Re-Reading Deadhouse Gates Full Series Spoilers 

Thanks, A.P.. I write elliptically, and that scales up to encompass the entire series. Everything is fractal, with minor variations to keep things interesting, and to explore the significance of those variations on a human level of comprehension. In essence, this series describes my personal obsession on both the personal distinctiveness of human experience and the grander themes of the human condition. It's an ongoing obsession. Sort of like my obsession with shoelaces.

Coltaine's sacrifice resonates through the series to the end and transcends the Empire he serves but also so does the betrayal he suffers in the person of Blistig who ends up betraying the Bonehunters in The Crippled God. Don't forget the cattle dogs Bent and Roach who are there at the end of the Chain of Dogs and also the end of The Crippled God. Icarium saves the Bonehunters from the K'Chain Nahruk in Dust of Dreams as well.

You see the idea of self sacrifice in many levels with different motivations exploring the question of Why? Strangely it was Squint that hit hard on my reread. Listening to the early bits I realized that the Baudin/Felisin arc in this book is mirrored by the Bonehunters/Kaminsod.

Great video, AP! I just finished TCG this weekend. What a journey! I can see a re-read in my future but will dive into the other Malazan books first. Thanks for the engaging content!

are you going to work your way back to tcg through these full series spoiler videos or can we expect a tcg spoiler talk with philip?

Loving the videos. Thanks

Looking forward to digging into the channel.

Thanks for the amazing video, A.P.!

Great video! I was just in the early parts of DHG in my reread when I decided to do the ICE novels for the first time instead, so I'll definitely watch this a couple times for when I go back to the reread. I hope you do videos on the other books too from this perspective.

This is very insightful, but I wonder; There are a bunch of actions that people take that show the greater traits of humanity (compassion etc.) that our narrator seems to be studying, but about the people who show nothing of that, Pormqual, Korbolo Dom and the like, what insights does Kaminsod glean from them and what makes them less perplexing from this god's perspective? Are they just a comparative tool? You're making my mind race with these videos, keep it going! 😀

Another great discussion. - It's really interesting to think back through the story in terms of Kaminsod trying to come to grips with these themes. The themes are still there but they hit a little differently. I especially like how you are able to sum up some distant story parts as a single story, e.g. Lorn, Paran, and Tavore. - I'm a little surprised you don't mention how The Crippled God manipulates events within DG, such as guiding Felisin to Raraku by opening the warren into the Nascent. There is a subtle line near the end (I think it's Heboric, IIRC), where he reflects on how "someone" has been guiding all of them. I find this comment very interesting because it's slightly uncertain how much is it the Crippled God manipulating the "actual" events in the diegesis versus Kaminsod, as author, taking liberties to rearrange events slightly to make them narratively more satisfying. - Erikson is usually pretty strict with presenting information only insofar as his POV characters understand it, but there are some exceptions. For instance, when Fiddler arrives in Ehrlitan there's this whole history lesson about the city collapsing on itself, which, as far as I can tell, is not anything that Fiddler could have ever known about. There's an opportunity to insert extra information like that when the Book of the Fallen is actually a book-within-a-book. But it also makes me wonder why Kaminsod would include that aside at that point. - I also am curious about the subtle telepathy that occurs in DG (and other books). For instance, in the prologue, Heboric seems to be able to respond directly to Felisin's inner thoughts. Heboric attempts to explain it by simple observation, and Felisin seems to accept that explanation. It could be that Heboric does have some telepathic ability (as a destriant or shield anvil?) that he himself may not be aware of. But there's another possibility when you add in Kaminsod as the author - perhaps Kaminsod is the one who is telepathically reading the characters' thoughts and putting them into the story, with the incident in the prologue as his way of revealing to the reader his ability to jump between "levels" - the internal and the external, but also the narrative and meta-narrative. (I'm speculating wildly, of course).

Hi I just finished deadhouse Gates and loved it! I wonder - will you ever do a book tier list on all Malazan books?

Hi Ap, Appreciate the time your efforts man. Why don't you read kharkanas and path of ascendency books?

After a long gap, I am seriously trying to read toll the hounds. Struggling very hard.

Just wrapped up book 4. I dunno. Have understood little so far. Not sure who is who. Book 4 was major let down. The ending was epic nothing burger after all the build up. Not sure if should continue. Can't endure more of the same if that is how the rest are to be honest. As for Deadhouse, I found it great even if all the warren stuff made no sense to me whatsoever.

Not really related to larger themes of the series, but while I love the series, there is one particular thing that Erikson does that drives me nuts. There were many times when I was reading the series when a character was talking about something and I would think "how in the world do they know that!". For example in Deadhouse Gates, Lull is talking about the Jaghut graves and how the baby Jaghut was put under a rock with all its bones broken. How in the world does he know that? Duiker definitely does not question it, as if it's completely normal for some random sailor to have knowledge about an event that happened millennia ago. Did anyone else notice this type of thing? Does this have to do with the omniscient Kaminsod writing the book and just literally putting words into the character's mouth?