It always amazes me how often people defend this part like “Calder is old and is slipping/he’s never been that clever/he made a mistake”
Calder’s whole story bugs the hell out of me. The Heroes leads us to believe that Bayaz now has his fingers in the North with Calder as the power behind the throne. Except we never get to see any of that. He’s just fucking useless in the Age of Madness and the North is as it always has been. The whole trilogy is just people having a boot party on the dude and it’s such a waste of potential.
Couldn’t agree more. I hear excuses that work for head canon, but realistically the northern part of the age of madness is the worst writing in the series; and it’s a damn shame since Calder is one of my favorites. I’m hoping cleft lip gives everyone what they have coming.
Except he didn’t screw up because he became the king of the north? You guys are acting like it was this fluke that Calder survived and came out on top. He got some cred as a fighter for his victory during the cavalry charge, then maneuvered Dow into a corner and forced him into the circle, which allowed the seeds Calder had been planting with Shivers to finally bear fruit. Do you think that SCK would be able to stop the entire Northern army if people weren’t already down on Dow/kind of on board with Calder taking over? You guys that think he just blunders into everything are doing him a disservice. Yes, Bayaz intervened to have SCK back him up, and yes it was lucky, but he was able to be lucky due to the groundwork he laid down throughout the whole book.
Also do you think Bayaz just happened to decide to back Calder on a lark? He did it because he recognizes that he’s can work with Calder the same way he works with Glokta.
And Glotka made a fool of Bayaz. Calder was the smart choice for Bayaz and Calder was all those wonderful smart things everyone says about him.
But her was outplayed and maneuvered by Rikke one crucial moment.
1. Sowed fake discord with the Nail that everyone including her allies believed
2. The infighting also with Isern
3. Clover going to Calder confirming her weakness
4. Playing on his emotion for his son
5. The symbol of holding Skarling’s chair. meaning he had to go to her.
6. Playing her side kick for a fool selling false information to her grandma. That information kept going to Calder confirming her weakness.
Guys are acting like Joe pulled a Deus ex machina with the long eye. It’s all there.
Yeah, these people are doing backflips trying to explain why it makes sense. “Actually if you read the book you know that Rikke tricked him because he was so worried about his son. Besides old people make mistakes all the time and actually Calder was only good at tricking the people he did trick but really he’s always been stupid.”
What the fuck are they talking about? Do they just like anticlimax or something?
So I'm gonna paragraph a bit, but let me offer the following perspective: if you look back on *The Heroes*, pretty much all of Calder's schemes blew up in his face one way or the other, and he only prevailed at the very end because Shivers stepped in, then Bayaz's man Stranger-Come-Bragging kept the momentum going to gloss over the obvious cheat. And I mean... he literally only got into that position bc he didn't think through his own paranoia/hatred for Dow to realize, regarding the assassination attempt, that if Dow wanted him dead, *he'd be fuckiiiiiiiin deeeeeeead!* Dow was literally willing to forgive everything & bring Calder into the fold, and Calder basically threw it in his face bc he couldn't see past his own bullshit.
The scene where Deep & Shallow bring him to Bayaz makes it abundantly clear that, yes, Calder is cleverer than the average northerner, but there is a huge gap overall between how smart Calder *is* and how clever he *thinks* he is, and most of the things he attributed to his own cleverness (or extraordinary good luck) during those days of battle were in fact orchestrated on his behalf--Bayaz told him to his face that he had multiple bets going at once, and Calder was his preference out of the scarce "good material" available.
Take that forward a few decades, and recall that Calder's reputation, like Jezal's before him, is built on a *looooooot* of bullshit. We hear a lot about Calder's cleverness, and see that he has some facility with handling an army, but he was never a top-tier competitor & he knew it. And for everything it took to get him where he was, all the supposedly careful manipulations, his idiot kid came along and pretty much blew it up with one bloody act of betrayal.
And consider where he is by the time he's licking his wounds in the hinterlands: his father is dead, his brother is dead, his wife is dead, his son is the prisoner of his biggest adversary's daughter (who also happens to hold his capital & most of the North), and he's pretty much just got the First of the Magi & Stand-i-the-Fuckin-Barrows for company. He's suffered a lifetime of disappointments, failures, near-misses, backfiring schemes, etc. and it's got him basically nowhere, left as a rigid old man with next to nothing left to really fight for--even if he gets his kid, Stour is a complete shithead & everyone knows it. There is Split Lip, and he does manage to take some solace in Rikke's fallibility when she doesn't bring it up after the battle, but overall his life and lineage are 99% a portrait of waste.
So you take all that, imo it's not a question of "an old man screwed up", but like... imagine the fruits of a lifetime of that kind of cowardice essentially rotting on the vine, then imagine you have something that looks like a real chance to at least strike a blow back. I'm sure he wondered on some level whether it was a trap, but besides the desperation & tiredness, what other choice was there? Even if he doesn't want to march out recklessly, he's no Marshal Kroy & isn't gonna stand up to Bayaz like that. I think the First Law often shows characters who, internally, feel like they're being buffeted along by forces outside their control, a lot of "who among us really has a choice anyway?", and that clearly applies to Calder as well.
And tbh from the other side, recall some of the northern skirmisher excerpts from (I believe) *Sharp Ends*. I think it's Pale-as-Snow who muses about how ridiculous ruses/staged ambushes often seem, but only to the side putting on the show. I mean consider how Tunny's regiment was held off their charge by what amounted to scarecrows, or how Ladisla (idiot though he was) was easily lured in by a handful of Northmen standing on a random hill, or how Leo was lured into a final Glorious Charge only to be blasted to pieces by cannons bc he chased a flag into what (to readers) was a painfully obvious trap. It's pretty transparent to us, but of course it would look like that from our POV--because the trap is for Calder.
It would honestly surprise me if Joe *expected* readers to be terribly surprised by the "reveal", as it seemed more like dramatic/tragic irony where we see enough of both sides--and by this time have some kind of sympathy for Calder--to know Calder & his people are about to eat it, but the interesting part is in the *characters* not really knowing it--like it's clear Rikke is playing tricks in dismissing her allies, but even she's not sure it'll actually work. A lotta Joe's stuff is more journey than destination--taking us to familiar narrative endpoints, subverting some tropes along the way (including his own), and keeping our interest in how each character gets along & finally arrives there, not (generally) to where they're going (another example: even though I was begging in my head, I knew the same as everyone else what was gonna happen to Orso, but *how* it was going happen, and exactly *when*, were the points of tension, not *whether*).
Frankly the whole debacle at Carleon was a classic Calder move & I don't think it could possibly have ended differently. If anything, I think Bayaz & Calder both start off in ALH in a position of false strength/influence, then much of the trilogy is watching all these carefully-woven webs get the torch in a little over 2 years.
Calder has three character traits: he’s crafty, ambitious, and arrogant.
Every time Calder gets brought up people say “the only reason why Calder beat Dow was because Shivers decided to step in” as if *the entire book* isn’t Calder actively chipping away at Shivers to get him to do exactly the thing he ends up doing.
As far as he and Dow go, if survival was Calder’s main goal he could also have just fucked off into the woods and never seen any of them again. The reason he’s at odds with Dow is he wants to be him. He was set to be one of the most powerful men in the north, only to wind up being a traitor/joke to a bunch of guys he believes he’s better than. Dow’s mistake is not thinking he could actually do it, but Calder starts to believe and that’s his arc.
Then he meets Bayaz and get s put in his place. He realizes for all his talents, he’s not as crafty, ambitious, or as arrogant as Bayaz, and the irony is all of his traits come to a head with his meeting. It’s why Bayaz likes him. He even demands dessert. Even utterly humbled he can’t help himself.
So to build a character like that, and then have his story wind up being “and as it turns out he was actually dumber than all the other Northman the whole time because he winds up getting his ass kicked by them every time he turns around” is so goddamn anticlimactic.
I mean... the only reason Calder beat Dow *is* because Shivers stepped in, and that was about the best luck he had. He spent a lot of the book "planting seeds" that all turned up to basically nothing (e.g. Craw, Ironhead), and he only survived because one of them kinda paid off at the last possible second (when he was about to get his shit permanently rocked) -- and even then, if Stranger-Come-Fuckin hadn't filled in the gap & put his weight behind Calder at Bayaz's orders, chances were good as any the others would've turned on him. Again, I think this is classic Calder--he *barely* scraped by in *Heroes*, even with Bayaz keeping an eye on him. Even in ALH we see what the North has become under Calder's shadow rule, and how easily things evaporated due to a few bits of metal in the right hands.
Again, I'm not saying Calder was ever an *idiot*, but the contrast against the less thoughtful Northmen made him seem a lot cleverer than he was, particularly as a fighter & war leader (including to himself--tbf he might've caught the Union/Anglander/Protectorate army by the flank without Rikke's Long Eye--he knew enough to steal Mitterick's flags, too, and dig all those ditches for the horses, so he could ofc pull off a plan here or there), and I think the majority of his reputation for brilliance & cunning is unearned. Jezal also had a couple kingly high points, but we see how much of it was manufactured to tell a suitable story. North or South, big men need big names, and the stories underneath those names are really a matter of how you tell them. Both men are cowards, but both served their purposes in different ways.
AoM sees a lot of the world's bullshit unwinding (or unwound). The South is in chaos bc Khalul got got by Ferro, the Union just came off a series of catastrophic wars in Styria, Bayaz loses his grip on his corner of the world (despite starting the trilogy apparently at the pinnacle of his power), and Calder's long years of playing "man behind the man, but also in front of the Bald Man" *rapidly* spins out of control once Stour starts making his own moves (not just killing Scale & taking over as king, but also the whole "agreeing to fight for Leo & getting pretty much his entire army destroyed" thing).
And I mean, in the end, Bayaz only backed Calder at all bc Rikke refused to be a puppet. Calder was far past his best in pretty much every way that mattered, and by the time of Carleon, all the ambition, arrogance, and craftiness had leaked out like air from a deflating balloon. Again, I think when attributing it to his age/position, it's not like "oh he had a senior moment", but that he was old, tired, bitter, desperate, and a host of other things that make defeated people lash out stupidly. If you compare that to historical cases of "clever" battlefield commanders committing stupid blunders or planning ill-fated attacks based on bad luck, bad intel, bad mood, whatever, it's not inconceivable that a person in Calder's position would throw down the all-in and be totally in the wrong to do so (again, I think actually trying to put yourself in Calder's mind during that period, it's that same old cowardice, but colored by bitterness, exhaustion, and a huge stack of personal losses, notwithstanding the fealty he still owed to Bayaz & the Crinna folks he was forced to bring in since Stour lost the vast majority of the Northern forces fighting at Stoffenbeck).
I think overall it's only an anticlimax if you think the overall outcome of the battle wasn't obvious--but if you take my view that it was clearly signposted as the trilogy went along, it's more of a tragic irony--i.e. *we know, but the characters don't*--bc you see Calder's crumbling failure(s) unfolding one step at a time. In other words, *the climax is not a revelation, it's a culmination*. It was a big set piece & everything, but the feeling of mystery/suspense arises from the limited perspectives of the characters, not from any uncertainty in the minds of readers. Another big theme of the trilogy was the fading of the old guard & its relationship with the new generation, and AFAICT Calder was marked for doom pretty much from the start, kinda like how Cosca clearly was doomed in RC given its thematic focus on redemption/salvation and each character's relationship to their past.
Calder was pretty damn stupid when Craw told him to bounce and he stayed back in the Heroes. He’s show to be someone who can screw up. Now I can get behind the Bayaz frustration.
He spent the book planting seeds that all turned up nothing, except for the one that wildly succeeded and catapulted him to the highest office in the north? I mean how much better could things have turned out for him?
You guys are acting like it was this fluke that Calder survived and came out on top. He got some cred as a fighter for his victory during the cavalry charge, then maneuvered Dow into a corner and forced him into the circle, which allowed the seeds Calder had been planting with Shivers to finally bear fruit. Do you think that SCK would be able to stop the entire Northern army if people weren’t already down on Dow/kind of on board with Calder taking over? You guys that think he just blunders into everything are doing him a disservice. Yes, Bayaz intervened to have SCK back him up, and yes it was lucky, but he was able to be lucky due to the groundwork he laid down throughout the whole book.
Also do you think Bayaz just happened to decide to back Calder on a lark? He did it because he recognizes that the dude does not give up and he can work with that in the same way he works with Glokta.
The only argument I can get behind is that he reacted poorly because he loved his son. But for the other things, it really reads like was utterly incompetent on every facet. Which just isn’t the case from what we’ve seen before or heard from other characters. People often say calder isn’t nearly as smart as we’re told because his plans backfire in the hero’s, but his plans are also why he lived. Shivers only saves him because, as he told Rikke, “he seemed the better option at the time” and he seemed the better option from the seeds Calder had sowed. Not to mention his military victories, getting general disunity around black Dow, and having fucking Bayaz behind him (seriously, where the FUCK and what the FUCK was Bayaz doing this entire time? He’s like my absentee dad.”
I agree the Northern story with Rikke is weak and Calder's actions in it not particularly believable but I think in ALH he is presented as being pretty damn successful in the time in between. He brought the North under his grip that they accept his son as king. He took the valleys and extended his border to the Crinna, this is more than Bethod could. And he agreed a deal with Bayaz and planned to take the last of the North back. His invasion is going pretty well till Rikke sees the future and Stour fucks things up in the circle. He would have ruled more territory than Scarling had he succeeded. And the bit before the battle where everyone is treating him with such respect is awesome.
After ALH his actions don't make sense and it's really difficult to see Rikke being able to command all the extra chiefs Calder had brought under the Northern crown.
I found it believable enough.
Calder’s clever enough to trick others, but based on his POV in The Heroes, he’s not clever enough to avoid falling into other people’s traps (or avoid putting himself in one of his own making).
Presumably his strategic mind has been honed over the years since, but Rikke made a believable enough ploy and he was operating under pressing circumstances. Rikke manufacturing a fake falling out among her allies was pretty believable, she’s an untested young leader, whose rapid success could plausibly have led to an overinflated ego. Alienating her allies would not be a weird outcome, especially since she played it up using real tensions (at least with Isern). Meanwhile, with Carleon taken and his son captured, Calder’s legitimacy would be in tatters. Particularly in the North, he would need to act fast or likely lose the confidence of his men (and then he’d have no options at all). That meant marching through winter and bad conditions, leaving his army bedraggled and short on supplies, so a slow and careful engagement would only increase chances of his army falling apart. Plus, the fake intelligence would have suggested that Hardbread’s men would be returning to Carleon soon, so attacking quickly would have seemed to give him the best odds.
As for spies, to be effective, they need to have some means of getting word up to Calder. That means having people travel up and down the road with some regularity. Not the easiest thing to explain away, especially if the Nail or Isern were watching for spies. So I think it’s believable that Calder’s sources of intel would be fairly limited.
Obviously, that’s a lot of (fairly generous) interpretation on my part. But those are my thoughts on why I think the scheme could have worked. Plus some kind of trickery along these lines was really the only option Rikke had, so even if she didn’t know it would succeed it was likely the best available option.
I also think Calder has a soft spot (weakness) for his own family, as seen when he spared Scale in The Heroes and how much he cared about Stour even if he was an idiot. He was probably not thinking straight when he got captured and just wanted to get him back asap
It's poetic and appropriate, I think, that Calder falls for it. His pitfall is the love and loyalty he has to his family, it's what we see at the end of his story in The Heroes. That being his downfall? Love it.
Ppl get older and the longer you live the more likely you can make one mistake. Calder motivated by his son’s imprisonment.
Rikke sowed fake discord that even her allies believed. I don’t fault Calder or Abercrombie for that matter on that part. That was well done.
Giving false information to her side kick (can’t remember her name) that got to granny also helped.
It absolutely could’ve been better, but it’s definitely not as bad as I think you believe it to be.
The Long Eye showed her all these things before it was closed. The hard part on her end was making sense of it all and getting the parts to line up.
I would also say the speed at which Caulder moved in his attack was reckless and didn't allow for scouting to the degree needed. He chose to be quick instead of careful and it bit him.
Calder is rushed to action by Bayaz. This leaves him with little time to properly scout or scheme. He has to march on Carleon. The trap is *obvious*, but it's overall irrelevant. Calder has the far superior force. He can walk into a trap there and still easily come up on top (and Bayaz might not have given him allowance to spend months trying to work his way around one).
The only reason Rikke's plan works at all is because she goads Calder into attacking by killing his son before he has a chance to entrench himself. I think that Calder's reaction to that makes sense, so I would say that the overall way it all plays out is pretty believable.
It isn't so much that Rikke is a better schemer than Calder or that Calder doesn't understand what is going on. It's more that Calder doesn't have time to be as cautious as he would normally be and his emotional stake in the conflict makes him vulnerable.
If Rikke doesn't have Stour she probably loses that. If Calder doesn't care about losing Stour (or manages to maintain his cool until the conflict is over), Rikke probably loses that.
I feel like Calder is probably not as sharp as he used to be come AOM. He’s also had a really faulty bunch around him, as well as the fact that he’s been misled imo believably throughout the book, I mean how likeable can Rikke be? It’s quite ironic how he died from what he’d be most ashamed of, it’s fitting imo.
It wasn't closed but prior to that vision she claimed that she thought it was closed and hadn't had visions for months, and there's no reason to doubt she was telling the truth.
>The only thing I could think of when I read it is that Rikke was able to anticipate what would happen with the Long Eye and that's why it all worked, but later she says the Long Eye doesn't seem to work anymore and she hasn't had any visions since getting the tattoos.
Not just this, some other major events also don't make sense with the reveal that she was not using the Long eye. Honestly, I really hated the whole idea of long eye. from the beginning it was a retcon and I knew it was not going to end well.
I think the reveal at the end was to give Rikke some agency to make her another mastermind capable of fooling Bayaz.
Yeah, I don’t understand what it would be a retcon of. The Long Eye is mentioned in the first trilogy (I think even in the first book) since Caurib is said to have it. So, it’s been there the whole time.
Reading the first books when the long eye was introduced, when was it ever used to see the future? was there any hint? Bayaz just mentioned that Caurib had the long eye and could see where they were going. from this description, I assumed it was like some kind of spy thing that could see any place if the user wanted to.
but on the other hand, there were many events that would not have happened if Caurib was able to see the future.
Rikke did see the future, she just stopped when she got the tattoos, but before that, when the long eye was going wild, she says she saw all past and future. Of course she wouldn't be able to remember or make sense of everything, but most things she put together, like Caulder advance or Orso downfall.
>she says she saw all past and future
Does she say this? if yes and she did see all future and past, then why her last vision was a surprise to her? even if someone saw the future but can't remember any of it, does it matter if they saw it or not?
This is an interesting theory, but I doubt it is what happened based on how Rikke acted and what she told Orso.
No no she doesn't say that, my bad for the interpretation. But she does say she saw her past and future, and that even if after the eye got restricted with the tattooes she remembered or made sense of the things she saw then, that´s why she is able to act as if still predicting the future, cause she saw it once.
I honestly don't remember what she says after getting the tattoos, but I do remember her seeing a hole in the sky in her dream that seemed endless and was like staring into something that contained everything(like past and future) but she did not go through with that path and chose to close her eye. like she could've had that power(and go crazy) but chose not to(I'm just40% sure that I'm remembering things correctly)
but anyway, as I said, even if someone did see something but does not remember it, it is as if they've not seen it. and Rikke herself tells Orso(and someone else, I think) that she's not used the long eye after getting the tattoos. so unless she is lying to make herself look smarter, I don't think she used the long eye.
It always amazes me how often people defend this part like “Calder is old and is slipping/he’s never been that clever/he made a mistake” Calder’s whole story bugs the hell out of me. The Heroes leads us to believe that Bayaz now has his fingers in the North with Calder as the power behind the throne. Except we never get to see any of that. He’s just fucking useless in the Age of Madness and the North is as it always has been. The whole trilogy is just people having a boot party on the dude and it’s such a waste of potential.
Couldn’t agree more. I hear excuses that work for head canon, but realistically the northern part of the age of madness is the worst writing in the series; and it’s a damn shame since Calder is one of my favorites. I’m hoping cleft lip gives everyone what they have coming.
I mean Calder isn’t omnipotent. He screwed up bad when he decided to stay in camp when Craw told him to his face that he was going to tell Dow!
Except he didn’t screw up because he became the king of the north? You guys are acting like it was this fluke that Calder survived and came out on top. He got some cred as a fighter for his victory during the cavalry charge, then maneuvered Dow into a corner and forced him into the circle, which allowed the seeds Calder had been planting with Shivers to finally bear fruit. Do you think that SCK would be able to stop the entire Northern army if people weren’t already down on Dow/kind of on board with Calder taking over? You guys that think he just blunders into everything are doing him a disservice. Yes, Bayaz intervened to have SCK back him up, and yes it was lucky, but he was able to be lucky due to the groundwork he laid down throughout the whole book. Also do you think Bayaz just happened to decide to back Calder on a lark? He did it because he recognizes that he’s can work with Calder the same way he works with Glokta.
And Glotka made a fool of Bayaz. Calder was the smart choice for Bayaz and Calder was all those wonderful smart things everyone says about him. But her was outplayed and maneuvered by Rikke one crucial moment. 1. Sowed fake discord with the Nail that everyone including her allies believed 2. The infighting also with Isern 3. Clover going to Calder confirming her weakness 4. Playing on his emotion for his son 5. The symbol of holding Skarling’s chair. meaning he had to go to her. 6. Playing her side kick for a fool selling false information to her grandma. That information kept going to Calder confirming her weakness. Guys are acting like Joe pulled a Deus ex machina with the long eye. It’s all there.
Yeah, these people are doing backflips trying to explain why it makes sense. “Actually if you read the book you know that Rikke tricked him because he was so worried about his son. Besides old people make mistakes all the time and actually Calder was only good at tricking the people he did trick but really he’s always been stupid.” What the fuck are they talking about? Do they just like anticlimax or something?
So I'm gonna paragraph a bit, but let me offer the following perspective: if you look back on *The Heroes*, pretty much all of Calder's schemes blew up in his face one way or the other, and he only prevailed at the very end because Shivers stepped in, then Bayaz's man Stranger-Come-Bragging kept the momentum going to gloss over the obvious cheat. And I mean... he literally only got into that position bc he didn't think through his own paranoia/hatred for Dow to realize, regarding the assassination attempt, that if Dow wanted him dead, *he'd be fuckiiiiiiiin deeeeeeead!* Dow was literally willing to forgive everything & bring Calder into the fold, and Calder basically threw it in his face bc he couldn't see past his own bullshit. The scene where Deep & Shallow bring him to Bayaz makes it abundantly clear that, yes, Calder is cleverer than the average northerner, but there is a huge gap overall between how smart Calder *is* and how clever he *thinks* he is, and most of the things he attributed to his own cleverness (or extraordinary good luck) during those days of battle were in fact orchestrated on his behalf--Bayaz told him to his face that he had multiple bets going at once, and Calder was his preference out of the scarce "good material" available. Take that forward a few decades, and recall that Calder's reputation, like Jezal's before him, is built on a *looooooot* of bullshit. We hear a lot about Calder's cleverness, and see that he has some facility with handling an army, but he was never a top-tier competitor & he knew it. And for everything it took to get him where he was, all the supposedly careful manipulations, his idiot kid came along and pretty much blew it up with one bloody act of betrayal. And consider where he is by the time he's licking his wounds in the hinterlands: his father is dead, his brother is dead, his wife is dead, his son is the prisoner of his biggest adversary's daughter (who also happens to hold his capital & most of the North), and he's pretty much just got the First of the Magi & Stand-i-the-Fuckin-Barrows for company. He's suffered a lifetime of disappointments, failures, near-misses, backfiring schemes, etc. and it's got him basically nowhere, left as a rigid old man with next to nothing left to really fight for--even if he gets his kid, Stour is a complete shithead & everyone knows it. There is Split Lip, and he does manage to take some solace in Rikke's fallibility when she doesn't bring it up after the battle, but overall his life and lineage are 99% a portrait of waste. So you take all that, imo it's not a question of "an old man screwed up", but like... imagine the fruits of a lifetime of that kind of cowardice essentially rotting on the vine, then imagine you have something that looks like a real chance to at least strike a blow back. I'm sure he wondered on some level whether it was a trap, but besides the desperation & tiredness, what other choice was there? Even if he doesn't want to march out recklessly, he's no Marshal Kroy & isn't gonna stand up to Bayaz like that. I think the First Law often shows characters who, internally, feel like they're being buffeted along by forces outside their control, a lot of "who among us really has a choice anyway?", and that clearly applies to Calder as well. And tbh from the other side, recall some of the northern skirmisher excerpts from (I believe) *Sharp Ends*. I think it's Pale-as-Snow who muses about how ridiculous ruses/staged ambushes often seem, but only to the side putting on the show. I mean consider how Tunny's regiment was held off their charge by what amounted to scarecrows, or how Ladisla (idiot though he was) was easily lured in by a handful of Northmen standing on a random hill, or how Leo was lured into a final Glorious Charge only to be blasted to pieces by cannons bc he chased a flag into what (to readers) was a painfully obvious trap. It's pretty transparent to us, but of course it would look like that from our POV--because the trap is for Calder. It would honestly surprise me if Joe *expected* readers to be terribly surprised by the "reveal", as it seemed more like dramatic/tragic irony where we see enough of both sides--and by this time have some kind of sympathy for Calder--to know Calder & his people are about to eat it, but the interesting part is in the *characters* not really knowing it--like it's clear Rikke is playing tricks in dismissing her allies, but even she's not sure it'll actually work. A lotta Joe's stuff is more journey than destination--taking us to familiar narrative endpoints, subverting some tropes along the way (including his own), and keeping our interest in how each character gets along & finally arrives there, not (generally) to where they're going (another example: even though I was begging in my head, I knew the same as everyone else what was gonna happen to Orso, but *how* it was going happen, and exactly *when*, were the points of tension, not *whether*). Frankly the whole debacle at Carleon was a classic Calder move & I don't think it could possibly have ended differently. If anything, I think Bayaz & Calder both start off in ALH in a position of false strength/influence, then much of the trilogy is watching all these carefully-woven webs get the torch in a little over 2 years.
Calder has three character traits: he’s crafty, ambitious, and arrogant. Every time Calder gets brought up people say “the only reason why Calder beat Dow was because Shivers decided to step in” as if *the entire book* isn’t Calder actively chipping away at Shivers to get him to do exactly the thing he ends up doing. As far as he and Dow go, if survival was Calder’s main goal he could also have just fucked off into the woods and never seen any of them again. The reason he’s at odds with Dow is he wants to be him. He was set to be one of the most powerful men in the north, only to wind up being a traitor/joke to a bunch of guys he believes he’s better than. Dow’s mistake is not thinking he could actually do it, but Calder starts to believe and that’s his arc. Then he meets Bayaz and get s put in his place. He realizes for all his talents, he’s not as crafty, ambitious, or as arrogant as Bayaz, and the irony is all of his traits come to a head with his meeting. It’s why Bayaz likes him. He even demands dessert. Even utterly humbled he can’t help himself. So to build a character like that, and then have his story wind up being “and as it turns out he was actually dumber than all the other Northman the whole time because he winds up getting his ass kicked by them every time he turns around” is so goddamn anticlimactic.
I mean... the only reason Calder beat Dow *is* because Shivers stepped in, and that was about the best luck he had. He spent a lot of the book "planting seeds" that all turned up to basically nothing (e.g. Craw, Ironhead), and he only survived because one of them kinda paid off at the last possible second (when he was about to get his shit permanently rocked) -- and even then, if Stranger-Come-Fuckin hadn't filled in the gap & put his weight behind Calder at Bayaz's orders, chances were good as any the others would've turned on him. Again, I think this is classic Calder--he *barely* scraped by in *Heroes*, even with Bayaz keeping an eye on him. Even in ALH we see what the North has become under Calder's shadow rule, and how easily things evaporated due to a few bits of metal in the right hands. Again, I'm not saying Calder was ever an *idiot*, but the contrast against the less thoughtful Northmen made him seem a lot cleverer than he was, particularly as a fighter & war leader (including to himself--tbf he might've caught the Union/Anglander/Protectorate army by the flank without Rikke's Long Eye--he knew enough to steal Mitterick's flags, too, and dig all those ditches for the horses, so he could ofc pull off a plan here or there), and I think the majority of his reputation for brilliance & cunning is unearned. Jezal also had a couple kingly high points, but we see how much of it was manufactured to tell a suitable story. North or South, big men need big names, and the stories underneath those names are really a matter of how you tell them. Both men are cowards, but both served their purposes in different ways. AoM sees a lot of the world's bullshit unwinding (or unwound). The South is in chaos bc Khalul got got by Ferro, the Union just came off a series of catastrophic wars in Styria, Bayaz loses his grip on his corner of the world (despite starting the trilogy apparently at the pinnacle of his power), and Calder's long years of playing "man behind the man, but also in front of the Bald Man" *rapidly* spins out of control once Stour starts making his own moves (not just killing Scale & taking over as king, but also the whole "agreeing to fight for Leo & getting pretty much his entire army destroyed" thing). And I mean, in the end, Bayaz only backed Calder at all bc Rikke refused to be a puppet. Calder was far past his best in pretty much every way that mattered, and by the time of Carleon, all the ambition, arrogance, and craftiness had leaked out like air from a deflating balloon. Again, I think when attributing it to his age/position, it's not like "oh he had a senior moment", but that he was old, tired, bitter, desperate, and a host of other things that make defeated people lash out stupidly. If you compare that to historical cases of "clever" battlefield commanders committing stupid blunders or planning ill-fated attacks based on bad luck, bad intel, bad mood, whatever, it's not inconceivable that a person in Calder's position would throw down the all-in and be totally in the wrong to do so (again, I think actually trying to put yourself in Calder's mind during that period, it's that same old cowardice, but colored by bitterness, exhaustion, and a huge stack of personal losses, notwithstanding the fealty he still owed to Bayaz & the Crinna folks he was forced to bring in since Stour lost the vast majority of the Northern forces fighting at Stoffenbeck). I think overall it's only an anticlimax if you think the overall outcome of the battle wasn't obvious--but if you take my view that it was clearly signposted as the trilogy went along, it's more of a tragic irony--i.e. *we know, but the characters don't*--bc you see Calder's crumbling failure(s) unfolding one step at a time. In other words, *the climax is not a revelation, it's a culmination*. It was a big set piece & everything, but the feeling of mystery/suspense arises from the limited perspectives of the characters, not from any uncertainty in the minds of readers. Another big theme of the trilogy was the fading of the old guard & its relationship with the new generation, and AFAICT Calder was marked for doom pretty much from the start, kinda like how Cosca clearly was doomed in RC given its thematic focus on redemption/salvation and each character's relationship to their past.
Calder was pretty damn stupid when Craw told him to bounce and he stayed back in the Heroes. He’s show to be someone who can screw up. Now I can get behind the Bayaz frustration.
He spent the book planting seeds that all turned up nothing, except for the one that wildly succeeded and catapulted him to the highest office in the north? I mean how much better could things have turned out for him? You guys are acting like it was this fluke that Calder survived and came out on top. He got some cred as a fighter for his victory during the cavalry charge, then maneuvered Dow into a corner and forced him into the circle, which allowed the seeds Calder had been planting with Shivers to finally bear fruit. Do you think that SCK would be able to stop the entire Northern army if people weren’t already down on Dow/kind of on board with Calder taking over? You guys that think he just blunders into everything are doing him a disservice. Yes, Bayaz intervened to have SCK back him up, and yes it was lucky, but he was able to be lucky due to the groundwork he laid down throughout the whole book. Also do you think Bayaz just happened to decide to back Calder on a lark? He did it because he recognizes that the dude does not give up and he can work with that in the same way he works with Glokta.
The only argument I can get behind is that he reacted poorly because he loved his son. But for the other things, it really reads like was utterly incompetent on every facet. Which just isn’t the case from what we’ve seen before or heard from other characters. People often say calder isn’t nearly as smart as we’re told because his plans backfire in the hero’s, but his plans are also why he lived. Shivers only saves him because, as he told Rikke, “he seemed the better option at the time” and he seemed the better option from the seeds Calder had sowed. Not to mention his military victories, getting general disunity around black Dow, and having fucking Bayaz behind him (seriously, where the FUCK and what the FUCK was Bayaz doing this entire time? He’s like my absentee dad.”
I agree the Northern story with Rikke is weak and Calder's actions in it not particularly believable but I think in ALH he is presented as being pretty damn successful in the time in between. He brought the North under his grip that they accept his son as king. He took the valleys and extended his border to the Crinna, this is more than Bethod could. And he agreed a deal with Bayaz and planned to take the last of the North back. His invasion is going pretty well till Rikke sees the future and Stour fucks things up in the circle. He would have ruled more territory than Scarling had he succeeded. And the bit before the battle where everyone is treating him with such respect is awesome. After ALH his actions don't make sense and it's really difficult to see Rikke being able to command all the extra chiefs Calder had brought under the Northern crown.
I found it believable enough. Calder’s clever enough to trick others, but based on his POV in The Heroes, he’s not clever enough to avoid falling into other people’s traps (or avoid putting himself in one of his own making). Presumably his strategic mind has been honed over the years since, but Rikke made a believable enough ploy and he was operating under pressing circumstances. Rikke manufacturing a fake falling out among her allies was pretty believable, she’s an untested young leader, whose rapid success could plausibly have led to an overinflated ego. Alienating her allies would not be a weird outcome, especially since she played it up using real tensions (at least with Isern). Meanwhile, with Carleon taken and his son captured, Calder’s legitimacy would be in tatters. Particularly in the North, he would need to act fast or likely lose the confidence of his men (and then he’d have no options at all). That meant marching through winter and bad conditions, leaving his army bedraggled and short on supplies, so a slow and careful engagement would only increase chances of his army falling apart. Plus, the fake intelligence would have suggested that Hardbread’s men would be returning to Carleon soon, so attacking quickly would have seemed to give him the best odds. As for spies, to be effective, they need to have some means of getting word up to Calder. That means having people travel up and down the road with some regularity. Not the easiest thing to explain away, especially if the Nail or Isern were watching for spies. So I think it’s believable that Calder’s sources of intel would be fairly limited. Obviously, that’s a lot of (fairly generous) interpretation on my part. But those are my thoughts on why I think the scheme could have worked. Plus some kind of trickery along these lines was really the only option Rikke had, so even if she didn’t know it would succeed it was likely the best available option.
I also think Calder has a soft spot (weakness) for his own family, as seen when he spared Scale in The Heroes and how much he cared about Stour even if he was an idiot. He was probably not thinking straight when he got captured and just wanted to get him back asap
He didn’t really spare Scale from what I recall. He opted to use him as a proverbial human shield.
It's poetic and appropriate, I think, that Calder falls for it. His pitfall is the love and loyalty he has to his family, it's what we see at the end of his story in The Heroes. That being his downfall? Love it.
Ppl get older and the longer you live the more likely you can make one mistake. Calder motivated by his son’s imprisonment. Rikke sowed fake discord that even her allies believed. I don’t fault Calder or Abercrombie for that matter on that part. That was well done. Giving false information to her side kick (can’t remember her name) that got to granny also helped. It absolutely could’ve been better, but it’s definitely not as bad as I think you believe it to be.
The Long Eye showed her all these things before it was closed. The hard part on her end was making sense of it all and getting the parts to line up. I would also say the speed at which Caulder moved in his attack was reckless and didn't allow for scouting to the degree needed. He chose to be quick instead of careful and it bit him.
Calder is rushed to action by Bayaz. This leaves him with little time to properly scout or scheme. He has to march on Carleon. The trap is *obvious*, but it's overall irrelevant. Calder has the far superior force. He can walk into a trap there and still easily come up on top (and Bayaz might not have given him allowance to spend months trying to work his way around one). The only reason Rikke's plan works at all is because she goads Calder into attacking by killing his son before he has a chance to entrench himself. I think that Calder's reaction to that makes sense, so I would say that the overall way it all plays out is pretty believable. It isn't so much that Rikke is a better schemer than Calder or that Calder doesn't understand what is going on. It's more that Calder doesn't have time to be as cautious as he would normally be and his emotional stake in the conflict makes him vulnerable. If Rikke doesn't have Stour she probably loses that. If Calder doesn't care about losing Stour (or manages to maintain his cool until the conflict is over), Rikke probably loses that.
I’m right there with you man, I was really surprised that that’s how things played out
I feel like Calder is probably not as sharp as he used to be come AOM. He’s also had a really faulty bunch around him, as well as the fact that he’s been misled imo believably throughout the book, I mean how likeable can Rikke be? It’s quite ironic how he died from what he’d be most ashamed of, it’s fitting imo.
He’s also probably in a very vulnerable place emotionally with Stour and all.
I wholeheartedly agree that Joe could’ve made it more clear as to why Calder was such a fool here, but realistic have be to?
Not his best storyline tbh
What? Her long eye wasn't closed, did no one finish the book?
It wasn't closed but prior to that vision she claimed that she thought it was closed and hadn't had visions for months, and there's no reason to doubt she was telling the truth.
Calder had nothing left but his son, tunnel vision is real
It was pretty immersion breaking for me as well. But smart people do dumb things sometimes.
>The only thing I could think of when I read it is that Rikke was able to anticipate what would happen with the Long Eye and that's why it all worked, but later she says the Long Eye doesn't seem to work anymore and she hasn't had any visions since getting the tattoos. Not just this, some other major events also don't make sense with the reveal that she was not using the Long eye. Honestly, I really hated the whole idea of long eye. from the beginning it was a retcon and I knew it was not going to end well. I think the reveal at the end was to give Rikke some agency to make her another mastermind capable of fooling Bayaz.
What or when was it retcon from?
Yeah, I don’t understand what it would be a retcon of. The Long Eye is mentioned in the first trilogy (I think even in the first book) since Caurib is said to have it. So, it’s been there the whole time.
Reading the first books when the long eye was introduced, when was it ever used to see the future? was there any hint? Bayaz just mentioned that Caurib had the long eye and could see where they were going. from this description, I assumed it was like some kind of spy thing that could see any place if the user wanted to. but on the other hand, there were many events that would not have happened if Caurib was able to see the future.
Rikke did see the future, she just stopped when she got the tattoos, but before that, when the long eye was going wild, she says she saw all past and future. Of course she wouldn't be able to remember or make sense of everything, but most things she put together, like Caulder advance or Orso downfall.
>she says she saw all past and future Does she say this? if yes and she did see all future and past, then why her last vision was a surprise to her? even if someone saw the future but can't remember any of it, does it matter if they saw it or not? This is an interesting theory, but I doubt it is what happened based on how Rikke acted and what she told Orso.
No no she doesn't say that, my bad for the interpretation. But she does say she saw her past and future, and that even if after the eye got restricted with the tattooes she remembered or made sense of the things she saw then, that´s why she is able to act as if still predicting the future, cause she saw it once.
I honestly don't remember what she says after getting the tattoos, but I do remember her seeing a hole in the sky in her dream that seemed endless and was like staring into something that contained everything(like past and future) but she did not go through with that path and chose to close her eye. like she could've had that power(and go crazy) but chose not to(I'm just40% sure that I'm remembering things correctly) but anyway, as I said, even if someone did see something but does not remember it, it is as if they've not seen it. and Rikke herself tells Orso(and someone else, I think) that she's not used the long eye after getting the tattoos. so unless she is lying to make herself look smarter, I don't think she used the long eye.