Re: Just finished Return of the Crimson Guard (spoilers)
badassashaman Send a noteboard - 30/06/2010 12:56:04 PM
Well. I suppose that was... ok.
I thought it was an improvement on Night of Knives, which I thought was the weakest Malazan book by far. The battle scenes are (mostly) well-written, and I enjoyed seeing the Old Guard come out in force. Favorite characters include Kyle, Shimmer, and Ereko. I liked seeing Nil and Nether again. The ending was satisfying, despite a battle that really seemed to never, ever end.
I thought it was an improvement on Night of Knives, which I thought was the weakest Malazan book by far. The battle scenes are (mostly) well-written, and I enjoyed seeing the Old Guard come out in force. Favorite characters include Kyle, Shimmer, and Ereko. I liked seeing Nil and Nether again. The ending was satisfying, despite a battle that really seemed to never, ever end.
C'mon. Kyle, a good character? He was GOTM Crokus bad.
A couple of things that really irked/confused me about this book:
The Ascendant that Cowl killed in the beginning. Was that supposed to be Osserc? Another Tiste Liosan? If it was Osserc, then there are serious problems with continuity with House of Chains. First of all, I doubt Osserc could be killed by Cowl, since even Cotillion, Cowl's ascended rival, was very hesitant to even make a move against him later on. Oh, and Osserc was not "asleep" or whatever during the events that preceded (and maybe happened concurrently with) this book - he is alive and active on Seven Cities, where he intervenes to save L'oric. This doesn't make sense if it was Osserc, who was apparently inactive at the time and being drained by Shen. If it wasn't Osserc, then why did Osserc later "appear" out of the blade that was so greatly altered when Cowl "killed" whatever it was that was woken up? I just didn't get it.
It was Osserc all along. Cowl never killed him in the begining. he merely thought he did. Osserc in HoC operated in memories and thus didn't need to be awake. his body sleeps leaving the mind free to roam old memories all over the place.
Kyle as the soldier of High House Light. Why is he the soldier of High House Light? Why did Osserc hang out in his sword for all that time. Just to deliver Osserc into the Shadow Keep, so that he could be rude to Shadowthrone and Cotillion? Kyle's journey, though enjoyable to read, did nothing to benefit High House Light, Osserc, or anyone other than the Crimson Guard.
Osserc probably hung out in Kyle's sword so he could travel incognito. If he would simply woken up and started wandering around Wu every ascendant of any kind of power would take notice.
Ryllandaras. I liked the story of the White Jackal, as used in this book. But the thing is, Ryllandaras was also running around during the events of House of Chains, at least during Toblakai's journeys. And he wasn't a Soletaken, he was D'ivers (wolves, if I recall). We see a very different beast in RotCG. It's just one animal. It never multiplies itself, regardless of how many people it kills. It just runs around slaughtering people, void of any human intelligence. It never sembles into human form, though that would be immensely helpful in some portions of this book (like, say, sneaking into Heng, which he hates, and then veering and killing everyone). Oh, and all those years it was imprisoned, none of its counterparts seemed to care. Sure, there was some talk at the end about Ryllandaras actually being D'ivers, but my point is the beast didn't behave like a D'ivers, it acted like a crazed Soletaken and its identity did not mesh with what we were told in HoC.
Ryllandaras is actually D'ivers and Soletaken both. Pretty much they are two seperate entites. One a fairly stable D'ivers in Seven Cities and one crazed Soletaken under Li Heng. Speculation goes that Ryll stuck all crazyness,bloodlust and rage in one copy then buggered off to SC to live a normal D'ivers life.
Silk and Heuk. Two human mages who walk around accessing Elder Warrens. Erikson's mythos is all over the place and seems to constantly change, but he's pretty consistent with the notion that the Kurald warrens are completely inaccessible to humans. And then along comes Silk and he throws some Kurald Liosan (not Thryllan) at some mages and Heuk dumps some blood on himself and makes a Kurald Galain monster. It just irritated me, like we're dealing with two different worlds between the two authors. The worst part is, Esselmont never explains why or how any of this is possible. I could appreciate some sort of clever loophole or exception to the rule that either of these two mages discovered, but no such exception is invoked. These two just do things that we have previously been told couldn't be done with no explanation. Esselmont doesn't bend the rules, he just pretends they don't exist when he's in need of a trump card. That's called cheating.
Heuk pulls it off since he's not mage but rather a priest (Of Draconus). Like how Mallick Rel can acsess Mael's power.
Personally I doubt Silk is a regular human. Wouldn't suprise at all if he's a Tiste Liosan in disgusie, similar to how L'oric passed himself off as human to Shaik and her cronies.
Ghelel. Why was this character even created? She did nothing, contributed nothing, and had no ending to her arc.
Ghelel was way better than Kyle at least. At least she had some thinking going on. Kyle just bumbled along with a minimal amount of thinking going on and the few thoughts that he do have, have no real basis in the real situation.
I guess I liked Kyle because he was just sort of... simple. He's totally just along for the ride, making friends, having cool dreams, and just being nice. You don't see that in the Malazan world too much. And he saw more action than just about anyone else.
About Osserc - Doesn't he physically show up at different points and do stuff? I know he's hanging out in memories and all, but what about when he has physical contact with L'Oric by catching him and taking him to their home, or sembling and carrying L'Oric around in his giant (physical) dragon claws? It's not like all this is just astral projection. He physically interacts with stuff. Maybe that's just another perk of being an ascendant... you can be asleep and still do stuff.
I get what you're saying about Heuk being a priest and all... but do these events take place by the time Draconus has returned? Mallick uses Ruse, I thought - which is a human warren. Oh, and he's now the Emperor(!).
I don't understand how Ryllandaras can make one form of himself really, really bad while the others are just kind of normal, but whatever.
Oh, and I liked reading Ghelel's PoVs, I just didn't understand what, if anything, she contributed to the total plot. Her ending was unremarkable and she contributed nothing along the way.
Also, I strongly suspected Silk of being Tiste Liosan as well, but Esselmont just decided not to tell us, for whatever reason. It would've been a nice payoff.
This message last edited by badassashaman on 30/06/2010 at 12:59:08 PM
Just finished Return of the Crimson Guard (spoilers)
- 30/06/2010 03:57:37 AM
1120 Views
Re: Just finished Return of the Crimson Guard (spoilers)
- 30/06/2010 08:29:42 AM
769 Views
Re: Just finished Return of the Crimson Guard (spoilers)
- 30/06/2010 12:56:04 PM
753 Views
Re: Just finished Return of the Crimson Guard (spoilers)
- 30/06/2010 02:15:23 PM
614 Views
Re: Just finished Return of the Crimson Guard (spoilers)
- 30/06/2010 04:05:14 PM
649 Views
Re: Just finished Return of the Crimson Guard (spoilers)
- 30/06/2010 06:58:23 PM
690 Views