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Grand Prize Winner posted:Blew up a city 1. Legitimate concern. However, whether he was doing more evil than allowing the eaters to figuratively consume the city is not really known from what we see in the books. I'd say it's less evil than allowing the eaters to literally consume the city. 2. If you know they're dying, and you know a hospital won't save them, then why spend resources on it? Bayaz clearly has a good head for returns on investment. I don't think we know enough of the disease or whatever it is to make certain that hospital care would save even one person. Hospice care doesn't require a hospital. I do think Bayaz would have still laughed if Luthar had suggested hospice care instead, though. 3. He doesn't do this in the books, so I'm not sure why you're using it to refute someone's claim that he doesn't do that much evil [i]in the actual books[i]. (That's not to say that it isn't important, but we don't know the circumstances at all because Bayaz doesn't spill the beans and the only other people are there are dead.) 4. Well, he was kind of a poo poo apprentice. He even admits to Logen at the start that is a poor apprentice (something along the lines of being a poor seer, for not being able to find Logen before Logen found him). Until they left to go on their journey at the end of the first book, he clearly didn't care for what he was learning and was seemingly treated accordingly. Also, I don't know why this point is bold for emphasis when of the four things you posted, it's the least egregious offense in my eyes. That's not to see he's a bad dude, but I think that three of those four choices aren't great arguments to refute the person you quoted.
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Aug 2, 2013 03:44
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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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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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cheese posted:I felt completely satisfied by the character arcs of both Logen and Shivers at the end of Red Country. I would read another book with them in it with a big grin on my face but if we never heard directly from them again, I'd give Joe a single slow nod of appreciation and look eagerly towards his next characters. After all, arguably the biggest message running through all of his books so far is 'Warriors either die young or linger on as old men haunted by the ghosts of their youth' - Logen, Shivers, Cosca and even Glamma Golden all served to highlight this perfectly and their stories ending in the same book has a beautiful symmetry to it. I doubt we'll see Logen again, but I'm sure we'll hear rumors or other things about him. I don't think we've seen the last of Shivers, though.
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Aug 20, 2013 04:27
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Tequila Sunrise posted:Would you care to care to share a few rocks from this mountain of evidence that explicitly states it is possession/magic that makes the Bloody-Nine? Well, he does hold his own (while grievously wounded) against a pre-Bayaz creature who is being helped by something akin to High Art. He then kills said creature when that help is no longer available. I mean, Fenris made Northmen poo poo themselves in fear when he was just in their general vicinity, but I guess some mental illness and telling yourself that it's better to do something than to live in fear of it will get the job done in a pinch. Now, that's not to say that he doesn't make bad decisions and isn't in complete denial about enjoying violence.
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Jan 31, 2014 03:03
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Ravenfood posted:Also, Ferro, who has seen Eaters fight, is impressed at his abilities when he goes BloodyNine. She's more than impressed. She's in awe after he carves a path out of the shanka infested cave for them by himself. This coming from someone who we see do superhuman things with her bow and we know is more than human. But no, Logen's just a badass who has gotten himself out of hundreds of these slim-chance-of-survival situations throughout his life. Anyone who is a better than average fighter with tiny, easily quotable, nuggets of wisdom could do this  Edit: On another note, the only other character who is lucky in combat like Logen would have to be to survive all of that on his own gets run through in The Heroes and dies. Xenix fucked around with this message at 19:39 on Feb 1, 2014 |
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Feb 1, 2014 19:17
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cheese posted:There are multiple points where strong evidence is presented that Logan is both in control and not in control of his Blood Nine persona Just curious, where do you see him in control of the Bloody Nine? The only place I can remember seeing it for sure is after the bar fight in Red Country when he stop himself from killing Shy when she stops him from hanging one of the kidnappers. I suppose one could argue that he had to be in control to spare all the members of his dozen from The First Law, but we never see it so we don't know if there were outside forces at work or if it was Logen.
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Feb 7, 2014 06:43
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gninjagnome posted:I always considered Logen in control of the Bloody Nine in the sense that he knows what will trigger him coming out. This is also why I think he is still responsible for his actions when he is possessed by the Bloody Nine, despite not being physically in control. He knows what will happen, but still chooses to put himself in situations where he will come out. I'm in agreement here in terms of him knowing what will bring the Bloody Nine out, but I always saw this as him not understanding how to leave the life he professes to hate behind. It always looked to me like someone in an abusive relationship. He's miserable, he knows he needs a change because it will destroy him, he's seen how life can be outside his normal routines, but he doesn't understand how to bring about that change because he doesn't know how not to fall back on the familiar (which seems to stem from living his life by quasi-philosophical sayings). To me, his story in The First Law was him struggling with figuring out how to change and then being given a chance to do so at the very end when he jumps out the window. We know he won't die (see the chapter name, versus the beginning of the story) but we, as the readers, are out of time when it comes to viewing Logen's life to see if he makes those changes. Come Red Country, we ultimately see he has changed somewhat, but still falls back on the familiar (the Old Empire, the only place, other than the North and Adua, that he has been) and is ultimately dragged back into violence. This time, it doesn't take him 3 books to realize he needs to leave what he knows to stop the violence or he will again destroy the people and things he loves. In fact, due to the Bloody Nine, he's already destroyed the one thing he seems to cherish: his relationship with Shy and her siblings. He does some quick risk assessment and puts their needs, specifically the need to not be used by someone to settle a grudge against Logen and to not be murdered by the Bloody Nine during a potential confrontation, ahead of his and leaves.
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Feb 8, 2014 20:23
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MrNemo posted:My main problem in this case is Bayaz's character. It seemed to me a really interesting opportunity to subvert the immortal, benevolent, guiding figure trope in Fantasy. I could see the possibility for exploring a man who starts out with a positive vision of the future trying to guide humanity to a better world and just gradually loses touch. It seemed an opportunity for knocking the fantasy trope of immortal beings that actually give a gently caress about humanity or the capacity to shape the fate of nations and retain a sense of humanity. Instead it just turned out he was a bastard from the beginning and hasn't really ever changed. gently caress I didn't get the impression he ever acted out of good intentions. It was just all, everyone's a reprehensible bastard, all the time. I think that he misses the chance for some better stories because he seems to purposefully reject character development (whether improving or degenerating) for the sake of showing how circumstances and character mean no-one ever really changes. Which I don't think makes for rewarding stories, even if they are really, really well written. Well Abercrombie tells you exactly what Bayaz is in the first two lines when he is introduced: "'I am Bayaz,' came a voice from behind. The butcher was walking slowly toward them, wiping his hands on a cloth." Even Bayaz's mannerisms are ominous. Can you really hold it against Abercrombie when he warns you from line beginning? That being said we don't know anything about Bayaz from before he killed Juvens and threw the Master Maker from his tower. We can't know, at this point, about Bayaz's motivations other than he felt like his opinions were not taken into consideration. If I had to guess, Bayaz was an apprentice for centuries and none of Juvens' apprentices were allowed to move on from that stage. They would never become masters, or perhaps would never become even journeymen, at their trade. I'd also guess that we learn quite a bit more about Bayaz from before Juvens' death in the next trilogy. With regard to no one ever changing, I'd go ahead and argue that the three main POV characters are fundamentally different people at the end of The First Law and the three minor POV characters are at the very least given the chance to change. Additionally, their lots in life are generally quite different, for better or for worse.
I guess I don't expect much more change in people over the course of about two years.
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Feb 16, 2014 18:10
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Oh Snapple! posted:God knows it forces its way into his bullshit "people can't change" character arcs enough. I really don't get why people keep repeating this. It's not true at all.
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Mar 8, 2014 20:04
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docbeard posted:Except he didn't do that, at least not as blatantly as you're suggesting. The first time we see Bayaz he presents himself exactly as he is: a butcher.
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Mar 18, 2014 03:25
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Above Our Own posted:Reproach, of a fictional character. And I'm cowardly for having a different interpretation of a fantasy book. Goddamn I think you're taking this a little far Hey man, his opinion on morality being absolute is not an opinion. It is a loving fact. Xenix fucked around with this message at 02:04 on Mar 27, 2014 |
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Mar 27, 2014 02:02
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Neurosis posted:I'm watching Valhalla Rising, and this is really close to how I imagine the Northlands. Bands of men roving about, grizzled warriors, vendettas. Extreme violence. There are like 14 monocular cues to depth perception and 3 binocular ones, so I'm not sure they would be major problems. Was depth perception in a movie theater a huge issue before the (totally exaggerated and awful) stereopsis craze in film?
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Jul 11, 2014 14:29
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In addition to what Bravest said above, the journey for the seed also set up everything Logen needed for a personal transformation. That transformation, however, never happened, as we can see when Logen, who learned there could be life away from violence, chooses to go back to the North rather than doing literally anything else. I felt like the entire point to Logen's arc in the trilogy was to show that change was difficult (and really, how much does a person change over the course of what, a year?) and that he was given a final chance to make a different decision at the very end of Last Argument of Kings. He almost certainly makes a change at the very end (hence the chapter title The Beginning), but at that point the story Abercrombie wanted to tell was over. West had to die because despite being a likeable character he was a regicide, beat his sister regularly, and was all around not a good person. By the end of the trilogy, Bayaz was exactly what he was shown to be in his first encounter with Logen: a butcher, covered in blood.
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Sep 24, 2014 14:17
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It wouldn't surprise me in the least if he also pulled inspiration from History Channel's Vikings (which he has discussed at least a few times in his blog). The way Thorn fights is pretty much the same as Gustaf Skarsgard's character in that show.
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Apr 8, 2015 14:33
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Ornamented Death posted:I don't think you'll get any argument that it's cynical, but I also think that's part of the appeal for a lot of people. I don't think we will ever see what you say in the spoiler happen. Abercrombie uses the epic part of epic fantasy as the backdrop to tell the stories of individual characters, and has said as much on his blog or on twitter. Don't expect anything but small movement, and perhaps some further insight into, Bayaz and Khalul's conflict, what lead up to it, and where it might go.
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Apr 14, 2015 07:34
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I just finished Half a War the other day and am having trouble writing anything about it. The story was entertaining and well written and I had trouble putting it down. However, the more I think about it, the less I like it and the more I feel as though it was the weakest book of the trilogy. It felt like it was on rails, and unlike in the first 2 books, the outcome of each conflict felt like it was inevitable. The POV characters seemed to only be a window for the reader to see into the world where the non-POV characters were moving the story forward. The characters from previous books (Yarvi and Rin, specifically) felt flat compared to their previous incarnations. I really enjoyed Half the World, and perhaps part of this is that it felt like Half a War didn't live up to it. I also wonder if Abercrombie tried to cram too much material into too short a book. It felt like the characters were going from one conflict to another without the journey in between, which is most of what the other books were about.
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Aug 3, 2015 00:21
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I wouldn't expect maps in Abercrombie books. Here are his words on the subject prior to any First Law stand alone books: quote:The characters often don’t know what’s going on – they don’t have a conveniently accurate map to hand, why should the reader? If you take a look at his blog, his view is more nuanced than that one line, but he does seem to have a less-is-more mentality when it comes to what he feeds to the reader. The maps he eventually includes make sense looking at the books from that perspective. At the very beginning of the Best Served Cold, Monza would certainly have had a mostly accurate map at hand. Gorst probably saw a map of the battle lines every morning in The Heroes. Shy and Lamb may have had access to a map while traveling with the Fellowship. Yarvi certainly had access to maps in the second and third books of the Shattered Sea trilogy, and while he probably would have shared them with Koll in Half a War, he had no reason to share them them with Thorn or Brand in Half the World. I really only like maps if they are done well and they serve a purpose. There are too many books out there with crappy maps that feel tacked on or where the scale of the world doesn't matter, such as in the Wheel of TIme.
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Aug 10, 2015 07:22
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Peztopiary posted:What possible reason do we have to give him the benefit of the doubt? Well, he clearly becomes attached to people. Many (two?) of the scenes involving Yarvi and Sumael showed he wasn't made of stone after all. I think he truly cared for Brand as well, as he let him freely leave at the end of Half the World without trying to coerce him to stay on as his helmsman. Same thing with Koll. I don't think he'd have killed Skifr's family when a simple request would probably have worked. I think it was made intentionally ambiguous. Perhaps it was an accident and Skifr assumed it was an assassination attempt. I don't remember seeing anything in the text that gave any solid hints.
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Aug 14, 2015 02:17
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After reading Tough Times all Over, I can't help think that the Javre/Whirrun story will be anything but awesome.
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Aug 25, 2015 07:39
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Tofu Injection posted:Sharp Ends owns, but I kind of wish we had a whole book about Shev and Javre now. I enjoyed the Shev and Javre arc, but I found the fact that Shev meets so many of the big players in the original 6 books kind of ridiculous. She knows Severard, Whirrun, Shivers, Monza, Logen, Vitari and I'm sure I'm missing someone else. It was actually sort of interesting to hear that Shivers came back to Monza at some point, though... Edit: I'm also baffled that even though the arc takes place over 19 years and that her sword contains more magic than everything in the first 6 books combined, minus Bayaz's magic nuke, no one knows who Javre is. Xenix fucked around with this message at 03:11 on May 7, 2016 |
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May 7, 2016 03:09
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Suxpool posted:I think Joe chose Shev and Javre for the subjects of his next trilogy and we're just getting a sneak peak in Sharp Ends. I'd further hypothesize that he's already got a general story line put together that ties in with what we've already seen. Hopefully it won't take him too long to get them fleshed out enough that he feels comfortable releasing book one. I suspect either their exploits will be the catalyst for a major driving force in the trilogy and/or that Shev and Javre will be major supporting, but not POV, characters in the trilogy. The temple at Thond will almost have to be involved somehow.
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May 7, 2016 20:26
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Peztopiary posted:She's got her own issues (though less than Logen) and the best part about the character is the reminder that you don't have to be a broken piece of poo poo it's a choice. Her mere existence reinforces how terrible all the people you just named are and how completely monstrous Bayaz is. Which is necessary because people keep forgetting. They're not heroes, they're protagonists. She's a hero. I think she is fairly broken, though. She is a raging alcoholic and appears to binge drink significantly more than the other alcoholics we see in the series. In the two events we see either on screen or see the aftermath of, she loses her magic sword and she loses virtually everything but her magic sword. I think her success as the stories progress (seemingly to be reconciled with the Temple and becoming the first of fifteen) is going to set her up to be an important side character (perhaps the priestess at the Temple of Thond?) in the next series. Regarding similar authors, I've enjoyed Daniel Abraham recently. The style is vastly different, but a lot of the substance is similar. He has several characters who have similarly dry senses of humor and most or all of the motivations are very similar to Abercrombie's characters. Both of his fantasy series (The Long Price Quartet and The Dagger and the Coin) are moderately low fantasy where most of the POV characters have limited or no access to the supernatural bits of the world. The Long Price was incredibly good, though apparently a lot of people didn't like the setting, which is disappointing. The Dagger and the Coin almost seems to be a direct response to a lot of the criticisms of The Long Price and while I thought the first book in the series was decent but not great, I've enjoyed them progressively more as I've read through the series.
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Jun 4, 2016 15:58
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Jeffrey of YOSPOS posted:I didn't love sharp ends honestly I feel like Sharp Ends biggest problem was that it was a collection of short stories. Many of the stories on their own were fine. All together, though, everything seemed way over the top, especially the Shev/Javre stories.
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Mar 1, 2018 02:33
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spandexcajun posted:Look who is actually writing books: Some things from that blog post: some dude posted:Sony studios in Culver city is storyboarding The Blade Itself for a tv show/movie. Can you make any comment? Maybe just a nod of the head? 🙂 Joe Abercrombie posted:If I could make a comment I probably would’ve. But I can tell you from the photos that it’s not sony studios, and it’s not storyboards, and it’s not a movie…
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Mar 2, 2018 04:18
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RCarr posted:I always pictured Logan as an extremely weathered Liam Neeson. Except he's supposed to be in his late 20s or early 30s, iirc
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Mar 3, 2018 17:52
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Ccs posted:Here's the guy who says he snapped the photos of The First Law pre-production at Sony, with the photos. It looks pretty real. The first pic has two of the books just sitting there in the foreground.
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Mar 6, 2018 06:11
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But can he top the awkwardness of the Monza/Shivers scene in Best Served Cold?!
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Aug 8, 2018 03:59
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cargo cult posted:is the background with juvens, kanedias, mamun, bayaz, tolomei supposed to be kind of vague, beyond the fact that Bayaz is an rear end in a top hat even by the end of the trilogy? I feel like that kind of tracks with the emphasis on characters and action over elaborate fantasy worldbuilding I think that yes, it's supposed to be vague. I seem to remember a blog post or a tweet by Abercrombie a long time ago where he said something along the lines of the background and the rivalries are supposed to be the setting of the story, not the plot, and that they will never be fully fleshed out or resolved I guess I do feel like there is some character development, but it is generally too little too late to have any sort of happy ending for the characters. Glokta, Jezal and Logen all seem to have grown by the end, but are in situations where they have no control over changing their lives. Glokta and Jezal are both under the heel of Bayaz. Logen's only option is to run, which is all he's done all series, but with the name of the last chapter, there seems to be some hope in it for him.
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May 30, 2019 04:31
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Chuck Buried Treasure posted:Logen was always my favorite because I’m a sucker for the “former bad guy tries to go straight and leave his past behind but it catches up with him” cliche. The past never catches up to him. He returns to bad habits and to previous haunts where he should never go back to. All of his problems in the book are due to conscious choices on his part to not move past the things he professes to want to leave behind.
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Aug 18, 2019 14:47
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Chef Boyardeez Nuts posted:I'm still amazed the series hasn't been optioned for TV yet. Supposedly someone took these pictures in Culver City about a year and a half ago: https://imgur.com/account/favorites/P5gyS I could have sworn that someone tweeted them at Abercrombie, who basically said he couldn't talk about it at this time and when he could he would, but I can't seem to find that right now.
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Aug 22, 2019 14:54
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I liked the second book of the YA trilogy the best of the 3. The third was disappointing.
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Sep 14, 2019 15:36
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Just finished the book today and generally enjoyed it. I'm kind of disappointed the next one won't be out for another year. Some thoughts I didn't see touched on in the discussion so far: In Rikke's third fit, she sees an old chief, dead, and assumes it's the Dogman. Isern even asks her if it is the Dogman and she asks who else it could be. I can only think that their discussion was misdirection because a couple chapters later Jezal is dead instead. Did anyone else think the man in front of Broad in the line for jobs in Valbeck may have been Logen? He's described as a big bastard with a star-shaped scar on his cheek and a notch out of his ear. I went back and looked and Logen's described as having a star-shaped scar on his cheek in Red Country (and a mass of stitches in his cheek after a spike from Fenris's armor pierces his cheek in the duel in LAoK) and has a notch missing from his ear as well. He even seems tempted to fight Broad after seeing the tattoos on his hands, but otherwise doesn't act much like Logen There was a lot of discussion earlier about who Clover is or was but nothing about him telling Wonderful his lazy attitude is him biding his time. Shivers seems to think Clover's a mean bastard who can fight well. I figured he was going to kill Stour Nightfall or maybe Calder, but after the end of the book, I'm not so sure.
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Nov 3, 2019 06:23
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Ainsley McTree posted:I don’t think we ever learned who the weaver was, no. I would be curious to see what bayaz’ role in this one is gonna be; the industrial revolution is pitched as some kind of “the age of magic is waning” thing, so I’m interested to learn how much of it happened without his permission, considering the union is his bumbling puppet state in most other regards. It's never said, but the thought that it may be Bayaz crossed my mind as well. In one of her fits, Rikke sees a bald weaver with a bottomless purse. Sure sounds like one First of the Magi everyone knows.
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Nov 13, 2019 05:52
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I'm 99% sure that Joe said on his blog or on twitter that Bayaz's conflicts are the backdrop to the stories he wants to tell and as a result will almost certainly never be resolved.
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Nov 16, 2019 06:00
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I think I've said it before in this thread, but I seem to recall that several years ago (I think at the time Joe was slowing down blogging and picking up twitter), I saw a JA post about how the Magi's feuds are the backdrop for the stories he wants to tell in the First Law world and that they will likely never resolve. That said, I can't find the post now, so maybe it was just a fever dream ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
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Jul 4, 2020 01:23
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Khizan posted:I never got the impression that Bayaz is an Eater from that. More that he was doing it to gently caress with Calder and prove how few fucks he gave. The thing about being an Eater is that once you're an Eater you're an Eater forever, and I can't see Bayaz signing up for that. He's also not one to leave a card unplayed. I'm not convinced he's an eater by the end of that book, but I don't think it's beyond him to become one if that's what it takes to win the conflict du jour he's a part of.
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Jul 6, 2020 18:25
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Ugly In The Morning posted:The Heroes takes place well after that trip to get the Seed, and most importantly, after he breaks the First Law by using it. Once he’s decided to touch the Other Side, what’s a little “break the Second Law and get addicted to eating people” for more power? Bayaz didn't need to use the Seed to break the first law. He (and all Magi) do it while performing their magic. When Bayaz is discussing the first and second laws on their journey to secure the Seed, Malacus asks him if they are not also breaking the first law by using magic, which requires touching the other side, and Bayaz agrees they are.
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Jul 9, 2020 05:12
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Ccs posted:I think it's purposefully ambiguous but also not a step he'd take due to its inconvenience. I also don't think he'd leave a weapon on the table that might turn the tide of a losing battle. I don't think Bayaz was an Eater by the end of the three standalone books, but I wouldn't put it past him to become an Eater if the need arises.
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Jul 14, 2020 23:06
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I suspect Javre or Shev (probably Javre) will make an appearance either in this trilogy or in a later stand alone book when some POV character visits Thond. I don't know if it can stay an out of the way place since there was more magic in their 4 swords (and there are probably more) than in the entire 6 books, except for the Seed blowing up Adua.
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Jul 18, 2020 04:07
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