The First Law- But a Second Reread (or Third, or Fourth or Fi.....) spoilers for First Law books

[Jo498]

4 hours ago, john said:

True but there’s no indication West has any real knowledge or understanding of his sister to the extent he could tell they’d be a bad couple. He just cares about status and shame.

In a strictly patriarchial society like we still have in some quarters of the middle East, there would not be much "warning". Both Ardee and Jezal would very likely be dead for a loose pre-marital relationship. In a somewhat civilized patriarchial society, Ardee would be sent off into a convent and Jezal would probably have to duel her brother fopr "lost family honor". Somewhat more civilized still, they would be forced into marriage by their families. You can't take late 20th century mores just like that into a pseudohistorical setting and then complain about "toxic masculinity" because a brother intervenes in a relationship of his sister in a way that would be considered exceptionally mild in virtually any time and place before the mid/late 20th century.

This is a society in which a life is not worth a penny, people get sent off into concentration camps for very little etc. ans stuff like status matters A LOT. It is West's bloody duty to care about status and shame because without this you are nothing in such a society.

[C.T. Phipps]

Actually, I think one has to know Jezal for about five minutes to know he'd be a bad relationship for any woman let alone a family member. West is certainly a chauvinist (if not misogynist) but no good can come of anything in their society.

Because Jezal is a rake, snob, and several other bad adjectives.

[john]

5 hours ago, Jo498 said:

This is a society in which a life is not worth a penny, people get sent off into concentration camps for very little etc. ans stuff like status matters A LOT. It is West's bloody duty to care about status and shame because without this you are nothing in such a society.

You can’t have casual sex in the Union? Boo.

5 hours ago, C.T. Phipps said:

Actually, I think one has to know Jezal for about five minutes to know he'd be a bad relationship for any woman let alone a family member. West is certainly a chauvinist (if not misogynist) but no good can come of anything in their society.

Because Jezal is a rake, snob, and several other bad adjectives.

Ultimately West is wrong and remains a prick from beginning to end, albeit a brave prick.  Jezal ends up being a decent guy, up to a point, albeit a coward.  Ardee ends up comfortable and protected through her own efforts not because West looked out for her.

[C.T. Phipps]

1 hour ago, john said:

Ultimately West is wrong and remains a prick from beginning to end, albeit a brave prick.  Jezal ends up being a decent guy, up to a point, albeit a coward.  Ardee ends up comfortable and protected through her own efforts not because West looked out for her. 

I'm not putting down Ardee but Ardee's relationship with Jezal is a complete disaster and if not for Glokta, well, she would have been pregnant by a king who abandoned her.

[john]

Well, they’re not really suited in the end.  But it’s not because Ardee’s a slut and Jezal is a cad. It’s because she’s a strong personality and he’s a weak personality, plus she doesn’t like him that much, plus Jezal is used as a pawn by an evil wizard. Like Jezal himself the relationship at least had some potential, which West refuses to countenance.

[red snow]

16 hours ago, Jo498 said:

In a strictly patriarchial society like we still have in some quarters of the middle East, there would not be much "warning". Both Ardee and Jezal would very likely be dead for a loose pre-marital relationship. In a somewhat civilized patriarchial society, Ardee would be sent off into a convent and Jezal would probably have to duel her brother fopr "lost family honor". Somewhat more civilized still, they would be forced into marriage by their families. You can't take late 20th century mores just like that into a pseudohistorical setting and then complain about "toxic masculinity" because a brother intervenes in a relationship of his sister in a way that would be considered exceptionally mild in virtually any time and place before the mid/late 20th century.

This is a society in which a life is not worth a penny, people get sent off into concentration camps for very little etc. ans stuff like status matters A LOT. It is West's bloody duty to care about status and shame because without this you are nothing in such a society.

This still doesn't mean we can't find West's behaviour unlikeable by our standards though. It just provides some context for why he is the way he is. 

 

16 hours ago, C.T. Phipps said:

Actually, I think one has to know Jezal for about five minutes to know he'd be a bad relationship for any woman let alone a family member. West is certainly a chauvinist (if not misogynist) but no good can come of anything in their society.

Because Jezal is a rake, snob, and several other bad adjectives.

This is all fine and well but who is it who insists that Jezal spend time showing his sister around? West. Jezal had no intention of meeting what he thought was going to be an overweight, whiny country bumpkin. It was West who made him. So either West is an idiot or Joe didn't handle the introduction and subsequent plot of West coming between them. Because West knew what Jezal was like prior to Ardee arriving so why on earth did he ever think it was a good idea to introduce them when he really didn't need to. It would have made more sense for West to always be against them meeting - possibly having Jezal meet Ardee without knowing the connection to West (a bit like how Logen bumped into her)

[SeanF]

18 hours ago, Jo498 said:

In a strictly patriarchial society like we still have in some quarters of the middle East, there would not be much "warning". Both Ardee and Jezal would very likely be dead for a loose pre-marital relationship. In a somewhat civilized patriarchial society, Ardee would be sent off into a convent and Jezal would probably have to duel her brother fopr "lost family honor". Somewhat more civilized still, they would be forced into marriage by their families. You can't take late 20th century mores just like that into a pseudohistorical setting and then complain about "toxic masculinity" because a brother intervenes in a relationship of his sister in a way that would be considered exceptionally mild in virtually any time and place before the mid/late 20th century.

This is a society in which a life is not worth a penny, people get sent off into concentration camps for very little etc. ans stuff like status matters A LOT. It is West's bloody duty to care about status and shame because without this you are nothing in such a society.

Given the prevailing attitude towards women among the Union's upper classes, West ought to take more care of his sister.  He mostly ignores her her, and expects to navigate Adua's social pitfalls on her own.

[A True Kaniggit]

18 minutes ago, SeanF said:

Given the prevailing attitude towards women among the Union's upper classes, West ought to take more care of his sister.  He mostly ignores her her, and expects to navigate Adua's social pitfalls on her own.

He's been ignoring her for years. It's probably become a habit.

[C.T. Phipps]

5 hours ago, A True Kaniggit said:

He's been ignoring her for years. It's probably become a habit.

West's ugly side manifests in the fact he doesn't care about his sister save how she reflects on his social climbing.

 

[BigFatCoward]

18 hours ago, C.T. Phipps said:

West's ugly side manifests in the fact he doesn't care about his sister save how she reflects on his social climbing.

 

And the fact that his choice of someone to look out for her when he goes of to war is Glokta.  Having said that i always hated Ardee, other than the 10:00 am drinking, she had no redeeming qualities. 

Really rattling through the first book, i thought i had hardly covered anything but i'm 80% through, the vast majority of the plot really is in the last 2 books.

[red snow]

God, I'd forgotten how intentionally annoying longfoot is. Joe establishes that within a couple of pages.

I'd totally forgotten about glokta's visit to the university. I suspect some of those characters may have played a role in making the cannons etc in heroes. The info dump on bayaz's background was a little bit clunky but at least the librarian pointed out surprise at glokta not knowing the union's history/legends.

I enjoyed the dogman chapter with the killing of the two northern soldiers. It was pretty good at establishing how practical and cold they have to be and how "decent" people can get trapped in events. A kid was killed for killing kids and dogman and his group knew it wasn't right but it was practical and arguably fair. Basically anyone caught up in these events is fair game. It actually made the logen and blackfoot/toes encounter resonate more strongly. They both knew they were trapped in their roles.

[BigFatCoward]

Finished book 1, thoroughly enjoyed picking up a lot of detail that missed previously knowing what was to come.  Even knowing what i know, Bayaz still comes across as the most decent character in the book, 

Most looking forward to the Glokta siege/Cosca/Carlot dan Eider/Kahdia interplay book 2.  I found the Journey to the end of the world quite hard work previously, maybe not skimming it will get me more out of it.

[SeanF]

3 hours ago, red snow said:

I enjoyed the dogman chapter with the killing of the two northern soldiers. It was pretty good at establishing how practical and cold they have to be and how "decent" people can get trapped in events. A kid was killed for killing kids and dogman and his group knew it wasn't right but it was practical and arguably fair. Basically anyone caught up in these events is fair game. It actually made the logen and blackfoot/toes encounter resonate more strongly. They both knew they were trapped in their roles.

That was sad, but they really didn't have a choice.

[red snow]

13 minutes ago, SeanF said:

That was sad, but they really didn't have a choice.

I think that's what made the chapter work that sense of having nothing but least bad options

[C.T. Phipps]

5 hours ago, BigFatCoward said:

And the fact that his choice of someone to look out for her when he goes of to war is Glokta.  Having said that i always hated Ardee, other than the 10:00 am drinking, she had no redeeming qualities. 

Really rattling through the first book, i thought i had hardly covered anything but i'm 80% through, the vast majority of the plot really is in the last 2 books.

Modern sensibilities here but I have nothing against a woman who enjoys a good time. No friends, loathed by her family, and a lot of boyfriends who just like her as a perceived woman of loose morals.

I'm glad she gets some security even if its due to marrying Jafar the Evil Chancellor.

I also point out that Glokta is a fairly decent person to look after her, monstrously evil man this is, as West knows him as a better person than he's become.

[SeanF]

14 hours ago, C.T. Phipps said:

Modern sensibilities here but I have nothing against a woman who enjoys a good time. No friends, loathed by her family, and a lot of boyfriends who just like her as a perceived woman of loose morals.

I'm glad she gets some security even if its due to marrying Jafar the Evil Chancellor.

I also point out that Glokta is a fairly decent person to look after her, monstrously evil man this is, as West knows him as a better person than he's become.

I felt a good deal of sympathy for Ardee, and was pleased she got a sort of happy ending.

[BigFatCoward]

Just reading section where Logen is talking about he would talk with his comrades on his travels, described Bethod as 'like a brother' at one point, do we think this is nostalgia for a time that never truly existed, or was there a time when they had a healthy relationship?

[red snow]

7 hours ago, SeanF said:

I felt a good deal of sympathy for Ardee, and was pleased she got a sort of happy ending.

Hopefully we'll get some idea of how happy her ending was in the new trilogy. I expect she could have grown quite bitter over time irrespective of how well glokta treats her. Could also become mucdier if Jezal made any attempts to turn her into a mistress (although I vaguely recall bayaz/glokta warned him off the idea).

Reading the fencing final, I'm struck by how Jezal has that harry potter factor of things working out for him at this stage in the story. Obviously the rug gets pulled out from beneath him in books 2 and 3.

[SeanF]

2 minutes ago, red snow said:

Hopefully we'll get some idea of how happy her ending was in the new trilogy. I expect she could have grown quite bitter over time irrespective of how well glokta treats her. Could also become mucdier if Jezal made any attempts to turn her into a mistress (although I vaguely recall bayaz/glokta warned him off the idea).

Reading the fencing final, I'm struck by how Jezal has that harry potter factor of things working out for him at this stage in the story. Obviously the rug gets pulled out from beneath him in books 2 and 3.

I suppose there's no true happy ending with Joe Abercrombie.  She'll probably have terminal cancer or be murdered by revolutionaries.

[BigFatCoward]

12 minutes ago, red snow said:

 

Reading the fencing final, I'm struck by how Jezal has that harry potter factor of things working out for him at this stage in the story. Obviously the rug gets pulled out from beneath him in books 2 and 3.

I hope bayaz made him go through all the shitty training for his own amusement, seems pointless is he was just going to cheat on his behalf otherwise. 

I can't wait for Lord Smund to get chopped in half.