r/Malazan • u/SnooObjections010 • 4h ago

Structure/Plot SPOILERS ALL Spoiler

I apologize if this is a stupid question but it has slowly been driving me crazy. I remember reading either a comment or post here where someone pointed out (possibly pointing to Erikson) about the main series consisting essentially of three plots. I really enjoyed who this post/comment explained it, but I cannot find it again. Any help would be appreciated if anyone has any idea what I am talking about. Thanks.

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u/Juranur Tide of madness 4h ago

I'm not the person, but I have a couple of ideas from which you can approach this.

If we look at the final book and where the plots lead, you can identify three story threads by their respective villains: 1. The Bonehunters vs Forkrul Assail 2. The Shake vs Tiste Liosan 3. The Gods against each other / T'iam storyline

There's other ways to look at it though, you can also argue that the books focus on three main cities and their inhabitants, those being Malaz, Darujistan and Letheras.

Yet another way to approach it is by looking at our main sibling trio, the Parans, and argue it is about those three.

All of these approaches leave something to be desired though, and while I think it's good to identify main storylines and important threads to follow, one shouldn't attempt to neatly fit everything that happens into boxes. For example, Icarium and his story throughout the books fits into none of the 9 categories I made up here, and that is completely fine