YMMV / The Far Pavilions

• Arc Fatigue: The final sub-book gets a lot of flak from readers from being an overly detailed, terribly boring account of The Second Afghan War. It just goes on and on and on—no wonder most readers are completely turned off from it!
• Ending Fatigue: The final sub-book simply reeks of this as fans have complained, and could have benefited from some serious editing.
• Ho Yay: Some other soldiers—especially the older ones—think that Ashton and Wally are "too close", and that their relationship is "improper" and "odd".
• The Woobie: Ashton's flavours come in The Woobie, Iron Woobie, and Stoic Woobie. Justified, since life has a bad habit of making him somewhat of a The Chew Toy.
  • Like Ashton, Anjuli suffers with being the Woobie; she's picked on, abused and neglected as a child, later on she's forced into an arranged marriage and then must live with, and take care of a very selfish, spoiled half-sister while not being allowed to be with Ashton, whom she loves more than anything.
  • George Garforth too, being half-caste, and trying to make it through British society.
  • Pretty much everyone gets their share of this, especially during the Second Afghan War where life shits on everyone, from soldiers to civilians—even the landscape!