[philospher77]

All right... I have been pondering this idea that ShadowThrone is one of the major players because he is so smart, and I have some issues with it. Before you flame me, bear me out and see what you think of my idea.

The general support given as evidence of ShadowThrone's abilities is based on Kellenvad's actions in becoming Emperor. And the fact that he was admired as a military leader, and the fact that he Ascended. Personally, I have no qualms at all in agreeing that Kellenvad was something out of the ordinary.

On the other hand, we have ShadowThrone. Who is charitably described as crazy, and extremely paranoid. To be quite honest, I have a difficult time accepting that ShadowThrone is as great of a threat as most people seem to think, based on the actions that I have seen from him so far. In fact, I have a difficult time in seeing how ShadowThrone would have been able to achieve most of the stuff that Kellenvad did.

So that leaves me with a few options. One is that Erikson has just written this bit badly, and we are supposed to assume that since Kellenvad was a genius, so is ShadowThrone, despite how he acts. However, I have had a few thoughts which suggest some possible alternatives.

A. Ascending caused Kellenvad to go crazy, resulting in a ShadowThrone with some, but not all, of Kellenvad's abilities. In particular, it could have focused and accentuated previously minor quirks and flaws. This could be bad or good, depending on what those flaws were and how they are going to affect ShadowThrone reaching his goal.

B. Kellenvad never was that much of a genius in the first place, but was the front man for Dancer. For example, Kellenvad may have had a certain flair for military tactics, and been the sort of heroic figure that people naturally liked, which made it easier for him to be the public face of the Empire, while Dancer was the thinker manipulating things behind the scenes, which seems in keeping with his personality. Now, my thinking may be slanted, because we see more of Cotillion than we do of ShadowThrone, but it seems like Cotillion is the one out doing the research and planning and being much more hands-on than ShadowThrone.

Now, B could also be a result of A, if Cotillion is having to pick up slack for Kellenvad's lost abilities. And it could be just a bit of bad writing. But I am thinking that, if it is in fact B, it would give the title ShadowThrone a whole different level of meaning, and help explain why they seem more like partners than leader and subordinate. And it would explain why ShadowThrone doesn't seem to always be up on what Cotillion is doing. And it would be a perfect piece of misdirection for the CG. ShadowThrone provides a target for the CG's attacks, while Cotillion is free to work in the shadows.

I know that this is a radical thought, probably brought on by being up too late, but I have been having a hard time dealing with the discrepancy between Kellenvad and ShadowThrone, and this just sort of seemed like a possibility. And, if a coalition is in fact the basis for how Kellenvad got to the top of the Empire, it implies that Laseen may be part of a bigger behind-the-scenes puzzle than I first thought. Or I may just be making this more complicated than it needs to be.

[Hume]

I think you might reading into a little bit much..
and.

It appears you have a pre-concieved conception on what the personality of a genius is.
There are a couple of borderline nutcases in our time who were geniuses as well.

Forest Gump was insanely smart with maths, he worked for nasa in that when their computers failed they used him as a back up.
The dude in 'beautiful mind' as well had Schichofrenia(sp?)
Einstein reportedly was socially inept.
Im sure there were a few others.

besides what about that convo (albeit very short) Shadowthrone had with iskarul. Shadowthrone was talking quite normal then and later on when he comments on how well Iskarul did. I think Shadowthrone is a little insane but some of it is an act.

Iskarul on the other hand.. I dont think any of him is an act.

[Tsundoku]

"Schizophrenia".

Let's not forget the chaotic and flitting nature of shadows themselves. Wouldn't a God of shadow and illusion take on some aspects of the very things he embodies? Like his body itself is seeming to do, what with the whole "insubstantial" thing? Maybe the Warren is overpowering the God - subsuming him even - which may be what happened to all the other previous rulers of the realm.
Maybe it's a symptom of the "smaller" shadow realm that Ammanas rules being subject to the greater. You think you rule the element, but are instead subject to the flows of the true warren of shadow, and end up dissipating into the warren itself, into subservience?

Meh, who knows?

Cheers,

La Sombra, doesn't

[caladanbrood]

I've always thought that Dancer was the major part in that tag team anyway. One of my personal crazy ideas was that Dancer had ascended even before the Empire started, and had been playing Kellanved's genius for his own means ever since. It would also explain Kellanved's apparent sidelining during Bonehunters, where he just lurked while Cotillion did all the leg-work.

[Gothos]

philospher77 said:

All right... (... some babbling ...) to be.

you, sir, are an idiot!

always wanted to say that, wonder if they'll temp ban me now...

[4092]

CRAZY THEORY: ANOMANDER RAKE IS THE POWER BEHIND SHADOWTHRONE's rise.

Anomander Rake allowed ShadowThrone to plant his butt onto the throne of Shadow, and even set Andarist to guard it for him.

unless you meant power/ability-wise. But where Shadowthrone is right now is 100% at the whim of the Lord of Darkness.

[Agraba]

Philosopher:

Just because Dujek, or Coltaine, or Whiskeyjack were such cool guys who never flew off the bat, and were the kind of guys reader would love, and people would love to hang out with, that doesn't make that the natural persona of a good general, and smart leader. Napoleon was known as the great military genius of his time, yet he was pretty crazy, and small things, like his wife not sending him a letter, made him fly off the bat. And yes, very often when a genius is able to secure such a powerful position, he becomes incredibly insecure, to the point of rabid paranoia. Sometimes there's a lot more calculating than you think in the mind of a nutcase.

So I can very much belive that Kellanved, as emperor, was exactly like Shadowthrone is now. Oh, and yes, you better believe that he had tons of servants, and consorts, and messengers killed, because he suspected plots just from a wrong look, or because he was in a bad mood.

[Dolmen 2.0]

Philosophic point of view.

The nature of shadowthrone and the stories of Kellenved do seem to have a descrepancy between them but take this into account. Before Kellenved was the "great" emperor we read of in the series he was a tavern owner. as it is I can't see how a tavern owner can rise from barman to thug to crime lord/pirate to emperor of Malaz to eventual God of shadow without developing a peculiar inconsistancy in personality. All of shadowthrones choices for High priest have had a personality complex of somekind and I think thats because it mirrors Shadowthrones own warped psyche. I believe Shadowthrone thinks on a multitude of levels, kind of like a hybrid of pust and Ben adaephlon Delat. his seeming ineffectuality is mirrored in taychrenn the most. Remember Taychrenn we know is all powerful but his greatest act in Bonehunters was the actual deed of just being present. Shadowthrone operates in much the same fashion...

[Folken]

Kell was also described as crazy for one. His personality hasn't changed much since his Ascension to the throne of shadow. There is proof of this in the earlier novels, conversations between the Bridgeburnes (too specific for me to remember when and where) But the most recent reference is in Bonehunters when Shadowthrone and Tays meet and Tays refers to him as only Emporer, firstly thats something to note, and he calls him paranoid.

As for Dancer and Kell, and Dancer being the brains of the operation. Well I can see where you get that from by reading the books...but lets be fair, Shadowthrone has not been given as much screen time and he's always wandering off doing things. They have plans and they're trying to accomplish those plans.

[philospher77]

Well, I am willing to agree that it could be a matter of stage time. We don't actually get to see ShadowThrone doing much... he's always rushing off to do something. And I am willing to agree that he may be a military genius, and thus well able to rise to power in an Empire. And to people's examples of crazy people who are still incredibly intelligent, I agree. However, that actually strengthens my thought on option B, because those people are generally quite intelligent in a particular area, and need others to help them out with other areas. Which, if that's what people mean when they talk about ShadowThrone being a genius, well, I have no problem with it.

So, having agreed that he may be a military genius, it doesn't strike me that he is much of a scholar. For example, I'm not sure that he's the kind of person to realize that the 1 cent hike in import taxes that Country A just imposed on Product 1 will, after enough rippling, have a serious detrimental impact on your power balance with Country B. Now, once someone points that out to him, he could probably figure out how to deal with it.

For an in-book example, sending the Hounds to decimate the Itko coastline to try and hide the fact that Cotillion was possessing Sorry seems a little bit lacking in planning. Unless they meant to let everyone know a big Power had gotten involved, in which case I can still think of easier ways of doing it that don't involve slaughtering bunches of innocent bystanders. That doesn't seem like the action of a brillant strategist, to me.

On the other hand, I'm still not sure what his overall goal is, so may be it does fit into it.

[Gothos]

Shadowthrone has Cottilion. Kellanved had Dancer. and Traveller. never forget that - he did have people with him.

besides that, basing any oppinion on GotM is very, very risky.

[Folken]

philospher77 said:

For an in-book example, sending the Hounds to decimate the Itko coastline to try and hide the fact that Cotillion was possessing Sorry seems a little bit lacking in planning. Unless they meant to let everyone know a big Power had gotten involved, in which case I can still think of easier ways of doing it that don't involve slaughtering bunches of innocent bystanders. That doesn't seem like the action of a brillant strategist, to me.

Read that passage again. The possesion of Apsalar was not a planned thing. They just stumbled upon her and then the plan was made to use her. The masacre of the village was orginally supposed to be a destabalization of the empire...Apsalar was just a chance happening which they took advantage off.

[Dark Mac]

You suggested that it's Cotillion who's actually out and about doing things - this is not true. All throughout TBH we hear about how ST is "spread thin", and we see him doing plenty of things near the end of the book (guarding the Throne of Shadow, saving Kalam, sending QB to stop Icarium, etc.).

[fan_83]

just because se does not spell out implicitly what st does to make him so busy all the time doesn;t mean hes sleepin gall day..

and the fact taht he managed to create an empire within a time frame of 200 years is testament of his brains

[philospher77]

fan_83 said:

and the fact taht he managed to create an empire within a time frame of 200 years is testament of his brains

Well, as other people have pointed out, he didn't create that empire single-handedly. It was him and Dancer and Surly and Dassem and some other people who I recognize but can't recall right now. Yet many people seem to have the opinion that he did create the empire single-handedly, and that thus he is the most important player. I don't even know for sure that he wanted to create an empire. For all I can tell, the others may have talked him into it and done a lot of the work.

It just seems to me that to say it was all Kellenvad seems a bit shortsighted.

[Dolorous Menhir]

It's going to take a lot more than "Kellanved had help" to convince me he's not a super-brilliant empire-founding genius. Do you think Cotillion ghost-wrote all Kellanved's pithy sayings, do you think Cotillion came up with all the plans and schemes they have? Cotillion is not just the "muscle" of the duo, he's more than that, but Shadowthrone is definitely the "brains", I don't see how people can deny that.

[fan_83]

then please tell me why is kell the leader, adn emperor, how is it that hes the one who found the way into deadhouse... and why is it that all of his former friends the closest to him call him the smartest... i mean if they were the one doing most of the work, they wouldn;t credit him

[Folken]

because philospher77 said so:rolleyes: ...lol

[GingerBreadMan]

I am not sure of much in this series, but I am pretty sure ShadowThrone is very intelligent.

He is somewhat physcotic, but I believe some of that is an act similar to Tehols. They enjoy playing their parts, he just likes to pretend to be crazy, and who wouldn't since it seems like a blast.

He did have help in everything he has done, but that only means he is smart enough to enlist help.

I really think Cotillion is his right hand man, he is smart but not a genius. Cotillion seems to handle the more mundane aspects, somewhat like the manager while ShadowThrone is the CEO.

It is understandable that you might find ShadowThrone odd, because he is. However how many people have been able to organize a rise in power from a bar owner to a God?