Questions about power, ascendants, mortals and size advantages?

In general, power is not only about size and strength and ascension is not only because of strength or skill. When comparing different fights you have to remember if the fight is limited to skill or power.

As to your questions, without spoiling anything I hope:

1. An ascendant, say Rake, can easily blast your average Joe with magic strength, he would tho be extremely hard pressed against Seguleh Nr. 3 in a purely skill-based fight.

2. I am less certain here. When veered I'd say they loose some of them selves and the control they then have. Rake's dragon form represents him giving in to Chaos a bit. I might be wrong here.

3. It's been a while since I read GotM but Rake and Demon were pretty closely matched in veered power and Rake has a special sword he wanted to use (RAFO about that).

As to you examples: Jhagut vs Dragon is a power based fight.

Iron Bars vs Tarthenal Ascendants is partly a skill based fight, there is more to Bars than meets the eye.

I think there's a few things going on.

One is that I don't think Malazan has clear 'power rankings'. IIRC Robert Jordan had a list of the magic users in WoT ranked by power so he could refer to it if they ever fought. I don't think Erikson would ever really think about doing that and would be more likely to let the circumstances of situation, plot or character decide the outcome.

A second, important point, is that many of the fights you are referring to occur in GotM and (if memory serves), a lot of those fights were gamed. In other words, they were literally decided by the role of a dice. I would also say that GotM is the trickiest of the main series to take tidbits from and apply them to rest of the series (GotMisms).

Finally, I don't think there is always a clear power gap between a non-ascended and ascended beings. So from your examples, Raest is no run-of-the-mill mortal, but a powerful Jaghut sorcerer who ruled as a cruel dictator over a large amount of Imass for a long time. He may not be an ascendant but his magic is vvv strong. Similarly Iron Bars (and the other Avowed Crimson Guard) are not ordinary mortals (you have to read the ICE books to find out more) and in a physical fight would be a good match for quite a few Ascendants. Karsa is not an Ascendant, but there's very few characters I would back to beat in in a sword fight.

Question 2. I don't think has an explicit answer, maybe someone else can chime in

I'm afraid I don't remember the circumstances of Question 3, sorry.

Also, with my Mod hat on, I have added RG spoiler flair to your tag. Please tag your posts going forward (click 'flair' under main body of your post to choose the tag).

Size is pretty much irrelevant with regards to "power" here. Skill and determination count for almost everything. Like, you could be poor Daru street kid who is really good at juggling and is REALLY serious about juggling. You could practice so hard that you're juggling shit that nobody should be able to juggle, and you walk around the plains juggling boulders and tree trunks and Trygalle Trade Guild wagons, like, you are REALLY SERIOUS ABOUT JUGGLING. After a hundred years or so tales of your incredible juggling feats have spread across Genabakis and the old Rhivi women tell tales of the time you saved their lives by juggling an entire herd of bhederin across a river during a terrible flood. In gratitude they leave offerings of polished stones and small grain filled sacks at the river crossing whenever they pass through that same area. These tales and offerings eventually become standardized into a kind of cult and then you're juggling mountains and mid-sized bays and being worshipped because you're the new God of Juggling. Oops.

In regards to point #3, Rake very clearly wanted the demon inside Dragnipur, which he isn't wielding when veered.

The power levels are never really defined clearly in the Malazan world, but there's generally certain races are stronger than others, the Jaghut are nearly extinct but they are one of the strongest races, and any characters that we'll see are the cream of the crop for them to survive until now, Reast was probably an ascendant, otherwise he would not be able to survive hundreds of thousands of years as the T'lan Imass are ancient, the ancestors of modern humans. And then there are the Toblakai, they are a race that could rival the Jaghut in their prime, but their civilization has declined so they don't appear as strong but they are still a strong race. Forkrul Assail are also a very powerful race, on the same level as the previous two. K'chain Che'malle, the common variants are at the level on humans but the elites are at the level of the above races. T'lan Imass are undead so they're a level above humans The Tiste races are slightly stronger than humans Most other races are around the level around the level of humans The ascendants can be at many different levels of powers and some elites of the races can be just as strong as ascendants, it depends on the individuals. Those who can veer are much stronger than those who can't. There's other sources of power as well, like being in service to the gods as Mortal Swords, etc, or as holders of a card in the Deck of Dragons, and yea that reminds me, anyone who has claim to a card in the Deck of Dragons is gonna be significantly more powerful than other ascendants, claiming a throne etc. There's a shit ton of different ways to gain power.

One thing to consider is that people like Rake might be super powerful but fighting some opponents would still take a huge toll. For example, IIRC there was never really a question if Rake could beat Raest, it's just that the cost would be so huge he would be sufficiently weakened for someone else to take advantage. Every fool wants to take a shot at the king.

From a storytelling perspective, "ascendancy" seems to be a rather murky concept. If it were me, I wouldn't clearly define it either. Obviously, there are levels of prowess, both martial and magical in the Malazan universe ranging from wholly inept to incalculably powerful. Erickson exploits this ambiguity to create a spectrum with Elder Gods on one end, hapless mortals on the other, and everyone else in-between. Gods Below - it can be frustrating to draw a line which probably doesn't exist in the first place.
Spoiler Alert Possible (maybe confirmed, but I have forgotten) ascendants:
-Iron Bars
-Karsa
-Fiddler
-Brys Beddict (post-poison)
-Kuru Quan (maybe an avatar?)
-Kallor
-Quick Ben (this mother******)
-Kruppe
-Vorcan
-Crokus
-Withal
-Mappo
The list goes on and on...but I'm probably way off on some of these.
I think the point is that the distance between being an average mortal and being capable of challenging Elder Gods isn't fixed. It's constantly changing and many different skills/abilities can lead one to ascendancy. This is what Ammanas exploited and Quick Ben has survived on: the uncertainty of power.