people would stop saying he was.
Nok:
Spoiler
But it makes sense, since Temper was apparently big in the Old Guard (close associate of Dassem Ultor, again second-hand NoK info) and may well have some difficult history with Kellanved.
Temper was only brought into the conversation as an example of something ST feared. The "only child" is the Empire.
Temper is not Kellanved's son.
Thanks for reading.
Mod edit: If something is from another book, please spoil it. A lot of people avoid the forums of books they haven't read like wildfire, so if you've picked it up there, and transfer it into another forum, it could spoil.
Thanks.
