Malazan Empire: Rhand - Viewing Profile - Malazan Empire

Finished rereading the series, and nearly 12 years later I still feel the same. There are a few who die as expected of beings who are "far more robust than humans, virtually un-killable through conventional means, healing from cuts and blows extremely quickly, possessing incredible strength, speed and agility". As shown, they could combat several powerful opponents such as Toblakai, Tiste Edur (meh powerful) and Kenryll'ah tyrants at once while sustaining only minor wounds. AS IF THAT IS NOT ENOUGH, sorcerous attacks wash of them like water. Man, those are some bad asssssssss creatures.

We see some of them killed quite epicly, as befits their stature:
The Assails (Equity, Reverence) killed by Hood, biting of the face, lovely.
Diligence killed by Brys's torrent of names and Ve'gaths, very nice.
Aloft killed by Badalle, probably my favorite one.

But where I have problems with, are the following:

Serenity killed by Moranth munition, after getting hurt by Kalam. Weak sauce. Mainly the fight with Kalam was disappointing, as in Kalam too OP and Serenity underwhelming. Same for sister Belie, snuck upon by Kalam without noticing him either. And same with Grave. Okay. Friggin Kalam and QB killed 3 FA's. How much friggin fanservice can you put in 1 chapter...
Calm killed by Ublala Pung was so disgusting I almost threw my Kindle against the wall. Loudest wtf of the whole series. Calm senses Mappo arrive, has a 30 second chat with him and kills him in 20 seconds. But we're to believe she senses nor hears neither Ublala, a big half-blood Toblakai and some random Barghast-chick walking around in the exact same area. It's not as if Mappo and Calm fought for hours, or Ublabla used magic to appear out of a warren.
Freedom killed by Gall, who had his intestines hanging out of his body, being heavily wounded. Apparently an old man with his intestines hanging out, can still stand up and kill a FA without her hearing him at all.

It's annoying because they are clearly done for fan service (Kalam/QB and Ublala, although I don't know why anyone likes that simpleton) and the fights just don't follow the lore at all. They were described as lightning fast, healing incredibly quickly, being able to twist their limbs and torso in 20 million different directions to evade and counter attacks. We are introduced to FA as beings so powerful they couldn't be killed by arguably also extremely powerful beings (Icarium, T'lan Imass) but had to be imprisoned under wards for millennia.


It kills the mood to see them killed by pretty mundane actions. FA are no magical creatures, they ain't mages, so an otataral short knife really is just like a regular short knife as well. 1 killed by QB/Kalam, fair enough. But 3? Without them sustaining anyth serious wounds? Oh no, Kalam broke 2 ribs, got healed later, all good. Gall sticks a sword in the back of a FA and then a TI sticks a spear through her eye, DAMN, why did NOBODY think of that those thousands of years ago when Calm intervened in the TI-Jaghut wars on Genabackis and had to be imprisoned because they couldn't kill her? They didn't have spears and swords back then or what?
At least let people die when killing an FA. I don't think anyone with a name and importance even died from the FA, besides Gesler. Probably that stings the most. Too many happy faces at the end, not enough dead people considering what they went through and what they faced.


Ah well, rant done.

Dont want to start a new thread. Just finished the book and share your general feelings, especially that it was uneven.

Started out quite interesting with the scholar, Antsy, the Seguleh, pretty much everything. But unfortunately many storylines just fell short of what I expected.

- The Tyrant storyline feels empty. After his appearance and bringing the (few members) Cabal to heel, he sits and ... sits and .... sits.
- I really didn't like the way he wrote Coll, Kruppe, Scorch and Leff. Especially those latter two, he tried too hard and just missed the ball. They were never the brightest, but he dumbs them down even more. And also for some reason he makes them more angry/agressive. Maybe my impression.
- Antsy storyline started interesting but got stale fast. Rinse and repeat throughout the dungeon with new NPC's every few chapters. Also somewhere halfway they meet some big band of thugs whose captain has food from the Confederacy, but between him and the exit are ... the Malazans and all those mages. I thought maybe Antsy & co went off in a different direction when they met the Malazans, but later the thugs show up and try to battle through. So guess not.
- the Tyrant ending was rushed and very simplistic.
- Torvald's behavior on the quorl was jarring. He sees the Seguleh attacking and slaughtering the Rhivi and then the Malazans, and he somehow imagines himself Dassem Ultor because when the Moranth don't go to help as fast as he wants, he plans to go alone. Like why??? You are neither Rhivi nor Malazan. Nor are you a fighter. So what in Krul's name are you going to do against an army of Seguleh? Then when the Moranth finally go help out, keep in mind thousands of Rhivi have been massacred and 4-5k of Malazans have been crippled/maimed (blinded, limbs cut off), and he sees they want to drop cussers from above he wants to stop them and shouts "NoOoOo, ThAtS mUrDeR!!11!! yOu CaNnOt Do ThAt!!1!!" Bro wtf, those are frigging Seguleh, what else can be done? You just saw them killing/maiming thousands upon thousands of professional soldiers without taking any losses themselves. How else are barely 1.000 Moranth supposed to stop them? Should they go talk with them or what? Anyway, be that as it may, I understand that you don't feel happy, that you feel sad and sick by the end result, but it was just really poorly written. Could have been done much better.
- Yusek and Lorkal were stupid as hell. Both live a life as bandits, face sexual assault from their "colleagues" and rob/kill travelers. Yet when the Seguleh kill them bandits, they go like "omg, you are murderers, I don't want to go with you." ömg you killed my bandit friends, you are so bad". They both know the Seguleh are frigging bad ass but throughout the story they behave completely without respect and more importantly, without fear. They are insubordinate, insolent, and agressive. Very unrealistic after they just saw dozens of people killed by these two.

There were other things that bothered me, but I don't want to continue really.
Plenty of good things as well, I liked most of the Seguleh, I liked most of the Malazans.

I think I liked SW more than OST. My expectations were too high for this one due to TtH from SE. When they write about the same people/locations, SE does a much better job and the difference is quality is noticeable. When ICE writes about things SE did not touch (much) I like him better (SW, the Kellanved-trilogy).

Abyss, on 07 February 2023 - 11:31 PM, said:

The Azath houses are there to imprison (dangerous) entities for eternity (amongst other activities). That has been implied, if not stated, by various extremely powerful and knowledgeable ascendants and gods. At no point in the lore has any of those characters (some who have lived for nigh on half a million years) implied that there is precedent for such (dangerous) entities to be released upon the request of the resident. To, now, without any explanation whatsoever, simply accept it as fact, is something I just cannot do. This is not an offscreen event, because it is not mentioned at all. It's a non-event.
For me, the Azath houses are minor but important. You don't just go messing around with them (or any other lore for that matter) without dropping a hint here or there.

I don't have problems with offscreen events as you seem to imply, I don't need every single event to play out in from of me in graphic details as you seem to imply. Some of the best Fantasy out there (and indeed my favourite series) applies similar tactics to put the reader on the wrong foot (is that an English expression or just a literal translation from my native language, I dont know), to make everyone guessing, etc (Wot with Asmodean to give just one example). But at least hints are dropped, things are mentioned. Nothing of the sorts here.

On top of that I just don't have a good opinion about ICE as a writer. I'm only reading his books to have more exposure to the Malazan world, because personally speaking his writing is average at best. And I also see him make smaller mistakes with regards to the lore here and there in RotCG, SW and now O,S,T. Not just me, the forums are filled with threads about inconsistencies, contradictions, etc.

Anyway, let's agree to disagree here. There are no facts so it's just our own assumptions that come into play here. You're fine with this event, I'm not. Case closed.

Edit: Also the argument about Leth house being old and not having a resident, is not really relevant imo as those are statements based on MT. Silchas was imprisoned for hundreds of millennia, at that time the Azath in what would become Letheras was not ancient and near dead.

Abyss, on 07 February 2023 - 05:47 PM, said:

Of course, but I don't think readers should make up stuff to explain things that go against the lore that we have been exposed to for the previous +/- 10 books. The author should have spent some time on that, there's a lot of dead wood in the books anyway to make way for a bit of exposition/explanation.

And it's not the first time that ICE just makes simple mistakes, disregarding things that happened in the main series.

Personally, I just think ICE done goofed. Again.

HoosierDaddy, on 07 February 2023 - 03:04 PM, said:

SE literally wrote that the Imass was buried in the yard's fresh earth, vines snaking over it because it did not stay on the path.

But yeah, maybe warrens or something...