#it is i must stress. a problematic fave on several levels.

[utilitycaster]

I've said before but one of my dearly beloved problematic fave fantasy series from my teens was the Belgariad, which was basically "well, I'm an English teacher, I could probably fake it til I make it with the conventions of epic fantasy" and as such appealed to "sick in bed but not enough to be bored out of my fucking skull" high school freshman me and anyway the important piece of this is that there was one character among the allied leaders who was deceptively intelligent, and he did exactly what Chetney did here, both in terms of probing and pushing back to check the humanity and empathy of others, and also putting up the most resistance to ideas only to become their biggest fan specifically to rout other objections, and I always really loved that part. Great fucking moment.