[Jimmy]

Grub talks to Keneb bout the man with the cut hands p564.

Is it Cartheron? 'The huge man - who rarely met anyone's eyes while talking, and whose massive hands and wrists were scarred and puckered with weals' p600

And what is Grub going on about when he say that he'll say 'yes'?

[Aptorian]

Jimmy;132913 said:

Grub talks to Keneb bout the man with the cut hands p564.

Is it Cartheron? 'The huge man - who rarely met anyone's eyes while talking, and whose massive hands and wrists were scarred and puckered with weals' p600

And what is Grub going on about when he say that he'll say 'yes'?

I'm not sure about the first one, but the last one has to eb Withal

[Abyss]

Withal and Foreigner are the same dude.

- Abyss, aka Abyss

[Jimmy]

I thought Foreigner was Cartheron?

[Dolorous Menhir]

Foreigner was the guy from the bar that Banaschar & Braven Tooth visited in several scenes - Banaschar spends a long time at one point thinking about how he has never met anyone with an accent like Foreigner's before. And at the end we find out Foreigner is Withal, the Meckros swordsmith from MT who made Rhulad's sword.

Cartheron Crust is Cartheron Crust, "Captain" from Kalam's boat trip in DG (the one he shared with Pearl, then known as Salk Elan), now captain of a different boat as of BH. Nothing to do with Foreigner/Withal.

[Onrack the breakable]

This is what I think the "yes" question refers to.

Something strange happened at the end of MT when Withal appears to escape from the CG after tearing the CGs squalid tent down then shaking the CG and calling him a pathetic little sh_t or something similar, the CG says "you will die", and then suddenly Withal is turned about and walking down to the boat that Mael steps off. Did Withal just usurp the CG? Did the CG posses Withal? Are they now one and the same or totally different entities? Note also that Withal never sees the CGs face when looking at him.

I think maybe Withal is actaully the CG now on the loose and Rulad is "enjoying" being chained in his place while also sitting his throne "deliciously". When Fiddler, Gesler, and Balm look though Fids new deck it shows the new high house of war with the CG as Deathslayer. Also there is a scene where Withal is in the bar pondering a question upon which his destiny will depend. Thus it may be that Withal is actually the real CG who just agreed to join the house of war when he said "yes" to Togg and Fanderay. Bottle says, "Togg and Fanderay and dammed castaways." just before he sets out to find Withal. And those castaways are sitting in the bar while Withal ponders his question. Also Bottles aunt Agayla says about helping find Withal is "help you save the world? Well, yes of course." Of course all this would also tend to suggest that Grub is either Mael, Togg, or K'rul and not just a bizarre little kid that knows the future.

I think there was alot going on with Withal back in MT and BH just made that murky situation more confused.

[Abyss]

Master plan junky that i am, i love the unlikely notion that the whole of MT resulted from the CG's diabolical plan to lure Mael into attacking him so he could go undercover in Withal's body.

- Abyss, mwa hah ha haa.

[Onrack the breakable]

Or maybe the CG really didnt do nothing and got the snot beat out of him by mael or maybe the CG flattened mael who then turns around and several days or weeks later gets his nose bloodied by the eresal. Who knows.

The nonevent was like back when Kulp is doing this and doing that then suddenly, fizzle and he's eaten by rats.

But there are more than a few times when Withal, the CG, and Rhulad all act sort of the same or seem to swap personalities. That may just be because SE has so many different characters doing so many blasted different things that he cant remember who's viewpoint hes writing or what that character is supposed to be doing.

Whats worse is having to wait 3 or 4 books to pick up part of the story started in an earlier book that was just left hanging open with stuff dropping out sorta like Stormys rear end.