Question on the age of madness trilogy - [SPOILERS ALH]
Loved the book. Return to form for Abercrombie after some inconsistent entries. Orso was super entertaining. Felt it was a tad fast paced though.
Things I didnt like about a little hatred
I don't know specifically what you're referring to, because there's a lot that could be considered political messaging in this book. A lot of it is par for the course in an Abercrombie book, but other things took me aback. They sounded way off, like the author had taken a sudden turn to preaching.
Some examples:
- Rikke suddenly coming out as a liberal soul who doesn't mind other people's sexual orientations, even though her homeland has so far been portrayed as the typical barbarian, hyper-masculine culture with very hard-set gender roles (Wonderful being the exception that confirms the rule)
- on the opposite side, Leo being a dumb homophobe who can't even explain why he thinks same-sex relations seem weird to him. Nice way to compliment his buffoonish personality
- Savine's face-maid (lisbit) who is the only overtly racist character, once again a nice way to complement a vapid personality. With the exception of her and, once again, Leo, everyone else is perfectly accepting of hordes of Gurkish immigrants flooding into the country.
- Every woman is extremely competent at what they do, while most male POV characters are idiots. Two of them are even under the wheel of their domineering mothers. (rikke to leo, savine to orso, wonderful to clover, liddy and may to gunnar)
- The few black characters are extremely competent as well, mostly seen in Savine's right-hand and even in the very short scene with her brothers (where they promptly make fun of the POV character for being an oblivious simpleton).
- Orso telling Leo it’s great that swaths of immigrants are coming into the country and diluting their cultural identity because they should feel honoured that these people would want to come to THEIR country.
Issue I had with these was they they didnt feel like flawed viewpoints from flawed characters. It felt like the narrative took a break so that JA could insert the “correct” political opinion. Now, the very first Abercrombie book also had women and black people (Ferro was both), but most previous books did this in a natural way that fit the story. I've read every single Abercrombie book so far, and this is the first time that I get the feeling he expressly wrote characters to fill diversity quotas, whether consciously or unconsciously. Before, it went with the narrative and was more thought provoking, now it’s intrusive and spoon feeding.
Just want to know if he lays off or becomes more subtle in the next 2 books or if its still blatantly and immersion breakingly liberal.