[Raraku]

the enimity between spite and envy i think has more to do with draconius(sp) cause envy just sat back even though he was the favoured daughter
Nimander is envy and anomanders son that is the reason envys revenge thing could work. in MOI Mhybe thinks that ascendency is born out of experience maybe some kids just need time or enough expirience to show their soletaken powers. with rud living with the imass and constant vists from his mother may have been enough cause doesnt seem like anomander spent too much time with his kids so maybe a matter of the right influence as well

[Sinisdar Toste]

the old nature vs nurture debate appears to have reared its head once more.

i like the idea that clip has an inkling of this and he's taking the brood to their father to see if anyone will suddenly "blossom" into a soletaken eleint and attack rake, so clip doesn't have to.

[Urb]

Hmm.. good point there Sinisdar Toste. Andarist refused his draconean blood. I guess Nimander could have done the same (why he would do that I don't know).

@Raraku
Envy's revenge would still work if Nimander was not her son. He would still be Anomander Rake's son.

[tiam]

Wry;254888 said:

Ok, this is being touched upon on various threads at the moment, so i thought i'd start one just to finally try to pin down the connections.

We all know the T'lan regarded the First Empire as their children/successors, i'm assuming they watched them evolve from imass to human, untill the two races gradually started to diverge. We know that the FE used a huge ritual to try to create an easier way for people to become soletaken, and that the Imass felt the need to step in and clean up the mess. I think we're all pretty much agreed that they didn't just to stop the creation of more potential super powerful adversaries, and that they felt some obligation/responsibility to help the FE.

Ok. Consider then the imass.
Their bonecasters are soletaken, and are the only warren users among them right? i imagine this is more than a coincidence, that the act of learning to access tellann involves some ritual that creates the soletaken ability. It is also implied that the bonecaters don't just use Tellan as a human mage might, i.e. cracking it open and using the power that leaks out, but that they are joined with their warren at a much deeper level. This could lead to the assumption that joining with tellann, which could concievably be/be connected to the beast hold, is what gave the ability to take a beasts form. this may also help explain the lack of a current beast warren when all the rest of the imass joined in the ritual and sucked tellann dry. And also why bonecasters seem imortal, well the one mortal one we've found (excepting silverfox of course)

Fast forward then to post ritual imass, off fighting their wars and in the off time looking in on their mortal cousins, generations pass, imass become more human and lose their imass nature. Their imortal guardians pop by every so often, packed full of with ancient knowledge. The FE empire tries to emulate the bonecaster ritual, but there is no Tellann to join with so they use a spare chunk of KE. The T'lan were horrified at the ritual going awry, and the perversion of their ancient ways (i magine the boncaster ritual was, like everything imass, very much about being one with the land - the FE ritual was about gaining power) so they put it down hard.

Anyone see any glaring holes in this?

Quite like it and have thought about this myself many a time. Theres a quote somewhere (possibly said by Apsalars Father in DG) in which he says the FE was put down by the Imass because of guilt. This adds to your theory that the Imass BOnecasters had given the FE the skills needed to become soletaken and having seen it ruin there empire decided to mop what they saw as their mess.

I am in serious need of a reread as i have been readin Feist since christmas and have covered the conclave of shadows trilogy and the first 2 darkwar books as well as all the dark tower novels since i last picked up any malaz so i may be off.

[Sinisdar Toste]

Urb;258221 said:

Hmm.. good point there Sinisdar Toste. Andarist refused his draconean blood. I guess Nimander could have done the same (why he would do that I don't know).

@Raraku
Envy's revenge would still work if Nimander was not her son. He would still be Anomander Rake's son.

and andarist was probably the biggest influence on nimander, being that they had been guarding the throne together for hood knows how long.

nimander could have denied tiams blood in him.

[Zanth13]

Sinisdar Toste;259173 said:

and andarist was probably the biggest influence on nimander, being that they had been guarding the throne together for hood knows how long.

nimander could have denied tiams blood in him.

so that begs the question, if he refused can he "un-refuse it" to get a huge power up??

sounds interesting

[pastures]

hmm. who says Nimander has dragon blood in him? we dont know how (if it can be) it is passed on to children. so we dont know if he has any dragon blood. and we dont know when he was born. he could be born before Rake became Soletaken.

[Zanth13]

pastures;259322 said:

hmm. who says Nimander has dragon blood in him? we dont know how (if it can be) it is passed on to children. so we dont know if he has any dragon blood. and we dont know when he was born. he could be born before Rake became Soletaken.

we dont, and he probably doenst, but we were going off on a "what if" tangent... and nots impossible to think if he is a son of a elient that he would have it in him... whats her names son had it...the one living in the dream/death world thingy majiger

[Aptorian]

Menandore and Rud Elalle.

And you would think that two soletaken eleint would be able to spawn another Soletaken Eleint but perhaps Rake just has weak sperm.

[pastures]

but the bloody ability to change into a dragon is in the DRAGON's blood. there's no reason to think that the dragon's blood is passed on through procreation....

of course, if it's a magical link, then i can see how. hmmm. proves my point i guess.

that said, if its magical, then obviously offspring inherit varying degrees of magical power.

[Zanth13]

pastures;259431 said:

but the bloody ability to change into a dragon is in the DRAGON's blood. there's no reason to think that the dragon's blood is passed on through procreation....

of course, if it's a magical link, then i can see how. hmmm. proves my point i guess.

that said, if its magical, then obviously offspring inherit varying degrees of magical power.

well ones "blood" is passed on to offspring.... actually...hereditary traits and what not... and we have already seen that a dragon Soletaken can be born... Rud Elalle.... this doesnt guarantee that a spawn of a soletaken dragon will be a soletaken dragon but does mean it can happen...

there is no reason to think that it cannot happen... when we have already seen that it can

[pastures]

the dragons blood is the dragons blood. theres no way it can mix with the drinker's blood unless its a magical link. the point is that it has to be MAGIC, not blood per se. the blood of dragons is magic incarnate.

[D'rek]

The only case of getting the ability from your parents is Rud Elalle, getting it from his Soletaken mother. Whether the wyval in Udinaas made any difference is debatable.

We don't know for sure who Nimander's mother is. If it is Envy, we also don't know for sure she is a Soletaken-Eleint.

Too many factors to know for sure if Nimander "should" be eleint soletaken or not.

[Sinisdar Toste]

its pretty sure that envy is nimanders mother, and if you look at it hereditarily, envys the product of draconus and sheltatha, two soletaken eleint, unless theres is a choice on the part of one or all three, envy would have to be just as soletaken as spite.
the choice part is what we really have no idea about, cuz if andarist could do it, who else could?
in any case looking at it that way again with nimander reveals the same thing.

[D'rek]

Yes there is a good chance Envy is soletaken eleint, but we don't know for sure...

well I think the whole Andarist=eleint bit is circumspect too. Andarist asks if Rake has renounced his dragonness, and that Rake would look old like Andarist if such. This does not mean that Andarist was soletaken and renounced it himself. I think Andarist refused to drink Tiam's blood in the first place...

[The Dark Wanderer]

(new here so feel free to laugh)

Ok may be just lack of familiarity with the details of some of the later books (re-reads in progress), but do we know for certain that Envy and Spite have the same father? From what I can remember, we only get the fact that Draconus is Envy's father which doesn't necessarily make him Spite's father especially given the rather complex relationships hinted at for the people who've been around longest. Now, bear with me this is going somewhere, we know that Draconus is the blood of Tiam, but is that necessarily the same as drinking the blood of Tiam? Indeed given that Draconus is an Elder God, it seems odd to describe him as the blood of anyone, maybe this just means that he and Tiam are siblings (maybe not the best word) similar to the relationship between Draconus and K'rul suggesting that Tiam is an Elder God (of eleint?).

I felt a break was needed.

We never see Draconus as eleint iirc so this doesn't seem to be obviously wrong yet. Now I know there's a list of eleint given at some stage, but it includes K'rul as well so I'm not sure that this list if 100% accurate (probably more so than my ramblings so far). (other issues here include the fact that Draconus was beaten by Rake who we know for certain is Soletaken not true eleint so seems odd that he could beat Draconus if Draconus is true eleint).

To get to the point then, maybe Draconus as Envy's father means she isn't eleint because of the above reasoning. This would also suggest that Spite's father is and we have a limited list of those. This different father thing would also explain Spite's hatred of Envy (although why as Spite seems to have gotten the better deal is another matter) which doesn't seem to have come up yet.

Wow impressively rambling post for my first and I suspect one that should be consigned to the dustbin. Oh well........

[Mentalist]

according to popular theory, he drank Tiam's blood, also had an Eleint GF--Sorrit, whom we see dead in tBH. When Scabby killed her, he renounced his draconean-ness...

also, in describing Ruin, in RG, i believe there's a phrase "he drank deeperst of Tiam's blood than his brothers notice the plural.

[Jorram]

1) Nothing in the series does even remotely hint that Andarist could have anything in common with Sorrit.
2) Or that Sorrit was killed by Scabandari.
3) As long as we believe any character speech in the series, it's stated black on white in MT that Envy and Spite are both children of Draconus and Sheltatha Lore.
4) Draconus has never been referred to as the "blood of Tiam". The correct quote is "of Tiam's kin". And if I recall well, he is listed in Rud Ellale's list of half-bloods.

[thesalus]

Quote

But the Soletaken proved a problem. They possessed the blood of Tiam, and with it the vast power of the Eleint. Yet, they could travel as they pleased. They could interfere, and they did. For obvious reasons. Scabandari was originally Edur, and so became their champion.'
...
'The Tiste Andii for Anomandaris.' Cotillion continued. 'Tiste Liosan for Osserc. The T'lan Imass for Olar Ethil. These connections and the loyalties born of them are obvious. Draconus is more of a mystery, of course, since he has been gone a long time-'
'The most reviled of them all!' Eloth shrieked, the voice filling Cotillion's skull so that he winced.

pg. 93-94 of my version of Bonehunters.

Draconus is but a soletaken. Statement by Cotillion the wise and seconded by one angry dragon.

[Mentalist]

@ Jorram
Sorrit was killed on a blackwood cross--native to KE. Who do we know fof the Edur strong enough to kill a full-blooded Eleint?
Andarist had some ind of "grief", caused by Scabby, that he blamed himself for.
sure, it's a bit of a stretch, but totally plausible.
ofc, it's a speculative theory (not to confuse with crazy), but it's a popular one, nonetheless, same as Iccy shattering KE is a popular theory, although there are no clear indicators for it.