I posted this on a forum. It structures my idea for the “system” to explain the Malazan series as a whole, which has lead me to write it to Erikson. Who confirmed me I nailed it (and then asked me to not reveal it completely).<\/p>\n
—
\nI was writing some comments on Tor re-read, so I thought about asking for opinions here. KEEP IT SPOILER FREE, as I’m not looking for plot details, but just for overall\/thematic structure.<\/p>\n
The line of thought is this: what is that drives the purpose and meaning of the series?<\/b><\/p>\n
One of the central themes of the series is that history is continuous and doesn’t have a beginning and end. But then to tell a story you have to divide it into discrete pieces, and the way you make this division is the way you decide to interpret it and give it meaning.<\/p>\n
So why ten books? As each book tells a relatively self contained story, the whole series, as a collection of ten books, must have a central idea or theme that defines it. A beginning and an end. What is this central idea that drives the whole series and makes it something “finished”? What is the concept, idea, theme or character that unifies it?<\/p>\n
The first answer a reader could have is: the Crippled God. The CG is what set the plot into movement, and its fate determines the conclusion of the series.<\/p>\n
Is the “Malazan Book of the Fallen” the story of the Crippled God? My idea comes from these questions. I think that the central conflict in the series is another, and that the Crippled God is only one of the pieces involved in a bigger game. An important one, but not the central one. And if I wanted to choose another that is more “representative” then I would pick Paran. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I posted this on a forum. It structures my idea for the “system” to explain the Malazan series as a whole, which has lead me to write it to Erikson. Who confirmed me I nailed it (and then asked me to not reveal it completely). — I was writing some comments on Tor re-read, so […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[33,34],"class_list":["post-2048","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","tag-books","tag-malazan"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cesspit.net\/drupal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2048","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cesspit.net\/drupal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cesspit.net\/drupal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cesspit.net\/drupal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cesspit.net\/drupal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2048"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/cesspit.net\/drupal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2048\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cesspit.net\/drupal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2048"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cesspit.net\/drupal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2048"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cesspit.net\/drupal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2048"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}