#sj: wtf is this creature talking about | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

battlestar-royco · 6 years

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I’m just been thinking about acotar recently and the whole concept of the trials UtM confuses me especially when it was all just supposed to be about Tamlin’s “heart of stone” (which also doesn’t make a lot of sense). The trials were really spaced out and the magic system didn’t make any sense (why is Rhys still so powerful UtM and why is he scared of Tamlin trying to kill him?) There is so much to talk about but even with just trial 2: Rhys helping her (why can he do this), Lucien (whyyy) (1/2)

the whole concept of trial 2: I mean she literally goes from being chased by a death worm to solving rhymes (anti-climatic much?) The ending scene was also very reminiscent of the first Narnia movie, where Aslan kills the white witch (Tamlin turning into a beast and killing Amarantha). She literally throws Rhys to the side with ease and he’s supposed to be insanely powerful for a high lord and yet Tamlin can kill her just like that? CONFUSION I wish the magic system was more defined :/ (2/2)

Ahhhh omg don’t bring my precious Narnia into this, hahaha! I never drew that parallel, but I do see it now that you mention it. Too bad Jadis will always be 1000x more iconic than A/marantha.

So much of SJ/M’s magic system and characters and worldbuilding and plot wpigiownrhrw reminds me of that stupid quote from the G0T creators that they used to justify their show blatantly not making any sense: “Creatively it made sense to us, because we wanted it to happen.” D&D and SJ/M just write stuff because they want shocking events to surprise the audience, rather than building the characters, plot, and world around the story in a logical way.

I vaguely posted about the heart of stone thing a while back, and I still have so many questions that will never be addressed because SJ/M simply doesn’t care that her world makes zero sense. Why did Tom Lane have a heart of stone? Why does no one else have a stone heart? Is it like how L/ucien has a golden eye–did someone craft him the heart and implant it? If so, who? What kind of magical blacksmiths or sculptors exist in this world, and are they lesser fae or high fae? Or is the heart purely magical? I think it might’ve been stated in the book that the heart came with the curse, but if so, why? How does that impede him from completing the curse? How did she do that? Assuming high fae have the same anatomy as humans, how does he survive without a flesh heart? Why, if Faerug found out about Tom’s stone heart by eavesdropping on Tom and L/ucien, did she take the expression “heart of stone” literally if no one else has a heart of stone? Why was this NEVER ADDRESSED AGAIN? We only see a few instances of fae using magic in AC0TAR as well: when Tom glues Faerug to the table (ewww wtf. Also remember when magic was described as having a metallic tang? AND THEN THAT PART OF THE WORLDBUILDING WAS NEVER CONSISTENT AFTER LIKE THE FIRST ACT OF AC0TAR????), when Tom shapeshifts, C/alanmai (eeEWWW!!), and when Rice’s powers come into play. Why do the courts all have random powers? Like, what does shapeshifting have to do with spring, or mind-reading and magic bargains have to do with night, or fire have to do with autumn? Moving on to the trials: why do the trials exist in the first place? Why would A/marantha risk losing everything she built and not immediately kill Faerug? Why are the trials so inconsistent: battling a creature –> reading –> riddle and killing three fae? What are they supposed to be testing? The magic system is so much no, I could honestly write a ten-page paper on how it doesn’t work.

Maybe if SJ/M had used the classic fae mythology throughout the book rather than using the fae label to make all her characters 500-year-old white fuckboys then she could’ve acted like A/marantha loved mischief and trickery, but literally all the exposition about the curse and the main villain comes in several hundred pages into the book in one giant block of infodump. Therefore, we have very little characterization of A/marantha and her motives. There’s no precedent for A/marantha’s behavior during the trials. A/marantha needs to die and Faerug needs to survive for the story to go on, so that’s what happens. A/marantha had potential to be a well-written villain. In the hands of a good writer, truly terrible people can be super compelling (i.e. Jaime from AS0IAF, Voldemort from HP), so if SJ/M had been willing to spend time on anything other than gearing Faerug toward hooking up with Rice, all of this could have made some sense rather than being a mish-mosh of events and abilities to create flimsy stakes for a flimsy character.

#asks #anti sjm #anti acotar

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