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thesebookishdelights · 3 years

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ANY WAY THE WIND BLOWS: Simon Snow trilogy wrapped! (review)

Hi, there! It took me a while to finish this post, as I could talk about it for... a long time (not necessarily a good thing), but I got it! I like praise, so if anyone wants to tell me I did a good job... Also, I might edit this post later on. I don’t remember anything else I’d like to add, but I wouldn’t be surprised if I did after posting. My brain does not obey me. Anyways, off to it! By the way, I won’t give this book a real rating.

While this is a review on Any Way the Wind Blows, I intend on analysing some points of the overall series too. The book starts where Wayward Son left off, the end of the road trip, Simon and Baz having problems in their relationship, Penelope helping Shepard with his curse... and the whole situation of the NowNext vampires. Rainbow Rowell only seems to remember the first part. That leaves us with the second book of the series ignored almost completely, with the exception of Simon and Baz’s feelings as well as Shepard’s existence.

Don’t get me wrong, aspects of the book are mentioned, but never in a truly important way. Lamb, the Vampire King, is mentioned by Simon, but only focusing on his and Baz’s relationship, never about the fact that there are a bunch of vampires (supposedly ‘evil’) in the U.S. but I guess what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas, right? I could count on one hand the times the NowNext vampires were mentioned (like, literally, this isn’t an exaggeration, I looked up ‘NowNext’ on the e-book and only got five results), all of them either being one of them considering telling someone else about it, then not following through with it, or dismissing it as a concern for Lamb. Which makes the plot of Wayward Son completely useless for the trilogy. Now, that wouldn’t matter as much if everything else had been properly developed, but we definitely can’t say that.

We are introduced to a brand new, poorly developed villain, Smith-Smith Richards, whose character arc is as ridiculous as his name. He’s one of the fake Chosen Ones that started appearing after the events of Carry On (and the only one to be mentioned and/or defeated, for that matter). It becomes clear that presenting as Simon Snow-ish is part of his brand, especially when Baz describes him as looking like the Netflix adaptation version of Simon, and that he was raised and guided by his uncle, who’s just... there. I don’t think it would’ve been hard to make him manipulating Smith-Smith into believing he’s the prophetic savior of the Magickal World, which would not only make both of their characters more interesting, but it could also serve as a parallel of Simon’s relationship with the Mage. Richards also has some special powers such as increasing a mage’s magic for a limited amount of time, but taking it away afterwards, as well as making someone immune from spells. It’s worth saying those aren’t skills that are usual in the Magickal World, or else there wouldn’t be so much confusion and shock from people (specially Baz and Penny, who would definitely have heard of something like this before), but we get no explanation on why or how Richard has them.

Then, we have the Salisbury’s. We, as readers, already know Lucy and Davy are Simon’s parents, making Ruth his grandmother. It’s noticeable that Rowell builds up to that discovery, by making Simon get along with Ruth instantly, him thinking about Lucy a lot etc. It makes us excited to read the part where they actually figure it out, to know how Simon would deal with that, him dealing with the fact that he’s the Mage’s son and the fact that, technically, he killed his father. I suppose that’s the point, but actually getting to that part was incredibly underwhelming. The way they discovered about Simon—being able to lift a family sword—hadn’t been mentioned or hinted at before. One would’ve expected Simon, who’s particularly interested in swords as it’s mentioned many times throughout the series, to notice a freaking Excalibur at the Salisbury’s place before.

And speaking of noticing things: when it’s finally revealed that Simon is Lucy’s son and the Mage’s heir, Baz pointed out the uncanny similarities between his boyfriend and the deceased Watford principal. “Those narrow eyes. That tilt of his head. I thought... I thought he’d learned it. Was imitating it.” + “Merlin, Simon, you even look like him.” (Any Way the Wind Blows, chapter 86) Simon was the Mage’s protégé for years and I assume the Magickal authorities knew that he was the one to inherit all of his money and personal belongings, but no one, in the whole British Magickal community, thought about them being related? I refuse to believe there were no conspiracy theorist teachers at Watford or that Mitali or even the Pitch’s alongside everyone who was against the Mage didn’t at least check to know if there was something behind those characteristics. Baz literally said (chapter 88), “I think it’s undeniable. I’d cast ‘Flesh and blood’ on them, but it would bounce right off of Snow (...)”, so there is a spell for that. Plus, we didn’t even have one whole chapter of Simon dealing with this information! The chapters (no more than five, out of ninety-one) were divided between Simon, Baz and Lady Ruth’s POVs. He’s the main character, so one would think he’d get more development.

Another point that felt rushed was the romance. While Simon and Baz’s relationship wasn’t, as it’s been a topic Rowell has explored for three books (we’re not counting Fangirl here, as their ‘participation’ on it was minor and their personalities weren’t as consistent as in the trilogy. Not that it is that consistent there), the others just felt like she wanted everyone to finish the trilogy with a pair. I’ll start with Shepard and Penny. There were fans who liked them together before Any Way the Wind Blows, but it wasn’t hinted at—it was more like a fandom thing. I personally like them as a couple, but it could have had development and, maybe, foreshadowing in Wayward Son. I mean, they did fight monsters during a huge part of a road trip together.

The next one I’ll talk about is Agatha and Niamh. I love them, don’t get me wrong. Actually, it’s precisely because I love them that I wish they’d gotten a better treatment. Niamh wasn’t introduced before Any Way the Wind Blows. I get why she wasn’t introduced in Carry On—it was interesting to see a character who wasn’t caught up in Simon and Baz’s drama during the school years—but a hint of her existence could’ve been left in Wayward Son. Agatha is an important character on it, and a mention of her father training an aspiring veterinary could’ve fit somewhere, as a hint, maybe. (Also, Lucy, the dog, being absolutely forgotten during this book when a lot of Agatha’s time is spent in a veterinary clinic...) Besides, we could get the vibes from them, but after they kissed, there was barely any content. We didn’t get them calling each other ‘girlfriend’ (or if they even like that label at this point), or the aftermath of the kiss, or a POV from Niamh. Or Niamh appearing the epilogue? If Agatha was taking care of the goats, I’m sure Niamh would have a part in that too. Still on Agatha’s character, but not on Niamh’s, it felt like Rainbow Rowell was setting up for aromantic and asexual Agatha, specially because of this quote: “It was like she'd pulled the feeling right out of my heart. I could have kissed her. (I still wish sometimes that I wanted to.) (That would feel like an answer to... the question of me. Then I could say, 'Oh, thats who I am. That's why I've been so confused.')” (Wayward Son, chapter 4).

And I was leaving the best (I need to be sure everyone knows I mean this sarcastically) of the romance topic for the end: Fiona and Nicodemus. It’s just... so forced and undeveloped. Not even because, to me, they’re both gay as hell. There was just... such a lack of development! I don’t think we had any interaction between the both of them before Any Way the Wind Blows. There was no foreshadowing or why would Fiona, a vampire hunter from a family of vampire hunters, would marry... a vampire! I’d already find it weird to see fanfiction of them as a crackship, but it’s canon?! Like, canon as in they’re going to get married and use Fiona and Natasha’s mother’s ring? Seriously, nothing will take from me that this is a lavender marriage (as I’ve already discussed with my best friend, which inspired this post of theirs.)

I’d also like to speak about a topic that’d been hinted throughout the series, especially post-Carry On, which is the criticism towards the Magickal Community in the U.K.. That criticism is very much embodied in Shepard’s character. It’s explicitly said that the British mages have some kind of supremacy towards other supernatural beings, such as vampires for example, gatekeeping literal magic. Up until relatively recently, mages with weak links with magic couldn’t attend Watford (and that’s a major plot point in the final book) and there’s a denial towards any other kind of magic except the ones that are part of their craft. Even within the Magickal community itself, there are more important families that are more likely to succeed, like Natasha receiving criticism for marrying Malcolm, as a Pitch. It felt pointless not to tackle the issues you’ve set up yourself in your own universe. Penelope has very strict morals related to magickal law and beliefs, something that she could’ve deconstructed, especially considering Shepard, her love interest, symbolises that. Another point related to that is, the trilogy is very clearly heavily inspired by Harry Potter, where many of those points are very clear (e.g. wizard supremacy in relation to other species, such as werewolves and domestic elves and the status quo that makes some traditionally magical families more influential than others, like the Malfoy’s vs. the Weasley’s), so it’s not an easily forgettable concept.

The series also had a lot of inconsistencies. The one I’ve seen talked about more often is Simon and Agatha’s... intimacy status, let’s call it that. Simon’s whole thing in the first book was that he struggled controlling his magic when experiencing intense emotions, which makes it hard to believe that he managed to have sex withount an... accident. Besides that, though, there’s this quote, “She (...) presses a kiss into my temple. No one has ever kissed me there. No one has ever kissed me anywhere but on my mouth” (Carry On, Chapter 27), but in Any Way the Wind Blows, when Simon’s about to have his wings cut, Agatha says, “It’s a strange feeling to look at someone’s chest and know it’s nothing to do with you anymore, but still to remember kissing every inch.” (Chapter 14)

So, we have established that Rainbow Rowell’s work, both character and plot driven, is flawed. “But we got the characters interacting for the closure of the series, at least!” Well... we got interactions between the canon romantic relationships, yeah. But besides that, we didn’t get much. There were no interactions between Agatha and Penny, or Shepard with Simon and Baz. Or Penny and her mother figuring stuff out. Or literally anyone with a therapist. And not gonna lie, the interaction we got between Baz and Dev was underwhelming, to say the least. Niall is nowhere to be seen, too.

Rainbow Rowell’s writing is beautiful: she writes poetic lines that make the book seem perfect at first glance, if you don’t think about it for too long. Her words are very shiny, but once you get use to that light and see what’s behind them, what’s between one shiny quote and another, it has so many flaws and plot holes that it reads like a first draft. There are many concepts in there that are genuinely good: the rest of the trilogy focused on the protagonist dealing with the trauma of being a child soldier instead of being entirely an adventure, Simon being unlabelled, a fake Chosen One that gives mages fake hope... Those are all good ideas, but so poorly explored that, despite being an entire book/trilogy, it still feels like a writing pitch or something among those lines.

I felt iffy about other things during my reading of the series, but they aren’t exactly plot points, so I’ll just list them below:

Mitali, Penny’s mom, including ‘discovering your bisexuality’ as a mid-life crisis thing

As I’ve seen people talking about biphobia/bi erasure in the books, I’ll be including this post that features both unlabelled and bisexual individuals talking about the topic (it isn’t my place, as a lesbian, to talk about this, that’s why I decided not to do so.)

Romanticising of Baz’s suicide (a.k.a. chapter 61) in the first book. If you’re not in a good place mentally, like I was when I first read Carry On, I hope you know that a kiss or romance doesn’t help any mental illness you or others might have. Don’t let anyone use your guilt to manipulate you. Paraphrasing Alice Oseman in their graphic novel Heartstopper, love can’t cure a mental illness.

Any Way the Wind Blows was... very horny. I can’t point out how this makes the book bad exactly, but it wasn’t something I enjoyed. One of Rainbow Rowell’s strongest skills is that her quotes, when loose, are good. They tend to be poetic and just beautiful, overall. But in the... explicit scenes, these skills were barely used, and I felt like I was reading NSFW tweets off of someone’s private account on Twitter. Besides, the first two books of the series weren’t written like that, so the change was very sudden.

The older people could’ve been more explored. Penelope and Mitali’s relationship and how similar the both of them are compared to each other, Daphne and Professor Bunce’s insecurities and why they believed in Smith-Smith, Fiona, Nico, and Ebb... Also, the Mage and Lucy. We could’ve had more on them, y’know.

The pop culture references. They made the book read even more like Twitter’s feed. Honestly, if I wanted to read prompts and nice ship content alongside memes from Twitter with some horny thoughts sprinkled all around, I would’ve opened the Twitter app. Or Tumblr, Instagram, whatever.

The POV switching felt lazy to me at times. It’s nice to know how different characters are experiencing that situation, yes, but sometimes, like during the discovery that Simon is a Salisbury, it read as if Rowell wanted to create tension, but couldn’t think of any other way to do it except the switching around.

Narrative wise, I think Simon and Baz should’ve spent more time broken up.

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diavolodigitale · 3 years

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Dream Sequence. Asra

It is kind of surprising but I wrote all 3 stories about dreams in one day. Did I nearly lose my sanity in the process? Yes. Did it make me have a terrible migraine? Yes. Do I feel like it was worth it? Also probably pretty much yes. Hard to tell now, I don’t understand what is happening in real life anymore.

All parts of the trilogy: Lucio - Asra - Julian - All stories in PDF

A part of the "trilogy" about dream encounters dedicated to Asra (because he is a cinnamon bun). Nothing special, just You (or the Apprentice, or the Reader, however you view it) and Asra spending some time together (if you know what I mean, which you probably don't, so go ahead and read it, it's pretty short, I promise). My character was male, but you are free to imagine whoever you want since there are no references to it in the text.

Genres: Romance, Fluff, Comfort, Dreams, POV First Person, One-shot, Light-hearted

Pairing: Asra/Apprentice(or Reader or You or Whatever)

Characters: Asra, Reader/Apprentice/You

Rating: G for Geez that’s another good story, how come?

Size: around 2500 words again

I open my eyes just to see that I am surrounded by white emptiness. As my eyes are adjusting to how bright everything around me looks, I am beginning to discern the line of the horizon that separates the cloudless greyish winter sky above from the frozen bluish ground under my feet.

It looks like it’s winter but it certainly doesn’t feel like one. I am dressed in my regular outfit and still no cold seems to penetrate my shirt and bite my skin underneath.

This must be a dream.

There seems to be nothing at all in front of me except for the vast emptiness and leagues and leagues of distance, so I turn around to investigate other directions.

Not far away from me I manage to spot a person sitting on a large round rock with their back turned to me. I realise that it’s probably his dream, not mine.

I approach, already knowing who the person is.

“Hello,” I say and put my hand on Asra’s shoulder, trying not to startle him.

“Oh, it’s you!” he says with delight in his voice and turns to face me. “Seeing you here is definitely a welcome surprise.”

Asra smiles and I take a seat beside him.

For some reason he is wearing an elegant snake mask. It is long and slender with the eyelids half-lowered, and really seems to accentuate the delicate features of his face. There’s nothing out of the ordinary with his clothes, so I decide to cast the strangeness aside as a result of this being a dream.

“I felt your presence some time ago but thought I was only imagining. How did you get here?” he asks, staring into the distance.

I shrug my shoulders. I really don’t know, but it’s not like there are many options here. Usually it’s all the same – either he gravitates towards me or I towards him. We’ve lived and worked together for so long that I feel like I can recognize his energy anywhere and anytime.

“Your magic must’ve brought me here,” I say, sneaking a glance at him.

Asra nods and it looks like he is smiling under his mask, but it’s hard to tell.

“You’re incredible, have I told you that?” he asks and turns to face me again.

“A few times, yes,” I say, a bit flustered at how straightforward he is. “But I can only locate you because your magic is so strong and vivid. I don’t even need to make any effort to find out where you are.”

“If you say so,” he says and laughs it off.

A cold gust of wind blows and makes a mess of his hair. I only assume that it’s cold, but I still cannot really feel much in this realm.

“Yet it won’t be long before you outgrow me,” adds Asra after a short pause, sounding a bit upset, “I’ll be looking forward to that moment.”

I notice how worried he sounds and cannot help but wonder what troubles him so much. He’s always been pretty open with me unless it came to some of the feelings he didn’t feel comfortable sharing.

I try to read the expression on his face, but the mask turns out to be a real hurdle, so I reach out to remove it.

“What are you doing?” asks Asra but doesn’t pull away from my hand.

“I feel frustrated when I look at your face and see this mask instead, so I wanted to help you take it off. May I?” I say apologetically, thinking that I should’ve asked before I actually tried.

“This mask…?” asks Asra in confusion and raises his hand to touch his face. His fingers find the plain surface of the mask instead of his skin, and he looks at me in surprise. “Yes… Sure, of course. I must look pretty strange with it, right?” he asks nervously and lets me remove the mask from his face.

I look at him attentively and notice that the tip of his nose as well as his lips are bluish. I frantically look down on his hands and note that they’re also much paler than usual and even seem to tremble.

“Are you cold?” I ask, scared and disappointed that I didn’t notice it earlier.

Before he manages to respond, I pull him into a tight hug with one hand and grab both of his shaking hands in the other one.

“Are you not?” he mumbles into my shoulder and gratefully nestles in my embrace.

“No, the cold doesn’t seem to affect me,” I say thoughtfully, stroking his hands with my thumb. I can feel his body gradually relaxing, washed by the warmth I radiate with a little help from my magic.

“Then this moment is even closer than I expected…” he almost whispers.

I still don’t exactly know the reason for his brooding but make an educated guess that he is yet again referring to me being more talented in magic than he expected. I can’t understand why it might be a bad thing and simply try to look for ways to cheer him up.

“If I grow stronger…” I start quietly, and he immediately turns his attentions to me, his wise eyes staring into mine, “will it be you who will be visiting my dreams then?”

He stares at me for a moment or two before letting out a soft chuckle and squeezing my hand.

“Only if you want me to. It’s not like there’s anything worth seeing in mine,” he responds, his smile fading a bit at the end.

“There’s nothing I would like more,” I say and feel like the tips of my ears are burning. “If it’s with you, though, I think I would agree to go anywhere.”

He’s been quite distant from me lately but I hope to change it. There’s no use guessing over his worries if he doesn’t want to tell me so I just hope I have enough determination and patience in me to show him that I’m not going to disappear anywhere any time soon.

My words seem to have hit the spot so Asra relaxes more and natural colour returns back to his face and hands. He makes a fluid movement with his hand and, suddenly, I see sparkling soft snow falling down on us. There’s no wind, so it just descends slowly and lands on Asra’s shoulders and head, getting lost in his white curls.

I look at the intricate little snowflakes that got stuck in his eyelashes and make a sad face.

“I won’t be able to make anything this astonishing any time soon,” I say and pretend to be sullen about it.

Asra looks at me with a storm of unreadable emotions whirling in his eyes and smiles, raising both of my hands and intertwining our fingers.

“It’s not difficult,” he says in his best instructional tone and winks at me encouragingly. Previously he’s needed a lot of patience to teach me something but now he even seems to enjoy the process.

I nod, signalling that I am ready, and he begins coordinating my actions.

“You need to imagine the snow as carefully and accurately as you can, with all the possible details. Try to feel it’s texture under your fingers, hear the crunching and squeaking it makes when you walk on it.”

“What about some tender single snowflakes?” I ask playfully, fidgeting on my spot. I always feel excited when Asra teaches me something new.

Asra laughs and shakes his head.

“I’m afraid, if you’re going to imagine that, it will take us infinitely long to create even the tiniest snowfall. So, are you ready? Don’t worry, I will be here to help you and lend you some magic. Close your eyes and try to channel it,” he says patiently.

I squeeze his hands to make sure he is there beside me all the time and close my eyes. I try to imagine the tangible whiteness, soft and cold. How it feels on my skin, how it falls to the ground… but all of my thoughts are scattered after I get distracted by a soft and warm touch on my lips.

I open my eyes abruptly and stare at Asra. His face is as calm and kind as ever and a wonderful smile is blooming on it.

“It seems that you couldn’t concentrate hard enough. Don’t worry, take all the time you need. Go ahead and try again,” he says as if nothing happened, but I see him smiling with his eyes more than before, almost like he is observing something incredibly amusing to him.

I throw one more suspicious glance at Asra before closing my eyes again.

Snow. White snow squeaking under my feet as I go. Little white snowflakes stuck between Asra’s eyelashes.

I feel another touch of his delicate lips, this time prolonged and more insistent. I do my best to keep my eyes shut, but it doesn’t really help me concentrate and I still cannot gather my thoughts. Straining myself as hard as I can, I squeeze Asra’s hands. I feel him pulling me closer and putting my hands on his shoulders. There’re already little piles of snow there so I quickly sweep it all away and throw my hands around his neck. I don’t want to start over again so don’t dare opening my eyes.

I feel Asra’s hands gently resting on the small of my back and I don’t mind it at all. They’re not cold anymore, so I want to enjoy his touch as much as I can. I feel his curls tickling my face and, reflexively, wrinkle up my nose.

I hear Asra’s melodious and vibrating laughter and move towards the sound to give him an awkward kiss somewhere on the corner of his mouth. He kisses me a few times in return before I finally decide to open my eyes.

Having gotten used to the dark, I have to squint for my eyes not to hurt so much because of all the whiteness. The only thing that fits into my limited field of view is Asra’s face adorned with one of his most charming smiles.

“Well, it seems like you will need some more practice with that,” he says lively.

I feel a few tangled snowflakes landing onto my cheek and my first instinct is to shake them off, but before I can do anything, Asra reaches with his finger and gets rid of them, leaving his hand lingering on my face.

I move my hands up and cup his face as well. He looks so warm and shining to me, so overflown with magic that his body cannot contain it and it escapes, changing everything around him. He is captivating, and I cannot force myself to take my eyes off him.

We don’t sit like that for long because soon Asra becomes jittery and suddenly tugs on my sleeve.

“Come, and let us explore!” he says, and gets up from the rock.

“But there’s nothing…” I want to say but stop before I am able to finish my sentence. I blink once, and there is a whole new mountain towering in the distance. I blink twice, and a dense forest, starting not far from us, is already covering its slopes. Everything’s under a thick blanket of snow, but I can clearly see a gleam of magical visions hidden in the depth of the forest.

Asra gives me a conspiratorial wink and I decide to follow his lead and stand up. Happy to see that I want to join him, he makes a few hasty steps in the direction of the forest and I try to follow him, but there’s one thing I have completely forgotten about.

Though the ground below is not cold, it’s still icy and slippery so instead of moving forward, I awkwardly twitch and fall back, wildly flailing my arms around. Asra makes an attempt to prevent me from falling, but I’m gripping his hand so tightly and pulling so abruptly that it makes him lose his fragile balance and he ends up heavily landing beside me.

“Oh my, I’m so sorry! Are you alright?” I ask hastily and rush to him on my knees.

He blinks a few times and a couple of chuckles escape his lips. Before I know it, he’s already burst into laughter, lying flat on his back.

My tail-bone hurts from the fall so I hold onto it and stare at him, confused but somehow also pleased and glad. Asra’s cheeks are red and I suspect that mine are as well.

When he is able to overcome his fit of laughter, he covers his eyes with one hand, preventing the newly emerged sun from blinding him, and looks at me, his eyes still smiling.

“Let’s not make haste anymore,” he says to me.

“Let’s not,” I agree, “after all, we have all the time in the world.”

Asra looks at me without saying anything, and for a moment I am worried I cannot read the expression on his face. He, however, decides not to give me much time to consider it and pulls me down and into a deep kiss.

I try to steady myself but my hands keep sliding apart on the icy surface. It is horrendously uncomfortable and I feel that I won’t be able sit like this for long, but he makes me feel like being so desired and cherished by him is totally worth the inconveniences.

When I finally move away, desperately grasping for air, he looks awfully satisfied.

I don’t know what to occupy myself with after such an interaction so I direct my gaze at the marvellous forest stretching before us, attempting to escape Asra’s attentive glance.

“You did such an incredible job with this place… I am simply in love,” I mutter under my breath.

I feel Asra’s eyes staring, practically piercing me, and turn to look at him, trying to understand what is happening.

“I know how you feel,” he just says and smiles mysteriously. I feel like I would give everything I have to know what is on his mind right now.

Not receiving any reaction from me, Asra stands up and shakes off small particles of ice and snow from his clothing.

“Shall we?” he says and offers me his hand.

“Of course,” I say and accept, embarrassed by my helplessness.

He lands a kiss on my hand and smiles with content.

“There are so many things I want to show you here, where do we even start…” he says thoughtfully, staring in the distance.

I shrug, letting him make the final decision.

Before we depart, I look back at the mask lying abandoned and forgotten on the ground. I don’t think we will be taking it with us.

#The Arcana #Arcana #Fiction #Fanfiction #Asra #Asra x reader #Asra romance #romance #pov first person #Fluff #Comfort #Dream Sequence Trilogy

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ears-awake-eyes-opened · 3 years

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This October I’ve (finally) been rereading THG trilogy

...slowly with the intention of taking in as many details as possible. I’m nearly halfway through, and here are some thoughts. Keep in mind, I’ve only read these books once before, over the course of a week in 2010. I was 38 then with an 8 year old kid. I was a totally different person in every fiber and cell.

1) At this point, I’m already tired of Katniss’s written voice, and I find myself consistently wishing SC had written at least some of the chapters from the POV of other characters. I know, I know... If that had been the case, the books would have told a different story. Back in 2010 I had a pretty big *girl crush* on Katniss. Before the first film, I was disappointed with the casting of Jennifer because she didn’t match the Katniss I’d imagined, but she’s a wonderful actress and she did come very close to portraying the Katniss I had in my mind.

2) As dearly as I adore Haymitch, I feel like I haven’t been doing justice to him in my writing. I’ve been trying to write him as multidimensional, intelligent, traumatized, with a big capacity for devotion, but damn he really is all that with extraordinary depth. He is articulate, cautious, and other adjectives which are difficult for me to grasp right now and wrangle into this post. More will come later I think. As I’m getting to know book-Haymitch, I’m truly appreciating Woody’s portrayal of him and also recognizing Haymitch is so much more. I want a book written from his POV.

3) The benefit of there being relatively little mention of Effie compared to other significant characters in these books is I feel free at this point to make her nearly anything I imagine she might be. Elizabeth’s interpretation of her is smashing. That said, in my mind Effie is more complex. I have a monster crush on the Effie I’ve been fleshing out in my mind. I find Liz attractive, but I’m really not into her. It’s the opposite. Every time I see her as her actual self, it crushes some of the illusion of Effie. So halfway in, I’m thanking SC for leaving the depths of Effie so open to individual interpretation.

4) Madge. I’m asking, where the fuck is she in the films? She may be a minor character, but she is full of significance. It’s so clear to me that Madge’s feelings for Katniss are big like Gale and Peeta’s feelings for Katniss. Different of course because each person/character is unique. I know #gadge is a thing, but my take is Madge brings that morphling for Gale because she loves Katniss, and she knows how important Gale is to Katniss. With Madge, Katniss is willing to try to learn to play piano. With Katniss, Madge is willing to try to learn to hunt. They’re from different worlds within the same small world. They’re both loners mostly, but they fit together in a way that is unexpectedly comforting for them. I don’t see Katniss being romantically interested in Madge, but the inverse I see quite possible. It already sucks knowing Madge dies, but eliminating her from the universe entirely is much worse.

5) Mrs. Everdeen has more strength than is portrayed in the films. Katniss understandably resents her mother’s protracted catatonia in the wake of her father’s death, so the reader sees that. But there is more to her in the books than the viewers get to see.

6) I’ll save my impressions of Peeta for another post because halfway into the trilogy, he really is still mostly an afterthought for Katniss, but I remember his character will soon be taking up more space in her mind and full being. Deservedly so because Peeta is basically a giant heart walking around that world.

7) Every time the word “Rue” is on a page, my eyes start leaking. I remember that was true the first time I read the trilogy, and it’s still true.

8) Maude Ivory (or someone Covey) is Katniss’s grandparent/great-grandparent. Common headcanon, I realize. I’m straight up making that canon. Not my prerogative, but I don’t care. It’s true.

9) I salute all you people who started shipping Hayffie when reading the books. I didn’t feel that spark 10 years ago. Not at all. And now in the reread, I see clearly the potential of an interesting and complicated relationship between them, in part because I’m looking for those details.

10) I’m enjoying this long-overdue reading, but my desire to reread @hayffiebird ‘s in progress masterpiece, Taste of Strawberries, which I just read days ago and is so present and full and delicious in my mind, is at least a hundred times greater than my interest here in the middle of Catching Fire. Hayffie is really the heart of the Panem universe at this point in my life for reasons I’m only partially clear about and I’ll save for another post.

11) In my opinion, TBOSAS is better written than the original trilogy. I am aware many people feel the opposite, but I don’t expect people to think like me, and I generally don’t care when they don’t. SC, please don’t retire anytime soon. I want more of Panem.

12) There’s a shitload of snow in District 12 for North Carolina Appalachia in a future dystopian North America in which Florida and the entire East Coast are underwater. It’s little details like this which feel illogical that can drive me crazy.

13) Me (watching in the films “Kill her Cato!! Kill her Cato!!”): Why the hell do people ship #Clato?... Me (rereading the books): Ahh, that’s why. Clove is a freak, and he likes her.

To be continued...

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starrlikesbooks · 3 years

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Let’s talk about upcoming books!

It’s hard to believe the year is nearly over, but it’s equally hard to believe that it’s somehow still 2020 ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Either way, the new year means at least one good thing- cool new books!

Click the read more for a little on each and why I’m excited! And have a great new year! 💓🎉

The Echo Wife by Sarah Gailey is Gailey’s third full-length novel, and their second Adult novel. It’s an SFF story about a woman whose husband is cheating on her… with a clone of herself… which he made by stealing her research. The layers of betrayal! Obviously her and the clone have to kill him, what other choice do they have? I’m super excited for another one of Gailey’s fun, complex characters and the concept alone sounds so, so cool.

The Valley and the Flood by Rebecca Mahoney I’ve already had the pleasure over reading and I am PUMPED to get other people to read it! This is a magical realism story about grief and baggage mixed with a southern (western?) gothic vibe with the town in the desert full of otherwordly “neighbors”. This is a beautiful story of PTSD and healing and as well as a lushly magic one.

The Mirror Season by Anna-Marie McLemore is another one I’ve already been lucky enough to get an advanced copy of. This is a magical realism story about the trauma of two characters’ unfortunately closely connected sexual assault. This one is heavy, and if you’re sensitive to stories involving rape and/or blackmail you may want to avoid it, but it’s well written and honestly an excellent story of healing and reflection.

Lycanthropy & Other Chronic Illnesses by Kristen O’Neal I…. have also already read! Sorry- I am just a very lucky reader of books! This is a really modern online friendship based story of a girl and her community of people with chronic illnesses, like the one that forced her to come back home from college. But it turns out her best friend’s chronic illness is a little… weird. I love the humor in this book, I love the characters, I love the representation of these illnesses and the online communities they form, and I honestly think that anyone who 1) like werewolves and 2) is still on tumblr will love this book.

Blade of Secrets by Tricia Levenseller combines three of my favorite things- bladesmiths, magical quests, and the author of The Shadows Between Us. A magical bladesmith takes a commission from someone far more dangerous than she knows, and winds up with an uber powerful sword able to steal secrets, on the run, and with some surprising friends. I can’t think of anything I don’t like from that, and I know I already love Levenseller’s characters, so!

Mister Impossible by Maggie Stiefvater has… that title, but is also the sequel to Call Down the Hawk, Stiefvater’s Ronan Lynch centric TRC spin off. CDTH was incredible and ended with a massive cliff hanger, so I’m chompin at the bit for this book. More magical dreams! More disembodied voices! More murder and art theft and Declan Lynch failing at pretending not to be weird af!

May the Best Man Win by ZR Ellor has the potential to make me cry right from the get go. This is a MLM trans lovers-to-enemies-to-friends-to-lovers story and my God I’m vibrating. Basically it’s a battle for prom king between exes who had a messy break up because one of them ended their relationship in order to come out & transition. The cover is so cute and I’m ready for this to be fluffy and fun.

One Last Stop by Casey McQuiston is McQuistion’s sophomore novel after Red, White & Royal Blue, so… obviously? This one is sapphic and involves falling for someone who is literally in the past. I trust McQuiston so much I’d need this book immediately even if the concept didn’t sound amazing, but I’m feeling blessed that it does!

Violet Ghosts by Leah Thomas is about being best friends with (and crushing on) a ghost while also coming out to yourself as trans. As an enby who likes ghost books- may I just say trans rights? This book also involved parental abuse, so beware if you find that distressing or triggering!

Blood Like Magic by Liselle Sambury not only has a stunning cover and a main character who looks like she means serious business, but it’s a dark urabn fantasy about witches. The main character fails her ritual to come into her magic, she’s forced to kill her true love or strip her whole blood line. Ah, I love difficult choices, gray morality, and magic, so I’m already in love with this.

The Box in the Woods by Maureen Johnson I’m astounded and super excited to know is going to exist at all. I loved the Truly, Devious trilogy, and while this isn’t exactly a part of that it is the same main character and it is still a mystery about an unsolved murder! Plus, I love summer camps, so a summer camp murder mystery makes me happy.

Gearbreakers by Zoe Hana Mikuta is a sappic enemies-to-lovers about two girls on opposite sides of a war fought by giant Windups. This is a cyberpunk book of spies and pilots and gay love, and it’s also the first in a series!

Any Way the Wind Blows by Rainbow Rowell is the third and (most likely) final book of the Simon Snow series and it’s gonna be GOOD. My only wish is for it to be about 500 pages longer because I want a full out door stopper of tying up loose ends.

The River Has Teeth by Erica Waters is the second book by the Ghost Wood Song author- which was on my most anticipated list for 2020 last year! That one was creepy and folky and queer, and this one looks to be the same. This one has a sister disappear and some strong magic to find out what happened to her, and if their mother was the one who did it.

Mark of the Wicked by Georgia Bowers is a dark fantasy about a girl who comes into her powers but has some different ideas about how she should be using them. I love morally gray or just plain dark main characters, so I’m ready to jump right on this one. This one also involves memory loss/blacking out and being framed, which always adds a cool mysterious layer!

Among Thieves by M.J. Kuhn involves queer, selfish thieves forced to band together. I have a soft spot for characters who are really flawed and don’t want to work together (especially if it leads into found family!) and this also has a slow burn sapphic relationship and a lot of possible betrayal in it, so I’ll probably go crazy from reading it.

Beyond the Ruby Veil #2 by Mara Fitzgerald doesn’t have a title yet but it does have a great plot to work off of. I loved the first book- which was creepy, had a completely awful, villainous main character, and full (I mean full) of murder- and it ended in a way that point to the sequel being just as good if not better. The first one had the quality of just watching the world burn, and I have a feeling this one’s going to be the same thing with maybe more flames. If you plan on picking up either of them, consider checking out the CWs, though!

Little Thieves by Margaret Owen got added to this immediately because Owen definitely gained my love and trust via The Merciful Crow duology, and I’m certain it’s going to be incredible solely because she’s a wonderful writer and her characters are a lot of fun- and speaking of characters, she’s already shared some drawings and info on them and they’re GREAT I cannot wait to meet them. This is a retelling of The Goose Girl story, from the maid’s POV!

Jade Fire Gold by June C.L. Tan was originally on my 2020 most anticipated but then 2020 happened so… yeah. But it is actually coming out in 2021, as long as the world doesn’t end again (fingers crossed). Inspired by East Asian mythology, this one is about a dangerous cult, a peasant cursed to steal souls, and an exiled prince!

The Heartbreak Bakery by A.R. Capetta is going to be one of those cute, fluffy, feel good reads, which I think we probably all need about now. I love Capetta’s work and their very queer characters, and I love the idea of a magical baker both breaking up and then getting couples back together. Also, the MC is agender- we love to see it.

The Second Coming by André-Naquian Wheeler follows a teen with a traumatic past falling for a boy who might be the second coming of Jesus Christ. Honestly, I’m a little nervous about this one- but also I almost wrote my own queer second coming story, so who am I to talk? I don’t know much more about this book, but I’m excited to see what it turns out like!

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yeniayofnymeria · 4 years

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GRRM's Original Outline "What has changed?"

Hello,

Now you all know Martin's letter he wrote in '93. When this letter was written and sent to the editor, the first 13 chapters (200 pages) were already written. In addition, the book consisted of three volumes of the first stage, but as you know, but its 7 volumes now.When we read the letter and the first 5 books, the first comment made was very different and different from the first outline; one or two things remain the same. But is it really? Here I would like to discuss this with you. I think I will go through the events step by step and you will make your own contributions when you read. Let's start!

1. Stark-Lannister war. It's remain, nothing changed.

2. (Dany) Targaryen's 7K invasion with Dothraks. It's still did not happend but we know Dany has Unsullied and some sellswords and next book, she will have Dothraks too. She will linger a little more in essos and then come to the West for the conquer. It's remain too.

3. The Others. GRRM said " Their story will be [sic] heart of my third volume, The Winds of Winter. " It's remain too.

4. Five Main Key Characters (Jon, Arya, Bran, Dany and Tyrion). " In a sense, my trilogy is almost a generational saga, telling the life stories of these five characters, three men and two women. The five key players are Tyrion Lannister, Daenerys Targaryen, and three of the children of Winterfell, Arya, Bran, and the bastard Jon Snow." It's remain too.

5. Fall of the Starks. " Things will get a lot worse for the poor Starks before they get better, I'm afraid. " Yes, indeed it happened.

6. Dead of Robert and long may live new king! "Ned will discover what happened to his friend Jon Arryn... will have an unfortunate accident, and the throne will to brutal Joffrey, still a minor." Yes, it happened too. This substance remained the same too.

7.Sansa and Joffrey. "Sansa Stark wed to Joffrey Baratheon, will bear him a son, the heir to the throne, and when the crunch comes she will choose her husband and child over her parents and siblings, a choice she will later bitterly rue. " Sansa betrays his family anyway but she did not wed Joffrey or bear his son. This substance has changed a bit.

8. Bran's coma and dream and greenseer and dead of Robb. " Young Bran will come out of his coma, after a strange prophetic dream... He will turn to magic, at first in the hope of restoring his legs, but later for its own sake... Robb Stark will die in battle."

Bran's the same, but Robb's got some change. Robb doesn't die in a war against Joffrey, Jaime and Tyrion. But he really wins a few battles at first (against Tywin. So there's no Tywin in the first place) and then he dies at the Red Wedding.

Bran's in a coma. So Jaime and Cersei are standing exactly. This shows that Jon Arryn's death is due to his learning of the relationship(Jaime-Cersei). So Joff was a bastard in the first outline too. Ned died for the same reason.

Tyrion did not burn Winterfell but fought against Stark army and became Hand of King. Jaime fought against Robb too and lost, was captured. This part is different in some ways, but the same in some ways.

9. Jon Snow, The Wall and Lord Commander. " Jon Snow, the bastard, will remain in the far north. He will mature into a ranger of great daring, and ultimately will succeed his uncle as the commander of the Night's Watch "

Jon goes the wall and will became lord commander but Benjen was lord commander in the first place but it seems he dies anyway or disappear. It's remain.

10. Helping family and Jonarya Love. " When Winterfell burns, Catelyn Stark will be forced to flee north with her son Bran and her daughter Arya. Wounded by Lannister riders, they will seek refuge at the Wall, but the men of the Night's Watch give up their families when they take the black, and Jon and Benjen will not be able to help, to Jon's anguish. It will lead to a bitter estrangement between Jon and Bran. Arya will be more forgiving ... until she realizes, with terror, that she has fallen in love with Jon, who is not only her half-brother but a man of the Night's Watch, sworn to celibacy. Their passion will continue to torment Jon and Arya throughout the trilogy, until the secret of Jon's true parentage is finally revealed in the last book. "

Winterfell is being burned by Greyjoys. Cat is not with Stark children, he is with Robb. Bran and others run away and went to the Wall. But Bran and others did not take refuge in the black brothers. Jon has something to do with Arya again. He wants to protect and save her(FArya). He can't do it because of his vows and he's in a lot of pain... And we know who is Jon's real parents.

Jon and Arya love... It's still too early to say anything about it. When Arya goes to the wall, the love between the two emerges. Arya escaped from KL as in the first outline. But instead of going home, she drifted into her own adventure. Arya has been trying to get home and Jon all along. She'll probably go straight to the wall when she gets back from Braavos. There are so many hints about Jonarya love in books. ( https://asoiaf.westeros.org/index.php?/topic/125364-jon-arya-hints-and-overall-significance-of-their-relationship-including-part-3/ )

11. Beyond The Wall and Bran-Cat-Arya. "Abandoned by the Night's Watch, Catelyn and her children will find their only hope of safety lies even further north, beyond the Wall, where they fall into the hands of Mance Rayder, the King-beyond-the-Wall, and get a dreadful glimpse of the inhuman others as they attack the wilding encampment. Bran's magic, Arya's sword Needle, and the savagery of their direwolves will help them survive, but their mother Catelyn will die at the hands of the others." This part has undergone significant changes. Despite this, some small parts remained.

Arya is not with them, Cat neither but she dies anyway (and came back but as fire wight not ice wight). Bran never meet Mance(yes, Mance exists) and see others but he sees deads and met Cold Hand(ice wight) and BR and Singers. I guess Rickon is not exists.

Arya has Needle, that's mean Jon gave her it anyway. And direwolves...

12. Dany, Viserys and Drogo. “Over across the narrow sea, Daenerys Targaryen will discover that her new husband, the Dothraki Khal Drogo, has little interest in invading the Seven Kingdoms, much to her brother's frustration. When Viserys presses his claims past the point of tact or wisdom, Khal Drogo will finally grow annoyed and kill him out of hand, eliminating the Targaryen pretender and leaving Daenerys as the last of her line. Danerys [sic] will bide her time, but she will not forget. When the moment is right, she will kill her husband to avenge her brother, and then flee with a trusted friend into the wilderness beyond Vaes Dothrak. " Only 5% of this part has changed.

13. Dragon Eggs and Invasion Plans."There, hunted by [unclear] of her life, she stumbles on a [something about dragon eggs] a young dragon will give Daenerys [unclear] bend [unclear] to her will. Then she begins to plan for her invasion of the Seven Kingdoms." This part has changed 95%.

14. Tyrion's Fate. "Tyrion Lannister will continue to travel, to plot, and to play the game of thrones, finally removing his nephew Joffrey in disgust at the boy king's brutality. Jaime Lannister will follow Joffrey on the throne of the Seven Kingdoms, by the simple expedient of killing everyone ahead of him in the line of succession and blaming his brother Tyrion for the murders. Exiled, Tyrion will change sides, making common cause with the surviving Starks to bring his brother down, and falling helplessly in love with Arya Stark while he's at it. His passion is, alas, unreciprocated, but no less intense for that, and it will lead to a deadly rivalry between Tyrion and Jon Snow."

Yes, it seems this part almost completely changed. But Tyrion has been betrayed by his family in every way(Tysha thing and attempt to kill), just it changed "how it will be" This betrayal caused him to change sides. Only on Targaryen side instead of Stark. But Tyrion will probably be on the Stark side too.

Tyrion is exiled to Essos, not north. Jaime's not the bad guy in the story, Cersei is. Joffrey's dying. In the first Outline, Jaime kills everyone, so Sansa is dead. In the present story, Sansa is still alive and her story continues. They're not named, but probably Joff's siblings are in the first outline and they're dead.

There's no competition between Tyrion and Jon(Arya). It's hard to expect it at this point. We need to wait for the next encounter, but I don't think it will. Unlike the first otline, Jon and Tyrion are good friends. If GRRM designs a love triangle like the first one, maybe they can be enemies. Or maybe he changed the third candidate for that love triangle. (However, if you read Mercy POV, GRRM is waving its hand to this love triangle there.)

In general, the outline / skeleton remains exactly the same, even the characters' motives are more or less the same; there are big changes in a few places, but not so big changes in the remaining parts. Same affliction, betrayal and so on that will ensure the development of the character. Situations occurred in one way or another. It's just that things have gone differently ... but betrayal comes from the family again and (Jon) he's suffering because he can't help the family.

He keeps his end.

GEORGE: […]As I write these last two books, I’ll be moving towards the ending I’ve known since 1991/

“Some major characters — yes, I always had plans, what Tyrion’s arc was gonna be through this, what Arya’s arc was gonna be through this, what JonSnow’s arc is gonna be. ”

...

I don’t want to reveal what I’ve planned for some of these characters, but I’m pretty well on track with most of the major characters. It’s minor characters like Bronn that assume greater importance.”

At Balticon 2016 he said he knows who sits on the Iron Throne at the end.

A year later, in a video interview he continued by saying he has always known the fates of his main characters, who lives or dies, marries who...etc since 1991 when he began writing.

That's all. Thank you for read and sorry again for my bad English. Bye.

#grrmartin #asoiaf #aryastark #jonsnow #outline #JonryaWeek2020

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thesffcorner · 5 years

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Wicked Saints

Wicked Saints is the first book in a YA fantasy trilogy, written by Emily A Duncan. It follows 2 characters; Nadezhda Lapteva, the only remaining cleric in the kingdom of Kayazin, who can communicate with all of the Gods; and Serefin Melenov the High Prince of Tranavia, who is sworn to bring Kalyazin to its knees, and kill Nadya. However, things are not what they seem, and both characters might have to work together if they want either of their lands to survive.

This book is a whole ass mess. At points it was entertaining, even approaching good, but for the vast majority it was jumbled, rushed, and wildly inconsistent. It’s not the worst book I’ve read but it’s not good either, and I have a lot to say. So strap in: it’s going to be a long one.

Writing:

This book is a debut, and much like another debut I read earlier this summer, it shows. It’s not that the writing is necessarily bad; I daresay that Duncan has a good grasp on style and especially dialogue. A lot of the banter between the characters was entertaining, and for the most part I got a good sense of who these characters are, and what their motivations were…. Some of the time. The book has a good atmosphere, I liked the descriptions of the monastery and the different cities the gang visits, and I’ll even go as far as to say that the scenes between Nadya and Malachiaz were good in isolation. The devil’s in the details.

First off, this book is the definition of telling instead of showing. So many things in this book are explained to us rather than Duncan showing them, from character motivations and relationships to entire scenes that we never get to see. The biggest example of this was the fight at the end. It’s so confusingly written, we jump between character PoVs and none of them make any sense in terms of who is standing where, who is fighting who, and even who is dead by the end. I wasn’t even sure if anyone died or how; I had to reread and then use context to figure out what happened. It reminded me of the ending fight in Bright, but in book form, and it was not a good note to end on.

Pacing:

It’s difficult to talk about the problems about this book because they feed into each-other. But the overarching one, the one that makes everything else that much worse, is this book’s piss poor pacing.

At 300 pages, it is simply too short for what it’s trying to accomplish. Everything feels rushed; character relationships come out of nowhere, motivations change with no hints, and most importantly, the world-building comes of as shallow, because there’s just not enough time to properly develop it.

Let’s take for example the geography. There is no sense of where any of these characters are, where they are going or even how large the land they are traveling is. Tranavia and Kalyazin border each other, but they also border a third country, Akola. According to the map and the way it’s described in the book, Akola is a desert, while Tarnovia and Kalyazin are both water rich, snow-covered tundras and marshlands. How on Earth does this work?

Then we have scenes where characters just outright teleport. After they escape the monastery, Nadya and her gang hide-out in a church that’s not too far away. They see Serafin pass by them on his way back to the capital Grazyk. In the next scene, Serefin is already past the Tarnavian border and in the next, he’s in the palace. In between we cut back to Nadya and her gang, figuring out how to get to Grazyk, as Serefin is in the palace, but it takes them 3 WEEKS to get there. Not only that, but in that day that Serefin took to travel, the Vultures came to the church from the palace and back, so… did Seferin become the Flash? Or did Nadya and the others take a Fellowship style detour to get to Tarnavia? It’s not like time is of the essence or anything.

Then, during this 3 week journey not only does Nadya become extremely close with Malachiaz, Parijahan and Rashid, but she learns perfect Travarian, enough to fool the High Prince himself, learned enough court ethics and rituals to pass as a noble, and yet somehow didn’t learn that the duels fought during this tournament would be to the death? Also we never SEE any of this bonding; we get a scene where the gang decides to go and then the next scene they are at the border. This would have been perfect time to have us see her interactions with Malachiasz, have him show his true colors some more, explain why they are so drawn to each other. But no, we just teleport into the palace and now I’m supposed to believe that this girl who has been indoctrinated to kill all heretics is in love with one.

Religion:

This book relies HEAVILY on religion. Duncan has attempted to craft a world where there are two utterly incompatible schools of thought, that will ultimately happen to coincide. It’s an admirable goal, and I think the attempt was good, but there are major, major flaws.

The first and biggest flaw were the actual Gods. I was severely disappointed by little presence they had in the book. They are supposed to be constantly in Nadya’s head speaking to her, guiding her, bickering about her, but we get so little of that. They are also supposed to have different personalities and react differently to Nadya praying to them.

We establish for example that some Gods don’t want to help her. I assumed this would lead to scenes where they would not give her magic or give her the wrong kind of magic which would have consequences, but that never happens. The closest we get is an admittedly pretty entertaining scene where one of the Goddesses just plunges everything into darkness for 15 mins (the moon, the stars, everything). But outside of that, even the uncooperative Gods cooperate.

Marzenya, Nadya’s patron Goddess is the Goddess of Death and Destruction and she hates the Tarnavians. With that kind of pedigree, you’d think she’d be more instrumental in the plot, like maybe take over Nadya, or interfere or punish, or even just speak to her when Nadya would be in an intimate moment with Malachiaz. What we get instead is that sometimes she would chastise Nadya for not having killed him yet. I can’t believe I’m saying this, but the Darkling was a much more effective cockblock in Siege and Storm and most of the time he wasn’t even speaking!

The Gods aren’t even present for the second half of the book; once the group gets to Travania Nadya can’t even hear them anymore.

Then there’s the actual philosophy, and Nadya’s beliefs. She is at once indoctrinated and unwavering in her beliefs that ALL Tarnavians are heretics, and that they deserve to have genocide enacted upon them. She is hypocritical enough to think that Tarnavians torturing prisoners of war is worse than her very own clerics hunting down and systematically killing any woman who can do magic not blessed by the Gods. And yet, she is somehow willing and able to have a discussion about the Gods being fake?

First off, the Gods should be enraged that she is even entertaining the idea that they might not be divine. Second, Nadya’s faith isn’t a nebulous, intangible thing; she can speak to the Gods, and when she prays they GRANT her magic. For her, whether the Gods exist or not, should be like arguing whether the sun will rise or not; it’s just an unavoidable fact of existence. She is a fanatic: she has been raised in a monastery, taught to hate and want to kill all Tarnavians, and has just witnessed the destruction of everything she knew and loved by those same Tarnavians. She should be constantly trying to kill Malachiasz, not have philosophical discussions with him. Not to mention her flirting and sympathizing with Serefin, who need I remind you KILLED half of the monastery and as far as she knows killed her best friend!

The Tarnavians don’t fare any better. The book makes it seem like they destroyed the Gods in Tarnovia so they could seize power of their own, but why would they want to invade and destroy Kalyazin? There is a line at the beginning about how the war has something to do with geography, not just a religion but we never see it. If anything, it would make more sense that Kalyazin would wage holy war on Tarnovia, not the other way around.

Plot:

I’m not going to lie; the first half of the book, I really liked the plot. I thought the mystery of who was ruling the Vultures, what was wrong with the King, what was happening at the Salt Mines and what had happened to Malachiasz was all interesting. But as the book went on and as we got some answers, I realized more and more that I was just reading the Grisha Trilogy on shuffle.

First the political plot. This whole section had so much potential to be really interesting, but it was wasted time. I can imagine a whole book, perhaps even book 2 in this very series that would focus on Serefin, Ostya and Kacper trying to navigate a tight political atmosphere, and uncover what is happening with the King and the Vultures and the Salt Mines. Something like, oh I don’t know A Gathering of Shadows. Instead the three weeks that Serefin spends in the completely glossed over, he never figures anything out by himself, and even traveling to the Salt Mines is done off page, by a completely irrelevant character! Not to mention how predictable the answers to what is happening with the King, and where the missing contestants are from the moment he steps in the castle.

The mystery involving Malachiasz was a slightly better; I definitely picked up on the two hints we get about who he is to Serefin, but I really did not see the main twist. However, the ending was so obvious and so painfully predictable, that it was like reading a Darkling origin story mixed with a bit of Nikolaj.

This book is trying so hard to be the Grisha series, but it fails to realize how tightly realized that world was, and that the characters were properly set up, which is why their characterizations and motivations worked, and even it stumbled with it’s villain. Here, it’s like Duncan started to tell a different story and then jammed it into the Grisha mold, like forcing a square peg into the circle slot.

Characterization:

This was by far the most frustrating part of the book. First off, there are WAY too many characters who are given equal relevance in a book this short. Characters like Father Alexei, Kostya and Anya are completely useless: they are never useful or relevant and their plot only boggs down the already bloated cast.

Then we have characters like Ostya, Kacper, Parijahan and Rashid who seem like they will be relevant and are absolutely not. Ostya was just Ojka from A Gathering of Shadows; her only character trait is that she’s gay. Kacper doesn’t even get that; I thought he might either turn out to be a love interest or possibly a turncoat but he’s neither, and we don’t even know what happens to him by the time the book ends. Rashid is in the book to get injured twice and then disappear; he and Kacper were interchangeable in their roles. Parijahan at least gets a backstory, but even still she is mostly pointless and we never learn why she wants to kill the King or trusts Malachiasz.

King Izac was a mix between the King in the Grisha series and Osaron. There could have been some emotional impact about him changing into this bloodthirsty monster if he wasn’t a cartoon villain or we had any knowledge of what he was like before he changed, but we never see it.

Then we have our main trio. Let’s start with Nikolaj, I mean Serefin. I will give two props: he is NOT involved in a love triangle, and he can do magic, so he’s not a complete damsel. However, he is also every other sexualy ambigous, spoiled, bratty alcoholic who hides a deeper backstory involving daddy issues and an inferiority complex.

The thing that absolutely pissed me off about Serefin is that he seems to have a split personality. Early on, there is a scene where he tortures someone for information, and we are lead to believe that that character will be important. He then kills someone who was a prisoner of war, and very nonchalantly orders his men to take the rest of the prisoners who may I remind you are monks, to the Salt Mines which are essentially a concentration camp. He makes several notes how he doesn’t care about Kalyazin and is generally uninterest in human life or ruling.

So you think, oh he’s going to be a jaded villain, or at the very least an antihero. But he’s not, he’s a full on protagonist! And I don’t mean he's a flawed character you root for; once we get to the palace, Serefin does a complete 180 and he’s suddenly good, and compassionate, and he wants to end the war, and cares about lives. Where did we see that?

Moreover, Nadya who was there when the monastery was destroyed, who saw him kill people and as far as she knows saw him kill Kostya, allies with him in the span of a page, and the proceeds to flirt and banter and feel sorry for him!

Look, I’m not Nikolaj’s biggest fan, but at the very least he was written to care about Ravka, to be patriotic, to feel guilt over killing or torturing people and you know what else he didn’t do? Execute prisoners of war!

I already covered Nadya’s inconsistent faith, and how easily manipulated and de-doctrinated she is, but she is just fucking stupid. She spends the whole book thinking about how much she doesn’t trust Malachiasz, about how he’s lying or at the very least hiding something. And then, she falls for him, and ends up initiating a relationship after he kills someone before her! Mind you, it’s his fault she was even fighting in hat duel, because he conveniently forgets to mention all duels are to the death (not to mention her being enough of an idiot to rise to such a provocation, when she should very well know not to do that or care because a) her hair is glamoured, b) she was raised in a freaking monastery).

There is also a really stupid subplot about Malachiasz trying to convince her that she shouldn’t live by the Gods’ predetermined destiny for her, but the Gods never make her do anything. They never force her or punish her from what we see, and even the monastery isn’t ever specified to be of celibate nature; they are a coed monastery ffs. Nadya is also very conveniently forgetful about the whole killing Tarnavians for someone who has dedicated their whole life to destroying their kingdom.

And finally, Malachiasz. I mean… he’s just the Darkling. A bargain brand copy of the Darkling, with none of the appeal, and that’s coming from someone who didn't like the Darkling. I found him incompetent at best and an idiot at worst. But at least I understood his appeal: he is an incredibly powerful, near immortal, God of a man. He is attractive, he is untouchable and manipulative and he selects Alina who is hungry for power and attention, and wants to be extraordinary.

Nadya is not that. She has been extraordinary; she is literary the chosen one. She’s not unsure of herself or her path; she has been on it since the day she was admitted at the monastery. She already knows how to fight, she has immense powers and can speak to a full pantheon of Gods. So not only would Malachiasz not pose any appeal to her, she is actively taught to hate and fear people like him.

When the twist happens and we realize that Malachiasz has really been the Black Vulture and evil all this time, it didn’t feel shocking or earned; it felt predictable, because it wasn’t earned. There are no moments in the book where we are lead to believe he has hidden intentions. He doesn’t have telling lines of dialogue about power and wanting and weakness like the Darkling did in Siege and Storm. Outside of being a little trigger happy, he shows no signs of not being 100% behind the idea of killing the King, so when Nadya has her big oh shit he was evil all along moment, it feels cheap.

The transformation at the end genuinely felt like this should be the Darkling’s origin story. The part that really irked me was the whole bit with the name; that is just outright a plot point stolen from the Grisha trilogy and it was so blatant, and so unnecessary. It was exactly the ending I expected from this book: unoriginal, messy and confusing.

Overall I don’t recommend this book. It’s only appeal to me was seeing if the ending could redeem it, but unfortunately, it was just a mess. The characters aren’t developed, the plot is rushed, and the religion was poorly thought out. Just reread the Grisha series instead; I guarantee you will enjoy it more.

letterboxd

#wicked saints #moni talks #book review

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milliebeeweasel · 6 years

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Draco Veritas: the anticlimactic conclusion to the fanfics that made Cassie Claire famous

This is the worst one. The worst one.

You can read my adventures through Draco Dormiens and Draco Sinister through those links.

And thus begins my spork, as promised.

Before anything else, there’s a small detail I forgot from the end of Draco Sinister: at the big finale party, a ~mysterious benefactor~ gifted Harry a magic red bracelet, called a runic band. That turned out to be kinda plot important, so yeah. Sorry about that.

Draco Veritas, it beginneth thusly.

Harry Potter and da Crew are all back at Hogwarts for their last year, sitting in a potions class that immediately gives me flashbacks to Draco Dormiens, back when I was young and naïve and had no idea what shit I was getting into.

But I actually like this opening! Draco and Harry are abusing this psychic connection they’ve developed since the first fic to cheat through the class. Snape gets annoyed as Draco keeps secretly giving Harry the answers, until naturally Draco gives him a very wrong answer to mess with him, and … IDK it’s funny and in-character, and a sweet callback to the first fic to show character development. It’s good.

Draco has a dream/vision about Voldemort and Lucius Malfoy, who’re nattering about “four worthy McGuffins”. I mean OBJECTS. Four worthy objects. Yeah. (Take a brief moment to celebrate because holy shit, Voldemort is actually IN this fic!)

However, the plot rapidly dissolves as we discover that, despite the heavy Draco/Ginny shipping at the end of Draco Sinister, Draco is now dating Blaise Zabini. Blaise, in this fic, is a redheaded girl and not …

Hindsight is 20/20 when a character’s gender isn’t confirmed until several books in, I guess.

So Harry and Draco are now captains of their respective quidditch teams, and—because for some reason they don’t want anyone to know they’re friends, because god forbid anything possibly ever unite the houses of Slytherin and Gryffindor—they stage regular arguments and fistfights in order to keep up appearances. And by “stage” I mean “actually knock the stuffing out of each other”.

Despite the sweet, fluffy Harry/Hermione ending of Draco Sinister, it turns out Harry and Hermione are now having relationship problems for nonspecific, aggravating reasons, and spend all their time moping or having wild domestics. Draco and Ginny also kinda hate each other, and basically act like bitter exes despite having barely dated, and Harry’s feeling constant, generalised RAEG and … look, if you’re wondering about Voldemort and the four worthy McGuffins, buckle up because we have several hundred pages of this soap opera bullshit before the plot is even remotely addressed.

But don’t worry.

Rhysenn Malfoy is here to make it all worse.

(Screenshot straight off my phone of the fanart included in the fic.)

This Amy Lee looking motherfucker pops up throughout the fic to bother everyone, pass on cryptic messages from Lucius, and grope at Draco. Her “cousin”.

Gross.

Anywhoo, Draco realises Harry is having a bad time, and goes to his staple solution for everything: alcoholism. By which I mean a trip to a wizard strip club called the Sleazy Weasel. This isn’t even close to the weirdest thing to happen in this fic.

Help.

While they’re getting merrily wankered, it turns out Ron has a ~secret girlfriend~, with whom Cassie plays the pronoun game for half the fic so we can’t guess who he’s illicitly fucking in every other POV swap. Make your guesses now. If you get it right I’ll … I dunno, write you a ficlet or something.

Meanwhile, Ginny reads a trashy romance book called Passionate Trousers, the text of which takes up huge chunks of the fic. (Uh, Cassie. I, uh, I don’t think you’re in a position to parody or criticise trashy romance stories. Just saying.) She also starts dating Seamus Finnegan, aka the only decent person in this story, and meanwhile Harry asks Sirius if he can visit James and Lily’s grave but Sirius says it’s too dangerous and Harry storms off in a huff, and …

PLOT? VOLDEMORT?

HELLOOOOO?

Nope, still more soap opera.

A random Slytherin catches Ron doing the sex with his ~mystery girlfriend~, but then passes out and suffers an immediate bout of amnesia, so that comes to nothing. Rhysenn keeps pointlessly bothering Draco, and reveals that, on top of being goffick and beautiful, she’s also immortal.

You could say … My Immortal.

Harry and Hermione’s domestics get to such a ridiculous point I start to long for Order of the Phoenix Capslock Harry, as Hermione screams at him in the Great Hall for not paying attention to her, and Ginny falls off her broom and hurts herself—

And finally, a tiny wee bit of plot shows up, when someone shoots Draco Malfoy with an arrow, throwing him off the Astronomy Tower.

You’d think this would kick-start the plot in earnest but … no. Draco’s up and about in time for the Yule Ball (which is now apparently a yearly occurrence, and not just an event for the Triwizard Tournament), and apparently he’s feeling perky enough to be a cheating whorebiscuit and snog Ginny in the rose garden. Not a euphemism. Honest.

Meanwhile, the golden trio go to the pub and have a snowball fight and general, wholesome fun, and Hermione makes them promise to always be friends, which is fanfic code for “we’re about to be totally fucked”.

250 pages in, and we have barely scraped the edge of an inciting incident.

By this point in Draco Dormiens, Draco and Harry had swapped bodies and were wreaking havoc. In Draco Sinister, Salazar Slytherin had kidnapped and date rape drugged Hermione.

This is supposed to be the grand finale. The epic third episode in this trilogy.

And it’s just … relationship drama. It’s slow and it’s boring.

So Harry and Draco sneak off to visit James and Lily’s grave, a scene which sounds good but is actually dull and stupid and utterly pointless. In Deathly Hallows, Harry seeing his parents’ grave at Godric’s Hollow breaks my heart, and guarantees a little tear every time.

‘And tears came before he could stop them, boiling hot then instantly freezing on his face, and what was the point in wiping them off or pretending? He let them fall, his lips pressed hard together, looking down at the thick snow hiding from his eyes the place where the last of Lily and James lay, bones now surely, or dust, not knowing or caring that their living son stood so near, his heart still beating, alive because of their sacrifice and close to wishing, at this moment, that he was sleeping under the snow with them.’

In Cassie’s version?

She literally says he “feels nothing”.

Yeah, Cassie. I’m sure Harry would suffer all this melodramatic angst over his love life, and not feel a single scrap of pain or loss or regret at seeing the graves of his parents. His parents, whom he wanted to know so badly in Philosopher’s Stone, he saw them in the Mirror of Erised—the “deepest and most desperate desire of [his] heart”.

And of fucking course, Rhysenn Malfoy then shows up and proceeds to molest Harry a few feet from James and Lily’s grave. And since Harry goes to putty in her presence, and immediately throws up after Draco chases her off, you can probably guess what Rhysenn is long before Cassie deigns to explain.

She’s a succubus.

Yeah, gasp, ahh, whatever.

Dear Cassie,

GIVE ME SOME FUCKING PLOT.

Where are the stakes? The carefully interwoven mysteries? What is the goal of this fic? I thought you were good at plot, Cassie! I praised you for it! Where did it go? Where is Voldemort? Is he knitting socks to go with Nagini’s jumper from Draco Sinister? She doesn’t need socks, Cassie! She’s a snake!

(Just let me stare at this adorable tiny snek until I’ve calmed down.)

Phew.

OK. Draco realises his wound from the arrow is now glowing, and his blood’s turned silver. That’s … healthy. And left unaddressed for another fifty pages.

Hermione realises the plot probably should’ve kicked in by now, so she researches the four worthy McGuffins from Draco’s dream. It turns out, in the time they’ve been pissing about doing nothing, Voldy’s got his act together and already collected the Mirror, the Scabbard, and the … something else? IDK the third item wasn’t important. The important thing was there was one item left: the Cup. So Harry P and da Crew decide they need to get it before Voldemort does, by stealing it from the wizarding museum where it’s on display at Stonehenge.

Several pages of build-up are wasted on planning this heist, but I’m so glad plot’s arrived I’m willing to be forgiving. At the museum, Draco causes a distraction by kissing Ginny, prompting Seamus to punch him in the face. While their fistfight ensues, the golden trio replace the McGuffin Cup with a fake.

And it all goes down flawlessly.

Because god forbid we might get some external conflict.

When they get back to Hogwarts, Hermione hides the McGuffin Cup. Meanwhile, Draco becomes seriously poorly from a combination of whatever that weirdass arrow’s done to him, and the thorough shit-kicking my boy Seamus gave him.

Harry shows Ron the Christmas present he’s got for Hermione: a ring. Ron freaks out because you CAN’T give your girlfriend a ring, she’ll assume you’re PROPOSING and that’s CRAZY. (And here I sit, wearing the two rings my boyfriend gave me on separate occasions, howling with laughter.)

Anyway, Ron’s epic bitchfit comes to a dramatic end when he reveals the identity of his ~secret girlfriend~.

Hermione.

(Those of you raising your hands for your ficlet right now … just hold on a second. You’ll see.)

Because Hermione is completely dumbfounded by this reveal. She insists it’s not true, while Ron gets angrier and more distraught. Harry finally uses the veritas spell to make Ron tell the truth, and Ron confirms that yeah, he’s for defo been fucking Hermione on the sly. Hermione screams that it isn’t true and Harry storms out in a rage.

If you, like me, are currently shrieking, “POLYJUICE POTIONS EXIST YOU FUCKING MORONS!” … I am sorry. I am sorry for all of us.

Hermione goes to Draco in tears, and Draco once again falls back on his reliable solution of alcoholism. They get drunk and snuggle up in bed together because, uh, that’s … not cheating?

Ron meets up with his ~mysterious girlfriend~ again, and strangely, she has no clue about all the domestics that just occurred. At this point, Ron finally twigs that this isn’t fucking Hermione. Draco and the real Hermione also burst in, but because everyone in this fic is an idiot, the imposter gets away. Following this is even more relationship drama, as Harry and Hermione break up and everyone now hates Ron for backstabbing them in spirit, if not technically in reality.

Hermione and Ron toddle off to their separate homes for Christmas, and Draco, apparently the only one with two brain cells left to rub together, works out who the fake Hermione is:

Pansy Parkinson.

So, if you guessed “Pansy Parkinson, with the Hermione Polyjuice potion, in the Astronomy Tower”, you may now request your fanfic. Please be patient, as I have to pause every time I remember this detail, and nearly crack a rib laughing.

Meanwhile, Ginny tells Seamus about the events of Draco Sinister and he is … one hundred percent accepting and supportive, and gives Ginny a magic bracelet for Christmas, and invites her to visit him in Ireland.

I maintain Seamus is the only decent person in this fic.

The only one.

Harry and Draco get up to shenanigans at Christmas at Malfoy Manor, in which for once Harry is the one getting plastered and not Draco, and … I swear, this fic feels like it’s aiming towards a Harry/Draco ship 90% of the time. Harry spends so much time waxing lyrical about Draco’s beauty, his elegance, his perfect perfection, and it’s weird, because when Sirius and Narcissa get married they’re basically going to be stepbrothers so—

CASSIE. PUT YOUR INCEST KINK AWAY.

I’M NOT JOKING, CASSIE. PUT IT AWAY. I’VE READ MORTAL INSTRUMENTS, I KNOW THERE’S WEIRD INCEST SHIT IN THAT, TOO. AND I KNOW IT’S NAMED AFTER THAT ONE ACTUAL RON/GINNY INCEST FIC YOU WROTE. AND ALL THIS RHYSENN/DRACO AND DRACO/HARRY—

PUT THE KINK AWAY.

PUT IT AWAY.

SHAME ON YOU.

Sirius and Narcissa throw a wedding rehearsal dinner, and it turns out both the entire Weasley family AND the entire Parkinson family are invited, so Draco decides to be a vindictive little shit and announce to everyone that HEY, PANSY AND RON HAVE BEING DOING THE NASTY.

Charming.

AND THEN.

PLOT ARRIVES.

By which I mean Lucius Malfoy and all his cronies crash the party, kidnap Harry, Ron and Draco, and magically boot everyone else out of the manor. And just a sec, I might need to go lie down and weep after slogging through that entire crappy first half of the fic.

So Lucius locks Harry and Draco up on some balcony, and demands they give him the McGuffin Cup. He even offers to trade it for an antidote to that poisoned arrow currently fucking Draco up in all kinds of ways. Unfortunately, Hazzer and Drazzer don’t have a clue where Hermione hid the Cup. So Draco basically yells, “I don’t want your stinking antidote, and fuck you anyway,” and smashes the antidote to pieces.

He’s a … smart boy.

Meanwhile, Ginny uses her time turner from Draco Sinister to do some convoluted time travel, including going to Malfoy Manor in the past and meeting baby wee twelve year old Draco. She also takes Tom Riddle’s diary from Lucius’s desk (which has a fat hole in it from where Harry stabbed it with the basilisk fang) for … some reason? She also nicks another book of dark magic, because in for a penny I guess. Then she finally travels into the present, where she rescues Harry and Draco. They’re chased out of the manor by hellhounds, and Harry uses that plot-important runic band to scare them off, and there are actual stakes and there’s pacing and I’m practically sobbing with relief at this point.

However.

If you’re wondering where Ron is …

Ron gets to play chess.

With Voldemort.

For basically the whole of the rest of the fic.

See, apparently the reason Ron is so good at chess is because he’s a seer, so he unconsciously reads the future and predicts his opponent’s move. And Voldemort needs like, a really, really powerful seer for this ritual he wants to do. So he takes Ron to a secret castle in deepest darkest Eastern Europe, and essentially forces him to grind his seer ability up to level 100 as fast as humanly possible.

So the whole crew, except Ron, head back to Hogwarts, where Dumbledore tells Snape to make a fresh antidote for Draco. Which Draco SHOULD HAVE DONE as soon as he realised he was POISONED. I don’t care how “independent” you are, if you are seventeen and you suspect you might be dying of a fucking glowing wound inflicted by a wierdass arrow from nowhere, you get help.

Meanwhile, in Voldemort’s secret castle, Ron is tortured in the most horrific manner imaginable.

He is made to listen to Rhysenn’s backstory.

Allow me to sum it up for you:

RHYSENN: “Dad’s a Malfoy. Mam’s a succubus. Bit of a shock for him when he found out. Also now I’m doomed to servitude in the Malfoy family forever.”

See? That doesn’t need to take twenty flipping pages.

The fic goes back to Draco lounging dramatically in bed contemplating death, interspersed with other characters waxing lyrical about how beautiful Draco looks even when he’s dying and—

On Christmas day, Harry gives Draco the Marauder’s Map, and Draco gives Harry a copy of the Malfoy Family Code of Conduct—a running joke throughout the Draco Trilogy stolen directly from Red Dwarf’s Space Corps Directives. (The joke was better in Red Dwarf.)

Hermione does more book-reading (specifically, that dark magic book Ginny nicked), and realises why they haven’t seen Ron in effing forever. Voldemort’s going to drain Ron’s blood for his evil plan.

After everyone falls apart with even more friendship drama, Seamus decides he’s too good for these assholes and breaks up with Ginny, who immediately fucks off back in time. Gotta love that coping method. “Yeah well screw you, time travel!”

So Ginny goes back to when Tom Riddle was still at Hogwarts. Tom turns out to be an unapologetic sadist (no surprises there) and follows up breaking Ginny’s wrist with … weird, rapey advances.

Then, in the ONE AND ONLY Moment I Unironically Enjoyed in this whole shitfest of a fic, Ginny spits in Tom’s face and gut-punches him. Satisfied with her fistfight, Ginny lets Dumbledore take her away and returns to the present.

However, this begins a reoccurring trend in this fic: everyone being an absolute fucking shitweasel to Ginny Weasley.

Dumbledore proceeds to tear Ginny a new one for her time travel shenanigans and for daring to try and change the past. Ginny points out she wasn’t going to change the past—she only wanted to take one of Tom’s hairs so she could make an epicyclical charm and use that to kill Voldemort in the present. Dumbledore then rips her another new one because apparently an epicyclical charm requires a soul to work, and Voldemort doesn’t have one of those. Also, Ginny accidentally left that dark magic book in the past, giving Tom the whole idea to do this ridiculous blood ritual in the first place.

So to punish Ginny for this mistake, which was technically preordained and had to happen somehow since time travel in Harry Potter is a closed loop, Dumbledore tells Tom Riddle in the past Ginny’s full name, so Tom can go gunning for her in Chamber of Secrets. Because of course eleven year old Ginny totally deserved to be punished for shit she hadn’t even done yet.

Ginny runs up to her room and smashes everything in sight, and then collapses sobbing on the floor. In the process, however, she manages to cut herself, and her blood and tears get on Tom Riddle’s diary.

I’m sure that won’t come to anything.

Meanwhile, Snape orders Harry to leave Draco once he gets his antidote, because he thinks their psychic connection is super unhealthy for poor woobie Draco. Harry reluctantly agrees, and shortly overhears Snape telling Dumbledore he’s got an antidote. Then, because no one ever sticks around to eavesdrop on an entire conversation, Harry legs it before Snape points out the “antidote” is only temporary and just gives Draco a few more weeks to live rather than curing him completely.

So Harry leaves goodbye notes for Draco and Hermione, and fucks off to finally go and fight Voldemort.

You know, that thing this whole fic was supposed to be about.

Later, Ginny’s sulking in the Gryffindor Common Room when Seamus finds Tom Riddle’s diary—and is instantly possessed by the ghost of Tom Riddle.

“The ghost that Harry killed with the basilisk fang?” I hear you say?

Yes, that ghost.

“But—”

No, no. But nothing. Cassie has finally realised this fic is boring as shit, and chosen to introduce Tom-Possessed-Seamus in a desperate attempt to add some external conflict. I am not going to bitch about things making sense as long as something is finally happening.

So Tom finds the letters Harry wrote for Draco and Hermione, and decides to fuck with everyone in the vicinity by burning Hermione’s and magically rewording Draco’s to be full of backhanded compliments. He then nances down to the Common Room and finds Ginny. She works out pretty sharpish that this new, creepy “Seamus” is actually Tom screwing with her, and for a few paragraphs, this fic reads like M rated torture porn waiting to happen. Then Ginny sticks her arm in the fireplace, causing her charm bracelet to go haywire and explode all over the place.

This would be cool, except:

There was absolutely no indication before now that bracelet + fire = explosions

Why didn’t Ginny just toss the bracelet in, rather than setting her own hand on fire?

So Tom flees and Ginny passes out. Meanwhile, Draco takes his kinda-antidote, which actually gets him out of bed. This is surprising, considering the fic claims it contains both belladonna and nightshade, each of which are poisonous.

Cassie … what the fuck.

Anyway, Draco and Hermione find unconscious, lightly charred Ginny and rush her to Madame Pomfrey, and then discover Harry’s remaining letter. This naturally results in a slew of drama I can’t be bothered to recount, but suffice to say Draco is pissed. They decide to hunt Harry down, presumably so they can kick the shit out of him in person.

When Ginny recovers, she explains the new Tom Riddle plot thread, and follows it up with, “Fuck this shit, I’m out.”

Yeah, she literally just … goes home. This actually didn’t annoy me, because it seemed like the only sensible decision anyone in this entire fic had made so far. “There are dark wizards fucking everywhere and every time I try to do anything helpful I screw it up and get yelled at. Yeah, fuck you guys, I’m going home.”

Meanwhile, Tom sets up in Diagon Alley, where he reads up on his future self’s adventures and decides “Screw that guy, I can do better.” He runs into Harry and, rather than killing him on the spot, he directs him to a nearby friendly Death Eater establishment.

So Harry flees the Death Eaters, and winds up bumping into Draco Malfoy down a quiet alley. And um. This happens.

Well, no, OK, it’s not really Draco Malfoy.

It’s a polyjuice prostitute.

A prostitute who takes polyjuice potion … in order to look like Draco. For customers.

I’ll uh … I’ll just let that sink in.

Anyway, the polyjuice prostitute takes him to safety. By which I mean a brothel. A polyjuice brothel. O-of course?

Meanwhile, back at the Burrow, Ginny gets a visit from Ben Gryffindor and Gareth Slytherin—the respective sons of Godric Gryffindor and Salazar Slytherin she met when she time travelled in Draco Sinister. It turns out Gareth has a bracelet that looks suspiciously similar to Harry’s runic band, and apparently it repels demons. However, Gareth can never take it off until the day he dies.

So Ben and Gareth give some vague, unhelpful advice, and the plot grinds to a halt as we cut to several tedious pages of Hermione reading Teen Witch Weekly, followed by Draco having EMOTIONS.

And the emotions of these characters. The melodrama. They randomly fly off the handle over the smallest, most meaningless little things. Like, Harry could be stuck on his homework and mutter, “Ugh, I don’t understand,” and Hermione would leap up and scream, “NO, YOU NEVER DO!” and run from the room weeping.

One exchange is literally:

DRACO: You look cold. Shall we go back?

HERMIONE: No … we can never go back …

HE MEANS “GO BACK INDOORS” YOU MELODRAMATIC LUNATIC.

And SO MUCH drama is built on this pointless little exchanges. It’s infuriating—the characters just can’t seem to ever have a normal conversation. I know teenagers can be emotional, but they’re not like this. Jesus.

Meanwhile, Blaise Zabini—oh yeah, she’s in this fic—figures out that Pansy Parkinson is the one who shot Draco with the poisoned arrow, on Lucius Malfoy’s orders. Pansy confirms that there was only one vial of antidote, and Draco’s pretty much doomed at this point. Man, isn’t Pansy just a giant pain in the ass in this fic?

Anyway, back at the Polyjuice brothel, while Harry hides out, Tom walks in with Ginny’s hair. And if you can guess where this is going … I’m sorry.

So while Tom tortures, murders and rapes a polyjuice prostitute pretending to be Ginny (yes, in that order), Hermione and Draco break into the brothel looking for Harry. This involves Hermione dressing up all slutty, because undercover. Of course.

Naturally, they find the dead fake Ginny, but Tom escapes, and Draco theorises that Tom is in love with Ginny and … isn’t coping well. I guess murder is a pretty serious case of not coping.

Draco then finds Harry, and they bicker briefly before Harry runs away again. Because no one in this fic can sit down and discuss their problems like rational adults. Draco and Hermione go back to their hotel room and get down to their own unhealthy coping, which means copious snogging. I guess cheating is at least a healthier outlet than murder.

So Tom finds Lucius, who is like “Yeah I’ll totally help you kill your older, uglier self, no problem bud,” and they merrily get down to hunting all the Death Eaters who betrayed older Voldemort. Tactically, you’d think it would be smart to recruit them, but no. Tom just murders them in revenge. Or … pre-venge?

Meanwhile, Harry manages to stumble through the floo network to Victor Krum’s house, where Fleur Delacour also lives because apparently that ship is a thing now. Harry then travels to Prague, and Hermione and Draco show up to Victor’s house too late, and Draco collapses because oh yeah, he’s meant to be dying, isn’t he?

So Fleur tucks Draco up in bed, and … unbuttons his shirt … while whispering to him … while he’s unconscious …

Damn it, Cassie, why you gotta put me through this?

Well, it turns out she’s not JUST sexually harassing Draco. She also gives him some of her Magid powers so he can continue with Mission Kick the Shit out of Harry in Person. (Yeah, I also completely forgot Magids were a thing until now.)

Over in Prague, Harry’s caught out after dark by vampires, but luckily Draco and Hermione show up in time to scare them off … by using two swords to make the shadow of a cross. The shadow. Of a cross.

Draco then knocks Harry the fuck out before he can escape again, takes him inside and ties him to the bed. Luckily, Cassie puts her incest kink away before Harry wakes up, and they all take turns talking about their feelings for several pages and ultimately resolve nothing.

Meanwhile, Ginny discovers that Tom is gunning for Pansy Parkinson’s family, and decides, ugh, fuck it, fine, she’ll join in on this shitshow. By the time she arrives, Tom’s already murderkilled the whole Parkinson family, and is busy torturing Blaise Zabini. Tom drops Blaise in favour of torturing Ginny, but then realises he can’t. Every wound he inflicts on Ginny also appears on him, because something, something blood magic connecting them. This is actually kind of a cool concept, and I’d love to see where it could go in the hands of a skilled writer

Ginny, however, decides bugger all this for a lark and tosses herself down the stairs.

I mean. That’s one way to kill Tom.

Meanwhile, Death Eaters show up and attack Harry, Draco and Hermione. Harry kills a Death Eater and has a minor existential crisis over it, which apparently distracts him enough to let the Death Eaters capture Hermione.

The Death Eaters drop Hermione off with Ron in Voldemort’s Evil Castle of Doom, where Hermione and Ron immediately start formulating a plan … oh wait no, they just bicker pointlessly. It turns out Ron’s got pretty sweet digs in this castle for a prisoner, so Hermione gets to take a bath, and then Ron makes out with Rhysenn pretending to be Hermione and … ugh, this is all just so unbelievably stupid I want to die.

So Draco and Harry finish their own pointless bickering and fly after Hermione on thestrals. Where did these thestrals come from? No idea, but Cassie wants thestrals, so here they are.

Meanwhile, back at Voldemort’s castle, Rhysenn calls out Hermione for being an indecisive slutmuffin because come the fuck ON, woman you gotta pick Harry or Draco at some point, and I thought we’d been THROUGH this already. This rant is all the more bizarre coming from a succubus, of all things.

And then Voldemort shows up and shoots a cruciatus curse at Hermione, because I guess today is just Beat Up Hermione Day.

Harry and Draco stop off in a vague European village for a light lunch of crusty bread and cheese and brandy (because Draco’s alcoholism continues), and I laugh because Cassie seems to think Europe hasn’t invented fucking sandwiches.

We get a few paragraphs of Lucius Malfoy poncing around doing nothing, before Tom bursts through his window clutching a half-dead Ginny and screaming at him to heal her. Instead, Lucius locks them both in a magic marble tomb and buggers off to tell grown-up Voldemort about this whole debacle.

By the way, POV swaps at this point are so swift I am lumping two or three chunks together in a somewhat helpless attempt to make everything flow better than Cassie did. I’m also hacking away huge chunks of pointless, meandering text. You’re welcome.

So we hop back to Harry and Draco walking up to Voldemort’s castle. Draco at this point is going blind because, oh yeah, he’s totally dying isn’t he? And they finally, FINALLY address Harry’s letter. The one that pissed off Draco so much. The one that Tom Riddle tampered with.

And.

AND.

*Deep breath*

Christ doing handstands on a unicycle at the fucking circus, Draco’s whole problem with this stupid goddamn letter is so obnoxious and pathetic I want to scream. Chapter upon chapter of drama over some vague fucking backhanded comments that just aren’t that fucking upsetting, OH MY GODDDD.

Draco realises Harry doesn’t know he’s still dying, but chooses not to tell him because???

Thankfully for my blood pressure, a plot hole … um … black hole opens up in the ground and swallows them up, which is pretty fucking satisfying at this point, let me tell you.

Meanwhile, it turns out that the cruciatus curse (or “excruciating bane” as Cassie calls it, because she has access to a thesaurus and zero common sense) totally didn’t work on Hermione! The McGuffin Cup apparently protects its holder from curses. How neat.

So the baddies guess the flask on Hermione’s belt is defo the Cup, and take it off her, and I am SO convinced they are right and the obvious decoy is not, in fact, an obvious decoy.

At this point, Lucius shows up and tells Voldemort all about wee babby Tom, and then teleports Tom and Ginny over so Voldemort can meet himself in person.

That was a weird sentence.

Ginny has spent the interim since she tried to off herself having fever dreams about Passionate Trousers, that crappy romance book she was reading before. This, apparently, is her equivalent to the river of the dead that Draco saw in Draco Sinister when he almost died. Yeah … Draco gets a spooky river of ghosts, and Ginny gets a thematically inappropriate bodice-ripper.

Lame.

But whatever, she wakes up in time to meet Old Voldy … and promptly faints again.

Our heroine!

At this point, Harry and Draco are traipsing through an underground tunnel when they run into those weakass vampires again. Draco’s like, “You really don’t wanna bite us, bro,” but a vampire bites him anyway, and then instantly dies from all the poison in Draco’s blood. The weakass vampires all run screaming, and Harry FINALLY realises Draco isn’t actually cured.

With tears of exhaustion, I reach the penultimate chapter, and pray to the powers that be for a finale that was worth slogging through all this crap for. But really, deep down, I know I’m just tumbling further and further into the sunk cost fallacy with every page I read.

So Ginny wakes up in a big fancy bedroom, where Tom tells her that he’s working with Old Voldy now, and I gigglesnort because all I can think of is Nega Scott the end of Scott Pilgrim vs the World. “He’s not that bad when you get to know him. We actually have a lot in common.”

On the bright side, Ginny get to be Tom’s special prized concubine forever while the rest of the world burns. Yay? Tom leaves and Hermione appears, and continues the tradition of bullying the shit out of Ginny. She victim-blames the hell out of her, because it is just so GROSS that Tom is obsessed with her and that’s all totally Ginny’s fault, and never mind the fact that Hermione was in exactly this position with Salazar Slytherin in Draco Sinister.

So Hermione finishes yelling, “How dare you seduce Tom Riddle, Ginny!” and proceeds to tell Ginny her plan for defeating Voldemort, which involves … Ginny continuing to seduce Tom Riddle.

UGH.

So Hermione finally fucks off, and pretends Rhysenn has killed her. Because reasons.

Outside, Harry and Draco finally reach Voldemort’s castle. Harry tries to gently Wingardium Leviosa Draco over the battlements, and ends up tossing him through a window. Harry is then chased by a bunch of Voldemort’s guards, but his runic band lights up and murders the shit out of all of them … and then crumbles into dust. Not sure why it chose this specific moment to die, but I guess Cassie got tired of Harry carrying around a get out of jail free card.

It turns out Draco coincidently burst through Ginny’s window. AND AGAIN, the instant he sees her he’s like, “Oh fuck off, what’re YOU doing here?”

Like. BITCH.

Ginny only fucked up in this fic because everyone was such an unapologetic shitweasel to her. And then she tried to fix her mistake, even to the point of attempting suicide. Jesus Christ, what do you all want from Ginny?

CAMPAIGN BE NICER TO GINNY 2K18.

I didn’t take very good notes over the next part, mostly because I was skimming but also possibly because my hand was occupied with the glass of rosé I sorely needed to get through his hellfic unscathed. But basically everyone winds up having a big battle; Draco, who couldn’t stand unaided one page ago, is suddenly able to charge into a sword fight no problem; Hermione’s “play dead” plan lasts exactly 0.1 seconds and amounts to nothing; and everything utterly fails and Voldemort captures them all anyway.

So Voldemort kills them all and gets on with his spell, right?

Nope.

He keeps them alive.

Why?

Because Cassie Claire is too cowardly to kill a protagonist and too lazy to invent a decent explanation for how they survive, that’s why.

So Voldemort chains them all up around a whacking great pentagram with the four worthy McGuffins, and I roll my eyes because we’re back at the end of Draco Sinister. Draco and Tom have an argument about Greek mythology which is supposed to show how smart and cultured Draco is, but actually just shows that Cassie’s only research into Greek mythology was watching Clash of the Titans because she thinks the Kraken is a Greek monster … and I slam my head against a wall because JUST LET THIS BE OVER ALREADY.

So Voldemort cuts Ron open to get at that delicious seer blood, and the ritual kicks off with Cassie stealing the “close your eyes!” gimmick from Indiana Jones.

Guess what happens next?

It’s OK, I’ll give you a second.

That’s right! The McGuffin Cup wasn’t really the McGuffin Cup! Hermione pulled the old switcheroo, and it totally wasn’t obvious even slightly at all.

So Voldypoldy gets trapped in the pentagram, screaming his guts out, and Tom does a runner. Draco goes racing after him, because Ginny decides not to tell him that killing Tom will also kill her. This lack of communication would piss me off, but after how fucking horrible everyone’s been to Ginny I’m not surprised she’s suicidal. And frankly, I am also ready for death.

Meanwhile, Harry dives into the pentagram to fight Voldemort, while Ron and Hermione fight Lucius. The pentagram cooks Wormtail alive for some reason, and Voldemort tries to stab Harry but—

The Malfoy Family Code of Conduct in Harry’s pocket stops the dagger.

Seriously. We are pulling a “Bible stopped the bullet” here.

Voldemort then remembers he’s a fucking wizard, and throws a killing curse at Harry. The curse bounces off the McGuffin Mirror, one of those other worthy objects we all forgot about, and kills Voldemort instead. And then Harry cuts Voldemort’s head off for good measure. Because everyone loves unnecessary violence.

Meanwhile, Draco gets thiiiiis close to killing Tom, before Tom points out Ginny will also die. So naturally, after knocking Tom out and tying him up, Draco realises what a douchecanoe he’s been to Ginny and apologises—HAHAHAHA no, he just berates her some more.

Ron and Hermione apprehend Lucius, and all is looking good. Voldemort’s dead, the others baddies are dead or captive … surely there’s not much left, right? I check the page counter at the top of my screen.

260 A4 pages left.

So it turns out the whole reason Lucius was such an unapologetic dicknozzle this whole time was because he sold his ability to love to Voldemort. For like, power? Or something? And now Voldemort’s dead, Lucius suddenly loves Draco, and realises he poisoned him, and has Some Regrets. Unfortunately, Draco doesn’t give a fuck, and in some of the most awkward, out of character dialogue in the fic, he tells Harry to just kill him if he wants.

TEENAGERS DON’T TALK LIKE THIS.

However, Harry decides not to kill Lucius, instead interrogating him for information about Draco’s antidote. Turns out they’re missing one ingredient: argent dragon’s blood. Too bad argent dragons are extinct. This might’ve been a clever twist, if argent dragons had ever been mentioned before this moment.

Harry then leaves Lucius alone with Ron, who proceeds to prophesise the fall of the Malfoy name and the loss of everything Lucius holds dear. And because Ron is a seer and couldn’t possibly be making shit up, Lucius freaks out and kills himself.

For complicated, nonsensical reasons, Rhysenn now becomes Draco’s servant. Draco’s like “Bugger it all, I’ll free you if you kiss Tom Riddle’s soul out of Seamus’s body,” because apparently succubi work just like dementors. So Rhysenn does that, and then leaps out the window, presumably yelling, “DOBBY IS FREEEEE!��

Draco makes some long, sad speeches about how very hard he is dying, and then does what he’s been threatening to this whole fic, and stops breathing.

Well. I wish.

The final chapter begins with a funeral, but as anyone with half a brain can guess, it’s not Draco’s funeral. It’s Pansy Parkinson’s. Draco is actually in a coma. And despite the fact Pansy poisoned Draco and tricked Ron into shagging her and basically ruined everyone’s lives, they all show up to her funeral. Possibly just to ensure this bitch is deep in the cold, cold ground.

Well, except for Harry, that is. Harry has apparently sat motionless at Draco’s bedside for three straight days. This I do not buy. A man does not go three days without needing to get up to piss.

Meanwhile, Ginny is busy looking after poor, shell-shocked Seamus Finnegan, who claims to remember nothing about being possessed, but who wakes up from nightmares screaming for people to run, or begging someone to stop. You know, totally normal, not at all PTSD stuff. And naturally, Ginny is patient and understanding, because this isn’t something you just “get over”, and she treats Seamus with the same kindness he always showed her—

HA, NO. Ginny resents Seamus for making her look after him, and acts like an absolute martyr for showing a single ounce of human decency.

God damn it, Ginny. I defended you.

Anyway, apparently it took three effing days for anyone to have the bright idea that Harry should try and contact Draco through telepathy. This essentially amounts to psychic Harry dramatically begging Draco to “Hold on!” while psychic Draco acts surprisingly millennial and yells back, “LET ME DIE, I’M FUCKIN’ TIRED.”

Meanwhile, Ginny realises Harry’s runic band had argent dragon blood it in. A shame, since the damn thing poofed into a million pieces, but luckily she knows someone else who’s got one. So she does a few time travel trips, and winds up arriving at the moment Gareth dies so she can take the runic band from him.

Snape manages to get the argent dragon blood out of the runic band, but then points out it needs to brew for 1,000 years. So they make two vials, and Ginny does more time travelling. One vial goes to the Malfoy family (that’s the one Lucius will eventually have), and one vial is hidden in the Hogwarts library.

Ginny also passes Gareth’s now-empty runic band to Rhysenn in the past, so Rhysenn can be the ~mysterious benefactor~ who gives the band to Harry at the end of Draco Sinister. If all this sounds like a really confusing episode of Doctor Who … yeah, I’m sorry. I can only guess that Cassie realised the time travel shenanigans worked well in Draco Sinister, and so she decided to cram WAY MORE time travel into Draco Veritas.

So Ginny gets to the present, but it turns out time travelling that much is kinda bad for you so she starts coughing up blood and passes out. (Side note: I love fanfic, where coughing up blood is a symptom of basically any generic illness, as opposed to reality where it means “punctured lung”.)

So they manage to tip the antidote down Draco’s throat, and he wakes up fine and dandy, but now Ginny’s dying instead. There’s some drawn-out angst, until Seamus marches in, grabs the time turner from Ginny’s neck and smashes it, which somehow magically makes her well again.

So uh … the end?

No, no, no.

Time for an epic Cassie Claire epilogue with pages and pages of pointless friendship drama and romance angst. Because we haven’t had enough of that already!

Ginny hangs about with Seamus, bitching at him for being miserable (yeah Seamus, how dare you be traumatised by Tom Riddle possessing you and using you to rape, torture and murder and bunch of people!), and eventually she asks Hermione for a love potion so she can try to actually enjoy the rest of her miserable life with Seamus. Hermione reluctantly gives her a potion, but then Ginny spends the next several pages mooning about wondering if she should take the bloody thing.

Meanwhile, Cassie pulls “Dumbledore the master manipulator” out of her arse and claims Dumbledore had Snape deliberately mess with Harry and Draco’s polyjuice potion way back at the beginning of Draco Dormiens, with the intention of them swapping bodies and gaining these psychic powers and—

THIS MAKES NO SENSE.

If Snape and Dumbledore knew about the bodyswap thing back in Draco Dormiens, why would they allow Lucius to take Harry back to Malfoy Manor, thinking he was Draco? Why wouldn’t Snape be keeping an eye on Draco all the time at Hogwarts? Surely, if the whole plan was to ensure they were best buddies in time to kill Voldemort, the safest and most responsible way to do that was with them both at Hogwarts, where Snape and Dumbledore could watch over them.

AAUUUGHHHH.

Well, whatever. Snape and Dumbledore say they have an antidote for Harry and Draco’s psychic connection, so they can separate and go back to being their own individuals again. This means Harry and Draco spend the next several pages angsting over their imminent separation.

Draco takes Harry to the bottomless pit from Draco Dormiens, and chucks his two epicyclical charms down it. I guess this is meant to be symbolic, but since the epicyclical charms did fuck all in this fic … meh. Then again, when you consider that Cassie’s username used to be “Epicyclical”, this scene has some frankly hilarious connotations.

So Seamus once again decides he’s too good for these assholes and fucks off, leaving Ginny and Draco to finally fucking get together again. Harry proposes to Hermione, and astoundingly, she shows half an ounce of common sense and tells him they’re too young for that bullshit. Also Ron and Blaise are a thing now. Apparently.

Ginny tosses the love potion away, and then finds out it was never a real love potion anyway. Harry and Draco refuse to take their antidotes, instead choosing to go on an EPIC PSYCHIC ROADTRIP.

And this monstrosity of a fic finally fucking ends when Harry and Draco stop off at Hogwarts so Draco can look in the Mirror of Erised, because Cassie is sodding obsessed with mirrors. He sees himself exactly as he already is.

So, overall thoughts?

It was shite. Godawful. This was a behemoth-sized fanfic of absolutely nothing sodding happening. Draco Veritas commits the worst sin any writing can commit. It’s BORING. Friendship drama can be fine and enjoyable, but not in a fic that’s meant to be an epic whirlwind fantasy adventure. By this point, I would expect the characters to have their shit together, but instead they’re bickering and falling out and weeping more than ever.

The first half is definitely the worst—so bad I almost gave up several times. In the second half, Cassie seems to realise the characters should be doing something by now, so she starts throwing in heists and kidnaps and Tom Riddles for conflict. But it’s all just swallowed up in more pointless, meandering drama. If anyone else reading this has waded through Draco Veritas, you’ll know what I mean when I say I’ve cut out over half the shit that happens in this fic to try and boil it down to an actual plot. Writing out this spork was like doing a fucking archaeological dig. “I know the good shit’s down here somewhere, but there’s about six meters of mud to shovel out before we can see it.”

I can’t believe Cassie Claire became a BNF on the back of this. I can’t believe she got a publishing deal and was a roaring success on the back of this. Accusations of plagiarism aside, the whole fic is just plain bad.

And honestly, as much fun as I had laughing at the Draco Trilogy, I’m glad I never have to read any of Cassie’s writing again.

Well … until I dig out that Ron/Ginny fanfic, anyway.

#draco veritas #draco trilogy #cassie claire #spork #harry potter

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beeblackburn · 4 years

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Pretender Reads A Little Hatred, Part I, Chapter Six

I feel weighed enough by the chains of procrastination that I wish I got a couple of breakers to smash it all down! Goes without saying spoilers ahead for the entirety of The First Law works beyond the keep reading. Read at your own risk.

Chapter Title: The Breakers Point-of-View: Vick dan Teufel

“What sort of a name is Vick, anyway?”

“Short for Victarine.”

“Very fucking fancy,” sneered Grise. Vick hadn’t known her long, but she was already getting tired of her. “Daresay you’ve got a fucking ‘dan’ in your name, too, eh, your ladyship?”

It’s okay, Vick, I’ve just known Grise two sentences and I’m already tired of her.

That being said, Vick doesn’t beat around the bush in her voice, does she. And this short exchange already suggests, along with the chapter title, that the Breakers aren’t as monolithic in character as the first trilogy’s peasant rebellion was, an evolution of the old of the peasantry through the ones of nobility to the new status of giving voice to the commonfolk.

Also, hell’s yeah. More working-class voices! After fantasy’s gout of prioritizing noble or royalty voices (or commonfolk who turn out to be royalty by royal blood), this is super welcome. I’m all for more eyes into the anger and wrath of the common men!

She held Grise’s eye. “I did have a ‘dan’ in my name, once. My father was Master of the Royal Mints. Had a great big apartment in the Agriont.” And Vick nodded towards her best idea of where the fortress was, though the points of the compass were hard to tell apart in a mouldy cellar. “Right next to the palace. Big enough for a statue of Harod the Great in the hall. Life fucking size.”

Grise had quite the frown on her round face now, light flickering across it as boots, and hoofs, and cartwheels clattered past the little windows high up near the ceiling. “You grew up in the Agriont?”

“You weren’t listening. My father had an apartment there. But when I was eight years old, he trod on the wrong toes and the Inquisition took him. I hear it was Old Sticks himself who asked the questions.”

Master of the Royal Mints... who... wait... Sepp dan Teufel? The guy whose finger joints Glokta chopped off near The Blade Itself’s start? Damn, that’s one hell of a deep dive! He’s not exactly a character of importance, being only in one chapter, and all we knew of him is that he was kind of a blowhard using his position and connections to try and get out of Glokta’s tender care.

Why bring the Teufel connection into this then...?

“My father was innocent. Of what they accused him of, anyway. But once Old Sticks got started…” Vick slapped the table with a bang, Tallow jumping so high he nearly hit the ceiling. “He leaked confessions like a broken drain. High Treason. They sent him to Angland. To the camps right up North.” Vick didn’t feel much like it, but she grinned. “And no one likes to split up a happy family. So they sent my ma with him. My ma, and my brother, and my sisters, and me. The camps, Grise. That’s where I grew up. So don’t question my commitment to the cause. Not ever.”

Oh damn. That’s why. For every man Glokta ruined and forced into confession, there were others connected to each body. Sepp dan Teufel himself doesn’t matter, it’s what Glokta did to Vick’s entire family is what matters. She's the consequences of the first trilogy’s actions writ small, the collateral bodies that ended up in misery and suffering because of what Glokta’s done, regardless of guilt or innocence, but sheer political expediency.

Sepp dan Teufel being a relative no-name actually works better than if it was a bigger name Glokta tortured, because he was swept aside rather quick in the greater narrative of the first trilogy... but Vick’s here, reminding us that most actions Glokta undertook had a terrible cost attached, damaging more than the men he chopped flesh off of. It’s just an extension of how monstrous Glokta’s actions really were, detached of his more wry, humorous, self-pitying narrative.

And, on a character note, that forced smile makes me think of Savine’s performance, except with greater bitterness. Whereas Savine performs to gain leverage and points over people, Vick... there’s just this feeling of negative space. This feeling that there’s nothing inside her, no joy or mirth or humor, because the camps hollowed those things out of her and all she can express is what she forces herself. It’s a greater effort, emotionally, for Vick.

You could hear the ill squelch as Tallow swallowed. “What are the camps like?”

“You get by.”

Oh, the filth, pain, hunger, death, injustice and betrayal that she buried in that phrase. The black chill of the mines, the searing glow of the furnaces, the gnashing rage and sobbing desperation, the bodies in the snow. Vick forced her face to stay blank, pressed down the past like you might press down the lid on a box full of maggots.

“You get by,” she said, firmer. When you tell a lie, you have to sound like you believe it. Goes double for the ones you tell yourself.

Oh, Vick. The fact that you can consciously recall all that misery, yet you still have to lie to yourself that “you get by” in that hellscape? It reads off as an trauma reaction, a victim rationally recalling what was done to her, but has to emotionally suppress the horrors of what was done, lest it overwhelm her all over.

My heart.

And, you know what strikes me about Vick’s general character? She feels like a refinement of Cathil, way back in Before They Are Hanged. Now, Cathil herself was a blatant device to give more insight into West and the Dogman, thanks to Abercrombie’s mishandling of his female characters, but when you think about it, she’s another survivor of the camps, even right down to the camps being from Angland. Someone who had to surrender her pride and shame, in order to get by, just like Vick.

Someone hollowed out by the camps, just like Vick...

She grabbed hold of West’s arm as he turned away. “It’s no easy ride here.” Her voice was a surprise. Soft, smooth, educated. “Cathil is my name. I can work.” West looked down at her, ready to shake his arm free, but her expression reminded him of something. Painless. Fearless. Empty eyes, flat, like a corpse.

—Before They Are Hanged, Small Crimes

... Except the Cathil figure here gets to have the POV to herself, instead of being the prop to a guy’s storyline, only to be discarded later after her use is run out. Vick, here, gets to deal with her own turmoils and tragedies and struggles, being our lens into the Breakers as a woman actively part of the rough-and-tumble of it. I could be wrong, and Abercrombie could horribly disappoint me by killing off Vick early, but she absolutely feels like a deliberate second chance with Cathil. And, you know what? I’m all for it. Vick’s hardened in a way that the earlier POVs just aren’t and that’s equal parts intriguing and tragic.

Grise spun around as the door squealed open, but it was only Sibalt come at last, Moor big and dour at his shoulder. He planted his fists on the table and took a heavy breath, that noble face of his sadly sagging.

“What is it?” asked Tallow, in a tiny voice.

“They hanged Reed,” said Sibalt. “They hanged Cudber. They hanged his daughter.”

Grise stared at him. “She was fifteen.”

The Breakers from Orso’s chapter. You know how I said that this Breakers plotline feels different from the Tanner plotline back then? This is why. Abercrombie doesn’t let us forget that the commonfolk victims have personhood and names. They were people and not checklists to note off a coming-of-age heroic quest list. This is what happens when you give vent and voice to the working class people such royalty-homogenized stories use to prop up a king-in-the-making.

What happens when you take off the royalty lens and put a commonfolk lens onto a fantasy story. You’re pressed against all the injustices the royalty’s tools have perpetuated, committed, all for the status quo to stay.

Also, dang, even Grise is horrified that they hung a child. Not as hard as she thinks she is, huh.

“What for?” asked Tallow.

“Just for talking.” Sibalt put his hand on the boy’s thin shoulder and gave it a squeeze. “Just for organising. Just for trying to get workers to stand together and speak with one voice. That’s treason now.”

D’awww, Sibalt.

Part of why I don’t particularly like privileged royal twats is that when you compare the hardships of them to the very real threat of death, just for wanting social advancement and a bit more rights that the royalty and nobility enjoy effortlessly, that commonfolk face, my sympathy generally runs drier for those twats when common children are getting hanged for wanting better. Hence, why I loved that moment in The Blade Itself where Ardee tears into Jezal for being a giant baby about having to work hard for once.

But yes, let too much dissent like that thrive, and you allow such rebellious thoughts build up. You don’t put out the fires of revolution swift enough, and it spreads too fast and much for you to smother down the road. So, you stomp it out as soon as possible. You make examples out of the dissidents, so you put the fear into the rest of the common people.

“Then the time for talk’s fucking past!” snarled Grise.

But, at some point, you don’t engender fear so much as deep anger.

Vick was angry as anyone. But she’d learned in the camps that every feeling is a weakness. You have to lock your hurt away, and think about what comes next. “Who did they know about?” she asked.

There’s a very workmanlike quality to how Vick operates. There’s a no-frills attitude that pervades her entire POV, few details on the environment she’s in, just the important details of people’s actions and what’s said between the Breakers there. She’s very no-nonsense, allowing for her anger, but refusing to have it define her actions. Not if it overrides her thinking and plotting capabilities. In that sense, she very much reminds me of the practicality of Logen and Glokta from the first trilogy.

You have to be realistic.

Vick looked from her fist to her eye. “Whatever names they knew, they’ll have given up.”

“Not Cudber. He wouldn’t.”

“Not even when they put the irons to his daughter?” Grise had nothing to say to that, shock gradually wiping the anger off her face. “Whatever names they knew, they’ll have given up. Lots of other names, too, ’cause once you run out of truth, you start spilling lies.”

Moor shook his big lump of a head. “Not Reed.”

“Yes, Reed, Cudber, his daughter, yes, you or me or anyone. The Inquisition’ll come for whoever they knew about, and soon. So who did they know about?”

There’s a lot to be said about how much torture doesn’t work as a method of gaining information. And Abercrombie’s pretty clear-eyed about it as a tool that Glokta mainly uses it as a method of gaining confessions, rather than truth. Not to mention how much Glokta spoke of his own experiences in truth and how much, after he ran out of truth, he lied out of his ass and got nowhere. And, for most Inquisitors, the amount of bodies they make without substantial gain makes a greater point that Abercrombie really doesn’t believe torture necessarily works.

... There can be a point of criticism that Abercrombie still has Glokta capable of extracting truth out of his victims for plot reasons, thus still validating a sense of torture working, and I can see that as a problem. Which is partly why I love this acknowledgement that torture will not work and you can easily get a mixture of lies along with the truth, depending on what the victims think the captors want to hear. It’s a very stripped-down, sober look at torture as an institutional tool of the government from the side of those who might be next under the knife.

And no amount of willpower can prepare you for the very real and visceral reality of systematic disfigurement. The slow and sure breakdown of one’s body and spirit and mental strength. Anyone can break.

“Who the fuck are you to give orders?” Grise leaned down over her with a stabbing finger. “You’re newest here!”

“So maybe I’m thinking most clearly.” Vick let her hand lie on her belt buckle where her brass knuckles were hidden. She didn’t rate Grise much of a threat, for all her bulk. People who shout a lot tend to take a while working up to more. But Vick was ready to put her down if she had to. And when Vick put someone down, she made sure they went down hard.

And that’s what makes Vick so dangerous in this world, just like Logen:

Logen shrugged. Hard words are for fools and cowards. Calder might have been both, but Logen was neither. If you mean to kill, you’re better getting right to it than talking about it. Talk only makes the other man ready, and that’s the last thing you want. So Logen said nothing. Calder could take that for weakness if he pleased, and so much the better. Fights might find Logen depressingly often, but he was long, long past looking for them.

—The Blade Itself, First of the Magi

Both hardened and knowing not to give away their weaknesses, knowing when to put someone down for good. Just a fascinating contrast to the more naive and young charges of past chapters, Vick is.

Lucky for Grise, Sibalt laid a gentle hand on her shoulder and eased her back. “Vick’s right. I have to get out of Adua. Just as soon as we strike our blow.” And Moor slid out a dirty paper and unrolled it across the table. A map of the city. Sibalt tapped a spot in the Three Farms. Not far from where they’d started building that new canal. “The Hill Street Foundry.”

“Though Hill Street’s gone,” said Moor, in that plodding way he had, “since they pulled it down to build the Foundry.”

“They’re fitting new engines there,” said Sibalt.

Tallow nodded. “I passed ’em on the way. Engines that’ll put two hundred men and women out of work, I hear.”

I’ve read about how new technologies are going to replace some workers, leaving them out of a job. Now, of course, it makes perfect sense for companies to seek out new improvements that net them more profits, but without the social conscience and the consideration that you can train those old employees to work the new tools, you’re just left with money as the only bottom line, leaving countless souls helpless and scrambling without the job security that held up their families, their mental health, their very survival.

Industrial or contemporary age, human nature and greed really doesn’t change.

“We’re going to blow the lot to hell,” said Grise. “With Gurkish Fire.”

More signs of technological progression, what with Gurkish Fire being more commonplace nowadays since the ol’ days of the last Union-Gurkish War. Coming off The Heroes’ death tubes, this isn’t a surprise, but it’s definitely a nice continuity of Bayaz’s experiments with gunpowder.

I wonder if those death tubes got better... you’d think they’d be a leg-up, technologically, against Monza’s army, yet Terez said that didn’t go well...

“Well, you can stop worrying, ’cause it comes straight from Valbeck,” said Grise, smug as a king’s tailor. “Straight from the Weaver himself—”

“Shush,” hissed Sibalt. “Best if no one knows more than they have to. Don’t worry, the powder’s good.”

Grise slapped her fist into her palm. “A blow for the common man, eh, brothers?”

“Aye,” said Moor, slowly nodding his big head. “We’ll strike a spark.”

“And the spark’ll start a fire,” said Sibalt.

Vick sat forward. “If we do this, people get hurt. People get killed.”

“Only those that deserve it,” said Grise.

“Once the killing starts, it rarely sticks to those who deserve it.”

(arches an eyebrow) The Weaver? Aw, shit, is this like the Tanner all over again? Is Bayaz pulling the strings of another peasant rebellion, just to give a decisive victory to the royals? I like Jezal, and I don’t even hate Orso that much, but this will right piss me off if that happens.

I hope Yoru Sulfur, if he’s doing the Tanner bit under a different title, gets blown up by Gurkish Fire instead.

... And that last exchange is ultimately the sticking point. Revolutions are messy, messy business, and, as much as you want to keep the deaths solely on those who’ll deserve it, collateral damage is inevitable. Everyone who participates in one can die, and die ignobly.

Ultimately, I believe that revolutions are necessary, it’s what happens when you push around oppressed people so much their corpses pile up high as mountains and they cannot bear to be silent, and I refuse to wag my finger at them. Just because there’ll be blood to be had in revolutions doesn’t mean the status quo isn’t supported by gears and cogs, rusty with blood. Sometimes, inaction is a greater crime than wanting blood against those who operate the great machines.

That being said, I am all for everyone in a revolution being aware of the potential costs and trying not spill more blood than needed. But, well... easier said than done, right?

“You scared?”

“If you’re not scared, you’re mad or stupid, and there’s no place for either on a task like this. We need to plan every detail.”

As Logen would tell you:

The Northman chuckled. “Fearlessness is a fool’s boast, to my mind. The only men with no fear in them are the dead, or the soon to be dead, maybe. Fear teaches you caution, and respect for your enemy, and to avoid sharp edges used in anger. All good things in their place, believe me. Fear can bring you out alive, and that’s the very best anyone can hope for from any fight. Every man who’s worth a damn feels fear. It’s the use you make of it that counts.”

—Before They Are Hanged, Fear

Courage or strength isn’t defined by the absence of fear, it’s acting in spite of it. It’s using fear to work for you, carrying you to survive through sharpening your mind, your senses, and using it to your advantage.

Grise sneered her disgust. “All you ever fucking talk about is the risks!”

“Someone needs to. This has to be something we choose, not something we blunder into ’cause we’re sore and can’t think of anything better to do with ourselves.” She looked around those four faces, strange in the flickering light of the cellar. “This is what you all want, is it?”

Honestly, she’s right. Vick’s the one there pointing out that you can’t be a bunch of angry children playing with matches. She’s the only one right now speaking how to be mindful of starting a revolution, blessings and curses. If the Breakers are meant to be the spark to a great fire, to be a movement that’s meant to endure, they have to intend this and plan accordingly.

And they have to commit to it. All of it. No backing down.

“It’s what I fucking want,” said Grise.

“It’s what I want,” said Sibalt.

“Aye,” rumbled Moor.

Heh. I love how economic to their characters these responses are. Grise’s the heated, angry one who wants to fight back, no caution, Sibalt’s more measured and calm about how the cause needs to move and operate, and Moor’s just the big, slower musclehead. In fact, I generally like how this chapter gets across the different attitudes of the respective Breakers there. They all have skin in the game, but they’re different people with separate thoughts and input in going about breaking things.

She looked at Tallow last. He couldn’t be older than fifteen himself, and might only have had three good meals in that whole stretch. Reminded her of her brother, a little. Those skinny wrists sticking from frayed sleeves just a touch too short. Trying to put a hard face on but beaming fears and doubts out like a lighthouse through those big damp eyes.

“There’s a Great Change coming,” he said, finally. “That’s what I want.”

Is that a crack in the armor, Vick? Harder to suppress your feelings when reminders are right before your eyes. And, man, Tallow’s a brave little boy who shouldn’t have to commit to a fight that might kill him without remorse, given he found out about Cudber’s daughter’s hanging just a short while ago.

I hope he survives, but Abercrombie isn’t so gentle. So it goes, with hopes.

Vick smiled a grim smile. “Well, if I learned one thing in the camps, it’s that talking isn’t enough.” She realised she’d closed her fingers to make a fist. “You want a thing, you have to fight for it.”

Not as hard as you make yourself out to be, huh, Vick. Not as empty as you make yourself out to be, if even you’re getting carried away by the spirit of revolution. Other than that, damn straight. There’s a time for talk, and there’s a time for a fight.

She stayed straddling him for a while afterwards, his chest pressed against hers with each snatched breath. Kissing at his lip. Biting at it. Then with a grunt, she slid off him, rolled onto her side next to him on the narrow bed, dragging the blankets up over her bare shoulder. It felt chill now they were done, frost showing in the smudges of lamplight at the corners of the little window.

Wow, this book is just way more hornier than The Blade Itself. I mean, I don’t really mind, especially since this reads as more wholesome and sex for wanting it, rather than more abusive, like the first trilogy’s sex scenes, but wow.

Finally, he turned towards her. “Sorry I couldn’t step in with Grise—”

“I can look after myself.”

Sibalt snorted. “No one better. I’m not sorry ’cause I think you need my help. I’m sorry I can’t give it. Better if they don’t know we’re…” He slipped his hand up onto her ribs, rubbing at that old burn on her side with his thumb, trying to dig up the right word for what they were. “Together.”

“In here, we’re together.” She jerked her head towards the warped door in the warped frame. “Out there…” Out there, everyone stood on their own.

Whole swathes of Vick’s mindset just leaches so much warmth out of me. It’s such a cold, and dispassionate “everyone out for themselves” mindset that the camps instilled into her, but this? I’m glad Vick has some measure of happiness in her life, having someone by her side, at least.

He frowned at the little gap of coarse sheet between them as if it was a great divide that could never be crossed. “Sorry I can’t tell you where the Gurkish Fire comes from.”

“Best if no one knows more than they have to.”

“It’ll work.”

“I believe you,” she said. “I trust you.” Vick trusted no one. She’d learned that in the camps, along with how to lie. Learned to lie so well, she could take one tiny sliver of truth and beat it out, like the goldsmiths beating a nugget of gold into leaf, till it could cover a whole field of lies. Sibalt didn’t doubt her for a moment.

(arches an eyebrow) I’m reminded of Ferro’s belief of the word trust here:

“Stay with us. Give it a few days. If you don’t change your mind, well, I’ll help you pack. You can trust me.” Trust was a word for fools. It was a word people used when they meant to betray you. If he moved forward a finger’s width she would sweep the sword out and take his head off. She was ready.

—Before They Are Hanged, The Thing About Trust

But why would Vick betray Sibalt? Isn’t she just as committed to the Breakers cause as he is? Who would she betray him to? Is Sibalt a Breaker rogue element that someone asked Vick to watch after? If so, who? She can’t go to the Inquisition, considering her history with the camps, so maybe a Breaker higher-up Sibalt doesn’t answer to?

In any case, so much for happiness, Vick. And poor Sibalt, if Vick's going to betray him. He’s so sweet to her and respects her so...

“I wish I’d met you sooner,” he said. “Things might be different.”

“You didn’t and they’re not. So let’s take what we can get, eh?”

“By the Fates, you’re a hard case, Vick.”

“We’re none of us hard as we seem.” She slipped her hand around the back of his head, through the dark hair scattered with grey, held it firm, looked him in the eye and asked one more time. “You’re sure, Collem? You’re sure this is what you want?”

(jaw drops) Oh my god. Yeah, this puts the nail on the idea that Vick = Improved Cathil wasn’t intentional. Another Collem and another victim of the Angland camps. Except this Collem doesn’t treat her like a vessel for his own issues, unlike West did. Oh, Collem, you already met Vick once sooner, in the pages of Before They Are Hanged instead. Except, now, it’s flipped, with Vick as the POV, and Collem as the love interest as a reflection of her character.

I LOVE HOW MUCH ABERCROMBIE REMIXES HIS OLD SHIT BETTER, YES!

“Don’t really matter what we want, does it? Bigger things than our future to consider. We can strike a spark that’ll set a fire burning. One day, there’ll be a Great Change, Vick. And folk like you and me will get our say.”

“A Great Change,” she said, trying to sound like she believed it.

Sibalt’s a true believer to the core, but Vick? She’s been beaten too badly by the camps to necessarily buy into the shiny ideals of that wholesale. She’s endured Inquisition care too long to think this will be as glorious as what Sibalt thinks. She believes in the cause, but she’s got a more cynical head about it, wearier and sadder for it.

“You should come with me.”

She should’ve kept silent on that, too. Instead, she found she’d asked, “Where would we go?”

A grin spread across his face. Seeing it made her smile. Her first in a while. Hardly felt like her mouth should bend that way.

There’s so much of Vick that feels so... hollow or restrained that glimpses and cracks in her voice like this really stuck out. And I think she actually loves Sibalt beyond the confines of taking him along, only to betray him. Just that made her smile bit. Like she didn’t intend to, but couldn’t help herself. She has so few opportunities for happiness, I sense.

Few of the characters in this series do.

The frame groaned as he reached down beside the bed and came back up with a battered old book. The Life of Dab Sweet by Marin Glanhorm.

“This again?” asked Vick.

“Aye, this.” It fell open at an etching across both pages. As though it was often opened there. A rider alone, staring out across a sweep of endless grass and endless sky. Sibalt held that drawing at arm’s length as if it was a view spread out in front of them, whispered the words like a magic spell. “The Far Country, Vick.”

“I know,” she grunted. “It says under the picture.”

“Grass for ever.” He was half-joking. But that made him half-serious. “A place where you can go as far as your dreams can take you. A place where you can make yourself anew. Beautiful, isn’t it?”

Hah! The biography Sworbreck derided!

On a more somber note, there’s something to be said about how even a fantasy, a falsehood, can inspire us. Dab Sweet himself pointed out that his exploits were blown up beyond his capacity and he ended up having to live with the weight of all that he never did, but just because we know things to be false doesn’t mean we can’t want for better and more, right? It’s part of why we dream and yearn beyond our reaches. Abercrombie once talked about how you have to hit upon truth to impact your readers, well, the truth is, a fantasy can propel us to action, to want for better for ourselves and others.

“Aye, I guess.” She realised she’d reached towards that drawing with one hand, as if she might touch anything there but paper, and snatched it back. “But it’s a made-up drawing in a book full o’ lies, Collem.”

“I know,” he said, with a sad smile, like thinking about it was a fun game to play, but just a game. He flipped the book shut and tossed it back down on the boards. “Guess there comes a time you have to give up on what you want and make the best of what you’re given.”

Wanting that life too, Vick, no matter how much you consciously shut it down? But they have to make the best out of reality, no matter how tempting the fantasy is.

You two are going to make me cry, damn it.

“When we strike that spark,” he murmured, voice loud in her ear, “it’ll change everything.”

“No doubt,” said Vick.

Another silence. “It’ll change everything between us.”

“No doubt,” said Vick, and she slipped her fingers through his and pressed his hand tight to her chest. “So let’s take what we can get. If I learned one thing in the camps, it’s that you shouldn’t look too far ahead.”

Chances are you’ll see nothing good there.

Ouch. Full-blown pessimism from a childhood in the camps. No hope enters, no conscious dreams, because all they do is invite misery and broken optimism.

Just. Damn.

As a chapter, The Breakers is a set-up one. Going into the details of future events and dropping intriguing seeds like what the deal with the Weaver and the Vick/Sibalt. But, at the same time, it’s a first lens into the common people, and how much they’re varied in character and thoughts and are thinking through (or not) the consequences of revolution. In short, it’s putting faces and a name to the Breakers, extending to even the victims of those hangings in Orso’s chapter, which is why it makes sense to put this right after that one. It’s definitely a chapter that isn’t self-contained, but it’s interesting and a refreshing glimpse into the working class folk.

As a character, Vick is... depressing. In an intended way, of course, but there’s a hardness to her that the younger POVs thus far just don’t possess, a weariness that the younger generation will gain once they’ve been through enough hardship like she had. In a way, I come back to this idea of Vick being negative space. Whereas the other POVs so far have had the coddled and pampered upbringings to whine and laugh, and take joys in comforts, both small and large, and have parents who care about them... Vick got stripped of all that in the camps long ago, and this is the kind of person that comes out of those circumstances. Hollowed out. She makes for an intriguing contrast to the other characters, and while I can’t say she’s more interesting than Savine and, maybe, Orso, she’s a necessary lens into the revolutionary end of the Breakers, while possessing a practicality that calls back to the first trilogy’s adults and a vulnerability in the cracks of her POV, that makes her rather refreshing to read about.

And, as a re-do of a first trilogy female vessel character? Yeah, it’s very appreciated. Thanks, Abercrombie!

PART I

Chapter One: Blessings and Curses Chapter Two: Where the Fight’s Hottest Chapter Three: Guilt Is a Luxury Chapter Four: Keeping Score Chapter Five: A Little Public Hanging Chapter Six: The Breakers Chapter Seven: The Answer to Your Tears Chapter Eight: Young Heroes Chapter Nine: The Moment

#a little hatred #a little hatred spoilers #the age of madness #the first law #joe abercrombie #vick dan teufel #a little hatred part I

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xplore-the-unknwn · 5 months

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After watching the Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes I really want to read about Snow’s POV in the Original Trilogy now. The thought of Snow internally screaming and fuming when Katniss arrived makes their scenes way funnier. 😂

Katniss being Snow’s Karma back to haunt him was so poetic. Did he think about Lucy Gray and his past self every time he saw Katniss? In his final moments did he know after all the erasure he did, Lucy Gray had the last laugh?

#the hunger games #the ballad of songbirds and snakes #I am so here for the Hunger Games renaissance #coriolanus snow #Lucy Gray #Lucy Gray Baird #Snow #Katniss everdeen #Katniss #Everlark #The hunger games trilogy #thg series #thg review

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leah-jeffries · 6 years

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I got to go to one of the most anticipated book events of the year for me - TO MEET MICHELLE HODKIN. I'd been wanting to meet her ever since she was scheduled to be at Books of Wonder for their huge mega author signing event a few years ago, but unfortunately, something came up and she was unable to attend. She and Simon & Schuster were kind enough to mail out book plates to everyone who attended and I still have my bookplates, but I felt like it just wasn't the same as meeting her face-to-face. And I didn't know if another opportunity was going to come up to meet her.

UNTIL NOW.

I was ecstatic to learn that Michelle would be at the recently opened Books of Wonder and I knew that I had to go see her. There was no question about it - rain or snow, nothing was going to stop me from coming to see her. Especially after I'd read THE BECOMING OF NOAH SHAW. And did a reread of the Mara Dyer trilogy. I was hooked and I love being able to be in an author's presence and pick their brains about how they write, why they write, and what's going to be next. I hadn't read her books since they were first published and as I reread, I realized just how much I'd loved them when I first read them. You know when you revisit books you read when you were much younger and realize your reading tastes have changed? That's how I felt about a lot of the books I had. But the Mara Dyer trilogy? Those are ones that I will keep in my collection for good.

Now that that's over, let's get to the good part, shall we? Can I first start out by saying that Michelle Hodkin is such a gift of grace? She is lovely, inside and out and she seems like such an interesting person. And I was definitely mesmerized by her sparkly shiver sweater that I couldn't help but stare at it for long periods of time while she spoke. I remember that she always had curly hair in all her photos, but her hair was straight tonight! And she was wearing the nicest shade of lipstick. I can't help but notice these things.

When I say that she is lovely inside and out, she really is. She has a fantastic sense of charm, humor, and wit. And I could tell that she genuinely cared about her readers and how her stories were taken to heart.

Before the event, the delightful booksellers at Books of Wonder passed out slips of paper for people to ask questions in case they wanted to, but were to shy to do so. And they were all put into a hat that Michelle brought. There was definitely an energy in the room that heightened when Michelle came into the room. I could tell that people were so excited to see her since they'd fallen in love with her characters and books. She began the event by telling a little bit about how the Shaw Confessions came to be and why they needed to be at all. She told us how she she wanted to write about what happened beyond the HAPPILY EVER AFTER and how it felt like more needed to be told, especially about Noah who she definitely portrayed as this all-greatness, worthy of saving the world, perfect boy who is so much more flawed than what his featured role is in the Mara Dyer trilogy. I loved that she took the time to say that she knew how Noah came across because the books were written in her POV and that makes us incredibly biased readers without caring that the narrator is obviously biased. Thus, the Shaw Confessions came to be and i promise you that these books have an incredibly different tone to them than the Mara Dyer did. Yeah, those were dark and twisty, but THE BECOMING OF NOAH SHAW? That was a whole two levels up from where things leave off in RETRIBUTION.

She did a reading of the only passage she could find that had no swear words (since British boys seem to swear A LOT - Michelle had to make note that she did go to England to interview students and found that they are very...liberal with their swear words) and only one steamy passage since her toddler niece was somewhere in the store.

The passage she chose - I remember vividly reading it when it happened. it was one of those incredibly beautiful passages that Michelle is so well known for in her writing, but it is positively graphic and thus, incredibly intimate. I could feel the rawness the way she wrote. Though, she did recommend that people listen to the audiobook since it is narrated by a British voice actor who she commends as SO ON POINT as Noah. So if you guys have the chance to get it, please let me know how it is! I'm kind of itching to get it for myself, too.

After, she did read through every single question that was put into hat. One of my favorites was the first asking if she had secrets in her hair. Which she confessed to definitely have - and she did it in such a way that I couldn't help but laugh. She is JUST SO FREAKING DELIGHTFUL.

I think what made this event so special was because Michelle was not afraid to share the thought process behind all of the really controversial issues that she writes about in her books, particularly Mara's depression and Noah's suicidal ideations. These books, as Michelle says, are not for the faint of heart. They deal with issues of mental health to a degree that I don't think very many YA books do, if at all. I think it's great that there are so many that are coming out that do talk about the subject, but they don't tackle them in the way that Michelle does. There are a lot of unhealthy tendencies that she points out, one particularly being Noah and Mara knowing that being together...they know that it is an unhealthy relationship. Noah, specifically, knows that he is capable of these great things, but nevertheless, sacrifices that sort of bright future for the all-consuming love he feels for Mara. This is touched upon a lot in THE BECOMING. And i think it takes a lot of guts to be able to write about these things the way Michelle does - without holding back.

One of the most interesting topics of the night was about how she first got into writing and how the Mara Dyer trilogy came to be. Little fact: Michelle used to be an attorney. She told us about how she represented those who were killed in terrorist attacks. In her career as a lawyer, she had written over 700 depositions and that number alone, is startingly. I was so fascinated to hear her speak to the horrors that she had heard and I am sure that it was not easy for her, considering that she had (and still does, I believe) suffer from depression. But there was an instance in which she was confronted by a woman whose daughter had been in a car accident that killed all of her friends but her. They wanted legal representation, but it was not something that Michelle did (she mentioned that lawyers never do the type of law that you need them to do when you have one, ha) so she gave them a referral. Years later, she went to contact them to see how things went, but the number she was given was disconnected. There were no hits on the Internet and she never knew what happened. And soon, she started writing about a very similar circumstance surrounding Mara Dyer. Ten months later, she completed the MARA DYER and one year and ten days later, she got a book deal (which is absolutely unheard of in the world of publishing). Hearing her talk about that story sort of captivated me in a way that I was unsure I was capable of being.

What I also appreciated was Michelle's openness. I could tell that she was not afraid of talking about herself in such a vulnerable capacity and I think it takes a lot for someone to reach a certain point in their own growth as a human being to confront such vulnerabilities. I have so much admiration and respect for her and knew that when I was reading her blog and the things that she said on social media platforms that she would be one of the most interesting people that I could ever meet. And I was so right.

The signing started a bit late and I was NUMBER ONE! and I was excited to meet her, even with my enormous stack of nine books (four belonging to my co-blogger who couldn't be present) and when Michelle talked to me, it felt like I was really the only one in the room. She is seriously one of the kindest and humble people in the world. And she really takes the time to talk to each of her readers - I could tell she certainly cared.

Is Michelle coming to a city near you for her THE BECOMING OF NOAH SHAW tour? Check below to see! I hope to see more blog posts about her tour..

@rivetedlit @michellehodkin

#the becoming of noah shaw #the unbecoming of mara dyer #michelle hodkin #books #book events #book event #event #events

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aion-rsa · 5 years

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Wayward Son by Rainbow Rowell Review & Discussion

https://ift.tt/2MhJtYI

In which two Rainbow Rowell fans discuss Wayward Son, the much-anticipated sequel to queer wizard romance Carry On ...

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This Wayward Son discussion includes major spoilers for both Carry On and Wayward Son.

Wayward Son, the sequel to Rainbow Rowell's queer wizard romance Carry On, hit shelves earlier this month. The book picks up roughly a year following the ending of Carry On, which saw Chosen One Simon Snow defeat the Insidious Humdrum and The Mage alongside best friend Penelope and vampire boyfriend Baz. It asks the worthy question: What happens after The Chosen One fulfills his prophecy?

Answer: Simon Snow is depressed, having not developed the coping skills to thrive in a post-Watford, post-Prophecy world. This prompts Penny into strong-arming Simon and Baz into a cross-country road trip adventure across America. What begins as Cheesecake Factory visits and Ren Faire detours escalates into another fight for Simon and his friends, as the gang is inadvertently pulled into a vampire conspiracy that already has Simon's ex Agatha in its clutches.

With a third book in the series, Any Way the Wind Blows, set to conclude the trilogy, Den of Geek Books Editor Kayti Burt and Den of Geek Contributor Natalie Zutter take the time to check in with the beloved series. How does Wayward Son expand on the cultural conversation begun in Carry On, and what do we hope for from the trilogy's final installment?

The First Question

Hot take! Generally, how did you feel about Wayward Son?

Kayti: I feel the need to preface this answer with some context: I was very hyped for this book. Carry On is one of my favorite books, and Rainbow Rowell is one of my favorite authors. To say this was one of the pop culture artifacts I was most looking forward to in 2019 would not be an understatement. Perhaps this kind of hype is untenable, but I am not in the habit of trying to talk myself out of positive emotions (anymore.. I hope), even for the worthy cause of not later being disappointed in part because of them.

That being said, I was disappointed. If Carry On was a nutritious and oh-so-delicious meal, then Wayward Son was a snack. There were elements of the narrative that I really loved and I think it had an amazing, ambitious premise—to explore what it can feel like after you’ve finished The Thing You’ve Always Been Working Towards (this is a particularly good allegory for graduating into the “real world,” a subject I don’t think is explored enough, honestly in our pop culture) but the book never quite fulfilled on its promise. I ended it with a feeling of Not Enoughness. Even though so much happened, plot-wise, it didn’t feel like the characters developed, either individually or collectively, in many noticeable ways.