Ser Scot A Ellison Posted January 15, 2017 Share Posted January 15, 2017 28 minutes ago, Darth Richard II said: https://frinkiac.com/meme/S11E04/567160.jpg?b64lines=IEFILiBZRUFILiBXRUxMLCBXSEVORVZFUgogWU9VIE5PVElDRSBTT01FVEhJTkcgTElLRQogVEhBVCBBIFdJWkFSRCBESUQgSVQ= I hate that answer. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Darth Richard II Posted January 15, 2017 Share Posted January 15, 2017 You seem to be reading a lot into what is pretty simple fantasy world building. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ser Scot A Ellison Posted January 15, 2017 Share Posted January 15, 2017 34 minutes ago, Darth Richard II said: You seem to be reading a lot into what is pretty simple fantasy world building. DR, Ever since I first read MS&T in the early 90's I thought Williams hinted that the Keida'ya were from a planet other than Osten Ard. We will see. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Darth Richard II Posted January 15, 2017 Share Posted January 15, 2017 Well it's hasn't been a while since I read it. Don't mean to sound so dismissive, I had the game of thrones isn't fantasy argument recently on RL so I'm kind of in full on it's just magic damnit mode. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ser Scot A Ellison Posted January 15, 2017 Share Posted January 15, 2017 9 hours ago, Darth Richard II said: Well it's hasn't been a while since I read it. Don't mean to sound so dismissive, I had the game of thrones isn't fantasy argument recently on RL so I'm kind of in full on it's just magic damnit mode. It's cool. I think MS&T is fantasy, but that doesn't, in my opinion, preclude the Keida'ya from having traveled to Osten Ard from another world. After all, Prince of Nothing/Aspect Emperor is "fantasy" with creepy rape aliens and lasers. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lord Varys Posted January 15, 2017 Share Posted January 15, 2017 9 hours ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said: It's cool. I think MS&T is fantasy, but that doesn't, in my opinion, preclude the Keida'ya from having traveled to Osten Ard from another world. After all, Prince of Nothing/Aspect Emperor is "fantasy" with creepy rape aliens and lasers. I don't buy the alien story. That would make it much more difficult to bring the Unbeing aspect into the story, and there are hints that this might happen in the coming trilogy, are there not? I've finished the story. It did get somewhat more interesting towards the end. I must say that I'm with the others who mentioned that suddenly being in the head of some Norn felt strange and wasn't really a success since Williams didn't focus on any known Norn characters or people connected to them. Why didn't he give us Akhenabi or Utuk'ku again? Is it clear how he could have gotten back so quickly? Wasn't he permanently based at Naglimund after they had taken the castle, creating zombies there? I'm with @Werthead that Porto most likely will come back in the new trilogy. His story was the weakest element and least connected part of the entire story. I also fear I've read/watched too much stuff/am getting too old. I asked myself early on why the hell the Norns are not Spoiler burying the gate of Nakkiga under a lot of rubble to prevent the Rimmersmen from breaking it because they can no longer reach it and then it turns out that doing this is the big plot twist in the end. I'm not sure why this is supposed to be a big surprise when it was the first thing I thought I'd do in their situation, especially in light of the fact that the weather/season does not allow the Rimmersmen to hang out outside the mountain for a longer period of time. That said, there are some interesting mysteries left by the story: Spoiler 1. Whom did Ayaminu contact in Nakkiga? Yaarike or Suno'ku? What was her goal and did she accomplish it? 2. Did Porto actually find The Heart of which was Lost in the snow shortly before the fight with the giant or was that a different jewel? The chronicler later states that Yaarike left it with the coffin but since we never see Viyeki overseeing this in detail he could have left some other jewel there. If the jewel is now with Porto that could become important somehow. 3. Is Suno'ku truly dead or was she in the end in on some plan involving Yaarike and Ayaminu which allowed her to quietly disappear and pursue another agenda? We have to keep in mind that Norns are basically Utuk'ku's pawns. Once she reawakens, she will continue whatever agenda she still has and nobody in Nakkiga is going to be able to change that. But if somebody is outside/away from her there might be a chance. 4. It is disappointing that Ingen Jegger and the other Black Rimmersmen haven't even been mentioned. Such people should also have faced the wrath of Isgrimnur's people, and if there were more like those then they could also have played a role in the defense of the Nakkiga. And there existence could very well have figured into this talk about crossbreeding Norns and humans. I mean, Jegger could easily enough have been retconned as a human slave born with a Norn parent or grandparent. And the success he had in Utuk'ku's war when he killed Amerasu certainly could have helped better the reputation of the human slaves/servants of the Norns. Most disappointing, though, is the fact that the Norn characters don't elaborate on Ineluki/Utuk'ku's endgame back in the old trilogy. What was the turning back of the time going to accomplish for the Norns? I also think the Unbeing should become either part of or the important threat in the next trilogy. The talk about there being fighting in the Garden suggests that this is perhaps a power that can infect and change people. Then it might be something Utuk'ku or others who were already alive in the Garden brought with them or it is going to follow them now, after all those years. Were the Gardenborn actually described as merely having a very long life, not being immortals? We don't read anything about natural deaths among them in MST. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ser Scot A Ellison Posted January 16, 2017 Share Posted January 16, 2017 It has been a long time since I read MS&T. I need to re-read before TWC comes out. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Darth Richard II Posted January 16, 2017 Share Posted January 16, 2017 I dunno, I thought the Norn pov was stilly pretty weird and alien. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Werthead Posted January 16, 2017 Share Posted January 16, 2017 Quote Were the Gardenborn actually described as merely having a very long life, not being immortals? We don't read anything about natural deaths among them in MST. The appendix and the text in Heart of What Was Lost say that the Norns and Sithi are not immortal but live for insane amounts of time compared to humans. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lord Varys Posted January 16, 2017 Share Posted January 16, 2017 47 minutes ago, Werthead said: The appendix and the text in Heart of What Was Lost say that the Norns and Sithi are not immortal but live for insane amounts of time compared to humans. Yeah, that's the source I was referring to. I thought that this was some sort of retcon because nothing in MST suggested that the Sithi/Norns could die of natural causes, or did it? We just get some really old folk among them and other even older folk which met violent ends in the years, mostly due to conflicts with humans, dragons, and so on. If the Gardenborn only reached Osten Ard a mere 3,000 years ago then Utuk'ku's insane age of over 10,000 years from one of Tad's time lines on line would make somebody like Amerasu rather young (but that's not the impression we get in MST). Subsequently we should assume that many more people from the days of the Garden should either be still around (only those who met violent ends would be dead) or (depending what's the average life expectancy of the Gardenborn) that nearly all of them would already have died of old age. The new story also makes it clear that Yaarike is a rather old Norn yet he apparently didn't see the Garden, either, so how is it that he is old if he would also be only about 3,000 years old while Utuk'ku is so much older. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Xereaux Posted January 16, 2017 Share Posted January 16, 2017 20 minutes ago, Lord Varys said: Yeah, that's the source I was referring to. I thought that this was some sort of retcon because nothing in MST suggested that the Sithi/Norns could die of natural causes, or did it? I don't know where in MS&T it was (it's been a few years since I last reread the series), but I'm pretty sure that it was mentioned that the Sithi and Norn's immortality was a secret that they refused to share with the various Tinukeda'ya peoples. I seem to remember it being told to Miriamele, so that'd either be when she's on the Eadne Cloud with Gan Itai or below the Hayholt with the dwarrows. But the concept that none of the Gardenborn were originally immortal did not seem like a new concept to me. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lord Varys Posted January 16, 2017 Share Posted January 16, 2017 7 minutes ago, Xereaux said: I don't know where in MS&T it was (it's been a few years since I last reread the series), but I'm pretty sure that it was mentioned that the Sithi and Norn's immortality was a secret that they refused to share with the various Tinukeda'ya peoples. I seem to remember it being told to Miriamele, so that'd either be when she's on the Eadne Cloud with Gan Itai or below the Hayholt with the dwarrows. But the concept that none of the Gardenborn were originally immortal did not seem like a new concept to me. Yeah, that's in there. And I think that refers back to the days in the Garden. I always thought that whole thing refers to immortality in the sense of 'existence forever in the world unless somebody kills you'. The new thing now seems to be that the Sithi and Norns actually have a natural lifespan that ends with some sort of 'natural death of old age'. And that's odd. The fact that they actually age and change over time was already in MST, of course. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AncalagonTheBlack Posted January 16, 2017 Share Posted January 16, 2017 How about a new thread for all the Osten Ard books discussion? This one is 30 posts above the thread limit. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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