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The Last Kingdom III - HOLD ON TO YOUR SWORD (SPOILERS SEASONS 1-4)


Corvinus85

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11 minutes ago, Veltigar said:

Nah, he has at least one more wife to go. The Christian one he's always nagging about in earlier books :idea:

Isn't he getting seriously old now though? - Uhtred should already have started writing his memoires!

Maybe that will be the rivetting story of the next book

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9 minutes ago, Which Tyler said:

Isn't he getting seriously old now though? - Uhtred should already have started writing his memoires!

Maybe that will be the rivetting story of the next book

Can he write? I'm not sure XD

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7 hours ago, Veltigar said:

Nah, he has at least one more wife to go. The Christian one he's always nagging about in earlier books :idea:

Isn't that the first wife, who finally dumps him because he's so evil? and becomes a nun?  She wasn't anywhere as harsh in the television series than in the books -- for one different thing she doesn't object to sex, as she did in the books.

 

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52 minutes ago, Zorral said:

Isn't that the first wife, who finally dumps him because he's so evil? and becomes a nun?  

It's not.

The wife Veltigar is referring to is the one 80 year old narrator Uhtred is currently married to and is always bitching about. 

Looking forward to octogenarian Uhtred standing in a shield wall at the Battle of Brunanburh. :rolleyes: 

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So far in the Saxon Chronicles / Tales / Whatever, Uhtred, though narrator, isn't writing his memoirs. :huh:

In the Arthurian series, The Warlord Chronicles, Derfel Cadarn, the narrator is now am 80 year old monk, writing the memoirs of his time for the sake of pregnant Queen Igraine (not the "Camelot" Igraine), and some Derfellikes very much. His beloved wife has died quite some time before. This is a co-conspiracy with the queen against Bishop Sansum and his horrible wife.

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3 hours ago, Consigliere said:

It's not.

 

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The wife Veltigar is referring to is the one 80 year old narrator Uhtred is currently married to and is always bitching about. 

Looking forward to octogenarian Uhtred standing in a shield wall at the Battle of Brunanburh:rolleyes: 

 

You know that is going to be rad. And without him, England would certainly be lost :D 

 

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There's been no mention that Uhtred is writing his memoirs in the books, at least as far as I remember. I've been reading them, each one close to publication date, so I may not recall at all a mention of this in the earlier books. But I would notice surely in the later ones, including this last one.  As I comment up above, you all may have conflated Derfal writing HIS memoirs in The Warlord Trilogy with Uhtred?  I'm not going to swear to this unless I look at the earlier Uhtred books, but he doesn't talk about writing his memoirs I feel quite sure.

 

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There's no confusion.

 

“I am old now. So old. I lose count of how old sometimes, but it must be eighty years since my mother died giving birth to me, and few men live that long, and very few who stand in the shield wall live half that many years. I see folk watching me, expecting me to die, and doubtless I will oblige them soon. They drop their voices when they are near me in case they disturb me, and that is an annoyance for I do not hear as well as I did, and I do not see as well as I did, and I piss all night and my bones are stiff and my old wounds ache and each dusk, when I lie down, I make certain that Serpent-Breath or another of my swords is beside the bed so that I can grip the hilt if death comes for me. And in the darkness, as I listen to the sea beat on the sand and the wind fret at the thatch, I remember what it was like to be young and tall and strong and fast. And arrogant.”

Excerpt From: Bernard Cornwell. “The Lords of the North.” 

 

“I am old now. So old. My sight fades, my muscles are weak, my piss dribbles, my bones ache, and I sit in the sun and fall asleep to wake tired. But I remember those fights, those old fights. My newest wife, as pious a piece of stupid woman who ever whined, flinches when I tell the stories, but what else do the old have, but stories? 

[..]

I have fought all my life. That was my fate, the fate of us all. Alfred wanted peace, but peace fled from him and the Danes came and the Norsemen came, and he had no choice but to fight. And when Alfred was dead and his kingdom was powerful, more Danes came, and more Norsemen, and the Britons came from Wales and the Scots howled down from the north, and what can a man do but fight for his land, his family, his home and his country? I look at my children and at their children and at their children’s children and I know they will have to fight, and that so long as there is a family named Uhtred, and so long as there is a kingdom on this windswept island, there will be war.”

Excerpt From: Bernard Cornwell. “Sword Song.”

 

There are numerous more examples scattered throughout the series that make it clear the entire story is being narrated by an eighty something Uhtred presumably not long after the Battle of Brunanburh.

 

 

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1 hour ago, Consigliere said:

There's no confusion.

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“I am old now. So old. I lose count of how old sometimes, but it must be eighty years since my mother died giving birth to me, and few men live that long, and very few who stand in the shield wall live half that many years. I see folk watching me, expecting me to die, and doubtless I will oblige them soon. They drop their voices when they are near me in case they disturb me, and that is an annoyance for I do not hear as well as I did, and I do not see as well as I did, and I piss all night and my bones are stiff and my old wounds ache and each dusk, when I lie down, I make certain that Serpent-Breath or another of my swords is beside the bed so that I can grip the hilt if death comes for me. And in the darkness, as I listen to the sea beat on the sand and the wind fret at the thatch, I remember what it was like to be young and tall and strong and fast. And arrogant.”

Excerpt From: Bernard Cornwell. “The Lords of the North.” 

 

“I am old now. So old. My sight fades, my muscles are weak, my piss dribbles, my bones ache, and I sit in the sun and fall asleep to wake tired. But I remember those fights, those old fights. My newest wife, as pious a piece of stupid woman who ever whined, flinches when I tell the stories, but what else do the old have, but stories? 

[..]

I have fought all my life. That was my fate, the fate of us all. Alfred wanted peace, but peace fled from him and the Danes came and the Norsemen came, and he had no choice but to fight. And when Alfred was dead and his kingdom was powerful, more Danes came, and more Norsemen, and the Britons came from Wales and the Scots howled down from the north, and what can a man do but fight for his land, his family, his home and his country? I look at my children and at their children and at their children’s children and I know they will have to fight, and that so long as there is a family named Uhtred, and so long as there is a kingdom on this windswept island, there will be war.”

Excerpt From: Bernard Cornwell. “Sword Song.”

 

There are numerous more examples scattered throughout the series that make it clear the entire story is being narrated by an eighty something Uhtred presumably not long after the Battle of Brunanburh.

 

 

Thank you.
He's simply using the same framing device to give it a first person viewpoint throughout

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Thank you -- I didn't remember that wife at all. In your quotes she only comes up once.  Who made him marry her?  Does he speak of her other places?

But it doesn't seem as though he's writing the memoirs? He's remembering, and no doubt driving the younger generations in the hall of Bebbanburg  into comatose boredom with his stories of what it used to be. And thus he's the narrator / protagonist, as we all recognize.

If you can find a passage where he talks about himself writing these stories down I'd be very grateful!

 

 

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1 hour ago, Zorral said:

Thank you -- I didn't remember that wife at all. In your quotes she only comes up once.  Who made him marry her?  Does he speak of her other places?

Unknown why he married her and the only mentions of her is Uhtred complaining about her piety and apparent stupidity.

 

Quote

But it doesn't seem as though he's writing the memoirs? He's remembering, and no doubt driving the younger generations in the hall of Bebbanburg  into comatose boredom with his stories of what it used to be. And thus he's the narrator / protagonist, as we all recognize.

If you can find a passage where he talks about himself writing these stories down I'd be very grateful!

He isn't writing his memoirs. He's simply narrating the story. In Sword Song: “I have always hated writing, and it has been years since I last used a quill. My wife’s priests now scratch letters for me, but they know I can read what they write so they take care to write what I tell them.”

 It's also mentioned in several books that he now employs poets and harpists to sing his praises. 

ETA. Perhaps once Uhtred has finished recounting his tale we may find out that he's been narrating the story to a priest (or someone else) who is committing the story to parchment but as of Sword of Kings, there isn't any suggestion I could find of Uhtred having his memoirs written. 

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1 hour ago, Consigliere said:

He isn't writing his memoirs

Thanks.  That was half of the confusion here -- it was written above that he was writing his memoirs, to which I took confused issue!  And, as agreed, he is NOT WRITING.

The other half, the marriage to this  unknown woman -- just hasn't been brought up much.  If it had been lately, I'd be more likely to have remembered it.  At least I think I would have -- as I did correctly rememeber he wasn't WRITING his memoirs!  Whew!  That's something at least.

I suppose it isn't impossible that Cornwell even forgot he once stuck that woman into the narration, having done it consistently in his previous Warlord trilogy.  Writers do that sort of thing, which is why copy and line editors are so important.

 

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4 hours ago, Zorral said:

Thanks.  That was half of the confusion here -- it was written above that he was writing his memoirs, to which I took confused issue!  And, as agreed, he is NOT WRITING.

The other half, the marriage to this  unknown woman -- just hasn't been brought up much.  If it had been lately, I'd be more likely to have remembered it.  At least I think I would have -- as I did correctly rememeber he wasn't WRITING his memoirs!  Whew!  That's something at least.

I suppose it isn't impossible that Cornwell even forgot he once stuck that woman into the narration, having done it consistently in his previous Warlord trilogy.  Writers do that sort of thing, which is why copy and line editors are so important.

 

Well actually @Which Tyler wrote the following:

 

On 2/14/2020 at 1:22 PM, Which Tyler said:

Isn't he getting seriously old now though? - Uhtred should already have started writing his memoires!

Maybe that will be the rivetting story of the next book

Seems pretty clear Which wasn't implying that Uthred was writing his memoires ;) 

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1 hour ago, Veltigar said:

Well actually @Which Tyler wrote the following:

 

Seems pretty clear Which wasn't implying that Uthred was writing his memoires ;) 

Well. Well!  Humph! Somewhere I got the idea that somebody said Uthred was WRITING his memoirs. Well, Thank Goodness, I was ... you know, wrong.

 

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  • 4 weeks later...

The final Last Kingdom book will be released in October, ending the series with 13 volumes.

Interesting, although slightly inconvenient for Netflix. They could do a 15-episode sixth season, a 5-episode seventh season or maybe split the book over 10 episodes and bring a lot of new stuff?

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9 hours ago, Werthead said:

The final Last Kingdom book will be released in October, ending the series with 13 volumes.

Interesting, although slightly inconvenient for Netflix. They could do a 15-episode sixth season, a 5-episode seventh season or maybe split the book over 10 episodes and bring a lot of new stuff?

I wonder which side Uhtred will fight on.  He is after all, a Northumbrian patriot, rather than an English patriot.

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