YMMV / Consider Phlebas

• Alternative Character Interpretation: Does Horza actually believe in the Culture's moral inferiority and the inevitability of its defeat, as he professes? Or is it that his Shapeshifter Identity Crisis gives him a kneejerk horror for Culture's lack of strict boundaries (between human and machine, between man and woman, between right and wrong, etc) while making him find the militarism and moral clarity of the Idirans comforting?
• Heartwarming Moments:
  • The Mind naming itself after Horza.
  • Horza's glad acceptance of Yalson's confession of being pregnant.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: Horza is justifiably paranoid about Balveda being armed to the teeth with hidden weapons. One of her teeth is a memoryform plasma gun.
• Jerkass Woobie: Horza's not an especially nice person, landing somewhere between an Anti-Hero and Villain Protagonist and caring little for Collateral Damage... But awful things just seem to keep happening to him, none of which are actually his fault. He's forced to join the band of failing Space Pirates in order to escape with his life, is the only one who has to suffer through the disgusting ordeal of being captured by the Eaters, experiences the deaths of two Love Interests (the latter of whom was pregnant with his child) in very quick succession, and has his final plan derailed just as it appears he's finally won, leading to his death.
• Nausea Fuel / Nightmare Fuel: Absolutely everything about The Eaters and their Prophet, Fwi-Song. For context, they're an Apocalypse Cult living on the Vavatch Orbital, who are forbidden to eat anything except from the skin and guts of fish boiled into a revolting and inedible soup, while every so often Fwi-Song slowly bites off all the appendages off a cultist using metal dentures, finishing off the pain-crazed victim by sitting on them, before the other cultists eat their brains. This manages to sicken Horza, a hardened mercenary and spy, and Fwi and his assistant probably deserve far worse than the death by poisoning Horza finally manages to deliver to them.

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