Who is your favourite character and why ??

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The Great Scald

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« Reply #30 on: July 01, 2016, 01:08:00 am »
Proyas is easily the most well-written character, and one of my favorites - the religious fanatic written as a sympathetic man. Bakker is really great at writing the viewpoint of a fanatic, and his pet topic of moral certainty is expressed really well in Proyas' chapters. His good traits are also his bad traits, since he's written as a nice, trusting, eager-to-please guy who's just looking for some higher purpose to follow - and he happened to find that purpose in Kellhus. A good man serving an evil cause? A lost boy following his idol? A brutal mass-murderer? Nersei Proyas is all of those.

The "head on a pole" spoiler chapter is also interesting as a study of a fanatic's moral compass, and it speaks to the truism that well-intentioned fanatics like Proyas are far more destructive than any sociopaths. The chapter points out that Proyas is the one with the most to lose if Kellhus is wrong, since he's killed more people for his faith than anyone else...

Proyas - I find people struggling with faith very interesting, and he may also be the most objectively "decent" person in the story.

For sure. Bakker is also superior to other fantasy authors, since he can write a fundamentalist convincingly and sympathetically, without any personal prejudice or atheist snark. Most fantasy stuff is like Game of Thrones, where the religious characters are either stupid or evil, due to the authors being atheistic nerds themselves. I guess it's Bakker's career of studying moral certainty and moral biases that makes him criticize his own, and it definitely shows in his writing. It's very refreshing to read.

(This is also why Proyas is cool - he's the polar opposite of the "snarky intelligent loser" type so beloved by fantasy authors, people like Drusus Achamian and Tyrion Lannister.)
« Last Edit: July 01, 2016, 01:17:29 am by Auriga »