[Dolorous Menhir]

The author made a point of noting that Beak was on one of the transports out at sea during the Malaz City riots in BH, and large portions of the Bonehunter army have really never seen any action until RG. So it's easily to believe Beak never did anything except walk from place to place and hang around a boat until then.

I do wonder what he was up to when the Edur were preparing to wipeout the Malazan fleet and QB was the only one to stand against them. He must've been on one of those ships.

[GardenGnome]

Thing is, before he was placed with the Captain he thought he was worthless, more or less. He never realised he was that powerful, therefore he probably didn't think he'd be any help against the Edur mages. Atleast, that's how I viewed him.

[phart]

Oh Beak of course would never have thought himself as anything but useless, the character is wonderfully written as always, its just the fact that evrytime we see hold magic now, im just going to expect some recently introduced weirdish mage to deal with it now, as it has become something of a trend.

[blewin]

uh, so the 14th has some great mages hiding around. First it's Bottle, then Sinn, now Beak, I wonder how many more they've.. all those talents nobody ever suspects.

just enough to get out of a tight spot.

yeah, brilliantly written, and I felt so sad at Beak's death! but I just couldn't help with it. Beak. There to defeat 7 mages? A bit convenient, isn't it?

[kaf09]

blewin;186361 said:

uh, so the 14th has some great mages hiding around. First it's Bottle, then Sinn, now Beak, I wonder how many more they've.. all those talents nobody ever suspects.

just enough to get out of a tight spot.

yeah, brilliantly written, and I felt so sad at Beak's death! but I just couldn't help with it. Beak. There to defeat 7 mages? A bit convenient, isn't it?

The Malazan army did have a tradition of squad mages rising up through the ranks, A'karonys, Tattersail, Quick Ben?

[Blacksox]

I for one really liked Beak and thought the hold candle thing was a very interesting perspective or approach to Malazan magic.

Their are a great many things in RG I found over the top like how Quich Ben who a few books ago did not even have enough raw power to even be considered a combat mage. Now all of a sudden he can just stomp a mud hole in three Eleint Soletaken without braking a sweat. I loved the books but their are many characters that have been powered up to a miraculous extent.

But I really feel the character and story of beak pretty well written IMO.

[drinksinbars]

i think people are conveniently missing a few glaring truths about the book. For one when we meet bottle early on he mentions that all of the squad mages have spent the guts of the year at sea learning now warrens to be used in the invasion. Many of them are minor shamans or warlocks and are forced by tavore to become something she can use.

beak is portrayed throughtout the book as something broken, a common thread in eriksons novels, and it is the trust and the need displayed by his cohorts as the book progresses that drive him to do that which he fears most. He has only ever used his power once before when he killed everyone at his home, and is afraid of his own power.

Toward the end another mage tells him to reign in his power, but beak knows its too late for that, and while the letherii have spent days preparing a holds ritual between seven of them, none are a ceda and beak has been preparing for weeks with the captain in anticipation of what he has foreseen and he is a high mage.

as for the convenience of sinn and bottle, well bottle was a mage in the 14th, but sinn only joined them when the ashock regiment joined them, she was a seven cities native used and turned by one the mages(cant memeber her name) in shaik's army.

Most importantly, one of the stable methods of writing a story or book is to introduce an element at the start and develop it for a pay off down the line. all books and movie and tv shows use this tactic, so why shouldnt erikson??

[polishgenius]

drinksinbars;186390 said:

Most importantly, one of the stable methods of writing a story or book is to introduce an element at the start and develop it for a pay off down the line. all books and movie and tv shows use this tactic, so why shouldnt erikson??

That's exactly the point here. Beak got one whole mention before his role here, and that was a namecheck at the end of BH. Which I didn't even spot. Nothing was said about him to develop from.



Sinn, I'm with you, she's been around since Deadhouse Gates, but Beak came out of almost nowhere.

[drinksinbars]

polishgenius;186391 said:

That's exactly the point here. Beak got one whole mention before his role here, and that was a namecheck at the end of BH. Which I didn't even spot. Nothing was said about him to develop from.



Sinn, I'm with you, she's been around since Deadhouse Gates, but Beak came out of almost nowhere.

maybe so, but he was introduced early in this book.

itkovian anyone? he was a character introduced and then killed. Kulp?? lorn?? gruntle?? not to mention the hull, or binadas, or even tomad and uruth in a way. chracters are introduced, used then thrown away. much like life.

[polishgenius]

They weren't however obviously introduced purely to deal with an otherwise insurmountable problem - namely here, the Letherii sorcery. There's a lot of characters that if you actually analyse them are only really there for one pivotal point in the plot and can then fade away or be disposed of, but the others either are not obvious well in advance or are used to impact on other plot threads, even if they're not strictly necessary there, to give them some depth. Beak, likeable as the little guy was, just wanders about a bit, building his magical reputation with us, then goes all uber and dies.

[blewin]

polishgenius;186432 said:

Beak, likeable as the little guy was, just wanders about a bit, building his magical reputation with us, then goes all uber and dies.

yeah, that's pretty much it. But my, what wonderful magic. Magic that lit everyone up and made them all transparent. That scene when Fid invited the Edur to join made Fid look like some angel from heaven... :angel:

whereas Bottle is vastly different. SE spent the whole BH building him up, and from Fid's observation, looks like Bottle has some really big nasty convergence waiting for him in future books!

[Dolorous Menhir]

polishgenius;186391 said:

Sinn, I'm with you, she's been around since Deadhouse Gates, but Beak came out of almost nowhere.

There's a large part of the Bonehunter army that has never seen action, and never been front-and-centre in the books. If you think about it, all we've seen are a few squads around Fiddler, and the high command (Fists, Adjunct).

SE could introduce tons of new characters from all the other sections of the army that didn't fight at Y'Ghatan or Malaz City.

[caladanbrood]

blewin;186361 said:

yeah, brilliantly written, and I felt so sad at Beak's death! but I just couldn't help with it. Beak. There to defeat 7 mages? A bit convenient, isn't it?

Nitpick: He didn't defeat anyone. Well, not in that battle, anyway - the Letherii mages were destroyed by their own ritual. Beak just deflected their magic.
Well, and "purified" a bucket-load of miserable marines, sure;)

[blewin]

uh, I need to reread that part!

I don't quite get that purification bit... the body or soul? and am I right that all the marines now have white beard and hair?

Dolorous Menhir;186472 said:

There's a large part of the Bonehunter army that has never seen action, and never been front-and-centre in the books. If you think about it, all we've seen are a few squads around Fiddler, and the high command (Fists, Adjunct).

SE could introduce tons of new characters from all the other sections of the army that didn't fight at Y'Ghatan or Malaz City.

makes sense, but let's hope he doesn't do that often, (not a chance I guess, since there're only 3 more books to go) it.... unsettles.

[caladanbrood]

blewin;186495 said:

uh, I need to reread that part!

I don't quite get that purification bit... the body or soul? and am I right that all the marines now have white beard and hair?

Except Gesler and Stormy, it would seem that way. Not sure about souls though... they didn't seem all that pure when cutting their way through Letheras I imagine there are more revelations to come regarding that, if it was more than just physical.

[blewin]

uh, for sure! man... that scene, everything revealed, was just so damn eerie and beautiful at the same time. Trust SE to come up with such a contradictory scene that makes you wanna run and cry in fear and wonder.

hey, it'd have been great if we got a line from Hedge saying wide-eyed stupid 'All white crazy soldiers!'

[Obdigore]

Do none of you remember when Bottle says something like 'the damaged ones always seem to come to magic easier'?

I see Beak as almost autistic, but instead of being amazing at Math, he is amazing at Sorcery.

Remember, he had servents teach him EVERY (apparently) Warren.

[Anomander Rake]

Obdigore;186577 said:

Do none of you remember when Bottle says something like 'the damaged ones always seem to come to magic easier'?

I see Beak as almost autistic, but instead of being amazing at Math, he is amazing at Sorcery.

Remember, he had servents teach him EVERY (apparently) Warren.

Well said, if we look at Sinn, she seems to be damaged, yet very powerful. I wonder if we can list more mages that fit into this category, though then I guess we need to be careful to differentiate between insane and those who are or have been genuinely damaged in some way or other.

hmm, I wonder if one of the souls in Quick Ben is such a character.

[BridgeBurner]

Anomander Rake;186650 said:

Well said, if we look at Sinn, she seems to be damaged, yet very powerful. I wonder if we can list more mages that fit into this category, though then I guess we need to be careful to differentiate between insane and those who are or have been genuinely damaged in some way or other.

hmm, I wonder if one of the souls in Quick Ben is such a character.

I don't think so. The damaged characters who became uber-mages had at least more than one warren at their disposal.

As far as I read, QB has 12 warrens, each from 1 singular soul he got, including his own.
In comparison: Beak had 12 warrens by himself...

[Dolorous Menhir]

The Otataral-crazed mage from DG was wielding huge power, sufficient to damage the realms. Presumably he wasn't capable of that pre-insanity.

edit: and the second example is Hairlock. His growing insanity and power went hand in hand.