Looks like I touched a nerve there.

Just to correct you. I have definitely not contended that Semirhage's humiliation is a new approach to the Forsaken. Sadly, it is not. Instead, it merely takes an existing trend to a greater and unprecedented height.


Personally I find it a poor way to maintain suspense in the story. And I find it interesting that the new author who is completing this series seems to share my distaste at the effect such a scene has on the building tension.

Is Hannibal Lecter a better person than Semirhage? No, they seem to be carbon copies of one another.

Now, imagine Silence of the Lambs if Hannibal is totally ridiculed by Clarice's maiden aunt, who takes to his bottom with a slipper and makes him cry in humiliation.

I can give countless examples, from countless suspense novels and movies of where such a scene would have destroyed the suspense.

In any case, I'm not trying to convince you. But I am trying to point out that you're WRONG.

Personally, a scene where Semirhage looks on in horror as Alivia blasts her arm off at the elbow, before Min plunges a dagger into her spleen, and Narishma blows her legs off with an exploding flesh weave, would have been far more dramatic, and an equally just end for this "monster" of a Forsaken.

The spanking, in contrast, just had me blinking in surprise and checking the book's cover to make sure I wasn't reading some comedic rip-off of the series.

Despite what you and others claim, I think we were poorly prepared for this scene. Semirhage has NEVER been portrayed as someone who cares in the least what others think of her. She is a somewhat deranged loner who dwells in her own fantasy world, and cares solely for the pleasure of torturing people.

She is no coward, and dispassionately isolates her own feelings of fear for later examination and analysis. If anything, she has seemed to go through life oblivious of what other people think, focused only on her own, unique obsessions and pleasures.

The Cadsuane scene came out of nowhere, and the explanation behind Semirhage's sudden collapse into tears left much to be desired. The Semirhage in the spanking scene did not add up to the Semirhage we have seen throughout the rest of the series.

What one would have expected to see in this scene, was Semirhage calmly saying to Cadsuane:

"Someone once tried to lay a hand on me before, girl. I ate her liver with a nice Chianti and some fava beans."