[Illuyankas]

Now, I remember reading details of RG from an excerpt SE read out to a group of people, somewhere, some time ago (wow, my memory's good today...), in which the excerpt was from Nimander Golit's POV, and dealt with his, Phaed and their companion's voyage to, I think, Lether. It had Phaed being impatient, and Nimander's resignation about this, and I can't remember very much of the rest.

Except, Nimander referred to Phaed as his sister, not his daughter. So, we have this RG excerpt and the Draconean Family Tree saying Nimander is Phaed's brother, and Braven Tooth/whoever it was' word from TBH that he's Phaed's father. Which is he? And how awesome will he be inbook?

(I can see this thread going pretty much unused until April, but what the hey )

[Folken]

My memory is even better;)

To answer your question...the person that put the excerpt up said that before reading the passage SE mentioned that the "relations" between the characters are not as they would...bah i dunno how to put it basically its like calling a dear long friend your sister or someone of the same race your sister or brother...like that. He said that that is how the conversation was placed...the relations aren't exactly as stated.

[Illuyankas]

It wouldn't be SE if he wasn't confounding our every attempt of at least some level of comprehension at every available turn, now, would it? :ehh:

[Dark Mac]

From what I understood, Nimander Golit was Envy's son, and Phaed was the daughter of Envy and Nimander. So he's both Phaed's sister and her father.

[vaiski]

Here's the original thread for those interested: http://www.malazanem...read.php?t=4325

[Dolorous Menhir]

Perhaps it is Andii slang.

[Whelp]

Or perhaps it is similar to the Valheru of Feist (Darkness at Sethanon, if memory serves)...

[Abyss]

So this plotline really seemed to be all set-up for TtH more than anything, non?

I mean, we had a few pages of Nimander angsting about Phaed's anti-social tendencies, a brief ref to ALL the Drift Avalii Andii being fairly messed up, and then Withal kindly chucked Phaed out a window and that was it until Clip showed up, swingin' his bling-bling and claiming to be on a Mission For God/Mommy D.

I was a bit disappointed in the Phaed element of the story - at a minimum, she might have been an interesting insight into Envy and her connection to Rake. Moreover, consider the bloodline - she's allegedly Envy and Nimander's daughter (iirc) - Envy is 1/2 Elder god, and her granddad was Scabby, who may or may not have been the son of from MommyD and DaddyL, plus her mom, Sheltana, was draconic via her own mother, Tiam.

So with all this, EG, elemental force, mother of dragons, etc etc, she dies being chucked out a window? Wow, so much for bloodlines.

But i suspect there was a reason for the flaws in Rake's descendants, so the payoff, presumably in TtH, should be interesting.

- Abyss, notes he could say she was 'dephenestraeted'.

[Flawed]

I find it strange also as per Abysses amusing rambling's that neither Phaed or Nom were more powerful? For the love of actuals!! They should of at least been Soletaken Dragons if Rhud is anything to go by. I'm sure there was a passage in the refugium where someone stated that as the parentage is Draconian that Rhud would be a Soletaken Dragon too.

So what the fudge happened to Nom? I understand Phaed as she was Noms daughter and so the blood was well thin by then but not Nommander?

And perhaps Phaed's mentalisticalaliasation is down to her being well inbred?

Now surely I've hit on something, if not then at least a definite need for my made up word to be placed within the English dictionary.

WITNESS!

[Agraba]

Quote

They should of at least been Soletaken Dragons if Rhud is anything to go by. I'm sure there was a passage in the refugium where someone stated that as the parentage is Draconian that Rhud would be a Soletaken Dragon too.

If being an eleint soletaken is in the "bloodline", then genetically speaking, it is very possible for Rud to be an eleint soletaken, and for both Nimander and Phaed not to be.

[Lisheo]

I agree with Agraba, and Id like to add that maybe the fact that Rud's father was infected with Loquai Wyval blood had something to do with his inheritance of eleint powers.Perhaps the Soletaken abilitys are only passed on if both parents have eleint blood of some form?

[Agraba]

Lisheo;193561 said:

I agree with Agraba, and Id like to add that maybe the fact that Rud's father was infected with Loquai Wyval blood had something to do with his inheritance of eleint powers.Perhaps the Soletaken abilitys are only passed on if both parents have eleint blood of some form?

That would work backwards to the actual case. Because both Anomander and Envy are eleint. But Udinaas isn't eleint.

And now that I think on my comment, I am wrong. There can't be a single chromosome that accounts for the entire dragon form. You would need a giant set in order to account for that. The inconsistencies can be answered by the fact that two different species actually can't mate. But Steven Erikson breaks that rule. So for that, you can't actually form a logical explanation to why people of different 'bloodlines' are the way they are.

Also, I'm surprised that Erikson uses the term 'bloodlines' a lot, since that is a term frowned upon by anthropologists.

[Imperial Historian]

Envy has never been confirmed as having a soletaken draconean form as far as I'm aware, so logically udinass and menandore both having eleint (for udinass via the wyval) forms would lead to a soletaken dragon children, whereas loric, and nimander only have one parent with a soletaken form so are not draconean soletaken themselves.

[Giles]

but both of enys parents draconus and one of the sisters(cant remember which one atm) do have draconic forms so if she doesnt were back to the same argument but with a different person:p

[Imperial Historian]

*mutters*

Ok the explanation for that is either... the draconean gene (which is inevitably a gross simplification) is only one allele, and is dominant, and since draconus and sheltatha were both only soletaken they probably had the equivalent to one draconean gene and one not, so there is a chance they could have had a non-draconic child, and in the other cases where there is only one draconic gene, there is a chance for it not being passed on.

Or more likely it's to do with the splitting of selves which seems to be a very weird thing which happens to draconean sisters, the three sisters seem to have there selves mixed up, with bits of each other mixed up between them andii, liosan and edur(the splitting of selves ref'd in there conversation with osserc in MT), and envy and spite seem to have the same thing going on, with spite getting all the draconean bits (hence her scaly appearence) and envy getting the non-draconean bits.

[Dolorous Menhir]

It always amuses me when people get into big discussions of the genetics of Eleint Soletaken, when it's an acquired characteristic that probably shouldn't be passed on to offspring. Lamarck was so 19th century.

[Imperial Historian]

Heh, well clearly since it involves drinking blood it's some sort of genetic transfer

[Malaclypse]

Dolorous Menhir;193684 said:

It always amuses me when people get into big discussions of the genetics of Eleint Soletaken, when it's an acquired characteristic that probably shouldn't be passed on to offspring. Lamarck was so 19th century.

Ha! True. But Lamarckian genetics is not really what is at issue. It's not a matter of wearing high-necked collars in order to produce long-necked children is it? The fact that people tend to be born with 10 digits (edit: ten digits above the waist) more often than not was enough to shuffle that theory off to the graveyard of bad ideas. What if one parent is Soletaken Eleint and one is pure Eleint? Is the child a kind of Soletaken? Does it matter whether the Pure Eleint is the mother or the father? What if both parents are Soletaken? Does the process of becoming Soletaken affect one's genetic material to such a degree that it would be passed on to one's offspring? The case of Rud Ellale would strongly suggest that yes, it does. Menandore is the mother and Udinaas is the father. Is Menandore pure Eleint or Soletaken? or something in between? in any case, Udinaas is just a really intelligent human slave (if he turns out to be an Elder God in hiding, fine, I'll eat my words) so...Menadore is the Daughter of Osserc and Tiam right? So the first interesting question is: Is Osserc a pure Eleint or a Soletaken? There is a bit of evidence pointing to him being Soletaken but I don't think it matters either way...So...Tiam, Mother of all Dragons, mates with Osserc and produces Menandore...now, did Menandore have to drink Tiam's blood in order to acquire a draconic form? dunno, we're at another impasse. So let's err on the side of caution and say that she drank Tiam's blood in order to become Soletaken Eleint. This still leaves us with the fact that she mated with Udinaas to produce Rud...who is Soletaken...so either Menandore took him to drink Tiam's blood or the Soletaken Eleint 'gene' is passed on in normal sexual reproduction, at least from the maternal end. Personally, I think that Menandore is close to a 'pure' Eleint and that's why the trait was passed on...in the case of a Soletaken Eleint breeding with a non-Eleint - anybody's guess...two Soletaken Eleints breeding should produce Soletaken offspring, provided the trait is not recessive, in which case it's 50/50...unless, wait for it...SE isn't paying attention to any of this stuff, even though we know he is well aware of it. In which case he is evil

It will be interesting to see what happens with Rake's offspring

[Danyah]

We don't even know if Tiam is eleint, nor Draconus. They are both EG, elemental forces, no?

[Dawndeath]

Malaclypse;193703 said:

Is Osserc a pure Eleint or a Soletaken?

Well, he could semble and veer (as when with L'oric). Can Eleint do that? Haven't heard of any that could.

Remind me, who was L'oric's mother again? And was he a soletaken dragon?

Dolorous Menhir;193684 said:

It always amuses me when people get into big discussions of the genetics of Eleint Soletaken, when it's an acquired characteristic that probably shouldn't be passed on to offspring. Lamarck was so 19th century.

I don't think that's completely fair. When magic is involved in such a high degree, who knows how much of it 'carries through' to offspring.
Also, your use of 'probably': what's that based upon? Just curiosity.