History Literature / HouseOfChains

* ConstrainedWriting: Karsa was self-imposed challenge to write a Malazan book that followed a single character for the better part of the story.

-> 'Dryjhna was an author who, to be gracious, lived with malnourished talent. There are naught but bones in this tome, I am afraid. Obsessed with the taking of life, the annihilation of order. Yet not once does he offer anything in its stead. There is no rebirth among the ashes of his vision, and that saddens me. Does it sadden you, Toblakai?'

* EverythingsBetterWithDinosaurs: Karsa Orlong and Torvald Nom stumble on a hermit on the Ehrlitan coast of Seven Cities, where he's built a giant tower which acts as a kind of scaffolding for a huge dinosaur (possibly T-Rex) skeleton he's rebuilding within. This comes out of nowhere, has no bearing on the plot and is actually incongruent to any of the worldbuilding that's happened up to this point in the series, considering anything big and scaly had so far been shown to belong to the resident LizardFolk races of the K'Chain Che'Malle or K'Chain Nah'ruk. But the skeleton is way too big to be one of those and besides, the entire chapter runs on RuleOfCool.

* FirstEpisodeSpoiler: ''House of Chains'' gives us the new character Karsa Orlong, who is revealed to be [[spoiler:Toblakai]] from ''Literature/DeadhouseGates'' at the end of the first of four sections in the book.

* NiceJobBreakingItHero: About a quarter of the villainous machinations in the SeriesFinale are set in motion all because Karsa Orlong [[Spoiler: lifts the boulder off of Sister Calm]].

* PortentOfDoom: During their first training exercise, the 14th Army watches as a toddler play-marches up to the Adjunct's side and begins mimicking her movements and commands- waving a bleached bone around instead of a sword. The sight sinks the morale of the 14th from bad to mutinous within hours.

* CurbStompBattle: Karsa Orlong and his war party free the trapped Forkrul Assail from beneath a stone slab in the opening chapters. [[CallForward Sister Calm]] thanks them by tossing Karsa like a rag doll and punching Delum Thord with enough force to leave him brain damaged and childlike. She casually walks away, never to be seen again until the SeriesFinale.

* CurbStompBattle: Karsa Orlong and his war party free the trapped Forkrul Assail from beneath a stone slab. [[CallForward Sister Calm]] then tosses Karsa like a rag doll and punches Delum Thord with enough force to leave him brain damaged and childlike before walkin away, never to be seen again until the SeriesFinale.

* HeWillNotCrySoICryForHim: Happens when [[TheUndead Onrack the Brocken]] is told of [[spoiler:his former wife's, aka the Goddess of the Apocalypse's, death]]. Trull Sengar cries in his stead, which kickstarts their InterspeciesFriendship.

* GoldfishPoopGang: The Tiste Liosan Trull and Onrack encounter on their journey are mostly portrayed as [[StopHavingFunGuys humourless twits]] and are consequently ridiculed. Not even the other characters take them seriously, despite them being so ralrely seen nowadays that their existence is mythical.

* RealLifeWritesThePlot: As with the rest of the series, certain parts of the book were played out as roleplaying game campaigns first. In this book, per WordOfGod, most of the Karsa Orlong segment in the first part was taken from such a section, where Steven Erikson deliberately distorted the descriptions to the detriment of the person playing as Karsa. Eventually, the player got fed up and, in a moment of frustration, decided to attack an important character who was just introduced. Thus, the scene where [[spoiler:the Tiste Edur on ''Silanda'' are killed]] was created, setting the stage for the their appearance in ''Literature/DeadhouseGates''.