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Joe Abercrombie: The Collected Works (and in what order to read them) SPOILERS


Rhom

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Come to think of it, if Carcolf is already a-thievin in Sipani some years before TBI even starts, we're not gonna have any easy point of reference from the original trilogy. All just a red herring, like the way we all sort of assume that Shev might have popped up in earlier books when actually she probably didn't?

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20 minutes ago, MinDonner said:

Ah, the timeline's a bit damning, didn't spot that. I'd disregard anything "according to Shev" though, especially in the early stories. 

Wonder about the connection to Horald also? Unless just part of the general criminal fraternity? 

I was thinking Horald as well and thought I had it figured out until my hopes were crushed in Three's a Crowd when Shev reads that letter from Horald's daughter that was meant for Carcolf.

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2 hours ago, MinDonner said:

Ah, the timeline's a bit damning, didn't spot that. I'd disregard anything "according to Shev" though, especially in the early stories. 

Wonder about the connection to Horald also? Unless just part of the general criminal fraternity? 

also need to disregard any history provided by carcolf directly, as she is manifestly disingenuous?

i love how in 'made a monster'

Spoiler

logen has not yet adopted the steady realism quoted by rhom, supra, and is rather an eric idle optimist with his "always look on the bright side of life" bullshit. aside from the question of what trauma transformed him, is there any indication that he might be the source of the 'stick to your principles' aphorism? he is the archetypal thoughtful barbarian, after all, full of civilized gnomics.

 

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Carcolf's internal monologue in her POV section I guess we can trust, as far as that goes - I mean maybe her s-i-l isn't really a judgmental bitch, but I don't doubt that she does have respectable family in Adua (bro, s-i-l, nieces, former domineering but principled dad). So I'd rule out Logen.

Further thought: what if this is actually just priming us for some of the new characters that will appear in the next set of First Law books? I imagine (or at least I hope) that Joe is well into the writing of these, and would have been planning them around the timeline and background that's already established, so it could be that Family Carcolf will feature in future instead of in past?

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1 hour ago, unJon said:

My best guess with information we have is Cosca. Her turncoat nature and charm run in the family perhaps?

In addition, "sticking to principles" just screams Cosca :) I like to imagine Friendly and Carcolf actually being in cahoots regarding the package in Tough Times All Over. Pipe dream, I know.

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Say one thing for Nicomo Cosca,  say he's not exactly the prime candidate for "stable family unit". Much as it  would be awesome, I think most likely not. 

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3 minutes ago, MinDonner said:

Say one thing for Nicomo Cosca,  say he's not exactly the prime candidate for "stable family unit". Much as it  would be awesome, I think most likely not. 

There would probably be an indication he had a daughter in BSC when he thinks of Monza too, IMO. I didn't pick up any indications of that when I recently read it.

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Yeah, I think Cosca can be ruled out as we have quite a bit of info on that character inculding his POV where I don't recall there being even a hint that he has children. While the "sticking to principles" could fit Cosca there is also that bit about Carcolf's sister-in-law being judgmental and meeting everything with a sneer, which reminded Carcolf of her father. That doesn't fit Cosca.

 

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10 hours ago, SeanF said:

I assume that Fallow the child trafficker in Tough Times All Over is the same Fallow who is the obnoxious moneylender in BTAH.

This is why I want to read all the novels before all the short stories. It could be a family name however.

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Anyone else desperately want to read about Javre escaping from Khalul? I can imagine that being a very interesting story. 

Having finished the entire book now, my least favourite story is probably the Glokta story. Not because it is bad, but the others are all much better I felt. Javre and Shevedieh were brilliant characters and their run in with Whirrun was hilarious. Reading these short stories has me really into the First Law world again. Fortunately I've not The Heroes and Red Country yet, so I'll move on to those soon.

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The thing about the Glokta story is, it isn't a story. It's a vignette: a scene. A character portrait, at best. It feels insubstantial, and so was slightly disappointing.

I also kind of disliked the Logen/Bethod story. I feel like Joe's gone way too far with the 'Logen was the bad one all along' angle. Logen's gone from a guy who was kidding himself about the hard truth, to straight-up unambiguously insane. To get from the guy in that last story to the guy in the original trilogy, he'd have to be either delusional to a high degree (like, barely functional) or suffering from amnesia.

So for me, the bookends aren't great, but every other story is pretty damn good. :)

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2 minutes ago, Let's Get Kraken said:

To be fair, Logen himself admitted in the trilogy that things got so bad during the war that at some points he didn't even know who he was. He talked about how Bethod and everyone else was afraid of him, and even he didn't know what he was going to do next. Logen also gets sick when he realizes who Shivvers was, which, considering the things that we'd seen him stomach up to that point, is a pretty big indicator that whatever he did to Rattleneck's other son was bad. Maybe we didn't want to believe it, but I think the implication of what Logen was is there in the trilogy.

I think that's hindsight bias, honestly. I don't think we were supposed to pick up that Logen (when not being the Bloody-Nine) was that bad: I'd be prepared to bet that at the point the trilogy was being written, Joe hadn't decided that he was that bad (though he clearly intended that he should be worse than we knew).

2 minutes ago, Let's Get Kraken said:

If you read all of the First Law stories in publication order, then it does seem like the tone of Logen's character takes a drastic turn downwards. We start with his own POVs which, him being such a self-rationalizer, make him seem like a good man. Then we read what other people think about him in Best Served Cold and The Heroes. And perhaps more significantly, we also see another perspective on Bethod.

That's the other angle: I think that Logen being terrible shouldn't mean Bethod not being so bad. There's less of that, though, and I still find it believable that Bethod is the same guy from a different perspective. But overall, I find it a lot easier to head-canon the idea that the whole Made a Monster story is Bethod exaggerating Logen's barbarity and excusing a lot of his own bad decisions.

2 minutes ago, Let's Get Kraken said:

 Recall what Black Dow said, that what makes Logen so dangerous is that he thinks he's a hero.

That's my basic point, yes. I can buy that Logen might think that letting the Bloody-Nine out in battle is an unpleasant necessity that a hero might have to shoulder for the greater good. Even that conquering the North was the same, and that cultivating a terrible reputation by making an example of people might be part of that.

But the guy in Made a Monster can't possibly think of himself as a hero doing what's necessary, particularly not in his final act. That would be actually impossible, even for a madman - and trilogy-Logen is not that. And there's no way the likes of Threetrees or Tul Duru would still feel genuine loyalty to the character that does that, even after his apparent death. At least, not for me. 

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6 hours ago, mormont said:

The thing about the Glokta story is, it isn't a story. It's a vignette: a scene. A character portrait, at best. It feels insubstantial, and so was slightly disappointing.

 

 I also found the scene a little unnecessary. Part of the genius of the trilogy was how much of your imagination went into the back story of all these characters. Abercormbie had already laid that scene out perfectly without describing it in detail. I didn't need it again.

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9 hours ago, Let's Get Kraken said:

Well I don't think that Logen ever tried to justify what he did when he was fighting for Bethod. If anything it's the opposite, he seems disgusted with himself whenever he thinks or talks about those days.

"Blood gets you nothing but more blood. It follows me now, always, like my shadow, and like my shadow I can never be free of it. I should never be free of it. I’ve earned it. I’ve deserved it. I’ve sought it out. Such is my punishment."

"They were all shitting themselves, even Bethod, and no one was more scared of me than I was."

Yeah, but that all suggests someone who realises what he was doing was wrong. That isn't congruent with the character in Made a Monster. That character is way over the line between someone doing something he would later realise was wrong, and someone who is actually psychotic.

9 hours ago, Let's Get Kraken said:

I agree that it's odd that Threetrees would follow somebody like that. But I would think of that kind of like Barristan Selmy serving Mad Aerys.

Except that we know it isn't. That's not how the relationship is portrayed in the original trilogy at all. It's one of personal loyalty, even affection, not of duty and doing the right thing.

9 hours ago, Let's Get Kraken said:

Black Dow had done things just ad bad as what Logen did to Rattleneck's son (though perhaps not quite with as much enthusiasm).

True.

9 hours ago, Let's Get Kraken said:

Let me ask you something I've been wondering about with that story. Did you take what Logen did as the Bloody Nine bleeding across into Logen and becoming the dominant personality, as Bethod's wife suggested, or did you think he did what he did in a deliberate attempt to prolong the fighting?

I'm not sure how to take it, to be honest. But it wasn't a rational act.

4 hours ago, Howdyphillip said:

 I also found the scene a little unnecessary. Part of the genius of the trilogy was how much of your imagination went into the back story of all these characters. Abercormbie had already laid that scene out perfectly without describing it in detail. I didn't need it again.

I enjoyed it a good deal, and I'm not saying it was unnecessary. It just wasn't really a story.

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