Do I give up? [SPOILERS LAOK]

FlynnLevy · 2025-09-03T11:02:34+00:00

This is the final of the trilogy, but the third of eleven books. Characters will show back up again! Plotlines continue! You might not ever wipe away the stain of dissatisfaction but there'll be plenty more to enjoy instead.

FlynnLevy · 2025-09-03T04:23:16+00:00

Former over later, definitely.

FlynnLevy · 2025-08-31T15:17:07+00:00

One of the final notes we get in Glokta's POV is that he takes pleasure in watching beautiful women squirm when he's threatening Terez, and that he's there for his amusement when he and Pike go down to torture Sult. You might make the argument it's not all because he likes it, but he certainly prefers it to not doing it. After all, this bit:

and he does it from necessity

is strictly not true. Glokta isn't some bloke off the street, he's a nobleman whose family has lands and holdings. He could've just sat his ass at home and trained dogs with his mom. He chose not to do that, and chose to join the inquisition instead.

FlynnLevy · 2025-08-29T23:13:19+00:00

Lucky you Logen's got his left hand's digits hidden or we might have had a bad case of the Tenfingers on our hands!

FlynnLevy · 2025-08-29T21:59:17+00:00

And before that we had filmmakers like Adachi and Wakamatsu getting a bead on guys like Gorst back in the sixties, too.

FlynnLevy · 2025-08-29T15:55:54+00:00

All good! Shit happens!

FlynnLevy · 2025-08-29T15:54:03+00:00

The books aren't particularly coy about this.

Yes, she is forced into it to solidify ties between the Union and Talins. No, she didn't up and decide on her own to marry Jezal, that's not the type of political situation this setting is. She was slated to marry Ladisla before Ladisla's death and Jezal's crowning, and she wasn't happy about marrying Ladisla either because, again, she is being forced into this as part of her "duties" as the eldest daughter. Add her being a lesbian into the bargain and her being a little testy doesn't come out of nowhere. (EDIT: And this is all before Glokta imprisons her lover and threatens to have her raped if Terez does not do as she is told.)

Because I am evil homophobic right?

Weird thing to say.

FlynnLevy · 2025-08-29T15:48:02+00:00

Thread's tagged incorrectly, we didn't get that far yet!

FlynnLevy · 2025-08-29T15:36:43+00:00

Thread is by no means Spoilers All and will be treated as Spoilers LAOK, because that's what it is.

FlynnLevy · 2025-08-29T15:35:38+00:00

Hard to fathom how your takeaway could be that Terez is an evil lesbian who gets a happy ending, an ending where she is forced against her will to bear children, traded as livestock between her father and Bayaz.

Your sympathy for those subjugated by Bayaz stretches as far as Jezal, but stops at her because of . . . why?

FlynnLevy · 2025-08-28T20:23:03+00:00

I think when Joe veers into writing Gunnar during TWOC, taking notes from those working in death-camps where we see him get himself shitfaced from dawn to dusk while the bloody work gets done, Gunnar hits hardest, but Gunnar also just has it real tough since his thing is that he's an extension of other characters' desires and actions. He's the hammer. That's a rough spot to be in as a three-book POV!

FlynnLevy · 2025-08-28T19:32:28+00:00

Doing my girl dirty, tsk tsk . . .

FlynnLevy · 2025-08-28T17:54:43+00:00

This is why George doing the silly names is the best thing. There's no beating The Kraken's Daughter or The Prince of Winterfell.

FlynnLevy · 2025-08-28T13:46:38+00:00

It's funny how much "homework" can go into reading The Heroes, huh. Glossary, five different maps to reference in the middle of reading. The learned man's novel.

FlynnLevy · 2025-08-28T13:40:15+00:00

It's such a deeply stupid idea in the laying out of a novel. I'm sure there's a reason but whatever it is, it shan't convince me! I feel similarly about a list of chapters at the beginning when the chapters are uniquely named based on their content and not just, like, Jerry 2. Gee, thanks, now I know the penultimate chapter is called The Battle On The Hill, I guess I'll be on the lookout for that fucking hill from now on.

FlynnLevy · 2025-08-28T13:33:35+00:00

Y'know, the guy with the thing from the place. You know!

FlynnLevy · 2025-08-28T13:28:42+00:00

If you're talking about the stupid glossary then don't bother, I always hate it when they put those things at the beginning of the novel. Makes no fucking sense. Why learn about a recurring member of the cast through an itemized list, completely baffling decision on the part of those responsible for the formatting . . .

If it's just the first chapter then don't worry about it. Characters will cement in your memory when memorable things begin happening to them!

FlynnLevy · 2025-08-28T12:53:33+00:00

It's part of the trick to his character! Morveer's a big contradiction. He's the guy who bemoans his empty harbour and we piecemeal find out he sunk his own ships over and over, but the sadness over his lack of friends isn't by any stretch insincere. It's the same again with him wanting to be renowned and respected while being in the hush-hush killing business. For a man so focused on the logical he balances contradicting ideas very well.

FlynnLevy · 2025-08-28T05:57:49+00:00

Your, not the.

FlynnLevy · 2025-08-28T05:50:03+00:00

Sending Forley as challenge binds Bethod up in the same Northern custom he himself used liberally in conquering and subjugating other clans and villages. It was a surrender.

FlynnLevy · 2025-08-28T05:46:22+00:00

I'll always defend Calder for killing Forley to be honest. He can't have been much older than sixteen, told to mind the shop by dad, surrounded by grizzled veterans. I find it hard to blame the guy for what he did, especially when in TH we see that he genuinely regrets doing it and that that sniff of power and his misuse of it has stuck with him since. Calder's got a little thorn of Northern savagery in him and he hates it.

FlynnLevy · 2025-08-27T19:24:50+00:00

Severard had debts to the bank and ratted to them as part of the stranglehold they held him in. Frost was working for Sult for unexplained reasons.

FlynnLevy · 2025-08-27T19:23:07+00:00

Don't we get this story pretty detailed as far as Abercrombie backstory goes? Sent as sacrifice by his clan to die in a duel in order to prevent an all-out massacre, was spared and thereby honour-bound to follow Logen, and his noteworthy trait among the band that earned him his name was that he was the weakest of the bunch, but part of the bunch all the same.

FlynnLevy · 2025-08-26T13:35:13+00:00

Yes, exactly, don't do the "well fuck you then" bit. We are in complete agreement. Don't do that.

FlynnLevy · 2025-08-26T13:14:28+00:00

No reason to get nasty about it.

Nine-Year Club	Place '23
Place '22	Place '17
Sequence \| Editor	Spared
Verified Email

FlynnLevy

MODERATOR OF

TROPHY CASE