[Lord of Salvation]

Hetan said:

Personally I've always thought the First Children of MD may have been the Elder Gods or the Eleint.. or both

I agree

[Onos]

Maybe we are too hung up on things being berthed in the conventional sense. There are many organisms that reproduce via spores or some kind of division. We dont fully know how the elder gods were spawned...
So perhaps the Andii were the first true 'birthed' children where the the others such as elder gods perhaps, were created out of the darkness.

[Thelomen Toblerone]

Wry;102866 said:

Actually this makes sense. I always had a problem with MD birthing whole races... i mean how many would she have to create to have a viable genetic pool?

Maybe that's why Korlat says something about the Tiste Andii not taking mates from amongst their own for a very long time, because of inbreeding? Highly unlikely I'll admit, but I like to think of crazy solutions- never know what might pop up.

[Grimjust Bearegular]

dunno if this has anything to do with this, but it is stated that Rake and Andarist are not quite in sync with the rest of the Andii. They are a part of the fellowship and yet not, as if they are different. This could be because they aren't really Andii, but chose to become Andii at some point.


or I might be totally off here:p

[Orfantal]

I'd definitely go for the Elder Gods as those first children. Wasn't there also a pre chapter snippet in one book that talked about the birth of the children of chaos. I always took that to be the dragons.... dragons from chaos .. elder gods from dark/order.

[Aptorian]

Lupinicus;122979 said:

I think there's a couple big assumptions being made here. People seem to be saying that the Tiste Andii and Elder Gods are approximately the same age. Haven't the Tiste races only been around 300,000 years or so? The dialogue between Silchas and Scabandari at the beginning of MT makes it sound like they (the Tiste races) had just arrived on Wu from their respective warrens. The Elder Gods had already been around. We have Mael making an appearance there and he does not seem to be "new."

At some point while reading MT, I had a better idea of who Mother Dark's first children might be, but I have since forgotten. I think the dragons might be a good guess.

We don't know the exact time of the comming of the tiste races to Wu. It is only known that it was in "The time of the Elder Gods" and "The Sundering of Emurhlan" Personally I'm guessing it's 400-500.000 years before burns sleep.

We don't know how long the races lived in KG and KE before they came to Wu. For all we know the races could be a million years old, the war in KG might still be going on...

Edit: Post nr. 500!

[Dolorous Menhir]

Maknavox;123111 said:

lols. all andii can change their appearance quite easyly. Loric can, rake too.
Rake spend 200 years as a tall human guard somewere. Its a tiste trait. I think they play with light to make them look different. (qod comments on it to loric)

Rake is a tiste, so are andarist and ruin. If they were not then why would Silchas make himself a albino?... or andarist to look really old.
(side note: Rake and silchas are more of tiams blood then of md's)

I don't understand your argument. You say the Tiste can change their appearance easily, and then offer albinism and old age as evidence??? That doesn't make any sense. If anything they contradict your theory.

Only Rake & L'oric among the Tiste are known to drastically change their appearance for long periods (and we don't even know how drastic a change is required for Rake to pass as merely a human, it may be no big deal, changing/masking the eyes and hair, maybe). Both are High Mages.

There is other evidence that High Mages can change their appearance, namely Tayschrenn as Artanthos. So I would conclude that High Mages can change their appearance, but not every single member of the three Tiste races. Sounds more reasonable to me.

[Aptorian]

Maknavox;123345 said:

Not really. QOD mentions that lorics KIND is good at looking other then they should be.


I sure do contradict myself. I formulated it wrong (english second language and a heavy dislectic)
What i ment is that why would non andii gods who convert themselfs into andii make themselfs albino? it reads stupid. Why would andarist make himself look older then rake? [i]I meen, yea he lost his love of his live, but hey even young people have selfpitty.[/1]
what i meen is that when you change yourself into another beeing/race you usualy made yourself a somewhat avarage person. exspecialy in wu, everybody that changes into something else (sept divers) turn out as avarage guys.

I know i dont have a nice solid legg to stand on but i think its pretty obvious that anomander is a andii.

Let me try and see if I understand your questions?

Why would Ruin make himself look like a albino? He is an albino

Why would Darist make himself look old? he was old and didn't have ascendant blood

Rake turned himself into a "human guard", he might have looked tall, but the illusion was ment to make him human. How he explained being a guard for 2-4 times a human's lifespan is of course another question.

And just to be specific, your examples of Rake and L'oric, two different tiste races, Andii and Edur, changing their apperance, doesn't work. They are both powerful mages, they can use illusion to change their appearance. I don't remember anything to suggest that the Tiste races are chameleons... To quote Queen - "It's a kind of magic".

[Aptorian]

Oops... Liosan and Edur... Apples and oranges... you get my meaning.

But Darist, Ruin and Rake are Andii. Rake and Ruin are just a little more. It's only Ruin that looks different from the rest of the Andii, in the fact that his eyes are red and his skin is white... Albino.

[Dolorous Menhir]

The people who think Rake, Ruin & Andarist are not Andii are wrong.

And just to be clear, Silchas Ruin is not a god.

[Wry]

Dolorous Menhir;123531 said:

The people who think Rake, Ruin & Andarist are not Andii are wrong.

And just to be clear, Silchas Ruin is not a god.

You don't know either of those things, why bother to read a complex book if you're going to take the simplest view of it?

[Aptorian]

Wry;128868 said:

You don't know either of those things, why bother to read a complex book if you're going to take the simplest view of it?

Which one of the things is it we don't know?

The three brothers are andii, it's stated several places. Look at Baruks family tre if you want (and yes I remember there is flaws built in):

http://www.malazanem...read.php?t=3588

What have you read to suggest that Ruin is a god? He's no more a god than Rake is. I know there's some discussion about wheter, unlike Rake, Ruin wouldn't accept godhood, but I don't remember any references by any one that Ruin was a god.

The guys been trapped under a treehouse for fourhundred thousand years or more, if any one non ascendants till remembers him his fanbase is gonna be pretty tiny.

[Dolorous Menhir]

Rake is a Tiste Andii and a Draconean Soletaken. You could argue that he's more Eleint than Andii, but he's still an Andii. And so are his brothers. I don't see why there's a question mark over this.

MT prologue, p 21: "Also sheathed in blood...and much of it his own, for Silchas Ruin had fought alongside his Andii kin against the K'ell Hunters."

MT p 22: "The albino Tiste Andii's pallid face twisted in a silent snarl."

The "Dramatis Personae" of MT:

Silchas Ruin, a Tiste Andii Eleint Soletaken

Similar references can be easily found for Andarist and Rake. They are Tiste Andii.

As for the godhood of Ruin, here is the relevant quote, also from the MT (taken from Malazan Wiki)

"Silchas Ruin. Tiste Andii, who fed in the wake of his brother – fed on Tiam’s blood, and drank deep. Deeper than Anomander Rake by far. Darkness and chaos. He would have accepted the burden of godhood...had he been given the chance."

So, he is not a god.

I'm not just making it up when I say people are wrong.