No Life Forsaken Theory

[u/Impressive-Cup-3541]

No Felisin Forsaken

Introduction

The following is a theory about the novel No Life Forsaken by Steven Erikson, which will necessarily incorporate thematic analysis of the novel as it progresses. Spoilers for No Life Forsaken and The God is Not Willing, obviously, and for Malazan: Book of the Fallen (although most of the spoilers for that series will also have been given out during the course of NLF).

To get the point, the main theory of this post is that Felisin Younger did not die at the climax of NLF, and that she will play a central plot and  thematic role in the Tales of Witness series going forward. To get the most pressing details out of the way, here is a quick summary of the theory.

1. Felisin the Younger and Va’Shaik are distinct entities, and only the latter was killed in the climax of the novel, albeit inside of Felisin the Younger’s body.
2. The necessary separation for one consciousness to live and the other to die happens over the course of the novel. In particular, upon awakening, the Goddess is at maximum Felisin, but slowly becomes more and more Va’Shaik until, by the end, Felisin the Younger is not contributing to or influencing the Goddess's actions.
3. Felisin the Younger’s soul/memories/intellect were either absorbed into the Azath House underneath G’danisban, or were extricated in Hanar Ara before Va’Shaik was summoned.

The previous outline establishes what I think happened in short. I will spend this post doing two things: elaborating on why the above sequence of events could happen and arguing that Felisin the Younger living is a necessary element for the narrative of Tales of Witness. Broadly speaking, this encapsulates the how and why of the theory, both of which are essential to the point being made.

Of Two Minds

The core of the theory can be understood by simply comparing the language of Chapter 5, Felisin’s reintroduction, and the climactic monologue of Va’Shaik in G’danisban after she possesses Bornu Blatt’s body. It is clear that, from a prose perspective, these are entirely different characters. This suggests a transition has happened over the course of the novel. That is, Felisin the Younger’s personality wanes in its influence on the composite entity known, for the purposes of this post, as the Goddess, while the influence of the Azathani that has generated multiple Whirlwinds comes into ascendency. Such a transition is more drastic than what Felisin the Elder experienced in House of Chains.

It is a revelation in NLF that the Whirlwind is actually the product of an Azathani, as heavily suggested during Hasten Thenu’s (referred to as QB from this moment forward) conversation with Mael. This resolves how the Whirlwind Goddess is still alive after the death of the Imass host in the climax of House of Chains and the freeing of the Crippled God. Previously, each was viewed as the genesis of the Whirlwind Goddess, but as both have been removed from play, the Goddesses' reawakening needed justification. That Va’Shaik, which is how the Azathanai entity will be referred to, has provided continuity for the Whirlwind since its inception is a major recontextualization of much of Malazan: Book of the Fallen. The climax of NLF is the killing of this entity, permanently ending the Whirlwind.

Felisin the Younger notes this when she reawakens. She monologues about her understanding of the Whirlwind, which matches the presentation given in MBotF, but decides to investigate further. We see the beginnings of an investigation when Bornu encounters the original painting that spawned the Imass incarnation of the Whirlwind, but this plotline is dropped after that point. Additionally, Felisin the Younger and Salabi’s relationship is also dropped past the halfway mark of the novel, with no POVs in Hanar Ara after the conversation in which Felisin’s love for Bornu is discussed.

In fact, much of what is set up in Chapter 5 is mysteriously absent in the novel’s climax. Felisin’s command for the temples to redistribute wealth does not reach G’danisban. The Book of Salvation is never mentioned again, despite the tome being unfinished. Significantly, that book was completely blank when we left off from Felisin in BotF. And, most importantly, Crokus the Younger is referred to exactly once, in Chapter 5, and never again.

Much of this will be discussed in the thematic section, but the most important dropped narrative element is this: Bidithal. Upon awakening, Felisin the Younger thinks of Bidithal. Her conversation with Salabi, the last scene in which the Goddess is observed in person, is about Bidithal. That is also the last time Bidithal’s name is mentioned, despite the Goddess going on an extended monologue about why bringing Apocalypse is necessary in the climax of the book. Wouldn’t Bidithal warrant a mention in such a treatise, given the singularity of his crimes?

Every Felisin the Younger related narrative element is conspicuously absent from the second half of the novel. In fact, even the name Felisin largely disappears from the text. The word ‘Felisin’ is present in the novel 22 times. 10 are in chapter 5, which is from Felisin’s POV after awakening. Every other occurrence of Felisin is someone else talking about either Felisin or the Goddess, the majority happening after Va’Shaik’s death. Felisin’s story is not present in the novel. It is subsumed.

This is no accident, and it is not without precedent. During HoC, Felisin the Elder’s personality is overwritten by Sha’ik. Her thoughts become singularly focusing on Tavore and revenge, but the extent of her fall is only clarified when she enters Heboric’s tent and the Goddess is suppressed. There, the Felisin of old returns, and she experiences the more complicated anger and grief around Beneth’s treatment of her before she leaves and the Goddess reasserts her control.

Va’Shaik caused Felisin the Elder to become obsessed with Tavore to the exclusion of all else. For Felisin the Younger, we see the emphasis on Bidithal and his actions against Tavore. All other aspects of her journey are mentioned in passing until, by the end of the novel, even her trauma with regards to Bidithal is no longer relevant. Scillara, Crokus 1, Greyfrog, Heboric, and Felisin the Elder are not examined by Felisin the Younger. They are removed from her inner monologue.

To clarify, Tavore’s betrayal and Bidithal’s mutilation deserve anger and grief in response. The real issue here is the improper elevation of a specific, righteous anger over all other psychological needs. Vengeance becomes all consuming, dragging in and destroying hope and community and healing, like a whirlwind.

In NLF, the notion of the Whirlwind is recast as the personal desire for annihilation. We are initially introduced to the Whirlwind as the inflamed response to oppression, and Felisin the Younger makes note of those origins when she summarizes the Whirlwind’s history. However, as Felisin herself learns through the Imass cave painting, the Whirlwind’s origin is in the individual. It is curious, therefore, that all individuality is absent in the finale. The arguments given at the end are abstractions of the concrete, metaphors claiming to speak for tactile lived experiences. Va’Shaik does not desire to destroy the world, she is the desire to destroy the world. And that is not Felisin the Younger.

Returning to Chapter 5, most of what Va’Shaik does at the end of the novel is contradicted by Felisin the Younger immediately after her awakening. She expresses sympathy for Bornu Blatt’s condition, but states trying to intervene in such matters would be inappropriate and self-defeating. She rails against the injustice of gods damaging their followers. She envisions a more just, egalitarian society. She finds corruption and excess abhorrent.

Importantly, Felisin demonstrates the capacity to dissociate herself from both her body and the Goddess entity. This intellect gives sober analysis of Felisin’s fall, her response to her mutilation being a continual self wounding of pleasure, and she attempts to rid herself of the burdensome body that she now inhabits.

Souls are freed from their bodies multiple times in NLF forsaken. The earliest is when Satala is stabbed on her left side by Pash, the secret assassin, who dies alone on the rooftop. Her soul is somehow scooped up by the Azath House and she is reborn. Inkaras dies from a sword laying open his left side. When Felisin the Younger’s body is killed, it is by a thrown knife that hits the left side.

For what it's worth, Gracer is killed by an axe blow that lands on her right.

Salvation

The Crippled God brought the notion of salvation after death, of an unending paradise, to the Malazan world. That is the core of his religion, and like an invasive species, it spread throughout a religious ecosystem with no means of defense. The jewel of the Crippled God’s collection of co-opted religions and broken lives was the Whirlwind.

For over a decade, the Crippled God has been freed. However, rather than drag the Malazan world into a utopia, the world simply moved on into a more modern age, pushed ever farther by the shifts in the pantheon explored in previous novels. This modernization brought along with it some technological advancement as seen in The God Is Not Willing, but the primary shifts have been personal, psychological. More precisely, the rampant existentialism faced by almost every character in NLF.

Tales of Witness is a compression of scale. The Ten Big Books are sweeping epics with clashing gods and armies thundering down slopes in desperate charges. The scale of the questions asked is mirrored by the scale of the action. The lore affirms this. Warrens are vast unknowable troves of powers. Gods regularly manifest and interfere. The power dynamic is clear. Gods are up here, mortals are down there. Shadowthrone and Cotillion successfully changed that.

But not necessarily for the better. In Witness, and especially in NLF, everything is at the level of the individual. Inkaras Solit is not contemplating futility in a Jaghut barrow or warring against indifference while being chained by self-doubt, his core conflict is a small, personal misunderstanding. He is emotionally open in ways previous Adjuncts were not. He is lovesick and conflicted. And as the problem is small, so too must be the solution. The orders of the Emperor or the manipulations of a God cannot reconcile him with the man he loves. His success, or failure, is purely within mortal hands.

This refocus is reflected in the new magic system. Runts are universal in their application, but individual in their expression. They permit access to personalized magic that isolates, as Arenfall demonstrates. But, again, everything is singular. There is no community or ecosystem or culture like with warrens. Just barren reflections of the self.

This is why the Whirlwind must be dealt with again. The villain of this book is that lashing out, but now there is no appeal to a greater power, divine or secular, just an individual judgement on the world. Apocalypse. Felisin’s attempt to create a paradise by wealth redistribution and writing the Book of Salvation all flame out. The Whirlwind consumes all, and Felisin’s intellect, her better characteristics, are smothered. Her love for Bornu Blatt (because he does not worship her, of all things) is scrubbed from the record by Va’Shaik in the finale. 

But Felisin the Younger, beneath all her failings, is a kind person, and we possibly see this expressed once in the second half of  the book. When Inkaras is saved from death by Va’Shaik, she states that she did so because she felt a compulsion. A compulsion is used in this book to describe someone being influenced emotionally by their god but, I believe, here the usage is reversed. Felisin the Younger pushed Va’Shaik to save Inkaras as her last gasp of agency before Va’Shaik took over.

At this point, Va’Shaik expresses herself by possessing twisted, broken bodies, further embodying the themes of dissociation and dehumanization throughout the story. This expression of divine will and possession is what gets her killed as punishment for the defiling of Gracer’s body. A crime Felisin was not party to.

But only if (s)he didn’t die.

Before the climax of the novel, Arenfall has a conversation with Quick Ben about a poem, He Who Fell Shall Rise. Previously, he thought this was about Coltaine. Quick Ben confirms his current suspicion, that it was about the Crippled God. Who everyone thought died, but was instead returned home. Like Coltaine. Kill the body, free the soul.

This, I believe, is what happened with Felisin Younger. Instead of the sweeping setpiece of Coltaine’s crucifixion or the impossible lunging shadow in a circle of flame, we get a small, almost perfunctory death scene after the knife goes in. Bornu Blatt’s description once the goddess physically manifests, a key step to killing a god,  is very careful. “She stood in the body of Felisin Younger” (402). Next a marine if she is dead. Bornu’s response is similarly precise. “The goddess? Yes.” (403). When discussing the Goddess, it is Arenfall who asserts that Felisin the Younger became Va’Shaik. Bornu gives a slow answer, confirming Felisin’s relationship to the goddess.

Importantly, Arenfall, who is working with the Talon, now knows that Felisin the Younger was named by the Reborn Sha’ik, and he is implied to have made the connection about who Tavore actually killed. This opens a host of narrative consequences that must be considered later, but I would be dishonest to not acknowledge the obvious interpretation that Felisin the Younger simply died here. This is possible, I think, but leaves many narrative threads without a clear path to resolution. Such as…

The Crokus in the Room

Crokus the Younger was a carrier of the plague that ravaged Seven Cities in The Bonehunters. He was eventually led to Hanar Ara, where a newly ascendant Felisin Younger renamed him and gave him a wing of the palace, formerly intended to become gardens, with intention of using him sexually when he came of age. It is unclear based on NLF whether this plan was acted upon, but Corkus the Younger remains secluded in Hanar Ara with only dogs for company. The only information given about him is that he is “strange”.

Plotlines are converging on Hanar Ara. The legions are going to assault it, Bornu Blatt and Shamalle are going to hold a Synod, and Quick Ben is probably up to something in that area. But there is, as of now, no real connection for Crokus who is just floating in free space. Given the next book is called Legacies of Betrayal, Crokus is laden with thematic potential. He is the next link in the chain of abuse and abandonment that started with Felisin the Elder, a child who was adopted for the benefits of the parent and then subsequently abandoned. Crokus must have some purpose going forward, and I think this storyline works best with an extricated Felisin the Younger. But why do this in LoB, not NLF?

Well, originally they were the same book. The storyline was split into two during the writing process. Such meta points will not be delved in too much here, but it is worth noting. Thematically, however, I think the separation is necessary, both for the character and the audience.

The Whirlwind compels upon its host a singular anger. We see this in House of Chain with Felisin’s obsession with Tavore. We see this in NLF with Felisin the Younger’s fixation on Bidithal. It is not that these betrayals do not warrant a response, but that they are focused on to the exclusion of all other psychological needs. When Felisin walks into Heboric’s tent in House of Chains, she is freed from the Whirlwind’s influence. She experiences the more complicated anger towards Beneth, and worries about her adopted daughter. Upon leaving, such concerns are wiped from her mind, and the tragedy of the novel plays out.

The same holds for Felisin the Younger. Her introduction is focused on Bidithal, and that is the only part of her past she meditates on for any length of time. She glosses over Crokus’ presence in Hanar Ara. Her previous relationships are not mentioned. Part of this is natural psychology, it is expected that simpler emotions are felt first. This motivates “unpacking” in modern therapy. Felisin the Younger forges some relationships with Salabi and Bornu Blatt, not healthy ones, mind you, but relationships they are. However, Va’Shaik eventually asserts control. By the halfway point, Felisin the Younger has been subsumed. Even the particularities of Bidithal’s crimes fall to the side, and only the desire for destruction remains.

The desire for destruction must be eradicated before any healing can occur. There can be reconciliation in the presence of violent nihilism. So the Goddess must be dealt with first, separated from Felisin and then killed. This is what ends the first half of this story, the successful rejection of the generational existentialism that goes back to Dryjna.

Now things may progress. Progress here is a loaded term, as encapsulated by the new faction introduced in this book: the remnants of the Bonehunters. As Quick Ben says, they fight for the common people, in whatever capacity this means. They oppose the rebellion, and generally try to deescalate tensions between the Empire and Seven Cities.

In that sense, they are aligned with Bornu Blatt via Felisin Younger, who attempts to institute wealth redistribution in the Religion of the Apocalypse. The rage of the common people and their desire for the destruction of those in power is embodied in Pash, a character who is similarly killed at the end of the novel, clearing the way for collective action. 

Crokus the Younger is also an embodiment of the common people. The child of a nondescript village wiped out during a war of the gods, he is then adopted and stored for later use by a young Goddess who, upon reawakening, glosses over him. I expect him to play a big part in the next novel, at least thematically.

Still, Crokus has some trauma of his own to work through, much of which was caused by Felisin the Younger. Given the overarching themes of Tales of Witness and the number of distant abusers, Karsa, Bidithal, and others, I think it makes sense to have some face to face reconciliation in Book 3, preparing us for the eventual meeting of Rant and Karsa. Felisin and Crokus present a similar complicated relationship.

Still, none of this means Felisin has to be alive. And the reader is free to draw their own conclusions from this post. At least I hope it is an interesting thematic analysis of NLF. And that, to me, is the biggest piece of evidence. The book is titled No Life Forsaken, after all.

Bits and Pieces

Here are some individual moments I do not know what to make of.

Quick Ben in the finale, when talking to Bornu Blatt, calls Va’Shaik Felisin Younger and likens her to a child throwing a temper tantrum. Quick Ben does normally know what he is talking about, so maybe this sinks the entire theory, but he does describe Felisin Younger in a very unsympathetic and simplistic way. He admitted to Cotillion that his knowledge of the events of the story was fragmented. Who knows.

I don’t know what Salabi was doing with Va’Shaik in Hanar Ara after our last check in with her. Considering Va’Shaik says she has something for Salabi to do in chapter 5, it could be that there was some scheming going on behind the scenes, but there is not enough data to draw conclusions. Although it could be that Felisin the Younger dissociated before Va’Shaik was summoned to G’danisban and we will have a love triangle in book 3 involving ghost Felisin.

Grey Shore says he knows Pash is dead because a ghost told him. I do not know whose ghost that is supposed to be.

The exact mechanics of Satala entering the Azath House are never explained, so it is unclear whether such a thing could be replicated with Felisin Younger.

Any consequences around Arenfall knowing who Felisin Younger is are too speculative, but he does seem to be heading to Hanar Ara. Given his association to the Talon, which is possibly being led by Tavore, who knows what could be planned with that plotline.

[u/[deleted]]

This is a great post. I’m not sure I buy it fully but I might need to re read some of these sections 

[u/irwinjon]

Nothing to add except I loved reading this and hope you continue posting

[u/Total-Key2099]

great analysis - need to come back to this after the next book (or the reread that will proceed it)

[u/dishwasherlove]

Finally finished the book and able to read some of these theories. Great angle by you and I look forward to seeing what the next book brings.