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.

The Buddies return to Joe Abercrombie’s grim dark world for “Before They Are Hanged,” the second book in the First Law trilogy. The Buddies debate whether getting your face smashed in with a mace is the ultimate character development, how useless corporate leadership seminars actually are beneficial, and if chivalry is indeed not dead. So, bring your north man mentality, practice your nose-biting techniques, and join us and all our Buddies from last time: The Bloody-Nine, Bayaz, Jezal, Ferro, Glokta and many more!

Intro (0:00-1:54)

Stock Up/Down (1:55-31:06)

Favorite Scene/Character (31:07-41:18)

Love/Hate (41:19-48:49)

Conclusion (48:50-52:22) 

NEXT BOOK: Last Argument of Kings by Joe Abercrombie

Transcript for SEO purposes 🙂

All right, welcome to Book Club.
I’m Dylan here with the Freckled 10.
Keith, what’s up buddy?
I’m here with Dylan.
I don’t have anything.
Uh, we’re here with the Buddy Book Club, we’re breaking down some best-dolars this week.
We’ll be discussing the second book in the first law trilogy before they are hanged by Joe Abercrombie.
If you’d like to recommend a book for us to read, reach out to us in the past episodes, you can visit our website, but at bookclub.com.
Signed to our DMs on X, Instagram, that’s Buddy Book Club Podcast.
You can list us iTunes, Spotify, please download those, subscribe, faster reviews.
It would be great.
Please, and thanks, Keith.
Before they are hanged, publish in 2007, 4.36 on Good Reads.
I was pleasantly surprised about that.
We had previously read The Blade itself, which is the first book of the first law trilogy.
First of the series.
Two years ago.
Yeah, it was, I looked it up.
It was just over two years ago.
So Keith, my question to you is, what made you want to return for the second installment?
We really liked the writer, we liked the story and characters, but it just didn’t really have any ending.
And then it was, it kind of just didn’t go anywhere.
So I think we were like, well, let’s give it another shot.
But it wasn’t one of those things where we got it done.
It was like, what we have to get a book to.
It’s always been sitting there in the back of my mind being like, I’ve really enjoyed that first one.
Why haven’t we gone back?
And I broke my cardinal rule.
I went back and I listened to our episode on it because I remembered nothing from it.
Any good?
Episode was enjoyable.
I was like, oh, these guys can have a conversation.
And it reminded me of like what was actually happening in the story, which more importantly, I was proud of.
Because nine times out of ten, I’m thinking when we do our pods, like, we give no, we don’t talk at all about the book.
Let’s jump right into before they are hanged with some stock up, stock down.
Keith, what do you have for stock up?
Yeah, stock up, getting your face smashed in.
Okay.
Stock up.
And another way to say this is getting a slice of humble pie.
But but, Jacelle is kind of that one dude you don’t want on a road trip.
You know, it’s just complaining about everything.
The food’s bad.
Oh, there’s no showers out here.
I guess I don’t have showers in my brain.
But you know what I’m saying?
They’re just complaining about everything.
And it’s like, bro, everyone’s in the same situation.
Just buck up.
You’re gonna have, if you’re not sleeping well, if you’re not eating a lot of food, you’re gonna have one of those days where you’re like,
Yeah, I’m fucking pissed at everything.
That happens. I get it.
You can’t be that guy, the whole trip.
And then the dude gets smashed in the face.
With a mace too, which sounds honestly like one of the worst ways to get smashed in the face.
Not great. They don’t have like dentistry, anything other, either.
So it’s not gonna be a good time.
But all of a sudden food tastes better.
The sun shines brighter.
He’s just a good dude all of a sudden.
And so I think there’s somebody to be said about just getting absolutely dominated in the face.
You know, makes you appreciate life.
And I will say one thing.
I mean, I think growing up in New England, you kind of, which is nice.
I think I’ve mentioned this before, is like, you kind of get humbled all the time because
all your friends and family are always making fun of you as like a way to keep you in check, you know what I mean?
You know, we invented the, you think you’re better than me.
So, you know, slogan.
And that’s because you want to keep people in your place.
You know, they try to get where some fancy you, you shit on the fancy thing.
They try to show off a car, you shit on the car.
You know what I mean?
Like it’s, you got to keep people in their place.
And this guy just hadn’t been kept in his place.
So you need a physical violence, unfortunately, to do that.
I do appreciate that.
But I was gonna tell you a story there is we were playing flag football.
I played flag football on the side here.
And there’s one dude on the other side is just trash talking the whole fucking game.
The whole game.
And I just kept on thinking like no one’s ever punched this guy in the face.
Like he called one of the guys on our team fat.
Oh.
And he was like you’re gonna lose 10 pounds.
You want to stay with me?
I’m like bro, this is a 30 year old plus flag football league.
What are you doing?
This just, oh motherfucker needs to go in the face.
Did you bring your face?
I wasn’t gonna do it.
Did you bring your face out of your football bag?
Anyways, that was just like just a little moment I was experiencing.
I was like, this guy needs to smash the face.
So, do you think he had that new, the new lease on life where he fell he was so close to death in that moment?
That he then felt like he could hang or was it the way that he was brought into the group?
Because my first stock up was those useless leadership slash managing people seminars.
Some of us are forced to do in the corporate world.
There’s a lot of like, you know, managing up like you have to you’ve required to attend the series.
And you know, or how to give bad news to you or how to talk to your subordinates and stuff like that.
It’s, it’s honestly.
I had a friend recently, he’s a professional poker player.
We were, we had a, we had a golf weekend, we’re, we’re hanging out.
And this other person had just got a job after being off for a while.
And he said, I forgot how soul sucking being a cubicle monkey is.
It’s just absolutely soul sucking.
And my friend that’s a poker player, honestly, was like, what do you mean by that?
He has no, he’s never worked a corporate job.
He’s never really worked any job except for working for himself.
I mean, obviously what he does is difficult, but he has, he has no understanding of that.
And so I’m trying to explain these types of things to him that you’re forced into doing like working for the man.
And he was just had no, could not fathom that idea.
So it was funny.
Be like sitting at the table for two hours and having to fold your hand all over for two hours straight.
But then having someone behind you telling you you should fold that, you should fold that every time.
That’s a good analogy.
That’s the analogy.
Imagine I would make you.
But those useless seminars and whatnot, I think Logan sat on a few because they sure worked for him.
So one of our groups is the Pharaoh, Bias, Logan, Jizouk, we got Quai in long foot.
They’re headed to the edge of the world to find the seed.
But it’s a bit of a rag tag group.
None of these people obviously have much relationship together.
Most of them don’t even like each other.
They don’t think anyone really likes anyone else, like maybe Quai and Bias.
But other than that, they don’t want to be there.
Logan is the glue though, or at least he identifies himself as being the glue.
And he takes very different approaches with Jizouk and Pharaoh.
Pharaoh doesn’t even want to be around Jizouk.
She thinks he’s soft and pompous and whatnot, which is true.
But Logan knows at some point we’re going to all have to rely on each other.
So I better bring this group together.
He’s like Denzel in “Reverved the Titans.”
He’s like, “All right, I got to figure out all these different personalities
and how they’re going to mesh.”
And with Jizouk, he doesn’t talk down to him.
And that, “Oh, you’ve never fought anyone you’ve never killed anyone like you suck.”
He’s just like, “Hey, it’s going to be all right, you know what I mean?”
Whenever Jizoum messes up, he doesn’t scold him for it or make fun of him.
He builds up his confidence, which is great.
And with Pharaoh, he just straight up ignores her.
And so when she’s mean to him or whatnot, because he knows that she just kind of wants to get into it.
And so instead, he just doesn’t get it.
He refuses to get into it with her, well, you know, until he does, if you know what I’m saying.
But, you know, he refuses.
And because of that, they kind of bond because they have like a mutual respect for one another.
Because she’s a super badass.
And so they respect each other that way, even though they might not see it eye on a lot of stuff.
And then it totally works out.
I mean, Jizouk ends up doing well in that fight.
He just unfortunately gets maced in the face at the end by the last person who he didn’t know.
And Pharaoh and Logan create this kind of like,
Rambo, home alone type situation for those 12 guys that are coming at them up the hill.
And they survive when they’re all thinking, you know, it’s pretty much three of us, two of us really.
Because Jizouk hasn’t even swung his sword in anger.
So it’s really two of us against these 12 guys.
And they end up all surviving, even though Jizouk takes a hit.
But yes, so stock up to Logan really taking it in for those leadership meetings.
Most of the time I’ve got drool hanging out of my mouth when I was sitting in one of those.
So the leadership things there would be like, hey, you got to make an acronym.
The defines unity and teamwork.
You know, it’s like all that type of shit.
Instead of it’s just supposed to be you should probably treat each individual based on their individual needs.
That’s it. That’s all you need to do.
And that’s what he’s doing.
So it’s the opposite of these like one size fits all put everything in a fucking acronym.
Have a flywheel, have a whatever, the other five other things they do, not every corporate thing.
Is it flywheel like a spin spin place? You go to that’s like half of the companies do now.
They’re like, see, we first we bring this in and we create, you know, demand.
And then we do this and it turns to this and then it starts all over again.
Gosh, shut up. That stuff.
So yeah, I think he does the opposite of the corporate jargon.
Well, the one I was in, we talked about, you know, focusing on people’s individuality and like what works for them might not work for someone else.
Unfortunately, then when you do that, they have everyone take like Myers-Briggs stuff.
And it’s like, who cares about any of this stuff?
Yeah, yeah, you know what I mean? It’s like let’s put everyone in a box in a different way.
Yeah, but my second stock up, which was related was that a tiger can indeed change his right stock up.
And once again, which is out, I think we had talked in the first book about how I pretty sure you hated just out, which is understandable.
And thought he was going to amount to nothing.
And I said, I think something’s going to come of this guy and lo and behold, he takes a maze of the face.
But he changes his whole behavior and he’s not the, you know, the douchebag that he was in the first book.
Is he an asset though? He’s just now a normal person?
Well, he is extremely skilled at sword fighting.
So he just had never done it in anger.
Just not dodging maces?
Yeah, that was, that wasn’t included in the training.
Okay, fair enough.
But now at least if you get into a fight, if you get into a scrap, you feel like, alright, he can contribute as opposed to before.
It was, alright, you go guard the wagons.
Yeah, that’s my point.
What else did you have for stock up?
Well, mine also, I guess, we’re staying in the same realm here, but mining the pot?
Stock up? I don’t know if he caught that term, but I fucking loved it.
No.
It’s basically the cook of the night.
So everyone takes turns mining the pot.
Oh, okay.
And that’s like the, you know, you’re starting in your own ingredients.
I think you’d love this.
I want to camping on a journey and everyone has a job.
And so one person is mining the pot that night.
The other people are gathering firewood.
The other people are getting herbs, things like that, right?
So I was making fan.
I thought that that’s, he was like, that’s how you bring the chemistry together is like you, you mined pot together.
You know, I was like, alright.
Yeah, I like that. I’m sure Carol, I’m like that whenever we go on family trips, I’m always the one minding the pot, which I don’t necessarily do different turns as well.
Yeah, but she’s like let someone else take a turn.
Like someone else has to cook.
This is ridiculous.
Yeah.
You know, we can’t hang out.
You can’t parent.
You’re just cooking all time.
But I’m like, I’m the only one that can cook, you know?
So if no one else can mine the pot, then what are we doing here?
Well, I feel like everyone should bring their own, their own family.
Yeah.
I’m a burger guy.
I cook burgers all day, every day, and then, you know, the next person’s, you know, maybe you’re more of a fancy guy.
Maybe, you know, more of a, you know, fancy, or maybe a bit of a bratwurst.
Yeah.
Chris gets a peanut butter.
No, my step-toe makes a good steak.
So he usually, he usually cooks up a nice sous vide’s in a steak.
Yeah, that’s his thing.
Oh, okay.
I love that.
My next knockup was the butterfly effect.
And I’m not talking about, no, I’m not talking about the hit.
2004 movie starring Ashton Kutcher.
That is a candidate for the Rotten Tomato Variance, by the way.
It’s a 3481.
I looked it up.
I remember being good.
Yeah, I was one I didn’t want to rewatch it.
Kind of had the similar effect as, as that drug movie that we talked about.
Record for a dream.
Yeah, it has like a little nightmarish, like it’s definitely not a scary movie, but it’s very scary.
I remember being kind of like Tony Scottish, where, if you see a man on fire,
lately, or.
Man on fire.
Yeah, but it’s a lot of like quick cuts and there’s like weird colors going on in the screen.
And it’s just like, whoa, it’s kind of dizzy.
Yeah, yeah.
Tony’s got trying to be artsy.
But like the way that I make an artsy is like by blurring the screen.
And I don’t get that or like being out of focus.
It’s like, why is that artsy?
I don’t get it.
Yeah, I’m just like harder to see.
Tony’s got some legend.
Your favorite movie.
That’s right.
Yeah, got it.
The train’s blurred.
Man, it’s the enemy.
But I’m talking about the butterfly.
Yeah.
But I’m talking about the butterfly effect, the chaos theory that a minor thing like a,
you know, butterfly fapping is wings can cause massive unpredictable changes elsewhere, you
know, tornado and chile or whatever the case is.
I just made that up.
But, you know, in the example here is column west tossing Prince Latislaw off a cliff after
he finds him trying to rape a catail or whatever, whatever her name is.
But obviously west was into catl and catl, catl and he, when he, I mean, I get it.
You see someone trying to rape someone.
Fuck yeah, toss them off a cliff.
I get it.
But he acted in haste and obviously that’s the, that’s the guy who’s going to be king once
the king dies.
So it creates an interesting string of events, which are that eventually by the end of
the book, Prince Raynald, who’s his brother, he gets murdered.
So now it’s like the, the, the king has no heirs and you know, something’s going to happen
in the next book.
So, so yeah, it’s just, you know, one little situation by Latislaw and column west gizm
the old heath hoe.
I kind of love the Northman’s mentality and this is a, I think goes back to the corporate
world a lot actually.
The Northman’s like mentality is like, they want like money, I guess, but that’s not really
the end of the all for them.
It’s more about like someone that they can lead and follow in like trust as the leader.
So the idea of a prince that just inherits this, it doesn’t make any sense.
They’re like, why is this fucking dumbass?
Why do I listen to him?
It doesn’t matter.
It’s like, well, he’s like lineage.
It’s like, so who cares?
Like, was he done for me lately?
You know, so the Southern people are the union people, I guess it’s because they have
their hands and everything and the money is kind of what they fall.
So it’s almost like a middle manager or someone that’s like higher up, you have to listen
to him with their an idiot because they’re paying you, right?
So like, that’s kind of where I saw that.
The best part was when the North, there’s my favorite scene, spoiled that.
But when West does that finally, I’m like, thank God, get rid of this fucking shitty person.
The Northman ever just response was just like, well, I guess that’s the end of that.
No, like they didn’t even care.
Like, wasn’t like being like, oh my, there was no reaction.
I think they said, well, that’s the end of that I reckon that’s there.
That’s what they said about it.
I fucking love that.
Yeah, I love all the Northmen in this book are amazing.
Who’s the guy that they meet in the woods?
Scissors or whatever?
He basically wants to leave Bethod and grab his calls and I think it’s calls, whatever they
are and bring them with dogman’s crew and three trees.
But that in exchange is so good when dogman is like hunting him down and then he’s like,
you know, do you have a knife?
It’s funny, but it’s also tense because you’re like, what is this guy being for real or
not?
And then he goes back to camp and it’s a lot of like, can I sit down or what’s the deal
here?
The Northmen are just, they’re good hangs.
They’re awesome.
Yeah.
Where Ladislah is clearly not a good hang.
But I did enjoy Ladislah’s scenes.
He was his ineptitude and the way he approached things, I thought was hilarious.
I was an LOLing per se, but he was the brave heart, the son in brave heart.
That’s who he was.
The son in brave heart.
You know the King’s, the Kings, who was like, I hired my guy.
He’s really good at strategy and the guy just throws about the wind out.
Yeah.
That’s the kind of Northmen.
And he gets tossed out the wind too.
Yeah, so there he is.
Well his son doesn’t.
Oh, his son is a good friend.
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah.
So Ladislah had more bravado where he was like, you know, wanted to go into battle.
I was like, I could do this.
Like, oh, chase them down.
They’re retreating and West is just like, you’re an absolute moron.
This is a faint.
Like what are you talking about?
So yeah, but I really did enjoy Ladislah while he’s around and is bitching and moaning.
And it’s funny because you know, he might be the King or the heir to be the King, but once
you’re in a survival situation, everyone is equal.
There is no hierarchy.
Yeah, that’s why Gim is jacket.
I was like, pro.
That’s it.
Yeah, when West did that is like, come on.
Yeah, just keep that for yourself.
But West is also trying to, he’s trying to work his way up the corporate ladder.
He was hoping for something afterwards, but then he ended up tossing his boss off with
a lift.
So there you go.
Did you have any other stockups?
Last one, quick one, dirty work stuff.
Oh, movie?
Yeah.
Super-oderated movie, amazing movie.
But West gets into a fight and is like kind of first time in front of the Northman and
earns the name.
Was his name angry or something?
But they give him procious.
Furious, right?
Furious.
There we go.
Yeah.
He’s a named man.
Yeah.
Because he goes in the middle of fighting, like in the middle of a fight, he bites like a
good old nose off.
Every time, any time, any time there’s a nose bite or anything like that, I immediately think
that’s the Saigon Horde that bit my nose off.
Yeah.
Stockup.
So when we used to work together and when we did work together, you know, this was when
you were on that other team, but it was my first week and our boss took us out to lunch,
like the whole team took us out to lunch.
There’s, I know, 10 people there.
And someone said dirty work and I was like, oh, the movie, I love that movie.
And then at pretty much the top of my lungs, I said, that’s the Saigon Horde that bit my
nose off.
And immediately, as it left my mouth, was like, that was not the right thing.
No one knew what I was talking about.
They were not talking about the movie dirty work.
They were just talking about something that was dirty work.
They’re like, construction is dirty work.
You’re like, wait.
Yeah.
No one had seen dirty work.
So they couldn’t even reference the quote.
It was so bad.
It was so embarrassing.
I said Saigon Horde, like in front of all these people, I just met.
It was, I can’t believe I ever recovered from that, but yeah, dirty work, 2166 on the run
tomato meter.
Honestly, terrible.
I got to do that.
Yeah, that’s, I’m not the right, though.
Yeah, you don’t have to put crazy under there.
I didn’t know Saigon, I thought Saigon was a typo horror forever.
I didn’t know it was a place.
I remember begging to the Vietnam.
And I just remember like Saigon, the capital is kind of crazy.
And it’s like, that’s kind of like the, how they call that, it’s dirty work.
And so I was like, 30.
And I was like, oh, it’s because she’s from Saigon.
Yeah, good stuff indeed.
My last stock up, a little on the nose, but, but creatures stock up.
So this book and kind of the first one too, we don’t get a lot of the fantasy elements.
It’s really just kind of a medieval thing that’s going on.
We know that there’s Bias and we’ve seen him like blow people’s heads up with magic.
But outside of that happening like once or twice, there’s really nothing magical about
these books.
There’s nothing, there’s no real fantasy elements.
We know, or we kind of know, which we’ll probably get into later, that, you know, there’s
this whole thing from the original world or whatever, where Bias, there’s Juvin’s, there’s
the maker, the master maker, you know, Canadian.
Whatever those things are, we know that it exists, but we really don’t see it.
So I do like that in this book.
We get a lot more of the shankah, the flat heads, who are kind of like ork-like people.
And supposedly it was Canadian who birthed them.
He like made them out of mud and clay or, he was like mud and iron and stuff.
I don’t know.
Yeah, kind of like putties from Power Rangers.
Power Rangers?
Yeah, there we go, one thing.
But also like the scene in Lord of the Rings when they show Sauramon birthing, some Urokai,
just like kind of popping the mud of sacks and the mud under the underground.
So yeah, and they are kind of orkish, these, the flat heads.
So I like those.
I’m glad they were in it.
It was, it was kind of like the non-sentient, even though they are sentient beings that
you can fight against, like the big hordes, which we see Logan and Farrow do when they go
to the, the old empire.
And then also we see them, you know, with the Northmen too, because Bethod has employed
some, some shankah, some shankah.
But then we also get a little taste, but unintended, of eaters with glaucta.
We haven’t talked about it at all, but I’m hoping we talk more about glaucta, my guy.
He’s got a lot of glaucta from Boston.
And yeah, so he finally gets, you know, he traps a needer basically and we learn a little
bit more about them.
So I’m glad we had some creatures here to increase the fantasy element, because otherwise
it was just this, you know, medieval book, which I’m, which, okay, with two.
I can enjoy that as well, but just like to expand upon it.
Stocks down, what do you got?
Stock down, bias?
Yeah, I think he was, but you might recall, but I think it was one of my favorite characters
from the first one.
You didn’t say that in that, in that episode.
I feel like I remember saying like, you know, all bizzards are all the same.
They’re all just like rambling, you know, kind of going off the cusp, you know, you kind
of can drone them out, but they’re like, actually saying insightful stuff.
They’re smoking pipes all the time.
And then like they’ll get angry and you’re like, holy shit, I didn’t realize how powerful
this person was.
But I also forgot that a lot of the wizards also will use their powers and then just all
of a sudden be like dead to the world.
You got Yoda, you got Dumbledore, you got Gandalf kind of just, I don’t know what I have
like, Gandalf, he just jumped down a hole.
Yeah, what?
He just fell down a hole and then there’s like, oh yeah, this is his brother.
He fell to the other side of the world and he fought a ball.
Yeah, he never stood there.
He battled a ball, dog beer fest where was the guy that drank a lot and then dies and
then his brother shot.
Oh, this is either fire house or something.
Oh, fuck, yeah.
Anyways, he’s like, this is my brother.
I just call me the same name.
I’ll be exacting all the jokes I know.
That was so cool.
Yeah, that was good.
Anyways, but that was Gandalf and the white wizard or whatever came back and just him,
it’s like, what?
Anyway, get some lore, bro.
Okay, holy smokes.
Landfill, his name is Landfill.
Landfill, oh, okay.
Yeah, that’s the real lore right there.
Anyways, by his uses his power is blows like a fucking hole in the ground.
Then the next half of the journey is just a corpse.
Can’t do anything.
Bro, you’re supposed to be the first to match.
I grow up.
He’s all your man.
I burned all your man on one spell.
Yeah, I’ve played match.
I didn’t have to take an army out.
He basically did the, put a light on his wizard staff like Gandalf and then he was like,
and I’m done for the rest of this time.
It’s like, you didn’t even do anything.
It’s honestly like any RPG game where you’re playing or Dungeons and Dragons or whatever
the case is when you’re playing as a sorcerer, they have like a mana pool or whatever they
are like a magic reader.
I think that much mana would be burned doing that little with that.
Any, any game you use your super power, he has to regenerate.
It’s exhausting, all right?
I saw him saying, I thought he was the magic.
I thought he’d be either replenishing quicker or have a much bigger mana pool or anything.
He popped a bunch of heads.
How dare you?
I will say that Bina’s in general was less funny in this book.
He had less quips.
Maybe it was because I was getting a little more serious for him where he really wanted to
get this seed.
And oh yeah, not to mention the seed, they bring up on a fucking whole journey and nothing’s
there.
I was like, how bad is he?
Terrible, terrible book for him.
Yeah, it was weird because he used Logan to talk to the spirits and the spirit had to
give it to Pharaoh and then I was like, oh, it’s a rock.
But what?
Like, it’s just a rock.
Yeah.
Who?
I had no, my guy long foot throughout that whole thing.
Maybe, maybe the best.
He’s just like, oh, it was good journey.
We’re here.
That was nice.
We saw this beautiful places.
Oh, so good.
But no, I just thought we lost him a little bit and I’m going to save the other stuff that
I have for later.
My first talk down is the idea that chivalry is dead, a stock down to that because our guy
nine fingers, he breaks his dry spell by offering his coat to Pharaoh.
It was legitimately, he says, hey, you’re cold.
Do you want my coat?
She says, yeah, do you want to have sex with me?
And he says pardon me?
How does it should work?
Yeah.
And I appreciate that Joe Evercrombie got into the real, the real details of the
refractory period.
You know, he was like, oh, I’m glad we’ve read 50 shades of gray and a few other smut books
because I was kind of on zero to 100 real quick, but I’m so used to it from other books
that it wasn’t as.
She was like spit on your hand and I was like, what?
Oh my God.
50 shades, right?
I think this is the fourth time we’ve read Throbbing Co.
So yeah.
Yeah, people got to figure out a different word to use.
Yeah.
One Throps?
But, but yeah, he was the refractory period.
He was like, yeah, yeah, it’s been a while.
So I’m sorry.
You know, that was faster than fast forwarding through a commercial break.
But luckily, I’ve got a banana clip in there.
So round two is coming up.
You know what I keep that thing on me?
What?
What else have you ever stuck out?
Last one, ending on a low note stock down.
Look about every trilogy, or the second movie of any trilogy.
They always end on a low note.
The Empire Strikes Back, Red Rising, Golden Sun.
Feel like the Missborn.
And I just remember Booktubing Bats.
I don’t know if I don’t know.
No, Booktubed kind of had its own.
That was like when they met the Emperor, whoever the guy was.
And he pretty much said, like, I was doing this to hold the world together and now you’ve
unleashed hell kind of thing.
Oh, so it is.
Yeah.
And the Dark Knight, the Dark Knight, kind of, not really.
But I know we’re trying to set the final chapter, but…
Now, I think I mentioned this before, but we end the book and I’m like, what happened?
Nothing happened.
All the relationships that were built up seem to be kind of crumbling.
They lose all the fronts.
Like, nothing’s happening in the north.
They’re losing that war pretty much.
They got decimated.
They lose, Glockdown loses his battle.
What’s the third storyline?
The seed.
The seed?
I don’t find the seed.
Like, so what did we just do?
I mean, I know all books are supposed to end in a low note for a second one.
But could it kill us to have one storyline that was good?
Come on, but I was thinking about this.
Why don’t they do a good book to the N’s and is solved?
I was trying to think of any series like that.
The only one I could think of was the worst movie of all time.
What’s that?
The last Jedi.
Star Wars book or episode.
Oh, is that when they killed?
Did they kill the…
That’s where they killed the main guy.
It’s a “mogor” what’s his name?
That’s “mogor.”
It all solves everything and it was literally the worst movie of all time.
Nevermind, it’s a stock up.
I should have had that correct.
So, in the middle of writing this, I said, maybe it’s a stock up because I don’t want that.
Whatever that is, don’t do that.
Yeah, so…
Nevermind.
It’s just so bad because the Force Awakens, that’s the first one.
It was great.
It was so good.
It was like…
I’m so excited for this next trilogy.
It was a great movie.
The nominal soundtrack, soundtrack completely slaps and it opened up a whole new thing of
questions about, “Oh, who is she?
Who’s Ray?
What’s her deal?”
This other thing.
Yeah, and then it just unfortunately went so far downhill.
So once they went to the casino and I was like, “Oh, we’re at a casino.
Why?”
I don’t want to be here.
Yeah.
Sorry.
What’s that guy’s name?
Who directed it?
The third one or the second one?
That’s the second one, I think, when they go to the casino.
Oh, I mean, they’re all…
Yeah.
Second and third words.
So bad.
Yeah, I honestly don’t remember them.
I would rewatch…
It was May 4th, not that long ago.
May the 4th be with you.
Yeah.
And I thought about rewatching the Force Awakens.
I was like, “Ooh, I would…
I would like that.
I would like to watch that.”
No, but that’s a disappointment.
And then yeah, I would just say, “Oh, it’s…
I was going to do Andor for the third time.
I would do that way before.
Andor is so good.
And I started watching the Obi-Wan series.
So bad.”
It’s more like…
It’s nice to see Obi-Wan again.
That’s all really it is, but it’s…
Yeah, the story like that.
It’s nice to see Obi-Wan, but it was like Kevin Sorbo’s Hercules show, or like Xenor,
or Princess.
The episode where the lion’s running away.
Yeah, when she’s running away, like, shipping up those guys in one of the cases.
I just got to be like, “Is that…
Is that the basis to run out, Joy Pepper?
Is that the tracker down?”
And I was like, “That checks out.”
Yeah, this all actually doesn’t make sense.
Oh, god.
All right, my last talk down was…
Nepotism.
Stocked down.
And it just goes back to Prince Latislaw, who we’ve talked about probably more than any
other character, but yeah, he shouldn’t be in charge.
Big mistake by the king.
Don’t let him get out there.
And then also, what do they think was going to happen?
You give him a rat, like, this like terrible untrained, like, military presence, whatever
those people were.
And he has no leadership himself or around him, and they’re fighting its Bethod, who’s
a good battle commander and overall good strategist.
Well, I think they thought they weren’t going to see any action.
They’re like, “Yeah, we’ll put them in the place that, you know, it’s basically all the
politician’s sons that’s like, “Oh, yeah, you’ll be at the…
You’re in Vietnam, but they’re really, like, actually in some other country and you
know what I’m doing.”
You know, they’re actually…
Yeah.
Did you have a favorite scene in this book?
Yeah, I already mentioned it, the West thing and just the reaction from the Northmen.
I think that was just the funniest part.
The whole Northern attitude, I appreciate it.
Yeah, it’s funny, because I had my first one was just…
It wasn’t even necessarily seen, but it was the Northmen surviving in the woods with West
in his gang, just, you know, that interaction, because they’re so…
The people are so different in that being the Northmen are one way and everyone else
seemed to be in other way, but they have to rely on the Northmen because they know
what they’re doing and all the interactions I found to be quite enjoyable.
But then I was like, “Oh, maybe I don’t know.
The Battle of Dunn Breck at the end, which is the final and really the only Battle of
the Book because the first one that we’re talking about with Ladislah, it was just a
route.”
So, I like Dunn Breck.
We get some great stuff by Dogman here when he’s talking to the random guy who’s next
to him with the guys that wait, you know.
Do we go on three or do we go on go?
And Dogman’s just like, “It doesn’t really matter as long as you go.”
Let’s go.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
You just gotta go, doesn’t matter.
And Dogman’s got a great mentality.
We see, also, see Fenris the Fierd, you know, not from the first time, because I think we
saw him in the last book, but we never saw him running through people like a cave troll
in Moria.
He’s absolutely crushing skulls left and right who eventually takes down three trees
before they’re able to beat him back and they retreat.
But I was wondering throughout the book why we have a first person perspective from Dogman,
and it becomes clear once three trees goes down and the Northmen decide to crown Dogman
as a chief, which is, it’s his two other, it’s his two black dow and I can’t remember the
other one, but Dogman’s pretty much like, “I don’t know because, you know, neither one will
follow the other.
How do we go about that?”
But the rest of the calls will follow either of them.
And so he’s like, this is gonna be a tough situation.
He talks to both of them.
They say, “Oh no, you’re the leader.
What are you talking about?”
And he’s like, “No way.
No one’s gonna agree to that.”
And then the rest of the Northmen are like, “Oh, of course, Dogman’s a leader.
What do you mean?”
So it’s once again, we’ve talked about this before, but the people who should lead are the
people that don’t want to lead.
Unfortunately, they have all the skills to do it, but they don’t want to be there.
And those usually are the best, the best people for the job.
And in general, I feel like the Dogman was a great character to be following throughout
this book, except for maybe his, his thrusting.
There was some thrusting there too.
That’s why you want to follow that guy, you know?
Yeah.
Man, that’s…
They do have a great thing when they’re wondering who should go out and all the other guys in
the group are like, “Well, the only person that should go out to basically potentially get
shot is the guy who got laid last night.”
And he’s like, “Oh, God, dammit, you’re right, you know?”
Yeah, it’s like in the whole one, you have to play for anything at the end of the bar.
I feel like we have a paid enough attention or given enough to Glockda in Degasca.
Because I really did like that storyline.
There wasn’t necessarily a scene or whatnot, but I thought it was the best for politicking
or whatever the case is where he’s kind of thrust into this untenable situation of defending
a city from the Gerkish who are going to take it while also trying to solve why the guy he’s
replacing got killed so that he doesn’t get killed.
And also that there’s potentially a mole in the organization here, or at least one mole.
And so he’s meeting all these people for the first time but then having, and he’s in charge
of them, which they don’t want him to be in charge of them, and he’s having to tiptoe
around but then also use his abilities to not die, find this mole, and hold off the city’s
defenses for as long as possible, basically by borrowing from Paul to pay Peter or whatever
the phrase is.
So he gets in with the bank, that big bank, Verstem Blank or whatever it’s called, I don’t
remember.
But that obviously is going to be a through line through the next book.
And he has the mercenary guy who he basically uses to save his butt.
That was good.
And I liked his 300 moment where they send the emissary over.
And not only does he not capitulate or agree to terms but he tortures him.
So yeah, I thought it was a great book for Glockdown but how did you feel about that whole thing?
Yeah, I think Glockdown was a fan favorite.
I just liked his character in general because he’s kind of a bad guy but he’s also kind of
someone you root for but he’s also kind of shitty but I mean I liked him a lot.
I didn’t think the he’s definitely shitty but he admits to being shitty, you know, which
a lot of shitty people don’t do.
Yeah, that’s true.
If you don’t put him there, if you put any other character there, that storyline I think
is not great.
Yeah, it’s boring.
So like I think the storyline in general wasn’t that great for him to be there but like luckily
he could carry it because he’s such a good character essentially.
And it’s fascinating how Joe Recrombe approached it or just approaches that character in general
where so much of what happens with Glockdown throughout both books is internal.
Yeah.
He says little but he thinks so much and so all like the vast majority of it is internal.
We talked about it in the last book, put the way that the narrator is going to say suddenly
narrator is unreal.
I didn’t think about it until like book three and I was like this guy is incredible.
It was it’s in my it’s in my love and I think it was in my love for the for the last one
but I’m going to reiterate it and I’m going to say it again for the third one because he
might be the best.
He honestly might be the best.
Oh, Harry Potter but you know, Jim Dale.
Jim Dale is usually at the top.
This is this is close.
But if you hear like Jim Dale doesn’t miss necessarily Harry Potter except for when he
does Hermione and it’s kind of a miss there but and I’m really I’m just you know I know
that I’m talking to the margins here.
Jim Dale is the goat but this guy is so good.
I don’t even know I don’t even know where the narrator is but he is so good.
Harry character has a very distinct voice.
You know, he’s like a list of characters and what.
Yeah, Gloucester has this list because he’s missing teeth so he’s able to do that and he
does different dialects.
I don’t know it was I like I’m blown away every time this I really I listened to this guy.
It seems like it’s being acted out you know like it’s a real performance.
So yeah proud of him.
I’m sure I look him up so I can actually Stephen Pacey.
Stephen Pacey.
Yeah.
Yeah.
What about a best character for you?
Not a lot of new ones but there are some.
I mean, you already mentioned Logan 9 fingers.
I think team chemistry guy that I always I always appreciate the team chemistry guy you
know the guy that wants to bring everyone together knowing it’s going to help everyone
down the road.
The other thing that I’m going to try to put together for for the third podcast here because
I’ve got to do for this one is just his sayings.
You have to be realistic.
Say one thing for Logan 9 fingers say that he’s whatever.
Yeah.
Yeah.
He’s like five or six.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I just I just love the the the sayings and also just anytime is a dude that is a full psychopath
that you never know when that’s going to happen.
Great character.
Yeah.
Yeah.
When you get control which is he’s probably the one character that is actually all the other
characters are doing bad things but they’re kind of in there want to be better but they
don’t really change.
He’s like I want to change and then he’s like but unfortunately I have multi personality
disorder.
I want to get too much into that because I think we’re leaking into book three which we both
started.
No it does.
I mean he happens in this book.
He’s in like memories in the cave with yeah with Pharaoh.
Yeah and he definitely goes full bloody.
He didn’t last book too which I love but I didn’t realize he could kill Pharaoh.
I didn’t realize.
Remember he was like I’m going to kill this fair like Pharaoh and then eventually snaps
out of it.
Yeah exactly.
He’s he’s weapon X.
There’s a reason why his name is Logan and so as is Wolverine because they both go
into berserker mode and you know they see red and there’s no it doesn’t matter what’s
more like this one.
Yeah but it’s more brutal you know it’s more like popping people’s heads with their bare
hands and laughing.
The Hulk is necessarily like thinking as he do it the bloody nine is like I want blood
give me blood you know.
So yeah I do I do love me some Logan 9 figures still alive.
That’s his other one still alive.
Yeah.
I loved the dog man in this one because we really didn’t get a lot of him in the last one
he was just part of the gang and then we you know we did in this obviously but I think
it’s got to be Longfoot the the guy he’s he’s the one he was so absurd that he was he brought
the the calm.
He like a zalyn long foot.
I’m like who are these people you like?
I like Longfoot he was in the the the voice that our guy Steve decided to do for him was
was so good he was like this happy go lucky guy who’s just happy to be there he didn’t matter
for him what was going on.
He just he just wanted to have a good time so my least favorite.
I am the best and I I surely gave us the right route obviously because I’m the greatest
all right voting.
Awesome.
My least favorite was is in will continue to be R.D. West.
She’s a she’s a tough hang.
She’s a good drinker.
Yeah.
But she’s not like a polish is not like a good good time drinker.
No she’s a bad drinker and she’s a sad drinker.
She’s good at drinking she’s not a good drinker.
Yeah she just drinks and gets sad.
What about love?
What about love?
Was you love about before they were hanged?
I think I already mentioned took me a little while but the characters are just so good.
Well I already mentioned to them.
They all have like flaws but they’re all trying to work on them.
They all have like inner dialogues that even when they do something bad they know they’re
doing something bad.
They’re kind of like them more because they’re like yeah at least they recognize it or they’re
doing it for a reason there’s a purpose.
I just you know I just really enjoyed that.
I mean this is kind of like a love slash hate but nothing happens I already mentioned but
I still was like great book fun time reading you know like literally nothing happens.
But you know and I mean you’re gonna I preface this last book but you’re not going to like
this but it does have the tone of a of a Lord of the Rear.
It’s just an adventure with people.
There’s really no goal even at the end.
Lord of the Rings is like the other ring and the fire.
They’re on an adventure and you’re kind of like alright I guess we’ll see where we go
here but nothing’s really really happened.
Yeah this is just not sure whatsoever and the reason why is what you said is the number
one and that’s what’s kind of missing from this book but I don’t I’m not upset about it
necessarily like maybe it’s a hate but we we’re waiting for the payout.
We don’t know we don’t even know what the ultimate goal of the story is.
We don’t know what the purpose of what is happening.
We don’t understand much of a bigger picture at all.
We’re just kind of with these people whereas Lord of the Rings you know who the ultimate
bad guy is Sauron you know who the ultimate good guys are basically ever but but Sauron
and Sauron and Frodo has his ring that he’s got.
No when would you love in a fire.
There’s a road like I have the Lord of the Rings risk game.
That risk game is different because the ring moved throughout the map until you get to
Mordor and then you cast it into the fire’s amount do.
So there’s we know what we’re doing the entire series and yes along the way we go through
Moria and we then have to defend Helms deep and you know Erragorn goes to Ministerath
and does his thing there but we know what we’re doing.
We know who the bad guys and the good guys are.
Stop just nerd showing off here.
Those are naming out places of general.
Those are general.
I didn’t even get into Tom Bompadill.
No one needs to say anything that stuff.
Come on.
That’s one of my issues with this is it’s okay.
We have Bias.
We know there’s this whole thing with the 12.
He does in this book talk briefly about some lore so I’m just getting to my hate because
my hate is the lore because Bias does talk briefly about it.
It is an interesting moment where he’s talking about Canadius and Juvenz and how he fell in
love with someone’s daughter and the you know Canadius’s daughter or whatever and then
killed him and now there’s who’s the guy that’s running Gercal?
Caloo.
So Caloo is the one that Bias is up against.
He’s the one that broke the second law and basically became an eater.
So him and Mamoon and then he found Gercash or whatever the place is and that’s why they’re
not.
So we know Bias is at odds with Caloo and that’s part of what’s going on or maybe even
all of what’s going on.
So we hear it for such a brief moment and then Bias tells these kind of like anecdotes
about the old times.
So we don’t really care.
We don’t know much about it because it’s not like we’ve seen these people interact really
or know what’s going on.
So that whole overarching plot line is what’s potentially missing.
I think what’s clear though is that everything that’s happening is Bias and Caloo fighting
but through other people.
You know what I mean?
The whole thing with the Northmen is like with Bethod is Caloo kind of doing something
up north to mess with the Empire.
The whole thing in DeGasca is Caloo doing stuff there and then Bias is doing what he’s
doing to kind of be on the side of the Empire so they can fight Girk that Girkish people
and take down Caloo.
But we don’t know that.
We just assume that’s what’s going on.
So that’s why this book is kind of hard for me because the lore itself, I’m not heavily
invested in which would normally be a bad thing.
But like you said, the characters are so good and the stories are so good.
It makes it fun to read.
It’s like an episode of Seinfeld or something.
Yeah, sure.
It doesn’t matter at the end that nothing really happened.
They didn’t get the chocolate bobcat and go to the woman’s house or whatever getting
for the party because George wanted to bring Pepsi and not wine.
That’s the funny stuff.
It doesn’t matter about them getting to the party.
So yeah, the characters in the storylines are totally fine for me.
It’s the lore that I have issues with.
Yeah, I hear you.
Do you hear any other hates or loves?
My only other hate was why is it called before they are hanged?
Was anyone get hanged?
Is there potential being hanging?
I don’t remember.
Is there?
I missed that.
There was a phrase.
So the title, I guess, references a quote by some German guy, Heinrich Heine.
He said we should forgive our enemies but not before they are hanged was the quote.
So that’s the vibe, I guess.
Yeah, so it’s just nothing to do with the German quote.
It’s kind of 1984.
We’re going to teach you how, we’re going to make you believe in our cause before we kill
you.
We’re not until–
Well, it’s definitely Logan’s mindset towards Bethod.
He’s like, all right, because Logan’s always talking about having scores that he’s got to
settle.
With him and Pharaoh, he wanted to stick it with Pharaoh.
But when she was like, nah, I don’t think so.
He was like, that’s fine.
I got scores.
I’m going to go take care of my scores in the north.
So all of that stuff is like, I’ll forgive you, but not after hanging in.
Maybe that even applies to Baez and Caloul.
It’s like, all right, we are brothers, quote unquote, but I ain’t going to forgive you and
tell you that.
It should be before they’re in the mud.
Doesn’t have the same ring to it.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Before they’re motted, seventh floor crew?
His mother wasn’t mother.
But one thing I forgot to say about hates is I hate the map because it doesn’t exist.
And they keep talking about all these places.
And I’m like, I have no idea how far one place is for another or where they are on a map.
And then when I looked it up, I was like, this map kind of sucks.
Honestly, it doesn’t really make a lot of sense.
When you think of middle earth, I can see that map in my head, I go lower the rings.
I can see that map.
I get it.
I get kind of in a general idea where they’re traveling to and from.
And I can always reference it.
This is like their island topping.
You know, it looks more like a video game.
Yeah, how are you not having boats?
Yeah, it looks like Donkey Kong Country, too, or something.
So yeah, not a huge fan of the map.
It kind of looks like Canada, like the topic Canada, where all the islands are.
Yeah, absolutely.
Maybe it is Canadian.
Hmm.
What do you give it and who’s it for?
I think it’s for people that have a little patience with the fantasy realm and know that
there’s a good series.
I give it a 4.0.
I still think there’s a really fun read as a good book.
It’s just, I think I mentioned this on the first book.
I was like, you know, I usually criticize books that don’t have any sort of definitive.
Oh, that’s what happened.
This is the ending of this book one and they could live on their own.
These two first two books really couldn’t live on their own.
You need a third book, otherwise there’s nothing that happens in a series, really.
So that’s my only negative again.
I don’t want to be, I think it’s a really good book, really good writer, really good
writers book three is where it all comes together.
Yeah, I give, I’m the same.
It’s a, it’s a 4.0 for me.
It’s, this is kind of like an intro to fantasy series because if you don’t like the idea
of like, I don’t do sorcerers and dragons and stuff like that, this is great, but you like
almost period pieces or whatever the case is.
This is, this is for you because it’s enjoy, it’s, the characters are amazing.
Like, Joybrook probably absolutely crushes it with the characters.
The story’s fun and it just doesn’t have a ton of the big fantasy elements are those confusing
fantasy elements.
Like even misborn when it’s all the different elements that they can use.
It’s like, oh, that gets really confusing really fast.
So yeah, it’s, it’s pretty straightforward, but it’s really enjoyable and it was fun
to read.
I’m, I’m really glad we jumped right into the next one because I didn’t want to forget
it.
And to finish it and see what actually happens with all these characters that we’ve remat
and refalling in love with.
So yeah, I’m excited to tell you what.
I got the third one.
I was like, are there more of these or what?
I looked, I think there is another trilogy, but it’s after it’s like 50 years in the future
or 20, 20 years in the future.
I think, yeah, yeah, I think it’s like the kids of these guys.
Oh, interesting.
Yeah.
Oh, Pharaoh and Logan from the cave, round two, banana clipping.
I mean, I don’t know which kids, no spoilers.
All right.
Well, what do we get coming to next?
Next, we’re, well, you already mentioned it.
What’s the third one called here?
Argument of Kings or something like that?
Yeah, the last argument, last arguments of Kings, which is not another, not great title,
but that’s all right.
Yeah, the first one was great.
The blade itself, like that.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And then after Azure is not so much.
And then we’re going to go right into London is following.
Yeah, I already liked it at only 10 minutes in and I was like, I like this vibe.
Yeah, I was one of those ones where my mom was like, call me right now.
And I was like, holy shit, what happened?
I’m, what do moms do this?
You know, it’s, so I call her and like, hey, is everything okay?
She was like, yeah, I just want to tell you about this book I’m reading.
And I was like, oh my god, you’re insane.
That’s a good reason.
Yeah, but she’s so sweet because she’s like, will you do it on your podcast?
I was like, that’s so nice that you even know what the hell, which he doesn’t.
But you know what I mean?
Yeah, that’s nice that she said that.
And then Carol, I was listening to Dak Shepherd’s podcast, which she loves.
We for him to have us on.
And she had, he had the author of that book on and she texted to me like, hey, you should
read this book.
I was like, that’s so weird.
My mom talked to me all this the other day.
So by, there was no rule of three, but a rule of two, I feel like was hit.
So we have to, we have to do it.
And did, did.
All right, well, that was before they are hanged.
And we’ll catch you for the third and final installment of the first law trilogy.
All right.
All righty.
Yeah, I know.
Bye now.

The Buddies re-enter the world of sword and sorcery with the first book in Joe Abercrombie’s First Law Trilogy: The Blade Itself. The Buddies were left wanting more time with the characters in this darker fantasy novel, so there is a good chance they’ll be reading book two in the future. The Blade Itself follows a number of malcontents and dissentients, much like the Buddies and it got them talking about varying topics like: Caleb Williams, nicknames and would you rathers when it comes to morning routines. So gather your ‘named men’, start speaking to the spirits, and join us as we start in on The Blade Itself adventure.

 Intro (0:00-2:18)
Stock Up/Down (2:19-25:24)
Favorite Scene/Character (25:25-34:05)
Love/Hate (34:06-39:54)
Conclusion (39:55-42:33)

NEXT BOOK: The Three-Body Problem by Liu Cixin

Transcript for SEO purposes 🙂

Alright, welcome back to Book Club.
I’m Dylan here with my friend Keith.
Ten fingers and ten toes, what’s up buddy?
Just a quick note to the listeners.
The conversation of the drunk is only interesting to the drunk.
A few glasses of wine can be the difference between finding a man hilarious, companion,
or an inseparable moron.
So to all the listeners out there, please get inebriated so you actually think this
is good and worth listening to.
Any other notes for them, even?
Is that a quote from the book?
Yeah.
There’s lots of good quotes in this book.
Well, here at the buddy book club we’re breaking down some bestsellers and this week we’ll
be discussing The Blade itself by Joe Abercrombie, which was published in I think 2007.
If you’d like to recommend a book for us to read or reach out to us on a past episode,
you can visit our website, buddybookclub.com or slide into our DMs on Twitter, Instagram,
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You can listen to this on iTunes, Spotify, or read a podcast, so please download and
subscribe.
You said we didn’t really bring it necessarily for slaughterhouse five and looking back,
I kind of think that as well.
It was a little bit heavy and a little odd and definitely like a high school book.
We both liked it, but it’s hard to get like passionate about something when talking about
the deaths of thousands and thousands of people and kind of why we stay away from that just
because we can get kind of bogged down in the reality unless your Matthew McConaughey’s
book, which is out there.
I still am never going to forget that he said he made a treehouse that was like 120 feet
in the air or something like that.
But this one, the Blade itself has been in the hopper for a while.
As I said before, you know, I love me some sword and sorcery.
So I’m excited to dive into this one with you.
I heard it was dark fantasy or something like that or it’s supposed to be like, you know,
imperfect characters that, you know, the moral ambiguity kind of thing as opposed to Lord
of the Rings where these are obviously good guys.
These are obviously bad guys.
The good guys are all good.
The bad guys are all bad and we just have it out, which is phenomenal, but this is a
little bit different job or crumbie’s first novel and the first novel in the first law
trilogy, 4.2 on Goodreads.
And I don’t know if you knew this, but it was based on the quote from Homer’s The Odyssey
are named after.
I don’t know based on, but the quote is the blade itself incites to deeds of violence.
Any who let’s get into some stock ups, stock down.
That’s what we’re here for.
Keith stock up.
What do you got?
Yeah, stock up, not being a morning person.
Galaktor who I think his name is spelt like a boss.
Yeah, it’s a lot.
It’s Galaktor.
His morning routine really makes you rethink waking up on that Monday and being like, Oh,
God, hungover.
You know, maybe you get a couple of Sunday pops really makes you rethink your life and
how bad it is when he’s waking up and he basically just can’t get out of bed because
he’s in so much pain and he’s just like suffering so much.
But there’s also something that he reveals there too, which I wanted to ask you a question
of what would you rather have every morning you wake up, you basically can’t get out of
bed for 15 minutes.
So you’re in so much pain or every morning you wake up, you shoot yourself, which is
clock-strated both of.
So what which one would you have every morning if you had a cheers?
It’s more about the cleanup with the poop in your pants as as I, you know, coming on my
five year anniversary of the last time I put my pants, the experience isn’t so bad, but
it’s really the cleanup effort is tough.
If you’re doing it every morning, I assume the shame kind of leaves too.
You don’t really have the same shame.
No, the shame would persist for sure.
Someone’s coming in there every day to like have to deal with your sheets and like, Oh,
my God, there’s poop all over these.
Is there anything worse?
Like I’d rather be throw up.
Have you ever woken up?
If you’ve ever had the flu or something and you’ve sweated in the bed and it’s just like
a puddle, you just want to like jump off your bridge after waking up in that.
It just starts the day so bad.
Can you imagine waking up and you’re like, I just call it a day.
I’m like, I’m not doing anything today.
Just the day’s over.
Yeah, I’m going to go for the 15 minutes.
It’s also probably a good way to not wake up in pain, but just, you know, spending 15
minutes to kind of stretch yourself out, you know, get ready for the day kind of thing.
I did enjoy how you started that off being like, when you wake up on a typical Monday,
hung over like that’s the thing.
Oh, I just get wasted on Sundays every day.
Yeah.
Well, to be fair, I wake up on Monday.
I don’t drink Sundays usually, but I wake up Monday hung over.
You were at past the age 30.
You just hung over from like a one slice of pizza too much last night.
I’m hung over, you know, or I like, I just didn’t get my beauty sleep.
I only got eight and a half hours.
Oh, I like that.
This new, this new age way of staying hung over because yeah, if I’m not even bed by
10 o’clock, then I’m hung over the next day.
Yeah, I’m in bed by 10 o’clock, but I’m not going to sleep till midnight just because
the Sunday scares.
I still get that.
I don’t think you can do it.
I just make it a little bit more out there.
All right.
I’m going to just get all of it.
No, it’s just I hate Mondays.
That’s all it is.
I figured out.
You gotta case the Mondays.
My first stock up is Caleb Williams.
First round pick, first overall pick probably, exactly.
First round pick first overall pick for those that don’t know, he’s a was a quarterback
for the USC Trojans.
He’s got it all.
You know, he he he showcased his talents and his offensive acumen over the last couple
years, people are really excited to see this guy enter the NFL draft and presumably go to
the Chicago Bears. Now they got assets. Basically what I’m saying is that there’s a ton of potential
with this guy, ton of potential. And that’s kind of how I feel about this book, the blade itself.
In itself, this book, it wasn’t a standalone book. You know what I mean? Yeah, the end of it.
A lot of times when we read these trilogies, like these fantasy trilogies, they leave you wanting
more, but they also kind of close up something that happened during that book. This wasn’t like
that. It was more of like an intermission. It was like the forming of the Fellowship of the Ring.
It’s like, and this is the Fellowship of the Ring. You’re like, okay, cool. And if the movie just
ended there and you had to wait another year, I’d be like, what the fuck? So what I’m trying to say
is that the book left me wanting more. It wasn’t a complete novel. I’m not upset about it because I
did like the book itself, but it set itself up in a way that there’s a ton of potential going
forward. And it’s almost like too much potential because I’m scared it won’t live up to it.
100% agree. I mean, we’ve said this before about other books that have ended in similar fashions.
If Star Wars just ended with nothing happening, it would have been like, well, this movie sucks.
You kind of need to end that first book, in my opinion. You should write it with the intent
that I’m not writing a sequel. And then if it’s amazing, then you write a sequel. If you think
of Mistborn, I don’t think they kill the main dude at the end. Yeah, he ends the portion of that
book. And you’re like, now there’s options to write the second one. The emperor doesn’t die.
Darth Vader doesn’t die in Star Wars. However, you’re invested because the story ends at least.
The only one I can think of in terms of like a fantasy thing where we read was
N.K. Jemisin’s the fifth season. That was my biggest complaint.
Oh, there’s a lot more. And yeah, the problem with that one to me was that
the characters weren’t as fleshed out as they were in this. Like I was not invested in it
whatsoever. I really couldn’t picture it necessarily. And that’s probably just us though too. Like a
lot of people seem to have like that book. It just didn’t hit with me. But that’s one I remember where
nothing really happened. And then I was like, wait, this is over? Like what? And I didn’t want to
read the second one. This one was more of just like a long intro, getting the characters really
fleshed out. And then now we’re going to go on our on our Epic Quest.
If I had it my way, I think it would have been either you the first 10 hours is basically the
first book of what we just read in the second 10 hours is the like them on the adventure. Or
you almost just start it when like the dining hall scene was like awesome. Be almost started
there. And then you flashback to how they got there as they go on the adventure, which you know,
a lot of other when they when they do stars will their bias play that one. Yeah, so they all come
together. And it’s like you almost were like, who are all these people that have come together in
this one room? And now they’re going to take off in this adventure. And then you kind of flash
back to like, Oh, here they who they are. And why they act this way. So you almost get a backstory
as you’re going. Because then you’re kind of on the adventure. Instead of just being like,
All right, there’s going to be a venture coming. It’s coming. Don’t worry. It’s coming.
Books are I did find it was kind of interesting that this book was 25 hours long and granted I
was doing a lot of yard work as I was listening to it. So I wasn’t quote unquote bored anyways.
But at no point did I feel like it was dragging the last quarter of it. It really seemed to pick
up steam. There was no point though I was where I was like, I need to keep listening. Like I can’t
stop now until the last quarter where I was like, all right, let’s go now. Now, now I’m ready. And
then I was starting getting worried. I was like looking at the time being like, wait a second.
What’s going on here? This is this knock. We’re going to get to what we need to get to.
All right. We’re going to talk more about this stuff. I’m sure. So what else do you have for
stock up? Well, I’m going to keep it right in the football world. Okay. You’re using those
analogies perfectly. Doc up Brian Dawkins, aka Weapon X. Have you seen these clips on YouTube
before his highlight tape? Yeah. So one of my favorite videos of him is interviewing him and
like his personality and they’re like talking about his like off the field and on the field.
And he turns into Weapon X, which is like Wolverine, essentially when he goes on the field outside
the field. He’s like this very religious, very humble, doesn’t curse. You know, everything he
does is very, very interesting, genuine and super, super nice guy. He also went to Clemson,
Harvard to the south. So you can tell he’s intelligent. He’s just a super nice dude. And then on the
field, he before the games, he starts speaking in tongues. He starts literally going crazy. He
oils up his muscles to make them look good. So he looks insane. And he starts speaking in tongues.
He starts speaking to the ball. There’s no like, there’s times where like camera hasn’t been
fun. They just catches him just talking to the ball. He’s just like, he’s like, we’re gonna
play well today. I need you to be on my side. And he’s just like whispering to the ball. And then
he starts speaking in tongues. There’s very, so much got to tell that guy. There’s like 12
different balls they play with in a game. So he’s got to go. He’s got to go. His side line’s going
to the other sideline get their balls. He just turns his whole different personality. And I
love it. I love the video. But that’s what the bloody night, when he turned out that switch,
I literally was laughing. I was like, this is the greatest thing ever when he just turned that
switch and became that psychopath. I mean, that was great. It was tough that that was,
again, that was the last hour of the book that happened. So I’m like, where was this the whole
time? Yeah, give me bloody night. We got Logan nine fingers. He was like super nice and like
probably the most kind person, not just nice, but like actually kind person in this book. But then
you didn’t understand his history. They were like, I don’t really see this guy. I mean, the guy that
won 10 doors. It doesn’t really make sense to me. And he’s like, everything’s luck. You know,
I just got lucky sometimes. I was like, yeah, I guess so. And then he turns into the bloody
night. And it’s like, some guys like, do you know who I am? He’s like, you’re the next one to die.
All right. Shit. When he headbudded the guy and they described it as a woodpecker.
Yeah. Just kept headbudding him over and over again. Awesome. Yeah. That’s a psychopath.
Well, it’s funny you say that because my next talk up was named men, which is the thing we’re
on the same path today. Let’s go. I had the same one, but yeah, which is just like a thing for the
Northman in this book. Some of the Northmen are named men. And I think you know, you have to
win some battles or you have to do something to distinguish yourself. I mean, we got the dog
man who just has a great nose. You know, he smells out the other guy. So it’s like, all right,
he’s the dog man. Got it. Logan nine fingers, pretty self explanatory. We didn’t learn a lot
about the origins of some of the other named men, but being a named man is it’s just badass.
And I’m not sure why we don’t have that in our culture. I feel like even in sports,
it’s fallen off. You did use Brian Dawkins as Weapon X, which I appreciate. But we used to have
Babe Ruth, the great Bambino, the Colossus of clout. And I was trying to think about who we have
today. I never thought of Brad, Brian Dawkins is a good one. And honestly, all I could think of was
the Oracle of Omaha, like Warren Buffett, which is more about that. He’s known as the Oracle of
Omaha, which is a great nickname, the named man. That’s that’s not bad. But can you think of any
other ones? I mean, you already shared Brian Dawkins. So what’s the difference to sanction
between his eyes that stock up nicknames? What do you think the distinction between name man
and nicknames is a nickname is just a thing where a name has to be due to something like something
you did. For example, in American pie, the one guy who has to go home to poop every time he can’t
poop at school, his nickname is shit break, because he has to take a shit break during school,
which I appreciate that is a named man. You know, it’s not like a it’s a nickname, but he’s it’s
a name because of the distinction between the two. It’s due to do it. Well, if you’re saying
a mind nickname is demon, that’s just like my first letter of my first name plus man. Okay,
I see her saying. Yeah. So it’s an action that’s created a new nickname for that person. Yeah,
like our friend, whose last name is Poochy. We call him pooch. That’s not if you walked around
barked, that would make more sense. But it’s just a nickname. Like the mailman Carl Malone always
delivers. That’s a good one. Yeah, there you go. So yeah, that was that was that was my that was my
stock up. Amen. Let’s let’s do more of it people. Yeah, I’ll add to is that the group of dogman,
three trees, black dow, thunderhead. Yeah. And then uh, forlty the weakest. Yeah, I felt that
before. Yeah. The only thing I would have commented on is like, give me more of them. I didn’t really
want to hear about Luther anymore. I haven’t said that’s before, but I don’t care about a
character that just complains all the time, which that’s what Luther was. He just didn’t
hand it everything in life. And he was just still complaining. And I was like, all right,
I get it. This guy’s a huge bitch. I don’t want to hear anymore about him. Give me these guys.
Give me these five guys what they’re doing in the woods. I couldn’t agree with you more. I was
I was excited for them to meet back up. It almost seemed like they were having a side quest,
but now they’ve seen the flatheads. They know these flatheads are coming for
the Northmen. So they go to let Bethad know, hey, Bethad, just FYI know we’re not in good terms,
but I just want you to know like these flatheads are coming for you. And instead they just kill
our boy Forley and threw our guys over. But the good thing is that now their mentality is we have
to go fight Bethad no matter what, even if we’re fighting for the union. And I think I’m almost
certain that in future novels, we get a lot more of that group. My last stock up was Game of Thrones
and I feel like this book may have taken some inspiration from Game of Thrones just in general
of a King of the North and the Chaka or the flatheads who were talking about their
a humanoid race similar to Orcs kind of, I guess, but they live mostly in the North and want to
kill everything. Sounds a lot like White Walkers to me. I’m not saying at all that Joe Abercrombie
ripped off George RR, but I do feel I was thinking it was more like the Mistborn creatures that the
Emperor had built, right? The things that the skins like peeling off and things like that, right?
Colosse, the Colosse. Yeah, and all they do is tack. That’s all they’re like known for. And
that’s what it sounded like these people were as well. Right. So maybe it’s somewhat of like a
ubiquitous thing throughout fantasy, but more of my of my stock up was just that and it really
not stock up to Game of Thrones, but at this point, I think Game of Thrones, there was like a break
in between books and he took long breaks between books. So if you were a Game of Thrones fan at
this time, like 2007, and you stumbled upon this, it would have really scratched the niche for you,
I think. So stock down, what do you got? Getting compliments, stock down. Okay, you’re a big
compliment guy. You know, you’re really good looking. Thank you. All right, never mind. It’s
back to stock. Thank you. Didn’t do like a, you know what? Actually, sometimes you need it, kid.
Okay, well, it’s nice to hear once in a while. I’ve told you before, like, I got complimented in
2008 on a shirt color, I wore and that color like blue looks good with your eyes. And I was like,
Oh, okay. And then every single thing I bought from then on out to this day is blue. And all it
takes is one comic. That’s that’s not rare. It’s honestly really true. I guess it’s
stock down in this instance, because comments can kind of make you a little bit set in your ways,
or you know, don’t know how that hunger. It’s a quick snippet of the books you might have missed
this. But they’re talking about the great hall of like the banquet hall or whatever, and how
there’s a stage built there. And the reason that they build those different kings of views,
different things for it. So there’s like entertainment or some pieces for torture. But by far, the best
one was the one of the kings hired people that looked like his enemies. And during breakfast,
they would just hurl insults at him. And he would just like shit on him. And the reason he did that
was to keep that like the hate and anger. Yeah, it was all I do remember that. And I was like,
wow, this is Michael Jordan right here. Yeah, this is exactly what you need. Yeah, Brady would do
the same thing. You know, they’re all the great. So really appreciated that. And keep the hate
coming and keep keep the anger that fire and the belly and deed my first stock down. And it’s been
discussed in this pod before. So you might have to Google it if you’re not familiar, because I’m
not going to explain it is edging. So that’s what’s called right? Correct. You know, it’s called
Get Out of Here. Come on. So to me, this is a whole book of edging. You think something big is going
to happen. And you’re waiting for the moment of the clouds in the rain, C Shogun. But nothing
ever comes literally. Big difference too is instead of being two minutes, it’s 20 hours. So yeah,
some tantric love going on right there. And it’s all entertaining and definitely a page turner.
But for what I assumed was going to be an epic story, it’s not. It’s pretty small in scope. We’re
really just dealing with Addua here in terms of this whole world. The vast majority of the story
happens in Addua with like some brief moments in the north. And anytime that something kind of gets
going, even the the fencing match matches, I was like, Oh, okay, this is going to be like a night’s
tale. And like it’s going to be built around this. But then they skipped a couple and it was just
kind of like flash forward to him winning. And the last one, I mean, it was interesting, but it wasn’t
epic at all. And then they get to buy as comes the city. And they’re he’s like, okay, I got the
key to the house of the maker, which hasn’t been opened in centuries. It’s like, this is going to
be something’s going to be in there. This is going to be crazy. And they bring out a box. It’s like
that that was it. Don’t go down that way. No, don’t go down there. All right, take this box. Let’s go.
What’s in the box? What’s in that box? And then our boy, Glockda, Glockda from Glosta,
you know, the Andy sent away to a city that’s fighting the gurkish. We don’t know who were the
gurkish. We don’t know anything about them. We just know that like they held Pharaoh. And I think they
were the ones that had glockda in prison, because I think it was the emperor of Gurka or whatever,
had Glockda as his prisoner. So it seemed like at every step, we were going to get some crazy
stuff going down, especially with a cold open of Logan nine fingers fighting off a bunch of flat
heads and then jumping off of a cliff, which was another potential stop up for me is like falling
off of a cliff. You know, he does it, Ergorn does it. I think Indiana Jones has done it like 30 times.
It doesn’t do anything. Just jump off a cliff. You can’t nothing bad can happen to you. Never,
ever happens. So back to my edging though, it didn’t fulfill that need that we kind of talked
about earlier, but at the same time, I liked every minute of it. I really enjoyed it.
I had some lost vibes with it where as you got further and further into it, you thought,
okay, some of these questions will be answered. And it just more questions became apparent.
Wait, there’s more wizards? Oh, and they’re going to this weird hall and you know,
it just keeps on opening, opening up. Yeah, especially when they’re talking about Bias,
who’s the first of the Magi, he had his teacher or whatever, then these like the first people who
are the first creatures in this land or whatever the case was. And the idea of the first law being
don’t touch the other side, they go to the other side to pull magic over because the other side’s
where the demons are. I was like, Oh, okay, this is going to be cool. Because there’s going to be
something along with that. But we didn’t necessarily get it. And a lost vibes is a good take on this
because so many seeds were planted that I’m hoping that we can sow them all. But it’s also like,
there’s so many seeds that I kind of forget a lot of what they were trying to sell me.
You almost forget which questions you haven’t been answered yet. Yeah, exactly. Like it was like,
Oh, that was interesting. But I’m probably going to forget about it immediately.
And we also don’t know none of the motives for why this crew isn’t even in the crew. And that’s
we’re 20 hours of the book. You know what I mean? Like, which is fine if there was some story that
was resolved. But yeah, obviously, Baez handpicked them to be in this crew. But for what purpose and
I mean, it all makes me definitely want to read the second one because I liked the characters so
much. And I think that’s something that we haven’t really necessarily talked about. But we’ll talk
about that. So what else would you have for stock down? Yeah, last one was just standing out in a
group stock down. You just never really want this. I’ve realized because either you’re the worst in
the group and everyone just makes funny you a K for the weakest or you’re the leader. And everyone
expects you to know the decisions and then you have all the blame. So I feel like you’re just in the
middle of the pack and you’re just kind of you can be the one making fun of the person below you.
You mean one blaming the person above. Yeah, middle management. Yeah, exactly. Exactly.
Exactly. Just passing the book everywhere you can. Not my fault as a person that’s below me that
messed up. We’ll have to get rid of them or not my fault. You’re not going to raise the person
above me. You know, that’s just the key to middle management is those all it comes down to. Exactly.
That’s a good take. I like that. Yeah, thank you. It’s always going to work for me. Shit rolls
downhill. But if you’re somewhere in the middle of the hill, sometimes you can dive out of the way.
If you’re at the top of the hill, you’re pushing the shit. And if you’re at the bottom of the
hill, you’re getting smushed by shit and you’re living with it. Either way, you’re not waking up
with it in your pants. That’s the key. That’s the key to life, really. My last lockdown is long-term
commitments. So I’ve been dancing around this too. But I like this book and I do want to know more
about these characters. You know, we’ll Logan our infamous barbarian meet up with his buddies.
You know, why did Baez decide to come back to the city like now at this point in history?
What’s his plan? What’s the deal with Pharaoh? Why do they need her? What was it that she heals
fast or something? She’s her own version of Weapon X. Couldn’t inch, can’t see colors for
some reason that matters. I don’t know why that matters. But she seems super badass. I really
wish we had more Pharaoh. So I’m hoping we barely hung out with her at this point. So I’m hoping
we get a lot more. And then I’m at this point at the end of this book, I’m like, all right, cool.
I’m ready for this trilogy. I’m ready to finish it. I’m not doing any trilogies or series at this
point. I could be into this. I go look it up. It’s not only one trilogy. It’s two trilogies,
plus like 20 short stories. Oh, did I say my lockdown was long-term commitments? Because I’m
not in a place in my life to make that kind of commitment. Why did I say this? I’m talking about
books, obviously, not relationships. I love to missborn and red rising, which were both trilogies.
But it took me a year to get through each of those because I like to mix it up and see what
else is out there. And I’ve also been burned before. I’ve dived into promising trilogies,
just to get disappointed at the end after investing 60 plus hours. Don’t get me started on Game of
Thrones. I was obsessed over it for years. I read them after they come out. So I was kind of reading
one after another. But they still took so long to read because they’re massive books. And I’ve
been left standing at the altar by George R. R. since. So I will finish this trilogy, but I really hope
it gives me the closure that I need. Well, I will say just doing a quick look at the
ratings of the next two books, 4.4, 4.3. So higher than the first one.
The only thing is the problem with it like that is that if you didn’t like, you’re not going to
read the second and third. So it doesn’t really, you know, that’s the only problem with the sequels
as you never know with that. And then my last quick one, Stockdown, is the Golden Rule,
which is treat others as you want to be treated. It’s not enough, honestly. We need a second rule,
like they have in this book. Don’t eat human flesh. Maybe it can be the silver rule to the
Golden Rule. Eaters, these are, there’s eaters in this book, which they get powers. They get like
magical powers or something for eating human flesh. Maybe it should be the eighth rule.
So yeah, I think there’s, there’s only two laws that we know of so far. One is don’t go to the
other side, right? Or like don’t interact with the other side, which is the rule number one. And
then rule number two is don’t eat people. So pretty, pretty straightforward, honestly. Although
Logan has magical abilities. He talks to spirits. I was just smoking the gonjourm pretty sure, right?
I would have used with smoke something and be like, whoa, what’s up, man? You know, like the
spirits were like never given an opinion or anything. So I was like, you’re just talking to yourself.
He held that fire in his mouth and then spit it at that guy in order to chop his arm off,
which I thought was pretty badass. So the bloody nine has got tricks up his sleeve. You gotta,
you gotta be careful. Did you have a favorite scene? I mean, you talked about Luther’s,
I like the dinner scene a lot. That’s when things started to finally kind of click.
I just love a scene where one person knows her and they’re right. You just wait for that to play
out. I just really like the the bias. The scene ends with him breaking into its chair and everyone’s
like, no, that’s fine. That’s normal. I was like, what? It doesn’t everyone think he’s a wizard now?
Or is that just how are they still confused? Yeah, I didn’t get that part. Or the fact that
there clearly is magic because they went to that house, right? And they like, it’s just in the middle
of the what the the city and like no one can go in there. It’s a door that’s locked. There’s no key
or anything. But if anyone goes near it, they get sick. There’s something going on there. Like,
right? I don’t know. It could be like Chernobyl. Yeah. Just a nuclear bomb when officer they’re
like, well, I’m gonna stay away from this thing. Yeah, it seems like it’s a it’s like one of the
peaks of the castle. It’s in the castle itself. It’s just like it’s on a house that’s just like
sitting there. You know what I mean? It’s like up high in the castle. But yeah, I do agree. The thing
is though that magic hasn’t been seen for so long that people just forget that it’s even real. And
the idea that the real by as is here, considering there’s been so many people who have said there
by us, if it’s like a portly old guy who’s bald, you’re not like, this is the greatest wizard of
all time or the greatest magi of all time. You just say this is some guy who’s putting on airs.
I could see their skepticism, but especially with glauchta, when he sees that bomb go off in
that place, he’s like, thing exploded, dude. I don’t understand. Well, he obviously can see
the explosion, but the idea that he went and tested everything out with the scientists or
whatever and said, how much of this explosive powder would it take to go through a four foot wall
and then it’s like, what? Too much that’s even in the empire. So I feel like he’s a smart guy. He
should figure that out. Well, I think the problem with glauchta is he’s been trained to automatically.
I mean, they proved that well, like everything he does is this person’s guilty now, let me find
how they’re guilty, which is like a terrible way to be an investigator. So I know he’s supposed to
be smart, but I also think he’s kind of been trained to be an idiot. The traitor was like right
on another nose and he didn’t even consider that. Like the most obvious answer would be the one
person that has access to the slip of paper is the person that is the bad guy. And he was like,
nah, I can’t be that mischievous, someone else. Like, hmm, that’s a little weird.
My favorite scene, I think, was the Logan and Pharaoh when they fight off the inquisitors,
the inquisition or whatever. That was the practicals. Amazing. It felt like a fight
scene for Mission Impossible or like a Daniel Craig James Bond movie or the Matrix for that matter.
It was just brutal and awesome. It’s like going from building to rooftops, then into some field,
to then back into a building and then they’re stuck and just brutality ensues. So I thought
that was awesome, especially that it culminated in them getting back to the group. The inquisitors
showing up and bias coming out of the bathroom naked being like, what the hell’s going on here?
And then turning one of the practicals into what I’m saying.
And just like popping them into pink mist. And I was like, all right, uh, yes, we got to get out
of here. I honestly don’t know how Logan can move after that though. He was torn to pieces. So
they’re like, you know, we have to get on a ship now. It’s like, he needs a surgeon. This guy needs
he needs to be in a hospital bed for like 10 days. So it was awesome though. I really enjoyed that.
For sure. What about your character? So the thing I think that I loved most about this book in general
and maybe I’m spoiling my love, but the characters are so well established. He spent so much time
fleshing out these characters. You know exactly who they are by the end of this book where I hope
then we can just like get onto the plot devices and whatnot. But you know, they’re their motivations
as well. What drives them? I thought that each one you felt was interesting, but in its own way.
I always thought it was kind of hard to pick a character because between Logan,
Glockda, Luther, I’m with you. I didn’t like necessarily like him as a character, but I appreciated
that he was there. The author was able to put him in there because there’s like vain guy. I feel
like he’s going to get his come up ins a little bit and get humbled a little bit and then maybe
change his tune. And then obviously Baez, who’s wonderful in his own right. And Pharaoh, who we
barely even met. But who do you like? Yeah, I think once Baez tells Luther, yeah, the
owner is anyone because I made you in. Like he’ll, that’s going to humble him real with work. So
I’m looking forward to that. Baez is my favorite. This is like kind of probably a trope at this
point, but any wizard at this point, I feel like it seems to be old, babbling, humorous,
underestimated dude with a good sense humor that all of a sudden can turn dark real real quick.
And you’re like, Oh, shit, this person’s super powerful and super scary. That’s Gandalf. That’s
Dumbledore. That’s even Yoda. Like those are the like, they’re all like bumbling weird guys that
like, Oh, and then they’re like, you fuck around or you find out real quick. Yeah, like all three of
them love ripping pipes. They just fucking love the devil’s lettuce. So I think that’s in your
future. Do you know, 30 years from now, you’re gonna be ripping pipes, having been funny, then
you get on that pickleball ball core and people are going to find out real quick. I got pickleball
to more six 30 in the morning. It’s going to be this good. That is very dedicated. Some people
by the way, I was like six there. I was like, what time is like six 30? And like, you know that you’re
40 minutes away from me. I was like, all right, well, I have to go with glockda. I honestly think he’s
one of the best characters. Very rich enough. I’ve read. Yeah, I can’t think of a greater
character that I’ve read because he’s just so interesting. He was like an upper crust sword
fighting prodigy that the world comes crashing down on when he’s wounded and then captured at war
and tortured relentlessly. I also think the audiobook, like we built it, we both listened to the audiobook,
the narrator does such a good job with all of them, but especially him because the thing we forget is
that glockda doesn’t have many teeth. They did a fucked up thing where they basically gallomed him
where they broke the top or bottom tooth, but never like two in a row. So like you don’t have a
matching top tooth to your bottom tooth. So you can’t like eat things. It’s just, it’s so messed up
the way they torture it, but the narrator gives him a lisp that’s perfect, I feel like for his
character. Glockda is miserable, but he’s also hilarious. You get so many inner monologues with him
where he’s having these like quippy one liners too, and he feels like he’s the smartest guy in
the room surrounded by idiots, but also doesn’t want to live anymore. He’s like done with life.
And then you see his other side that he didn’t even know he had when him and West have that
moment towards the end. Glockda felt like I’m on an island, it’s just me against the world,
and I really don’t care if I lose. And then call him West who’s like his buddy, they have that heart
to heart. And I feel like Glockda’s taking a little turn here. So yeah, I just thought he was,
he was the most interesting, the funniest, and also I think you’re understanding, I think he’s got a
pretty keen eye. So, okay. Yeah. No, I like that, that’s pretty good. I also thought the audiobook
guy did a really good job because he does that list when he talks, when he’s thinking, you know,
like in the conversations he’ll be wanting to say something who doesn’t say it, you knew when he
wasn’t actually speaking because he would talk normally. So that made it so you could actually
understand when he was talking versus when he was wanting to say something he didn’t say. Next
level job by the narrator, I will also burn my hate here though. When he did Glockda,
and when he did Chamberlain Hoff, he sounded a lot like Mr. Burns from The Simpsons.
And it was funny as they both say excellent a lot, which Mr. Burns says, he was excellent.
And so it was like exactly like, I took me a little bit because the beginning is a lot of
Glockda and Chamberlain Hoff, you know, those like political scenes or whatever. And I was just
like, all I hear is Mr. Burns in my head. Love, hate, love, what do you got?
Yeah, I think we did a lot of them already. But love, you mentioned Glockda. One thing I
don’t think you mentioned was I do really like that someone that has been tortured is the only
one that should be tortured with people. Someone that’s been to war should be the only one sending
people to war, you know, because if you experienced it, he’s like, listen, I fucking been through this
fuck you, you know, so I actually can respect that someone that’s tasted their own medicine can
can dish out the medicine. He’s been so humbled that he doesn’t even care anymore. People, you know,
someone would be like, Oh, I feel pain. He’s like pain. Do you know what pain is? Like,
I shit myself in the morning when I wake up, like he’ll straight up say that to people. And he
hates stairs. He hates stairs so much, which is real. That’s his real item is stairs. So yeah,
I said that the characters, like I said, I love that. And then my only other love here was just,
there’s just funny lines and situations that happen, you know, mostly between Glockda and
Baez. I feel like they were the key contributors there. But in a fantasy genre, I guess that’s kind
of a bit doer, as they say in the book. It’s nice that you know, you can’t, you don’t necessarily
think all there’s going to be these like uplifting comedic moments. But Jarber probably found ways
to fit those in. And they were always enjoyable and didn’t feel like he was like stuffing something
that was kind of funny into a scene that didn’t really need it. It brought some some levity to it.
It was nice. You definitely felt like you were transported into this world and into these
characters. You didn’t just think like, okay, this needs to get to the next plot point, which
I know we’re criticizing that for the same reason. But at the same time, like you mentioned, you
really do hardly know the characters because you think you’re, you just feel like you’re in the
shoes almost. And you don’t think, all right, this is just to get to the story. Yeah, on the whole,
I mean, we’ve been grabbing a little bit about the plot points. And I think that’s fair. I think
that’s a fair assessment for this book. But on the whole, I liked it a lot. I don’t think it’s
going to break my top 10 or anything. But I liked it enough that I could, I really want to read the
next one. I really like the characters. I think he did such a good job setting them up that now
I’m excited to see them go on their journey. And hopefully it fulfills it. I think it’s almost
something that should be lauded because he was able to make such an interesting fantasy story
without a lot of the fantasy adventure elements that we expect from a book like this.
Again, that’s one of the biggest things we’ve criticized or at least I have in the past. Hey,
I need a story out here. And if you can keep me entertained and saying, you know what, I’m going
to get the second one a chance here too. You know, after not really delivering a true full complete
story, you know, that’s pretty impressive. What about hates? Don’t say plot. I think most of the
hates. I didn’t really understand Yuri brought up the artifact. I’m getting that. I didn’t know
idea what’s really going on with that scene. There was a little bit little meta for me or
something going on there. I don’t know what happened. Well, they got a seed. And for me, I thought
the seed was going to be like a child or something like that. Like, Oh, you know, like seed of his
loins kind of thing. But it was just like, I think there’s like an actual seed in a box. I don’t
know exactly. Maybe they’re going to grow a beanstalk and climb up and find a giant. So yeah, there
was some of that stuff I didn’t necessarily between that. And then I thought the political stuff was
good in that it showed us what’s happening in this main capital in terms of like who the players are.
But they ended up finding out it’s this law firm or whatever that might be behind a lot of this
corruption. But who’s running this law firm? Like the people don’t exist. I honestly wasn’t really
invested into that storyline. Maybe that’s going to change. But yeah, I don’t know. Like the whole
corruption aspect doesn’t really interest me a ton. Yeah, I agree. The I also thought the fencing
stuff was it was just not much stakes in it. I didn’t really care about Luther that much. It
wasn’t to the death. It was interesting that bias was able to help him win. But we don’t know for
what reason, you know, so it was just like a lot of buildup for not really good payoff in my opinion.
I was a little disappointed that the only character that seemed likable and you know,
one to root for was Wes. But by the end of the book, Wes was like the worst character. I was like,
oh, this dude sucks. He basically is constraining his sister but not helping her in any way. Didn’t
save her from her dad. Then chokes her out at the end of the book. I was like, oh, so this guy is
the worst fucking dude ever. So like he just went from being someone that you were like,
finally a character we can like and root for it. Oh, this guy’s the worst.
He has his own complications too, which is what I like about all the characters is,
you know, he’s a guy from a far-funk, flung place who’s now rising up in the ranks,
but it doesn’t have the name to go along with it. So he feels a ton of pressure
to do that. But he doesn’t realize that he’s probably one of the best people because he’s
actually fought in wars. You know, he’s fought in battles before and all these rich pompous
assholes kids who he’s going to be taking to war don’t necessarily believe in him. And he’s
concerned about that. Like, well, they listen to me, but I think he’s gonna, I think he’s gonna shine.
I’d like a Luther over him. Luther at least is, he’s what he is. I’m a selfish, you know,
everything’s about me. Look at my child. Yeah, there’s no veneer. It’s just that’s what he is.
Whereas West pretends like he’s like, oh, I had to work super hard at all these things,
but all he cares about himself. He’s just as selfish as Luther, but he pretends like he isn’t.
He just pretends he’s different than them, which he isn’t. He’s not different than them at all.
If you were born in the same station that Luther would, he’d be Luther. Like, that’s what you
realize being in the book. And it’s like, oh, okay. So this West dude kind of sucks too. Yeah.
And I agree with you on the Joust stuff too, just mostly because we have somewhat recently
read Rage of Dragons, which is the book I started earlier. And I think that’s all about Joust scenes
for the first half. And those are so awesome. Just so good. And a lot of that people do end up dying.
Okay, Keith, this was the blade itself. Would you recommend it? Yeah, I think we always say if
it’s like multiple books, it’s whether you’d read the second one. I would read the second one.
I think we already lamented about the disappointments on some of the things. I think it was good enough
to get me interested in the second one when we all read that one. Not sure. But yeah, I would say,
yeah. Yeah, unfortunately, we have tough time making long-term commitments because we have a
few different books in the hopper. But I might put it on as my side piece for a while. I need a new
side piece. So after listening to a book about this book, Outlive, which is basically about how to
lengthen your healthy life and also just your life life. It’s a bit heavy, honestly, very
scientific. But also I’m like, wow, I’m probably going to die. So you’re trying to live longer?
Like what are we doing here? I mean, what? Try to live better. All right, there. I want to
put pickleball until I’m 95. You know, I want to be out there. That’s our question people.
Smoking that pipe and going out there and crushing like I said, or yoda doesn’t have a pipe. Yeah,
he does. He smokes in the first puffing on something. Really? I’m making that up. Yoda smoking. These
are all memes. These are all memes. I don’t know if they’re actually real. I think he’s like in his
hut, he might be like cooking something or there’s just like smoke happening. What planet is that?
God, I’m fucking losing my Star Wars knowledge. I got to step up. There you go. Okay. Yeah. Well,
maybe he wasn’t smoking it, but I remember smoking it in my mind. Yeah, I would recommend the blade
itself. I thought it’s very different than some of the other like fantasy stuff we’ve read. And in
a good way, I’m excited to read the second one. I honestly am. I’m I’m I want to get back with
these characters. Basically, I missed I missed hanging out with them. Keith, what do we got coming
up next? We got the three body problem coming up next by Lou, L.I.U. Sixon, C.I.X. I.N. So that’s
probably completely butchered. We’ll find it on the internet and we’ll make sure during the actual
podcast, we know this person’s name. Netflix show coming up for that. Yeah. So we decided because
of this Netflix show coming up, which is interesting because everything I’ve read about this Netflix
show is that it’s a total disaster. Oh, really? Well, see, but I was actually I heard the book
is good. Yeah. So have I and I was out to dinner with a friend like if that just from work, not
like an old friend from work or I didn’t even know. And she was talking about books as one naturally
does. And she was like, you got to read the three body problem. So it was one of those I heard it
from her and then I saw it was on Netflix. Then you said someone had suggested to you. So it was
like a rule three. We had to do it. So yeah, yeah. All right. That was the blade itself.
And we’ll catch you all next time for the three body problem. Keith talk to you then. All right.
Bye now.