Malazan Reread of the Fallen SPOILER Thread

[Bulwyf]

OK, thanks Shalter, I'm guessing the issue was not being logged in, because you don't have the option to modify posts that way either.

[GoodOldSatan]

Fiddler,

Responding to your #11 post in the HOC Chapter 20 discussion Re: Iskar Jarak.

While I recognized who he was right away, to my embarrassment, I never verbalized the new (old?) name.

Thanks for fitting one more piece into this vast puzzle.

[twoodmom]

Re the identity of Tiam's consort in Featherwitch's first reading of the tiles, I seem to remember from TCG that the Otataral Dragon thinks of itself as Tiam's child.

[ZetaStriker]

While we're doing this, I just want to go back and revisit the parable from the start of Chapter One again real quick, which blew me away when I first saw it on the re-read. It very clearly illuminates everything that occurs between the Edur and Letherii over the course of the next several books. The giant - the Edur - watches the tide - the Letherii - go in and out across the shore. The tide envelops all, but always retreats before sweeping forth once again. The giant strides out when the tide is low (the Letherii's defeat at the end of this novel), and then closes his eyes in ignorance and crouches down along the shore, occupying this new territory. The tide proceeds to envelop the sleeping giant, drowning him in his sleep and calcifying his form, rooting him in place and chipping him away until he is all but unrecognizable. Again, this is exactly what happens to the Edur after becoming the Letherii's new "rulers"; they become trapped by the bureaucracy and lose control without even realizing it, until they themselves begin behaving in the Letherii way. And in order to see the what they were in what they'd become, they had to "look away".

This whole passage seems to be the best parable I've ever seen in a work of fiction such as this, I cannot love it enough right now. Especially when it may have hidden meanings, when cross referenced to a certain other giant.

[amphibian]

It's a great parable.

I've seen a few truly excellent ones in Salman Rushdie books. How political power is obtained is the subject of my favorite - from Shalimar the Clown.

[shalter]

Orb Scepter Throne -- Comes out on January 19 (UK edition). Random House has a look inside the book here.
The Dramatis Personae looks like much happiness.

[SamarDev]

Nice! Looking forward...

[darkbow]

shalter, thanks for that. Glad to see that list!

[SamarDev]

Moeb1us asks about Bills hints about the Nachts nest versus the Crippled God in ch. 16
Those hints:

The Nachts sending a message via “destruction,” destroying their nests or “homes”
The nests having “sloped walls”
The tent as “the vastness of his realm”
The way the physical surroundings change as they approach the tent — the grass, the air, the earth.
“You sit there, alone in your tent, and that is the extent of your realm”

The Nachts nest are an analogy for the Crippled God's tent. His power is bounded to his tent, that forms at this moment his realm, in that tent the CG finds shelter. The Nachts are repetedly destroying their tent-shaped nests (or so do I see the sloped walls). In the end Withal realises that when he destroys the CG's tent, he breaks his power (temporarily). In doing so, he allows the storm (which Mael created) to come near with a boat so Sandalath and he can escape. He needed to expose the CG to the outside world, to give Mael the opportunity 'to beat a god senseless'.

Don't know if this is all about it, but this is how I see it...

[GoodOldSatan]

I have an objection to Capetown's #20 post in the MT Chapter 25 - Part I thread in that I believe it risks the primo spoiler of the series (at least it would have been for me).

Ublala killing one of his gods in a surprise attack is really some great foreshadowing again by SE.

I don't want to point it out there, for fear of aggravating/escalating/drawing attention to the spoil.

Just sayin' ....