Reviews with content warning for Violence - Last Argument of Kings

Discussion of The First Law: https://youtu.be/102HBqnE2u0.

This was such an uninspiring, 'nothingburger' of a series and, ehm... I guess I'll just more or less follow the same formula I used with the previous two volumes:

Plot and structure:

I stand by my initial impression, and following assertion that this story relies too heavily on 'subversion for its own sake'. It felt unpolished, immature (in the sense of 'not having completed its maturation process', not in the sense of 'this is for edgy teens', although... you be the judge of that lol). And I didn't care for it.

So snazzier Gandalf Bayaz is a power-hungry hoe, aight. Subverted Aragorn Jezal was nothing but the bought son of an unnamed prostitute, aight. Ferro fucks off because revenge YOLO!, aight. Logen, our friendly neighbourhood berserker, winds up right back where he started, kinda, because GUYZ! It's a loop of nihilistic randomness! Get it?? GET IT??????

I mean okay I guess. First Law has a kind of ending I would normally hate, but given how thoroughly uninvested I was in its 'story', and characters, I simply yawned and felt relieved I could finally move on to better literary pastures (*fingers crossed on that front*). :)

Character work:

Honestly, I don't get it: First Law's character work is not that good. 😂 It's not bad, but ASOIAF does it (way) better, fite me. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ And I'd go so far as to say I found there were gaps in character motivation, and character-building. Take Logen's 'berserkerism', for instance: what was it, exactly? A curse? Demonic possession? Mental illness? Contrived metaphor for the violence in the heart of Every Man™, hurr durr? Like a story doesn't have to delve that deeply into every single aspect of a character's psyche. But then... don't pretend it has the best character work evah, know what I mean? Or I mean you can, of course, and I'll simply agree to disagree. :)

Ferro was... ugh, once again fite me. I liked Glokta and Ardee's relationship, weirdly enough. I mean, Glokta was one of the more interesting characters (though that's not ultimately saying much, but anyhoo), and I found his friendship and... 'romance'/marriage of convenience – kind of – passably convincing and, well, maybe not emotionally satisfying, exactly, but tonally so.

World-building:

It just wasn't good, and that's that. So here's my advice: do not, I repeat do not pick this series up if good, engaging or interesting world-building (and theming, give me a second) is essential to your enjoyment of fantasy. My ex most definitely 'lied' to me there, so don't make the same mistake I did!

Theming:

Nothing, nada, zilch... beyond the most basic, bog-standard, baby's first steps into the nihilistic, edgy-adjacent message that: 'Life is meaninglessly random, randomly violent, and violently meaningless' (and even then it's a fairly milquetoast version of that). I guess there was also a very basic bitch 'power corrupts' motif (if you can even call it that). But like... putting aside the fact I'm not personally into nihilism, I find this kind of stuff unremittingly BO-RING, and uninspired to boot. So that's that.

That being said, if you're in the mood for entertainment-driven fantasy, this lack of theming (and deeper world-building) won't be a problem – more power to you there!

So I don't think First Law is trash, or 'offensively bad', right. It's just... incredibly mediocre, and the sum of it was definitely lesser than its constituent parts for me. I do not even remotely get the hype for this one, but, as always: to each their own!

PS: and it's just not that funny either, quite frankly.

Content Warnings