[Wampyry]

I have just about finished DG in my second read thru Erikson"s books. Thought I would make a thread about one of my favorite characters in the book - Pearl. The scenario is thus...

Pearl & Lostara Yil are following Kalam through the Imperial Warren when they come upon a bruise in the warren vaguely door shaped. A complication, states Pearl. Assistance is required by Coltrane whose marines and Wickans are skirmishing with Semk & Tithansi. There is also a Semk demon whose power is unknown. Lostara agrees to help so both of them leave the warren and get involved in the skirmish separating for effectiveness. Lostara hears a sound to her left it is Pearl being chased by the Semk demon. The demon flings magic at Pearl & Lostara; they both go flying through the air. Lostara falls on her hip breaking it. Pearl comes beside her and places a knife in her hand. "Take yourself when I'm done. Here it comes." Pearl places himself between Lostara and the demon, holding knives that dripped red fire. Lostara knew he considered himself already dead.

Here is this gallant Claw opting to forego escape thru his warren to stay with his ally eventhough his gesture will certainly result in his death. Chivalry ain't dead! Erikson saves the day in the guise of Apt who kicks Semk-demon ass saving Pearl and Lostara. Apt, with her dolphin-like smile, looks at Pearl who whispers "thank you" and opens his warren taking Lostara with him. Pearl is truly a noble man.

[Topper]

I most sincerely agree, Pearl is definitely one of my favorite characters in the series; I love any and every part with him in it. He is extremely bad ass, and I whole heartedly agree that Pearl is, in truth, a noble man.

[Aptorian]

Noble? Really?

I'll agree that at times Pearl shows likeable personal characteristics. When he chooses to. The rest of the time he's a sneaky, arrogant backstabber.

Of course this is only Deadhouse gates, we see much more of him later.

[Wampyry]

Pearl was willing to give up his life so that his ally, Lostara, would not die in pain. Seems noble to me. No other characteristics are known as this junction in Erikson's epic tale. Can only hope that Pearl stays noble - everything else is up to Erikson.

[Battalion]

Well that's not completely true. Stabbing Kalam in the back and throwing him to the sharks was pretty damned ungentlemanly(a real word?) Apart from that though, I agree, Pearl's a bit of a gent.

[Dolorous Menhir]

Battalion, I don't think Wampyry has read that far yet. Either that or he/she has a shocking memory.

[Battalion]

I thought there might have been some confusion with the Pearl/Salk Elan thing.

However, Wampyry, please except my sorries if i've ruined bits for you, but I thought that you'd read the series before.

[Dolorous Menhir]

Battalion;225914 said:

I thought there might have been some confusion with the Pearl/Salk Elan thing.

However, Wampyry, please except my sorries if i've ruined bits for you, but I thought that you'd read the series before.

Actually, you are right, he says in the original post that this is his second re-read of the series. I think when he said "nothing bad up to this point" he literally meant the scene in DG he describes, and wasn't including all the bad stuff that Pearl as Salk Elan nearer the end of DG.

Personally, I think stabbing Kalam in the back outweighs defending Lostara Yil. That's Lostara Yil the homicidal Red Blade, remember, who killed a bunch of innocent people while following Kalam and shot Sha'ik Elder in the head. She's not a character I'd praise someone for helping.

[Aptorian]

But she's hot?!

Stabbing smelly assassin and saving hot tattoo woman.

They cancel each other out.

[Wampyry]

Battalion. No apology is necessary from your end. I apologize for misleading
you. I have read all 7 books.

Dolores, my memory is fair to lousy. What does Lastara's deeds have to do with Pearl's deeds?

Anyway, I can not even explain what I attempted to illustrate without using Spoilers. Since I don't know how to use the spoiler option, I quit here! Jim

[tharinock]

open spoiler tags by typing [ spoiler] without the space. speaking of spoiler tags, here is a bh spoiler that sheds some light at how ignoble pearl really is:

Spoiler

he shoots kalam with a poisoned quarrel, going against the claw's honor code just to save his sorry little ass

[Aptorian]

tharinock;226581 said:

open spoiler tags by typing [ spoiler] without the space. speaking of spoiler tags, here is a bh spoiler that sheds some light at how ignoble pearl really is:

Spoiler

he shoots kalam with a poisoned quarrel, going against the claw's honor code just to save his sorry little ass

Spoiler

It wasn't as much to save his ass, as to save his selfrespect. He just couldn't accept failing in his objective but even worse, living with the knowledge that Kalam was the better Assassin.

[Topper]

He stabs Kalam in the back? He's a Claw; what did you think he does? What you think he was trained to do?

[Dolorous Menhir]

You need to put an / before "s" in the last spoiler tag.

So it look like this:

[/spoiler]

[Wampyry]

Spoiler

Aptorian, Dolores, thank you. Think I got it.