Real World Comparisons

[Blueskinnedghost]

Am I the only person to notice that the history of Midkemian warfare has followed a similar trend to the development of 20th century history?

While I got hooked into magician by the idea of Samuri fighting Medieval European Knights the series took a change after the Riftwar and became a series of proxy battles waged by the likes of the Armengarians and Novindans.
Also the spy caper became a staple of Feist's storytelling in the Krondor Series.

Then came the Serpent war with it's cold war sense of impending apocalypse and the incredibly large scale combats (thankfully the historical equivalent never came out of those early 70's standoffs).

Now Conclave of shadows and the Darkwar series so far is even more cold war-like with shady institutions fighting ruthless covert wars against each other.

Just a thought, but a persistent one.

[Winters_Sorrow]

Well certainly a lot of the optimism in the early books have gone by the time Serpentwar ends & Conclave begins. There are no 'easy fixes' anymore and by defeating a person, you don't end the threat. In the case of the Valheru for example, there was a one-off large battle with a definitive and decisive outcome.
However, with this Nameless God who is egging on people to bring him back, once one is destroyed, another arises. The quintessential endless war I guess.
Maybe it's just more reflective of the relentess grim "War on Terror" images we and, particularly citizens in the US, are subjected to on a daily basis.

[Blueskinnedghost]

You know I can never decide if the philosophical elements about the nature of the universe and good and evil are actually incredible well disguised plot points or if Feist is just making it up as he goes along to paste together continuity.

(if it is the latter, I strongly identify)

[Winters_Sorrow]

Well good and evil as concepts are staple fair in most fantasy. It serves more as allegory than anything else. If the evil wizard also loved animals and helped fund a local orphanage it would confuse the reader.

Having said that, I love moral ambiguity and multi-facted characters in my books these days. The simple good vs evil stories are good as moral cornerstones when growing up but once you get to a certain maturity then you don't like having such simplistic solutions and situations thrown at you anymore

[The Upright Man]

feist has also unintentionally foresaw the taboo on something destroy the business stocks and shares in his books, all they need next is another "world" war to finish off the series as a warning of future events