[Thelomen Toblerone]

I thought their ability was more due to their devastating speed and supporting magic?

I would say that overwhelmingly superior speed and agility would certainly give them the edge, for example if you compare it to a swordfight- if one person is vastly experienced and able to deftly maneivre it with speed, whilst the other is sluggish and has trouble lifting it, even if there were 50 slow people, the quick one could conceivably kill them all.

[Onos]

I have little trouble believing in the power of the UNDEAD KChain. Projectiles are largely useless. They have speed. They have enough power i imagine so that their thrusts could not be stopped by most only deflected somewhat with skill. I understant their natural weapons are both sharp and tough. And the biggest one, they will fight on no matter what. In history 90% of people killed in battle transpire AFTER once side starts to route.

[Danno]

Its late, and I have some loopy crazy confused ideas, but, for what it's worth...

I thought the Imass might be meant to represent neanderthals in this series, or some early proto human. I know that applying laws of evolution to a fantasy series might be fruitless, but I think there are enough connections which Steven Erikson put in to warrent a further look. For instance, the cave paintings done with ocher blown over hands, the heavy brows of the Imass and their stout builds all seem to tie into an early form of humanity, as well as their flint weapons. Also, the warren of Telann seems to be a post ice age landscape, complete bone and hide shelters. I have no idea where this idea of the Imass as neanderthals or post humans fits in with the Jaghut and K Chain....

A second idea: when the first sword of the Imass became mortal once again at the end of Midnight Tides, he was basically indistinguishable from a Bargahst. I thought this might implythe Barghast were "present day" or "modern" neanderthals or early humans.

Anyways thats it. I love the series, cheers!

[Dolorous Menhir]

You are quite right Danno, I think SE has explicitly said the Imass are based on Neanderthals. The Eres are Homo Erectus or something earlier. SE is an anthropologist, the similarities are very deliberate. He's simply made the Imass much smarter than Neanderthals would have been.

And we know the Barghast are the descendants of seafaring Imass who didn't make it to the Ritual, so it's not surprising that Tool would appear Barghast to a modern observer. I always thought of Barghast as not just being tribal humans though, they're more animal-like in some ill-defined way.

[polishgenius]

longhorn;115087 said:

Based on what's been written, I think we can arrive at the following:

Jaghut + Imass = Thelomen
Jaghut + Thelomen = Jhag.

Where did we get that impression? I get Jaghut + Thelomen = Jhag, the female who's name I can't recall's remark to Karsa before they (probably) get jiggy, but the first one? I recall no evidence for that. I thought that Thelomen and Tartheno were just different versions of Toblakai, and a Jhag was anything half Jaghut.

[Abyss]

Keep in mind it's not so simple as every offspring of a specific racial pairing = a particular new race. That may be true for Jhags and then only, but if in fact the Bhargast are the result of the seafaring Imass who missed the Ritual getting their freak on with the T3s, the end result of the Bhargast race would have been the result of generations of interbreedings, including to various degrees... ie, an individual with an Imass and a T3 parent getting it on with an individual who had one T3 grandparent to beget a child who has some, but less, T3 blood.

In other words, 100 Imass and 100 T3s didn't just have to much wine one night and the subsequent offspring all went off and started calling themselves Barghast. This happened over an extended period of time.

And there's also a good chance that some human or Eres blood got in there too.

The descriptions of barghats typically include fangs and a heavier build than a human, hence they are described as another race. And to confuse things further, Bellurdan said in GotM that T3 have Jaghut blood.

- Abyss, always wanted to use 'beget' in a sentence.

[Dolorous Menhir]

Here's a question.

Are Jhags fertile?

(I'm thinking of mules here)

[Abyss]

Good question. Have we seen a 'part-Jhag'? Maybe one of QBs souls?

- Abyss, hee haw.

[SilchasRuin]

waaaay back in this topc ther was the tartheno,thelomen arguement i know its hardly relevant anymore but i just read it and then deicded 2 finish it if the arguemtn ahsnt already been finished

'Barghast, Trell, Tartheno Toblakai...these are the surviving threads of Imass blood, no matter their claims to purity. Such claims are inventions, yet inventions have a purpose. They assert distinction, they redirect the path walked before, and the path to come. They shape the emblems upon the standards in every war, and so give justification to slaughter. Their purpose, therefore, is to assert convenient lies- from during the ritual 2 release dejihm nebarahl

so just proves tartheno is a diluted form wheras thelomen must be the pure form which they derive from