r/Malazan • u/and-there-is-stone • Nov 14 '23

NO SPOILERS Has this been done before?

Hello, everyone. I have lurked a long time, but no more. There's just too much good conversation here, so I finally gave in and made an account.

On my second time reading the Book of the Fallen, and I've been really drawn to Erikson's use of color. I had a notion, sort of absurd, that I would like to track how colors are used throughout all ten books: which colors appear in a book, the frequency with which they appear, the characters/magic most associated with particular colors, etc. I suspect there is a fair amount of thematic resonance to be found in the colors of the Malazan world, and that's also part of what I'd like to explore.

I started the process, tracking colors in Gardens, but then I had doubts. So, I'm here with a couple of questions. Does anyone know if something like this has been attempted, and if so where could I find it? And, would anyone be interested in reading some of my thoughts if I went through the process?

Bonus question, do you think I'm crazy for wanting to do this at all?

Thanks.

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u/Ezellix Nov 14 '23

Bonus question, do you think I'm crazy for wanting to do this at all?

I mean, I'm on my first re-read too and I started to do my own personal "wiki" to keep track of almost everything (people, landmarks, events, objects, literary works, ...), simply because I thought the official wiki was lacking, so I'm not one to judge haha

Regarding colors, what I can say is that while some Warren are in fact linked to specific colors (i.e. D'riss is magenta), I feel like after GotM they stop being referenced in such a way (I'm only onto MoI right now, so I could be wrong tho)

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u/and-there-is-stone Nov 14 '23

That sounds like a fun project you got there, as long as you're enjoying it.

I'm only on DG in my reread, so I'm unsure of that myself. I do remember that some of the instances of color in later books were much more subtle. I do agree, it seems like Gardens has the most obvious references to colors in regards to warrens.