Originally Posted by
SteveMB
Also chiming in a bit late; I'd been a bit busy to keep up with the forum and dropped out for a while.
One angle that occurs to me is how nicely the "escaped from slavery" backstory averts the risk (mentioned by Rich in the notes of one of the books, IIRC) of making Belkar seem tragic rather than comically evil -- between the "execution" of the slavers and the suspicion (based on what we know of Belkar) that he got himself into that predicament by choosing to tangle with the wrong people rather than as an utterly innocent victim.