Karsa Orlong and why Erikson is a great writer

[Tenara]

I didn't want to post in the HOC thread because I'm only about a quarter of the way through it, and I've stumbled across too many spoilers by accident on other forums to start going looking for them here!

I think I'm quite unusual in that one of my favourite things about SE's books is the way he doesn't spend too long with any one character or story thread. At least then if you do find a character irritating or a storyline boring, you're not stuck with it for hundreds of pages. So I was a bit unsure at the beginning of HOC when I realised we were going to stick with the viewpoint of the arrogant, pig-headed "teenager" for the foreseeable future.

But now we've reached the point where SE demonstrates that the only reason we haven't seen huge amounts of character development in the books so far is that most of the characters were already mature, experienced and developed by the time we met them. I decided to give Karsa the benefit of the doubt to start with. (If I had been reading my first book by an author I didn't know, I probably wouldn't have stuck with him, to be honest.) I've just finished part 1 and moved to the story in Aren, and I'm completely bowled over by him. The friendship between Karsa and Torvald Nom is so touching, and I loved the part when he said to "the blue-eyed man" in Ehrlitan, "Are you, by any chance, from Darujhistan?" That really made me laugh.

SE has done a fantastic job with Karsa, and he's still carrying me along with him, even after the end of MOI, when I thought I was too emotionally drained to enjoy another book ever again.

[Orlion]

That was a very enjoyable section of book

[Cameraman Jenn]

Actually, I had a chance to talk at length with Steve and he was curious to know what some of my favorite parts of the series were and I immediately mentioned Karsa and he looked surprised and said that Karsa by far generates the most disliked comments from his fan base. I mentioned Karsa in conjunction with another character and their storyline than mentioned here so I won't give details so as not to spoiler anything.

[aliantha]

I like Karsa too. Yeah, he was a jerk at first, but then you find out he's basically a kid, and then he starts to mature and figure out just how much of a jerk he was. That's a lot of fun to watch.

[lucimay]

i never thought he was a jerk. i liked him from the very beginning.
arrogant and pig-headed as he first appeared (i'm thinking of his
relationship or lack thereof with his father) there was something
immediately compelling about him. he's a smartass.
i love it when he cracks wise and whoever he's crackin wise
to doesn't quite get it. makes me, as a reader, feel like i'm the
only one (between me and the other characters that come in
contact with him) that "gets" him. know what i mean? he seems
to somehow include the reader in his jokes and wise cracks.
i love karsa.

[aliantha]

Oh come on -- when he decided to go kill all the "children", he wasn't being a jerk?

[Onos T'oolan]

Yeah, in the beginning, he was a bloodthirsty, arrogant jerk. But he really became a great character. Can't wait for his trilogy!

[aliantha]

Yeah, in the beginning, he was a bloodthirsty, arrogant jerk. But he really became a great character. Can't wait for his trilogy!

Agreed, and me neither!

[Avatar]

His trilogy?

(Yeah, he's one of my favourite characters too.)

--A

[aliantha]

Yeah, rumor has it that a Karsa trilogy is going to be Erikson's next project.

[lucimay]

let me explain further...

something happens when you begin to "read" a character.
the author does things, writes things, that help you, the reader,
decide whether this character is a "good guy" or a "bad guy".

if i understand you all correctly, when you all first read karsa,
you thought he was "a jerk", a "bad guy". right?

i didn't. or lets just say i waited to find out. i didn't judge that
the character was a bad guy (a jerk), i just continued to read
and reserved judgement because i got no overt clues from
erikson that he was "bad".
not like you immediately get that Kallor is or maybe Clip or
Taralack Veed or Gorlas Vidakas.
and even erikson's bad guys have aspects to them that
make them somewhat sympathetic.

so no, once again, i'll say it. i didn't think karsa was a jerk.

you know who's a jerk? leoman of the flails is a jerk. hannan
mosag is a jerk. challice d'arle is a jerk. and one of the biggest
jerks in the series...felisin paran. total jerk. got what was comin
to her.

[Onos T'oolan]

Nah. He was a bad guy and a jerk. His great ambition was to kill as many of the other people as he could. Sounds bad to me. But hey, it wasn't his fault. He was raised with certain morals. Bad morals. It wasn't his fault he was ignorant.

But he reveals that he's better than that. When he did learn that the world was more than the crap he'd been raised on, he became better than he was raised to be. Very cool guy to see beyond all the poison he'd been taught. (And he's got an awesome sword, too! )

Felisin??? No. What she became was entirely not her fault. She was a child. Sheesh, she was a young teen when she died! As a child, she was betrayed by her sister (At least you can't blame her for thinking so. I thought so at first.), and sent to a slave camp, where she had to be a whore to survive. I'm not gonna hold anything against her. She was as tragic a character as I've ever known.

[aliantha]

What Fist -- er, Tool -- said: to me, Karsa's inherent jerkiness was due to his youth. Then I started to wonder, when his sword began talking to him, whether he wasn't going crazy. Then he started to grow up, and then I really started to like him. I mean, I liked him from the first, but I still thought he was a stupid kid. If that makes any sense.

And yeah, Felesin was a product of her circumstances. She learned some not-very-pretty survival skills on Otataral Island because she had to. In the end she wasn't a sympathetic character, true, but she was a victim of circumstance. (And thank goodness Ganoes had the heart to spare Tavore the truth about her death.)

Leoman -- well, I certainly thought he was a jerk by the end of it. I didn't that vibe from him to start with, tho. Taralack Veed, yeah, asshole from the word go -- altho I think he repented toward the end. Couldn't figure Clip out -- he just seemed odd to me. Gorlas -- is he the one who held Janeth prisoner? Then yeah, he got an immediate eww from me.

[Orlion]

Yeah, rumor has it that a Karsa trilogy is going to be Erikson's next project.

I thought he was going to do a trilogy on Rake first?

[Tenara]

Thanks for the spoilers in this thread, guys. I was trying to avoid those

[lucimay]

gorlas vidakas was charlice d'arle's husband. the guy that owned the mine that harlo was taken to.


yeah...i get where you're coming from fist, and ali. but, once again,
i just didn't have the same reaction as you guyses.

apparently, i see things from a different perspective. yes i agree that what felesin became was a product of what happened to her. i just don't
see that as the ONLY thing she could have become. what she became
(and i put it that way because you are right, she started out an innocent
child thrown into circumstances not of her making) she became because
of how she thought. and no matter any kindnesses shown her by baudin
and heboric, she fell deeper and deeper into her own dispair. even baudin's heroic death could not shake her from her course.
she was a self-serving spoiled brat, as was challice d'arle.
i wanted to like both of them but found little reason.
i sympathize with them and the circumstances that led them to make
the choices they made, however i still find them both jerks who
had opportunities to transend their circumstances and did not.

tragic? yes. doesn't make them any less jerks.

come on, felesin paran had one last opportunity to change her destiny
and instead she bitterly chose revenge.
total jerk.

of course, just my opinion. not carved in granite.

[Orlion]

Thanks for the spoilers in this thread, guys. I was trying to avoid those

I know how that feels... I had a major plot point of Bonehunters spoiled by a thread title in the Malazan forums... wasn't even in an area where I should have expected it. Sometimes, though, people get a little excited over certain aspects of the books and forget (hence why I set up my 'Orlion reads...' threads... it allows me to discuss whatever I'm reading without people forgetting I haven't read everything

Luckily, you have a lot more to figure out on your own that hasn't been spoiled yet, so there's still plenty to look forward to yet!

Oh, and those curious (and seriously, Tenara, DO NOT READ THIS! You shouldn't event quote this post to avoid accidental reading... I'm serious... this pissed me off when I saw it) the thread title in the Malazan forum which so brazenly almost ruined a portion of of BH was something like:

Spoiler

Question regarding the poison that killed Kalam

Bastards

[aliantha]

Yeah, sorry, Tenara. We get carried away around here sometimes....

Luci, I'm not denying that Felesin could have turned out differently. Of *course* she had a choice. That could be said about just about every one of Erikson's characters.

Oh, and Orlion -- you haven't finished TCG yet, have you...?

[Onos T'oolan]

I don't know that Felisin could have been otherwise, luci. I think the little-girl-forced-into-a-life-of-prostitution-and-beatings-who-never-loses-the-innocent-kindness-and-love-of-youth is a tv movie.

Or maybe it could happen. Maybe it even has happened to some. But maybe not everyone could choose that answer to what life handed Felisin. Heck, I know people who live in extremely good circumstances who cannot choose happiness because of OCD, and other mental health issues. Would it be any remote possibility for them to choose the path we wish Felisin had chosen if they went through what Felisin did? I think people are predisposed to certain behaviors, and, if they are hit by the right (wrong) triggers, they don't have a choice.

And remember, Felisin probably would have ended up other than she did, if she wasn't being kept in the background by Sha'ik. If she was not being controlled and coerced, she might have turned back to good in the long run.

[dANdeLION]

I like Karsa. He brags a bit, sure; but it's not really bragging if he can do it.