[Midnight Tides, Chapter 3] Revelations At The Stone Bowl
I felt the need to quickly write out my thoughts with some questions to try and seek clarification after what felt like a pretty big bombshell of a chapter (Fear, Trull and Rulad visit the Kaschan Trench and learn about the war between Light, Shadow and Dark).
So, first off: the K'Chain Che'malle essentially doomed the universe as a final act of defiance against Tiste aggressions, by trapping Mother Dark at the heart of an abyss, forcing her to devour all life to survive. I think I'm understanding that right? She's basically a black hole I think? I LOVE that they come across as monstrous and unthinking in the early-to-mid parts of Memories of Ice, yet as the series goes on they're revealed to potentially be among the most advanced races!
It has been about five years since I read Gardens of the Moon (took a big break after House of Chains. Bigger than I initially intended), but doesn't Paran get sucked into a Warren of Kurald Galain at one point when he touches the blood of one of the Hounds of Shadow, and in that warren doesn't he see a massive cart full of corpses slowly moving ahead of a chaotic gateway? So my thinking is that this was a visual representation of what we've just been told, and that Mother Dark resides within Anomander Rake's sword Dragnipur, and he has taken it upon himself to kill as many people as he can with the sword to "feed" the abyss and prolong the life of the universe? I feel like I'm speculating a lot here, but it sort of makes sense in my head.
I feel like this revelation about the nature of this war is a huge piece of the "What's actually going on here?" puzzle, though I still have literally no idea what the Chained God is up to or how he factors into any of this. Honestly it seems like the races of the material world are doing a great job killing themselves without a cosmic entity getting involved!
Posted Sep 14, 2022, 9:20 AM UTC
Paran entered Dragnipur's own warren, not Kurald Galain. They are, in fact, distinct. Dragnipur is Draconus's work -- which we largely know from MoI -- and is there to keep the gate to Kurald Galain in motion. You haven't seen the last of Dragnipur; not to worry.
As for where Mother Dark is... well. That story, and the question of her continued existence and/or location, is yet to come. Fear's explanation is certainly damn intriguing, isn't it?
Aaah ok, yeah I vaguely remember the sword having its own warren now. I'd honestly completely forgotten about Draconus forging Dragnipur and then getting stuck in it though, so thank you for reminding me.
One thing I hadn't considered is that the Tiste Eidur recollection of what the K'Chain Che'malle did to Mother Dark is just wrong, too. They're wrong about so much already that it wouldn't surprise me.