[Sinisdar Toste]

thing is ebron says that karsa should be dead from the amount of magic hes using just to hold him in place

[Crop]

And wasn't that spell meant to capture wild Dhohabri in the seas?

[Dragnipurake]

Karsa does resist that spell from Ebron in that he doesn't die, but he also begins to break free from that spell till someone knocks him out. in any case that was quite early in his evolution.

[Dolorous Menhir]

Called-by-the-Voices;211234 said:

Yeah... This magic-immunity makes Karsa quite cool, but... Ebron took him out in HoC with a quite mundane spell..
So, he dodges Elder and Hold sorcery, and a Malazan Marine Mage can take him out with a simple spell? Hmm....

As Dragnipurake says, this incident was very early in Karsa's career. It's possible he was still only under the protection of the blood-oil in his system at that point, so a very strong human-warren spell did affect him.

The first concrete incidence of him surviving assault by an Elder Warren doesn't come until a significant period later, when he faces Binadas. It's very possible that his Toblakai warren became much stronger in that interval.

[Dag]

Dolorous Menhir;211281 said:

It's very possible that his Toblakai warren became much stronger in that interval.

If the strength of his warren (at least partially) depends on the souls chained to him, that would be a plausible explanation. He has killed quite a few people during that time...

And not just people. Sry if this has been discussed somewhere else, but... What happened to the two Deragoth he killed? Are their souls now also a part of his creepy collection?

[Dolorous Menhir]

Unknown. There haven't been many clear references to the chained souls that follow Karsa in the last two books, have there?

Anyway, I wasn't under the impression that the clinging souls of his victims were a source of strength to him. More likely the opposite.

[polishgenius]

Iirc, it's heavily implied that Karsa's soul-carrying is related in some way to his vow-happy nature? Or at least to his intensity of will or some such. I'm not sure why I got that impression, but I have. Can anyone give me any clues as to why I have it?


There's certainly no hint of it being connected to his warren.



That said, was Karsa's faceoff with Binadas all that much later than the one with Ebron? A little while yes, but I got the impression his real evolution into monstritude occurred during and after staying in Raraku...

[Dolorous Menhir]

polishgenius;211291 said:

That said, was Karsa's faceoff with Binadas all that much later than the one with Ebron? A little while yes, but I got the impression his real evolution into monstritude occurred during and after staying in Raraku...

There was the long period of imprisonment by the Malazans, the strange scene where chains from the sky destroyed the ship he was on (Did Karsa call them? Was it an early example of his power?), his journey through the Nascent until he found the Silanda.

It's really not easy to tell from the story exactly how long an interval that was, since Karsa wasn't 100% during it, but I'm inclined to say that the ordeal may have contributed to a growth in his powers. A forced growth, perhaps.

I agree with you that his time at Raraku and the trip to the Jhag Odhan were very important stages in his burgeoning power, but that process certainly began before he met Leoman in that Malazan prison.

[Called-by-the-Voices]

Dolorous Menhir;211281 said:

As Dragnipurake says, this incident was very early in Karsa's career. It's possible he was still only under the protection of the blood-oil in his system at that point, so a very strong human-warren spell did affect him.

The first concrete incidence of him surviving assault by an Elder Warren doesn't come until a significant period later, when he faces Binadas. It's very possible that his Toblakai warren became much stronger in that interval.

Hm.. Yeah, you could have a point there... IMHO, his magic resistance could come as a racial trait, or through his physical constitution, not necessarily through his pocket-warren.

As for the Binadas-Ebron showdown. I dunno how much time passed between the two, but can it be that drastic that Karsa was able to advance from spell-resistance-that-can-still-be-fucked-by-strong-warren-spell to spell-resistance-that-CAN-fuck-up-an-elder-warren?Your thoughts?

[Dancer+]

Maybe the strength of immunity in this case was more of a leap than a progression of sorts. Some event between these two instances could of caused a giant leap of sorts. Like his stay in captivity amongst the malazans etc.

It's also worth considering that Karsa's immunity could be more substantial against certain defences and less so against others.

[Aptorian]

Somehow we've come to the conclusion that Elder Magic, that being Holds, is more dangerous than New Magic, that being Houses, because Ottataral doesn't work or is less effective against Holds.

Can anyone remember where Ottatarals effect on Holds is discussed. I can't but I have a sneaking suspicion that it's only been mention in relation to T'lan Imass and their tricks.

T'lan Imass, and to an extent also their magic, aren't normal holds magic. Even 300.000 years ago what they did was exceptional and down right scary. They're litterally undead killing machines made to suffer and survive powerfull Jaghut rituals. If Tool's trick in GotM isn't just a GotM'ism they are walking warren killers themselves.

This doesn't mean that any holds magic will defeat bloodoil or Ottataral. A random, avarage holds mage isn't necessarily able to make anything that will be better at defeating Ottataral.

Somehow I also think we're back at an older Ottataral discussion. How old is it? Is it a product of Kru'lls tampering and there fore a new element or was it around back in the Elder Times. Is Ottataral then the product of the O-Dragon? The possible Child of Terror. Maybe it wasn't, but then the question is what was used or created in the Elder Times when huge amounts of magic was unleashed? Nothing? Is this just a hole in our knowledge of the times of the Holds?

[cerveza_fiesta]

I don't really like the idea of Karsa's pocket warren at the moment because this was only mentioned in general about the toblakai race once in one of the books. There's really no evidence that it helps him resist magic or, in fact, do anything.

Imo, its more to do with a manifestation of the will. That topic is brought up and discussed so much between emroth and Hedge when they're wandering around in whatever-warren/hold-it-was. With Karsa's ridiculous abundance of will, it just seems to make sense.

[Dolorous Menhir]

cerveza_fiesta;211434 said:

I don't really like the idea of Karsa's pocket warren at the moment because this was only mentioned in general about the toblakai race once in one of the books. There's really no evidence that it helps him resist magic or, in fact, do anything.

No, it was specific to Karsa. The Destriant of the Grey Helms was in the room on the Silanda where Karsa fought Binadas, a battle in which Karsa resisted the magic of a KE-using mage, and he said that he detected the warren of the Toblakai there.

It wasn't some general "oh, by the way, the Toblakai of old sometimes had personal warrens". It was "one of the participants in this battle was a Toblakai with a personal warren, and you, the reader, well know that we are talking about Karsa and his ability to resist magic".

[Kurt Montandon]

Aptorian;211416 said:

Somehow we've come to the conclusion that Elder Magic, that being Holds, is more dangerous than New Magic, that being Houses, because Ottataral doesn't work or is less effective against Holds.

Can anyone remember where Ottatarals effect on Holds is discussed. I can't but I have a sneaking suspicion that it's only been mention in relation to T'lan Imass and their tricks.

I believe it's when Kalam is studying the otataral knife in HoC, after he makes it into Raraku. And we still haven't found out the secret of what happens when you use magic against hot otataral.

There's also a line somewhere that says otataral "frequently fails against Elder magic," which I would think implies it doesn't always fail.

And it's still not certain that Chaos would fall under Elder magic in this case - otataral is entropic, and that would make it the opposite of Chaos.

[cerveza_fiesta]

Dolorous Menhir;211534 said:

No, it was specific to Karsa. The Destriant of the Grey Helms was in the room on the Silanda where Karsa fought Binadas, a battle in which Karsa resisted the magic of a KE-using mage, and he said that he detected the warren of the Toblakai there.

It wasn't some general "oh, by the way, the Toblakai of old sometimes had personal warrens". It was "one of the participants in this battle was a Toblakai with a personal warren, and you, the reader, well know that we are talking about Karsa and his ability to resist magic".

aah, I see. All I could find was the original quote from HoC on Encyclopedia Malazica. The quote is comletely out of context of course and I thought it was an in-passing remark from somebody. Makes more sense with the background info.

Still doesn't explain the resistance entirely...but its a trivial thing to dispute really. There's enough other things that make way less sense to discuss in MBotF. Thanks for the insight.

[cerveza_fiesta]

kmmontandon;211536 said:

I believe it's when Kalam is studying the otataral knife in HoC, after he makes it into Raraku. And we still haven't found out the secret of what happens when you use magic against hot otataral.

There's also a line somewhere that says otataral "frequently fails against Elder magic," which I would think implies it doesn't always fail.

And it's still not certain that Chaos would fall under Elder magic in this case - otataral is entropic, and that would make it the opposite of Chaos.

entropy equals chaos to a certain extent...definitely not the opposite.

"Entropy, historically, has often been associated with the amount of order, disorder, and/or chaos in a thermodynamic system. The traditional definition of entropy is that it refers to changes in the status quo of the system and is a measure of "molecular disorder" and the amount of wasted energy in a dynamical energy transformation from one state or form to another."

That's a pretty good definition from wikipedia. Its in the section past where they describe its use in thermodynamics.

The amount of entropy is basically the amount of energy that can't be used to do useful work in a system during a transformation. Your body for instance is a huge entropy generator. Metabolizing food requires energy and generates a lot of heat, which radiates out through your skin. That heat energy is non-useful in the metabolism process and is wasted. You would therefore call heat the entropic part of the metabolism reaction. It's disordered energy that can't be specifically used in metabolism.

[Vaddon Ra]

I know this is a well old post but I just had a thought about willpower and progression as relates to Karsaas Magic resistance. When he's on the ship starving and delerious and the chains start tearing the place up doesn't Torvald Nom wake Karsa up because he's somehow causing it? I kinda thought perhaps that with such a closeness to death and the crippled god Karsa's natural Warren could have been suddenly massively boosted and then, seeing as he's one of the very few to escape that event, meets Binadas he can shrug off some elder magic due to his whole body being enhanced through both ottataral, a natural warren of blissful ignorance and a closeness to the house of chains, which in itself is anethema to all magic...

It's been a while since I read HOC so I could be totally wrong but I figured in this case the inconsistency was too big a one for SE not to have an answer for.

Ot it could just be simply that if you have ten pounds and Karsa has 5 pounds... Karsa has more money than you..

[the broken]

Was Binadas using Kurald Emurlahn? Or was he using the Crippled God's warren? If the latter, does that qualify as Elder Magic?

[worry]

Binadas uses a fragment of Shadow that the Edur have access to, but Emurlahn is shattered so it's not that. And it is tainted by the Crippled God (ie chaos), more-so by the time of RG than MT.

[the broken]

worrywort, on 22 February 2013 - 09:42 PM, said:

Binadas uses a fragment of Shadow that the Edur have access to, but Emurlahn is shattered so it's not that. And it is tainted by the Crippled God (ie chaos), more-so by the time of RG than MT.

Oops. Silly mistake. But now Binadas is inconclusive evidence, because we know from Tavore's otataral sword v Sha'ik's warren in HOC, that shattered fragments of Shadow are at least somewhat susceptible to otataral.


When he was on the ship, I figured the lightning was the CG acting to protect his knight. So that leaves only the Tellann Wards as possible Elder Magic failing against Karsa, I think.