Rocky Reads Playing with Knives

In Playing with Knives, we meet another POV character named Jezal who is kind of a punk, but I think I like him anyway. Think you're ready? Then join along as Rocky reads The Blade Itself.


More point of view characters! I love these kinds of books, with many POV characters who seem to not have a lot to do with each other, but then they end up all being really important in the book. It's seriously one of my favorite things to happen in books.

So when this chapter opens, we meet Jezal who is playing poker of some sort with four other characters. He's totally awesome at cards and wins everyone else's money-- even the one kid (Brint) who can't actually afford to be losing this money, but he wants to fit in so he plays anyway. All these guys are in some sort of army together. Jezal is cool. He's obviously that guy who doesn't really care about anything, and he's good at everything. He knows Brint can't afford to lose his money, but Jezal plays his hardest and takes all his money anyway. Then vows to blow it on alcohol and girls.

We've got a real stand up guy, here. Brint runs off to try to save what of his dignity that he can (which is none), and the rest of the guys basically tell Jezal he's being a douche. They tell him that he knows Brint can't afford to lose, and he just says that Brint shouldn't be playing if he can't afford it. In his own douche bag way, he's kinda trying to teach Brint a lesson. And getting a ton of extra money in the process. Anyway, the rest of the guys try to call on Jezal's sympathy and tell him that Brint just wants to fit in, and don't you remember what it's like to be the new guy?

Jezal gets all hard and defensive, because he remembers very well what that's like, but he's cut short as he realizes he's late for his training with Lord Marshal Varuz, and he runs off to that. Varuz is quite the stickler for stance. He's pretty physical, too. So for the next little section, we get to see him beating up Jezal in training. Anytime Jezal doesn't hold a position perfectly (which is all the time. I mean, really, this is training. if he could do it perfectly, he wouldn't be here), Varuz forcefully corrects him. He stabs him, hits him over the head, jabs him in the stomach, with sticks... It's pitiful, really.

I mean, here I am looking at Jezal thinking about how cocky he is, and now we see him somewhere where he's not the best at what he's doing, and his trainer is drilling it into him that Jezal is not the best. It's a good lesson to learn, but Veruz is being so overly superior that now I feel sorry for Jezal. He could certainly learn to be a touch more humble, but this is a little bit overkill, imo.

Actually, come to think of it, Jezal reminds me of Dave a little, one of my Chinese kids.

After training, Jezal goes and gets really incredibly wasted. And while in this state, he stumbles upon a kidnapping! Not just any kidnapping, though. It's Glokta and Frost and Severard kidnapping Tuefel! Whaaat. Being incredibly drunk, Jezal can't do a whole lot about the kidnapping, but the rest of his poker friends try to help out Tuefel (though they don't know that's who it is). And Glokta's just like, "Hey! Hey! It's you, West! How are you these days?"

Yes. Apparently they used to be in the army together, pre-cripple days. So the poker guys all end up letting Glokta carry on with what he's doing, and the chapter ends.

Now can I just say for half a second that I love that Jezal is super drunk, right, and he comes across some really important and grounding scene (the kidnapping) and he's still drunk. He still is having a hard time balancing and not being sick at the end of the chapter. That's fantastic. It usually doesn't happen in books, movies, TV shows, whatever. Usually, if any of the characters are drunk, they'll be stumbling and acting really dumb one minute, then something happens-- another character gets really bad news, whatever-- and suddenly the drunk character is instantly sobered up and can handle the situation just fine.

I mean, maybe I don't know what I'm talking about. Maybe that does really happen in real life. I don't really have any kind of personal experience with it. But I did take a psychopharmacology class, and no where in it did we talk about how a sudden increased level of drama helps the liver process drugs quicker. Not once. So I appreciate that while he's trying to fight, he hasn't suddenly become a master swordsman. He has to deal with two problems here: fighting some kidnappers and having a terrible lack of coordination.

All that aside, this is a good chapter. I actually really like Jezal's character. I like Abercrombie's writing style quite a lot here. It's a unique style, and it's not really my favorite that I've ever read (at least not when in Logen's perspective), but I think it works really fantastically for Jezal's perspective.

And I'm really digging all the completely different personalities that are coming to play here in the book so far. It's cool. It leads me to wonder, though, if all of these personalities are going to come together to be fighting for one cause as the book goes on, or will they all stick to their own paths, or are we perhaps going to be introduced to the villain of the story and not know until later? Will anyone that we've met so far (or will meet, POV-wise) be on opposing sides? I'm intrigued.

Oh. Also super curious about what happened between West and Glokta. Yes. I hope we find that out someday.

Yes, the money was certainly useful, and there's nothing half so amusing as humiliating one's closest friends.