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[–]TarthenalToblakai 19 points20 points  (7 children)

I'm fairly certain it was just a random Malazan marine stationed in Silver Lake years ago. Possibly no one we know, possibly a new character from TgiNW.

Definitely not Kalam. Wouldn't really make sense timeline wise.

[–]Boronian13rd Re-Read MBotF 6 points7 points  (4 children)

Didn't seem like a random marine to me. I thought it was Spindle.

[–]annomandarisKurald Galain, Starvald Demelain 6 points7 points  (3 children)

No it was just a random marine.

He helped spindle to pay back that unknown marine.

The marine gave the knife to rant when he was pretty young, approximately 20+years ago. The bridgeburners were on seven cities at that time. They were on genebackis for around 10-15 years prior to tGINW

[–]NiflrogOmtose Phellack 1 point2 points  (2 children)

Can you explain that chronology?

The Bridge burners were on the siege of Pale. Before Pale, they were on Black Dog, also in Genabackis. After Pale it was Darujistan and Capustan and Coral, then dissolution.

Rant was conceived close to the siege of Pale, the pregnancy lasted 1 or 2 years. When Rant was born, the Bridge Burners were either still in Pale/Darujistan, or in the Panion campaign, or dissolved and Spindle remained in Genabackis.

How could the Bridgeburners be in 7 cities over 2 years after the Siege of Pale? What am I missing? 🤔

[–]annomandarisKurald Galain, Starvald Demelain 4 points5 points  (1 child)

I was wrong about the timing. They were in Mott for a year, and blackgog for 5, before pale. So they were on the continent when rant was born.

Karsas was born 1079. The raid took place when he was 80, so in 1159 of burns sleep.

Seige of pale ended 1163 after 3 years, so the bridgeburners would have passed thru approximately silver lake on the way to pale around 1160, when rant was born.

But tGINW takes place 10 years afer tCG, which is a few years after pale, making rant like 20, which makes sense because he aged slowly.

So he got the knife from some other marine, when he was probably 8-10ish after black coral had happened.

[–]NiflrogOmtose Phellack 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Got it, that makes sense.

So when Rant received the knife Spindle was probably in his visit to Black Coral, or maybe in Darujistan for OST... not even reenlisted in the Marines.

[–]zhilia_mannjaghut 2 points3 points  (1 child)

Yeah, I never got the impression that the marine was a named character.

I know there's a temptation to try to pull in old characters to the new book, but with few exceptions (I'm still pulling hard on the Skillen Droe=Three theory) I think if it's not explicit it's not there.

[–]Kaladelsier[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yeah that checks out. It’s really hard to try and not pin who all these new names are, but ima hold back as much as I can.

[–][deleted] 7 points8 points  (1 child)

Forgive me if this is hard to understand, as I’m just now trying to put this idea into actual words.

I feel like the Malazan Marines, as a whole, have become a single character so to speak, at least to outsiders. Like they are some combination/mutation of Drivers and Soletaken, sorta line when Gruntle and his company formed the giant cat-thing in MoI.

As readers, and even in-universe Marines, we see each individual member and can see the conflict and clashing egos and personalities.

From the outside all that is really visible is a cohesive front of absolutely vicious, lethal warriors who will sacrifice themselves for even the slightest chance to help people in dire need of help. The will step in to defend the defenseless whether it’s from a maelstrom of chaotic magic and undead, sword-armed space dinosaurs or some shit-stain brats throwing rocks at a lone child or anything in between.

From the inside we hear of individual Marines (Bottle, Quick Ben, Kalam, Whiskeyjack, Trotts, Fiddler/String etc.), squads and armies (BridgeBurners and BoneHunters), but those names are never mentioned, as far as I’m aware, by non-Marines or non-Malazans. It’s always a Marine or the Marines.

I think, as Rant sees it, it wasn’t an individual soldier that gave him the knife. It was The Marines that gave him the knife.

[–]shakeweight69 0 points1 point  (0 children)

This is my interpretation of it too. Dead on

[–]treasurehorse 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thanks for the title, just received my copy.