A Little Hatred Spolier Thread (The world of the "First Law" is back)

[A True Kaniggit]

So in this theorized future war in which Stour and Leo are allies, what does Leo do when he comes upon the first village of disembowled Union (or other) citizens?

[Varysblackfyre321]

58 minutes ago, A True Kaniggit said:

The problem with Stour is he's an insane MFer who, if he actually caught Rikke, wanted to (I'm gonna abridge this a little) , ".....strip her,whip her, pull her teeth out.....get some Thralls to fuck her.....or maybe I'd get my horse to fuck her.....and cut the bloody cross in her, and put a bucket underneath to catch her guts, and send 'em to the other side" 

Damn, even the abridged version is really disgusting.

Man is such an unbelievable arsehole even other Northmen are going "WTF is wrong with this guy?"

Leo really should have just killed him. Not sure how you're supposed to trust and be friends with such an obvious sociopath.

 

The time he could have killed was in the ring. Beyond that  it’d be a fight he and his men would still have a fair chance of losing. Also, he(like Stour), aspires to be like the bloody-nine. He broke Stour and spared him just like Logen did for his crew. 

 Ignoring the moral repugnancy of the actions  Stour wanted to commit He could have used that Rikke as a hostage that would win the war outright. Dogman would kneel to save his daughter. Hell Stour could have taken  Rikke as a wife to help consolidate his claim on Dogman’s lands. It would seem a waste to just grizzly kill her. I’m surprised this hadn’t been proposed before by Calder. Theoretically the child of such a union should unite the north. 

But each of those approaches while quickening the war’s end in his favor would mean less blood for him.

[red snow]

1 hour ago, A True Kaniggit said:

So in this theorized future war in which Stour and Leo are allies, what does Leo do when he comes upon the first village of disembowled Union (or other) citizens?

Depends if they are union folk on his side or not I'd guess and whether the gLory gained outweighs it.

1 hour ago, SeanF said:

The guts were to be mixed with herbs, so that the Dogman wouldn't know what was in the box, before he opened it.

Yes, Stour is disgusting.

Stour is disgusting in what he says he'll do with Rikke (and no doubt influenced Clover in sparing her) but it's a question of what he says vs what he might have done. I think a lot of it is him acting big in front of his cronies. Still makes him a shit but all the alternative better uses of capturing listed here makes me wonder if he'd carry out his threat

[A True Kaniggit]

5 minutes ago, red snow said:

1) Depends if they are union folk on his side or not I'd guess and whether the gory gained outweighs it.

 

2) Stour is disgusting in what he says he'll do with Rikke (and no doubt influenced Clover in sparing her) but it's a question of what he says vs what he might have done. I think a lot of it is him acting big in front of his cronies. Still makes him a shit but all the alternative better uses of capturing listed here makes me wonder if he'd carry out his threat

1) Funny typo considering disembowelment.

2) I don't see how he doesn't do it after the scene he made.

Northman soldier #23: "Hey chief, we caught that chick who 3 days ago you ranted you were gonna do all that crazy shit to. What should we do with her?"

Stour: "Oh, let's just give her to my father, he'll proably ransom her."

 

Nah. Doesn't fit. He said he was gonna do it. I believe him. He loses too much prestige otherwise.

[red snow]

7 minutes ago, A True Kaniggit said:

1) Funny typo considering disembowelment.

2) I don't see how he doesn't do it after the scene he made.

Northman soldier #23: "Hey chief, we caught that chick who 3 days ago you ranted you were gonna do all that crazy shit to. What should we do with her?"

Stour: "Oh, let's just give her to my father, he'll proably ransom her."

 

Nah. Doesn't fit. He said he was gonna do it. I believe him. He loses too much prestige otherwise.

I just noticed the typo too

i see Stour as a bit trump/boris Johnson though where he can change his mind however and his lackeys would lap it up.

[Varysblackfyre321]

39 minutes ago, red snow said:

I just noticed the typo too

i see Stour as a bit trump/boris Johnson though where he can change his mind however and his lackeys would lap it up.

He’s an extreme sadist with tons of power with no real checks being placed on him. I fully expect him to do those things to Rikke if he had the opportunity. Not  because he wants to impress anyone. But because he likes hurting people and the greater pain he inflicts on people the more he gets off. If it prolongs the war...the better. His primary interest is less to do with winning the war, or being king, his main interest is spreading as much pain and death as he can. 

[A True Kaniggit]

51 minutes ago, Varysblackfyre321 said:

He’s an extreme sadist with tons of power with no real checks being placed on him. I fully expect him to do those things to Rikke if he had the opportunity. Not  because he wants to impress anyone. But because he likes hurting people and the greater pain he inflicts on people the more he gets off. If it prolongs the war...the better. His primary interest is less to do with winning the war, or being king, his main interest is spreading as much pain and death as he can. 

Gonna go slight fanfic here. 

I honestly would love it if the last time we see Logen in the series is a scene where he shows up and  brutally kills the shit out of Stour. 

How you like your hero now bastard?

edit: you know what? Throw Leo into the kill scene as well. Just cause I don’t like him either. 

[Consigliere]

Honestly, I hope we never see Logen again. The conclusion to his arc was perfect. 

[red snow]

2 hours ago, Consigliere said:

Honestly, I hope we never see Logen again. The conclusion to his arc was perfect. 

Well the lamb in the prophecy is a cruel tease but looks more likely to be orso at the moment. I guess one of logen's step kids could be called joe lamb now too

[Varysblackfyre321]

16 hours ago, A True Kaniggit said:

Gonna go slight fanfic here. 

I honestly would love it if the last time we see Logen in the series is a scene where he shows up and  brutally kills the shit out of Stour. 

How you like your hero now bastard?

edit: you know what? Throw Leo into the kill scene as well. Just cause I don’t like him either. 

Honestly...I think he’d like it quite a bit. Dying trying to kill his hero? What death could be worthier for him in his mind? I honestly expect him to try to kill Logen if they ever had the chance to meet. 

 

[A True Kaniggit]

2 hours ago, Varysblackfyre321 said:

Honestly...I think he’d like it quite a bit. Dying trying to kill his hero? What death could be worthier for him in his mind? I honestly expect him to try to kill Logen if they ever had the chance to meet. 

 

Hey, it’s not like I have to be realistic about these things. 

[Veltigar]

21 hours ago, red snow said:

Well the lamb in the prophecy is a cruel tease but looks more likely to be orso at the moment. I guess one of logen's step kids could be called joe lamb now too

If the Lamb was the last piece of the vision, I'd be on board with it to be Logen. 

23 hours ago, Consigliere said:

Honestly, I hope we never see Logen again. The conclusion to his arc was perfect. 

Depends on what Joe does with him I guess. No one wanted to see the Joker again after Heath Ledger's portrayal and apparently Phoenix did a bang up job to replace him.

On 10/4/2019 at 11:06 AM, red snow said:

I'm with you in that Joe's characters are rarely as they first seem and given stour is set up as a ridiculous villain i expect him to either become far more dangerous or dead early on. Stour admitted himself he gained more with a well placed knife than all his battles.

And he has calder and clover as advisors. Clover is probably going to be in a stronger position than he's ever been in so it'll be fascinating to see how ruthless he can be if stour uses him correctly.

I also like the mirroring with stour and Leo. Both have really intelligent parents yet they themselves are straightforward. I'm wondering whether Leo will fail having won in the circle while Stour wins having lost?

Nice way of putting it. There really is something to be said about learning from one's failure. I'd say it is more realistic than Stour just staying the same after his defeat  

EDIT: Also my money is on Clover killing Stour eventually. 

[Zorral]

On 10/5/2019 at 4:59 AM, A True Kaniggit said:

The problem with Stour is he's an insane MFer who, if he actually caught Rikke, wanted to (I'm gonna abridge this a little) , ".....strip her,whip her, pull her teeth out.....get some Thralls to fuck her.....or maybe I'd get my horse to fuck her.....and cut the bloody cross in her, and put a bucket underneath to catch her guts, and send 'em to the other side" 

Damn, even the abridged version is really disgusting.

Man is such an unbelievable arsehole even other Northmen are going "WTF is wrong with this guy?"

Leo really should have just killed him. Not sure how you're supposed to trust and be friends with such an obvious sociopath.

Edit: Edited asshole to arsehole. For the books. 

All this sounds remarkably like many accounts of the Black Prince's character and behavior.  Today, an historian will tend to factor in politically motivated exaggeration in such accounts of such people, but that was an era when so many did commit the most atrocious acts as a matter of course, whether priests, nobles, and even common folks and serfs. Edward employed constantly chevauchée wherever he went, so we know his troops weren't restrained by him or anything else, anymore than were Hawkwood's White Company (or any of the other mercenary armies; honestly? I still don't see how France continued to survive and the last half of the 14th and earlier decades of the 15th centuries, and survive enough to produce any food and put men in the army).

As for his men and 'side' seeing him as so deranged they would do something -- look at the current situation where the supporters stubbornly continue to support, and moreover say "he didn't do anything wrong, and if he did, it wasn't wrong."

There are contrivances in the characterization and so on in the book, particularly with the women, and then this bs incest, which really feels tacked on suddenly, leading to the idea, "Hey, now I can get Leo and what's her name together -- despite spending so much time on her, this reader can't even remember her name, and I just recently finished the book -- to establish a conflict for Leo and Orso."

 

[Rhom]

2 hours ago, Zorral said:

There are contrivances in the characterization and so on in the book, particularly with the women, and then this bs incest, which really feels tacked on suddenly, leading to the idea, "Hey, now I can get Leo and what's her name together -- despite spending so much time on her, this reader can't even remember her name, and I just recently finished the book -- to establish a conflict for Leo and Orso."

 

What?  We knew long before the book came out that Savine was a social riser and Orso a womanizer.  There were even commentaries in the general Abercrombie threads more than a year ago speculating on what kind of relationship they would have.  I wouldn’t call it “tacked on” in the least.

Unbelievable that Glokta didn’t know?  Yes. But I have no problem believing their relationship.

[Zorral]

OK, if you say so. But --- how does this make the incest not a sudden revelation? And still, a lot of the portraits of the women don't ring very true in certain ways -- they are what they are because the author made them that way, rather than them rising organically out of the context.  At least that's how it reads to me.

But then I keep seeing Orso as a Prince Hal, and Leo as a Hotspur, and of course Stour as any one of historical sociopaths of the general era.

[Gaston de Foix]

2 hours ago, Zorral said:

But then I keep seeing Orso as a Prince Hal, and Leo as a Hotspur, and of course Stour as any one of historical sociopaths of the general era.

Joe is not nearly as kind to his characters as Shakespeare...

[Corvinus85]

Regarding a possible Logen return, I have a crackpot theory: Jezal ain't dead, that's just Sulfur pretending to be a corpse, and later his body will mysteriously disappear. In truth, Bayaz is reuniting Jezal with Logen and Ferro for one last secret mission. 

[Rhom]

2 hours ago, Zorral said:

OK, if you say so. But --- how does this make the incest not a sudden revelation? And still, a lot of the portraits of the women don't ring very true in certain ways -- they are what they are because the author made them that way, rather than them rising organically out of the context.  At least that's how it reads to me.

But then I keep seeing Orso as a Prince Hal, and Leo as a Hotspur, and of course Stour as any one of historical sociopaths of the general era.

Well... ummm... they are fictional characters that the author created.  So I don’t know what else you would expect.  

[Jerry Drake]

7 hours ago, Rhom said:

Well... ummm... they are fictional characters that the author created.  So I don’t know what else you would expect.  

I was also going to say that. As the joke goes "Abercrombie planned it all!".

Also, she is pretty memorable character (name: Savine), and I would say that events in Valbeck will define her character much more than (unwittingly performed) incest.

 

[red snow]

8 hours ago, Corvinus said:

Regarding a possible Logen return, I have a crackpot theory: Jezal ain't dead, that's just Sulfur pretending to be a corpse, and later his body will mysteriously disappear. In truth, Bayaz is reuniting Jezal with Logen and Ferro for one last secret mission. 

That is a fun, even if crackpot, theory

 

10 hours ago, Zorral said:

OK, if you say so. But --- how does this make the incest not a sudden revelation? And still, a lot of the portraits of the women don't ring very true in certain ways -- they are what they are because the author made them that way, rather than them rising organically out of the context.  At least that's how it reads to me.

But then I keep seeing Orso as a Prince Hal, and Leo as a Hotspur, and of course Stour as any one of historical sociopaths of the general era.

Savine is the child of the most feared man in the union so given that context it's no surprise she is confident and has a successful career.

Finree did prove herself in "the heroes" and i assume was co running Angland. I'm not surprised she is a general. Even then she's undermined and swept aside so her son can lead.

Isern is the daughter of a famed hillperson and lover of the moon. She was confident (and crummock's favoured child) back when she could barely carry his weapons. It doesn't feel conjured up that she is where she is now.

Rikke has a special power so i guess we could say that's contrived. But she'd still be in a position of power as the chieftain's daughter and characters like wonderful have demonstrated the north allows female warriors.

Vick's history makes it entirely plausible she'd work in the inquisition. Her entire childhood probably required betrayal and subterfuge just to survive.

You could level the accusation that these characters only get where they are because of their fathers but I'd argue that's intentional. A big part of the series is how society makes it easier for those born in power to maintain or increase it and is just as valid a criticism for the male characters eg orso, leo and stour. In this series and in reality it's rare that people go from zero to hero entirely off the back of their own had work.

If i was going to accuse any character of being conveniently created I'd say it was clover who magically was in the background throughout several books without ever being mentioned but is now apparently a key figure in the North.

The incest thing is unfortunate but i guess it was impossible to avoid it while maintaining the secrecy of Savine's father. They could have told the kids to stay away from one another but that usually has a tendency to draw them towards each other. Although i guess telling Orso at a young age the truth would have helped as he couldn't exactly bleat the truth to everyone without creating a potential rival to his crown. And glokta really should have been more on the ball ensuring this never happened if he wasn't willing to tell savine the truth