Splicers

[redchild]

Nothing important but I just wanted to point out how similar I found the Forged Ones from the Farseer series are to the Splicers in the video game Bioshock. If you haven't played Bioshock before you can read a little about them here.

What was really scary about them was that they still held some characteristics of their former selves before they became splicers. They still wear the clothes they wore the night of the New Year's Eve attack. They could speak (shout, scream) coherently, however raving. They usually leave other splicers alone, unless some rivalry or feud comes up between them and they fight violently and recklessly. It's as if they feel no pain and no emotion besides destructiveness and greed... All very much like Forged Ones.

When I first read the Farseer series, I couldn't really grasp how frightening the Forged Ones were to Fitz. They weren't really zombie-like nor were they especially violent unless they wanted something. I picked up Assassin's Quest a few days ago to start a rereading and when I got to the part where Fitz and Chade first encounter Forged Ones, the image of a splicer came to mind. Now I find them quite scary indeed

[Mervi]

That's fascinating, redchild. I've never played that game.
Although the Forged Ones are quite different, the first image that came to my mind when we first hear about them in the books were the "Cauldron-Born" from Lloyd Alexander's The Chronicles of Prydain.