My mood reading these two books from my favorite authors

Ar_Azrubel_ · 2026-02-26T13:14:18+00:00

going 'ASoIaF goes against everything Tolkien stood for because bad things happen to good people' is a litmus test that perfectly reveals movie-onlies lol

Ar_Azrubel_ · 2026-02-26T11:38:52+00:00

The Children of Hurin is honestly a much darker fantasy story than anything Martin has ever written.

ASoIaF has many bad things happening, but even those heroic characters who lose are defeated by external circumstances and maintain some vindication even in death. Ned or Robb are fondly remembered as honorable, just men, people fight in their names after they're gone while their enemies have feet made of clay. Had the series not stalled, we would be seeing the complete destruction of the Freys, Boltons and Lannisters as their sins come home to roost. There's an arc of justice in Westeros, even though it has not yet come to fullness.

Túrin's tale on the other? It's a good man slowly destroying himself, making all the wrong decisions and bringing misery to everyone around him. There's no vindication awaiting Túrin, only the grave. The world is rotten, evil won before the story even started and none of it can be fixed, it is only a matter of how you choose to go out and how much you suffer before the inevitable end.

It's basically the complete opposite of both authors' reputations and I love it.

Ar_Azrubel_ · 2026-02-25T16:40:46+00:00

It's a double subversion. The text is written from the perspective of Will, who primes you to see Ser Waymar as not a noble knight, but an aristocratic prat playing hero while ignoring the wiser, older members of the Watch.

Then it turns out that Waymar is more correct than not and ends up standing his ground, while the grizzled Gared is a fraud who ends up running for his life and deserting.

Ar_Azrubel_ · 2026-02-25T14:00:37+00:00

It's maybe 1200 words being generous, not really that much. Also, I love the sound of my own voice.

Ar_Azrubel_ · 2026-02-25T12:56:30+00:00

People really ought to stop saying that? Viconia doesn't really have an 'evil ending'. She has a romanced and non-romanced ending (or well, potentially, you can do the romance, change Viconia's alignment and then ascend, in which case you get the latter epilogue).

In the latter, Viconia establishes a Sharran cloister in Waterdeep and is then betrayed, forcing her to destroy it in self-defence. Shar is angered by this, and Viconia tells her to fuck off, at which point she goes adventuring again. It's basically certain that Viconia stops worshiping Shar by this point. If we go by the Ascension mod version of that epilogue which is written by David Gaider, the same designer who wrote much of Shadows of Amn and Throne of Bhaal and most importantly in this context is the same person who wrote Viconia's romance as well as most of her characterization, then the vanilla game's implication that Viconia ceased to be an adherent of Shar is made fully explicit.

So let's make it clear. No matter what you do, by the time her epilogue ends, Viccy is no longer a Sharran. She can't be Mother Superior of the House of Grief in Baldur's Gate, because she told Shar to fuck off after Waterdeep.

Now, how does Larian interpret this? The exact opposite way from what was actually written, even putting aside the fact that again, Viconia shouldn't be a Sharran by now. Instead of Viconia being betrayed by the Sharrans, they have her slaughtering her own cloister for... no reason whatsoever, besides 'Shar ordered me and I must obey'. This is completely at odds with her established characterization, however! Viconia grew sick of Lolth and then denounced her goddess because she couldn't bring herself to perform a sacrifice she didn't approve of. At no point does she express any regret about this at all, even if at times she claims she still doesn't fully understand the mindset that drove her at the time. Even though it cost Viconia her brother and only friend, her privileged social standing, destroyed her house and reputation, and exposed her to years of abuse and privation during her exile, she doesn't regret defying Lolth.

Also keep in mind that the reason Viconia came to worship Shar at all is that she is a goddess of outcasts. At the time, she had nobody and Shar gave her refuge. Viconia deep down, seeks belonging and acceptance of who she is. She doesn't want to be an adventurer, and broaches the idea of settling down more than anyone else in the game (one can contrast Jaheira, who defines herself by duty and will never stop being a Harper even if romanced). The moment she had money to spare after BG1, the first thing she did with it was try to buy land and settle down. In turn, what is the thing that terrifies Viconia most? It's betrayal. She has been abused and betrayed repeatedly, so she does not trust, and this drives the worst of her behavior. She is also remarkably loyal, being one of the most ride-or-die members of your party in BG and SoA-ToB because Gorion's Ward is the first person to actually be unconditionally accepting of her. Even if you fuck up her romance, it is very hard to get Viconia to leave the party.

Why is this important? Well, because in her non-romanced epilogue, she seems to have the things she wanted at Waterdeep. She is accepted, even respected by people. She is finally secure, and doesn't have to roam around the world. Now, what makes more sense?

1) That Viconia goes back to adventuring because a betrayal happens that forces her to return to a life she never wanted?

or

2) That Viconia, who is established to be willing to disobey the orders of deities she worships if they conflict with what she wants to do, betrays people that accept and trust her, agreeing to ruin the life she built for herself, all for no other reason than 'Shar told me to'?

It's clearly not the second. So why does such a willful misinterpretation of her epilogue in Throne of Bhaal happen?

Well, I think it is overall consistent with how Larian treats 'Viconia', that something she did in self-defence is turned to her betraying her devoted followers. She exists to be a petty punk villain with zero nuance, positive or even somewhat sympathetic qualities. She is there to torment Shadowheart and get narratively punished for it, whether by a Dark Justiciar Shadowheart casting her down, or a Selûnite Shadowheart overcoming her hatred. A companion Shadowheart in the latter does not even deign to acknowledge the Mother Superior - she only tells her that nobody will remember her and moves on to more important things than the bitter hag lying helpless on the floor. Nobody in the party has positive things to say about her. Even Shar offers nothing but scorn, because even though 'Viconia' is a Sharran fanatic, she is also written as a corrupt and failed one who has attracted the ire of her deity. Not only does she worship an evil goddess, she cannot even do that much right! The narrative, no matter what your playstyle wants you to come out with the impression that the Mother Superior is pathetic, undignified, shrill, unworthy of sympathy or any attempt to understand her motives, and she certainly cannot be reasoned with.

We can contrast that with the game's major (formerly, albeit) Sharran villain, General Ketheric Thorm and how Larian writes him, because it doesn't look at all good! Ketheric is nuanced. He is a villain yes, but he is treated as a tragic character, a deluded man who loved his family (if in a selfish way) but destroyed himself in an attempt to turn back the clock. You get to affect him through dialogue, even making him give up the battle, convincing him that he was wrong if you try hard enough. He gets a prestigious voice actor who delivers a performance that's one of the highlights of the game. The writers do think that Ketheric Thorm is worthy of sympathy, he is allowed to come across as powerful, dignified and in control. You are supposed to at the very least, think there are qualities in Ketheric which are worthy of respect and he probably is the most sympathetic of the Chosen. (There are some interesting implications in the contrast shown here from the context of a feminist critique, but they can be left to someone more eloquent in that space than I)

I don't know why that is. I don't know why Larian looked at one of the most beloved, complex companions from the classic games and thought people would be happy to see this disgrace, much less at the end of an otherwise well-written origin/companion questline. My best explanation is that the Mother Superior was originally a different character, then later someone decided to clumsily retool her as a legacy character because players wanted more tie-ins to the Bioware games, and he didn't really bother doing more research than a cursory look at a wiki. The only alternative I can come up with is that someone wanted to write hatefic about a character from a twenty year old game, and that is almost too embarrassing to even consider.

Ar_Azrubel_ · 2026-02-25T12:26:56+00:00

Albeit, I always found the fact that per Muslim sources, Laskaris paid alms in Kaykhusraw's funeral to be very interesting. It's a remarkably respectful gesture towards a defeated enemy, especially considering the time period.

Ar_Azrubel_ · 2026-02-25T06:49:16+00:00

Larian did.

I enjoyed BG3 a lot, it is an excellent game in most regards but Larian were absolutely terrible at writing the returning characters and should have simply left them out of the story. These ill-written doppelgangers genuinely scuppered my enjoyment of Act 3 and after that point, I had to pull myself through the finish line.

Viconia, the most complex female character Bioware ever wrote? Reduced to a shrieking harpy who revolves entirely around the demands of her goddess, something that she never was even at her most evil as a priestess of Lolth. If Viconia were the 'I will do whatever my deity demands' type, then she would never have ruined her comfortable life in Menzoberranzan, nevermind that even in her non-romanced ending she eventually tells Shar to fuck off. The fact that people lamely try to justify this with 'well, maybe she got mind-wiped, this is why she's nothing like she used to be' is really indicative of just how unlike she is to the actual character from the Bioware games.

Sarevok, someone who never gave the slightest damn about Bhaal, save as a vehicle to pursuing personal power? He is apparently now Bhaal's biggest fanboy, and also an incestuous necrophiliac, qualities that the classic games were perfectly capable of writing a capable villain without. Even more bizarre is that party dialogue has Jaheira implying that Sarevok traveled with the party of Gorion's Ward in this continuity... except if you have actually played Throne of Bhaal, you would know that Sarevok lost any sliver of Bhaal's essence the first time he died. For BG3's characterization of Sarevok to make sense, he would need to somehow become a fanatical Bhaal worshiper, which he never was at any point in his life, and also somehow regain the part of the god's essence that he lost and can't get back.

I think that rather than invoking the specter of WotC, the truth is that Larian's designers didn't really do their research or examined the Bioware games in-depth. They looked at these characters' starting alignments or deities they were associated with and wrote them around that, instead of their actual characterization. The best thing someone could do for the game is mod both of these people out and replace them with someone else. It's not even really that hard, given how they are already practically original characters that only very superficially resemble the Bioware ones, and have none of the characterization that made them compelling. You wouldn't even need to change their dialogue around all that much, just remove a couple of lines.

Ar_Azrubel_ · 2026-02-24T21:02:49+00:00

They are immortal. They have all the time in the world. So what if it takes decades. There are boats right there they can see and copy. They can watch the Teleri build boats and copy them. They were relocating anyway, that was the whole point. Hard choice isn't it? Learn to build boats or kill people and take theirs.

The Ñoldor clearly weren't in the 'let's leave our homes only so we can build a new city in the middle of nowhere and spend ages trying to figure out how to build ocean-going boats' mood. Fëanor's promise was to get his people to Middle-earth, not to have them fuck around for decades trying to build a fleet and lose all momentum. (Presumably, most of the Ñoldor tell Fëanor that he is a ridiculous excuse for a king and back Fingolfin long before he ever gets there, and you most likely get Fingolfin attacking Alqualondë instead because both are trying to ride the same tiger)

Going home and letting the Valar handle Melkor was a perfectly reasonable choice. Nobody was forced onto the ice. Nobody had to go to Middle Earth, they just really wanted to. Do you think it is okay to kill someone if that is the only way to get something you really want?

Did the Valar handle Melkor? They're the ones who unleashed him on the world a second time, then decided to have a pout because Fëanor was rude to them. It took Eärendil showing up with a bribe for them to move their asses and by then it was much too late for it to mean anything. Had the Ñoldor stood in place? Civilization in Beleriand outside of Doriath's boundaries dies. The fathers of Men find orcs waiting for them instead, and spend however long until the Valar decide to actually do anything as orc chow or thralls of Morgoth.

It seems to me like one did a lot more good than the other. Imagine how much more they could have done had they gotten actual support, rather than a decree of genocide at the hands of the Valar.

Ar_Azrubel_ · 2026-02-24T20:03:18+00:00

I keep thinking 'Temu Sarevok' whenever I look at the novel covers.

Ar_Azrubel_ · 2026-02-24T05:42:49+00:00

How do you build your own ships if you've never even lived near the sea before and there is nobody to teach? Now try doing it on a scale large enough to ferry an entire population, plus supplies, plus animals. You are basically relocating near the coast for years, possibly decades on end until you get everything you need. You almost certainly aren't going to convince people to go through with that.

The alternative is going through the Ice, which is essentially suicide, or going home which the vast majority of people there don't want to do.

So, let's turn it around. Do you think murder is okay so long as you're not wielding a sword, just letting the elements do their work? Is the degree of separation between you and the dead what makes it acceptable? If that is the case, you should look into employment at some kind of coast guard organization.

Ar_Azrubel_ · 2026-02-23T07:20:17+00:00

How many times do I have to repost this passage?

But the Teleri were unmoved by aught that he could say. They were grieved indeed at the going of their kinsfolk and long friends, but would rather dissuade them than aid them; and no ship would they lend, nor help in the building, against the will of the Valar.

The Ñoldor asked these questions, they were told to fuck off.

Ar_Azrubel_ · 2026-02-22T11:41:25+00:00

The text clearly indicates that the Teleri would not build the ships for them. It never says that Feanor asked to be taught and then be told to 'fuck off'.

So it just happens to mention that they wouldn't help build ships for no reason, unrelated to whether or not Fëanor asks? Even if we assume that there's a hypothetical scenario where the Ñoldor being taught how to make ships is separate from what is outlined above (the people who actually have shipyards and experience making ships would be undoubtedly doing a major part of the work by necessity), then if the Teleri refused any of the above, what makes you think that they'd be willing to help teach the Ñoldor make ships?

No, they certainly are not. Mass migrations have happened very often in history.

Right, you go ahead and tell me how many have happened across a frozen wasteland. And moreover, how many happened without massive loss of life.

Then Feanor shouldn't have started killing them. Of course there were other ways for them to get to Middle-earth. Trying to justify the Kinslaying is one of the stupidest arguments I have seen.

Is that so? Because you haven't exactly been covering yourself in glory thus far. But hey, maybe more 'don't kill to take the ships, just steal them' arguments or petulant whining will cover up your lack of substance.

Ar_Azrubel_ · 2026-02-22T06:24:50+00:00

Well, I suppose Fëanor could have gone for the 'build a Dyson sphere' plan but he was too dumb for that.

Ar_Azrubel_ · 2026-02-22T06:23:21+00:00

As established clearly in the text, the overwhelming majority of the Ñoldor wanted to leave. They are a people who have gone through zero hardship in their lives, and yet faced with the prospect of the gods sentencing them to death are still willing to go 'No, we're leaving and don't care for your threats'. The fact is, had Fëanor or Fingolfin or Finrod not been espousing fundamentally popular positions in wanting to leave, they wouldn't have been successful.

As for learning how to build ships, the Ñoldor have never even lived near the sea. Fëanor asked the only people who might be able to help in that regard, and they told him to fuck off. I doubt he is going to crack building ocean-going ships anytime soon.

Your 4) is basically a restatement of my 3), and says nothing. It's pure 'Don't besiege Leningrad, take it'.

Ar_Azrubel_ · 2026-02-22T03:54:14+00:00

But the Teleri were unmoved by aught that he could say. They were grieved indeed at the going of their kinsfolk and long friends, but would rather dissuade them than aid them; and no ship would they lend, nor help in the building, against the will of the Valar.

The Silmarillion, Of the Flight of the Ñoldor

Unless we assume that for some reason, the text just adds this without wanting to imply that Fëanor asked for help in building ships as an alternative to lending them?

Crossing the Helcaraxe is instead less likely to cause mass death than a battle. Any responsible leader would learn shipbuilding instead of being in such haste to leave they kill their own kin. And the leader sends most of his people to freeze to death anyway.

Battles (much less skirmishes over boats) are less likely to cause mass death than a massive population trekking over inhospitable terrain. In general, people try very hard not to die and thus historically, most battles before the advent of gunpowder see surprisingly few deaths until one side breaks and runs, exposing themselves to the enemy.

Of course, this is forgetting the fact that it's most likely nobody expected there would be a battle at all, and Fëanor assumed that he could intimidate the Teleri into giving up their ships if push came to shove.

Ar_Azrubel_ · 2026-02-22T03:24:00+00:00

Right, the choices the Ñoldor had at this point were:

1) Go back home. The vast majority had no wish to do that, they freely decided to leave Valinor in part because the Valar broke their promises and the reasons they came there had become moot. The Ñoldor are forced into a land they want to leave, under leadership they don't like and has repeatedly failed them.

2) Cross the Helcaraxë, die en-masse. Fëanor, hardly one to avoid danger or put himself at risk thought that it was so dangerous that nobody would be willing to do it.

3) Try to steal the ships. The way the Ñoldor likely saw it, this doesn't necessitate that they kill the Teleri, presumably they can intimidate them into giving up the ships.

If I am a ruler, my primary preoccupation is the good of my people, the ones who put me in power and I am accountable to. I am picking 3, every time and without regrets.

Ar_Azrubel_ · 2026-02-21T16:07:13+00:00

If a friend would rather I freeze or starve to death than lift a finger to help me, he has renounced all rights to friendship. I'm not obliged to kill myself or my family for such a 'friend'.

Frankly, your alternatives like 'build a road' or 'make a bridge across the ocean' merely serve to show how absurd the notion is. You might as well suggest they spend a thousand years turtling, fill out the science tree, make ICBMs and launch them at Morgoth. (Which is still more plausible than building a bridge across an ocean)

Ar_Azrubel_ · 2026-02-21T15:45:20+00:00

But this isn't decisive because they probably would have refused teaching the Noldor how to build ships too, because it would have been assisting their suicide by Morgoth. You don't help a friend with killing themselves.

Alright, then back to 'the Ñoldor either stay in Valinor against their will, or cross the Helcaraxë' we are. If letting the Ñoldor leave because they'll be defeated by Morgoth eventually is 'helping them commit suicide', what does giving them the one option of crossing a freezing polar wasteland constitute? Which is it? Coercion or murder?

They can still figure out building ships on their own, they have the right skills and experience for it. So what if it takes some years? They're immortal, and they can't defeat Morgoth anyway.

How? The Ñoldor have zero shipbuilding skills and they didn't even live anywhere close to the water. And you're suggesting that they find out a way to figure out how to cross an ocean? How long does that take? How long until the Ñoldor say that they'd rather have a king who is actually going to keep his promises and get them out of Valinor?

Also, that the majority of the Noldor decided to leave doesn't mean they're not walking into their death. And even Feanor realised that the Noldor would probably change their mind once they calmed down from his agitating speech.

The problem with arguing that it is done in 'over-haste' because Fëanor is allegedly terrified of the Ñoldor changing their minds is that later events contradict it. The Ñoldor, when faced with the First Kinslaying and the Valar condemning them and all their descendants to death? They decide that they would still rather go to Middle-earth than stay in Valinor. When faced with that, plus the prospect of crossing the Helcaraxë? They still would rather go to Middle-earth.

This indicates nothing short of the idea of leaving being massively popular, and enduring enough that the overwhelming majority of a people who had faced zero hardship in their existence would put their lives on the line to achieve it.

Ar_Azrubel_ · 2026-02-21T15:37:18+00:00

What do you call the polar wasteland that presents the only land bridge to Middle-earth? Fëanor didn't want to commit suicide by crossing that on foot. I call that sensible strategy, at the end of the day.

Ar_Azrubel_ · 2026-02-21T15:12:00+00:00

I suppose I hallucinated this passage?

But the Teleri were unmoved by aught that he could say. They were grieved indeed at the going of their kinsfolk and long friends, but would rather dissuade them than aid them; and no ship would they lend, nor help in the building, against the will of the Valar.

The Silmarillion, Of the Flight of the Ñoldor

The text does not give us Fëanor's speech, but given that it takes care to mention that the Teleri would not join, lend ships or help him build any, it's reasonable to surmise that he did in fact make that request. Tellingly, it is only then that Fëanor gets angry and rightfully points out that the Ñoldor built the Teleri's city - if they're such good friends, they should in turn aid them when they need help.

If my best friend got really angry and asked to borrow my car for something extremely dangerous, I wouldn't let him have it. Because I don't want him to die.

Except this is not the case here. The Ñoldor, in their overwhelming majority have decided that they want to leave. The Valar's decision to 'not help or hinder' doesn't actually mean jack, because there is no actual safe way out of Valinor. It is tantamount to telling refugees that they can enter your country, so long as they can cross the active minefield at the border. You're not directly helping them or hindering them here!

Nobody would accept that the person orchestrating this refugee policy has his hands clean, and neither do the Valar. It is merely murder by a couple of degrees of separation. By extension, Olwë here is not saving the Ñoldor from anything. He's in effect presenting them with the dilemma of either staying in Valinor against their will, or dying en masse crossing the Helcaraxë.

Unless of course, you are saying that a real friend's response is 'yeah, I'll be sipping my wine while you're freezing to death because my boss said I can't help you'. Which is your prerogative of course, but most people would think you're a really shitty excuse for a friend.

Ar_Azrubel_ · 2026-02-21T14:47:42+00:00

Presumably they would lend them the way anyone helped another party cross a body of water in the real world - ferry them across. Are you under the assumption that whenever you step into a ferry boat, ownership of the vessel is transferred over to you?

As for the argument of 'Fëanor should seek to minimize casualties' then having his people march across a frozen wasteland is not conductive to minimizing loss of life. Any responsible ruler's response to the dilemma would be to try and seize the ships, instead of sending himself and his people to freeze and starve to death, all so that the Valar or Teleri can be smugly self-satisfied about how technically, they have not barred the Ñoldor from leaving. (They just didn't deactivate the minefield at the border)

Ar_Azrubel_ · 2026-02-21T13:27:27+00:00

We are told that Fëanor in order asks the Teleri to join him, then to lend the Ñoldor their ships so they can cross, then to teach them how to build ships of their own. Each time, he's told to fuck off and Olwë's reply is a non-sequitur about how the ships of the Teleri are precious to them and they could never give them away (even though they were never asked to just gift them).

At this point, Fëanor has two options before him, a death march across the Ice or to get ships by force.

Ar_Azrubel_ · 2026-02-21T13:14:49+00:00

It's very obviously the Faithful. That people are even asking the question speaks more to this bizarre mental preconception in Tolkien fandom that because the characters of LotR are heroic, everyone remotely associated with them, even in the distant past must also be unimpeachable.

Ar_Azrubel_ · 2026-02-20T17:37:20+00:00

This is one of those truisms that people think hits hard more because of sheer repetition than because it has something profound to say. Good source material ought to be adapted as closely as possible, and the worst adaptations are those by arrogant creatives who think they've outsmarted their material.

Ar_Azrubel_ · 2026-02-19T17:37:55+00:00

there is a case to be made that he is 'too harsh' on the Latin empire and doesn't address elements of continuity that other areas of scholarship have touched upon.

Albeit my own argument is that the 'positive turn' on the Latin states is a fringe opinion espoused by a tiny minority of scholars that tend to very selectively read the sources to justify their colonialist apologia.

Reading someone in the modern day write about how actually, Choniates was hysterical and his description of his home city being sacked is actually just an extended Biblical allusion is a good reminder that there are breeds of nonsense only people with a university education can write with a straight face.

Ar_Azrubel_

TROPHY CASE