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Initially presenting the dude as a pretty good guy with some flaws, then an ultimately good guy who's forced by circumstances to do some drastic poo poo, then a guy who's actually not necessarily on the right side of any given conflict and is maybe making things worse, and then oh wait evil as gently caress is the same arc he uses for basically every single character. It's literally the whole point of the books. It's outright stated repeatedly. "I don't feel evil, but the things I've done...", "Evil turned out not to be a grand thing. Not sneering Emperors with world-conquering designs. Not cackling demons plotting in the darkness beyond the world. It was small men with their small acts and their small reasons. It was selfishness and carelessness and waste. It was bad luck, incompetence and stupidity. It was violence divorced from conscience or consequence. It was high ideals, even, and low methods.” The whole premise of the books is evil isn't Sauron sitting in an evil tower planning to destroy the world, it's just people doing lovely things while convincing themselves they're in the right or it's not really their fault or they didn't have a choice or whatever. Remember the whole "best man in the company" motif in Red Country, while they run around massacring the poo poo out of everyone they see? One the one hand it's a testament to how well the dude humanised these characters that people debate this, but on the other it's kind of missing the very explicit point of the books. Bayaz is evil because he relentlessly does stuff that is incredibly evil. Just because these characters aren't plotting the end of the world, or don't have a dungeon full of torture victims (in many cases they literally do) doesn't mean they aren't evil, it means he's going with a slightly more nuanced and realistic version of evil than Sauron. Also my impression of how his power slipped was that he'd realised he was outmatched by the massive army of eaters (my impression is that he didn't make his own army more because he doesn't to share power, and one or two proteges are less threatening than hundreds or thousands or dudes nearly as powerful as you), and has been completely dedicated to the plan he puts into effect at the end of the trilogy for ages. He did say he basically devised a new form of magic.
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Aug 8, 2013 15:49
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Zeitgueist posted:I always thought it was because people would be willing to rationalize any figure they found remotely likeable in their reading, but maybe that's saying the same thing.
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Aug 8, 2013 22:10
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Above Our Own posted:Bayaz isn't really likeable. He just creates an interesting narrative using genre types. No, he definitely is at first. That how Abercrombie tricks you. He mocks Bethod and his worthless sons, generally treats Logen well, makes a fool of Sult and the other arrogant nobles, ect. He really does seem like a cool guy. Sure, a lot of that is more sinister when you realize his true nature, but you're lying if you say you had him pegged as anything more than a slightly grumpy old man the whole time.
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Aug 8, 2013 22:38
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The funny thing is that although most people can agree that Bayaz is a pretty lovely person, watch what happens when I point out that Cosca is just as much of a selfish, immoral, rear end in a top hat. People love him because he is entertaining, and choose to ignore all the vile poo poo he does. Very similar to how people see Glokta.
Mr.48 fucked around with this message at 00:33 on Aug 9, 2013 |
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Aug 9, 2013 00:30
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Joe Abercrombie has not written about a single character that you could qualify as "good" within the traditional good versus evil paradigm. There are some characters with good qualities, but every single one of them has done, or is actively doing, something that pretty much negates that.
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Aug 9, 2013 02:11
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Ornamented Death posted:Joe Abercrombie has not written about a single character that you could qualify as "good" within the traditional good versus evil paradigm. There are some characters with good qualities, but every single one of them has done, or is actively doing, something that pretty much negates that. How about Hal from The Heroes?
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Aug 9, 2013 02:16
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TheWorldIsSquare posted:How about Hal from The Heroes? I'm having a brainfart or something because I can't remember who that is  .
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Aug 9, 2013 02:44
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Ardee? Finree? Beck made a terrible mistake but I think he learned from it and isn't a bad person. Craw betrayed Calder but seems mostly alright.
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Aug 9, 2013 03:05
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Jeffrey posted:Ardee? Finree? Beck made a terrible mistake but I think he learned from it and isn't a bad person. Craw betrayed Calder but seems mostly alright. Ardee is a raging alcoholic with anger issues. Finree is a borderline sociopath concerned only with climbing the social ladder. Beck is a straight-up coward. Craw is more of a neutral figure; you can't really classify him as good, but then he's not really evil either. Bear in mind that I'm not saying every character is evil, I'm just saying that none would qualify as good because of various character flaws. Shades of grey and all that.
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Aug 9, 2013 03:15
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Ornamented Death posted:I'm having a brainfart or something because I can't remember who that is He's Finree's husband. His father was a traitor so he works harder than anyone else in the army, everyone likes him, and he's concerned with honor and doesn't approve of Finree's manipulations. EDIT: Then again, he isn't really a major character, he's basically just there to serve as Gorst's foil and make him even more miserable.
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Aug 9, 2013 03:26
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TheWorldIsSquare posted:He's Finree's husband. His father was a traitor so he works harder than anyone else in the army, everyone likes him, and he's concerned with honor and doesn't approve of Finree's manipulations. Ah yeah, he is pretty straightforwardly good. Though like you said, he's not a major character and gets very little screen time and probably won't get more than a passing mention in future books.
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Aug 9, 2013 03:28
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General Kroy has also become a pretty "good" person by the time of The Heroes. But I have an inflated opinion of anyone who calls Bayaz on his poo poo and decides they wants no part of it.
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Aug 9, 2013 03:31
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Ornamented Death posted:Ardee is a raging alcoholic with anger issues. Being an alcoholic doesn't make you a bad person, or even automatically not a good person, and her "anger issues" are directed at a bunch of horrible men who treat her like chattel, including the brother who beats her. quote:Beck is a straight-up coward. Cowardice doesn't disqualify you from goodness. quote:Bear in mind that I'm not saying every character is evil, I'm just saying that none would qualify as good because of various character flaws. Shades of grey and all that. You have a very weird sense of good and evil, then. Or, more to the point, of right and wrong. There's also the leader of the (failed) democratic revolution, for an unambiguous counter-example.
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Aug 9, 2013 03:48
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HELLO LADIES posted:Being an alcoholic doesn't make you a bad person, or even automatically not a good person, and her "anger issues" are directed at a bunch of horrible men who treat her like chattel, including the brother who beats her. Ok then, let's get a little more abstract. She knows what Glokta is and probably has a very good understanding of what he does, and is complicit with it. quote:Cowardice doesn't disqualify you from goodness. You're right, hiding in a closet while your allies are slaughtered, then jumping out and killing the lone survivor, albeit accidentally, and taking credit for everything he did is the very definition of goodness. quote:You have a very weird sense of good and evil, then. Or, more to the point, of right and wrong. No, I just try to read what's written without any bias. I think Zeitgueist was on the right track, though I'd maybe put it another way: people tend to want to believe any character that opposes someone they view as evil or wrong is inherently good or right. Ardee and Finree very rightly call out Jezal and Gorst, respectively, on their bullshit, which in turn make some readers want to think better of them. Which is fine, but the characters do not exist in a vacuum and you have to consider everything you know about them. As I just said, Ardee is complicit in Glokta's actions, and you didn't refute my point about Finree so I'll assume you at least partially agreed with it. quote:There's also the leader of the (failed) democratic revolution, for an unambiguous counter-example. Let me rephrase my original statement, then. Abercrombie has not written any POV characters that can be considered "good" in the traditional sense, and the vast majority of secondary and tertiary characters also cannot be considered good. Edit: It's been said before, but kudos to Joe; this is not the sort of discussion you can realistically have about most fantasy series. Ornamented Death fucked around with this message at 04:10 on Aug 9, 2013 |
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Aug 9, 2013 04:06
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Ornamented Death posted:Ok then, let's get a little more abstract. She knows what Glokta is and probably has a very good understanding of what he does, and is complicit with it. How is she complicit in it? Glokta literally holds the power of life and death over her, not to mention the threat of torture. She doesn't have any legitimate options to leave him and their arrangement that wouldn't end in worse abuse and exploitation, let alone any way of overthrowing him or nullifying his or Bayaz's power in any way. Are you suggesting that she should go become a whore and probably wind up beaten to death by whatever pimp gets his hands on her, and that this would somehow make her less "complicit" and therefore a good (or at least not-bad) person, despite the fact that it would have absolutely no practical effect on the Jezal/Glokta/Bayaz Reign of (Discreet) Terror whatsoever? Or maybe suicide? To be complicit in evil you have to have some power, no matter how slight, to either stop it or at least withdraw whatever support to it you are giving. There's literally nothing she could do to lessen even a little bit of it. Even if she decided to commit suicide-by-killing-Glokta-in-his-sleep, Bayaz would find a new Glokta pretty much immediately, it wouldn't stop any of the torture or the presumptive Stasi-type stuff Glokta's been doing since the end of the trilogy. quote:You're right, hiding in a closet while your allies are slaughtered, then jumping out and killing the lone survivor, albeit accidentally, and taking credit for everything he did is the very definition of goodness. Still doesn't make him a bad person.
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Aug 9, 2013 04:27
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Good points on Ardee. I still can't see her as good, but you've given me something to thing about. My biggest problem is that your argument basically boils down to "she is innocent of wrongdoing because she (indirectly) capitulates to Bayaz" and you could use that to justify just about anything bad nearly anyone in the books does except for Bayaz himself. You've basically turned Bayaz into an all-powerful Satan and that doesn't fit in my opinion. Edit: More to the point, I would question how much Ardee actually knows about Bayaz and the extent of his power and control. Assuming she is not aware that he is 100% in charge, which I'd say is at least possible, then from her point of view killing Glokta in his sleep would accomplish some small victory. This is kind of am ambiguous point that can be argued either way. HELLO LADIES posted:Still doesn't make him a bad person. That's fine, but I would argue it pretty squarely precludes him from being a good person. Again, I'm not saying every character is evil, I'm just saying most of them are not good. Ornamented Death fucked around with this message at 04:50 on Aug 9, 2013 |
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Aug 9, 2013 04:37
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Ornamented Death posted:That's fine, but I would argue it pretty squarely precludes him from being a good person. Again, I'm not saying every character is evil, I'm just saying most of them are not good. Beck was, what, 15 years old? A hardened killer lauds him in front of other hardened killers for killing 4 (or more?) southern soldiers while he was still in shock over how, in a moment of utter terror, he accidentally killed an ally who was just as likely to kill him had he been heard in his hiding spot. He was clearly very upset at the whole situation and not telling a large group of hardened killers that they were wrong and he had just killed the person they should be throwing names at is a far cry from taking credit. The only time he actually takes credit is when he confesses to killing the wrong person when talking with Craw. I'm fairly certain that you can't rule out goodness in a teenager who is trying to make the best of an entirely awful situation and fully extricates himself from it as soon as he is able to.
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Aug 9, 2013 06:31
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Can anyone ever be considered good if the standard is "never does anything immoral?" I don't think that's a useful or realistic measure to use. And you have to be realistic about these things. I am very comfortable calling Beck, Craw, the Dogman, and West good people. I think Temple becomes one, if I remember the end of his arc right.
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Aug 9, 2013 06:49
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I'd definitely classify Ardee as being a good person. Just the fact that she insisted on cleaning Glokta when he soiled himself, treated him as a real person instead of a repulsive cripple, and wanted to build a real relationship with him shows that she's kind and her heart's in the right place. Also, I'd say that by the end of Best served Cold Monza was on track to being a good person.
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Aug 9, 2013 07:02
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I wouldn't say Craw is a good person. He rats out his son figure to a brutal dictator because it's "the old ways", and goes back to killing people instead of living a peaceful life. You could say that it's his nature but that means his nature is a murderer. That precludes him from "good person" status. In fact, in the reverse of that Beck is a good person. Sure, he accidentally killed his friend and got credit for being a hardened badass that he didn't deny until much later, but he's just some scared kid. In the end, he gives up the war and murder and goes to live a peaceful life. Unlike his father, murder isn't in his nature, which I think is enough to make him a good person. West is generally nice and stuff but he does have horrible rage attacks, particularly that one where he beat his sister. I'd say that makes him not a good person, but it's very subjective.
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Aug 9, 2013 07:09
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I don't know if Finree is necessarily a bad person either. She is a schemer and social climber but I don't feel it ever came at the expense of anyone else. She did her best to try to help Brint's wife and felt proper moral discomfort with the fact she was unable to save her - not that feeling guilt expunges one's actions, but it is at the least a mitigatory factor. Kroy is also a good leader by the time of the Heroes, although whether that compensates for the one really bad thing he did in the trilogy - delaying coming to the Northmen's aid - and presumably other stuff we don't see, given he was a minor character, is subjective to each reader. It's a difficult world to be morally upstanding in, and what separates the good from the bad is how far they fall short of whatever ideal we ascribe, rather than whether they achieve that ideal.
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Aug 9, 2013 07:45
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Ornamented Death posted:Joe Abercrombie has not written about a single character that you could qualify as "good" within the traditional good versus evil paradigm. There are some characters with good qualities, but every single one of them has done, or is actively doing, something that pretty much negates that. The Navigator. Yulwei. Tunny. Temple. Major West. Dogman. The Weakest. And Whirrun came off as a really nice dude as well despite being a warrior in the North. Yes, both Whirrun and Black Dow kill people in battle, but which one would you rather have as your friend? I don't think a single bad act should preclude the title of a good person in Abercrombie's world. It is sometimes almost impossible to avoid doing bad stuff and outright impossible to step in and prevent it from being done, at least if you want to stay alive. And I don't think certain martyrdom is a prerequisite for being a good person. And the Bayaz revelation didn't work that well for me. Well into the third book he was running from setback to setback all the while becoming more grumpy - of course it was stress. That interpretation came naturally especially because I was also dealing with stress back when I was reading those books. I did expect a deconstruction of the wizard trope, but not "good wizard turns out evil". I expected "Gandalf (Bayaz) loses and Saruman (Khalul) wins".
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Aug 9, 2013 08:20
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Tunny? He's a profiteer who lazes his way through war and only shows the bare minimum of sympathy when almost all of his new recruits get killed. More pathetic than malicious but I wouldn't call him a good person.
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Aug 9, 2013 08:24
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In the world Abercrombie's created he's pretty much a saint. The only truly heroically good character I can remember is that religious leader in Dagoska.
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Aug 9, 2013 09:01
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In other news, Joe's first YA novel will be released in July.
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Aug 9, 2013 14:55
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TheWorldIsSquare posted:I wouldn't say Craw is a good person. He rats out his son figure to a brutal dictator because it's "the old ways", and goes back to killing people instead of living a peaceful life. I feel like this is a pretty important part of what Abercrombie's going for. The dude has a chance of living a normal, comfortable but not that highly respected life in a village, and instead intentionally goes back to a life where he knows he will kill people and order people killed. He does this basically because he wants to be someone important and being a (bad) carpenter turned out to be kind of lame. That's not really a good reason. This is basically the same thing Logen, Ferrah, Shivers, Glokta and poo poo load of others do. In the short term a lot of what they do makes sense, because it's war, kill or be killed, so what are you gonna do? This is what allows you to like them, with Logen always talking about being realistic. However, they intentionally, knowingly put themselves in situations where they are going to have to "be realistic", for lovely reasons, when they have options. The characters are totally victims as well as villains, because they're all tied up in cycles of violence and it's all they've ever known (Craw thinking of himself as a carpenter, but turning out to be poo poo at it). But a big part of a lot characters arcs is that they had the chance to live an unremarkable life without having to massacre people and chose not to.
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Aug 9, 2013 15:54
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TheWorldIsSquare posted:Tunny? He's a profiteer who lazes his way through war and only shows the bare minimum of sympathy when almost all of his new recruits get killed. More pathetic than malicious but I wouldn't call him a good person. I don't think you got Tunny. Craw was in a tough place. Calder was plotting against Dow, and Craw was sworn to protect Dow. I don't think you can classify his decision to stand by his oath and his job as evil or immoral even if you disagree. It's not like he framed Calder or participated in a plot and then turned on him. Craw has a very clear code of conduct that he tries to stick to.
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Aug 9, 2013 15:58
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I don't think avoiding combat in a pointless is war is immoral or wrong. He seems callous from the years of war, but I think Tunny's alright.
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Aug 9, 2013 16:59
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I don't consider Logen a bad guy, in fact I'd consider Logen a decent man and the Bloody Nine a right bastard. The interplay of where Logen ends and where the Bloody Nine begins is a major chunk of the books that feature him. We've had hints that the Bloody Nine is not merely part of Logens personality but may be some sort of spiritual affliction, that doesn't excuse his worst acts but it makes it more complex than him being a killer who rationalises his actions. He's attempted to change his ways in the past, but the world he lives in makes that hard and I'm not convinced he's responsible for all his actions.
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Aug 9, 2013 17:23
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Giodo! posted:Craw was in a tough place. Calder was plotting against Dow, and Craw was sworn to protect Dow. I don't think you can classify his decision to stand by his oath and his job as evil or immoral even if you disagree. It's not like he framed Calder or participated in a plot and then turned on him. Craw has a very clear code of conduct that he tries to stick to. But his code of conduct is very clearly obtuse, yet he blindly sticks to it because those are the "old ways". Like Black Dow said in The First Law I think, the north always sucked even before Bethod and people who idolize the old days when it was a bunch of warring tribes are stupid. Jeffrey posted:I don't think avoiding combat in a pointless is war is immoral or wrong. He seems callous from the years of war, but I think Tunny's alright. Yep, which is why he's more of a neutral character than a good or bad one, like I said. You can't really call him good, can you?
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Aug 9, 2013 17:31
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None of you can disprove Yulwei is good and overall awesome. 
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Aug 9, 2013 18:02
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Rurik posted:None of you can disprove Yulwei is good and overall awesome. Yeah, Yulwei came off as a pretty good person who got sucked into Bayaz's act. And of course, there's Jezal, who did become an extremely right-minded, empathetic person by the end of the First Law trilogy. He just got told that if he even attempts to act on that new worldview, he'd be blown up into a bloody mess and replaced with someone who would play ball.
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Aug 9, 2013 18:19
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HidaO-Win posted:I don't consider Logen a bad guy, in fact I'd consider Logen a decent man and the Bloody Nine a right bastard. The interplay of where Logen ends and where the Bloody Nine begins is a major chunk of the books that feature him. (mild Red Country spoilers below) There are hints in the trilogy that Logen and the Bloody Nine may be separate entities, but Red Country doesn't engage with that idea at all. Logen is just Logen, and he likes killing people.
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Aug 10, 2013 04:16
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Juaguocio posted:(mild Red Country spoilers below) That's...not really true. It's pretty obvious when the Bloody Nine takes over, even though Shy (or the active POV character) doesn't know that's what's happening.
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Aug 10, 2013 04:33
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Ornamented Death posted:That's...not really true. It's pretty obvious when the Bloody Nine takes over, even though Shy (or the active POV character) doesn't know that's what's happening. I don't like the idea of the Bloody Nine being some kind of demon possessing Logen, so I may be pushing my own interpretation when the evidence is not really there. I think it would be much more interesting if Logen's twisted mind is responsible for his actions, rather than some supernatural force.
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Aug 10, 2013 05:05
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Logen pretty clearly is drawn to the idea of killing people, even possibly to the point of liking it. He says he was glad to see the farmhouse burning at the start of Red Country because of what it meant he would have to do. In my eyes, he likes killing, but he dislikes that he likes it. I have a feeling that regardless of whether or not the Bloody Nine is a spirit possessing him or not, it is something that is associated with the spirits. Abercrombie has had ample opportunity to discuss them, but chooses not to for some reason. We see a lot of High Art and a decent amount of Making (or at least the results of Making) in the trilogy and Red Country. Of all of Euz's sons, the one with the gift to talk to spirits is the only one that isn't known to be dead. I'd guess that it will be touched on more in the next trilogy. Too bad that won't start til 2017 or whatever it was he said on his blog 
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Aug 10, 2013 05:42
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withak posted:I'm pretty sure that Logen looks like an anime. In my head he looks just like Lobo from the old Superman cartoon.
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Aug 10, 2013 06:20
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Logen in my mind is Brock Sampson with Danny Trejo's face. As for the Bloody Nine, I believe that it's a distinct demonic entity that's possessing Logan's body via the spirit talking connection. I can see no way that a plain mortal could have stood against Fenris like Logen did. Fenris was a half-invulnerable giant monster, created by Glustrod the master of demonic evil things, and was being magically enhanced by a witch for the first half of the fight. We've seen before in Jezal's duel how a wizard magically enhancing your skills can make you extremely deadly, and Fenris had this in addition to his invulnerable side, yet the Bloody Nine could still fight him to a stalemate. And once the witch was killed, Logen made short work of Fenris. I think we were meant to conclude that there was something magical or superhuman to the Bloody Nine's abilities.
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Aug 10, 2013 07:17
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Juaguocio posted:There are hints in the trilogy that Logen and the Bloody Nine may be separate entities, but Red Country doesn't engage with that idea at all. Logen is just Logen, and he likes killing people. My take is that Bloody Nine is demonic possession of some sort and that while Logen wants to dislike it, and knows he shouldn't like it, but in his heart he loves it. He's basically the Incredible Hulk, only with injury instead of anger. A northman would be stupid to really want to be rid of that. If you read Bloody Nine Time from Logens PoV he always gets really cold as its happening, and cold appears whenever the other side is somehow present. It can't be coincidence. E: if you notice in Red Country we never see a Logen hulk out from his PoV. Red Country does play in that ambiguity between the two, and I feel that was a deliberate choice on Abercrombie's part. It's a little like with Ferro. I'd like to peek back in and see how the demons inside them have managed to warp their minds. Blind Melon fucked around with this message at 13:34 on Aug 10, 2013 |
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Aug 10, 2013 13:17
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Yep, from the first time in the first book he always brings up the cold of the other side, which is where the magic comes from. The bloody nine is absolutely a distinct magical entity, but Logen can choose to block him out of his life and doesn't do so. So again, complicated dude morally speaking.
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Aug 10, 2013 13:25
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