Talk:House of Chains

Plot synopsis

Since this plot synopsis is incomplete, I'm putting it on the talk page for me (or others) to expand at a future date. It's taking a lot longer than I anticipated, and the chronology and plot threads are really complicated. I'm going to leave it here until it's done so the actual article doesn't have a bum synopsis. Please expand if you've got the will and the knowledge!

THIS SECTION IS NOT COMPLETED, PLEASE EXPAND IF POSSIBLE The summary finishes at chapter 10.

Prologue

House of Chains begins with the introduction of Trull Sengar contemplating his outcasting from the tribes of the Tiste Edur. His head is shaved and he is bolted to a wall in the shattered warren of Kurald Emurlahn. This contemplation concludes with Trull Sengar stating that nature always seeks balance, and his brother's actions (the reason for Trull Sengar's outcasting) have broken a balance.

Book One

House of Chains begins with the Uryd tribe of the Teblor, a tribe that worships the Seven Faces in the Rock, who are in actuality seven T'lan Imass severed from the ritual of Tellann. Karsa Orlong is a young warrior of the Uryd, a tribe of giants descended from the Thelomen Toblakai, contemplating glory. Karsa leaves the tribe with Bairoth Gild and Delum Thord, to other young warriors seeking glory. They depart to make war on nearby tribes with an ultimate goal of reaching the human settlement to the east, collecting ears and lives as they travel. They kill several bands of fellow Teblor, ravashing the women of the villages as they pass through. En route, they encounter a mysterious set of etchings in a cave, which discuss the unknown history of their tribes, and a figure named Icarium, who established rules that would clear the impurities from their blood and make them strong again. Karsa dismisses these as unworthy stories and falsehoods, while sceptical Bairoth Gild, is more concerned. The next day they continue their journey, and encounter an enchanted slab that has held a creature pinned for thousands of years, the only part that was not pinned being a single hand that has dug grooves in the rock to protect itself from wild creatures. The three Teblor lift the slab and release the creature, revealing the Forkrul Assail, Calm. Calm attacks, wounding Delum Thord severely and knocking Karsa senseless. Karsa recovers, while Delum is permanently brain-damaged. The next day they reach the human settlement which the three of them proceed to attack, killing many. Delum Thord and Bairoth Gild are killed, while Karsa Orlong is captured. Karsa is locked in a prison with several humans, including Torvald Nom. Karsa manages to escape, and kills yet more humans, before being trapped by Malazan marines. He is bound in chains and transported to the west coast of Genabackis to be shipped to the Otataral mines near the Seven Cities along with Torvald Nom and Silgar, a slave-trader and priest of Mael. During these travels, Karsa vows to return to his tribe to prepare them for war with the humans who are capturing the Teblor of northern Genabackis. Karsa gradually slips into hallucinations during the journey to the Ottataral mines, and is woken when the ship he is travelling in becomes entangled in a sorcerous storm. The ship is shattered, and he and Torvald are drawn into one of the shattered fragments of Kurald Emurlahn, the Tiste Edur Warren. Torvald and Karsa climb into one of the boats found in the flooded Warren, take supplies and begin rowing, eventually encountering the Silanda, a boat filled with an undead crew of Tiste Andii bound in service to a crew of Tiste Edur. Karsa kills the crew, re-supplies, then he and Torvald depart. Encountering Silgar and several henchmen, Karsa spares their life when Silgar promises to open a portal to escape the Warren; he does so, and they escape to land on the east coast of the Seven Cities. Karsa and Torvald part company from Silgar and begin to traverse the coast. They encounter an unidentified man who is re-building the skeleton of a Tyrannosaurus, who provides them with money and directions to nearby civilization. En route, they are re-captured by Silgar, then freed by Gral tribesmen and transferred back into Malazan custody where Karsa's face is tatooed in the shattered pattern of an escaped slave. Here he encounters Leoman of the Flais, a character from Deadhouse Gates. Karsa and Leoman escape, and the two of them flee into the desert to join Sha'ik's rebellion in Raraku. Thus ends book one of House of Chains.

Tavore's Army

(note that the book's content are broken into short chapters - the following text is arranged by theme and character for readability.) Book two begins at Aren. Gamet is the newly appointed Fist (a military leader) of the army at Aren, and Tavore's second in command. Gamet attends a briefing with Tavore and the other leaders of the army, then witnesses Lostara Yil and Pearl being charged with the task of following the trail of Tavore's sister, Felisin Paran. Following this, Tavore assembles her army. There is general chaos, until Strings sets off a Moranth munition, which results in the forming up and following orders. As Tavore moves to address the army, she is interrupted by the child Grub, who stands in her place, holding a human thigh bone. This is seen as a bad omen, gutting the morale of the army. Strings and several other seargents plan to turn the omen by embracing it, providing bones to all members of the army to make the incident a source of black pride. The scene changes to Seargent Strings meeting his new squad, and the chapter closes by revealing he is actually Fiddler.

Lostara and Pearl

Lostara Yil returns to her barracks after her meeting with Tavore, contemplating her past relationship with the Seven Cities and the Cult of Shadow. Cotillion visits her in the barracks, and convinces her to work for him. Pearl shows up shortly afterwards and they depart for a different section of the barracks, where three members of the army are billited. These members are questioned about their travels with Felisin (during the events of Deadhouse Gates), and her current whereabouts. They travel to the Silanda, which is docked in Aren, investigating the the ship for traces of Felisin.

Crokus and Apsalar

This section opens with Crokus Younghand and Apsalar marking the death of Apsalar's father. Shadowthrone appears while Apsalar sleeps, giving Crokus (named Cutter after recent work as an assasin) the task of protecting the Throne of Shadow, then Cutter and Apsalar depart the coast for Drift Avalii. Next, Apsalar and Cutter are en route to Drift Avalii. Their boat is smashed offshore, and both are forced to swim to the island separately. Cutter encounters a Tiste Andii named Darist, who is revealed to be Anomander Rake's brother. The island is in process of being invaded by several Tiste Edur boats; Darist and Cutter must defend the island.

Onrack and Trull Sengar

Onrack's first appearance in House of Chains opens in the realm of Nascent, where Onrack, a T'lan Imass, is exploring a massive wall in the flooded realm. He encounters Trull Sengar, and frees him from his bindings. They make their way across the flooded plain, finding a small town at the foot of seven massive statues of black stone, in the shape of hounds. Onrack can hear the howls of the imprisoned spirits within the stones. Onrack cuts into the statue, freeing one of the spirits. It assumes physical form, attacks Onrack, then leaves. Trull and Onrack explore the villiage, discover a box of Monrath munitions and a gate to another Warren. Trull uses the munitions to shatter the wardings on the gate, opening a portal to the Warren of Thyrllan. From the Warren, four Tiste Liosan warriors emerge, attacking Onrack and Trull. They reach an impass when four other T'lan Imass arrive. The groups are stuck in the fragment of the warren, and forced to use magic to leave the site.

Army of Raraku

The section on the army of Rarauku opens with Heboric Ghost Hands, who converses with Felsin Younger, an orphan of the Raraku camp. Heboric attends a meeting of the leaders of the Rebellion, including Sha'ik Reborn and Karsa Orlong, now a leader within the rebellion. Karsa leaves without Heboric and travels to a glade where he has carved statues of the Seven of the Dead Fires, as well as Bairoth Gild and Delum Thurd. Karsa converses briefly with Sha'ik, who departs for a discussion of strategy with her senior council. There it is revealed that her brother, Ganoes Paran, still lives. Next, Karsa decides, after talking with Leoman, that he will be leaving the desert to seek out a horse sufficient to his stature, while Leoman travels outwards to harrass the Malazan empire.

Kalam Mekhar

Kalam enters House of Chains in the Warren of Shadow, where Cotillion tasks him with learning more about the enemies of the Warren of Shadow. The next scene sees Kalam purchasing a set of long-knives, one of which is invested with magic-deadening otataral. Next he proceeds to a series of caves, where Malazan soldiers are surrounded by an army of the Seven Cities. Kalam pretends to be a deserter to gain access to the caves, joining forces with another pretend deserter in the process who is looking for her brother within the caves. Kalam uses enchanted diamonds to summon a demon that kills all members of the Seven Cities armies, and helps him gain access to the caves. Within he finds the remenants of the Malazan army, and an underground river that holds an enormous, glowing figure of unknown origin.

Themes

(I'm putting this here for now, since I want both input on other themes I may have missed, or more examples for the one I found, or even just "Hey, tard-boy. It works better if you say it this way..")

Chains

An overwhelmingly overt theme in this book is that of chains, and all that is associated with them; ie slavery, confinement.

The true antagonist in the novel, indeed the Malazan series of novels, is the Chained One. This book marks the first in which he is not only physically chained, but is now chained to the Deck of Dragons and must abide by the rules of conduct which that entails. His House of Chains is based around imperfection. This Chained One is also known as the Crippled God.

Karsa Orlong is the most obvious example of this theme, however, as he is repeatedly enslaved and reshackled throughout the book. He is a slave to his culture, his gods, and his own sense of righteousness. He is said to been chained to the souls of everyone he has killed. The false gods which haunt his shadow are in fact servants of the Chained One, and belong to his House of Chains. Karsa is also the unwilling Knight of Chains. While he is chained to a wagonbed on a boat in the Nascent, the boat is destroyed by chains formed of lightning. He casts off a number of shackles through his journey, however. Ignorance. Dependance. Arrogance.

The thief Crokus accepts the chains of being Cutter, an assassin. Later, he begins to question the slavery he bought for himself.

Fiddler, a soldier formerly of the Bridgeburners, realizes that he is still chained to that unit, even after it has been annihilated.

Kalam, another Bridgeburner, finds he cannot escape the chains of his past.

The maddened slavemaster Silgar, the Leper of Chains, is seen at one point drawing an endless pattern of chains around himself, though shortly after he has departed, a figure that represents Heboric Ghost Hands is seen within the pattern.

Bidithal, the Magi of Chains, has a cult of little female children he has bound to himself through mutilation.

Heboric, at one point, thinks to himself that Sha'ik is building for him nothing more than a house of chains.

Darist, the brother to Anomander Rake (who is himself asociated with chains in the Fatid), guards the Throne of Shadow on Drift Avalii. After his death, the Traveller shoulders the chains of that position.

The Adjunct Tavore must deal with the legacy of the Chain of Dogs.

Family

Another theme is family, and the love and conflict within them.

The Adjunct Tavore leads the Malazan army to crush the Apocalypse, unknowing that it is led by her younger sister, Felisin. To preserve Felisin's life in an earlier book, she had her sent off to the otataral mines, which ultimately led Felisin to the Army of the Apocalypse. Eventually, Tavore kills Felisin in single combat.

The Bridgeburners are a family formed through trial. It can be easily said that the Bridgeburners featured in this book are brothers.

Toblakai has a bad relationship with his own family. He thinks of his father as weak, but comes to understand later this is not so, and that his father loved him very much.

Trull Sengar, a Tiste Edur, is introduced to us as being cast out of his family by his brothers. His companion, Onrack the Broken, is much the same after his Vow is sundered. They form a sort of family unit, as well.

Onrack's Imass wife is the spirit behind the Whirlwind Goddess, who is still angry at him, after millennia, for cheating on her.

The priest L'oric finds and confronts his father, the god Osric. They don't get along so well, but Osric is not totally uncaring. He helps his son a few times, and helps to find a new guardian for the Liosan realm, Thyrllan.

The three Tiste races are referred to as one family. The Andii come from "Mother Dark", the Liosan from "Father Light" and the Edur as the miscegenated offspring of both.

The conflict between Light, Dark and Shadow is defined as a family struggle. With the warrens of Tellann, Thyr, Meanas, and Rashan all running about now, too, it is said that the old family struggle now has grandchildren and in-laws joining in.

The original founding group of the Malazan Empire is described as a family, as well.

Themes tend to be kinda iffy as additions to entries on books, and the ones above, though they are themes in the books, are very specific. If you want to include them, try reducing them to 2-4 sentences overall, with perhaps one example of each. Also, I'd suggest putting these on the Malazan Book of the Fallen page rather than on specific book pages - they'll get more traffic and input, plus if you are including themes they should be ones that span the entire series rather than single books.

Incidentally, in the Bonehunters, the whole interactions between Tavore and Laseen struck me as kinda 'family-ish', almost like a child separating and choosing their own identity apart from their parent. But that's pretty close to original research. WLU 23:49, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

Eh. Each book has different themes, though. There's a series theme, no doubt, but if I wanted to be real anal about it, I could do a theme for each storyline in this book. :D Besides, this could just stay back here on the talk, rather than go into the entry. I just felt it was worth stating, especially in this book where the chains thing is just so heavy-handed. (And I realized I should've signed my bloody name to the themes bit, but... meh. Now You Know.) Howa0082 02:05, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

Each does, but given the amount of space allocated to each book within the context of wikipedia, best might be a couple lines on the most important themes - for HoC, put in chains, and family, maybe two sentences each. Including each reference/aspect is very wordy for what is really a very minor issue within the whole space of WP. Also the talk pages are meant to talk about the topics of the pages themselves, rather than being like a message board or place for fans to meet. If you do leave it there, try updating it once you get ideas on how to include it in the main article. It's problematic 'cause without secondary sources, it's really close to original research. At this point, the only thing I could see including would be that they are mentioned several times in the book. Ideal would be someone's (like Steven Erikson's) opinion on what it means. Putting things like what you have now on the page will eventually be a barrier to featured article status 'cause it's not really adding much that's encyclopedic. There is apparently a wiki site where you can compose original research, but I don't know what it is off hand. Signing stuff is handy for people who don't use the differences feature, which makes it easy to know who said what. You know about the tildes, right? Four to sign, three for name alone, five for date alone?WLU 16:56, 11 November 2006 (UTC)