Malazan Empire: Tehol's near death scene- what did you think? - Malazan Empire

(sorry if this has come up before- i did search and couldnt find anything!)

Im currently reading The Wolves of the Calla, and there have been a few moments through the Dark Tower series where ive been 'amazed' at what ive read- not many books have done this. By 'amazed' im encompasing anything that makes me shut the book and think 'damn, i cant believe that'... for whatever reason.

Steven donaldson's Covenant/Lena rape scene is still probably the 'best' example for me.

MBOTF has had its fair share of these moments too.. noteably the death of whiskeyjack / the other bridgeburners (but mainly whiskeyjack), or when tavore kills her sister.. the whole theme of the book cumilating in that 1 moment, and she didnt even realise it.

But the scene with tehol getting battered by those Edur warriors (inc the one, cant remeber his name, was it midick buhn? i know i didnt like him much) and being left for dead, especially when that old guy trys to beg for mercy and gets some of the same, was a real 'shut-the-book' shock. Maybe its just me, but was the violence in that scene the most grafic in the book? if so, do you think it was intentional? i thought it was probably the most graphic description- knowing that tehol is 'harmless' and wouldnt stand a chance against 1 edur adds to the situation. Even right at the end he isnt cowardly and trys to crack a joke- but still gets beaten to death (practically). I like the way Erikson doesnt go into much detail about the way those Brothers (the ones gaurding tehol) are murdered, leaves all the more sickening details for the tehol death scene!


For me this beat the Itkovian thing whcih it seems a lot of people thought was the most moving scene in any of the books... what do you think?


one more thing thinking about it- the way tehol gets right to the end, scheming his way through the book and surviving, only to get the bad luck right at the finale to be faced with the edur- especially as he was only trying to help mayen- also adds to the unfairness that he was gonna be murdered