Paging Dr. Frankenstein

***Spoilers for The Rain Wilds Chronicles through City of Dragons. Mentions of the events of The Farseer Trilogy, The Liveship Traders Trilogy, and The Tawny Man Trilogy are fair game, too.***

City of Dragons – ✅ One more book to go in our Rain Wilds Chronicles adventure, and then it’s time to buckle the fuck up and dive into the final trilogy of this RotE experience.

So with that, I’m going to jump right in with a character who proves likability has nothing to do with being compelling.

Hest

If Hest is a monster (and he is), here we finally meet his maker. And of course, it’s the final boss of boy moms: Hest’s mother. She enters the story as coddling and enabling as you might expect.

Robin Hobb isn’t called the queen of character (not sure anyone calls her that specifically, but still) for nothing. Hest is already one of the richest characters in the story, even without much direct page time. But the chapter we get to spend with him and his parents, especially his dynamic with his mother, adds even more depth to an already vivid portrait.

And he makes such a great villain. For me, he’s right up there with Kyle (and maybe Chade?) in the RotE loathsome-men rankings.

What makes him so terrifying is how real he is. He’s not a pale, ethereal magical woman in an ice palace. He doesn’t steal souls or chop up his foes. He’s just an asshole. A charismatic, entitled, deeply spoiled man taken to the extreme.

We see him encouraged to reclaim Alise and Sedric as if they’re property – and to secure any claim they might have to Kelsingra (good luck with that). But we also get to watch him taken down a massive peg when the Chalcedean mercenary he tried to have killed shows back up.

And listen, I don’t think of myself as sadistic, but I can’t lie, watching Hest get literally walked like a dog while writhing in poisoned-induced agony? Worked for me.

“He had licked the man’s boot. Not once or twice, but like a dog, lapping at it over and over until the Chalcedean had stepped away.”