Last Argument of Kings – Joe Abercrombie – Episode 142

https://www.buzzsprout.com/1586869/episodes/19370236

The Buddies close the book on Joe Abercrombie’s First Law trilogy with “The Last Argument of Kings,” the grim dark finale that answers the age-old question: what if the Manhattan Project was run by a thousand-year-old wizard who doesn’t care if you live or die? The Buddies debate whether Jezal is just Vichy France with better PR, how to weaponize ‘biological control theory’ against your enemies, and if king sized beds are a misnomer. So sharpen your swords and Logan-isms, get ready to stand your ground one last time as the Buddies finish up the trilogy and say goodbye to the Bloody-Nine, Glokta, Ferro, Jezal, West, and Bayaz.

Intro (0:00-1:11)

Stock Up/Down (1:12-36:40)

Favorite Scene/Character (36:41-46:11)

Love/Hate (46:12-58:07)

Casting the Movie (58:08-1:02:16)

Conclusion (1:02:16-1:04:58) 

NEXT BOOK: London Falling by Patrick Radden Keefe

All right, welcome to “Buddy Buckeball.”
I’m Dylan here with the guy who smokes 10 packs of Chaga a day. Keith, what’s up buddy?
Chaga, another name for Marvel Reds?
That’s pretty much what they called it, I think.
It was like Tabacco as Chaga, I guess.
So here’s the “Buddy Buckeball” where we’re going to have some bestseller’s
and this week we’ll be discussing the third and final book in the first lot trilogy.
The last argument of “Kings” by Joe Avercrawby.
If you’d like to recommend a book for us to read, reach out to us at the past episodes
if you’re interested in our website, put it in a calm, slide into our DMs on X or Instagram.
That’s “Buddy Buckeball” podcast, that’s the handle, you can list to us.
I choose “Buddy Buckeball” if I’m ever you a podcast.
Download, subscribe, find our review, it would be great, please, and thanks. Keith, we did it.
We probably started 10 trilogies and finished four, so I’m glad we’re here.
This book was published in 2008, 4.37 on Goodreads, which is 100th of a point above the last one,
which was before they’re hanged.
So people I guess think it’s 100th of a point better.
I’m not sure, we’ll find out today, let’s get into some stock-up, stock-down.
Keith, what do you have for stock-up for “Last Dog of the Minkings”?
Stock-up, the Manhattan Project?
Oh, Oppenheimer, great film.
That’s a little crazy, but I think this whole book was an allegory for World War II,
and ultimately dropping the new pair of bomb on AK The Seed on Japan a couple of times.
So the Gerkish were the Japanese?
Well, let me get to it, sir.
You don’t want to lead the cart before the horse or whatever the fucking say.
You got it, you got it, you jump.
Okay, so by is, he’s the US.
He’s leading the expedition in the Manhattan Project, he’s looking for the Seed, he’s in Iraq, I mean Iraq, or Plina Rock,
I don’t know, whatever, to find the new pair of bomb.
He doesn’t find it there, he comes back, he finally does find the Seed, which we can all agree is just new pair of bomb,
right? It destroys the city and it causes radiation poisoning to everyone, right?
Yeah, it does have some radiation poisoning aspects to it.
He’s the US because he ends up using the nuclear bomb, the Seed, causes massive destruction,
he’s very unapologized about it, he’s like, whatever, and just about the memes, I don’t give a shit.
Tons of people are dying, those are the breaks.
I don’t know. I’m not sure that was Truman’s sentiment, but continue.
They all knew what they’re doing. Logan is the UK, he’s an ally, but he can be brutal, he’s taking his fair share of fire bombings,
but you know, he’s right there with us.
Jazal is obviously France, and Pharaoh is Russia, and then the other two, I couldn’t really use the analogy for Germany and Japan, I couldn’t really figure out how…
The problem is there’s not like a… World War II was… people love it because it was a clear definition of good versus evil,
whereas this world that we’re in here with the last argument of kings, there really is no good or evil.
It’s just everyone has a little bit of both in them, so it’s hard to say, you know,
Mammun, whatever, was definitely bad as was…
Caluul. So, Mammun was like Caluul’s henchman in whatever the case is, but…
Yeah.
So, they’re definitely bad, but at the same time, and I’m sure we’ll talk about a lot,
Bias was clearly a bad person, you know, or a bad major, in whatever the case is, he wasn’t interested in like doing this altruistically.
He didn’t say, “Oh, the seed is gonna have some collateral damage, but, you know, we need it to save the union, and that’s who I’m for.”
Bias is only for himself, so it’s hard to kind of draw a parallel there, necessarily, but I like…
I like that. I like where you’re saying.
You just said it in the nicest way possible. That was a dumbest thing ever.
I award you no points, and may God have mercy on yourself.
It made more sense when he was searching for the seed book too, and I was like, “Oh, so he’s just going…
He’s like trying to do the research for the project, and he struck out, but then he finds it and uses it, and it’s a nuclear bomb.”
Yeah. Just how being the Vichy French government makes a lot of sense, though.
And even Vichy?
They’re just puppets to the Nazis, pretty much, you know?
Oh, wow. You went deep in the history books. I’m not aware of that Vichy government, but okay.
Basically, when the Nazis came in, they put up… France was allowed to continue, or whatever as it was, but they put up a…
Basically, a puppet government, which was the Vichy French, and they did the bidding of the Nazis.
So when the Nazis were like, “Send us your Jews.” They were like, “Yup, no problem. They’re on a train. They’re coming right to you.”
And they were like, “Oh, if anyone’s doing this, arrest them.” It’s like, “Yup, sure. We’ll do it for you.”
So, yeah, there were pieces of shit, too.
Yikes.
That’s a tough one.
My first stock-up is a good PR campaign. Stock-up. I feel like I’ve done this before, maybe even in this series, but I am, of course, referring to Bias’ masterful stroke to get Juzal the throne.
He’s a masterstroke, what?
Master debater.
So, the last minute when they’re at this meeting, or in the case of “To elect the new king,”
Bias saves Juzal’s being the illegitimate son of King Guslov till the last minute. Very smart. Throw that out there. People gasp. Oh my gosh.
And then he uses Juzal’s supposed exploits in quelling the commoner uprising that happened, and his heroics in the journey to the old empire to emphasize Juzal’s like fitting this for that role.
But it turns out Bias had used one of his guys to manufacture that uprising. Basically, great, the whole thing said, “Oh yeah, Juzal can take care of it.”
Bias pretty much handled the whole thing and then gave all the glory to Juzal, just so he could put him up as his puppet.
This is his Vichy France right here. You know, this he put him up as his puppet government.
That’s your boy, by the way, remember that?
Juzal?
Yeah.
I mean, I feel bad for Juzal’s whole time. Also, Juzal had a nice little charge. He had a bayonet charge into the Gurbish when he’s the king.
You know, it’s like he sat there. He could have sat there, rested on his fake laurel, said, “Oh yeah, I am the best.”
And, you know, being a terrible person or at least lazy rid of the case was, he was the king and his wife was kicking him out of bed.
He was pulling a Michael Scott and sleeping on the little bed at the, like the thing you sit on at the end of a bed, whatever that thing is called.
He was pulling a Michael Scott and doing that in his own throne room, so our own king’s quarters, whatever the case is.
So, I mean, it could also be a stock up of, you know, of embellishing embellishments on your resume kind of thing because, you know, what Juzal do in the old empire?
Like we talked about in the last step. He just got hit in the face with a mace.
Yeah, he fought a couple of guys, did well, but then he just got hit in the face with a mace and like cried the whole time.
So, yeah, I mean, stock up to a good PR campaign. Bias did a wonderful job with that. And as it turns out, Bias had Prince Reino killed by his guy, his apprentice, your ruf’s sulfur, to basically open up the spot on the throne for Juzal to fill.
Yeah, Bias not a great guy, but he’s playing chess against everyone else playing checkers for sure because the whole time before that, it’s glaucta trying to get salt or whoever elected and then this other guy is coming in.
And he’s going to get elected and there’s almost this fight for votes. But then once the whole thing commences, they realize they were all getting played by Bias the whole entire time.
Got to show respect, respects do props up to buy us there. I will say though, you give a promise, but it’s when you control the media, the banks, you control magic.
What are we doing? Is it really that hard? I could do that.
And he’s like a thousand years old, so he’s seen it all. He’s like, yeah, I just did a million dollar alone. It wasn’t really that talented. He’s bought everything.
Yeah, but we’ve seen Rory McElroy go into the masters with a foreshot lead and blow up. So, you know, just because you have all the tools doesn’t mean you’re going to win every single time. He’s no bill.
That’s true. I mean, it be more like comparable to like some politician that spent a hundred times X their opponent loses. That would be more if he put it, but you know, he’s got all the spending. He’s got all the people in the right place.
He’s got the best TV spots.
Yeah, exactly.
Yeah, what else do you have for stock up? Go to saying stock up. Oh, you’re talking about Logan. Yeah, last time I touched on this, but I mean, I’m a king of this. I do this all the time. It’s all mental. Any Kramer line, any Austro power is line. I have about 10 I use all the time, which I probably none of them are original.
I’m taken from other people. What’s your number one besides kitty up? Is that same? Yeah, that’s right. Yeah, that’s right.
That’s not that’s putty, but either way. Yeah, that checks. I don’t know. There’s a few out there anyways. I wanted to see what your favorite as I don’t know if we got to a last time, but he’s all Logan.
And I added a couple though. I just found online that might have been him. I’m not sure. Okay, but you have to be realistic. I think it’s you have to be realistic about things, right?
Yeah, we have to be less about things stay still alive, still alive, say one thing for a Logan, say he’s a cunt. Which is the best route.
Yeah, it’s about it to do something then live with a fear of it. I love that one. Yeah, you could never have too many knives.
I have you have to be realistic again. I think I already said that one. History is littered with good dead men. I found that one. I’m not sure that thing was his.
Yeah, it’s also like a good sounds like a good civil war quote like a grant quote hard words are for fools and cowards, which I liked.
Treat a man like a dog and sooner or later he’ll bite you. Not even dog man. I don’t know. But anyways, those are the ones I found. There’s a few other quotes. I don’t know if I could contribute it to him. So just stuck with those. What was your favorite of those?
You say one thing about Logan and figures. He can call me. Say one thing for Logan line figures say he’s whatever. So that’s one of those say he’s a cunt because when he realizes he’s being a cunt.
You could use that well in conversation. If you had done something that someone thought was potentially rude or immoral or whatever the case is, you can say say one thing about Keith MacGonegal say he’s a cunt.
It’s fine. Totally good. And I like that one. Allow myself to introduce myself. We have a friend of a friend whose name is Richie and he was like, oh, hi, I’m Richie. And I was like, Richie Cunningham. This is my wife Oprah. He’s like, what is wrong with you? Who are you? And what is wrong with you?
I think I never met the guy. I just said, hi, I’m Richie Cunningham. And this is my wife Oprah. He’s got to know that. That’s a pulse check on my other person’s a good dude.
Yeah. So I remember going with that one. Say anything about Logan. Say he’s a cunt.
Okay. I mean, that’s a classic. I think I’ll go with it’s better to do something than the number of the fear of it.
Yeah. That’s a good one. That’s something you’ll like tell you that you tell your kids. You know, say hey, if you’re scared, you know, oh, you’re scared to play baseball. The ball’s coming in pretty fast.
I get it, but it’s better to do it than to live in fear of it, whatever the case is. Also, if you had a chef friend, you could get them the too many knives thing, put it on like a home goods piece and have it hung up in their kitchen.
Yeah. Stock up for me, petty gods. So it’s a big part of Greek mythology. It’s pretty much the backbone of it. You know, gods fighting each other over petty grievances.
And we mere mortals getting caught in the crossfire. Turns out that’s pretty much what’s happening in Agua this whole time. The war, this entire war, the whole, this old trilogy, everything that’s happened is just a feud between bias and the fight.
Between bias and colloal and neither side cares much who gets killed in the process. There’s the Girkish. There’s the union. There’s the Northman.
You know, bias turns out to be just as bad as the supposed bad guys when he, like you said, he releases the city basically chemical warfare is the entire city does not care about all the dead people.
He’s murdering princes and not caring. He’s using people as pawns, whatever. It just seems like bias has a very interesting arc. He’s lying though time for sure.
But at the beginning, we see him as somewhat of this Merlin-esque character where he’s a little out there. He’s funny. And then all of a sudden he blows someone’s head off. But they’re always the bad guys.
And you think he’s just a little eccentric. He’s just like an eccentric wizard. But it turns out he’s cold, cunning, calculating. He’s all the sea words. He’s a, called, bias, one thing. Call him a cunt because he sure is.
So at the end of it, the book and the whole trilogy, it makes you think, like, what was the point of all of it, right?
Not in a, why did I read this? But for the people involved, it’s just like, holy smokes. We did all of this. We created all of this at the bidding of these people that they don’t even care about us. And granted so few people even know that.
It’s only really, yeah.
Jazal and Galacta, who, who really know what’s going on. So, like, dystopian.
Midway through the second one, I was like, oh, he’s a bad guy. I just, I couldn’t bring it up in the last book because I’d already read too far into the third one.
But I just knew at some point I was just like, oh, he’s not a good dude. But yeah, you’re just assume most wizards are good unless there’s some clear, you know, dark wizard, you know?
Yeah, do you think wizard? Do you think, oh, okay, that’s Berlin or Gandalf?
Like, imagine if he told the crew when they were going to the old empire to find the seed, he’s like, oh, it’s going to be a weapon we can use against the gircus.
He’s like, oh, I’m just like planning to annihilate everybody. Like, I don’t care who gets caught in the cross bars. None of this, none of you matter to me.
I don’t, you’re all just pieces on my chess board. I don’t care about you.
Yeah, well, the worst part of it is like at the end of the book, too, just I was like, oh, I really want to like set up free health care and housing and stuff like that.
And just like any politician is like, that’s not important to me. I don’t give a fuck. You’re not going to do that right now. We’re going to focus on what I want.
Yeah, let’s fund the military. Let’s put all our money overseas. Let’s not put it here at home where we’re spending.
Look at the common citizen. Let’s help everything else. I want to help. So yeah.
My last one was, and I think I’ve done this before, but repeats. Okay. It’s a third-run trilogy. I’m going to repeat torture stock up. Just got to throw it out there because yeah.
Supposedly, the liberals just getting that.
Possibly torture is not a reliable way to get information.
You read a Mitch rap book. A boo. Grave. Yeah. So here’s like, that’s probably where I’ve, you know, stocked up it.
Yeah, but gloct is system of nailing your hands down, chopping off sections of your fingers and then threatening your taint, which is what he.
There was like several pages of taint talk.
That’s like Ted talk, right? Yeah. Taint talk. It’s sequel to Ted talks. Yeah. So after that gets threatened, people open their mouths.
I did feel a little bad for Glocter that his practicals both turned on him or I guess all three really. They all they all turned on him. We did get to see gloct to do some sword fighting, I guess, yet like a little knife in his cane or whatever that he used.
And already came to his rescue. But you know, he was able to torture out of I can’t remember what his kind of number one practical guy’s name was.
But he got out of him this whole thing that was happening with like the librarian guy, the case in charge of the library and arch selector salt who were trying to breeze demons or some show like that.
So yeah, I guess torture the day torture works and it, you know, whatever gloct is form is is probably the one that we should be using. No, no more waterboarding just threatened taints.
Yeah, I think the moral of the story is you’re going to break eventually my blood is not suffer. So just say just spill right away, you know, it seems to be the best play that I kill yourself for the two. That’s you know, I mean like those are the two options. I feel like my biggest fear and you know, we read 1984 a lot of torture in there too.
My biggest fear about being tortured is I would give everything up immediately. They wouldn’t even do anything. Like before anything was on me. I’d be like here every name. It’s all given up everything I know here.
And they’d be like, no, we need more. It’s like that’s legitimately everything. I have absolutely nothing else. There’s like, well, let’s torture you anyways. That would that’s that’s a fear for me.
Have you seen hearts war? Is that the Bruce Willis movie? Yeah, no, I haven’t seen it, but I see the cover before I see the cover in my head.
The Germans capture you and then they, you know, true like the first guys really nice to you. He interrogates you then they take your like shoes off and you’re like freezing your feet and then you spit water on you. They get all these stages of torture.
And if you get to like the fourth dude, that means you’re you actually held out and the main guy Colin Farrell, you know, tells him you got to the first dude and he’s like, I didn’t get anyone up. And then he knows he did because he didn’t get to like the down the stages.
Whatever you need to get to he’s like, did they threaten your tank? He’s like, what are you talking about? You definitely gave everyone up because that’s the last step. Yeah, but I went to a when bought a car for Ellie this weekend. Oh, you like bought a car for her. You went with her to buy a car with her. She bought the car. I was there.
Congratulations. Did you get a Nissan Maxima or whatever your car choices?
Oh, American muscle car. No, she bought it American, though, Teta Krola. So I was her to camera. But yeah, American. But I was thinking that because we like started signing the papers and the people next to us had the salesperson talk salesperson talking.
Then they brought out the manager and then they brought the neck and they kept on bringing up more people and I was like, shit, we didn’t get to we didn’t get to the torture bar.
So they got us nice. Nice. Yeah, that’s what car buying is just torture. I mean, how many guys can you withstand before you actually get the best deal?
Oh, it’s I was like, I’ve been my car was last year. I was some of it was fun. And then other parts I was like, just shut up. The way that car said, come on, don’t.
It’s deals right here is a great deal for you. Like don’t tell me what’s good for me and what’s not good. You don’t know me. I think I was key, too, which was funny.
Because I was like, you don’t know me. You know, that’s the worst name. Have you received family guy? Yeah. If someone said that to me, I’ve had that someone said that to me.
He’s like, why? Why don’t you just buy it? You like can’t afford it? And I was like, all right, I’m out to you. Yeah, that was really.
I’m trying to afford this card so too much for you. I’m like, I’m not nickel in diamond. I’m trying to get a freaking. I did. I’m trying to get you to give me a D’s deal.
No, we could never do that deal. And then like two days later, it’s like, Oh, sure. Like, what do you do? Yeah, I wouldn’t I’d rather pay more money than have to talk to me like that. So that’s my philosophy.
I’m like, I’m out of here. See you later. I’ll never talk to this fucking dude again. Yeah. My dad used to do that and they’d call you. They’d call like, what can we do? You’d be like fire that guy. I’m not a car.
Respect that. Yeah. What is going to take for us to get you in this car? Oh my God. Really? Like, yeah, those people terrible. Yeah. The best move anyone buy a car is just go to all different dealerships and tell them get all, you know, what are they going to give you for your trade in?
What are they going to charge you for the car and then just send that directly to the other dealership because they’re just finding each other. And then it’s just a torture system. You just need to.
If you’re okay with torture for a full day, we spend five hours there and we bought the car in an hour. I mean, like, you end up just sitting there forever. Yeah. Yeah.
It’s forcing getting your taint cut right. It is torture. Modern torture. What about stock down? What do you first talk down?
Stock down, king size beds. So, Giselle marries the queen or Mary, king size bed. Yeah. Queen, Torez in a sort of arranged marriage turns out she’s kind of a classic eugenicist awful person.
I know they’re like, well, she’s a lesbian, but like, she’s still a terrible, terrible person. She’s like, I won’t touch you because you’re a bastard and you’re not a certain race and clad. I’m like, this is just a Nazi, right? Like, what are we doing here?
I don’t I don’t understand that all part. And we’re supposed to feel sympathetic for her because she doesn’t prefer. I don’t think we were.
Okay. I was making sure. No. If Giselle had like forced himself on her or something, then I would feel bad for her.
As like locks are just eventually like, kind of makes her, but they’re all shitty people. So. But I mean, it’s a king size bed. I mean, you know how to sleep with a person.
It can still be in the bed with you. That’s what my whole problem was. And don’t get this wrong. The first night of someone’s like, you’re not sleeping in here or kicking out your bastard. You’re not good enough. I’d be like, yeah, I deserve that. I would sleep on the floor because I probably deserve that night too. Let me tell you what they are kicked out of the room immediately. They are not in my bed. That is him sleeping in the floor multiple nights. What are we doing?
Yeah. That’s why we feel bad for Giselle. He’s the king and he’s not even. What is he doing?
You’re the king. It’s a king size bed, not queen size. Yeah, it’s like these people have never gone on a body trip and had a queen size bed or even maybe a full bed and been like, all right, how are we doing this? Are we doing, you know, head to toe? Are we putting the pillow fort in between us? Or are we just going for it?
We don’t wake up face to face, you know, with my lips on your lips. I mean, yeah, that nez never happened to me, but you know, I could. I’m just saying in theory.
So yeah, I think especially kings, I bet those things are massive. Grab, get the body pillow and just throw it in between and you have two beds.
My first lockdown is classical biological control. Are you from other of that?
Oh, CBC. Yeah, exactly. That’s when you introduce one non-native species to control another. Give me an example, please.
An example? Can I have it in a sentence?
An example would be so in Hawaii, then like the 18 late 1800s, there was rats. There was a rats all over the sugar cane fields.
So they said, you know what we should do? We should bring in some mongooses because mongooses will eat the rats.
A mongoose, you mean, but go on.
But unfortunately rats are nocturnal and mongoose are active during the day. So they never saw each other and instead the mongooses ate all of the native ground nesting birds in their eggs.
But I was at a good example. It was a disaster.
The opposite of what you want, is it?
Yeah, so it’s why it’s a stocked out, but there’s also the toes of Australia.
I’ll give you a better example. It’s one same Patrick who was completely real, came to Ireland and drove all the snakes out. That’s a better use of that.
Didn’t you play a flute in all the snakes came?
I have no idea how the metal mythology worked. That’s all real.
I think they did it in the Simpsons, but in Australia they introduced… there was like a beetle, same kind of deal.
So they introduced cane toes, no toes. And the toes are like highly toxic and they have no natural predators in Australia.
So they just had like uncontrolled population explosion. That was it. So those things that I’m pretty sure that was in the Simpsons episode.
My whole point is…
Is this a negative? It’s not a positive?
Yeah, it’s a stocked out. The stock is down.
I’m saying this is the use case. The CDC is when someone introduces something and it can be a problem, but it doesn’t sell the problem.
It can be good. But all your examples are baddies.
Yeah, that’s why I’m using the bad ones.
So, you know, there’s other times that in another time in Australia they had the prickly prayer cactus was just taking over farmland.
And so they brought in a moth and the moths larvae eats the cactus and it reclaimed the land.
So, stuff like that.
Fine. I mean, they’re doing the introduced gray wools back into Yosemite or whatever.
I don’t know if that’s working or not, but either way, this is pretty much what the Northmen did to defeat Bethod by unleashing the bloody nine.
At the end of the day, no one else could have bested Fenwick the feared in hand-to-hand combat.
But also, no one else would have gone berserk or moed and murdered his good buddy Talduro and a child just because.
You know, he was in the bloodlust.
And now he’s King Logan, so they’re kind of stuck with him.
My point being, if you sometimes introduce a species into a population to try to control something, it can backfire on you pretty quickly.
So, don’t do it, people.
Yeah, I guess I mean, well, he’s no longer King because he had to jump out of a window.
Well, dude, don’t get ahead of us, okay.
But yeah.
The book’s over.
You say he pulled a Zach Bredler.
What now?
A Zach Bredler from the next book we’re reading.
Oh, wow.
I guess, okay.
He jumped out of a balcony.
Same thing.
Are you laughing?
He’s the real person.
He’s dead.
You’re fucked today.
I mean, spoilers.
We don’t know that he dies.
I don’t have to be on the book yet.
He’s definitely.
I don’t know.
I mean, this whole book is tipsy-turvy.
He could be so alive.
Oh, you haven’t finished yet?
No.
Spoiler alert.
He’s not alive.
How did you have other stocked out?
Dual stocked out?
Oh, wow.
I love the dualness, but I didn’t love the dual rules.
Say that 10 times fast.
But so that my old promo that is you can bring whatever weapon you want in or whatever
thing you want in.
But then you could choose the other person’s weapon.
I just didn’t.
I feel like you should have one weapon and you don’t let the other person doesn’t know what
it’s going to be and you come in and say that’s it.
It shouldn’t be you.
It doesn’t make sense because like let’s say you challenge something to a duel.
One of their arms doesn’t work well or they’re arms cut off or hands cut off, right?
Like, I mean, that’s normal in a dual society that people have been to multiple battles.
Their hands or and or arm have been potentially cut off or leg or you know, there’s other things.
But then you just bring in, let’s say I just bring a bow arrow in, right?
Against that person that has one arm.
You can’t only use that.
He can’t use the bone arrow and then I pick his weapon and I just kill him immediately because he doesn’t have a weapon.
Why is this the point of this that someone doesn’t have an arm or a leg?
I’m just saying, but that if there’s a weakness, the person and so this happens here.
They’re picking their champion.
You think a champion is going to have not have an arm or a leg in a duel?
You know, you can do whatever you want.
Yeah, you just challenge the person.
So I mean, the blood that gets assumed that everyone is fully able to.
And this is the perfect example of this is he brings armor that is too heavy for the other guy to use.
So then the other guy gets a pick.
So he could just picked his weapon and killed him immediately.
He could have he was too arrogant for no reason.
But I’m just saying like, you can’t just pick.
You can’t just add a weapon in that only you can use and the other person can’t use because then you automatically beat them.
If they, if they, if you get to pick first, like that’s my whole point.
It’s like, doesn’t make any sense.
Yeah, I get where you’re saying there.
It should be here are the three standardized weapons.
We made duplicates of all of them.
You pick which one you want.
We’re not telling you what the other person picked.
You both pick you come into the circle.
You have that weapon.
Yeah, it’s like, it’s like glad to hear you.
It’s like one thing.
So everyone has their own thing that they’re bringing in.
Like the, yeah, or yeah, or you bring one thing in and that’s what you do with the net and tried it.
I always like the net and tried it in guy.
Yeah, how is that?
I mean, I just, I didn’t, didn’t like the rules.
So and I mean, I was trying to give you a good analogy, but you fucking squashed that.
Well, you had to, you could have just said the analogy that was in the book instead.
So he got his one arm and half a leg.
I’m saying he’s a weakness.
If anybody says a weakness, it’s fair.
That’s my whole point.
Well, this weakness is that he wasn’t strong enough to pick up the other guy’s armor.
So it’s also like the armor doesn’t fit him.
It should be a weapon.
Like you should have to be a weapon.
So yeah, you shouldn’t be able to wear armor at all.
Yeah, it’s just weird that you can be like, all right.
So I’m going to get in this giant rock and I’m going to live in this rock.
I’m pretty fat.
That’s my, that’s my, that’s my weapon.
My last talk down was happy endings, not the kind you’re thinking of.
So the series doesn’t really end well for any of our characters except Bias.
Adjua’s destroyed.
An unknown number of people are dead.
Jazal is the puppet king, the French Fisi government.
Glacta is now Bias is lackey.
Logan’s own men turned on him.
And like you just said, he pulled the Zack Brettler to escape being murdered.
Literally straight for our next book.
Dogman’s friends and fellow North men, they dead around him.
Their sacrifice is seemingly for not.
West, column West finally got his wish of rising through the ranks of the military only to be riddled with the wasting disease, aka radiation poisoning.
I can’t think of anyone else.
I guess like already Mary’s Glacta, which I could be worse, you know, that’s she’s probably got the better one.
I guess Farrow probably has the best one because the demons try to get into Farrow’s head.
Now she’s like, you know, got the demon in her and they’re trying to mess with her.
Like, I’ll go to this good and she’s like, nah, I don’t think I will.
Space just says like, nah, I’m too stubborn.
So demons don’t have an effect on me.
I was going to sleep anyway.
So I was going to say I’m just trying to sleep, but she doesn’t sleep anyway.
And she’s just going to go off and try to kill the Girkish empire or Emperor.
So she probably has the least worse besides Bias.
But yeah, it’s just like, you know, usually when you read a fantasy trilogy,
even something like red rising, which has a lot of death and a lot of the characters we love end up dying,
they’re still light at the end of the rainbow.
They’re still happiness going on and granted the red rising could trilogy continued into another trilogy
where there was more death and whatnot.
But and this has more books.
I don’t know exactly what they go down, but I can’t imagine that there’s many positives throughout.
So I guess what I’m trying to say is you can still enjoy a book even if it doesn’t have happy ending.
Or usually movies that kind of bothers me a little bit.
I don’t know why, but for the book, that’s fine.
I was okay with it.
I didn’t grow and changed, but they definitely weren’t left.
They kind of ended in the same place they started.
Yeah, different, but in the same place.
Some of my favorite endings are like that where it becomes, comes full circle.
Yeah, I mean, we were introduced to Logan as he’s jumping off of him.
Yeah, exactly.
To get away from the flatheads.
And now he’s jumping out of a window to get away from the Northman.
Yeah.
Yeah.
The first people were actually terrible orcs.
And now it’s his own people who he’s jumping away from.
So yeah, he’s in the same place, but definitely a worse place because at least he had his boys.
And now he doesn’t.
Now he’s really all alone.
Do you have any other stockouts?
Last one.
Grass is always greener, stocked down.
That is the same.
The grass isn’t always greener because I need to get one more shot at your boy, Jazel.
Yeah, I can’t help myself.
I mean, I thought he was turning a corner in the last book, but he just continues to be a huge bitch.
They give him king and he’s like, all he does is complain.
Do you know how many people would kill and they have killed to be get where you sitting?
Oh, you have to, you know, I can’t do everything.
Every single thing I want, who cares?
Like the worst thing he has going from, he gets a king’s eyes bad.
He gets a hot lesbian wife.
Yeah, he gets a boy.
Yeah, whatever.
He gets a, but anyone he wants, literally anyone he wants.
So who cares?
I’m the Crimea river.
But the only one he wants is already West and she married.
Mary Gloucda.
Then Gold Mary.
He can’t.
She married Gloucda.
Oh, he got a hit his chance.
And he can’t marry her because bias won’t let him.
He’s got the handcuffs.
He’s got the golden handcuffs.
Oh, my God.
I mean, he sleeps in silk sheets, pajamas, he wakes up, gets food served to him.
He doesn’t want that.
He wants to actually change.
He wants to change.
He wants to do good things.
Then go do good things for him.
He can’t bias will not let him.
Oh, my God.
I can’t believe you’re defending him.
He’s literally the only person impeding his progress is himself.
Oh, there we go.
Are you a life coach now?
He says it in a meeting.
And when he’s bored, he just chugs alcohol.
I’m like, this sounds awesome.
And then he just interrupts and just decides what he wants done.
Like that is literally that’s what I’m going to say.
He wants to say, no, you can’t do that.
Bias says no.
And he goes, oh, fucking, daddy.
He’s like, no, Wes is going to be the head of the commandment.
And they’re like, well, you should probably like quiet down.
He says, shut the fuck up.
I’ll do whatever I want.
And they all listen to him.
And he’s like, all right.
See?
See?
I was one time.
He could do that whenever he wants.
We’ll see.
We’ll see you in the next one.
Okay.
He’s being a puppet.
He literally have everything handed to you.
I mean, and also, if you really wanted to go against bias,
all you have to do is one, get your whole army of whole army.
Just go be like, tell one dude, go kill Galocta.
Get rid of this dude.
He’s done.
Now we get a whole army.
We get, we mounted a fence.
We start doing whatever you want.
Where is this area you die?
How do you pay your people?
How do you pay your people?
I mean, he’s a whole kingdom.
I don’t know.
There’s like, I assume there’s an economy behind the whole.
The guy has runs at all.
Oh, my God.
So again, so what’s, what’s the rest of the bias then?
If he has his Tony soprano.
Oh, my God.
I don’t know.
He eats a lot of food and fucking chooses mouthful.
Is that what it is?
So we had a, we had a, like, a getting to know you thing at work.
I don’t know.
They just bring people over.
They talk to them.
Yeah.
I spray your kind of thing and the guy, who they were talking to,
it was, if you could have dinner with any person living your dead,
real or not, real, who would you have dinner with?
He said Tony soprano.
I was like, Keith would be rolling in his grave.
This guy just talking at you and over you and furiously twiddling stuff with his fork
and eating with his mouth open and breathing heavy.
I’m going to dive into that.
Give me one positive quality, but the whole show is just him whining.
He’s like a therapist and then whining about his wife and then whining about his kids.
And then whining about is like, the people underneath, what is he, what’s he good for?
He’s biased.
That’s why he’s just out, rather.
That’s why you like him.
No wonder.
I just wanted to, but I wanted to be like, stop this whole thing.
I need to have a one on one with this guy as to why he actually wants to sit down with him.
I love me, so Tony soprano, more endoses when he’s talking about Christopher Columbus
or, you know, who’s buying the GABA GOOL.
But I couldn’t imagine wanting to sit down and add dinner with him.
It would make you so uncomfortable all the time.
How did terrible, what a terrible response.
All right, but good stocked out, Keith.
That was just a non-sequent, or so you would stop talking about it.
What the hell?
What about favorite scene? Do you have one from this book?
Yeah, I mean, the fight where they’re holding the ground for seven days.
The high places, yeah.
Yeah, I was trying to find the guy’s name. Who’s the guy that they’re fighting with?
Like the weird dude. That’s my favorite character.
Yeah, the guy talks with the moon.
Yeah, that guy’s fucking man.
Who’s Logan killed his son?
Yeah, even then, he’s like, “Cranic?”
He’s like, “That’s on me.”
I let a fox out in the hen, you know, thing, and you killed my son.
I used to piss it out of it, but he’s also like, “Fox in the hen thing.”
He’s pissed, but at least he’s taking some sort of responsibility, not being a huge fucking bitch like Jacelle.
Yeah.
But anyways, that was my favorite scene, that right into the duel, like that whole scene there was by far the best.
Great duel, great everything, even though I didn’t like the weapon thing, but everything else was about that was great.
Yeah, I agree. No, 100% St.Page, the Alamo-esque battle at the high places.
Yeah.
I like it because it has all the elements of a good war battle or something along those lines, because it’s them prepping the walls.
They come into this place and it’s, you know, not nearly ready for them to actually make a last stand.
Yeah, so they got a, they’re doing everything they can to kind of prepare.
They know that it’s a potential last stand because if the union, the union’s supposed to come and they have a certain amount of days,
but at the same time, they don’t even know if the union’s definitely coming or not.
Yeah.
So, their thing, okay, we just got to hold out as long as possible.
And it starts with, you know, some skirmishes where they’re just, you know, they’re just testing the defenses.
And then it’s all the flatheads that they got to fight and then the next day, it’s like actual Northmen and then they’re getting behind the walls.
Logan goes berserk is great.
It’s all great.
And then obviously West comes up and saves the day.
But, yeah, it was definitely cinematic and then like you said, to put a cherry on top with the duel afterwards.
The duel also is cool because at the same time, dogman and whoever else was with him, blacked out, or in the cases are going into kill the witch who they need to kill, or the sorcerer, or whatever, to kill her.
So that Logan can win.
And so that was fun too, seeing them infiltrate the castle or whatever the place is that Beth Aud was that.
So, yeah, yeah, big, big fan of big fan of that.
What about, this could be for this book or maybe the series as a whole, but for best character.
At least in this book, we get main point of views from Logan, Giselle, your favorite character.
And we get some secondary point of views from Pharaoh, Column West, Dogman.
And, I don’t know, there’s obviously a bit of other characters that you could pick from if you wanted to.
But, who is your favorite, maybe for this book or for the whole series?
I think it’s an alternative just for this one, which was the witch.
He’s really the main bad guy.
She gets one and a half minutes of screen time, but he’s kind of the one that’s seeing people coming from like, you know, she’s able to do that.
I think she was the one that raised the duel guy.
Fenric, I heard the fear.
She’s like protecting him.
She’s like doing everything.
And she’s kind of like the main bad guy, but somehow she’s not really talked about.
We say for two minutes and then she dies, but hey, great, great, great overall books for her.
For you saying screen time too.
Yeah, it’s a impact.
Yeah, she is.
Well, it is funny too, because we don’t, do we ever see Bethod at all except for when the first time we meet him is this book, right?
No, we met him before because he in the first book.
Oh, do we?
Okay.
He comes in and talks, that’s when Bias blows up a couple guys heads. He comes in with his witch and Fenric.
Oh, I remember that.
Yeah, it’s like, but yeah, we see him briefly in the first one.
Oh, okay.
Because he talks to Logan and he’s like, oh, Logan, you were my champion.
Now here you are.
I guess we can give an honorable mention then to my moon as well because my moon is like, oh, he’s pretty bad ass too.
It’s gonna be him first bias and then bias just like takes the seed and just blows them all away.
It’s like, oh, all right.
I guess my moon’s gone.
But Logan’s your number one.
He’s the one I’ll remember the most is the whole like, looking a switch and becoming the crazy person that’s going to kill anything.
And then it is, I think I said the last one, but it is.
I do feel the most sympathetic for him because he can’t become a better person because he literally has like a disease.
Love it or hate it.
It’s good for when you’re in war, but it’s probably, I think didn’t he say he killed his daddy didn’t know he killed him?
He’s not a pretty tough, tough life.
Yeah, he can’t control it.
I feel when he’s being normal Logan, he’s such a grounded, what he did with Juzao and Pharaoh, like we talked about in the last book,
where he really managed those different emotions so well that you know he has good people skills and can understand people and work with them.
The fact that the Northman voted him king granted I know it was most of his battle prowess, but at the same time he’s a good guy around the fire.
So it’s tough with Logan because he does have this disease or whatever that case is, but he doesn’t seem to show a ton of remorse for it.
He’s just like, oh, that’s what happens when the bloody nine comes out.
It’s like your buddy who every time he drinks becomes a different person and they’re terrible and you know terrorized the group and make the night not fun for everybody.
But he said, well, that’s what happens when I drink. What do you mean?
It’s just the way it is.
Yeah, that’s a tough one.
You don’t have one of those?
I don’t know about me.
It’s like, if you don’t know who it is, it’s you.
No, you don’t have one of those, I guess in your group you don’t have one of those?
I got a couple.
So, well, I don’t think there’s a lot of people in my group that are fighters, which I think those are the worst people.
Yeah, I’ve got maybe one or two potentials, but that’s not necessarily what I’m talking.
Well, I guess, yeah, they’re that too.
They are that all those stories you’ve told of your buddies are just, yeah, so you’ve never had that buddy to spit some people randomly.
I was like, what?
What are you talking about?
Yeah, everyone has one of those guys.
So, good, good girl, look at it.
You don’t just spit on people.
I don’t care who it is.
So, what are you talking about?
I was kind of joking.
That’s a real story, okay?
That is a real story, yeah.
I remember you saying that people used to clique people and I was like, I’ve never heard of that term.
And you’re like, yeah, you never had people just spit on people.
That was a lot of fun.
That was more fun.
You’re the guys spitting on girls too.
That happens in high school.
We had like an open quad.
And there was a, every, for like a senior day, all the seniors would pull in their cars and have fun.
They’d have them loaded with water balloons and the seniors would just go around the quad after school,
like just pagan people with water balloons.
It was great.
It was like, great fun.
You know, if you’re a senior, it’s fun.
If you’re not, it’s like, oh, this is cool.
Whatever is happening.
And my buddy, we were juniors and the seniors came in.
They had like a laundry basket full of water balloons and he went over and just grabbed them from this girl.
And she was like, hey, what are you doing?
Those are water balloons.
And he was like, they’re mine now.
And she’s like, no, and he just spits on her face.
It’s like, oh, my God, you are like sad person.
Zero percent chance that they do water balloons now.
That’d be like, in the end, like, bullying and, yeah.
No, 100%.
All that fun stuff’s gone.
They used to do like assassins too.
Whatever that is with like, square guns.
Someone get like, shot from that.
So they’re like, we can’t do this anymore.
Yeah.
There’s definitely a sadness going on around all that stuff, unfortunately.
Yeah.
Well, it’s even like pranks used to be good.
And then some guy, he put, he went fishing and then basically took a five gallon bucket of like fish chum and let it sit in his shed for a year.
And then basically filled all of these like fermented fish guts with in water bottles.
And then went around the school and was basically like throwing them everywhere like up in the panels and the ceilings.
No, that’s not it.
It was like a biological war.
Yeah, it arrested.
It was like, it was a whole fucked up situation, but it was in theory.
He’s like, oh, this is going to be funny, but then in practice it was, it was just like he ruined the school.
It was biological warfare.
Yeah, that is.
That’s absolutely wild.
Yeah.
Funny times.
Yeah, for me, it’s going to be Glokta.
He’s my number one throughout the series.
I do like Logan for sure.
I just think Glokta is such a unique character that was written by Joa Bacrombe.
Like you don’t, I’ve never seen another Glokta, you know?
Yeah, he would be my number two, one A, one B maybe.
He has his positives, he has his negatives, he, you know, he says a lot of the times that you know, even sometimes he’s like,
he talks about his torches, he’s like, that could make someone go crazy and he’s like, maybe it made me go crazy.
I don’t know, it’s possible.
Like I’m pretty nuts.
And he has no qualms about what he’s doing, you know, he put it at the same time.
He doesn’t have, there’s not like a moral compass thing.
He’s just like, living his life, do his job, waiting to die.
He’s great.
Love Glokta.
Happy that he got, and that moment with him and Ardy when he proposed us to her,
I thought was, was quite sweet.
It’s like, oh, there is a soul in there.
He’s a character that you’re rooting for, even though he’s not a good guy.
What about Love Hades?
Against the Love Hades?
What’d you love about the last argument of Kings?
I felt like this is what it was all for, you know?
We read those first two books, it really culminated.
There was kind of like a, the book that had everything you wanted that had kind of answers to a lot of questions.
It had big war pieces, it had kind of a story coming full circle.
So I do think this was, this was what was needed.
This would have been a tough series.
We read this third book, you know, 60 hours in total, and then all of a sudden,
we found out that it wasn’t really that good of a series,
and the book didn’t really end very well, or we needed to read another three books.
So I think this did, did it justice, and I’m super happy we ended up doing this series after this book.
Yeah, I agree.
I’m definitely glad we did it, and I grew with you for everything you said.
You know, you have to be realistic about these things.
And I think that, that Logan quote kind of sums up Joe Abercrombie’s approach to the story.
Nothing is going to be tied up neatly with a bow and make you feel great after reading it.
You know, life’s chaotic and messy, so why should it have a happy ending for all?
Which I didn’t even know is a thing, but this is Grim Dark Fantasy.
And that is a thing, I guess, which is just morally ambiguous characters,
and not always happy, and usually it’s pretty bleak.
So, yeah, he did it really well, and by, I think it’s hard to write a series where you’re rooting for,
but also against all these characters, and ultimately not a ton changes.
But you’re asking people to commit, like you said, 60 hours to listening to it,
and also feel like they enjoyed that experience.
So, I think that’s a, that’s a tough, you know, line to, to tow, and,
and he did a really good job, so props to you, Joe.
What else you got?
Um, I really liked how Wes handled the two generals.
Yes, that was on my list too.
Yeah, yeah, that was great.
Yeah, just kind of getting them both in line, getting them both kind of fighting for the same thing.
It was just a really, uh, well done.
Yeah, because initially we’re thinking, “Okay, we need Juzal to promote Wes
so that he can go and save the Northman, otherwise the Northmen are fucked.”
We’re not necessarily thinking that Wes is the best man for the job,
but he’s going to definitely go and save the Northmen because he’s, you know, kind of tied to them now.
And his first act as Lord Marshall is kind of playing these two generals,
making, you know, it does a ruse with this letter that he’s going to send or whatever the case is,
but knows exactly how to play to each one of their egos so that they do what he needs them to do without, you know,
basically trying to turn on him or anything.
And he played that so well.
That was like, “Oh shit, I see, I see you, I see you, I see you.”
Well, if they didn’t name Wes too, the, the head, then like the army would have split in half
because the two generals, one of the generals wouldn’t have any other wooden than, you know,
basically would have screwed the whole army so the naming Wes was actually made a lot of sense.
Yeah, for sure. Logan returning from the dead, that was a stock-up fire, she’s made a love for me.
He basically just walks into camp with all of his Northmen baddies.
And I don’t know how Jarr right, but it’s basically the feeling that we all have
when, you know, you and I don’t see each other that often or some of our other friends from work from years ago
or even your buddies from home, you might not see them in a super long time, but they show up and you’re just like,
Hey, fuck you buddy.
You know?
Like half of them are happy to see him, half of them act like he never left.
It’s, it’s great. It’s just such a, such a guy thing was going on there.
I really enjoyed it.
Yeah, I did love the chapter about, I think it was like answers or something,
which was basically, “Bias, laying out the whole situation for Galocta.”
It’s our, it’s the exposition chapter, but I felt like for this book, we did,
well, we obviously needed Bias to tell the whole story anyways.
It coming from him to Galocta after Galocta figures out a bunch of this stuff was great
because those are the two people that should be involved in it.
Galocta’s been, you know, he’s kind of like the Batman doing all the sleuthing.
So it makes sense and I just thought it was a good way to get that piece of the story dealt with.
So I like that.
It would have been cooler too, I think that if we didn’t know he was a wizard the whole time,
right? Like we just like, “Oh, I’ve been playing everyone this whole time and I’m actually this power.”
You know, that would have been kind of a cooler reveal, but like I said, last book I kind of,
I was like, “I think he’s going to be a bad guy at the end of this.”
So it wasn’t as good of a reveal, but it was still, still interesting there.
For Hades, the whole Seed House part, I had no idea what was going on, honestly.
You mean when it’s him, it’s Bias Farrow and they’re, it’s the old woman…
The shape shifter, which I didn’t understand.
Yeah.
It was like a bigger reveal and I was like, “What?”
I didn’t know which person she was either, so remember how they like stopped off at a house
of his like, “love her?”
Whatever, I was like, “Is that who it was?”
I don’t think it was, right?
No, that, you’re talking about, this was like, “Tolome,” who they, it was like the daughter of Canadian, I think.
Yeah, a lot of them were, a little bit over my head.
I was like, “I don’t know what’s going on here.”
It just, it also was a really hard to picture what was going on in that house.
So, “Tolome” was like, still alive, she was like, living as quiet or something?
Like, she was the shape shifter and she was being quiet.
I, I 100% agree with you with that and that kind of spilled over into the next few parts of this story for me
where I didn’t know what was going on when they got the seat.
I was like, “Wait, who?”
I was like, “Ha, ha, I’ve been quiet this whole time.”
I was like, “Oh, how did I not see you?”
And she’s like, “Yes.”
I died and then I came back because the demons brought me back and now I’m here to, it’s like, “Okay, what’s going on?”
And from that, basically through him and Farrow fighting in the streets with the seat and also glocked figuring out the university had minister, like Silber whatever’s name is,
and Archlector Salt were conspiring to release demons onto the right.
It was like that whole section.
I was like, “Wait, what’s happening?”
And it kept jumping back and forth between them.
I just felt like it didn’t have enough area to breathe.
It seemed somewhat rushed because there was just a lot of storylines at this book and it seemed like they were getting wrapped up in quick succession and then lighting fast and they just had to end all these storylines at the same time
but they were also very confusing because there was a lot of moving parts that I didn’t understand.
So yeah, I’m with you there.
Yeah, for sure.
That was pretty much really it for me was that area I just, like, tolemay in the seat, I couldn’t even envision where this seat was.
It was like hanging from the ceiling or something.
So yeah, I was kind of lost as I was reading and I kept rewinding because I was also like reading it before bed and was like, “Wait, what the freak is happening here?”
Like, it seems like it’s cool stuff.
Cool stuff is going on, but what?
It went from like the most cinematic world experience to this and I was like, “I can’t picture this in any way.
They’re in a glass house? That’s what’s happening?
I don’t know.”
I don’t know.
Go throw stuff.
Any other hates for you?
I just thought there was a lot of quick economic and racial and religious things sprinkled in there that they never really backed or just,
it was like a, like, quickly touched on it and being like, “Oh, it’s because they’re black.”
I was like, “Oh, I didn’t realize there was racial components of this.” And then they never came back to any of it.
So I was like, “It’s a weird thing to just throw in there and not really resolve or tell you why.”
Did you feel that or are I just crazy?
I didn’t feel it necessarily with racial aspects, but I think you’re talking about between the Gerkish and then also the Queen, Terez, or the religious elements.
There’s a lot of, yeah, and then there was also religious elements.
The religious stuff for sure.
I didn’t get any of that.
Yeah, so I just seemed like there was a lot of, like, other things which I think they were trying to tie him to our society, you know?
So they didn’t really resolve any of that.
So I don’t know. I just seemed like it was a throwaway thing to put in there.
Yeah, I think my biggest complaint on the series as a whole was just the understanding or the way it was communicated about the relationships.
We talked about this in the last one of all of Bayaz’s people.
You know, Tala Me, Canadius, Yuvans, all of those people, it was like, “Okay, who’s what? But if you look it up, it’s like, “Okay, this person, A, you started it, and he touched the other side.”
And because of that, you know, he had these kids who had then had demonic blood in them like Pharaoh.
I need to be hit over the head with that so that I can actually understand what’s the bigger picture.
And like, who are the people that started this whole thing?
Because even, we’ve talked about before, we’re like even Missborn, which has a ton of magic elements that they all can be used interchangeably in do different things.
Sanders just like throws, like, throws them at you often enough that you kind of understand, “Oh, bronze does this.”
Like, I kind of get what bronze does. Whereas this, it’s like, it was mentioned once, and then it’s just like, he uses his bronze power.
And he’s like, “Wait, what does that even mean?” So, yeah, I was a little confused about the people when I’m tempted.
Yeah, you take all the magic out of this, I think the book’s just as good if not better.
You take everything, like, it was just a mid-evil society that are fighting with politics and different things.
Or if you like, replace that whole backstory with a dragon, the seed is a dragon, it makes more sense to me.
Yeah, more could literally be gunpowder.
It could be, yeah, they went through different plays and they found this, you know, explosive material.
Yeah, it seems like it could have, it just, like, it wasn’t really a magic book for seven/eighths of it, and then all of a sudden it was really quick,
and you’re like, “Wait, what?” And then there was all of a sudden they’re adding in lore, all of a sudden really quick.
It was kind of like Harry Potter when the master wand, but they did a really good job like spelling that out there.
Like, here’s a kid’s book on how this happened.
Yeah, well, get it now.
Talk about the best way that that’s been translated and filmed, the way they did it in the movie was amazing, but the animation, we talked about that.
Go check out our episode on the Harry Potter subject, if you want to hear that.
Lingering questions, I only have one, but if Bias had this whole plan to get Jizal in the throne so he could control him,
how did he fit into West killing Ladislaw?
Or was it once West killed Ladislaw? Bias then saw, “Oh, if I can kill Reynold, then I’ll have the ability to get whoever I want on the throne.”
Or would Ladislaw already have been a patsy for Bias because he was an idiot, too?
Yeah, I wonder if West and the Prince that he was with, they weren’t supposed to see any action.
So I wonder if someone slipped him a little note on that, on a word of attack, in “Find a Week Bar.”
So Bias told Bias, “Oh, go.”
They were supposed to be in an area that wasn’t fighting it.
But even then, that’s no guarantee that Ladislaw is going to die.
I think Bias sees the whole chess board, he’s in plays percentages.
He’s like, “Well, if I don’t kill him there, if he doesn’t die there, I will get rid of him another way.”
Yeah, he’s an idiot, I’ll take care of him, and I have a better person.
He might not even notice that Jazal would have been a good fit. Well, no, because he did, because the whole Jazal…
He said he had like 10 backup plans, so like, Jazal was just in one option.
But in the first book, when he wins the duel or whatever, the tournament, you know, Bias makes it, so he wins the tournament.
So Bias, he was his number one plan for sure. I don’t know who else is backup plan would have been.
Granted, he could have got to Ladislaw, like that wouldn’t have been hard to do.
Since we were on the whole series, I think we should cast it, so did you have some people you’d like to cast for some of our main characters?
Yeah, I think for Galacto, William DeFoe.
Oh, okay, way too old, but sure.
I mean, I don’t think the age matter. I also didn’t really know what Galacto’s age was. I thought he was like 40, but I don’t know if it’s…
I think he’s pretty much a contemporary with Logan and Jazal a little younger, but he’s like Dogman Logan, he’s like a contemporary with him.
I don’t think it matters what age he is. He’s not a physical character, it doesn’t really matter.
I like the idea also, he can be older because he’s so beat up from the world.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, I mean, he would be great, for sure. I like the casting.
I had Paul Bettany for Galacto, who is… he’s like vision from the Marvel movies. He was the… the… herald in the night’s tale.
Oh, yeah, he’s used to playing… he’s… he’s not…
Oh, yeah, Silas, in… what’s that book?
I like how you do by being… he’s saying… I was just like, “All white, but I couldn’t think of that…
Yeah, I bought him.
Oh, but I know. He’s 55, kids. So we’re up there in age also.
He looks very good for 55, oh, is it?
Doesn’t he? Good for him.
He’s also… I didn’t realize, but he’s married to Jennifer… what’s her name?
Jesus Christ.
I know that he’s a villain, huh?
Yeah, he’s married to Jennifer Connell.
Yeah, good for him.
And she’s like… they’ve been married… I don’t even realize… they’ve been married for like 25 years.
Jennifer Connelly is a fox. She’s 55, too. That’s incredible. Both these people…
They must be drinking children’s clothes. That’s the only answer to that.
Who else you got?
Logan, I did Tom Hardy.
Same.
Oh, all right. We’re locked in.
Yeah, locked in.
I actually watched the show. He just got fired from…
Oh, I had a line about that, the Pierce Bros. thing.
Yeah, I’m not gonna watch that after he leaves.
So, that big mistake from them.
He can be late if he’s the whole show.
Yeah, you like him, piggy blinders?
Yeah, yeah. I just rewatch piggy blinders.
Although the last two seasons and the movie were terrible.
I was actually about to start it because we are on a TV shows.
And Caroline’s never seen it.
And I was like, “Oh, we should watch piggy blinders.”
Yeah, it’s good. First four seasons, I liked.
And then, fifth and sixth season were kind of bad.
And then the movie was terrible. So…
Yeah, that’s too bad.
Who else you got?
Farrow, Zoe Kravitz.
Dude! What? That’s what I’m talking about.
Not you.
Oh, we’re pretty good.
I had Zoe Kravitz or the other one was the girl from Guardians of the Galaxy.
What’s her name?
Zoe Salandon, Saladana.
Yeah, I wouldn’t believe her as an actual person that hates everyone.
And when she plays that in the Marvel movie, she’s not believable.
Yeah, she’s nice.
I agree. But Kravitz, yeah.
That’s so funny. I was like, in the car. I was like, “Oh, Zoe Kravitz, I’m a griffin’.
All right, let’s keep going. What else do you got?
I didn’t do Jazeal because he’s a huge bitch.
Okay.
I guess anyone for that?
I had Jacob Allordy for Jazeal.
Oh, okay.
He’s like so hip right now and he’s also just beautiful.
So…
He could play…
Oh, yeah.
Okay.
He could play that care. He looks kingly, but also he could play the meek side.
But he also has to be able to swing a sword.
Yeah, that’s kind of an insult to him, but all right, totally.
Dogman, I had Charlie Hunman?
Okay, I had Adam Driver.
Oh, okay. Yeah, yeah. I like that.
Oh, yeah.
I think they do have to be gritty, though.
And I think they both have that ability to like, you know, be that gritty.
Like, they’re both attractive, but they can also be just…
Yeah.
Well, we know he had to hook up with that one girl.
That’s the most important thing.
Yeah, yeah.
Do you have anything else?
I didn’t have anyone else.
I’m trying to think about that.
Bias?
Oh, shit. I didn’t cast Bias.
Damn it.
I had a John Malkovich for Bias.
Oh, I like that.
I was thinking of someone for Bias, too, and I can’t remember.
John Malkovich is good, though.
I like that.
Yeah.
A John Malkovich for him and then an honorable mention was Paul Walther, House, or Forquai.
Keith.
Yeah.
Last argument of Kings.
What do you give it in “Who’s It For?”
I guess the whole series, the first lot trilogy.
What do you give it in “Who’s It For?”
You can say the first lot, this book, too.
Okay.
Yeah, I think this book is a 4.5, I’ll say.
Oh, wow.
Yeah, I know this is a…
I mean, I don’t know.
The only complaint I had was the, really, that one scene, but I liked how it wrapped up,
but I liked what happened.
I liked the whole series.
I think it’s a top tenor.
I gotta look at my list, but it’s probably in the top ten for me for that.
Holy smoke.
This book or the series?
This book, I put the series, I guess.
And it’d be the back half of the top ten, but it’s not as good as “Misborn,” obviously.
The fact that we read the whole, all three books, I think, speaks to the fact that we like
the characters.
I think it’s just really, really well written and it is an interesting story.
It was fun and I think the next book I’m on, I’m like, kind of slowed down because I’m
like, yeah, I’m used to a certain pace.
So yeah, I would give it a 4.25, probably overall.
And I think it’s the same as we’ve said for other series where it’s kind of like an
intro to fantasy.
I feel like Sword and Sandals kind of stuff, but maybe you’re bored of the typical thing
you get, hero doing his hero journey thing, then this one’s for you.
I give it a 4, which is, you know, I like the series, I’m glad we read it.
I would suggest it to someone who is into fantasy.
That maybe, I think John and Robert Wright’s these characters so well.
I liked it very much.
I think the way all those pieces that we talked about didn’t necessarily flow for me, takes
it down from being much better because it did affect it for me.
It was like, oh, okay.
Well, like this is all of the story lines are just ending and it’s like, boom, boom, boom,
boom.
Like, wait, just, you know, clocked is looking for this guy and he’s bringing up demons like,
what, where did this come from?
And then all of a sudden it’s over.
Like, oh, he’s dead.
That’s fair, it’s fair, Chris is my thing.
All right.
What are you coming to next?
All right.
Next, and I think you’re done with it.
I’m about to finish.
We got “London Falling” by Patrick Raiden, Radon Keath.
It’s a non-fiction.
So we’ll be doing something a little bit outside of a comfort zone.
Yeah.
It’s like a four, five on good reads.
I got two people calling me about it.
Phone’s blowing off the hook.
So we’re doing that and then what are we doing after that?
There’s a case people want to read it.
And then “Gong Girl”, listener suggestion by Gillian or Gillian Flynn.
We’ve read one of hers before.
We both liked it, so.
What do we read before?
Broken pieces or something?
Something like that?
Oh, sharp objects.
Yeah, there you go.
Yeah, cool.
All right.
Well, that was last argument of “Kings” and that was the first lot trilogy and I’ll catch
you for “London” as falling.
Indeed.
All right.
Bye.