Chel

This was kinda born because I keep seeing certain takes on the genre (some naive. Some just plain bad) and I want to throw out my two cents.

The common critical take I see from people who aren't fans of the genre is they believe that Grimdark is "Everything sucks. People suck. You shouldn't fight to make things better. Just give up" and I just find this to be both a naive and pessimistic way of seeing things in this genre.

Yes, in Grimdark there's usually never a happy ending and the bad guys end up winning, but from what usually take from that is "don't want to be like these people".

I'll use The First Law trilogy by Joe Abercrombie as an example (because I love it so much).

The character, Logen Ninefingers constantly goes through the first two books saying that he wants to change. He doesn't want to be The Bloody Nine, he doesn't want to commit his life to violence anymore. He has a saying "you got to be realistic about things" and you think he's being wise. Until the third book comes along where Logen finds himself back in his comfort zone because, to him, change is too hard and that saying truly shows how much of a defeatist he is. He could've changed, he was at the point of changing but once one thing didn't pan out the way he expected, he decided that change was too hard and went back to his old habits (One of the things I took from The First Law was "If you want to change. You have fully commit to it").

So yeah, at the end of the third book, I ended up thinking, "I don't want to be a defeatist like Logen" (There are other characters I can go on about, like Jezal also wanting to change but ended up back as an entitled, pathetic, self-righteous brat for the most part... He's just fully aware of it now compared to before).

What it boils down to for me is unlike other fantasy genre where I get inspired and think "I should follow this example", Grimdark is the opposite and makes me think, "I definitely SHOULDN'T follow this example".

Adding my two cents to this, there are also things in The First Law that are good examples worthy of following. Logen working up the trust between him and Ferro and him and Jezal, being a staunch traveling companion. West working like a dog to be a good major, colonel, and lord marshal. Glokta being the most resilient and stubborn fucker in the whole circle of the world. Edier choosing treason to save a city. Yulwei choosing danger to save Ferro. Dogman doing his fighting best in the shadow of greater, bloodier men, even if it means doing it scared.

What I like about The First Law is that Abercrombie doesn't think his readers are stupid. His characters are bad, and good, and everything in between. Logen is still The Bloody Nine, Jezal is still a fool, Ferro is still empty, West still beat his sister, the Dogman still chose wrong about Logen. Glokta is still a torturer.

Big agree on the teeth front, but the general attitude towards fanart for this series is truly dire, so I tend to try not to be too critical of any fanart I see.

I've always loved the fact that this series doesn't often kill its characters, specifically because I love getting to see them experience injustices, good and bad. It shows that death isn't always the worst thing that can happen, narratively speaking, and sometimes characters might feel they'd have been better off not surviving, but they do, and then they have to face life, and perhaps their 'real' story begins after that point. Shivers is a great example: people often describe "Shivers's arc" in BSC, but I would argue BSC is just his origin story. Alternatively, you could say his story started when Logen killed his brother, and BSC is his coming full circle, with Red Country as a sort of addendum. And that's to say nothing of where he's at in AoM. We start TBI after Glokta's fall, only for him to rise again. Monza is also someone who went through a reversal and then a counter-reversal, as did Jezal (albeit in the opposite direction).

I think it's important to know that Abercrombie doesn't have a grand plan for anything in this series. Characters are tools, as he says, they aren't people to him, there's no "magic thinking" in his writing. The reason his characters are so dynamic is often because of the variety of situations they just sort of happen to face. He didn't write Red Country to expand on Logen's character, he picked both Shivers and Logen to be in Red Country because they just kind of fit the mould of character he wanted to put in his Western-style book. You could argue - and I'm pretty sure I have - that Shivers is straight up a different character in every book/trilogy he's in, that there's little to no actual cohesive "voice" to him - literally, considering how Pacey consciously changes Shivers's voice after the torture in BSC, as well as figuratively. And yet he is the same person, and in the standalones he's the throughline, the one character connecting all these disparate stories, timelines, genres. As much as characters change, they're still the same, and it actually makes me wonder how different a character would have to be in this series before I'm like "that seems OOC" xD. If Gorst can go from praising Jezal in TBI to being... well... Gorst, anything can happen as far as I'm concerned.

gorst is a great example of that, because we have no idea what he might have been thinking in TBI. if you only saw his letters in the heroes to the king, only looked at his interactions without his inner thoughts, then doesn't he become a different character entirely? and i think this became evident to me with dogman - the image of a calm soldier in the heroes, you almost forget he's afraid of combat. so, we don't know what shivers is thinking after BSC, and he remains a questionmark. perhaps he always has been one!

At some point Dow tuned in to the fact West has a brewing dormant anger. And what does he do then? He tells him to use it.

In an almost mentoring manner he coaxes it out of West when it's critically needed, with baffling effectiveness. He knows just what to say and do to make it happen, he recognizes a part of West he knows how to work. Like he knows that anger, and has been using it himself his whole life, instead of forcing it back.

And now here he is, right before a fight, giving advice to a Southerner he really has nothing but disdain for, yet. Sharing his advice, in his own callous way.

Why? Maybe because it's like he said; West fighting cold will get them both killed.

I don't entirely and objectively oppose myself to it, but... The balance-seeking part of my mind can't help but being offended by what feels like doing way too much and thus ruining a perfect balance.

Bayaz and Khalul forme a very nice complementary duo for the trilogy. One very present and seen, one unseen and far away from the plot. One protagonist but revealed to be vile, one antagonistic but turning out to be better than one would believe. Both having their own way of dealing with the loss of magic and maintaining their political presence - money for one, religion for the other. And more importantly, each one breaking one of the rules - one by creating Eaters the other by using demonic powers.

On the other hand, about that he shouldn't have eaters at all, I can't help but think about his quote;

"Power makes all things right. That is my first law, and my last. That is the only law that I acknowledge."

Even as the Northmen came pouring through the wheat to the east, then the Open Council through the orchards to the west. Even as the army of Angland advanced across the fields and engaged the Crown Prince’s Division in a vicious melee, then drove them back. Even as the rebels’ cannons started firing on Stoffenbeck. Even as the wounded crawled back through the streets, and the fires sprang up across the town, and the smoke billowed around the clock tower, his mood had continued to lift. As if he was somehow balanced on a set of scales against everybody else, and as their doubt and terror grew his own spirits soared.

He hoped that it looked like immense bravery, but it felt like nothing to be proud of. Immense stupidity, maybe. Immense arrogance. Perhaps that was all courage really was. Being so convinced of one’s own importance one came to believe death was something only other people need worry about.