House of Chains; or, The Ballad of Karsa Orlong


"The glory of battle, Koryk, dwells only in the bard's voice, in the teller's woven words. Glory belongs to the ghosts and poets. What you hear and dream isn't the same as what you live—blur the distinction at your own peril, lad." 

     In the wake of the response to his 1963 novel The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, in which audiences romanticised its tragic portrayal of Cold War espionage, John le Carré set out to completely satirise that which he was already attempting to deconstruct. If readers didn’t understand the futility depicted in that novel, he had to write it in a way they could understand. The result was The Looking Glass War, a comically bleak look at a washed-up intelligence agency and their futile attempt to corroborate a Communist defector’s intel. Where The Spy… was a page-turner, a critical but compelling look at spy work, Looking Glass is dull, dreary, and entirely concerned with the failures of extraordinarily incompetent men. It’s not hard to see why audiences felt disillusioned by le Carré’s response to their romanticisation of The Spy, because no matter how you slice it, Looking Glass isn’t a fun, thrilling, or tragic read: it’s a tedious one. A group of old spies trying to relive their wartime glory doesn’t feel tragic because their failure could have been easily avoided, their motivations are impure, irrational: prideful. Instead of tragic, all The Looking Glass War feels like is a waste—and that’s what makes it so brilliant. 

     Deadhouse Gates was a beautiful novel. A fantasy epic steeped in heroic tragedy, resurrection, and moments of glory befitting our larger-than-life protagonists—a novel of ascension, of Herculean triumph in the face of impossible odds. While not pretty by any means (much like le Carré is no Ian Fleming in that regard), Deadhouse Gates can almost be described as a sanitised narrative, an idealised story. A bard’s tale. When we see Duiker resurrected and preparing to tell the tale at the end of Memories of Ice, it makes sense. It was a story that needed to be told, to be emphasised, passed down through generations. A story of valour and overcoming everything. It also makes sense, then, that House of Chains feels much the opposite. Where Deadhouse Gates revels in its tragedy, House of Chains feels far more brutally unsatisfying—it all feels avoidable. It feels like a waste. While not quite as bleak as The Looking Glass War, which bleeds its pitiable protagonists dry, House of Chains leads old and newly beloved characters through a veritable wringer of preventable failures which, for many readers, makes it much harder pill to swallow, but also one ripe with implication. 

     As is the running theme throughout this series so far, power draws power, prod and pull and so on, our characters and their fates are intertwined in innumerable and infinitesimal ways, and we witness the way the world and its events are all pulled together from distant corners to create epic climaxes. So, it’s fitting that the biggest failing in House of Chains is its failure to climax—or, I suppose a more appropriate way to put it is that it doesn’t climax in the way the reader wants or expects. Tavore’s army trails the Chain of Dogs in reverse, Lostara and Pearl track the path of Felisin, Kalam makes his way into the heart of the Raraku, we see these characters pulled into the rage of the Whirlwind Goddess, the chaos of Raraku, expecting an epic clash of armies—the untested Malazans versus the war-hardened Dogslayers, Tavore versus Sha’ik—but we don’t get this. The rug is pulled out from under us. The climax is quite literally stolen from us by the quite literal ghosts of the past two novels, the revenge and rage of the Goddess, of Sha’ik, is stolen as she’s cut down in chains, and instead we get the regrettable, the terrible consequence of so many factors, so many characters drawn into this chaos, flailing against the tides of power. Felisin becomes nothing but an effigy for Tavore to cut down. A tragic act that, while terrible, ultimately left a hole where perhaps we should have felt closure, all because it felt so utterly preventable. The Dogslayers are slaughtered in their trenches before a battle can take place. The rebellion is torn apart from within, rival factions and warring plans and vies for power that all fail. All throughout the novel we see characters making up excuses for why something cannot be done. Felisin Younger cannot be saved because they need Bidithal, Korbolo Dom cannot be stopped because they’re playing their political games, Sha’ik cannot be reasoned with because the Goddess is consuming her reason, the Malazans cannot be stopped because they need to be drawn into the Goddess’ flaccid rage, and so on. As such, from all sides, we see preventable measures not taken. There are failures and tragedy abound, but no satisfaction in any of it. Cutter and Apsalar, despite their infatuation, part ways. Fiddler mourns not only his past and place in the world—his existence—but also The Bridgeburners he wasn’t with. Lostara and Pearl’s entire investigation ended in meaninglessness, too late to be of any consequence. And Onrack, who cannot even grieve for himself—there is an essence of emptiness in the way House of Chains ends. It is filled with such sadness, but there is also no resolution, no climax, no bard’s tale, and it creates something not many people want: a novel that feels deeply, grimly human; unnecessary waste. 

     Where characters in past novels have been pushed and pulled by elemental forces, but where that prodding and pulling led to greatness, to satisfaction through loss and sadness and grief, forced into paths that felt like they had a purpose, a goal. House of Chains is the first time we’re forced to ask whether there was any point to the way they’ve been pulled this time, and even if these forces are indeed out of their control, we at least have to wonder, why don’t any of these characters push back? Try to fight their fate a little harder? And this question is answered with the one character willing to flip the table on these elemental forces that all our other characters so willingly let themselves be manipulated by, the one character who seizes the light switch in the dark: Karsa Orlong. 

     Witness. 

“If there must be ghosts, it was better to lead them than to be chased by them.” 

     When I first played Dungeons and Dragons, I was told by my Dungeon Master that I could carry any instrument I liked. I wasn’t yet fully immersed in the ability to choose anything, so I went with something simple and practical: a small pan flute. When my group’s first session started, we were exploring a cave. Upon sneaking up on a pack of wolves that hadn’t noticed me yet, I did what anybody would do when they are asked simply, “What do you do?”—I told my Dungeon Master that I put all the wolves to sleep with my flute. 
    “It’s not a magical flute, it doesn’t have those properties”, he told me. 
    “I know”, I said, “I just play it so beautifully that they all fall asleep.” 
    So, I was made to roll for my flute-playing ability. I forget what modifier I used, or what the result was, but really, the result doesn’t matter, as anything less than a Natural 20 wasn’t going to work out for me. I was subsequently attacked by six wolves. My more-experienced D&D group was less than impressed with my overt willingness to ruin the combat encounter right off the bat, but they were stuck with me: I’d had a taste of pure freedom, and I liked it. Now could you imagine how much worse it would be if I were deranged? 

     Karsa Orlong is, at first glance, a moral black hole. He kills indiscriminately and lives purely for the glory his violence and domination can bring. He disrespects his peers, his friends, and leads them to misfortune in his monomaniacal obsession. There are hardly any redeeming qualities to be found in Karsa, the perfect barbarian, who kills, rapes, and pillages at will, all in the name of spreading and preserving the culture of his tribe, of leading them to absolute power and dominion. Karsa is the ultimate murderhobo, a Dungeon Master’s worst nightmare, and he makes for a such a singularly compelling and entertaining point of view from which to read a novel—because, let’s not kid ourselves, Book One of House of Chains is a standalone novel, one that completely subverts the expectations we’ve built from Steven Erikson’s prior work in this series. Where many of Erikson’s characters are thoughtful, philosophical, morally complex, and emotional, Karsa is their inversion. And though we see him develop as a character over his short novel that opens House of Chains, it’s the ways in which Karsa remains faithful to his initial impression that interests me more than his later developments. But to address that, we do need to address how Karsa develops—not just how he develops as a character, but how our perception of him develops. 

     The most significant starting point for this is when we discover that, no matter how minor we may perceive it, Karsa does follow a sort of code. When he is imprisoned by the Malazans, we get the following line: 

“Torture was not a Teblor way, nor was prolonged imprisonment.” 

     And this is our first look at any sort of true moral from Karsa’s perspective, and I think it’s one of the most powerful, one that colours our perception of morality across the entirety of the novel, of the entire Malazan Book of the Fallen. Karsa may kill indiscriminately, viciously, but in the wake of possibilities opened up by the notion of torture and imprisonment, is Karsa’s way not a way of mercy? We see Karsa framed alongside the Malazans here, and is there not an inviting comparison to be drawn? For how different, truly, are the goals of the Malazans from Karsa? I imagine most readers from the beginning of House of Chains are expected to be morally repulsed by Karsa’s actions, but is that same expectation held in prior novels with depictions of the Malazan conquest? Perhaps, depending on the readers’ political views, it is. But I’m willing to bet that doesn’t stop readers from attaching themselves to our Malazan protagonists, because, after all, this is not a series about black and white moral absolutism. The Malazans, all throughout the series so far, are concerned with imperialism, and conquest. They imprison, they torture, they invade. In some instances, this could be seen as a mercy, and some actions of the Malazans can be seen as heroic, helpful, but their goal is no different than Karsa’s. The Malazans want absolute control. How much more repulsive is it, then, a culture and imperialist army that wholly supports and enslaves its victims? Is Karsa’s swift brutalism not a more merciful approach? Comply, or die. Neither is right. Neither, I should hope, feel morally acceptable to the reader, but it gives us this single dichotomy to chew on, and it’s a dichotomy that we’ll be chewing on for the rest of the novel. 

     Karsa goes on to declare the Malazans an enemy of his, and he eventually sides with the rebellion, but we see another example of Karsa’s more progressive moral code much later in the novel, when he sees further evidence that perhaps the rebellion in Seven Cities doesn’t ally morally with his views either. As Karsa comes across a village under rebel control, he notes the wealth disparity between the workers and the highborn landowners: 

“Wealth was measured in control over other people, and the grip of that control could never be permitted to loosen. Odd, then, that this rebellion had nothing to do with such inequities, that in truth it had been little more than a struggle between those who would be in charge…What matter the colour of the collar around a man’s neck, if the chains linked to them were identical?”

     While the series up until this point hasn’t truly represented either side of this conflict as right or good, it’s incredibly poignant that the first character to really, truly mull over this disparity between both sides vying for control, is the outsider, the barbarian, the most violently repugnant character in the series to date. The character that all other characters fear, feel repulsed by in his singular severity, is it not beautifully ironic, that he has the most morally nuanced view on this war to date? Not even other forces denying the Malazans their imperial conquest—Caladan Brood and Anomander Rake—have expressed such views regarding their opposition of the empire. We see here that perhaps Karsa isn’t quite the moral black hole he’s portrayed as, because this willingness to mediate his morals between these two sides appears long after we’re introduced to him, after his initial single-mindedness has become clouded by his introduction to others; other cultures, peoples, lifestyles, punishments, and morals. Karsa never had a need to moralise prior to his conquest because he had only ever experienced the universality of one culture, one code: the Teblor way. 

     When it comes to the true black holes of morality in the story—Bidithal, or Korbolo Dom—we don’t see much worth analysing. Men driven solely by selfish impulses; one hiding his self-centredness behind a pseudo-sort of religious belief, the other behind a guise of military stratagem; using others to serve their own purposes, both failing to see how they are being used to serve others (the nightmare mess that is Sha’ik’s rebellion, and the manifold intents of its followers). Karsa, however, refuses to use others, and to be used by others. Upon learning of how he was used by his Gods, confronting the ways he had changed since he set out on his conquest, Karsa interrogated the only person responsible for his actions: himself. 

“He had been indifferent for long enough, indifferent to so many things. He had reined in his spirit’s greatest strengths, among them his need to make judgements, and act decisively upon them in true Teblor fashion.”

    And when he is chained to yet another God, he makes his intent clear: he will not be chained, he will not be indifferent—his entrance into Erikson’s narrative began to put him on a path, and he’s the first character who seems to acknowledge they’ve been put on rails, so he steers off them. We see Karsa reborn into his original morality, the truth he was born into, or judge, jury, and executioner for his own ideals and ways of the Teblor, and he rights his wrongs. Recall that quote from earlier: “Torture was not a Teblor way”, and you might also recall, later in the novel, when he has his chance to take revenge on his captor, Silgar, he does—with torturous violence. Dismembered and succumbed to leprosy, Silgar becomes a nameless worm in the rebellion, doomed to a pitiful and powerless existence. When Karsa came to Seven Cities, he shed his ideals, he shed his control. But now, we see him right his wrong:

“Leoman was right, long ago—a quick death would have been the better choice.” 

     “Choice”—that’s the operative word, here. In all of House of Chains, it feels like Karsa is the only character who has one. “When I began this journey, I was young. I believed in one thing. I believed in glory. I know now, ‘Siballe, that glory is nothing. Nothing…The same cannot be said for mercy.” When we think of Gods and their relation to our characters, when we think of Karsa’s unwillingness to be controlled, another powerful concept that comes up and is explored in House of Chains is that of effigies: how immortality, ascendency, can be achieved through paintings, carvings, song. It was the impetus for the Whirlwind Goddess’ rage that Onrack betrayed both her and the T’lan Imass by painting Kilava’s image, trapping her in time, creating an abomination outside of the Ritual. We see that the Teblor Gods, the renegade Imass, try to offer Karsa a place among them, to be a God himself—and he refuses. But what if there’s a greater force that Karsa is fighting against, what of Erikson himself (or any invisible narrator), immortalising a man within the pages of a book, forcing his existence upon a story? What moral right is there for anybody to hold sway over the effigy, the immorality of others? What are the moral rights of the creator, the artist? Sometimes it’s better just to question rather than probe for an answer, and Erikson isn’t a writer who’s afraid to let things linger. 

     Let’s let ourselves linger on morality, explore the inverse: the innocence of Crokus. 

“Murdering killers was still murder, the act like the closing of shackles between them all, joining a line of infinite length, one killer to the next, a procession from which there was no escape.” 

     We see here an almost instant connection to Karsa’s depiction, a man chained to the ghosts of those he’s killed. Where Karsa strives to seek freedom through his willingness to deliver swift judgement, we find Crokus fearing the freedom he will lose if he succumbs to such rash decisions, to the immorality behind an eye for an eye. Where so much fantasy fiction likes to romanticise acts of murder, or torture, for a righteous cause, we find in Crokus the lack of rationale in this line of thinking, beautifully rendered in the above quote—shackles. Murder only begets more murder, rape begets more rape, torture begets more torture. Readers may find themselves excited when Karsa Orlong so savagely disposes of Bidithal, his grimly “poetic” death. Crokus asks of us, though, to what end? 

    Where Karsa’s war with morality was against an ever-expanding world, against empires and expectations, Crokus’ war with morality rages in himself, his innocence, his intentions. 

“Cutter shrugged, then said, ‘Crokus had no...patron god.’ 
Of course. And one day, a man will arrive in Darujhistan. With a Malazan name, and no-one will know him, except perhaps by reputation. And he will eventually hear tales of the young Crokus, a lad so instrumental in saving the city on the night of the Fete, all those years ago. Innocent, unsullied Crokus. So be it...Cutter.’” 

     Crokus, in his attempts to bring himself closer to Apsalar, corrupts the part of himself that drew them together, misunderstands the part of her that is, verifiably, her

“His choosing of a new name had displeased her from the very first, and that he had now become, in effect, a minion of the patron god of assassins appeared to wound her deeply. He had been naïve, it now seemed in retrospect, to have believed that such a development would bring them closer.” 

     It becomes harder to analyse these sections as subtext, when so much is just text, much of Crokus and his interactions with Apsalar are uncommonly explicit and expressed in Erikson’s writing, perhaps a way to reflect the damaging amount of conversation that does not exist between them. So much of Crokus’ conflict, his pain, his sorrow, could be avoided if the two took the time to talk, to be bare, to be honest. But instead, they stew inside themselves, and we get some of the plainest text in the entirety of the novel, sections where Erikson lays completely bare and clear the pointless tragedy of their union and, eventually, their separation. 

“The young wide-eyed thief from Darujhistan had fashioned of himself a dire reflection—not of Apsalar the fisher-girl, but of Apsalar the assassin, the cold murderer. In the belief that likeness would forge the deepest bond of all. Perhaps that would have succeeded, had she liked her profession, had she not found it sordid and reprehensible. Had it not felt like chains wrapped tight about her soul…His love was for the wrong woman, the wrong Apsalar. And hers was for Crokus, not Cutter…Like Crokus, she stood in a killer’s shadow.” 

     We see here an irresistible comparison—at least, I find it irresistible. When so much of the novel focuses on the literal realms of Light, Dark, and Shadow, we find Apsalar using shadow as a metaphor for her relationship with Crokus, two opposites drawn into the same compromise, “together, yet apart”. And later still, we see this idea explored, almost ironically, through the beliefs of Bidithal, with the following quote: 

“Shadow is but an upstart, a realm born of compromise and filled with imposters.” 

     The comparison to draw here, then, is one of morality reflecting the nature of Light, Dark, and Shadow in this novel, and the state of flux that they’re all in. Where it seems so simple, to some characters, the rightness of the wrongness of their actions, the value of morality we apply in kind, House of Chains doesn’t want to be so quick to draw the same conclusions. By the end of the novel, lines are crossed—our initial assumptions about the barbarity of Karsa and his total immorality are blurred. Crokus loses his total innocence in naivete, but even then was he ever totally innocent? He himself draws comparisons between his desires and joy behind mastering thievery, not for survival, but just for the art of it. Why do the Malazans see injustice in murder, but not in slavery? And all in between lay scattered dozens of characters with their own perceptions and ideas of morality, their own musings on Light, Shadow, and Darkness (for I have failed myself to even mention the history of Lostara, and her strange companionship with Pearl, or Onrack’s endless philosophising). But in the end, no answer is given to this eternal puzzle. We receive no closure regarding the state of these warrens, a shattered realm in contention, and the souls of our characters warring with the same moralities man has attempted to wrestle forever. 

     House of Chains is a difficult novel. It asks difficult questions. And it offers no answers. It offers no respite, it offers no comforts, it offers no bard’s tale—and that’s what makes it so brilliant. 

“No life’s path is bloodless. Spill that of those blocking your path. Spill your own. Struggle on, wade the growing torrent with all the frenzy that is the brutal unveiling of self-preservation. The macabre dance in the tugging currents held no artistry, and to pretend otherwise was to sink into delusion.”

Comments

  1. Loved your review, it focused on aspects which often are a bit overlooked. Enjoyed the read a lot. I hope you are continuing with your reviews and journey through the Malazan Book of the Fallen :-)

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