Status Updates From The Legend of Drizzt, Book IV

So, it is only when Wulfgar has gone through his ordeal and has not drunk any alcohol that he finally has clarity of his situation.

"Perhaps the crowds gather around eagerly merely for the excitement of the show. Perhaps there is no underlying cause or explanation other than the fun of it...for if humans on as large a scale are capable of eliminating empathy and sympathy so completely as to actually enjoy the spectacle of watching another suffer horribly, then that, I fear, is the truest definition of evil."

"One measure of any society is the way it deals with those who have walked away from the course of community and decency, and an indecent treatment of these criminals decreases the standards of morality to the level of the tortured." Essentially, what differentiates a community from criminality is how they treat those who commit crimes and those who have not committed any crimes but are punished away.

"Why would common, otherwise decent folk, descend to such a level as the spectacle of Prisoner's Carnival? Why would some of the Sea Sprite's own crew, men and women I knew to be honorable and decent, take pleasure in viewing such a macabre display of torture?" A question that I don't really have an answer for.

"...as my reputation has begun to gain me some acceptance among the human population...have I come to witness a more complex version of what I observed in Menzoberranzan, a shade of gray varying in light and darkness. So many humans, it seems, a vast majority, have within their makeup a dark side, a hunger for the macabre, and the ability to disspationately dismiss the agony of another in the pursuit of the self."

Finally, I'm in the last third of this second book. Hopefully, the final book in this volume can make up for it.

Well, well, well, it's about time for Wulfgar to do something. We've waited long enough.

Did Salvatore look up all of these torture implements from history? Or were these things he saw on movies? Or did he come up with his imagination?

Is this the point of this torture and execution? A question of how justice is implemented by those who judge and execute the punishment, and those who catch the transgressors?

The description of being drawn and quartered...who came up with such a punishment? And how long did that last before people thought that it was too much, too gruesome?

"Legend had it that with a perfect, swift cut and a quick check guard the beheaded man might still be conscious for a split second, long enough to see his own body, his face contorted into an expression of the purest, most exquisite horror."
Just goes to show that evil is not just within the Drow, Fiends, Mind Flayers, or other monsters.

Wulfgar is so far gone by his PTSD that he registers a jeering, frenzied crowd as demons. He's gone bat$#!+ insane! How is he going to get out of this rut? How is he going to recover?

See? I'm more interested by the adviser, Temigast. He's smart, savvy, diplomatic, and capable. He's a more interesting character than the others in this situation.

These side stories of Meralda and Jaka are not interesting. Nothing interesting is happening! I was wondering if Jaka would get some fey or fiend to take advantage of his plight, but that hasn't happened. I was wondering if there would come a point that Meralda would become a strong and capable woman, but that either hasn't come up or it's taking too long. What's the point of this story? Again, where's the heroes?

She should really be more careful on how she feels about her father and her forgiveness of him. He beat her for God's sake!

That's how it is with many illnesses. The body has a moment where the affliction seems to have wavered and there is no ill-effects. But that is a false inclination as the illness or disease comes back with a vengeance.

She's rejecting her former crush/lover in favor of her own independence. Admirable, but does she look ahead at what this rejection would do in the long run on someone as unstable as Jaka?

"[Meralda] savored the moment and vowed that after she was lady of the castle, she would spend many such moments out in this garden alone." Considering how obsessive her fiancé is over her and how little decorum and dignity he knows on how to treat her, I highly doubt he would leave her alone.