[blackzoid]

Abyss all the events you mention, bar the Kchain fight -which he didn't lose, happened during his journey of self-discovery in HoC. After that, in later HoC and the TBH he becomes something of a walking unstoppable killing machine.

[Grief]

That's actually quite in line with my post Abyss. In the beginning he's not unstoppable. And then he becomes unstoppable-regardless of the fact that his history would suggest that he shouldn't be, he is suddenly able to defeat people far beyond Keeper, or the malazans or whoever...And now goes around chopping up far more interesting people than himself, ruining the potential there for a fantastic storyline.

[Sinisdar Toste]

who did he chop up that had their interesting storyline cut-short?

Spoiler

certainly not rhulad?

just curious...

[Grief]

Spoiler

Well, he's one...Though I feel that particular storyline could have been done better in a few places. Or at least had a more interesting ending than it did. Rhulad was awesome in Midnight Tides, though loses some of this in RG. However, look at the build-up. You've got an emperor who can't be killed, who keeps throwing himself into death, going slowly madder, you've got the epic ending of MT when it finally seems like there's a solution and then Rhulad dies again. Not only that, but you've got Icarium coming to confront him; Icarium whose rage ravages cities, and it seems like shit is going to go down. Instead, Karsa steps in, sends Icarium on his way, and kills Rhulad. And everyone lives happily ever after.

There are also a host of more minor characters.

The female seguleh could have developped into something more interesting that it did, of course a very minor character. And also not an example of overpoweredness particularly due to obvious size/strength advantages. However, reading that just made me feel "meh". Oh wow, Karsa is bigger and stronger and thus obviously wins. The seguleh are generally interesting. If you're going to have one around, surely there is a better use than just to demonstrate yet again that karsa is big and strong.

The 2 deragoth, which could have gone on to do more if they'd not ran into Karsa. Though the Hounds of the series are constantly being defeated just to show how awesome someone is, so they seem less awesome than first believed.

It is perhaps the minor characters that seem only around to demonstrate how powerful/brilliant Karsa is that irritate me most. After all, not everything can be expected to have an epic ending. But characters who are introduced and could be interesting and are cut short leaving the impression they were just built up so that they could be knocked down to demonstrate how powerful someone is(same goes for dejim nebrahl) irritate me. They seem to me just a rather lazy way of demonstrating someones power-instead of having a confrontation between established characters, a new character is introduced, built up, and knocked down, concisely showing how fantastic a certain character is, rather than actually having them follow through with a storyline, they are just introduced, and killed off, which is coincidentally probably one of the low points of the series for me.

Karsa is not alone in that-he just seems to draw more than the average character, and so most of his confrontations just strike me as being hit over the head with the "Isn't Karsa awesome?" stick.

He is probably my least favourite character.

Looking back over this, it seems kind of rant like.

So, on a happier note, Erikson is still my favourite author and my complaint, in context, is small. After all, there are plenty of characters introduced who go on to have very interesting stories.

[WhiskeyJackDaniels]

Ok I think my post made Karsa seem like the brainless barbarian that he might come off as at first glance. I didn't mean that at all. The exact opposite in fact. I was trying to say that he won't compromise his position on anything, despite who it might piss off or make any enemy of. He is definitely capable of assaying a situation and changing his mind when he gets more information on it. All that being said, I still think he fully intends to make war on civilization as he knows it, because while there might be individuals that have earned his respect, he still thinks that civilization is inherently evil.

[blackzoid]

WhiskeyJackDaniels, on 21 October 2009 - 12:05 AM, said:

Ok I think my post made Karsa seem like the brainless barbarian that he might come off as at first glance. I didn't mean that at all. The exact opposite in fact. I was trying to say that he won't compromise his position on anything, despite who it might piss off or make any enemy of. He is definitely capable of assaying a situation and changing his mind when he gets more information on it. All that being said, I still think he fully intends to make war on civilization as he knows it, because while there might be individuals that have earned his respect, he still thinks that civilization is inherently evil.

And thus, potentially, how is he any different from the likes of Kallor and the Pannion Domin?

He isn't.

He is a mass murdering rapist, with designs of genocide, who is fully certain of his actions at all times.
And we know that Erikson isn't a fan of certainty.

This post has been edited by blackzoid: 21 October 2009 - 10:42 AM

[WhiskeyJackDaniels]

blackzoid, on 21 October 2009 - 10:41 AM, said:

WhiskeyJackDaniels, on 21 October 2009 - 12:05 AM, said:

Ok I think my post made Karsa seem like the brainless barbarian that he might come off as at first glance. I didn't mean that at all. The exact opposite in fact. I was trying to say that he won't compromise his position on anything, despite who it might piss off or make any enemy of. He is definitely capable of assaying a situation and changing his mind when he gets more information on it. All that being said, I still think he fully intends to make war on civilization as he knows it, because while there might be individuals that have earned his respect, he still thinks that civilization is inherently evil.

And thus, potentially, how is he any different from the likes of Kallor and the Pannion Domin?

He isn't.

He is a mass murdering rapist, with designs of genocide, who is fully certain of his actions at all times.
And we know that Erikson isn't a fan of certainty.

I didn't say he was a good guy. I'm not sure its possible to spin 'destroying civilization' as an act of benevolence.

I would say he is different from Pannion because that guy was totally being guided by the CG, and driven a little crazy from the Matron.

And I think he and Kallor have a lot of similarities, but I would say the main difference between them is Kallor is driven to conquer, Karsa to destroy.

[blackzoid]

But in a way, isn't Pannion less morally reprensible then Karsa?
Pannion was traumatized and manipulated.
Karsa has made his decision to kill civilisation post-Unbound manipulation.

As for Kallor, he is despicable, but a much more interesting character then Karsa will ever be.

[Ben Adephon Delat]

Karsa can't succeed in his goal because there's so many humans he can't possibly hope to defeat them all or even crush their civilisations. Either he leads his people to a slaughter or he changes his plans such that he insures the survival and dignity of his people without having to attempt genocide. The fact that he's shown pragmatism before suggests to me that he'll likely show it again when he stands before his people united in his name.

[Ulrik]

Question is - will Karsa at the end of his journey still want to destroy civilisation? Old one - yes. But Karsa changes...

Spoiler

His relationship with Sammar Dev is nice example. Karsa is no more single minded savage "what I say will happen". He is cynical, has strange sense of humour and stronger and stronger tendency to speak rather than fight. Well, sometimes. His experience with Traveller is special. In one part, Karsa found second Torvald, but more to liking of his old one. And secondly, finish of TtH slapped him hard. He saw that there are entities far superior in case Karsa is best - fight. As far as I remember, we left him in hard situation. His friend is ruined by THE climax and Karsa sees how some of his vows are so childish. Karsa still hangs to his former "big baaaad boy who can bring sky down" from external, but inside, he is faaaar beyond this. He met worthy and respectable non-Teblors, he met entities he could adore despite his fall of faith and most importantly - he sees that world has too many actual problems and fights to be worried by some bunch of uber-Teblor. And probably will take care even of them...

IMHO he will still got his "shattering chains" idea and vow, but what after freeing all chained Teblor, Toblakai etc? In this course he´ll make some big nation and took him far enough to be safe and close enough for not being in isolation (that degenerated Teblor to his former state).

[Circle Breaker]

Kind of in agreement with Grief here. While Karsa as a character is agonizingly slowly growing into a person worthy of some respect, the whole usage of him so far in the series seems to be just as an über-macho hero straight from a childrens cartoon, who always prevails, even if it doesn't make any sense. The few times he gets "defeated" is when someone surprises him and knocks him out of action for a while.

Reading about Karsa seems to just boil down to wondering how long it'll take for him to kill any new characters/beings introduced to demonstrate his superiority and how absurd the storylines get to keep coming up with more and more powerful things for Karsa to slay. My annoyance of it has come to the point where I've decided to stop reading the whole series, even though Erikson is my favourite author, if he goes on to casually defeating the cooler and seemingly much more powerful characters (Rake, QB, Bugg, Icarium, etc.) without even breaking a sweat.

Spoiler

Karsa does seem to grow quite a bit on TtH, or on the journey that takes place between the books, though and we finally witness a much-awaited scene where someone is clearly out of his league. So, maybe there's still some hope!

[champ]

Not read the whole thread yet but Karsa suplexing a Deragoth, need i say more... what a hero!