#collem west

[gamgamchew]

[blacksummerfes]

farewell my friend

[konmatfl]

In their first briefings West had found himself outnumbered twenty to one by the two Generals’ monstrous staffs. He had reduced them, by a relentless process of attrition, to a meagre two officers a piece. The meetings had lost the charged atmosphere of a tavern brawl and instead taken on the character of a small and bad-tempered family event – perhaps the reading of a disputed will. West was the executor, trying to find an acceptable solution for two squabbling beneficiaries to whom nothing was acceptable. Jalenhorm and Brint, sitting to either side of him, were his dumbstruck assistants. What role the Dogman played in the metaphor was hard to judge, but he was adding to the already feverish pitch of worry in the tent by picking at his fingernails with a dagger.

This is how you set a scene. :D

Already the start is great, using the quite military "outnumbered" for a regular discussion, and then the metaphor grows from there.

[xserpx]

‘Colonel Glokta, I swear! We could do with some of that dash here, eh, West? Some of that vim! That vigour! Shame that he’s dead.’

West looked up. ‘He isn’t dead, your Highness.’

‘He isn’t?’

‘He was captured by the Gurkish, and then returned to the Union when the war ended. He . . . er . . . he joined the Inquisition.’

‘The Inquisition?’ The Prince looked horrified. ‘Why on earth would a man give up the soldiering life for that?’

West groped for words, but then thought better of it. ‘I cannot imagine, your Highness.’

— Before They Are Hanged by Joe Abercrombie

Prince Ladisla waved his hand. ‘Of course, a great deal to do. You can tell me more of your stories tomorrow, eh, West? About Colonel Glokta and so forth. Damn shame he’s dead!’

[xserpx]

I feel about West the way Jappo feels about women: 'Nyeh. Mixed feelings.' The Cathil subplot is the worst part of the trilogy, and the fact his anger never actually impacts his life in a major way is a waste of potential. I think West is kind of a thematic jack of all trades master of none: he's a man pulling himself up by his bootstraps, he's a domestic abusing misogynist, he's the only man with any sense around here, he's the sacrificial lamb, he's remembered as a hero but doesn't deserve to be. Personally I find his class status, domestic abuse, and the way he's remembered are the most interesting things about him (Nobody's Dog in TBI is his best chapter by a country mile) but the trilogy is much more interested in him just being the guy with more sense and him being the sacrificial lamb. He starts really strong but it's all downhill from there. I guess what I'm mostly saying is that the more people like West, the worse he is as a character, because the most interesting aspects of him require a certain level of hatred, but those other aspects cause him to be likeable, reducing the overall impact. I can't help thinking that if West was in the Heroes, which delves more into toxic masculinity, he would have been given far more depth and become much more morally complicated in the mind of the readers than he is. As it stands, he's just too well-liked to be interesting. I do consider myself a West fan overall, because like an optical illusion if I turn my head slightly, I see that different picture, and it's still good. But I much prefer the other one.

If you asked me how I felt about Colm West I think I’d say that I think he’s a fantastic subversion of the noble soldier archetype and carries an extra weight when he’s compared to all of the more visibly horrible people around him, making him one of the most interesting POVs in the original trilogy.

If you asked me again I’d say that there is no experience in this or any world that could make me as happy as the feeling of my knuckles cracking his chin.

[anxiouswizardart]

Colonel Collem "Furious" West, from the First Law series

[nocontextfirstlawtrilogy]

‘We must work together. This is not a competition, gentlemen.’ The two generals immediately competed with each other to be the one to agree most.

— Last Argument Of Kings, Joe Abercrombie

[xillionreblogs]

Ask Chat GPT to write a West/Glokta romantic thriller because I’m a person with questionable morality. Turns out the AI recognizes TFL to begin with, which surprised me, but Terez is now West’s fiancé and poor AI literally paused twenty seconds at “Collem, in turn, is drawn to Glokta’s…” before finally coming up with why the hell West will fall in love with Glokta lmao.

[felagund-fiollaigean]

The Dogman sometimes goes by his full name (The Dogman) and sometimes just his last name (Dogman) but never just his first name (The)

I think it's really interesting that glokta and west go by their surnames in their pov chapters, but logen and jezal and ferro by their first names. I think it may be because glokta and west are both very career-driven (for various reasons) so think of themselves in a more detached, professional capacity, whereas logen is actively trying to distance himself from the bloody nine/fingers persona and jezal is ... well, jezal. for ferro, her name is almost all she has. I'm not sure why exactly she would prefer ferro over maljin but maybe I'll figure that out in LAoK

[firstlawincorrectquotes]

West: Look. I know from the outside it looks like I have everything together—

Cathil: No, not really.

[xillionart]

Spring comes to Adua

(aka an abandoned illustration for this series that I TOTALLY FORGOT TO POST UNTIL NOW)

[chloristoflora]

Collem West... He seemed a normal guy, a good guy, and then he did that to Ardee. His own sister. He strangled her. Just like their father abused her. I hate major West now.

I mean, everyone in this book has a dark side. But I like the dark sides of people like Glokta and Logen, because they don't pretend to be good. While West has a false façade of fairness around him...

[blacksummerfes]

headcanon

Glokta West and Ganmark playing strip poker

[konmatfl]

“Quite the spectacle,” muttered Burr. “Fifteen thousand fighting men, perhaps, all told, and almost as many more up on the ridge.” He nodded his head at the reserve, two regiments of cavalry, dismounted and restless down below the command post. “Another two thousand there, waiting for orders.” He glanced back towards the sprawling camp: a city of canvas, of carts, of stacked-up boxes and barrels, spread out in the snowy valley, black figures crawling around inside. “And that’s without counting all the thousands back there – cooks and grooms, smiths and drivers, servants and surgeons.” He shook his head. “Some responsibility, all that, eh? You wouldn’t want to be the fool who had to take care of all that lot.” West gave a weak smile. “No, sir.”

Foreshadowing intensifies.

[xserpx]

‘Sergeant Forest, how are you?’ asked West, clapping the soldier warmly on the back. He had a touch with peasants, but then Jezal had to keep reminding himself that West was little better than a peasant himself. He might be educated, and an officer, and so forth, but he still had more in common with the sergeant than he did with Jezal, once you thought about it.

Ah, that's why 😆

If he was being completely honest, he didn’t really enjoy smoking. It made him feel a bit sick, but it was very fashionable and very expensive, and Jezal would be damned if he would miss out on something fashionable just because he didn’t like it. Besides, his father had bought him a beautiful ivory pipe the last time he was in the city, and it looked very well on him.

— The Blade Itself by Joe Abercrombie

Ok but how do people not instantly love him?

[i-8-ur-soul]