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

[red snow]

8 hours ago, Varysblackfyre321 said:

 

You’ll have to forgive me for getting the wrong idea. In my defense you did say Jezal was acting cowardly(in the context of acting like a normal person would in the situation), by not committing suicide, and then remarked Logen, Ferro, Glocka would’ve stood by their fuck you. I took  “stood by” to mean you’d thought they’d do the “brave” thing and kill themselves in Jezal’s situation rather than be Bayaz’s puppet. 

And respect to the bolded so does Jezal. He repeatedly risks his life for others throughout the novel. If Bayaz said he’d merely end Jezal’s life(which I think Jezal could still recognize the wizard could arrange),I think Jezal would’ve still resisted.  The reason he’s capitulating to Bayaz isn’t a fear of death. It’s the fear of unimaginable pain. 

If Bayaz tortured, Logen,or Glocka the same way he did Jezal I imagine their reactions wouldn’t be that different. But they’d perhaps be more insufficient pawns due to the trauma. 

 

I probably shouldn't have used "suicide". It was meant as "suicidal mission" not "kill oneself". Although I don't think there is ever a point he tries to physically kill himself in the book so wasn't expecting confusion.

Jezal has a breaking point where he will back down. The other characters not so much. To me this makes Jezal a character that is more recognizable to me than the others. So while i think he is cowardly it sort of makes his actions more admirable because it is harder for him to do than any of the others.

[Varysblackfyre321]

3 hours ago, BigFatCoward said:

In my head he is about 6'6", though i have absolutely nothing to back that up. 

I don't think Dow was described as being particularly tall, Finree 'i thought you'd be taller'.  

I don’t picture Dogman particularly tall. 

But I think of West’s reaction towards the men. He think he gives the impression these guys are significantly taller than him. 

 

[Varysblackfyre321]

1 hour ago, red snow said:

I probably shouldn't have used "suicide". It was meant as "suicidal mission" not "kill oneself". Although I don't think there is ever a point he tries to physically kill himself in the book so wasn't expecting confusion.

Jezal has a breaking point where he will back down. The other characters not so much. To me this makes Jezal a character that is more recognizable to me than the others. So while i think he is cowardly it sort of makes his actions more admirable because it is harder for him to do than any of the others.

I would say they all do because they’re human. Apply the right pressure and any could be reduced to sobbing for mercy.

But I don’t think it’d be in Bayaz’s interest to bring them to it if necessarily.

I think Bayaz could’ve broken Logen like Jezal. But if he did so Logen himself would be more ill-prepared to ward off the Ghurkish influence in the north. Logen could’ve served as a decent enough buffer before Bayaaz found an adequate replacement. 

[Maithanet]

14 hours ago, Varysblackfyre321 said:

How tall are Logen and crew? Like when West describes them they all seem to be really big guys. Bethod comments Logen is much taller than him and how Bethod himself was pretty big himself, so how big are we talking here? 

 

7 hours ago, BigFatCoward said:

In my head he is about 6'6", though i have absolutely nothing to back that up. 

I don't think Dow was described as being particularly tall, Finree 'i thought you'd be taller'.  

Based on very little, I don't think Logen is quite that tall.  I know that Tul Duru is described as a giant, but Shivers is also described as taller than Logen.  I think that Dow and Dogman are like 5-10; Grim maybe 6-1; Threetrees and Logen like 6-3, with Tul Duru nearly 7 feet. 

But again, this is never described anywhere, that's just based on their general physical descriptions.  Logen is often described as a big man, but if he were fully 6-6, that would be described as outright huge. 

[red snow]

I also take "big" as being very thick set and muscular too. So they don't all need to be giants. But i imagine most of logen's crew were 6ftplus. I made up in my mind that logen was probably 6,3 but with broad shoulders and forearms like legs. 

I didn't think of the Union as being particularly short, probably more lanky in comparison to the northmen due to most of them having easy lives. Jezal's training suggested he was probably lean as opposed to huge.

Brother longfoot was certainly described as short and yulwei came across as shorr but I've no idea if that was representative of that part of world. I don't recall the gurkush being commented on for being either short or tall.

[BigFatCoward]

1 hour ago, red snow said:

 

Brother longfoot was certainly described as short and yulwei came across as shorr but I've no idea if that was representative of that part of world. I don't recall the gurkush being commented on for being either short or tall.

I thought yulwei was described as tall and lean? 

I'm going to have to go back and check. 

[Maithanet]

1 hour ago, red snow said:

I also take "big" as being very thick set and muscular too. So they don't all need to be giants. But i imagine most of logen's crew were 6ftplus. I made up in my mind that logen was probably 6,3 but with broad shoulders and forearms like legs.

Logen's crew was also the baddest fighters from their respective area such that they were "champions" in their duels with Logen.  It makes sense that they'd be a lot bigger than average.  It's just that a powerfully built man who's 5-11 could easily be described as "a lot bigger than average".  Likewise if he were 6-10.  So there's definitely a fair bit of wiggle room. 

[Rhom]

We are also thinking of these things in modern terms of what is considered tall or short.  If we were looking at a world truly just entering into the industrial age, I would think we need to shave a few inches off what would be considered tall.

[Maithanet]

13 minutes ago, Rhom said:

We are also thinking of these things in modern terms of what is considered tall or short.  If we were looking at a world truly just entering into the industrial age, I would think we need to shave a few inches off what would be considered tall.

It's true, although we're pretty used to fantasy books not making this allowance.  It sounds less impressive if a guy who's 5-10, 160 pounds is considered "big" although he probably would be by pre-industrial standards.  Modern diet, training and professional sports has given us an incredibly warped idea of how big "big" really is. 

I mean, GRRM has a handful of characters that are 7 feet tall (or more), and the odds of that happening is essentially nil unless people from all over the continent are somehow interbreeding with giants.

[red snow]

They've found skeletons of vikings who were really tall. There was probably a selective advantage for tall people in a time when that could provide an edge in battle.

A lot of our ideas about people being shorter in the past due to limited diet are based around people living in cities or some farming communities. There's quite a lot of evidence showing hunter gatherers were healthier, taller and lived longer than their farmer/urbanised counterparts. Their diets were more varied/reliable and less repetitive. The rub was that they couldn't support larger numbers while farmers could and in the end a thousand smaller/weaker people will usually beat 20 hunter gatherers. 

If notherners are the equivalent of northern europeans then the ones with a varied source of fish, meat etc (not impossible with low density hunter/farmers) could be just as tall as modern humans ,especially if you were the son of a chief. Based on the description of seasons the north there'd be lower light levels in which case the paler skinned northerners would get a mild vitamin D boost (utterly pointless with normal light levels or diets rich in vitamin D). It's not like humans have evolved to be bigger in the last century it's just a lot of us now have richer diets and healthier childhoods. That could still happen at any other time in history with the same conditions.

I'd expect the non rich elite of adua would on average be shorter as they probably have a poor diet and are more likely to fall prey to disease through bad sanitation, spoiled food and cramped living conditions. The elite would probably fare better though as they'd be more insulated from all those things.

All that said i agree that from the viewpoint of city dwellers at equivalent medieval times a person wouldn't need to be that tall in order to seem "big". Eg a Roman soldier had to be 5foot5 and archaeological evidence suggesting average roman soldier was around 5foot7. Based on that someone who was 6 foot would seem huge (eg the germans/barbarians) and much taller than that would be gigantic. So that was a long ramble to reach the same conclusion as the rest of you

[HexMachina]

I have absolutely no concept of height beyond “tall” and “short” so i’m always slightly amused by these discussions. The idea that Logen is 6 6 or 6 2 or 7ft means nothing to me but i find it interesting that others are able to visualise this

[BigFatCoward]

I suppose it depends on how tall you are as well. If you are 6'1" and someone is described as tall or big, then your reference point is different to someone who is 5'9". 

[red snow]

6 hours ago, BigFatCoward said:

I suppose it depends on how tall you are as well. If you are 6'1" and someone is described as tall or big, then your reference point is different to someone who is 5'9". 

It's all relative. This could be the second most subjective thing in the series beyond reading order.

[Varysblackfyre321]

37 minutes ago, red snow said:

It's all relative. This could be the second most subjective thing in the series beyond reading order.

Dumb question but how are heights measured exactly? Like is ft the metric? 

 

On 6/25/2019 at 6:24 AM, Maithanet said:

But again, this is never described anywhere, that's just based on their general physical descriptions.  Logen is often described as a big man, but if he were fully 6-6, that would be described as outright huge. 

See I always get the impression he is around that height given Bethod saying Logen towers over him. Given Bethod makes note he’s pretty tall himself.

16 hours ago, Maithanet said:

I mean, GRRM has a handful of characters that are 7 feet tall (or more), and the odds of that happening is essentially nil unless people from all over the continent are somehow interbreeding with giants

Side note, I always wondered if that was possible.

[RedEyedGhost]

On 6/26/2019 at 7:38 AM, Varysblackfyre321 said:

Side note, I always wondered if that was possible.

 

[red snow]

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

[The hairy bear]

Just finished the Heroes, and I thoroughly enjoyed it again. I agree with what Caligula_K3 says upthread: although BSC is still my favourite, TH is probably Joe's best book.

Things I loved:

• The pacing works great. The tight timeline of the books it's really well done. It keeps the momentum all the time, while still allowing for full rounded arcs for the characters.
• After the bleak BSC, the endings for the POVs are almost optimistic. Calder, Beck, and Finree are clearly better in a better place than where they started. Gorst gets his position back as the king's bodyguard. And Craw and Tunny stay the same, just as they wanted.
• The maps with the position of the armies at the beginning of each day are a great addition. In this reread I just realized that triangles are meant to represent cavalry battalions. Love it. I only wish that each depicted regiment had it's number (or the name of its commander) on it.

Things I disliked:

• The order of battle at the beginning could have been much better. At the very least, it should have detailed which regiments each of the Union generals commanded. But what I'd liked to see is a complete battle order, not only the characters that we directly see in the novels. It'd be great to know the names of the colonel who commands the Second, or the named man that leads Golden's cavalry.
• The map of Day 1 spoils that the Union is going to occupy Osrung and take the Heroes from Craw, which doesn't happen until the 3rd chapter).
• I would have liked to hear more about Forley's execution and why Calder did it. He things that he "ordered Forley the Weakest killed without a second thought", but I feel that this is a action that Bethod would have disproved, and at least present Calder should realize that in great part it ultimately led to his father's downfall and death.
• When Bayaz tells Finree that her husband has been named governor of Angland, he askes her to "convey the happy news to your husband, though I must ask that you keep it between yourselves for the time being. " (because people would realize that it's a week between Osrung and Adua). Later, the very same day, she confides the news to Gorst (someone who, we find the same chapter, she doesn't particularly like and considers a drunkard and a brute).

Errors?

• The day after the battle, before the duel, Dow tells Calder: "Sorry to say I’ve had to send to Carleon for your wife. She stood hostage for you, didn’t she?’". The same day, at night ( "Family"), Seff is reunited with Calder at the Heroes. So the Heroes are less than a day's ride from Osrung (someone had to go to Carleon, and bring a late-stage pregnant woman back). But early in the book, in one of his letters, Gorst says that Kroy is "no more than two weeks’ march" from Carleon. (This is five days before the battle).
• We have several references saying that Bethod started his expansionism ten years before the trilogy ("Ten years older and not a day better off.", "I stood with him, walked with him, fought with him, ten years, all over the North.",...). That would be around year 565. We know from Made a Monster that Scale was born at 559, and Calder should come not long after. And Crunden Craw says that he was already serving Bethod when Calder was a baby ( I practically raised this little bastard!’ Craw scrubbed Calder’s hair with his knuckles. ‘Fed him milk from a squeezed cloth, I did.’). The chronology is very hard to reconcile.

Random thoughts

• In this reread I've just realized that Mitterick was in all likelyhood Poulder's second and successor. In the trilogy we were told that Poulder has a "possessed of a tremendous set of mustaches", dresses with "top buttons carelessly undone, spatters of mud from the road worn like medals", and says that "cavalry are my best regiments!”. In the Heroes, Mitterick has a "magnificent mustache", his quarters are "the most unruly place in his unruly division", his love for his mounted regiments are central to the plot, and his predecessor's animosity towards Kroy is still there.
• Why did Reachey married her daughter to Calder? We are told that they married 5 years ago, meaning the wedding took place in 579 and three years after Bethod's downfall and dead. We are told that the marriage was agreed when Calder and Seff "weren’t much more’n babies", so perhaps Northern culture takes engagement very seriously.
• Aliz dan Brint asks Finree what sort of men are Generals Jalenhorm and Mitterick, and she replies mentioning that "General Jalenhorm is a brave and honest man, an old friend of the king". It seems weird that Brint's wife doesn't know that, when his husband is also an old friend of the king and Jalenhorm himself.
• We are told that Gorst was fourth cousin to Lord Brock. In LAK he said that he had served in his guard, and that he joined the "Knights of the Body" some time after the Contest because "the post did not suit me". I wonder how it's possible that he was allowed to continue serving as the king's personal bodyguard during the Gurkish invasion, that had been sponsored by Lord Brock himself. The only explanation that I can come up with is that there was some publicly known incident between Gorst and Lord Brock, perhaps related to Gorst's violent impulses, that convinced everyone that a conspiration between the two man was not a possibility.
• I'm a little bit lost with the coloring of the Union's uniforms. In the trilogy, Varuz, West, Poulder and his staff wore red uniforms, while Kroy and his staff wore black ones. In the Heroes, the pattern repeats itself: nearly everyone (Mitterick, Meed,...)  has red uniforms, but Kroy still dresses in Black (and Gorst too, perhaps because he's part of his staff). I wonder why Kroy keeps using this different color, and what does it mean.
• Silly musing: If besides Black Dow's name Calder also takes his banner, his banner and his second's (Pale-as-Snow) will be plain black and plain white white.
• Seff seems to be clever and perceptive. Won't she realize at one point that Black Calder killed her father? Isn't anyone wondering why would Golden poison Reachey when Ironhead is the one who hates?

[BigFatCoward]

Reachey specifically covers why he still married Seff to Calder. Something along the lines of 'I promised her when you had the world at your feet, what sort of man would I be if I broke that promise'. 

[Maithanet]

21 minutes ago, The hairy bear said:

• We have several references saying that Bethod started his expansionism ten years before the trilogy ("Ten years older and not a day better off.", "I stood with him, walked with him, fought with him, ten years, all over the North.",...). That would be around year 565. We know from Made a Monster that Scale was born at 559, and Calder should come not long after. And Crunden Craw says that he was already serving Bethod when Calder was a baby ( I practically raised this little bastard!’ Craw scrubbed Calder’s hair with his knuckles. ‘Fed him milk from a squeezed cloth, I did.’). The chronology is very hard to reconcile

I took that as Craw speaking metaphorically.  It seems strange for a Named Man to literally be acting as a nursemaid.  So this is just him exaggerating for effect how young Calder was when Craw was raising/teaching/mentoring him. 

Quote

Why did Reachey married her daughter to Calder? We are told that they married 5 years ago, meaning the wedding took place in 579 and three years after Bethod's downfall and dead. We are told that the marriage was agreed when Calder and Seff "weren’t much more’n babies", so perhaps Northern culture takes engagement very seriously.

I thought this was generally covered in the book, that at one point Calder thought that Reachey was a good man for sticking to his promise when the marriage no longer offered him the benefits it once did?  It's possible I completely made that up, but I thought it was something like that.  Now, it doesn't exactly answer the question of why he didn't nix the deal, it just shows that setting aside the marriage is something that would be semi-frowned upon, but nonetheless was an option. 

[The hairy bear]

20 hours ago, Maithanet said:

I took that as Craw speaking metaphorically.  It seems strange for a Named Man to literally be acting as a nursemaid.  So this is just him exaggerating for effect how young Calder was when Craw was raising/teaching/mentoring him.

I hadn't considered this option. It's must be that, I guess.