Last Argument of Kings by Joe Abercrombie

[Leiali]

Ok Saintjon, perhaps the whole 'mean Belgarath' thing is a teeny weeny understatement . Is Joe going to confirm/deny/stir up any of these buzzing rumours and facts first person?! Here rather than on his blog I mean?

 

[LeStat]

I just have to say this - bayaz - I wanted to see that evil monster helpless, tortured, his power taken and given to khaul...who i think would be 2 mercyfull for that twisted ****... I utterlly hate him... some say logan is evil...no he is not evil, he is good man compered 2 most of the northerman... he just has psychotic episodes, delirium tremens in a way...bayaz hasn't - well he doesn have to that mean **** - no need, no onew can come near to cut him, butcher him, kick him... he is indifferent to people because he doen't care about humanitty, no emphaty, remorse, nothing...

logan is a good man with bad pathologycal diagnose, witch in a way keeps him alive...

u know he is berserkering fighter - when he fights just stay of his ****ing way because it is battle, and cutting and hacking - nothing to do with logan as person... i think he would be happy if there was no killing...

 

[AuntiePam]

Just finished a few minutes ago. Agree with all the positive comments. And I'm on Amazon's list to be notified when Abercrombie's next book is ready for preorder. It's so cool to have an author to wait for.

This is me being superficial, but did anyone else wonder why nobody ever carried Glokta? A lowly Inquisitor wouldn't warrant a sedan chair, but when he became a Superior, and then Arch Lector? I would have demanded a damn chair.

 

[Chirios]

logan is a good man with bad pathologycal diagnose, witch in a way keeps him alive...

Logan is a walking contradiction. On one hand we have this kind mentor type, but the second he comes into the North he turns into an uber-dick, the kind we have never comes across before.

For example, take him punching Red Hat, or not crying at his friends funerals, or generally threatening everyone that doesn't agree with him with death.

Logan=dick.

 

[Hobbit]

This is me being superficial, but did anyone else wonder why nobody ever carried Glokta? A lowly Inquisitor wouldn't warrant a sedan chair, but when he became a Superior, and then Arch Lector? I would have demanded a damn chair.

Part of this is Glokta's need to be independent, and his personal need to refuse all help. Accepting aid would also be an acceptance of his own failure and no doubt do little to quell his self loathing.

Trust noone!

Mark / Hobbit

 

[AuntiePam]

Hobbit, you're right. I felt Glokta's pain and wished that things could have been easier for him in at least one area of his life.

Chirios, Logen had to be a dick to survive. I didn't see him as any more dickish than the others. He earned a lot of points with me when he carried Quai in the first book. He didn't even know the guy.

 

[Luke_B]

Chirios was probably talking about the fact that Logen killed friends and young children in his beserk rages. Which is a bit more than just dickish. Logen is a terrifying psychopath. The amazing thing is that Abercrombie makes him so likeable.

 

[AuntiePam]

Joe made everybody likable. Except for Sult, and a few minor characters. Hell, I even liked what little I saw of Bethod.

You see Logen as a psychopath? He certainly had little or no control over his rages. I assumed his Bloody Nine persona had something to do with magic or possession, not mental illness.

I've forgotten (already) why Bayaz chose Logen to be part of his group. Was it just his fighting skills?

 

[Luke_B]

His ability to talk to spirits.

Regardless of whether his psychological construct was influenced by magic, possession or mental illness, I still see The Bloody Nine as a psychopath. Obviously in the real world magic or possession aren't mentioned in DSM-IV!

 

[AuntiePam]

D'oh! I forgot about the spirits.

Good point, about demons and the DSM-IV.

OTOH, being a psychopath could make him want to kill everyone he sees, but it wouldn't necessarily make him so darned good at it. He had almost superhuman strength and speed, and wounds didn't slow him down.

I guess I'd just rather believe there was something else going on inside him, even though Joe never hinted at it.

 

[Luke_B]

D
OTOH, being a psychopath could make him want to kill everyone he sees, but it wouldn't necessarily make him so darned good at it. He had almost superhuman strength and speed, and wounds didn't slow him down.

Good point. My take on it was that he was similar to a Viking beserker, but exaggerated to supernatural levels, and once he was in his beserk trance he was capable of greater feats of strength. I do think it's linked to his ability to talk to spirits.

(I wonder why this mystery has never been discussed in this thread or the others dealing with earlier books?)

 

[AuntiePam]

That makes sense. The Bloody Nine only showed himself when things looked really, really bad for Logen. He didn't come out when the fighting was just starting, just when Logen was bloodied and exhausted and preparing himself to die.

Maybe the Bloody Nine is Logen's Id come to life. Have you seen Forbidden Planet? Something similar happened in that movie. The scientist had no control over the monster that came from his own mind -- didn't even know it existed.

 

[Luke_B]

It's one of those gaping holes in my SF film education I'm afraid. Heard great things about it.

If Logen is id, then Jezal is obviously pure super-ego. Should we see Bayaz as the ego that mediates between the two? Hmm, this is just getting silly.

 

[AuntiePam]

Oh, Jezal has a super (size) ego, for sure. I like seeing arrogant people taken down a peg, but Abercrombie was sure hard on him.

 

[Corporal Blues]

I just recently finished the book and the series, and I really loved them all. By the end of LAoK I noticed I was starting to read slower, because I didn't really want the book to end. Logen was easily my favorite character. I felt that he was the most human of anyone in the books, mostly due to the fact that he was his own worst enemy, and had to always deal with his past, and could never really make a new life for himself, or change for the better...maybe he will if he survives that last fall...

Abercrombie really cranked out a great series, and I totally look forward to whatever he does next.

I apprecieate the Byaz=Cheney comparison that someone mentioned earlier. Bayaz was a dick. (Pun intended). I never liked that guy. I was hoping Glotka would find some way to betray/destroy him. Maybe he did, I just have to imagine it.

 

[PeterWilliam]

Finished LAoK about 10 days ago and finally got around to digesting it. I can't wait for more. There is so much back story to see. Juvens v. Bayaz. Bayaz v. The Master Maker. Bayaz & TMM's daughter. What happened there? Or, why? Oh, I can't wait.

chin down on chest
left hand holding right fist
directly beneath mouth
upper body rocking back and forth
I can wait
I can wait
I can wait
I can wait
I.........

 

[dancer]

help me remember

Just about to start LAoK, but it has been a long time since I read the first 2 books...are there any short summaries of the plot / characters from first 2 books on the web, to refresh my memory? (I don't have the patience for a reread!)

Thanks!

 

[Sfinx]

Good point. My take on it was that he was similar to a Viking beserker, but exaggerated to supernatural levels, and once he was in his beserk trance he was capable of greater feats of strength. I do think it's linked to his ability to talk to spirits.

(I wonder why this mystery has never been discussed in this thread or the others dealing with earlier books?)

Same phenomenon is used in Pat Mills' Slaine, who probably borrowed from the Tain, an Irish epic folkstory:

"he [Cú Chulainn] has his most spectacular ríastrad yet:

“ The first warp-spasm seized Cúchulainn, and made him into a monstrous thing, hideous and shapeless, unheard of. His shanks and his joints, every knuckle and angle and organ from head to foot, shook like a tree in the flood or a reed in the stream. His body made a furious twist inside his skin, so that his feet and shins switched to the rear and his heels and calves switched to the front... On his head the temple-sinews stretched to the nape of his neck, each mighty, immense, measureless knob as big as the head of a month-old child... he sucked one eye so deep into his head that a wild crane couldn't probe it onto his cheek out of the depths of his skull; the other eye fell out along his cheek. His mouth weirdly distorted: his cheek peeled back from his jaws until the gullet appeared, his lungs and his liver flapped in his mouth and throat, his lower jaw struck the upper a lion-killing blow, and fiery flakes large as a ram's fleece reached his mouth from his throat... The hair of his head twisted like the tange of a red thornbush stuck in a gap; if a royal apple tree with all its kingly fruit were shaken above him, scarce an apple would reach the ground but each would be spiked on a bristle of his hair as it stood up on his scalp with rage. ”

—Thomas Kinsella (translator), The Táin, Oxford University Press, 1969, pp. 150-153


He then attacks the army and kills hundreds, building walls of corpses. This 'ríastrad', translated as 'warp-spasm' (or for you Dutchies: 'kronkelkramp') seems very similar to what Logen experiences in his Bloody Nine persona.

Cheers,

Sfinx.

 

[KatG]

In Abercrombie's series, the Bloody Nine is a demon entity that came into Logen through his ability to communicate with ghosts (or accompanied that ability after events -- it isn't entirely clear. This seems to be from the dimension from which magic is drawn re Bayaz.) The Bloody Nine pops up when Logen's defenses are down, when he's tired and out of it and the Bloody Nine can take over and satiate its need for blood. It's not entirely clear whether the Bloody Nine killed Logen's wife or not. Logen keeps hoping that he can somehow ditch or permanently surpress the Bloody Nine and have some sort of normal life, which is primarily why he throws in with Bayaz.

 

[saintjon]

Good point. My take on it was that he was similar to a Viking beserker, but exaggerated to supernatural levels, and once he was in his beserk trance he was capable of greater feats of strength. I do think it's linked to his ability to talk to spirits.

(I wonder why this mystery has never been discussed in this thread or the others dealing with earlier books?)

I bet if you could go back in time and see a real viking berserker at work you would see a guy who seemed to be exaggerated to a supernatural level.

I think of every story about what people can do in extreme situations like people lifting buses with a wild surge of adrenaline and then imagine someone who lives to tap into that energy and then uses it to destroy everything in his path.

Of course that's all speculation on my part but that's how I've always felt about berserkers.