Jurjen
The trouble you cause will chase after you forever. Doesn't matter how good you seem, if what you did is evil, that is what you are. If you act like a coward, you are one. If you're on a path of vengeance, you'll be trailing blood, and more blood will be ahead of you. You can’t take back what you did; you can't change who you are… but in rare cases, granted you meet the right people at the right moment, you can.
Whenever people rank all ten First Law books, Red Country usually finds itself near the bottom. I disagreed on my first read of the series, and this reread has solidified that view. Red Country is phenomenal.
I think one of the reasons why people don't like Red Country as much is because its main characters, Temple and Shy, aren't as immediately charismatic or exciting as Glokta, Logen or Orso were. But I think these two have such tremendous heart, and their emotions connected me so well to the book's plot. Temple specifically I am a big fan of, and I feel somewhat of a personal affinity to, as out of all the Abercrombie characters, I find him somewhat relatable in temperance, if not character. Then there is Lamb. Man did this character get a flawless conclusion. Red Country in general probably has a 10/10 ending, I don’t think it could have been done any better. The earlier story climax with the Dragon People was heartbreaking, but the more personal ending for these characters… just wow.
By now it's common knowledge that with the First Law Standalones, Abercrombie set out to write three archetypical cinematic stories. Best Served Cold is a bloody revenge story, The Heroes is a war-epic, and Red Country a classic Western. Although of these three, The Heroes is still my favourite (Red Country second, having grown closer than on my original read), but I think it's Red Country that does its genre best. It feels *so much* like a Western. The slow, morose tone felt perfect for the story Abercrombie wanted to tell. I think the book being pretty slow paced is another reason why people generally rate it pretty low, but I think it was the right decision for this story in this genre.
Spoiler talk
Not everybody can change, but you're better off trying. You are what you were yesterday, but with great effort and a little luck, that's not who you will be tomorrow.
Thematically, the story is about a lot of things, but the main theme that's on my mind is on whether or not people can change. There are four characters in this book whose stories run parallel. Glama, Temple, Shivers, and Logen.
Glama undergoes a big off-screen arc since we saw him last in The Heroes. Humility and regret have replaced blustering ego. Glama feels to me a lot like Logen near the end of The Last Argument of Kings. He knows what he is, and it seems likely that much like Logen did in the original trilogy, he tried being someone else. It did not stick. Glama finds his end against Logen much like how Logen went down in LAOK. Alone.
Temple's arc shows that people can change. All Temple needed was to meet the right people to help him along the way, and finally stand up for himself and do the hard thing. To really try.
Shivers is the main character of the standalone trilogy, and Shivers’ transformation across these three books feels like the thematic thesis or Red Country. It is both possible to try and be better and fail as Logen does–as Shivers does in Best Served Cold. But it is equally possible to try and do better and succeed as Temple does–as Shivers does in letting Logen go at the end of the book. I don't think Abercrombie figured out the formula for when someone fails or succeeds, but he seems to emphasise the importance of trying. After all, isn't there any character worth more pity and scorn than Cosca? Right before be dies we find out that he *wanted* to be something else, yet he never tried. And what did that bring him? Nothing much good at all.
That leaves us with Logen, my favourite character in all of the First Law, and one of the most complex and hard to parse characters in this genre. Is Logen evil? As he said himself, going by what he did, it's hard to argue he's not. But why does the reader find themselves rooting for him despite Logen failing to walk away from violence knowing what it does to him, time and time again. It's because he tries *so damn hard*. Logen leaving the North and helping raise Shy, Pit and Ro was an act of so much good, and yet… And yet Ro wishes Caul Shivers killed Lamb right in front of her eyes, for what he did.
I think for every sequential First Law read, I'll have new thoughts on this character.
All in all, I adore Red Country, and I think it perfectly wraps up the story of its characters, as well as The Great Leveller trilogy as a whole. This book deserves a lot more love.
The trouble you cause will chase after you forever. Doesn't matter how good you seem, if what you did is evil, that is what you are. If you act like a coward, you are one. If you're on a path of vengeance, you'll be trailing blood, and more blood will be ahead of you. You can’t take back what you did; you can't change who you are… but in rare cases, granted you meet the right people at the right moment, you can.
Whenever people rank all ten First Law books, Red Country usually finds itself near the bottom. I disagreed on my first read of the series, and this reread has solidified that view. Red Country is phenomenal.
I think one of the reasons why people don't like Red Country as much is because its main characters, Temple and Shy, aren't as immediately charismatic or exciting as Glokta, Logen or Orso were. But I think these two have such tremendous heart, and their emotions connected me so well to the book's plot. Temple specifically I am a big fan of, and I feel somewhat of a personal affinity to, as out of all the Abercrombie characters, I find him somewhat relatable in temperance, if not character. Then there is Lamb. Man did this character get a flawless conclusion. Red Country in general probably has a 10/10 ending, I don’t think it could have been done any better. The earlier story climax with the Dragon People was heartbreaking, but the more personal ending for these characters… just wow.
By now it's common knowledge that with the First Law Standalones, Abercrombie set out to write three archetypical cinematic stories. Best Served Cold is a bloody revenge story, The Heroes is a war-epic, and Red Country a classic Western. Although of these three, The Heroes is still my favourite (Red Country second, having grown closer than on my original read), but I think it's Red Country that does its genre best. It feels *so much* like a Western. The slow, morose tone felt perfect for the story Abercrombie wanted to tell. I think the book being pretty slow paced is another reason why people generally rate it pretty low, but I think it was the right decision for this story in this genre.
Spoiler talk
Not everybody can change, but you're better off trying. You are what you were yesterday, but with great effort and a little luck, that's not who you will be tomorrow.
Thematically, the story is about a lot of things, but the main theme that's on my mind is on whether or not people can change. There are four characters in this book whose stories run parallel. Glama, Temple, Shivers, and Logen.
Glama undergoes a big off-screen arc since we saw him last in The Heroes. Humility and regret have replaced blustering ego. Glama feels to me a lot like Logen near the end of The Last Argument of Kings. He knows what he is, and it seems likely that much like Logen did in the original trilogy, he tried being someone else. It did not stick. Glama finds his end against Logen much like how Logen went down in LAOK. Alone.
Temple's arc shows that people can change. All Temple needed was to meet the right people to help him along the way, and finally stand up for himself and do the hard thing. To really try.
Shivers is the main character of the standalone trilogy, and Shivers’ transformation across these three books feels like the thematic thesis or Red Country. It is both possible to try and be better and fail as Logen does–as Shivers does in Best Served Cold. But it is equally possible to try and do better and succeed as Temple does–as Shivers does in letting Logen go at the end of the book. I don't think Abercrombie figured out the formula for when someone fails or succeeds, but he seems to emphasise the importance of trying. After all, isn't there any character worth more pity and scorn than Cosca? Right before be dies we find out that he *wanted* to be something else, yet he never tried. And what did that bring him? Nothing much good at all.
That leaves us with Logen, my favourite character in all of the First Law, and one of the most complex and hard to parse characters in this genre. Is Logen evil? As he said himself, going by what he did, it's hard to argue he's not. But why does the reader find themselves rooting for him despite Logen failing to walk away from violence knowing what it does to him, time and time again. It's because he tries *so damn hard*. Logen leaving the North and helping raise Shy, Pit and Ro was an act of so much good, and yet… And yet Ro wishes Caul Shivers killed Lamb right in front of her eyes, for what he did.
I think for every sequential First Law read, I'll have new thoughts on this character.
All in all, I adore Red Country, and I think it perfectly wraps up the story of its characters, as well as The Great Leveller trilogy as a whole. This book deserves a lot more love.