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Oh Snapple! posted:Blistig is a weird case where I 100% understand why Tavore at least kept him around but, yeah, keeping him as a Fist never quite made sense with the info given. There was probably a logic to it but I don't remember it being given. I think Tavore says it's because he's one of the only people to have actual first-hand knowledge of the Chain of Dogs (albeit from the walls of Aren). If he dies, who's there to remember it?, given that it's not clear whether Tavore knows that Duiker is alive. If she'd demoted him to Captain, he'd have been shanked by his squads (because he's an utter tool) and he wasn't a competent enough soldier to be a Sergeant.
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Oct 4, 2018 17:03
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Sjonkel posted:Finishing up Toll the Hounds now, and I think it's the weakest book by far so far. Some of the story lines are good, but others were just not very interesting. Are the last few books better? Bear in mind that Dust of Dreams and The Crippled God are basically one book split in two so that you don't sprain your wrist from the act of reading it. Taken as a single book, yes, it is very good. The finale of Toll The Hounds is clearly important for what comes afterwards. That said, I barely skimmed the Harllo sections on my re-read - I think the themes of 'the corruption of the young' work better in House of Chains (with Bidithal's gang of female genital mutilation girls) - and Stonny's role is so one-note it could be an entirely new character once Gruntle leaves. Likewise, Crokus' role - once he's delivered Scillara and Barathol - is fairly pointless, since we've seen enough of him since GOTM to know that he's outgrown Darujhistan without needing to see him finding it out for himself. I like the Nom-Nom bits - those were fun. And - sad though it was - the storyline of K'rul's Bar was good. And, of course, the finale is superb - I think it has The Crippled God beat in terms of  but TCG's finale is something like 250 pages long, so it's more epic.
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Oct 9, 2018 23:15
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Re-reading Reaper's Gale and got to the bit where we meet Clip. Sitting on the train, I emit an audible sigh of disappointment.
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Oct 30, 2018 22:09
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Macdeo Lurjtux posted:Just finished my two year listen of the series on audiobook and I have a question. It's not explicitly stated that it's Mother Dark, just that he calls "Mother" out and she's the only one mentioned in those sort of tones throughout the series. Comedy answer: he's talking to Minala (I think the only other character explicitly referred to as 'Mother') for some reason. On the second point, Ruthan Gudd implies that both he and Quick Ben made some sort of deal with ascendants/gods, which is how they got their powers (although Ben's sister's flashbacks suggest he was pretty powerful even as a pre-teen). And yes, it's mentioned/referred to a few times that one of Ben's souls is Tiste Andii, but I don't think there are any more details given than that; in fact, I just checked Chapter 8 of Memories of Ice (where the story of how Ben joined the Bridgeburners is found) and there's nothing concrete there.
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Nov 8, 2018 22:14
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lol but seriously I posted:So I've finally finished this. I took a like 6 month break after the first 1/4 of book seven because I felt like I had OD'd on epic bantz, mate but I would say they're is more good than bad overall HOWEVER I feel like a lot of the "complexity" is [in this book I'm going to write this guy as a complete bastard] and then [in this book I'm going to write this guy as a just man doing what he must]. My main questions (having not read this long rear end thread are) 1) I doubt Rake had any idea of what the Shake would do. His plan was to 'save' his people by persuading Mother Dark to return 2) I wasn't sure what this meant, so I went and looked. It's probably a typo or editing/formatting error 2.1) It's probably clarified in the Kharkanas trilogy, but without reading it I'd imagine something something 'splitting the realm as the Tiste were split'. The Liosan realm is clearly on the other side of the Shore, but it also seems to be a fair distance outside of the actual city of Kharkanas As for your general points about characterisation; at the risk of suggesting you go back and re-read a mammoth series you just finished, I think there are some characters where initial impressions are somewhat misleading. On a re-read, I'd say it's only Silchas Ruin who still comes across as a bit too vague (and that feels like an intentional choice by the author).
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Dec 11, 2018 00:38
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dishwasherlove posted:Isn't what happened to Sinn explicitly spelt out in TCG? I wouldn't say explicitly. Sinn was always High Mage material, but she was abused as a kid (by the mage who took her in after the 7 Cities rebellions, I think) and that possibly broke her. She suggests to Grub that he was 'created' by the Chain of Dogs, and then tries to say that she's the same ('created' by Y'Ghatan) - which Grub rightly points out is wrong, given that she has a half-brother. Sinn is batshit when Kalam meets her and she's batshit at the end of the series; the main difference is that she's older, more powerful and keen to show off.
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Dec 19, 2018 11:35
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Strom Cuzewon posted:Could be because he's trying to drive home the idea of civilisations built in layers. And to be fair, civilisations being built in layers is actually a plot point in most of the books. The only books I can think of that don't have major plot hooks on this idea are Gardens of the Moon and Toll The Hounds.
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Jan 1, 2019 03:02
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I'm working my way through some of Esslemont's earlier books. Night of Knives and Return of the Crimson Guard are done, and I'm about halfway through Orb, Sceptre, Throne. NoK was okay and RotCG had enough good bits to keep me interested but may as well have been called "100 utterly unmemorable characters, 50 interesting characters we don't see enough of and Traveller LARPing as a total oval office". So far in OST I'm reminded that nothing really happened in the first half of TTH or DoD/TCG - but that I find it unlikely that Esslemont can pull of a climax as well as Erikson.
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Jan 12, 2019 01:35
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I've enjoyed the two Path to Ascendancy books so far. I'll be interested to see whether Book 3 gives much insight into Kellanved, as the first two mostly focus on Dancer. It's nice seeing some of the Old Guard as well, mind you.
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Jan 18, 2019 20:22
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Really, my biggest problem with OST is that something like 85% of the book is build-up, and then the climax is pretty uninspiring. The fact that Esslemont seems to spend half the book making things mysterious, up to and including not naming characters in scenes, doesn't help. I did finish reading Stonewielder this week. Which is better in some ways - I like the pacing a lot more, Shadowthrone - but worse in others (the parts of the finale involving characters). At the moment, I've got Blood & Bone and Assail left to read on my Kindle, and then the third Path to Ascendancy is out towards the end of February. So that should be the next 6 weeks or so of commuting sorted. Then there's always Bauchelain & Broach and Kharkanas after that.
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Jan 28, 2019 01:05
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CoolHandMat posted:upon a DoD and CG reread Kinda? Gudd's realisation of who Quick Ben is comes from hearing his full name., iirc. And his follow-up comment has to do with mortals bargaining with the gods. Given that there are several instances of Quick Ben having words with various gods, it's very feasible that Ruthan Gudd has also made a deal with a god. Possibly something to do with his armour. As for how he knows Quick Ben, maybe they've bargained with the same god, or maybe there's a sign-in book that Eriksson never shows; off-camera to the side of Hood's gate. I dunno. Remember that Quick Ben's older sister is alive within the time frame of the books, so Gudd recognising Ben is because of something recent
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Feb 3, 2019 01:12
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1994 Toyota Celica posted:I like the theory that Ruthan Gudd is Grizzin Farl, but I like the theory that Grizzin Farl is the nameless d'ivers Forkul god in the Wastelands just as well. Eriksson said that by the end of the Kharkanas trilogy readers should have enough information to know who Ruthan Gudd is. And since no-one bought the second book, I guess we'll have to wait even longer now...
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Feb 5, 2019 22:39
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Just got done with Assail, and finished Blood & Bone a week or two back. I liked them both, but they're not great books - in no small part because neither has an even remotely satisfying climax. I did like how Lanas Tog flat-out lied to Silverfox to get her to head over to Assail. That made me laugh
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Feb 15, 2019 22:55
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Aranan posted:Well there's the motivation for me to finish up the Tiste trilogy! Can't wait to witness. You might be waiting a while, given that he's holding off on the 3rd book due to crap sales of the second.
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Mar 6, 2019 19:04
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Yeah, I finished Kellanved's Reach this week as well. It was alright but - as others have mentioned - seemed to suffer from his goal of throwing as many already-known characters into the mix as possible. And yeah, far too short. RotCG was way too long and he was right to rein the books in after that, but this felt like a book with chapters, if not entire Parts, missing. Let alone the somewhat mystifying decision to call the series "Path to Ascendancy" and then finish it with the main characters being all "Huh, we should probably go and explore that realm that we're going to be gods and masters of in a hundred years".
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Mar 10, 2019 12:05
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I'm a little over halfway through Forge of Darkness and discovering that the Tiste Liosan are actually a bigger bunch of brain-damaged assholes than I'd previously guessed. And how Osserc is actually the perfect leader for them, the massive man-baby with daddy issues that he is. They're basically a walking "hubris!" punchline at this point. I'm curious to see just how much more stupid they can get over the next book-and-a-half
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Apr 5, 2019 19:25
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Ethiser posted:Finishing up Kellanved's Reach made me go back and read the first parts of Garden of the Moon. Kellanved's Reach totally rewrote the backstory of the mages in a way that was completely unnecessary. It's possible that what's written in GotM is subject to the whims of whoever is expositing at any given moment. It's also possible - and perhaps more reasonable to suggest - that Esslemont is more interested in what makes a decent story than what's already been written on the subject. Chris Metzen - who wrote most of the lore for Warcraft - consistently hosed his own lore up because he couldn't remember what he'd written and couldn't be bothered checking because: cocaine. I'm not suggesting that's where the issues here lie, but I'd say it's equally as likely that Esslemont had a different interpretation of backstory as that he completely re-wrote it to fit a story he'd sketched out for the book.
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Apr 19, 2019 23:08
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Reading Fall of Light and struggling to get through the interminable inner monologues every loving page. (I'm about halfway at the moment). I understand it's a feature of the book (similarly to Toll the Hounds), given who the narrator is, but when the plot is spread as thin as it is it makes it really hard to not just skim read my way through. I'd have preferred Partially-Sighted but Mute Gallan.
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May 1, 2019 19:03
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1994 Toyota Celica posted:I do love all the Jaghut and Jhelleck stuff in FoD and FoL though Part of the problem, imo You have boring inner monologues from characters it's impossible to give a poo poo about and then the scene shifts and you've got Hood & Gothos shooting the poo poo and it's awesome and oh now we're back to the POV of some tedious oval office and my eyelids are closing
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May 1, 2019 23:33
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Fuzzy Mammal posted:ok you got me looking for more non-english covers, and welp. He looks like he's got a serious fungal infection And that he's wearing jeans
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May 6, 2019 13:36
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I finally finished Fall of Light. It's probably the first Erikson book that's benefited - rather than been harmed - from me reading it on my commute. ('Where was I? Oh yes, boring soliloquy; moving on...') Still, the second half of the book was an improvement and by the time the finale rolled around I was genuinely excited about what would happen and... not entirely disappointed. Mother Dark did nothing wrong. Except in not exterminating every last Tiste
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May 10, 2019 17:30
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CoolHandMat posted:basic theory on the Aren massacare: KR reveal You have to be worthy of the Throne of the Imass, and its not a true command and they follow type of Throne. As we recall, Kellenved uses that tactic in Li Heng which had a Jaghut freeze the river in during the invasion. So Aren probably had some Jaghut influencing the city in the background, and a bunch of civilians got killed as they went to war with the Jaghut in Aren. I'd kinda forgotten about that Jaghut and assumed that the T'lan just found that old cave Gothos had been hanging out in nearby My other theory about Aren is that it was just a different T'lan Imass clan. The Logros were the only ones loyal to the Throne (for a given value of loyal, anyway), and it's not impossible that some of the more genocidal types wandered past and fancied a fight.
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Jun 6, 2019 17:54
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pile of brown posted:Oh don't worry there's several more syllables and apostrophes coming later. Yeah, the thing that Liosan have that Silchas doesn't is 100% refined 
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Jun 18, 2019 17:21
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Infinite Karma posted:Basically, the Kharkanas trilogy hosed up explaining that backstory and now we may never know because Walk in Shadow is shelved indefinitely I'm interested to see if he changes things up for Walk in Shadow (if/when he writes it) given that a bunch of readers apparently didn't bother with Fall of Light. I certainly had my issues with the book (more so than Forge of Darkness) but they didn't relate to the story, just the way it was told. So yeah, I'd be interested to see if he's looked for any feedback, or if he's confident(/stubborn) enough to do it his own way. /\ /\ /\ I feel like the XP requirements for Ascendancy among the Toblakai should be pretty high
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Jun 19, 2019 17:33
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Reaper's Gale is great. You've got: Hellian's pub crawl Hedge destroying a T'lan Imass through the power of belief Quick Ben vs dragons Cussers vs dragons Tehol becoming Emperor by paying for propaganda Clip getting slapped around by Trull Feather Witch failing to learn how to breathe under water
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Jun 26, 2019 17:36
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My recollection of my first readthrough of Gardens of the Moon has me fairly certain that Anomander Rake was 'the bad guy' until quite late on
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Jul 13, 2019 09:13
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Just started The Bonehunters again. Hellian 
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Jul 29, 2019 18:11
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Clearly, it's actually Bottle. Not actually bad-looking, but has no idea how to talk to women. Literally held together by string (at one point), best friends are vermin and has weird ideas about romance thanks to his grandmother.
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Jul 30, 2019 17:54
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Habibi posted:No, way, Kruppe is too civilized for FYAD. FYAD would be like...Olar Ethil. Iskaral Pust is FYAD and smdh if you think otherwise
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Aug 2, 2019 14:44
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Alhazred posted:I really enjoyed how much of a gently caress up Crump was in Bonehunters. He blows up the malazan army at Y'Ghatan, pisses on a god's altar causing it to break and then I feel like there's a fun novel to be written about the Bole Brothers (and sister). It'd be more enjoyable than any of the Kharkanas stuff, that's for sure.
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Aug 2, 2019 19:43
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at an edur boat not realizing that they're the enemy combatants.
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OneSizeFitsAll posted:In Esslemont's books people seem to incline their heads an inordinate amount. On the one hand, no osteopaths; one the other hand, mages with Denul/High Denul
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Aug 19, 2019 17:31
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Going through Toll The Hounds again and I'm still not sure what the point of the Dying God storyline is to the overall narrative. It feels like something written in to give the young goths something to do, and to justify the inclusion of the Black Coral segments since, I suppose, having Rake just turn up unannounced in Darujhistan at the end would be a big "huh?" moment. Also, I suppose it wraps up Clip's story by the end, although I doubt anyone would have missed him if he hadn't been in the book.. I guess you could also argue it reinforces the idea of Mother Dark in readiness for the last 2 books, but her monologue in TCG would work fine without the discussion of her here. Honestly, it mostly reads like someone once asked Erikson so what happened to Bellurdan, anyway? and he felt it was worth answering. Now I think about it, it also seems to undermine quite a bit of the discussion of the Crippled God from Reaper's Gale - all that stuff about the relationship between worshipers and the god(s) they worship.
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Sep 2, 2019 22:04
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anilEhilated posted:Toll the Hounds, on the other hand, is pretty weak for like 80%, completely loving nuts for the remaining 20% and practically begging for a reread once you delve into Kharkanas and find out everything you thought you knew about Tiste is loving wrong. Mother Dark did nothing wrong
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Sep 17, 2019 20:47
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"I have never much liked Forkrul Assail" is still one of my favourite one-liners from the series.
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Oct 10, 2019 23:51
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I'm also a massive fan of the scene where Shadowthrone and Cotillion visit the corpses of a couple of morons and Shadowthrone basically spends about 3 minutes just trying to make Cotillion laugh. He always makes me laugh. Also, Esslemont's prequel series is unforgivably lacking in scenes involving Shadowthrone's mother.
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Oct 17, 2019 19:07
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Toll the Hounds definitely improves on a re-read. If only because you know to skip all the Harllo sections.
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Oct 27, 2019 20:07
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Strom Cuzewon posted:But Kellanved's Reach implies that the Empire is only like 30 years old, so we're pretty clearly not meant to give a gently caress about precise chronologies. I suppose you could argue that (TCG spoilers) if Kaminsod is the narrator for the series, that he's as unreliable a narrator as Krupp or Gallan and just ignore Esselmont's books.
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Oct 30, 2019 00:03
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OneSizeFitsAll posted:I love how Hellian is listed in Hocus Pocus's post as a "competent" sergeant, and how even though she is barely ever not utterly piss drunk, hardly ever seems to know exactly where she is or what's going on, or even is able to distinguish between her two corporals or ascertain that there actually are two, that is still an accurate description of her. She also [Bonehunters spoilers] managed to track down and That's probably Eriksson having a bit of fun with the whole 'luck of the drunk' thing - since I doubt Oponn would favour two people in the same army - but you could make a case that she's a bit like Fiddler. Well, not an adept, but a little sensitive to magic-y stuff.
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Nov 3, 2019 10:44
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Had a thought the other day that the dragons that Fiddler's group see flying around in the Azath House are a bit of an anomaly, given what we learn about Eleint and Starvald Demelain being sealed later in the books.
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Dec 4, 2019 22:27
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An off-screen [anything] wouldn't be as appalling as actually reading it happen is. I mean, this is a series that - prior to the hobbling - has scenes where Duiker sees the aftermath of a Whirlwind uprising (babies on spits and women strangled with their own intestines); Karsa lopping off that slaver(forgot his name)'s arms and legs; the Tenescowri and what happens to the Prince Jelarkan of Capustan... All awful things, all arguably as bad or worse than what happens to Hetan, but the first and third happen off-screen, while the second happens to someone who's simply a massive oval office. I dunno, I get what Eriksson was trying to do. I don't like it, but I'm not supposed to.
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Dec 12, 2019 20:01
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