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

[A True Kaniggit]

Haha. Battle with the Dragon People?

I'd call that a massacre.

 

[Varysblackfyre321]

On 8/19/2019 at 4:04 PM, HelenaExMachina said:

Gorst would be a tricky one to cast and depict in a television series i think, his character isnt much at all without his viewpoint.

Similar applies to Friendly

Gorst would probably have to lose the high-pitched voice. A massive change I know but Dubbing him over seems to something that probably look too silly to put on screen.

On 8/20/2019 at 1:21 AM, red snow said:

Although they'd have to change the relationship as it would be out of character for him to trust one of them as they are in the books.

 

Meh, this seems a tad off. If Glocka didn’t legitimately put some trust in his practicals he wouldn’t have been surprised at both having betrayed him. The best his mind conjured up from the evidence is that one of them eventually did betray him in the end but he didn’t really conceive of them having done such until he’s been placed in a vulnerable position with Frost. I do agree he’s need to unload a lot more of his more “sensitive thoughts” on someone-why not Glocka’s butler? He’s already seen Glocka in his most vulnerable states.

What I fear with casting Glocka is that they would beautify him like the show AGOT did with Tyrion-Peter Dinklage is short but he’s still a pretty good looking dude. 

I fear Glocka just getting a limp and maybe a cool scar but overall be kept handsome. 

On 8/8/2019 at 10:49 AM, The hairy bear said:

In the original trilogy, the name of the magus didn't seem to be widely known. Logen had to ask Quai "who is this Bayaz?", the first time he was mentioned. Ferro, West, and many others didn't react at Yulwei's name. But in the Red Country, both Shy and Temple (separately) identify "Zacharus" as the name of one of the magi.

Well the North until recently has been very isolated from Bayaaz and the other Mangi influences in comparison to the rest of the world. A northerner like Logan not knowing of the Magi is realistic.

And in terms of West not reacting to Zacaryus  by the time of the original trilogy the Mahi have been relegated to old legends to which increasingly people in his society are forgetting. 

By the end of the original tribology Zacharus, and Bayaaz being widely known makes sense because of the tremendous publicly noted actions that would inevitably get everybody talking about the magi.

Like for example I’m pretty sure most people today in America would not know who the 32nd President was if asked on the spot. The man was one of the most powerful man on Earth at the time, probably did things that would effect the nation to this day but I’m sure most people could not name him. 

If that President suddenly came back from the dead and blew up a city or helped in the formation of a new empire his name would be more easily recognized.

 

[red snow]

That's a good idea having the butler as his confidant. He could be a loyal "alfred" type. It would also feel quite natural and , while not in the book, could have easily worked as a character.

I don't think they can lose Gorst's voice though. They can tone it down by going for a David Beckham soft voice. I'm trying to think of some physically intimidating athletes who have high/soft voices but it's eluding me. I know they exist as I've noted how no-one would mention their voice to their face. Which is exactly how Gorst works, no-one dares mention his voice to him - it's his own insecurity about it that undoes him.

[BigFatCoward]

2 hours ago, red snow said:

That's a good idea having the butler as his confidant. He could be a loyal "alfred" type. It would also feel quite natural and , while not in the book, could have easily worked as a character.

I don't think they can lose Gorst's voice though. They can tone it down by going for a David Beckham soft voice. I'm trying to think of some physically intimidating athletes who have high/soft voices but it's eluding me. I know they exist as I've noted how no-one would mention their voice to their face. Which is exactly how Gorst works, no-one dares mention his voice to him - it's his own insecurity about it that undoes him.

i'm not sure, there has to be a reason for him to be silent and brooding, would a lisp or stutter not serve as well?

 

3 hours ago, Varysblackfyre321 said:

 

I fear Glocka just getting a limp and maybe a cool scar but overall be kept handsome. 

 

 

They could show him with horrific scarring and injuries to his body in a few scenes, that would be covered up in most situations.

[Rhom]

4 hours ago, Varysblackfyre321 said:

Like for example I’m pretty sure most people today in America would not know who the 32nd President was if asked on the spot. The man was one of the most powerful man on Earth at the time, probably did things that would effect the nation to this day but I’m sure most people could not name him. 

If that President suddenly came back from the dead and blew up a city or helped in the formation of a new empire his name would be more easily recognized.

 

Zombie Franklin Roosevelt’s wrath would be a terrible sight to behold.

[A True Kaniggit]

1 minute ago, Rhom said:

Zombie Franklin Roosevelt’s wrath would be a terrible sight to behold.

I Shivers at the thought.

[Maithanet]

6 hours ago, red snow said:

I don't think they can lose Gorst's voice though. They can tone it down by going for a David Beckham soft voice. I'm trying to think of some physically intimidating athletes who have high/soft voices but it's eluding me. I know they exist as I've noted how no-one would mention their voice to their face. Which is exactly how Gorst works, no-one dares mention his voice to him - it's his own insecurity about it that undoes him.

Mike Tyson seems like the very obvious example, given his similarities in overwhelming strength, fierce demeanor, high voice and dangerous attitudes towards women.  Not a good casting choice though, since Tyson is much too old and a poor actor to boot. 

[red snow]

4 hours ago, BigFatCoward said:

i'm not sure, there has to be a reason for him to be silent and brooding, would a lisp or stutter not serve as well?

 

They could show him with horrific scarring and injuries to his body in a few scenes, that would be covered up in most situations.

I'm just not sure whether a stutter or lisp will be any less distracting than a slightly high pitched voice.

Glokta could always wear a practical mask although i suspect actors would be more averse to that than heavy make-up. To be honest they could have him with false teeth (that we see take in and out - eg they are for show and no use for eating) or use make-up to make them appear cracked and missing. Maybe have the watery eyes bondvillain style but i think the main emphasis is on his body anyhow so he needs to appear twisted and walking like his back and feet are mangled. That can be achieved without make-up.

[red snow]

1 minute ago, Maithanet said:

Mike Tyson seems like the very obvious example, given his similarities in overwhelming strength, fierce demeanor, high voice and dangerous attitudes towards women.  Not a good casting choice though, since Tyson is much too old and a poor actor to boot. 

Yeah it was him and chris eubank who fit the analogy. No one would mock them to their face that's for sure.

[Varysblackfyre321]

On 8/22/2019 at 5:10 AM, Rhom said:

Zombie Franklin Roosevelt’s wrath would be a terrible sight to behold.

But an awesome thing to witness.

On 8/22/2019 at 7:58 AM, Maithanet said:

Mike Tyson seems like the very obvious example, given his similarities in overwhelming strength, fierce demeanor, high voice and dangerous attitudes towards women.  Not a good casting choice though, since Tyson is much too old and a poor actor to boot. 

And black. The racial politics of the union were really bad. If you’re going to change his race Gorst’s character would have far more massive rewrites if the Union is still as racist as it currently is.

On 8/22/2019 at 7:59 AM, red snow said:

I'm just not sure whether a stutter or lisp will be any less distracting than a slightly high pitched voice.

But Gorst’s voice isn’t just slightly high pitched. It’s absolutely the type of a woman.

It’s purely emasculating and if he had a typical male voice even if slightly high pitched he’d probably be in a much grandiose position.

Honestly the only way he could find self-worth is doing extraordinarily dangerous acts in comparison to his peers is largely because of his voice.

 

[red snow]

21 hours ago, Varysblackfyre321 said:

But an awesome thing to witness.

And black. The racial politics of the union were really bad. If you’re going to change his race Gorst’s character would have far more massive rewrites if the Union is still as racist as it currently is.

But Gorst’s voice isn’t just slightly high pitched. It’s absolutely the type of a woman.

It’s purely emasculating and if he had a typical male voice even if slightly high pitched he’d probably be in a much grandiose position.

Honestly the only way he could find self-worth is doing extraordinarily dangerous acts in comparison to his peers is largely because of his voice.

 

That last paragraph seems like a pretty good argument for why they have to keep the voice, surely?

[RedEyedGhost]

On 5/26/2019 at 5:45 PM, Quijote Light said:

Shivers has his old sword, which he took from Dow. 

Finished The Heroes yesterday, and thank you for being vague like that, because I've forgotten much more about this series than I thought I had.  Starting the book I could barely remember how it progressed, but reading it kept stimulating my memory, which was very fun (I very much expect the same experience for Red Country, but had a much better recall for the events of the trilogy than I did for any of the standalones).  Almost as good as I remembered, but I think I'm going to have to slot it in behind Last Argument of Kings in my series rankings.  The overuse of the word heroes was definitely grating on my nerves by the end.

[Maithanet]

I finished the Red Country reread.  A couple points:

- Logen rides off into the Sunset, which is west, back towards the Far Country and Crease, etc.  I imagine that the "ride off into the sunset" is mean as an homage to Westerns rather than actually describing where Logen is going, but nonetheless, I thought that was interesting.  I mean, where can he go that his past won't follow him?

 - I remember that in our discussions of Logen's character that even if you give him a complete pass for anything he does as B9, you have to hold Logen accountable for constantly choosing to put himself in harms way so that the B9 comes out.  It seems like in RC, Logen is taking that criticism to heart, and lives almost a decade as Lamb the Doormat.  But when given an excuse for violence, he embraces it, wholeheartedly and repeatedly. 

 - It seemed like Logen didn't even need to pick a side in the Mayor/Ring showdown.  Dab Sweet and his wife knew the way to the Dragon people, and could have been convinced to go.  But instead he wanted to fight Golden (which echoes Bethod's complaints in LaoK that he wanted to make peace, but nooo, Logen wanted to fight Threetrees, and even before that with what we see in the Monster short story).  Logen is much less sympathetic when you don't get his POV.  It just seems like he is unable to live his life without killing lots of people, which is prettymuch the definition of a monster. 

- It did feel kind of ridiculous that Conthus would just straight reveal herself to Temple and Shy.  It would be far safer (for her) to just let them continue assuming that Conthus died, but the cause goes on.  It seemed like she revealed herself just for the audience's sake, even though in-world it's a stupid move. 

[BigFatCoward]

2 hours ago, Maithanet said:

 

- It did feel kind of ridiculous that Conthus would just straight reveal herself to Temple and Shy.  It would be far safer (for her) to just let them continue assuming that Conthus died, but the cause goes on.  It seemed like she revealed herself just for the audience's sake, even though in-world it's a stupid move. 

The only reason I can think of is they would be handy people to assist her, and she was sounding them out about joining the rebels, as Savian had done to Logan earlier in the book. Shy is very competent, and temple for his flaws has some very important skills. 

[Caligula_K3]

I've been re-reading the trilogy over the past month, my first time reading them in about a decade. I'm almost done The Last Argument of Kings, which has always been by far my favourite book of the trilogy, and probably my second favourite book of his after Best Served Cold. It's been a great re-read;  Joe's touch with characters is extremely impressive, and it's just fun to watch his writing skills develop. To my mind there's a big jump in the prose and characterization quality from The Blade Itself to Before They Are Hanged. and a big jump too in pacing. Glokta, Logen, Jezal, Ardee, and the band of northmen are the highlights for me, though I find Glokta much less sympathetic than I remembered him being. Ferro, unfortunately, is a pretty one note character; I think Joe became a lot better at writing women and having them be part of the story in the standalones. I still love everything surrounding Logen's return to the north and the reader's discovery of the extent of his bullshit and self-deception. 

On second read, it's a bit hard to care about the journey to the edge of the world; I appreciate some of the character development and the interactions between Jezal and Logen, but the worldbuilding Joe sets up in these sections seems so out of touch with what you get in the standalone books and what he seems interested in exploring now- I could be misremembering, but the Shanka are pretty much entirely dropped, as is all this stuff about Glustrod and the Other Side. Which is fine by me, since those are probably the more generic aspects of this world, especially the Shanka. Do we ever find out why or how they struck a deal with Bethod? And even on re-read, when it's so clear that Quai has been replaced by something, I still find all the Tolomei stuff in LAoK to be kind of silly and anti-climactic, along with the re-discovery of the Seed. On the other hand, the moment where they discover the quest is a complete failure is still hilarious to me. 

    Overall my opinion of the trilogy is still very high, which I can't say the same of for a lot of my favourite fantasy books from a decade ago. Joe's character work, dialogue, and sense of humour, overall style, and the themes of the trilogy still really resonate with  me. I'm very excited to re-read the standalones and to get to A Little Hatred! 

 

Edited to add: It's also been really fun running into all these characters who get a lot of development in the standalones, like Shiver, Cosca, and Gorst. Joe is great at taking these seemingly one off characters and transforming them, albeit most often in very depressing ways...

[Maithanet]

24 minutes ago, BigFatCoward said:

The only reason I can think of is they would be handy people to assist her, and she was sounding them out about joining the rebels, as Savian had done to Logan earlier in the book. Shy is very competent, and temple for his flaws has some very important skills. 

But she doesn't need to reveal herself to see if they would join up.  I mean, maybe she judged it more likely if they knew, but still, it is definitely a risk to expose herself unneccesarily to two people who aren't in the fold. 

22 minutes ago, Caligula_K3 said:

Ferro, unfortunately, is a pretty one note character; I think Joe became a lot better at writing women and having them be part of the story in the standalones.

 

I agree.  Monza and Shy and Finree are all better characters than any of the women in the trilogy, and distinct from one another. 

Quote

 as is all this stuff about Glustrod and the Other Side.

I would be pretty surprised if we've heard the last from Glustrod, the Other Side and Bedesh. 

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Which is fine by me, since those are probably the more generic aspects of this world, especially the Shanka. Do we ever find out why or how they struck a deal with Bethod? And even on re-read, when it's so clear that Quai has been replaced by something, I still find all the Tolomei stuff in LAoK to be kind of silly and anti-climactic, along with the re-discovery of the Seed. On the other hand, the moment where they discover the quest is a complete failure is still hilarious to me. 

I think it is safe to assume that his sorceress Caurib had something to do with it, but no, we never found out much about it. 

The Tolomei stuff has some plot hole problems, to say the least.  She seems to go from smart and calculating to stupid and reckless as the plot demands.    

[Corvinus85]

I wonder how powerful that mechanical dragon had really been if the Dragon people would have managed to "waken" it, or was it all a pipe dream?

[Maithanet]

1 hour ago, Corvinus said:

I wonder how powerful that mechanical dragon had really been if the Dragon people would have managed to "waken" it, or was it all a pipe dream?

We can only speculate.  It seems quite believable that the Maker could have created a working mechanical dragon.  It seems a little less likely that it could be reactivated by the Dragon people, but still possible. 

If you had an actual big mechanical dragon that was made by the Maker, it would presumably be very difficult to damage, because his stuff is built to last.  So...probably pretty powerful and difficult to stop by conventional means. 

[Corvinus85]

13 minutes ago, Maithanet said:

We can only speculate.  It seems quite believable that the Maker could have created a working mechanical dragon.  It seems a little less likely that it could be reactivated by the Dragon people, but still possible. 

If you had an actual big mechanical dragon that was made by the Maker, it would presumably be very difficult to damage, because his stuff is built to last.  So...probably pretty powerful and difficult to stop by conventional means. 

Indeed, though in this new age of gunpowder and industry... I wonder if the new books will touch on this. The new machines vs. the Maker's old stuff.

[The hairy bear]

Finished the reread of Sharp Ends.

Things I loved:

• The first and the last story (or, chronologically, the first two), are my favorite ones. They are very similar in the sense that both show significant defining past events from a main POV in the eyes of third party (Glokta's stand at the bridge and Logen's killing of Rattleneck's son). Really great. I wish there were more of those.
• Shev and Jev are really fun. Carcolf too, in her own way. Some of their stories don't really have much happening in them, but the interaction between the pair always make them entertaining.
• Giving the date for each of the stories was great. It's really helpful for chronology obsessives such as myself.

Things I disliked:

• While I certainly liked the book, I think short stories are not Abercrombie's forte. He succeeds in presenting interesting and vivid characters, but lacks the space to make them shine. Some of the plots are very thin.
• A few more short stories wouldn't hurt. One more with Shev and Javre wandering in a new setting such as Ghurkul or the Old Empire, perhaps, and then some more backstories for POVs that we didn't get:  Jezal entering the King's Own, Calder ordering Forley's death, Monza as a mercenary,...
• "Three's a Crowd" was a better stopping point for Shev and Javre than "Though Times All Over", I think. This last one seems out of place to me, as it does not follow from the previous story. Also, we are left in the dark about the mysterious object that had to be stolen from a magi, only to focus in seemingly another mysterious object that a magi wants to steal.

Errors?

• "Wrong Place, Wrong Time" places Monza's massive poisoning at Westport's bank in spring, but in Best Served Cold Friendly says it's 'the dead of winter'.
• On "Some Desperado", dated summer 584, Shy thinks of "her stubborn little sister and brother too". Since Pit is still six on summer 590, and Shy was far from home during her outlaw days, I don't know how she could know about her little sibling's sex.
• My Gollancz edition of Sharp Blades (I don't know if others too) shows with the title of each story, a map of the Circle of the World zoomed in to the area where the story takes place. Whoever made it has no idea of where the Near Country is, as the corresponding maps center on Suljuk and the Thousand Isles.

Random thoughts

• Corporal Tunny's approach to soldiering and his tendency to throw himself to danger charging gallantly to battle without sparing a thought for his own safety, take a whole new meaning when we find out that he was Glokta's personal aide. It seems as if he can't help but to follow his mentor's example.
• In "Three's a Crowd" Shev reveals to have meet both Logen ('an old Northman on the farm near Squaredeal' who recommended 'to be realistic' and that 'you can never have too many knives') and Shivers (worked with Shev and killed three Sipanese who’d been chasing her). It doesn't seem unlikely that Shev was the one who put Shivers on Logen's track.
• In my previous reads it had escaped me that Fallow, Kurrikan's henchman in "Though Times All Over" is probably the same Fallow who took Ardee's furniture while her brother was at war. Seeing how he passed from usury to child trafficking, it doesn't seem that Ardee's punch did him much good.
• Made a Monster' sheds a whole new light into Bayaz's claim that Bethod wouldn't be anything without him. In 570, less than 5 years before the beginning of the First Law trilogy, he already owns the two biggest cities in the North: Carleon and Uffrith. He also has already defeated the Hillmen, Shana Heartless, and Rattleneck. It doesn't seem that he really needed Bayaz's help at all.