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syphon posted:I guess I interpreted that as Abercrombie making that intentionally ambiguous (meaning, we're never really supposed to know if it's true or not). It seems like some people are taking that as proof-positive that it DID happen, which I don't think I agree with. It's a fantasy book, not an episode of CSI. We can't pull the DNA evidence from Monza's old bedsheets to prove that she did the nasty with her brother, we have to infer these things.
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May 31, 2012 22:43
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Above Our Own posted:It wasn't just Shivers. Ganmark and Costa also made comments alluding to it, and it seems odd that Monza wouldn't deny it or at least ask them what they were talking about. Also I think it's more directly implied in a lot of Monza PoV moments where it goes into how she sleeps with her brother's shirt and how close they were.
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May 31, 2012 22:53
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It's been ages since I read it now, but wasn't there some kind of flashback scene which either indicated or implied that Monza and her brother shared quarters? I might have dreamt this.
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May 31, 2012 23:23
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John Charity Spring posted:It's been ages since I read it now, but wasn't there some kind of flashback scene which either indicated or implied that Monza and her brother shared quarters? I might have dreamt this.
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Jun 1, 2012 01:17
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I distinctly remember a part where Benna was bragging about Monza giving great head. Think someone said it so Shivers and he dismissed it at that point.
Ethereal Duck fucked around with this message at 16:30 on Jun 1, 2012 |
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Jun 1, 2012 16:22
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Maybe that's why I didn't really like Monza. Benna seemed such a lovely person (despite being seen nearly only through retrospect or second hand stories) that it was difficult to like Monza who was driven by love for and desire to revenge that lovely person.
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Jun 1, 2012 17:12
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Well, revenge for her brother, and maybe also for betraying, trying to kill, and successfully mutilating her.
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Jun 1, 2012 18:14
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Yeah, but she doesn't talk about those things nearly as much as she talks about Benna.
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Jun 1, 2012 18:18
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Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't Benna generally characterized as just incompetent earlier on before it started becoming really apparent that he was just a huge piece of poo poo? It's been a while since I read BSC, but I do seem to remember him being all "aw shucks Monza, I'm sorry" in some of the flashbacks that covered his failures, and it seemed to me that Monza was either unaware of or just trying to make herself blind to his actual character, which she does come to terms with toward the end.
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Jun 1, 2012 18:25
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I never got the incompetent vibe from him, just inhuman ruthlessness. He definitely tried to play it off that way though, just not well or anything. He seemed to put just enough effort into it to allow Monza to lie to herself that he wasn't a complete sociopath, because he knew she'd take any out she could get to not separate from her last living family. For readers though, I think it was always pretty clear that he was a bastard unless you're counting when he was a little kid.
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Jun 1, 2012 18:32
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I think Oh Snapple's right in that Benna just seems like a harmless rear end in a top hat until later in the book when we find out just how devious and malicious he was.
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Jun 1, 2012 18:48
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I just started BSC again, and man are the first couple of chapters way better than the trilogy. He really hit his stride with this book and it shows. That said my little brother (also a goon) is about halfway through Last Argument of King. He's been avoiding this thread for fear of spoilers. Its so funny to have him text me "Holy poo poo!" every few hours. He thinks that Sult is the Eater in Adua, not Sulfur.
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Jun 1, 2012 22:15
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Didn't Monza also acknowledge it as evidence that Orso was pretty liberal about sexual issues?
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Jun 2, 2012 05:40
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Bussamove posted:That's because the things he does have nothing to do with bettering the civilization he made and everything to do with one-upping Khalul and proving that he's the best at everything he does. He even destroyed a good chunk of the Union's capital city just to prove he was more skilled than Glustrod and could actually use the Seed for what he intended to do. The Gurkish attacking just gave him an excuse to actually try it so he could "save" Adua. Despite what he says to make himself look beneficent, Bayaz doesn't give one single poo poo about who died in the process because he did it and that makes him better than you. Even the king is treated like a replaceable toy. In the end he probably doesn't even care if the Union crumbles, because it's just a means to an end. He has footholds in the North and is working on one in Styria, he could easily turn either one of those into another Union in a few hundred years time. Yeah, but immortality would sort of make anyone a big picture sort of guy. Compared to a slave society and a violent lawless rape based economy, saving the union was a good thing. Bayaz is a jerk, but he's like batman. He's the hero the union deserves. And the ends justify the means of you've lived to see countless civilizations rise and fall.
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Jun 2, 2012 06:21
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Umph posted:Yeah, but immortality would sort of make anyone a big picture sort of guy. Compared to a slave society and a violent lawless rape based economy, saving the union was a good thing. Bayaz is a jerk, but he's like batman. He's the hero the union deserves. And the ends justify the means of you've lived to see countless civilizations rise and fall. But the point is that there is no big picture here. Bayaz does not give a single poo poo about anything but himself and this is extremely well established. And there is no indication whatsoever that Bayaz has ever been anything other than a self-serving rear end in a top hat who can and will throw anyone close to him under the bus (or off a tower) if it is at all beneficial to him, so his age has little to nothing to do with it (nor does it act as justification for "ends justify the means" which is a sociopath's thought process anyway). Really, Bayaz is pretty much just your textbook sociopath who happens to have taken advantage of his immortality to entrench himself deeply in a kingdom in order to protect himself from the repercussions of his past awful actions. Banker was a really good choice for him 
Oh Snapple! fucked around with this message at 19:26 on Jun 2, 2012 |
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Jun 2, 2012 08:47
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Oh Snapple! posted:Banker was a really good choice for him I would put that in spoiler tags dude.
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Jun 2, 2012 19:05
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It's a four year old book, dude. People really shouldn't be peeking at page 41 of a series thread if they don't want to risk getting spoiled on something, and frankly there's been plenty more earth-shattering events discussed in here without tags than that. I'll edit a tag in for courtesy, but tags themselves are a courtesy in series threads and the forum rules don't require them.
Oh Snapple! fucked around with this message at 19:27 on Jun 2, 2012 |
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Jun 2, 2012 19:24
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Oh Snapple! posted:It's a four year old book, dude. People really shouldn't be peeking at page 41 of a series thread if they don't want to risk getting spoiled on something, and frankly there's been plenty more earth-shattering events discussed in here without tags than that. I'll edit a tag in for courtesy, but tags themselves are a courtesy in series threads and the forum rules don't require them. Never said it was required, but courtesy is a good thing! Keeps everyone friendly and avoids the thread descending into the madness of the ASoIaF threads we used to have that got regularly shut down for being too toxic.
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Jun 2, 2012 19:39
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Umph posted:Yeah, but immortality would sort of make anyone a big picture sort of guy. Compared to a slave society and a violent lawless rape based economy, saving the union was a good thing. Bayaz is a jerk, but he's like batman. He's the hero the union deserves. And the ends justify the means of you've lived to see countless civilizations rise and fall. Does the union really deserve him? I mean the whole society is basically his construct at this point, so I really don't think it's fair to say they had it coming. Bayaz has set things up so it's easy for him to manipulate, rather than what's best for the people.
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Jun 3, 2012 16:40
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It's not an argument of whether The Union deserves him, if only for the fact that he's been at the reigns since day one. The Union has been his pet project for a long time. Some one else mentioned earlier, and I agree, Bayaz doesn't give a poo poo about The Union. It's just a means to an end to him Destroying Khalul
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Jun 4, 2012 05:33
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Bayaz barely interferes with the Union. For the most part it's a prosperous nation, and Bayaz comes in every few centuries to get things back in shape as quickly as possible and doesn't give a poo poo if a bunch of people get their lives wrecked in the process since they're just ants to him anyways. That's tough love, kid.
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Jun 4, 2012 06:58
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Nah, at the beginning of the book a dude who's described as a key political figure who basically ran the place dies, which is what kicks the whole Union power struggle off. Then Bayaz reveals that guy was completely his pawn. Bayaz comes in personally every couple of centuries but he's 100% running poo poo through other people the whole time. Plus he explicitly states that you don't need to treat the people well, and actively squashes movements towards equality. I can't remember his name but there's a socialist sort of guy in the Union who's all about improving conditions for the people and moving towards a democracy. The whole role of that guy in the plot is for Bayaz to tell him to gently caress off, showing how little he cares for the actual greater good. Basically the people who think Bayaz is morally ambiguous/ultimately good are creepier than the people who think Rorscharch is a good guy! He is in it for the glory of making a "greater" empire than Khalul or Juvens (greater as in conquer more countries, build bigger monuments, gently caress the poor). He's like the most power-crazed Roman emperor except he's been alive for millenia, and in all that time has failed to develop any perspective beyond personal glory.
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Jun 4, 2012 11:22
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The most amazing part is how comically inept Bayaz is. I mean sure you wouldn't tell him that to his face, what with the organs of your body being turned into scorpions or whatnot, but he is just so clearly ill-equipped to do anything. (Besides be an immortal prick.) Glokta would do a better job being an immortal puppet master. FFS Logen would do a better job being an immortal puppet master. (I hope in the next book he's just completely casual about heights. Uses cliffs as shortcuts, jumps off houses onto horses, that kind of thing. The climactic scene is him grabbing the antagonist and just straight walking off a huge drop with a grim grin on his face.)
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Jun 4, 2012 11:37
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I'm currently reading Kennedy's The Rise and Fall of Great Powers and boy do I get a Bayaz-kind of feel from it. I suppose it's the consequence of the viewpoint according to which financial and military success go hand in hand. Hmm, Bayaz has chosen banking while Khalul has chosen religion. I wonder if we'll see either one winning at some point. And if we do, whether or not it can be perceived as Abercrombie's comment about the western capitalist society and Islam. Probably it will. That's what you get for naming the religious leader of the
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Jun 4, 2012 11:58
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Rurik posted:That's what you get for naming the religious leader of the The mention of S(t)yria took me right out of the first book.
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Jun 4, 2012 16:00
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Well, Styria is a place in Austria, so no Syria is needed for that name. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Styria
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Jun 4, 2012 16:39
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Styria is most certainly the warring city states of renaissance Italy.
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Jun 4, 2012 16:52
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It most probably is. Ugh, fantasy worlds and their real history analogues. If I ever write a fantasy novel, I'll make sure every state/culture isn't a cleverly renamed real one.
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Jun 4, 2012 16:55
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Rurik posted:It most probably is. Ugh, fantasy worlds and their real history analogues. If I ever write a fantasy novel, I'll make sure every state/culture isn't a cleverly renamed real one. You can try, but you'll either make something that is really stupid and completely unbelievable, or make something with a historical analog completely without intending to do so.
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Jun 4, 2012 18:15
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As a counterpoint/proof of that belief (depending on taste) China Mieville's civilizations tend to be pretty unique. The city that gambles everything including laws, High Cromlech which is basically an undead aristocracy, (people save up to get liched, everybody pities the vampires) Tesh which is basically run by divinely inspired madness (they go to war with New Crobuzon because of a nightmare) and Armada. Armada is the closest, with parallels to Tortuga and the Barbary states. The trick is to mash up different times and different cultures. The warring city states of Italy become way more interesting if the Vikings are next door and have just unified. Victorian era England could actually be interesting if you replace France with Persia and Germany with China under the emperors that kind of thing. People have done pretty much every thing you can do (barring the introduction of new tech) at one time or another so the thing to do is see what happens when you juxtapose.
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Jun 5, 2012 10:53
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Peztopiary posted:As a counterpoint/proof of that belief (depending on taste) China Mieville's civilizations tend to be pretty unique. The city that gambles everything including laws, High Cromlech which is basically an undead aristocracy, (people save up to get liched, everybody pities the vampires) Tesh which is basically run by divinely inspired madness (they go to war with New Crobuzon because of a nightmare) and Armada. Armada is the closest, with parallels to Tortuga and the Barbary states. Mieville's city-states only really work within the context of the stories and the world, which is definitely fantasy (or fine, weird, whatever). Heck, physics and metaphysics end up resolving into each other in his world, along with a lot of stuff taken right from Lovecraft (most notably, he takes Lovecraft's fascination with the physical ramifications of extra spatial dimensions in "Dreams in the Witch House" to heart, and managed to through some multidimensional horror into every drat book). He also falls into the trap of taking interesting background details that he mentioned in Perdido Street Station (I believe both High Cromlech and the casino parliament where both mentioned off-handedly, among many other things) and ruining the mystery by elaborating on them in further books, without maintaining the mystery of the world. Anyway, no matter how interesting they are, most of his stuff falls squarely into the "don't think about it too hard" camp.
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Jun 5, 2012 14:50
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Some authors are more blatant about their real-world analogues than others, but any fantasy author is going to have it to a certain extent. It's tough to avoid it. Abercrombie is just a little more blatant about it than others. The North is Scotland and Vikingish, the Union is Three Musketeers-era France, the Gurkish Empire is whatever Caliphate you so choose (probably the Ottomans), Styria is Renaissance Italy, the Old Empire is Byzantium. Abercrombie's setting is definitely his weakest aspect, but luckily it barely affects the novels anyways.
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Jun 5, 2012 20:21
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Well, I think Logen's reaction to arriving in Adua was awesome, how this venerable, experienced hard motherfucker he was just completely floored by the scale and spectacle of the place.
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Jun 5, 2012 21:25
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Rurik posted:The Heroes was good though not as good as BSC and the First Law trilogy. The whole timespan of the book was about a week after all and I'm a sucker for bigger pictures. Well, no to wait for Red Country! Personally I thought The Heroes was comfortably the best of his books. The First Law suffered from a brutal case of 'who cares' with the ultimate pointlessness of the central quest in the second book - it was still excellent, of course, but it didn't maintain the standard set by the first book. The Heroes was just a perfectly sized story, with great characters, a deeply satisfying but not irritating sense of danger around who would and wouldn't survive, great action, a tasteful sprinkling of fan service. Very excited to see what he does with the next one.
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Jun 6, 2012 00:23
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sebmojo posted:Very excited to see what he does with the next one. From what I've read on on his blog it seems like its going to be Logen Ninefingers as Clint Eastwood in Unforgiven. In other words, the best book ever conceived by man.
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Jun 6, 2012 07:07
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I'm really looking forward to him breaking new ground with Logen's arc. Some of his characters have been kind of samey.
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Jun 6, 2012 08:00
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Mr.48 posted:From what I've read on on his blog it seems like its going to be Logen Ninefingers as Clint Eastwood in Unforgiven. In other words, the best book ever conceived by man. Who's the fella that owns this shithole?
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Jun 6, 2012 08:09
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If anyone's interested Joe's doing a review of his own books on his blog as a way to help his editing on Red Country. It's interesting reading him critique his own work, especially as he picks on exactly the good and bad points that people here notice as they read them. It bodes really well for Red Country being pretty drat good! http://www.joeabercrombie.com/news/
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Jun 6, 2012 09:37
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Melche posted:
Do you mean Marovia who was eaten by Yoru Sulfur or The Tannerwho was Yoru Sulfur? 
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Jun 7, 2012 23:04
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I finished round 2 of Best Served Cold tonight. Is there a backstory to Shenkt that I am forgetting? I know how he refuses to kneel to Bayaz and that he must undo all that he has done. But was there ever a reason why he left Bayaz? Is it purposefully vague or am I just being forgetful?
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Jun 10, 2012 07:38
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