The First Law Re-Read Volume II - rereads are a dish best served cold

[SeanF]

On 6/27/2019 at 10:28 PM, red snow said:

The opening chapters of BSC are Brutal and reminds me yet again how with age i seem to be getting more squeamish/affected by violence as i never had as visceral a reaction the first time. Unless listening to it gets to me more than reading it?

Poor shivers, he is trying so hard in his first two chapters. Although i was left wondering whether he ever found viseroo, the merchant who convinced him to go to Styria and if he exacted his revenge

Loathsome though the man was, I thought the death of Gobba was pretty stomach-churning.

[red snow]

1 hour ago, SeanF said:

Loathsome though the man was, I thought the death of Gobba was pretty stomach-churning.

The description of his hands was pretty graphic. He had it coming but i was left feeling swiftly would have been more merciful.

I guess the interesting thing about monza's execution of "justice" is that i get the impression if she had been asked to kill any of the people in the opening scene she would have also done it. But that's what makes the story fun, bad people doing bad things to other bad people

[SeanF]

6 minutes ago, red snow said:

The description of his hands was pretty graphic. He had it coming but i was left feeling swiftly would have been more merciful.

I guess the interesting thing about monza's execution of "justice" is that i get the impression if she had been asked to kill any of the people in the opening scene she would have also done it. But that's what makes the story fun, bad people doing bad things to other bad people

I only realised on the re-read that Monza was planning to kill Shivers if he turned down her offer to kill for her.

[red snow]

2 hours ago, SeanF said:

I only realised on the re-read that Monza was planning to kill Shivers if he turned down her offer to kill for her.

Very blatantly so. General implication seemed she was going to kill any loose ends who considered leaving before all 7 targets were dead

[red snow]

I'd forgotten how much of a shit benna was and how most of the bad things monza did was due to his meddling. She's still culpable for turning a blind eye to it. Speaking of, shivers transformation after his torture is still very disturbing as is the part where he starts quoting b9.

I'd forgotten how Ganmark was pretty badass fighting two people at once. He falls into the category of "probably a better individual than monza and her crew" but i guess that's a low bar.

Out of all of them, Friendly is possibly the best as he's at least under no illusion about what he does.

[SeanF]

1 hour ago, red snow said:

I'd forgotten how much of a shit benna was and how most of the bad things monza did was due to his meddling. She's still culpable for turning a blind eye to it. Speaking of, shivers transformation after his torture is still very disturbing as is the part where he starts quoting b9.

I'd forgotten how Ganmark was pretty badass fighting two people at once. He falls into the category of "probably a better individual than monza and her crew" but i guess that's a low bar.

Out of all of them, Friendly is possibly the best as he's at least under no illusion about what he does.

I thought Ganmark summed up both Monza and Benna very well during their duel.

I paraphrase, but he said (of Benna) something like "I'll forgive anything in a handsome young man, but your brother was a selfish, cowardly, treacherous, parasite" before telling her "a hundred thousand people would have cheered to see you thrown from that balcony."

[Argonath Diver]

Best Served Cold is the grimdark equivalent of It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia.

Everyone involved is objectively an absolute vile human to some extent, but screw it, they're delightful to watch in action.

[red snow]

16 hours ago, SeanF said:

I thought Ganmark summed up both Monza and Benna very well during their duel.

I paraphrase, but he said (of Benna) something like "I'll forgive anything in a handsome young man, but your brother was a selfish, cowardly, treacherous, parasite" before telling her "a hundred thousand people would have cheered to see you thrown from that balcony."

That was pretty damn close quote-wise. Ganmark seemed to be as good a judge of character as he was swordsman. Cosca seemed to feel a similar way too in the sense he felt Benna was more trouble than his money skills were.

I do feel bad for Cosca being betrayed the way he was. Do/did we ever find out why he became an alcoholic? It could just be he got into a situation he was over-reliant on it but it only seemed to get out of hand once he was in charge of the thousand swords and could trust Monza to run things. I guess self-control is a weakness. I also wonder whether the poisoning of his wife/mistress affected him more than he realised. Shitty that morveer was behind that.

15 hours ago, Argonath Diver said:

Best Served Cold is the grimdark equivalent of It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia.

Everyone involved is objectively an absolute vile human to some extent, but screw it, they're delightful to watch in action.

That's a pretty good analogy although I'd have never considered it previously. Now I'm trying to shake the cast not playing monza's crew! 

[Argonath Diver]

1 hour ago, red snow said:

That's a pretty good analogy although I'd have never considered it previously. Now I'm trying to shake the cast not playing monza's crew! 

I can only hope that someday I will recognise one of JA's characters as *definitely* one of the Gang as a proto-industrial sociopath, and I will burst with joy and secret pride. (Crap, I've gone and rolled a critical failure on my Summon Author, and now I think I've inadvertently caused Joe's milk to have gone sour. Sorry mate.)

[red snow]

Have to say i actually felt sorry for morveer when he tried to be easier to work with and everyone (including myself) thought he was being insincere. Reading inside his head in that chapter though made it seem like he has genuine autism/Asperger's spectrum problems in guaging others and traversing social interactions. Mix that in with severe anxiety and insufferable arrogance and the guy is a bit of a mess/pain to be around. I definitely empathize with why he's so unlikeable now and a lot of it isn't really his fault beyond being wired weirdly.

I'd also forgotten how fun his showdown with Day was.

[HexMachina]

"cheese trap"

 

[SeanF]

12 hours ago, red snow said:

Have to say i actually felt sorry for morveer when he tried to be easier to work with and everyone (including myself) thought he was being insincere. Reading inside his head in that chapter though made it seem like he has genuine autism/Asperger's spectrum problems in guaging others and traversing social interactions. Mix that in with severe anxiety and insufferable arrogance and the guy is a bit of a mess/pain to be around. I definitely empathize with why he's so unlikeable now and a lot of it isn't really his fault beyond being wired weirdly.

I'd also forgotten how fun his showdown with Day was.

I suppose I might feel some sympathy for him if he wasn't a professional poisoner.

[red snow]

1 hour ago, SeanF said:

I suppose I might feel some sympathy for him if he wasn't a professional poisoner.

Yeah he's still a shit but his social skills are a bit easier to grasp.

[Quijote Light]

7 hours ago, red snow said:

Yeah he's still a shit but his social skills are a bit easier to grasp.

Didn’t he murder his mother?

[red snow]

3 hours ago, Quijote Light said:

Didn’t he murder his mother?

Where I'm at she abandoned him but i suspect he probably killed her much like i doubt anyone at the orphanage is still around.

I'm not defending his murders though, I'm saying he genuinely tried to get along better with monza's crew but he lacks the awareness to even consider why no one would trust him or think he was being insincere. And he lists how when he tries to do things like be supportive he comes off as criticising etc, etc. So while everyone, including the reader, thinks he's an arrogant sarcastic ass, a lot of the time he himself thinks he's being helpful.

Where the "he's evil" comes in is when he kills people for not understanding him, of course. Day however had it coming - that was self defense. Although you could argue it was his lack of awareness that triggered it as he didn't even consider his "orso plan" might have nade Day suspicious

[The hairy bear]

On 7/8/2019 at 1:55 PM, red snow said:

I'd forgotten how much of a shit benna was and how most of the bad things monza did was due to his meddling. She's still culpable for turning a blind eye to it.

That's probably my favorite part of BSC. How it is gradually discovered that most of the bad things that we "knew" about Monza are actually attributable to Benna, and that Monza has much less agency than expected. She is not as ruthless and cruel as we thought, while Benna is "the butcher of Caprile", Hermon's murderer, the one who betrayed Cosca, and the one who gave Orso reason to execute them.

22 hours ago, Quijote Light said:

Didn’t he murder his mother?

Yeah, he confirms it in his thoughts just before dying. During all the book he's complains that her mother "left him", and in his final chapter it's revealed that he poisoned her (and that's why he was raised in an orphanage).

[red snow]

Cosca absolutely shines throughout his first "battle" back in charge. Loved his motivational speech about making money and avoiding harm like an anti henry v. And then he starts betraying clients and exacting revenge on everyone with such OTT humour that you almost forget how vicious he's being.

He definitely carries this part of the book which is otherwise lacking the urgency of earlier chapters and a bit grim with all the self loathing and hatred of Monza and Shivers

[A True Kaniggit]

Still on the second chapter of The Heroes. 

I got distracted by my Wheel of Time reread. Just started The Gathering Storm, so I should be done with that mid-August. Then I can finish The Heroes and Red Country before the release date of A Little Hatred.

Everyone else either finished or on schedule?

[red snow]

11 hours ago, A True Kaniggit said:

Still on the second chapter of The Heroes. 

I got distracted by my Wheel of Time reread. Just started The Gathering Storm, so I should be done with that mid-August. Then I can finish The Heroes and Red Country before the release date of A Little Hatred.

Everyone else either finished or on schedule?

I've fallen behind as I've been off work and not getting my daily commute reading time done. I think I'll be lucky to get the heroes finished unless i dedicate some serious time to it.

[Maithanet]

I am about a third of the way through Red Country.  Enjoying it thus far.  Are the two kidnapped kids Logen's children or not?  I remember this is included in the book somewhere, but I seem to have missed it.