Avas Didion Flicker

Avas Didion Flicker was a poet, storyteller, adventurer, and world traveler. In his life he visited holy cities and knelt in disguise before veiled tyrants and god-kissed mendicants. He journeyed with desert caravans, earning his keep telling tales to rapturous audiences. He spoke with the Toblai in their mountain holds, stood on the shores of Perish, and walked the streets of Malaz City.Crack'd Pot Trail, Chapter 1
At the end of his life he wrote in his colonnaded garden amidst fruit trees, nightingales, and many wives.Crack'd Pot Trail, Chapter 1
==Known Poems==
"Where Ravens Perch"The Crippled God, Epilogue I
== In Crack'd Pot Trail==
Flicker traveled on the Cracked Pot Trail across the Great Dry in order to attend The Century's Greatest Artist competition in Farrog. When the caravan ran out of food, the other well armed travelers decided their "useless" artistic companions would be more useful as meals. Every night Flicker and the others performed in competition for the right to live another day. Even though it appeared to be against his own self-interest, Flicker often assisted the other competitors when they seemed about to make a major mistake. He also took on the additional challenge of promising to redeem dancer Purse Snippet before the end of the trip.Crack'd Pot Trail, Chapter 3 
Relish Chanter had her eye on the Flicker, casting wanton glances his way, and engaged him in savage lovemaking one night when her bestial, protective brothers were asleep. Flicker's fellow artists Brash Phluster and Calap Roud witnessed the event and threatened to tell Tiny Chanter. But Flicker turned the tables. For his next story he told a tale of how Calap had seduced Relish, and before Calap could deny it he was murdered by an enraged Tiny.Crack'd Pot Trail, Chapter 3 Relish later admitted to Flicker that she felt trapped by her brothers and often thought of killing them to escape. Flicker offered a skeptical Relish the promise that he would find a way to release her.Crack'd Pot Trail, Chapter 5 On the final night of the pilgrimage Flicker convinced the Chanters that Calap had impregnated their sister. He also described a future in which the child would learn of its father's death at its uncles hands and seek bloody vengeance. Realizing they had failed to protect their sister and fearful of a kin-slaying vow the three agreed to release Relish from their control.Crack'd Pot Trail, Chapter 6 
As the pilgrim caravan came to the end of the Great Dry, Flicker told a story to the already agitated group of Nehemothanai and Chanters that hinted that their necromancer quarry were the true passengers in the Dantoc Calmpositis' carriage. Tiny and his brothers attacked and the carriage went out of control, dragging them and the Well Knight Arpo Relent and the Mortal Sword Tulgord Vise over a three hundred foot cliff to their apparent deaths.Crack'd Pot Trail, Chapter 6
Fellow traveler Sardic Thew paid Flicker handsomely for the Dantoc's death, now revealed to be a carefully planned and artfully executed assassination. Of all the tools (knives, garrotes, poison) used in his murderous career, Flicker most preferred killing with the spoken word. Flicker turned to Purse Snippet now that she knew what he was, and asked her if by comparing herself to him, could she not find something worthy in herself.Crack'd Pot Trail, Chapter 6
==In The Fiends of Nightmaria==
Avas Didion Flicker was one of the ultimate survivors of the dire events of Crack'd Pot Trail who had arrived safely at the city of Farrog. Flicker did not stay long in Farrog, however, and he apparently left the city with Relish Chanter. Where they went and how long they remained together was not reported. Although it was widely assumed that Relish had been more than willing to run off with Flicker, her brothers, especially Tiny Chanter, preferred to think that Relish had been "kidnapped" and forced to go with Flicker against her will.The Fiends of Nightmaria, Section 11
== Quotes ==
==Trivia==
*Author Steven Erikson was asked "how closely do the views of Avas Didion Flicker on art in general and on his own art in particular represent your views on your work with Malazan and the relationship between your work and its general audience. Is Flicker a pure authorial insert...or do your opinions differ from his, and if so, by how much?" Erikson responded by pleading the Fifth. The author found the character "fun to write" but warned that Flicker was "full of shit sometimes" and the reader had to take everything the character said with a grain of salt. "Even more so than Kruppe...[Flicker was]...the most self-aware narrative voice I've ever used."A Conversation with Steven Erikson - Malazan Mid-Series Reflection - Green Team of the Legendarium - See 51:50
*In a September 2021 interview, Erikson said he was taking a few weeks off from writing Walk in Shadow to work on a murder mystery novella featuring Flicker. He said, "Flicker is the...greatest assassin ever...and the fact that nobody knows about it proves just how great an assassin he is. So it's that kind of a story." The novella will be in the spirit of the Midsomer Murders television show, which takes place in a fictional English county. "I've kind of taken that idea of an English estate, an ancestral pile, loaded it up with characters and I'm now proceeding to knock them all off. It's fun."Ten Very Big Books podcast - The Bonehunters - See 1:08:30
*Erikson found inspiration for Flicker's voice in Crack'd Pot Trail from the writing of British explorer Richard Francis Burton; specifically, Burton's introduction to his translation of The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night.Steven Erikson Facebook post - 5 May 2020Novellas (and more) with Steven Erikson - Smiley's Podcast - See 8:40 But he says, "I don't know if I can ever recapture his voice. It really felt like he just took over the story. I don't know where he came from, in terms of that voice and that attitude. And I don't know if I can ever recapture it. It's like he made this outrageous appearance and then just stepped offstage again."Novellas (and more) with Steven Erikson - Smiley's Podcast - See 15:55
==Speculations==
Since the fact that Flicker, near the end of his life (when he theoretically wrote the long ago history of what had happened to the caravan of travellers that became the story, Crack'd Pot Trail), mentioned that he then had many wives,Crack'd Pot Trail, Chapter 1 one could wonder if one of those wives was, in fact, Relish Chanter.
==Notes and references==
Category:Assassins
Category:Authors
Category:Poems