Spoilers ahead for the “Broken Empire” trilogy.
I finished the Broken Empire trilogy, and I gotta say I’m disappointed. Sure, the writer told us that the protagonist was a rapist who burned his victims alive, and murdered children, but we never saw it happen. In fact, the only time we saw the protagonist kill anyone, it was completely understandable, either self defense or for some nobler purpose (such as protecting his family). In the second book, where the plot revolves around a memory of a deed so terrible the protagonist has forced himself to forget it, it turns out it was actually an accident, and that the protagonist’s choice was a noble one inadvertently turned against him.
It’s almost as if the writer wanted to have his stupid shitty GRIMMMMMDARK cake and eat it, too; to have a weirdo power fantasy character who pillages and tortures and molests and commands a band of pedophiles, but to keep it all off-screen (so to speak), so that we can empathize with the other actions of the character which are actually understandable (if not always defensible).
And, of course, there’s ultimately no meaning to be found here. The conclusion seems to indicate that the protagonist should’ve not hidden from assassins as a child and instead died with his little brother? Or maybe it’s about love or something, since after thousands of pages of emo brooding about how evil he is the protagonist admits he loves his newborn kid (second to last chapter). It’s not even about nihilism, since the protagonist succeeds in his goal. It’s not about him learning self sacrifice for something greater than himself, even though that’s what he literally does, despite constantly protesting to the contrary about how EEEEEEVIL he is.
In fact, I can’t actually say that the protagonist grows or changes in any significant way, from the first book to the last, aside from maybe the final few chapters, and that has zero bearing on the story. He learns things, but, from the get go, he has no arch, no progression of character, no real self doubt, and at no point does his refusal to change really mean or have anything to do with anything.
All edge, no point. A brilliantly written story with a fascinating world wasted on the pursuit of the worst possible genre tropes.
