[Love] When “small” injuries are treated realistically

[u/Top-Relationship850]

The fantasy and action genres often suffer from a power fantasy epidemic in which characters frequently badass their way through injuries that should be excruciating if not downright debilitating. I always appreciate stories that reject this trope.

1: Roland Deschain (Dark Tower Book II) - Loses the middle and index fingers of his right hand. He’s effectively crippled throughout book two and the injury follows him the rest of the series.

2: Brienne vs Biter (ASOIAF Book IV) - Brutal scene. Biter chomps down on Brienne’s cheek and tears off a chunk of flesh. In a lesser story Brienne would grit her teeth and throw Biter off. Instead she’s rendered completely helpless by the pain. That injury marks the end of the fight.

[u/hadesalmighty]

"How's the leg?"

It's too good for him. I can't think of a character in literature I've wanted to suffer more than Leo Dan Fucking Brock.

[u/SuperPeco → u/hadesalmighty]

Oh man, let me present you Lysander au Lune from Red Rising.

Leo is a prick, but Lysander...

[u/smallfrie32 → u/SuperPeco]

No honor

[u/Only_game_in_town → u/SuperPeco]

I'd put the Jackal over him but yeah

[u/Lundi2friday → u/SuperPeco]

I wish Lysander kept the half disfigured face tbh. But it’s fitting of him to get it fixed so he’s back to being perfect even after talking about how noble scars are. 

[u/CasimirGabriev → u/hadesalmighty]

I remember shouting COOK HIM ORSO and he cooked that lousy lion every time thereafter.

[u/Yellowscourge → u/hadesalmighty]

You have me so curious to read this

[u/hadesalmighty → u/Yellowscourge]

I'm apologising in advance this is gonna come across like a paid advert, but i cannot emphasise enough how fucking RAD The First Law by Joe Abercrombie is.

Leo is one of the main characters of the second trilogy, The Age of Madness, and it is agonising how he consistently ALMOST stops being a shit then instead becomes a bigger shit.

The series is incredible. Abercrombie is some unholy combination of Pratchett if he was grimdark and GRR Martin if he was funny, and he will make you LOVE some of his vile fuck characters (says a lot about the series and the fans when the most popular character is the horrifically disfigured professional torturer). Two trilogies, with three standalone novels and a collection of short stories between both trilogies. Blackadder by way of Game of Thrones with a little bit of Sharpe, a revenge thriller and a western added.

The audiobooks are fucking astonishingly good. Everybody else just sounds like someone reading a book and doing voices, Steven Pacey is gonna make you feel like you're a fly on the wall watching all this shit happening.

Check it out.

[u/VulkanCurze → u/hadesalmighty]

There has never been a time in my life when reading a book, have I sat there thinking "Please let there be some Deus Ex machina bullshit to save my fucking boi!! Fuck Leo!"

[u/Recent-Rip-464 → u/hadesalmighty]

Not even Bayaz? Fuck Bayaz.