A Malazan Meditation - (On Species)

This is a continuation of my 'meditation' on Steven Erikson's opus: The Malazan Book of the Fallen, which I view as an exercise in attaining reader catharsis. If you haven't already, for some context, please read my prior posts - a Prologue that explains what this is all about, Part 1 - Elements, and Part 2 - Quirks & Features. If you have already, read on...

Warning: This post contains spoilers for various books in the series, but I have tried to stay away from revealing too many specifics. The imagined species that make an appearance in the series, their physical attributes, and some portions of their history and overall arc are mentioned. I don't think I reveal anything that will necessarily spoil your experience of reading the books; if anything it might enhance your appreciation for some of the elements... but that's just what I think.

This (and the next post) will be the most spoiler-filled of the lot. If you're completely anti-spoiler, please stay away!

A Malazan Meditation (Part 3: Species)

Where I look at each of the eponymous elements of the world, their role or agency in-story and in the series as metaphors and motifs...

Ideation

This world has in it a great variety of lifeforms (intelligent and otherwise) and while it is possible to list and describe all of them, I suspect it would take several posts on its own. I will instead attempt to describe only those that are convention-breakers in the world of Science Fiction and Fantasy (SFF) or are interesting because of the primary idea they are hinting at, or what they add to the world-building or plot. Once again, JRR Tolkein's work serves as a touchstone of sorts in my meditation, simply because he is the benchmark imagining races and species in literature.

Tolkein was certainly not the first popular writer to do that (Edgar Rice Burroughs for one went wild with primary colors in imagining Red, Green, and Yellow Martians for his John Carter of Mars series half a century earlier), but he has become the most often copied author, especially in the world of Fantasy literature.

In most SFF that draws on Tolkein for inspiration - arguably most of it - there are species similar to (or exactly the same as, down to their names and appearance) Elves, Dwarves, Elder Men, Men, Hobbits, Orcs, Ents, and the like. Blame or credit for this must also go to Dungeons & Dragons, and other paper or computer-based Role Playing Games (e.g. Warcraft) that used and perpetuated this model, influencing the imaginations of hordes (!) of pre-teens, teens, and adults.

Some contemporary authors (like Christopher Paolini) slavishly follow this model, while others (notably Robert Jordan and R Scott Bakker) use the framework and put their own subtle twists on each 'character class'. This is entertaining, but does get boring. Mercifully, while Erikson and Esslemont do have some corresponding species with this framework, they have also come up with some ideas that are radically original.

Taxonomy

Once again, the authors background in archaeology and anthropology is evident in the imagined species. Instead of going with Tolkein's largely creationist (each species created by a demi-god 0 a Valar - to their liking) and chronological (species intermix and degenerate over time) model, the authors here have gone for a conceptual and chronological model, taking inspiration from the history of life on the Earth.

So we have the ape-like species - only the Neanderthal cognates of this world didn't quite die with a whimper as did their real world analogues. There is a thought experiment for what would've happened if instead of getting wiped out, Dinosaurs had developed brains that were more than pea-sized. We also have some species that personify an element each - Darkness, Light, and Shadow, without the tired good and evil connotation - which makes for a very interesting idea.

Here then are the intelligent species of the Malazan world...

• Elementals: Elder Gods
• Reptilian: Eleint, Wyval (mini-dragons; Remora like symbiotes), K'Chain Che'Malle and K'Chain Nah'Ruk (intelligent velociraptors, essentially), Jaghut (arguably reptilian - Homo Reptilia, if you will)
• Native* Hominid: Thelomen Tartheno Toblakai (a la Norse Giants), Imass and T'lan Imass (Neanderthal + their Undead equivalents), Humans, Forkrul Assail (these are easily the spookiest and most 'out there' creatures, wholly original conceptually as far as I can detect)
• Alien* Hominid: Tiste Andii, Tiste Edur, Tiste Liosan (like the Elves, but more)
• Hybrids/ Synthetics: Soletaken, D'ivers, Jhag, Trell

Yes, there are that many, and no, this is probably not a complete list. As the '*' indicates, some of these species are native to the imagined world, while others are invaders from another dimension or other worlds...

Let's look at the interesting ones in some detail then...

Elder Gods: A memorable line in the series (in the third book) tells us "Elder Gods embody a host of unpleasantries" - and truer words are rarely spoken in-story in the Malazan series.

These are the proto-gods of the world, elemental forces that are personification of things such as the seas, or luck and chance, or raw brutal physical prowess, or magic, or light and darkness. Their worship involves blood sacrifice; their faces are ugly and their reputations based more on fear than "love". Definitely more Old Testament than contemporary Christian then.

For all that, they are named very subtly however: "K'rul" as the Elder God responsible for the workings of magic in the world evokes the word Cruel, and is worshipped by bathing his altar in blood... but ironically he is perhaps an empathetic god, who has learnt from his own downfall. Draconus his brother, has little to do with dragons (that we know of) but personifies hubris and ego, and pays the price. Mael the Elder God of the sea, cognate in most ways with Poseidon and Neptune, evokes the word maelstrom - but is a balding, mostly retired god who takes pleasure in leading an absurd existence as a manservant to an eccentric genius. The god of (mis)chance is named The Errant, and is a jealous and vain man, who fashions himself as a courtesan in a royal court. There are also gods of wine and grain harvests (Ursto and Pinosel) who, appropriately, appear as a pair of drunken louts and lovers, their gifts having been abused by the excesses of their worshippers...

They are for the most part forgotten, and thus powerless, resentful and lacking in worshippers. One of the action sequences in the first book involves has the blood of a dying man being accidentally spilt on one of K'rul's altars, awakening him from a slumber that lasted for millennia, and unbeknownst to the reader right then, this sets in motion the primary arc of the series plot.

The authors often throw lists of these "Elders" our way in the books, but these lists are never quite complete. There is no complete list, and there is always the hint that there are more out there than we see in-story. Their true nature, form, or mortality is the subject of speculation, and they remain mostly an enigma though it is hinted they were birthed with the world itself. This is fitting, because really, in a fantasy series who really wants to know the innermost workings and therefore lose that sense of mystery?

Eleint: You may be forgiven in thinking at first glance that Erikson and Esslemont's are the prototypical dragons from Arthurian legend. They look after all, like the spiky flying wyrms of old. Yes, none breathe fire exactly although some are known to emit "roiling sorceries" from their "maw". (Ahem, someone call the weird word police!)

But below the surface Dragons are imagined here as somehow more elemental. They are described as enigmatic, implacable, coldly rational and hungry for ever more power. At the same time they are the engine behind the workings of magic in the world, the very source of sorcery. To keep things sane, most have conveniently died out or have been imprisoned in this world or in other dimensions - although that doesn't stop characters from running into them as and when required.

There is also a creation myth wound up with the Eleint, where Tiam, the first dragon and their matriarch, is killed and resurrected repeatedly and every time this happens she spawns more dragons, and bleeds more power. Drinking her chaotic blood makes the drinker a 'Soletaken Dragon' - a creature that can shift at will from its original form to a Draconic one.

Dragons in many ways are this worlds comment on the failings of unchecked power. They never get along, never think long term, constantly betray one another, and their internecine battles rip the world apart. They remain throughout the series (and in the back-story) a warning against unchecked power and the consequences of megalomania and egotism. As a matter of fact, their Soletaken spawn and a host of Elder Gods conspire (in series pre-history) to imprison or kill most of them, but not before K'rul bargains with several of these to make them the basis for his framework of sorcery...

The "Tiste": In some ways, the Tiste races - Andii, Edur, and Liosan - are the Elves of this piece, long-lived, migrants to this world from another, and their history is a long fall from grace with much internecine warfare and dabbling in the fundamental powers of the world. What sets them apart however is the fact that their essence, or their 'alignment' is to concepts or fundamental categories - Darkness, Shadow, and Light.

A primal creation myth binds these three together: In the beginning, Mother Dark - the matriarch and goddess to the Andii, her "First Children" - lived with her children in a parallel dimension (of sorts) devoid of all light and all was well. Then she took a succession of lovers. As far as can be gleaned, among their ranks was Draconus, her Suzerain and Consort at one point. The coming of another lover - Father Light - resulted in war between the Andii and his offspring, the Liosan - a species representing "pure" Light. Many murky alliances and war followed between the two, which involved shedding the draconic blood of Tiam for attaining more power. Eventually this culminated in the flight of the Andii from the realm of Darkness (the nicely named Kurald Galain) to the world where most of the action of the series occurs, and the sealing of the realm of Light (Kurald Thyrllan) from all that is outside.

This is only part of the tale of course... because Mother Dark and Father Light also somehow birthed a third race, the Edur. Children of Shadow and masters of the realm of Kurald Emurlahn, their magic is based on the interplay of Light and Dark, illusion and deception. In the internecine Tiste wars their realm breaks apart, and its pieces drift in the soup of reality, forcing them to join with the Andii in their invasion of the Malazan world (long before there ever is a Malazan Empire). Control over the fragments of Kurald Emurlahn (which would give the 'man in charge' obscene amounts of power) makes up an important plot point both in the series and in the series back-story.

The Tiste Edur as previously described, fall from grace much further than the other Tiste and become a tribal, seal hunting, and become bound by a suffocating honor-code based on ancestor worship and ritual. Their eventual fate or the endgame for that species takes up two books in the series. This is a fascinating deconstruction of the fall of a civilization, and the inevitably jingoistic and backward looking traditions such a fall spawns, where the dregs of the civilization pine for the glories of the past - or delude themselves into thinking they were never lost...

The fates of the Tiste Andii and the Liosan is no more comforting than of the Edur, and are an equally poignant comment on Civilization. The Andii, or what remains of them after a series of betrayals decimates them, become a tragedy themselves. They end up relying entirely upon a figure styled as the Son of Darkness (one of three sons of Mother Dark) to provide them with a reason to continue their dreary existence. They do not honor the dead, leaving the fallen where they lie... This is in stark contrast to the nostalgia wrapped Edur, who have rituals that would shame an Egyptian for their elaborate-ness. Most Andii are cynical or broken in some ineffable way.

The Liosan, on the other hand are zealous, and obsessed with Justice and Purity in their isolation, and this causes much grief in the tale when they finally make their appearance late in the series.

I love how in this myth structure, darkness represents stability and order, and light represents chaos and disturbance, contrary to the established trope in fantasy of there being a "Dark Lord" or a "Dark side of the Force" or of evil "Forces of Darkness" - if anything, here the Forces of Light are the ones that are destructive and deluded!

K'Chain Che'malle/ Nah'Ruk: When the Tiste invade the Malazan world, hundreds of thousands of years before humans evolve, they are opposed chiefly by a reptilian species: the somewhat oddly if pleasingly named K'Chain Che'Malle.

This is a hive based society, with Matrons (like queen bees) responsible for birthing every member of the hive. In a smart twist the authors give these Matrons the ability to genetically manipulate their offspring, so that they produce children in many 'flavors'. Thus you see warrior Che'Malle, and winged ones, and drones for menial labor and so on... obviously this makes for a tour-de-force of imagination, and a lot of fun with "badass" forms for how the story moves.

Where the Andii are aligned to order, these K'Chain (who call themselves the 'first-born of dragons') are aligned to chaos. In a brilliant bit of mythical imagery, it is revealed that one or more dying Matrons let loose a chaotic "scream" to chase the Gate of Darkness. This is one of the few entrances to the realm of Kurald Galain, and their actions threaten the very existence of - well, existence - and cut the Andii off from their home.

It is established that by the time the series opens, the K'Chain Che'Malle Matrons are nearly all dead; victims not to the Tiste, who did manage to kill a fair few, but to their own creations, the Nah'Ruk. This is a brand of shorter-tailed lizards created for reasons unknown, who refuse to be as subservient as the hive society demands and cause a civil war that ultimately destroys both factions.

The Nah'Ruk are a curious creation, because unlike their cousins the Che'Malle who rely on genetic manipulation and some sorcery for their power, they rely on mechanisms and technology. Their flying fortresses made of basalt rock (one of which, long abandoned, is home to a group of Tiste Andii and the Son of Darkness) are a fantastic concept, as are the many other mechanisms the reader is introduced to in the course of the series.

To me, the K'Chain bring a dose of science fiction to largely fantasy proceedings, with all their pseudo-technological and genetic attributes. They also serve as a device to break the tedium of bipedal vaguely human lifeforms as intelligent species, and as a very good thought-experiment in how intelligent hive societies could operate. Finally, the Nah'Ruk maintain a shadowy presence from early on in the series but aren't really on-stage until the very end, when their appearance pretty much begins the end of the tale...

Jaghut: Contemporaneous to the K'Chain and native to the world being invaded by the Tiste are the enigmatic Jaghut, another wholly original creation whose roots and inspirations are unknown to me. They are vaguely reptilian, with scaly green skin - and at the same time very mammalian, with breasts and a bipedal form. The tusks jutting from their lower jaws as their defining feature, as is their pre-occupation with cold and Ice (they'd love to live on Hoth) - their home realm of Omtose Phellack is an arctic wasteland. (Yes - they're native to the world but have a parallel dimension home realm... pre-history is confused and confusing).

The Jaghut have what is by far the most intriguing societal structure that the authors have put together. Although not particularly rude or heartless, the Jaghut lead extraordinarily long and solitary lives, a la Tolkeins Ents. The explanation given for this phenomenon is that whenever Jaghut group together, the temptation to enslave the others and become a 'Tyrant' is too irresistible for the powerful among them. Being an intelligent species as well, the solution they come up with is simply... not to group together. They abandon cities and civilization therefore, and become a very loosely connected diaspora.

The temptation to tyranny remains in these dispersed individuals, however... and they enslave whatever else they can. Most notably, Tyrants (the word becomes a noun and an adjective in story) lord over the considerably more short-lived Imass - Neanderthals - often playing Gods when being dictators isn't enough. This tyranny and the toying with the Imass therefore earns the Jaghut the un-mortal emity of the Imass and they are almost completely wiped out from the world in a jihad unparalleled in the world's history. (By the way - I know un-mortal isn't a word, but as you will see if you keep reading patiently, it is the right word)

Most Jaghut are depicted as powerful but wise hermits in the series. One of them in particular is a combination Aristotle and Herodotus figure who plays a very little active role in the series but looms large in the pre-history. This figure, named Gothos, is emblematic of the Jaghut. Tired of life and largely despondent about the fate of his species and all others ("They never learn!") he writes a book called "Gothos' Folly". This is part contemplation and part world history written in epic verse. Amusingly, the Folly in the title seems to allude to the fact that he bothered to write such a book at all - since reading it will not save anyone! As one character describes it, the book is "a long, unending suicide note..." - and that tells you everything there is to know about the Jaghut!

Imass/ T'lan Imass: Ah, the Neanderthals! The Imass are the progenitors (not just predecessors) of modern Humans in this world. Large boned, with prominent brows, and names largely reminiscent of the Native American way of naming, this is a stone age society (using stone implements, arrowheads, spears, and flint swords) that thrives on savannah and in the tundra of the world. Living largely in harmony with nature, partnering with and domesticating wolves and hunting reindeer or buffalo equivalents, this species is rather easy to picture.

They are the primary vehicle for Erikson's commentary on the deluded nature of the romance ascribed to pastoral pre-agrarian societies. Although "living in harmony" with nature, this is a species largely responsible for the extinction of various kinds of hoofed animals in the world. Although largely peaceful, tribal rivalries and jealousies cause much strife. Food is scarce, and life is hard - and they have largely no defense against the Jaghut that try to enslave them.

They are also a very emotional species and in a fit of colossal stupidity vow to wipe out every single Tyrant from the face of the world. Once this jihad begins, the Jaghut respond with sorceries of ice and cover the savannah with glaciers that the Imass dare not cross. The answer for the Imass is a ritual fashioned by their Bonecasters (shamans) - the Ritual of Tellann - to make each one of them undying... and so they become the undead T'lan Imass. Their jihad then plays out over many centuries - until no more Jaghut are to be found... and then the T'lan Imass realize the tragedy of their purposeless existence, and yearn for death.

The Imass and the T'lan Imass seem at the core to be a comment on zeal and its failings. They are also a comment on the human condition and the existential dilemma - obviously amplified many times over by their immortality. In their undeath, they have become hoary facsimiles of their former selves and have forgotten the pleasures and senses of the flesh, forgotten all that is gentle and dear in this world, forgotten their very gods - who they have outlived. The blood of children - Jaghut or otherwise - is now on their hands and had they any eyes left, they would shed tears of shame.

In this, the Imass also serve as a comment on the banality of evil... What would have happened to a Nazi not quite beyond sanity, once the zeal of the Final Solution had passed and the full consequences of his or her actions and their cost are apparent? Like the Nazis, the T'lan Imass too are seemingly beyond redemption, and yet beyond justice too, for how would one punish these sins? In this they bring out what seems to me is the primary theme of the series, in that this situation is all about redeeming the irredeemable, and judging someone beyond punishment. The resolution the author offers to this dilemma (in the third book) will take your breath away in its simplicity and honesty...

Thelomen Tartheno Toblakai: These are the Giants of the world, indeterminately larger than Humans, if just as pig-headed. Unlike other Giants of fantasy however, they are neither cruel nor dim-witted, nor exceptionally kindhearted but instead are just another species with their glory days behind them, existing in pockets here and there and living in ignominy.

Their greatest contribution to the story is one character - a subversion or comment of and on Conan the Barbarian, no less - who will in all likelihood be the focus of the sequel trilogy Erikson plans to write. They also contribute by being the progenitors of the Jhag and the Trell. The former is a result of the mating of Jaghut with Toblakai, and the latter is an almost atavistic form possibly evolved from the Toblakai. Another pivotal pair of characters in the series are a Jhag and his Trell companion. Their tale is one of the most heart-breaking in the series, and given that this is largely an epic tragedy, that is saying something! We will look at these (and that cousin of Conan) in some detail in the next post.

The Toblakai are a redundant motif in the series and one imagines they were included only because they are a neat twist to the trope of Giants in fantasy - and because they facilitate the offshoot of the story that continues in the sequels! We shall therefore wait to see what comes before going on about them here...

Soletaken/ D'ivers: While not exactly a species, this is a synthetic type that bears some examination. In simplistic terms these are both shape-shifting lifeforms, where humans (or other intelligent species described before) can take on an animal form. Soletaken are individuals who can turn into a single animal and D'ivers are individuals that can split (diverge) into multiple bodies, ruled by a single consciousness.

There is at least one instance where a D'ivers character highlights what could be done with this concept in terms of playing with viewpoints in a story. To wit: one D'ivers creature is being chased by two packs of Hounds (and more on these later). As one "unit" of the D'ivers falls, all the others feel the pain; one falls behind and circles around - and we effectively have a single consciousness viewing the same chase from two viewpoints...

The possibilities here are endless, and I'm somewhat sorry that the story doesn't afford more opportunities - or that those that are perhaps available aren't taken! - to explore this kind of thing in more detail. Interesting concept though and very well employed, especially in the second book.

Forkrul Assail: In a world where no idea, no civilization lasts forever, where the author is telling a story about Justice and Redemption, there needs to be a gang around that represents an exceptionally misguided and virulent form of both these things. Someone or something that has the hubris to stand as judge and executor for all the others flailing about. Easily the most enigmatic of all the species described in the series, the Forkrul Assail make this role their own.

They are physically designed to be spooky and ghost-like, with pale white skin and a bipedal form accentuated with multiple joints in their limbs (multiple wrists and ankles for example). This gives them the ability to be incredibly dexterous in contorting their body. Their physical strength is intimidating, and they easily threaten any of the other races physically. Their cause is to "bring peace" to the world, but not peace as in peaceful existence - they offer the peace of death. The end of a dispute is in fact the end of the disputing parties!

I'm challenged to find a real world analogue to this philosophy, unless they represent the suicide and murder cults dotting the world (and not making much of a splash, thankfully), but it does make a very good counterpoint to the notion of redemption, and justice in the context of compassion.

Although theirs (and the Nah'Ruk's) is the briefest appearance of all the species the authors have imagined and 'employed' in the series, the Assail represent an extreme philosophy in a series that is a plea for balance, and in that they work perfectly.

-=-=-

All the stuff I've covered so far in these posts is of course just backdrop. Themes, elements, species, magic systems - these are the stuff that accentuate a story, but they are merely enablers for what really drives the story - the characters.

Those percipient and not yet exhausted from my blather will also notice that there is one species I haven't covered here - Humans! - but really, Humans in the series don't push an agenda or a metaphor, and are instead a collection of very memorable individuals. These individuals are what I'll try and cover in the next post...