Mixed thoughts on this. First, sorry for unilaterally changing so much; I've been coming here as I read the series last year and been increasingly irritated by its state, especially the description, until I just plunged into it over the weekend.
Regarding the summary - I agree the one I placed in there was too long, but the original was arguably even worse, making no mention of the pantheon, Tavore and the Bonehunters or the entire Letherii storyline (!). So, instead of reverting, I would suggest this shortened version of mine, running three paragraphs, which I think is justified for a series as massive as this one (and is less than half, at a glance, of the summary on the page of ASOIAF, which is far less complex):
"The Malazan Empire is yet in its infancy, and it has already seen its first betrayal. Surly, Master of the Claw, has assassinated Emperor Kellanved and his closest companion, Dancer, and taken the throne under the name Laseen, continuing the Empire's policy of ruthless expansionism, though she is continually mistrusted. Almost immediately, the new gods of the Shadow Realm, Shadowthrone and Cotillion, launch a plot against her, but stumble into a web of far grander plans among their fellow Ascendants. So begin the Tales of the Malazan Book of the Fallen, a grand tragedy told from the perspectives of dozens of characters across three arcs, each beginning on a distinct continent.
On Genabackis, the decade-long Malazan campaign of conquest is slowly coming to a bloody end, but Laseen's paranoia of plots against her leads her to orchestrate the decimation of the Bridgeburners, the most famous military unit in the Empire, sending the armies to the brink of revolt. On the other end of the Empire, the Seven Cities subcontinent is gathering for a religiously mandated uprising known as the Whirlwind, and as the war unfods, it becomes clear that the inexperienced noblewoman Laseen has inexplicably chosen to put down the rebellion is much more than she seemed at first sight, with unknown motivations and an unknown agenda she will stop at nothing to realize. Far away, on the continent of Lether, the six tribes of the Tiste Edur have united after millenia of internal warfare to protect themselves against the Kingdom of Lether, driven to inappeasable expansion by its radical capitalist economic system.
As events progress, these conflicts start interweaving, and throughout it all, rumours of peoples thought extinct or myth returning can be heard, as a broken god driven mad by millenia of torture launches his plan to break free from his chains and deliver vengeance."
Would that be okay? The long summary could then go under the Rotating Arcs trope (I don't think it has enough specificity for the pages of the individual books).
As to the picture, it's extremely tough choosing one that expresses as much as possible of the spirit of a work as large as this one. For comparison, The Silmarillion has the awakening of the Elves, A Song of Ice and Fire ice & fire imagery; here, for lack of a single defining event or a non-amateur world map, we'd have to pick a character. I agree that this picture of Tavore is not the best, especially with its deviations from her description in the books, but Tavore is perhaps the character most representative of the series, though not perfect by any stretch of imagination, and the picture itself is one of the few really high-quality ones out there (though admittedly that applies to the original, too). Rake, however, definitely isn't in synch with most of the rest of the books, and it does show on GOTM that it was written seven years before Erikson began with the continuation. So, regardless of the specifics of the picture itself, I don't think Rake is the right one to pick. The only alternative to the two I've been able to think of for now is the cover of the Kindle edition of all ten books combined (this one
◊). That would be have the benefit of mirroring the pages of the individual books, though the scene on the cover is somewhat of an amalgamation. I'd prefer Tavore, but the cover would be better than the one that was there before.
As to the reorganization/structure issue: the pages of comparable works (LOTR, Silmarillion, ASOIAF, Dune, etc.) have an unearthly amount of tropes, organized into folders or entire separate pages. That, then, is not the direction we want to go in, right? If so, we could thin out the more down-to-detail things on the page, like weapons tropes, along with ones that apply to just a single book, too, and devote this one more to themes, the world, and overarching plotlines. Personally, I'd like that better.
In this case, we could also use some division of work with the character and individual books' pages. My preference would be the Seven Cities or Letherii storyline to work on, but I'm flexible (I also like TTH). However, I haven't started ICE's books or the Kharkanas trilogy yet, so I'll be of little help there. By the way, would it make sense to make a separate page for the Novels of the Malazan Empire series?
I hope I've addressed everything, if not, please point it out! Excited to be working on this.
Edited by Nutilnas
It does not seem like the last drive to overhaul the Malazan page came to much, which is understandable, considered the mess the series is.
Nonetheless, I am of a mind to spend a weekend sometime soon-ish in an attempt at overhauling the whole thing as far as possible, including the Characters page, which is a whole bog in itself. There's a lot of misinformation/misinterpretation (Silchas Ruin is listed as Evil Albino on the main page, but as Heroic Albino on the Characters page, for example), fluff and ZC Es. And also tropes which belong either on the Characters page or to the individual books.
I also wonder if it maybe makes sense to make a /Creator page for Steven Erikson, because he's written a bunch of stuff other than this series.
Only thing I cannot do is anything to do with ICE's novels, as I gave those up at some point.
Basically, this is a statement of intent in case somebody has objections.
Also, on the Characters page, among some character groups, there are several tropes which are not only Zero Context Examples but also repeated over and over again with each character, and I wonder if it's not better to add them in the discription, for example:
"Many of the upper echelon Tiste Andii are dragon shapeshifters."
..unless it's an explicit aversion, like Andarist.
Edited by Derkhan
The Messiah is no longer a trope. Please readd under an actual trope.
- The Messiah: Systematized in the setting. The circumstances are vague, but a god or even a species can have a mortal known as a Shield Anvil whose purpose is to draw psychic pain into himself on battlefields, thus allowing the spirits of the dead to rest. Depending on the scale, this may in fact be harmful to the Shield Anvil. The Shield Anvil also acts as a moral guide, and typically ensures that compassion is not forgotten by those around him.
The Milkman
Holy pancakes, this page is... I don't even know how to edit it.
The Malazan series is absolutely massive, and with ICE having debuted with his own series set in it, calling this page Malazan Book of the Fallen is growing harder and harder to justify. Almost every book is of doorstopper length (the average page count is probably 900 pages, discounting the novellas), and unlike, say, The Wheel of Time, each volume is largely self-contained, with an overarching Myth Arc keeping the volumes tied together in each series.
Adding tropes and examples is growing nearly impossible because the writing is dense enough that it's entirely possible to have a different character mentioned in each individual example, and tropes only apply to very specific volumes which may not even be in the same series. Trying to write a lead that doesn't ramble on and on doesn't seem possible, and the current version very tersely sums up what the first two books are about; this is problematic, as those two are separate story arcs that have very little to do with each other for most of the series. The third major arc is only hinted at vaguely, because I felt that to go on any longer would not be worth it.
I think the page needs a complete do-over. There should be a separate page for each individual series, a separate page for each book in the Malazan Book of the Fallen series, possibly one for each book in the Malazan Empire series as the books there are mostly stand-alone, and, if possible, a franchise page where we can stick the shared tropes and the character sheet. It's drastic as heck, but this is a complete mess, and creating another page like Homestuck does not seem appealing at all.
Any feedback on this? Also, technical help? I wouldn't know where to start, if we go through with it.
This happened because Tim had made a mistake.
On the question of Karsa Orlong being a scrappy:
- Who in their right mind would consider an Up To Eleven Badass whose favourite pastime is slaying demons with his bare hands to be The Scrappy? God-Mode Sue might be understandable, but Scrappy?
- Female readers who find his culture's love of rape and pilage to be a severe Values Dissonance?
- 'Love' is not the word I'd use, but good point, I honestly didn't remember that. Although I'd like to point out that (AFAIR) no raping/pillaging has been commited by Karsa since he's left home. Sure he's pulled his fair share of "give me your stuff or I'll kick your shit", but who in this Crapsack World hasn't?
I think it more a case of Deliberate Values Dissonance with Karsa, his view of morality is very...different to everyone else's.
This trope has been re-defined. I don't know whether this example is valid for the new definition. It may need rewording to show how it fits the new definition. If it's valid, please restore it here and on the trope page.
- Loads and Loads of Races: And they're all Proud Warrior Race Guys.
Anyone care to explain what the Hell the Jade Giants were?
"Sometimes cynicism is the last refuge of the idealist." -L.E. Modesitt Jr
The Tropesaurus
Shouldn't the page title be The Malazan Book of the Fallen, with the version without the article being the redirect?
I don't think Hide Your Lesbians applies for Tavore/T'amber. Ericson doesn't really elaborate relationships, and at times he's (or the characters are) quite explicit about what 'goes on in their tent.'
Also there are a number of other lesbian characters - Stonny, Some of the Heavies, Lorn - and they are not treated any different than the straight characters (at least by the author).
I question whether the changes made today (Jan 28th 2018) are really necessary for the Malazan work page.
First off: why change the image? The one that was there has been there since, like, forever. I do understand that Tavore is a central figure and becomes very important to the plot, HOWEVER, she does not fully appear until the fourth book, House of Chains. On the other hand, Anomander Rake is both very prominent in the very first book AND the image of him is very iconic; it is not only well known in fantasy literature circles, but it's been printed in image compilations outside of the Malazan series. It also actually shows Anomander Rake, unlike the image of Tavore, which is nothing like she is described in the books. It could be any random woman.
Furthermore, I think that the work description is way too long now. I do like the text. However, each of the ten books in the series already has its own work page, and since the individual paragraphs about the three major plotlines are so detailed and there are already several tropes on the page which enumerate the three major plolines, these paragraphs seem like they belong on their respective book pages rather than in an overview of the entire series. I think the previous description gave a good overview without going into details that belong on the individual books' pages. So, basically, I am in favour of reverting it and instead placing the new text elsewhere.
Additionally, the description is now too long to fit onto my 24 inch desktop screen, which makes it annoying to read.
In fact, I have been making an effort to rework the entire page in the past few weeks, moving tropes which belong to individual books to their respective pages. The main page is already in danger of becoming too long and too bloated with those tropes which are true for several books and/or the entire series, so I think what it really doesn't need now is even more bloat that could be avoided. It's already difficult enough to read it and to scroll through and I'm not even halfway done with my effort of crosswicking and expanding those tropes, which do belong on this series-overview page.
So, that's all I can say for now. Going to be calling Nutilnas in via PM.
Edited by Derkhan Hide / Show Replies