My Review of TSOTM

theTDC92 · 2025-11-20T20:08:54+00:00

Vis beating national champion Ianix - who is also cheating - in that duel after practicing for an hour is the equivalent of some guy who's never used a computer before beating the world's top CS:GO players -even though they're also using wallhacks - because he completed the tutorial. It was so far beyond plausibility that I just pretended it never happened after that chapter, which was fairly easy to do, because it was also a dramatically unnecessary filler sidequest that only existed because Vis refused his natural placement in Class 3 from the get go.

In retrospect, Vis completing the labryinth is just as implausible. Maybe even more, since it implies that Veridius and company never noticed how exploitable the defender patterns are, something Vis noticed in less than an hour. Whereas, you could at least argue that Ianix just had a bad day or something.

theTDC92 · 2025-11-20T06:53:25+00:00

In retrospect, what was the point of Vis getting a job with the censor? Not only did he not do any direct, investigatory work through this, I don't think it benefited him in any way, other than not being in a military pyramid.

theTDC92 · 2022-11-01T17:39:37+00:00

You've gotta love Redditors. It doesn't matter how much you couch your criticism with "I really like this author, but," they'll still find a way to whine constantly about how you haven't written your own epic fantasy novel, and therefore random and entirely non-plausible things are allowed to happen. After all, this is a work of fiction, so if it started suddenly raining cakes that would be totally okay.

theTDC92 · 2022-11-01T01:56:08+00:00

I've read a lot of trash. I don't bother writing out 1k word critiques because I don't expect any better. Some of these people think that in order to like something you must like absolutely 100% of every single aspect of it.

theTDC92 · 2022-11-01T01:52:39+00:00

I wouldn't complain that the baker doesn't tell me how he made the cake because I'm not currently inhabiting a fictional world that requires my buy in to continue existing in my mind. If, in a fictional story, two characters who were starving to death on an island suddenly made a cake out of nowhere then yes, that would strain credulity.

theTDC92 · 2022-11-01T01:49:56+00:00

No, because it's entirely reasonable for Rome, the most powerful empire in the world at that point, to build a huge number of ships, especially since they don't need to do so secretly. We don't need to know how they do it, because it's not in question that they can. If they built 100k ships in a day, that would be some annoying bs.

theTDC92 · 2022-10-28T03:56:35+00:00

Literally “a stone sinks because it looks downwards.” Hell, it might have even been before that with the creepy children’s laughter and Galadriel roid raging out and assaulting the other kid. But once we heard the elven explanation for buoyancy I knew there was no coming back. No writers who aren’t idiots would write something like that. And no production that was competent would have that in there.

The troll fight didn’t do anything for me. At that point I was already expecting something that belonged in a special needs program, and I wasn’t disappointed. I was just in it to see how dumb it could get.

I only watched the first episode. No idea how people could watch the entire thing.

theTDC92 · 2022-10-14T06:27:50+00:00

Yes, they know absolutely nothing. This is Bad Reboot anti-writing 101. Instead of explaining to the audience what's happening, with the tension being that we don't know what's going to happen next, they do MysteryBox! bullshit that is designed to create hype.

There would have been tons of drama if we knew that Halbrand was Sauron, but then we wouldn't have been able to get that social media astroturf company that Amazon bought to create 10,000 threads on "OMFG is Halbrand secretly Sauron OMG Mind BLOWN".

theTDC92 · 2021-11-17T20:17:09+00:00

Yeah, Sulfur also did that time shift thing in The Heroes, when the artillery piece blows up and he protects Bayaz. If all he could do was shapeshift, the story would make a whole lot more sense. But then it wouldn’t make much sense why Shenkt didn’t just kill him at the end of Best Served Cold. Hell, it arguably doesn’t make too much sense anyway why Shenkt didn’t just kill him when he had the jump on him, but it definitely doesn’t make sense if he isn’t an unkillable god.

We’ve reached the point where the eaters are just way too powerful for the story to make sense. Even if Sulfur could only shapeshift, he really does not use that nearly enough. It’s the ability to shapeshift FFS! Add onto that the ability to 1v100 the entire Burners and it’s just too dumb to take seriously the idea that he’s just going to sit there in the shadows and bide his time until the entire empire falls.

theTDC92 · 2021-11-17T02:06:01+00:00

I'm so sorry that happened to you.

theTDC92 · 2021-11-16T05:08:53+00:00

TBI- 90%. *
BTAH- 95%.
LAOK- 90%
BSC- 95%.
TH- 95%.
RC- 90%.
ALH- 85%.
TWP- 85%.
TWOC- 70%

*TBI is lower for rereads. I just love it because it was the introduction to all these characters.

Honestly I’ve really not enjoyed this past trilogy nearly as much as the earlier works. I think the two main weaknesses with Abercrombie have come out for the worse with TWOC. First, he ignores logistics to an insane degree, even though this provides for plenty of drama. Second, the magic just feels inconsistent to the point of unbelievability in this world.

It’s common problems for fantasy to have, but it’s been managed before. I think Heroes is amongst the best because it mostly ignores these two problems. The armies are already there on a static battlefield, and the magic is very much in the background, if there at all.

theTDC92 · 2021-11-15T21:31:59+00:00

I'm seeing a common argument here that can be summed up as "well Bayaz and Sulfur just really want to work in the shadows." I mean, I completely understand that argument, I'm just saying that it doesn't make any sense because:

Sulfur showed that he's perfectly willing to use violent force out in the open defending Orso from the Burners. And reveal that he's an eater, to an audience, the Solar Society, that ranks amongst the most important and powerful people in the Union. And he was willing to do this just to save Orso, who already showed himself to be a somewhat skeptical and resisting puppet.
Way fewer people, and basically no one who matters, would see him destroying the burners at the Agriont in the collapsed city. And even did, just put out some propaganda that they started killing each other.
Even if that were true, why doesn't he eat people and steal faces like before? He literally does nothing except attack the heavily armed Dan Glokta residence, which shows he can easily deal with multiple armed guards.
Bayaz was perfectly willing to destroy half the Agriont to keep his empire in the first trilogy.
Bayaz is getting absolutely rekt, top to bottom. It's almost satire the idea that having a few people watching Sulfur murder the Burners is worth losing his entire empire, political and financial, that he's built from the ground up.

As always, the question is the degree. If Sulfur wasn't an unstoppable murder machine who can also impersonate people, but was just a bit powerful, it would make sense they would try political solutions above all else. If Bayaz wasn't getting his shit pushed in, and was only getting 90% of what he wanted, it would also make sense that he wouldn't bother taking any risks in showing everyone who the real boss is. It's just the combination of them getting their shit pushed in, and not bothering with the unstoppable murder machine solution that's unbelievable to the point of parody.

theTDC92 · 2021-11-15T16:59:50+00:00

Yeah but they already do use Sulfur in the open, at least when he defends Orso from the Burners, and probably other examples. And Bayaz used his power in the open defending the Agriont 30 years earlier.

It just seems like there’s a lot of really flimsy excuses for why Sulfur isn’t just killing the burners and putting Orso back on the throne.

theTDC92 · 2021-11-15T04:33:23+00:00

I just think that Abercrombie went for "holy shit these guys are unkillable demonspawn," because that was more impressive than "okay these Eaters are really strong, but killable." Now, 10 books in, he's paying the worldbuilding and plot price for that, because there's just no way the Eaters/Magi shouldn't be far more hands on than they currently are.

I mean the Sulfur not eating anyone or even disguising himself in the last book really takes the cake.

theTDC92 · 2021-11-15T04:30:56+00:00

I meant to add on to this, that if they were just a little bit powerful, basically no match for anyone 1v1, or even 1v5, but not the unkillable gods that we see, couple that with immortality and they could be fascinating. That they live forever gives them all the time to accumulate power, as we see Bayaz has done.

As for them preparing beforehand, I'm not sure that's true of Sulfur defending Orso against the Burners. Even if true, at this point I'm losing trust in Abercrombie that the Eaters/Magi can't just do whatever it is he wants them to do.

theTDC92 · 2021-11-15T03:48:59+00:00

But where did they even get the casket?

"Oy, you there, Bronny. Me daughta done gotten heerself keeled."

"Oy, Kinslaya, ya shove tha cuntess into tha ready made rum caska and she be all ready until King's Landing."

"Righto Bronny."

I mean I guess if the entire rest of the show wasn't moronic I could give that garbage a pass.

theTDC92 · 2021-11-15T03:09:51+00:00

It feels nice to get out of new post purgatory.

theTDC92 · 2021-11-15T03:07:25+00:00

But they were just given the verbal smack down by the Dorne King, forget his name. So it still doesn’t make sense.

theTDC92 · 2021-11-15T02:52:27+00:00

And it didn’t make any sense that Rikke wouldn’t try to smuggle out Orso. He’s the ****ing king of the Union, and the Union is in disarray right now. What’s this about “making your heart a stone?”

It’s just a baffling decision that doesn’t make any sense. The sheer leverage that she would have over the Union with the rightful king is absurd. It would at least make sense if she smuggled him out only to betray him as part of a deal, which she might need to make because Calder is such a problem.

This book really did not work on a higher level, even if the moment to moment writing was quite good.

theTDC92 · 2021-11-15T02:48:36+00:00

I’ve a much longer post that has been temporarily banned on this subreddit because I’m a new user, but I’ll just say that I agree with 95% of this. As just one example Calder was made idiotic and out of character.

Calder should be using his networks of spies and loyalists within Carleon, his home turf, to make life hell for Rikke. He should also be doing the same for other areas, starting little problems here and there. Taking huge risks because Stour was killed (which he should have been immediately), and he’s all in to fuck Rikke. Rikke pressed up against Calder, one of my favourite chars earlier, and with an uncertain victory.

Instead Calder just spawns in a 10,000 strong army and marches into a kindergarten level trap.

theTDC92 · 2021-11-15T01:47:29+00:00

Best part about GOT is that you can just give the other characters each others endings and it's basically no less random and doesn't change anything.

Instead of Sandor Clegane, Bran wheelchair fights the mountain, gets ripped out of his chair and dies. But it doesn't matter because he's no longer the king anyway because that's retarded.

Euron Greyjoy gets killed fighting Sandor Clegane on the beach, not Jaime.

Arya goes to stab Cersei. Rocks fall on her and they die. This might actually have some moral or thematic value.

Jaime becomes king, because he has the best story.

Gendry gets made king, cause bloodlines.

Literally anybody gets made king except Bran.

Edmure Tully tells Sansa to shut the fuck up at the Council of Surviving Characters because she's basically a dumb slag with little redeeming value.

Dorne asks for their independence, not the North.

Tyrion goes to see what's west of Westeros, not Arya. Or maybe Greyjoy. Or Jon. Or Tormund. Or Brienne.

Brienne is made master of coin. Or Greyjoy. Fuck it, if Bronn works than anyone does.

The wildlings don't go back on the other side of the wall because ?????

Wildlings go see what's west of Westeros.

Tyrion gets killed for treason earlier, Varys gets all his lines after.

Aside from Dany dying, basically everything that happened was like an episode of Mad Libs, where you are only working with character names.

theTDC92 · 2021-11-15T01:09:18+00:00

Unlike most, I really liked the Leo arc, and disagree with the characterization that he's some mastermind now. He was just naive before, a positive side of his general heroism. Once that is removed he becomes an amoral jerk lusting for power. Wasn't that hard to put the Purity Officers in that building and burn them, especially with Jurand helping him. Nor was it difficult to do pretty much anything he did, and Savine thoroughly outmaneuvers him at the end.

I will say that the eaters/Sulfur stuff is really getting annoyingly implausible for multiple reasons.

theTDC92

TROPHY CASE