Before They Are Hanged is an okay sequel. It doesn't really move the needle much towards my lukewarm feelings from the first book. It does have much more of a plot and inciting incidents in all of its POVs, so it doesn't feel as aimless. However, I keep feeling like the things I actually enjoy about this series so far such as the horror-esque sequences or some of the magic and lore are often put to the side. There is a lot of focus on various nations/aggressors creating conflict that thrusts the set of characters into various dire circumstances. The problem is that these political threats are not particularly given a lot of depth, so they feel fairly vague as threats. There are more military and action setpieces, but I don't find those particularly interesting. By far my favorite plot elements were related to Glokta's attempts to uncover a conspiracy, even if he does feel like Tyrion-lite in A Clash of Kings, as well as whenever we get to hear some history about the origins of the world through Bayaz. In terms of character work, I remain disappointed since I was expecting that to be much stronger than I have felt it has been so far. Ferro feels less nuanced as a character in this book, and her page presence seems relegated to being prickly. I actually laughed at Jezal, and maybe that's intentional with how absurdly stupid and divorced from reality he is. Glokta is interesting, but again feels a bit too similar to Tyrion. I did like some of the side characters associated with Glokta in his storyline quite a bit though. Logen, The Dog Man, and West are just boring in my opinion, often feeling passive and without a ton of complexity. Abercrombie has not improved a lot with his handling of female characters in this book, with limited page time that often tends to have those female characters as an object of lust, being the recipient of violence, or lacking a lot of agency. I have a particular complaint about one female character near the end of the book bleeding into the start of the next book. I'd also like to note that around the 75% mark, the book suddenly starts becoming a lot more fixated on sex with a lot of sudden on-page sex scenes that are not particularly well-written. Considering that there were very limited such cases up until that point, it feels rather abrupt. I've seen people say that those sex scenes are trying to be satirical and purposefully awkward. Maybe that was the intention, but they were just not pleasant to read and coupled with the handling of female characters, felt a bit icky for my tastes.

Overall, even if my review seems overly negative, the book was still easy to read, with me finishing earlier than expected. I am definitely interested in certain aspects of the book and can see glimpses of things I really like. It isn't exactly off-putting like some other series have felt to me, just rather roughness around the edges. I have already started the next book and plan on finishing the trilogy even if I am not left as impressed as I thought I would be considering this trilogy's reputation.