[Abyss]

...so i'm rereading the series, since it's been about 2 years or so (so i'm an addict - leave me alone), and i'm cruising along through the ever famous 'first 200' of GotM, when i arrive at the rooftop exchange between Tayshrenn and Tattersail, i believe just before 'Sail does a reading at Tays request

The discussion turns to High House Shadow, and they mention that
the House is relatively new, or a new form of something old; and, the House may not have yet reached its final shape - all good, this basically reflects things we know from elsehints.

But the REALLY interesting comment is from Tattersail, loosely paraphrased as:

'High House Shadow may not survive. There have been many other short-lived Houses in the past.'

And this triggered my forum-reflex - does anyone recall, anywhere in any book, a ref to earlier House no longer in existance? Not Holds - Holds are an old form in an old pantheon, i mean actual Houses?

- Abyss, speculating on housing...

[Mentalist]

Ummm.. phrase like that does come to mind... might be Silverfox & Paran in MoI, or Paran and Ganath in tBH... somehting that was more focused on ascendants, but also involved houses...

[Kurt Montandon]

Abyss;239962 said:

.
But the REALLY interesting comment is from Tattersail, loosely paraphrased as:

'High House Shadow may not survive. There have been many other short-lived Houses in the past.'

And this triggered my forum-reflex - does anyone recall, anywhere in any book, a ref to earlier House no longer in existance?

I wonder if this is a GotM-ism, and should be viewed as meaning that there have been a lot of positions of Ascendancy that haven't survived. Like all the tiles that Paran saw during his first trip into the Azath.

Of course, the whole "High House" thing seems to have fallen by the wayside to begin with ... I wonder if there was supposed to have been more to the difference between "High" Houses and the ordinary kind, but Erikson just decided it wasn't an important enough concept to develop further.

A further possibility is that he's not talking about the Houses themselves, he's talking about the gods in charge of said Houses. Sort of like "governments" in the U.K. & France, where a "government" is spoken of to have fallen, when the government, the MPs themselves, and the Parliament itself is still there, but new people have the important titles, and maybe a few Ministers didn't win their elections. Various different gods may have had their "term" as, say, King of High House Light, until they were overthrown, killed, or walked away. And their specific rulership might be considered a different High House Light, in and of itself.

Edit: To elaborate on that last part, keep in mind it's reliant upon my view that reference to the "House" is not necessarily the same as reference to the realm that House is aspected to. Thus, "High House Shadow" refers not to the realm of Shadow, but to its rulers. It seems that when characters talk about "House Shadow" and "House Light" and whatnot, they seem to be referring more to the Ascendants filling the various roles within that House, rather than the associated warren.

So to Tayschrenn's way of thinking, there may have been a dozen different High Houses of Shadow, all of them aspected to the realm of Shadow, taking roughly the same form, and being referred to with the same title, but nevertheless separate.

[Coco with marshmallows]

inclined to agree with kmmontandon.

having said that, there have been claims made on Shadow before, so who's to say that the houses that failed in the past weren't, at least occasionally, shadow? i.e. sumascendant#1 became shadowthrone, moved shadow into the high houses, failed, and so the house became inactive again.

then there's the whole 'house of war' thing too.

[Kurt Montandon]

Cocoreturns;239967 said:

having said that, there have been claims made on Shadow before, so who's to say that the houses that failed in the past weren't, at least occasionally, shadow?

Actually, because of what we learned in Night of Knives, Shadow was exactly the realm I had in mind.

[Clip]

I think that what Tattersail meant was that Houses get forgotton and left behind, like fads. ie: a new house shows up, High House Bacon, it's really popular for a while and it is considered a "must-have" for new decks. But then someone new shows up, or it just goes out of style and is forgotton. It's members fade into obscurity and die.

[Gem Windcaster]

Meh, as with most random comments in GotM, we have no way of knowing what Tattersail meant. There are just guesswork left, is my guess. Intriguing comment though, as are most GotMisms.

[wintermute]

I don't have any evidence of houses disappearing, but house of chains (I believe that's the name) was just added to the deck, so it makes sense that houses could leave it as well.
I also agree with the idea of "governments" of houses changing. The two are compatible, and the mass of chained ascendents in the Warren of Shadow who tried to possess it suggests that coups can be quite frequent.

[Abyss]

expanding on Wintermute's point, HHShadow is acknowledged as 'new', and in the span of the books, House of Chains and the 'new' Beast House/Hold came into play.

On the one hand, this could be a function of the unusual time period, but on the other hand, there is certainly grounds for other powers, now gone, to have brought their own Houses into power, only to be taken out by opposition, ascendent or otherwise.

By example, Dryhnja tried to create a House of the Whirlwind based on a loose chunk of KE and failed.

- Abyss, will House you...

[Mentalist]

Then there's also a House of War... . even though it's heavily related to the Beast Hold

[Optimus Prime]

Then there is also House of Payne, the terrible Tyler Perry show on TBS that somehow hasn't disappeared yet.

All jokes aside,
who knows how many houses have existed? I mean we know so little of the history of the warrens/houses in the period from when the HOLDS lost majority and the beginning of GotM....so who knows?

There could 100s, or 1000s

[Mentalist]

There were thousands, if not millions of Ascendants in History... I'm sure some of them had to get themselves into a position of enuff power to form a House....

[Optimus Prime]

Yeah there could have been a house of boogers for all we know

High House Flatulence

[Spindrift]

Abyss;240183 said:

Dryhnja tried to create a House of the Whirlwind based on a loose chunk of KE and failed.

This was the first thing that sprang to mind when i read the OP.
Perhaps Apocalypse was a house, before it collapsed back into a cult. It was certainly reaching (again?) for that position.

All of the unaligned could have been positions in once active houses.

[raest]

I vaguely recall in MoI when Paran first goes into his Master of the Deck-world, he notes that there are lots (hundreds?) of empty/discarded/dead (not sure about the exact terminology) Houses.

Or is my memory deceiving me?

Random speculation: maybe at (some of) the chainings the power of some gods/Ascendents are used up, thus killing them, leading to the death of a House.

[Aptorian]

was that cards? Sure it wasn't the mention of the thousands o azaths existing in hundreds of worlds?

Your suggestion could mean that the house system along with the holds exists in all worlds and it would be a definete connection between the warrens and the azaths.

[Lisheo]

Does that mean there is an Azath of Chains?
Did the Letheras Azath die because its High House died somewhere?

[Aptorian]

I only think the Azaths are connected to "real" elements. Of course after Cotillions little ramble, who says pain isn't an element.

[Lisheo]

Haha that was such an irratating ramble, it totally turned around my opinions of magic and warrens... But if theres a High House, surely there must be an element?

[Aptorian]

No, the house was just something an ascendant made, an element is something that should have existed since the dawn of time and before.