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The Trouble With Peace by Joe Abercrombie [SPOILER THREAD]


Corvinus85

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Reading the end game -- which is as exciting as it should be -- far better than all that came before.

Still, that sudden change in Orso which is suddenly in play in the whorehouse doesn't have anywhere near enough of a developmental build.

Also, the Weaver? 

Spoiler

At the end Pike is named as the Weaver.  His response is "A name I have used, at times."  So he's not the Weaver?

 

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Hairy Bear - I like your effort and think it sounds semi-plausible.  I'm not totally sure why he would let the Empire collapse, it seems like having a power base there would still be good.  But not everything is part of a grand plan and I could see the Empire having a ton of problems after the defeat in LAOK, so perhaps the collapse wasn't so much planned as just accepted.  I like in particular that there's an explanation for Zuri.  What exactly Zuri is up to is quite perplexing.

That said, I think most of the things you pointed out apply to Zacharias as well.  Certainly the targeting of Valint and Balk and favoring the use of proxy war over open confrontation.  Zacharias met Jezal in BTAH, didn't he? Glokta could have discussed that meeting with Jezal, although I don't know if Jezal really understood the importance of the meeting. 

Glokta feels like the key.  It seems very fitting for his character that he would continue to fight against Bayaz's influence.  And in doing so, he would no doubt try to enlist powerful allies.  The list of allies powerful enough to be meaningful in a struggle with Bayaz is short indeed:  Monza/Shenkt, Khalul, Zacharius, Bedesh, and perhaps Sulfur. 

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Rereading the original trilogy there was this detail in TBI about how King Cassamir would have actors dress up as his worst enemies and scream insults at him while eating his breakfast every morning. I kind of have this image in my head now of Shlyo dressed in her old Practical uniform stepping on Shenkt's balls and telling him what a dirty little Eater he is so he can get off.

Maybe I have too much free time...

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I thought this was good but not as interesting as the original trilogy or the standalones. I would've preferred more emphasis on the commoners rebellion and less on the North; the Stour, Leo and Rikke stories haven't been great so far imo. 

I will say that I really enjoy when Joe writes Eaters tearing things up. Sulfur casually strolling into the crowd post-bomb and just utterly tearing apart the would-be assassins was a fun read.

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On 9/16/2020 at 8:13 PM, SeanF said:

Terez?  This being Joe Abercrombie, no doubt we'll learn that Shalere was in the pay of an enemy and opened her throat.

I hope this isn't the case, it felt to me like it was making amends for how she was treated in the first trilogy. He's accepted feedback on this forum about that not being great in the past (Joe's good grace when taking on board negative feedback on this sort of thing is probably the best I've ever seen and one of the reasons I love him).

On 11/4/2020 at 8:42 AM, Galactus said:

The North annoys me in that it's so weird timeline-wise. (and it just continues the unfortunate trend of reducing Scandinavia to vikings and nothing else) 

Huh, I hadn't parsed the Northerners as Vikings, I'd been picturing them as Scots. Anyone else with a strong impression on this front? I'm not always great at picking up on these things, the lack of ships alone would make me think "not Viking".

On 11/11/2020 at 5:10 AM, Zorral said:

 

  Hide contents

 

 

Sorry Zorral, looks like I bumped multi quote on your post and can't clear it without losing the rest of my post while on my phone.

I think one aspect of the rebellion I haven't seen commented on so far which I think explains the "why rebellion" angle for Leo at least and probably some of the other Open Council lords. Racism. Leo is constantly making racist remarks about brown people and it forms a significant part of why he feels the Union needs to be restored to its glory. Without that I don't think he's open to Isher's manipulation in the first place.

Bigotry sowing the seeds of your own downfall is very much one of the themes of it all as well. The whole "Gurkish Legion" is a complete disaster because Barezin just assumes all brown people are Gurkish with the same language, the same experience with military service etc, so he gives them jack shit training nor even bothers to ensure the units can even talk to each other. So they all assume this "Legion" will do great and it falls apart on first contact with an enemy.

Leo not only fails to secure an alliance with Jappo but actively pisses him off to the point of giving a bunch of info to Orso due to Leo's inability to hide his contempt for Jappo's sexuality. And that's internalised homophobia so yes it is more complicated, but that's the end result. He then compounds the error by kicking out his only intelligent and cautious friend for the same reason and the lack of that voice on the campaign is probably the reason he fucked up and got played by Orso.

He also refuses to take along the only competent general they have, his mother, because of sexism and the resentment built up over years of having to listen to her talk about things he considers "men's business".

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2 hours ago, karaddin said:

, I'd been picturing them as Scots.

Sort of.  kinda a mash-up made out of at least 2 centuries of popular genre adventure fiction of this supposed sort.  That's a big problem in this volume, as far as I'm concerned.  The cultural blahblahblah doesn't convince.

2 hours ago, karaddin said:

. The whole "Gurkish Legion"

Dislike the 'Gurkish' thing because so ill-disguised "Turkish" without being actually, you know, Turkish.  Even more a genre fantasy adventure depiction of ' Mongols.

I would like to have seen a rather more nuanced, graceful depiction of Leo's fear of himself in certain matters, that was within the context of the novel just too flat to be convincing of his own self-loathing, if that it what it was, that drove him into disaster.

Ya, I found a whole lot in this book to not work very well -- for me!  Which doesn't mean everyone.

ETA -- Forgot to put right up at the top "Thanks!" for your nuanced take on the book and the characters.  For me, maybe it's my age, but what we're living through these days, this just doesn't seem ... meaty? thick? serious? -- enough, both politically and character-wise.  Though the author is so correct that one can never underestimate the narcissism and drive and self-centered, solipsistic views of such people, for good or bad, losers and winners.

 

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@Zorral my take on the book was influenced by having watched an interview with Joe in which he talked about having had the bulk of the book written prior to 2016 and hadn't intended some of it to have quite as much contemporary resonance as it wound up having. To the point of going back and dialing some of it down in the editing as he felt it was now a bit too on the nose if I'm remembering the interview correctly.

He didn't specify which part specifically but I'm guessing the whole "make the Union great again" stuff was considerably more pronounced in those earlier drafts and dialing that down, while understandable, possibly hurt the justification for the rebellion to some readers.

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34 minutes ago, SaltyGnosis said:

I just realized something. Pike's role in the inquisition...it was a ruse all along.

Get it? A "Rews"? Ah whatever...

If I could share a GIF here I would put in a slow clap.

Well done sir.

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1 hour ago, SaltyGnosis said:

Also did anyone else think Monza was who Rikka was talking about in the first book when she had visions of an old woman stitched together with gold chains? I thought it was referring to the coins Shenkt hammered into her skull.

I remember seeing that theory around here at the time.

I don’t think we’re going to see much of Monza in this series.  

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2 hours ago, Mark Antony said:

Jappo was a highlight. Hopefully not the last we have seen of him 

I think if Joe does another round of standalones, Jappo and Styria is a natural feature piece.

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On 11/15/2020 at 12:40 AM, karaddin said:

Huh, I hadn't parsed the Northerners as Vikings, I'd been picturing them as Scots. Anyone else with a strong impression on this front? I'm not always great at picking up on these things, the lack of ships alone would make me think "not Viking".

The language and terms (Thralls, Carls) and general setup is very norse. 

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1 hour ago, Galactus said:

The language and terms (Thralls, Carls) and general setup is very norse. 

You're right and I have consciously noted that before going right back to picturing them as Scottish. And now that I'm actually thinking of it, the halls have quite the long hall vibe to them as well don't they?

I guess it comes down to familiarity with the idea of Vikings primarily from the locations they raid with boats, so the lack of much boating and the prominence of Highlands had me thinking Scottish to the point of ignoring other signs. But it's not like fjörds don't go hand in hand with mountains as well and the High Places have a real glacial vibe to me now I stop and think about it. His YA trilogy was also Vikings but they had boats so I got it there lol.a

ETA: Brook just pointed out "Northmen" should really be telling as well. Yeah I was entirely off base with this.

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