[the broken]

This was my least favourite Esslemont Book so far

I loved ROTCG, but this book I just couldn't get into. Nothing wrong per se, but it wasn't the story I wanted to read.

Spoiler

Far too many cameos. There was no great justification for many of these characters to be in Li Heng, Dassem. Baudin. The Crimson Guard. Nightchill. Felt pretty unnatural.

Kellanved was annoying, and there was absolutely no reason for Dancer to have any loyalty to him, he just kept endangering his life and was never any help from any problem he hadn't caused in the first place. I think the story could have benefited from Dancer being on his own, becoming a force on his own during the siege. Then head to Malaz in book 2, have them meet and start working together when he has a rep built.. Silk and the protectress was nice, but I didn't feel Wu earned any of the respect he got, the city mages should have been a lot harder to trick, Kellanved didn't earn his success or loyalty, I kept hoping someone would beat him up whenever he had screentime. I didn't see any bond between K and D, why were they even working together?

[worry]

What was your favorite part?

[the broken]

Oponn Relationship, on 15 April 2016 - 01:32 AM, said:

What was your favorite part?

Sorry, I may have been overly negative.

Basically any time Dancer was on his own doing assassiny things. I liked the core story of the siege, Protectress, and city mages, but I thought a lot of the cameos took away from the story as a whole.

[Salt-Man Z]

I get where you're coming from. Most of the cameos I was fine with, but I can see why someone might be annoyed with them. If anything, what bothered me was the Wu/Dancer stuff you mentioned. Most disappointing for me was the fact that Wu/Kell arrived pretty much fully-formed as his crazy Shadowthrone self; it would have been nice to give him a chance to grow a little more. And yeah, Dancer's quick turn from

Spoiler

"I'ma hunt this dude down and kill him" to "Okay maybe I'll go along with his crazy"

seemed a little sudden. Perhaps the biggest thing that bugged me, though, was

Spoiler

how did Dancer get one over on the thug-boss (forget his name) that roughed him up in the first place? He comes into the guy's office, dude's got a hidden crossbow trained on him, and Dancer's all "Rent me a room and give me my knives back" and the guy just immediately capitulates?

That seriously had me puzzled for half the book, like, go back and reread it a number of times to see if I missed anything. (I eventually decided to give up and just roll with it.)

Minor complaints from me, though. Was it the story I wanted to read? Maybe not, but I certainly enjoyed it for what it was, and the writing was ICE's best yet.

[nacht]

I dont think ICE intended to create cameos (this is what I understood from his interview). It seems more like a side effect of him trying to connect the threads across his other books.
If you think any of them are superficial, please list them as they would be good fodder for a discussion.

Regarding Wu, I found his characterization very interesting and entertaining. We can now empathize with all those other characters like Laseen and Daseem and most others, who were driven crazy by this behavior.
Regarding Dorin and Wu, I came out with the a new understanding of their relationships, perhaps they are not as close as we are prone to think.
Also I see Wu as being the victim here in the relationship, he comes out as more trusting and forgiving that Dorin and willing to to be patient so as to build the relationship.
Wu is basically semi insane and he is very comfortable with that. It is upto others to adjust to him depending on what value they see.

And I have now even more respect for QB. To beat ST at his own game, that is hard to even imagine.

[worry]

I don't mind crazy Wu, but I do think he is gonna have to explicitly show himself as something more than that at some point for the story to work. He has to earn the loyalty he gets from a whole host of people, even if it's in little moments (and we do get those in MBOTF of course -- and here a bit too with him saving the kids).

[nacht]

What we have here is the same argument that Nightchill and Krul had.

[nacht]

Wu is aware that he can't accomplish much by himself, that he has to build a team and he is offering that opportunity to several oppressed people like the kids and Dorin who are left out of the existing power structure.
Without Wu, Dorin might just finish his life as Pung's enforcer. Wu showed him the possibility of doing much bigger things, but only as part of the team and cost of this is to trust Wu, which is very hard to do, one because he is crazy and two because he might just sacrifice you.

[worry]

I just think it's braver and better storytelling if there's at some point an acknowledgement by Wu that he needs his compatriots around, and not to keep him at arm's length 100% of the time. And I think ICE is up for it, so I'm not pessimistic at all that Kel will be compelling on top of everything else he is.

[the broken]

Spoiler

I didn't understand what Dorin was getting out of his relationship with Wu, it never benefited him and repeatedly endangered his life without even the benefit of an explanation. I don't see how Wu was a victim here, he never really tries to follow through on the contract.

[Abyss]

Part of Dorin's problem, his character arc really, is that he is this supreme assassin, but doesn't actually want to make killing people for money the purpose of his life.
Right from the start Wu presented Dorin with other options, however unclear or sketchy.

[MrXIII]

Abyss, on 16 April 2016 - 03:23 AM, said:

Part of Dorin's problem, his character arc really, is that he is this supreme assassin, but doesn't actually want to make killing people for money the purpose of his life.
Right from the start Wu presented Dorin with other options, however unclear or sketchy.

Indeed. Even an unclear notion of something grander is seen as enticing,while infuriating it is clearly more appealing than plodding along with the current unfulfilling certainty. Particularly given the opening I found it easy to see how Wu would become interesting to Dorin.

[nacht]

Being an assassin is a shitty career. Look at how Faruj and the other assassin (the other student of Faruj) ended up (not to mention all the nightblades).
Dancer avoided that fate. He quickly decided to train more students (instead of continuing with the old principle of assassins jealously guarding their knowledge). He is on his way to become Cotillion.
He created possibilities for future assassins like Ralick, to have the ability to influence and pursue their art without completely dehumanizing themselves.

[the broken]

nacht, on 25 April 2016 - 05:46 PM, said:

Being an assassin is a shitty career. Look at how Faruj and the other assassin (the other student of Faruj) ended up (not to mention all the nightblades).
Dancer avoided that fate. He quickly decided to train more students (instead of continuing with the old principle of assassins jealously guarding their knowledge). He is on his way to become Cotillion.
He created possibilities for future assassins like Ralick, to have the ability to influence and pursue their art without completely dehumanizing themselves.

I don't really see it. His own organisation, the Talons is rather a lot like the Nightblades from all we know about it. I could see Wu piquing his interest, but I don't see them bonding to the extent of

Spoiler

'Yes, I will try to kill the Protectress, a supremely powerful mage that just obliterated an army and I have no grudge against' when what he actually wants to do is leave town and go to Unta. Wu was never any use for anything he wanted or needed.

[worry]

If he really wanted to head to Unta, he would have.

[nacht]

the broken, on 25 April 2016 - 10:54 PM, said:

nacht, on 25 April 2016 - 05:46 PM, said:

Being an assassin is a shitty career. Look at how Faruj and the other assassin (the other student of Faruj) ended up (not to mention all the nightblades).
Dancer avoided that fate. He quickly decided to train more students (instead of continuing with the old principle of assassins jealously guarding their knowledge). He is on his way to become Cotillion.
He created possibilities for future assassins like Ralick, to have the ability to influence and pursue their art without completely dehumanizing themselves.

I don't really see it. His own organisation, the Talons is rather a lot like the Nightblades from all we know about it. I could see Wu piquing his interest, but I don't see them bonding to the extent of

Spoiler

'Yes, I will try to kill the Protectress, a supremely powerful mage that just obliterated an army and I have no grudge against' when what he actually wants to do is leave town and go to Unta. Wu was never any use for anything he wanted or needed.

Not sure we need spoiler tags, but anyway

Spoiler

First, the protecteress is weak and Wu knows it so Wu was not outright stupid.
Second, they figure out that they made a mistake by making a move on her. They became overconfident and were lucky to survive. (Nightchill explicitly warned them about this). The nightchill conversation with Dorin where she explicitly asks him about Wu makes him realize that Wu was onto something big.
Wu saved Dancers butt near the end when he almost died in the hands of Stephan. So yes, Wu was very useful to Dancer.

Quote

He blinked more and more slowly, his sight darkening with each fall of the eyelids. Movement roused him: the crackling of foot-steps in the the grit of the roof. A murky wavering shape halted next to him, a stick set down to the bricks, tapping.

[the broken]

Spoiler

Quote

First, the protecteress is weak and Wu knows it so Wu was not outright stupid.<br style="color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-size: 13px; line-height: 19.5px; background-color: rgb(34, 34, 34);">Second, they figure out that they made a mistake by making a move on her. They became overconfident and were lucky to survive. (Nightchill explicitly warned them about this). The nightchill conversation with Dorin where she explicitly asks him about Wu makes him realize that Wu was onto something big.<br style="color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-size: 13px; line-height: 19.5px; background-color: rgb(34, 34, 34);">Wu saved Dancers butt near the end when he almost died in the hands of Stephan. So yes, Wu was very useful to Dancer.

It's true that the Protectress is relatively weak, but Dancer doesn't have any real motivation to go after her or trust Wu. I'm not saying Wu is stupid, I'm saying there's no reason to Dancer to agree to it.

Wu spends most of his time being an obstacle to whatever Dancer wants at that particular moment. He impedes Dancer in going after Chulalorn. He appears next to him at the parade, which makes Pung turn on him. He doesn't tell Dancer where Pung is until forced to.

He doesn't provide any reason to be loyal to him enough to risk his life to go after the Protectress after a display like that. Crazy visionaries only go so far, there has to be something underneath it in order to gain that level of loyalty, and it wasn't on display in this novel. It makes sense in an RPG, because you know your friend isn't going to betray you, but in character, it doesn't work.

This post has been edited by the broken: 29 April 2016 - 06:09 PM

[theocean]

Why was dorin hunting wu to begin with? Who hired him for that and why?

[the broken]

Reread. I was overly negative in the OP, this is an amazing read, but Wu's constant abuse of everyone around him is still hard to stomach, he expects Dancer to always have his back but never returns the favour

Spoiler

He obviously knew about Ullara but made no effort to protect her.