[Lisheo]

1: Aye, its common knowledge that she was one of the Old Guard long ago. But so was Duiker and Cartheron and Dassem, it means nothing.

2: see eekwibble's spoiler from NoK.

3: She used a warren to carry her voice thru a corpse. Probably Hood's Path or Mockra.

4: Inverting the command structure is actually mentioned as Kellanved's idea somehwere, I think. But she did well with "outlawing" Dujek and choosing Tavore as her adjunct, as well as taking out the Old Guard. Dont get me wrong, I love those guys, but had they remained, there would have been complications maybe even civil war, eventually. However, she fucked up with Rel and Dom, and the Claw, and many other things.

5:Many characters are not POV characters, and its a method of keeping them (Tayschrenn, Pannion, Tavore) mysterious. It means nothing.

In conclusion, crazy theory lol.

[Wordmerchant]

Lisheo;367862 said:

In conclusion, crazy theory lol.

But I LIKE crazy theories!

[ShadowOwl]

Skywalker;367440 said:

More to come in RoTCG I think...

And that would be a very good guess.

[Ain't_It_Just_]

Unlike other people in the series, Laseen is one of the few people that are completely unfathomable. And whether SE will disappoint us or not, I don't know.

If someone does, don't say it or else.

[eekwibble]

Just to further my last drunken rambling; In the very first chapter of GotM she walks out behind Paran and Whiskeyjack in Mocks Hold.

Proof in the very first lines that she exists. :eek:

[dussan2]

Hi, my first post.

After Deadhouse Gates I always assumed that the primary reason Kalam "I am god of all Assasins" Mekhar didn't kill her was because he caught a glimpse that things where not as they seem. Aside from the fact that she might not have actually been there. ANd top of that was that she did NOT betray the Emperor and Dancer.

I sort of took that to mean that Shadowthrone and Cotillion are pulling her strings. In fact it might be something bigger in that she is actually working for them directly.

[Excellence]

6) Instead of simply executing Korbolo and Mallick, she was actually moronic enough to listen to them and let Rel have access to the Claw. That's stupidity on a universal scale.

No . . . the duo had already spread enough misinformation that when brought before the Empress, she was forced to treat them as favoured guests. As the book said, cults were springing up around Coltaine and Bult, and some considered Coltaine the villain, not Dom. As for Rel, he had done a good job of infitrating the Claw, many of whom were growing dissatisfied with Laseen. The Black Glove, as he called them.

With her own Claw divided, Topper MIA, and the populace thinking the Wickans were the villains, Laseen was in no position to execute them. Her hands were tied.

In Deadhouse Gates she explained herself to Kalam. She struck down Ultor to avert a civil war, who was too charismatic to leave alive. She admitted making mistakes, like culling the magic users a decade ago.

[Called-by-the-Voices]

Am I being idiotic from lack of sleep or is there a conversation between Apsalar and Cutter in HoC (?) where they conclude that ST adn Cotillion planned the whole assassination thing?

And again, there's the whole "Laseen-didn't-kill-the-Old-Guard-she-inverted-the-power-structure (cuz she knew something BIG is gonna hit the MEmpire, and the whole Wu) The only discrepancy is why the hell would ST and Cot want vengeance on her in that case? (GotM, the whole Sorry thing)

[Urizen]

Excellence, on Oct 4 2008, 02:36 PM, said:

In Deadhouse Gates she explained herself to Kalam. She struck down Ultor to avert a civil war, who was too charismatic to leave alive. She admitted making mistakes, like culling the magic users a decade ago.

I think this is a lot of BS. Selfjustification for powerhunger by Laseen. From what we have seen of Daseem/Traveller, Daseem never wanted to rule as Laseen claimed. To me, Laseen struck down Daseem beacause she recognized that he (unlike WJ) would not just have stood around after seeing his friend(Dancer) and Emperor murdered.

[Excellence]

Well, she did tell Kalam he was a rival, and so struck first to avert retaliation. Power hungry or not, and she of course was, she did respond to the needs of the empire, as she said. The Emp was gone, gone for many years. You need the throne filled.

[Urizen]

Excellence, on Oct 6 2008, 10:05 AM, said:

Well, she did tell Kalam he was a rival, and so struck first to avert retaliation. Power hungry or not, and she of course was, she did respond to the needs of the empire, as she said. The Emp was gone, gone for many years. You need the throne filled.

Yet Daseem never showed any inclination to rule as emperor...
I feel she spun the truth in this case, After all, her motive for being "open" with Kalam is to talk him out of murdering her.
Also, If all Laseen cares about is the Empire, why didn't she step down in favor of Daseem or WJ? In fact, the only person who has said that Laseen is what's best for the empire is Laseen herself. Banaschar has some good thoughts regarding Laseen's rule and how everything spiraled out of control, begining with Laseen's ascention to the throne.

[Iconik]

D'rek, on Mar 13 2008, 09:38 AM, said:

Well mortal armies aren't of particularly large signifigance in the war against the CG. She shaped the creation of the Bonehunters, then set them loose from the Empire's constraints. I'd say she's setting up her own 'assassination' at the hands of Korbolo and Mallick, whereupon she'll ascend and either help in the fight with the CG or go apeshit against her 'murderers'.
It's almost too poetic/ironic for us to conceive of anything else happening.

I know this is an old topic but something struck me D'rek's post. People don't really have a say over whether or not they ascend. There's no WAY SE will ascend Laseen. There's no way she SHOULD be ascended. I don't know if she'd risk her life on false hope.

Thanks!

[D'rek]

Oh dear, that takes me back. Heck I wasn't even D'rek way back then. Fuzzle

Anyways, I personally believe that the sheer number and variety of ascensions and other power-increase-getting that all sorts of characters have shown throughout the series means that there is no way we can possibly say that Laseen is not able to ascend... somehow. Whether SE would want such a thing to happen or not is a completely different matter that we could argue inconclusively for a very long time, but the mechanics for it are certainly available.

But of course, neither of us has read RotCG yet, and if we had that would probably solve this debate for us...

[foolio]

Kimloc said

Quote

As far as "all part of her plan" maybe, but I call that a really asinine plan. Sounds like one of those boxers who make a ton of money, then let managers and leeches steal it from him, then comment "Well, I'm broke but at least I know who my friends are."

Damn, that might be the best analogy I have ever heard.

[zenMichael]

ok, so i know this topic's been dead for a while, and maybe it's because RotCG/RG/TtH answers all of this, BUT as someone who's just finishing up tBH, I'm just thinking about this myself and wondering, maybe the reason "the big plan" makes laseen look stupid is because, in many ways, tBH is the turning point book where this story stops being about "the malazan empire" and becomes much more about "the big fight." it almost seems inevitable at this point that the malazan empire is going to fall, or at least be close to ending, by the time this series is done, though hopefully our main characters will have saved Burn/Wu by then and defeated/restored/ShieldAnviled the CG by then.

so, though i'm not sure how i feel about it, it does seem like laseen's actions only seem stupid because they're pretty much ensuring the fall of the malazan empire, which i think we all kind of want to root for since we've been with characters who are members of that empire from the beginning, but now the scope has gotten WAY bigger. and of course it's important to keep in mind these books are the malazan books of the FALLEN.

anyway, just my thoughts on it.