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Fictional characters as Role Models

Recently, I was reading someone criticising Twilight, as usual, for portraying Bella as a bad role model for girls who read Twilight and I found that ridiculous.

Authors create characters to carry their storyline. Bella was the way she was to continue the story. If she wasn’t as obsessed with her boyfriend as she was, she wouldn’t get married at 18, she wouldn’t want to turn into a vampire, and then? Edward and her couldn’t be together. See? The storyline messed up. I read twilight when I was quite young as well, and not even once did I consider Bella as a role model, because I understood that the author didn’t make Bella to inspire girls.

I believe we shouldn’t look for inspiration in characters. I’m not saying I’ve never been inspired by a character, I have, but that was for my personal beliefs. Characters do messed up things sometimes, to achieve the ending the author has sketched for them. It is unnecessary to criticise an author for making the character the way they wanted, because it doesn’t inspire their readers. If you, like me, think Hermione Granger is awesome and want to make her a role model, that is because you find her to be worthy of idolising. It should be your discretion. Stop blaming authors.

This is also not to say that authors don’t create characters for inspiration.

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Cecelia Ahern

The first book of hers I read was flawed and then perfect. They were typical YA dystopian kind of novels, but I really enjoyed them. Then I came across Thanks for the Memories. I’d never read such an interesting book before. It was a mixture of everyday activities and problems mixed with a tinge of magic. I believe this genre is called magic realism. I loved every moment of it. Then I read the gift, how to fall in love, and very recently the marble collector. She never disappoints. All these books have had such different themes and characters but it’s quite amazing how she pulls each of them off with perfection. Especially in the marble collector, Fergus as a child was written with the exact language written in novels in the 60’s. It felt so authentic. Her books also always carry powerful messages about universal topics like the usage of time, the importance of family, and being who you truly are. She’s slowly becoming one of my favourite authors, and I have a lot of her books remaining to be read.

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CHILDREN OF BLOOD AND BONE- Tomi Adeyemi

This book. Wow. I have a lot of strong feelings. 

Was it amazing? Well, I wouldn’t say amazing, but I would definitely say that I enjoyed reading it. It was a good, solid read. If you loved Carve the Mark by Veronica Roth, you’ll most probably like this book, because it has new, exotic languages, animals, food and terms of its own, a badass female character, and a lot of hot guys. I felt a lot of CTM vibes while reading this book.

Throne of Glass lovers may also like this book because it has magic in it, and like in Sarah J Maas’s books, there is an “evil” king who has trapped magic and people try to bring it back.

Let me start by giving an introduction.

The story takes place in the land of Orisha, where magic used to live and thrive in gifted people called the maji. There were ten magical clans which had different powers, for example, the maji of the Aféfé clan could manipulate air and the maji of the Èmí clan could see into a person’s mind, enter their dreams and look into their spirit and soul. Each clan had a deity which was worshipped, for example, the deity of the Aiye clan was Ògún, and the deities were the children of the Sky Mother. But this was all before King Saran put a spell over the land, depriving the maji of their magic and enslaving them because they killed his family and he saw how dangerous they could be. Zélie, the daughter of a Reaper(that’s a maji title) of the Ikú clan, the clan of life and death, lives with hate in her heart for the king and his brutal and tyrannical rule. When the Raid happens (that’s when the spell was put on the land) Zélie’s mother was taken by the king’s soldiers and to prevent it from happening, she used her magic, and in the process killed herself with the soldiers restraining her. Her father is left very weak.

One day, when going to sell some rare fish in the capital of Orisha, she ends up helping a strange girl escape from the clutches of the royal guard. As she is fleeing on her lionaire (one species of all the beautiful ones in this book), she has a moment with the captain of the guard, who happens to be crown Prince Inan. When she reaches her town, however, the girl is revealed to be none other than Princess Amari, daughter of the king, and she has stolen something that could help bring magic back. 

It is a tale about how Zel, her brother Tzain, and Amari embark on a very dangerous journey to bring magic back and stop maji oppression while having the prince and his guards racing to stop them. 

There are a few specific things that I love about the book other than just the general plot. 

First of all, the representation, and the fact that this story is based on black oppression and also that it is a West African inspired fantasy series. As far as I recall, there is no white character in these books, which makes me so happy because normally, YA books either don’t have any biracial, black, or characters of different sexualities and if they do have them, there are very few of them. Tomi also wrote this because she wanted to make a change in her own way. She wanted at least one person to know and be aware of the crimes against unarmed black men, women and children which made her feel helpless and angry.

The second thing was that the female characters in this book were good. And by good, I mean mindblowing. In most YA books, when there’s a #badassfemale, she’s usually passive, which means that even though she might be portrayed as kickass and fiery and ruthless and merciless and courageous, there’s no actual proof of her being any of these things. *cough Clary Fray cough* And there’s the other trope, where the seemingly shy and introverted character is given a glow-up and proclaimed as badass, but is still the same old crybaby. I expected both of these in this book, but it exceeded my expectations and actually proved why Zélie was badass and why Amari had indeed changed and become more confident.

Another reason was the setting. It was so surreal, and I found myself wanting to dive into the world of Orisha, and eat jollof rice and have white, crazy-curly hair like all the maji and have it braided by my beautiful, powerful mother and go riding on a panthenaire and fight with my majacite sword(majacite is a metal that is way more precious than gold). 

A few other reasons were the descriptions of how magic worked, the adventure in most of the book and that one romance didn’t particularly work out. I always love those in a book.

Now to a few things that  I did not particularly like.

For one, Prince Inan. I was crazy about this guy in the beginning mostly because he’s pretty hot and there was some obvious romance him and Zélie. I always love that trope in a book where two people go from enemies to friends to lovers, and that was pretty evident in this story. I expected Zélie to change Inan, to get him to have his own opinions and not what his father made him believe. And it happened. I was so happy about it. But then, Inan witnesses a noble sacrifice, and misinterprets it, and everything goes downhill from there. He starts behaving exactly like his stupid, horrible father. I started to want him dead in the second part of the book(pretty macabre I know), not because I had anything personal, but for the sake of Orisha and Zélie. A kingdom needs a ruler whose first thought is the welfare of his/her people, and even if a fraction of them are suffering, this person should do something about it, pronto. AND THIS GUY WOW. It was so frustrating to see him go through that shit where he chooses to let people be oppressed instead of even thinking about the possibility of a better future because of them. And he thinks he’s doing it to protect them, but he doesn’t realise that that’s absolute bullshit, even though it’s happening right in front of his eyes. Why would anyone do that? Not to mention, Zélie deserves so much better. Oh and towards the end. Phew. Let’s just say that I was really furious about what happened, and then I was pretty satisfied. Saying any more would completely spoil the parts of the book that I haven’t spoiled yet(sorry).

Another is Tzain. Tzain is a pretty paranoid older brother, and that is okay only to a point. He’s also hot(why am I saying this so much oh god). I understand that he lost his mother and he would do anything to prevent his sister and father getting taken, but instead of being protective, he’s unnecessarily harsh on Zélie. He’s always demanding something and blames her for things that aren’t her fault. He keeps insisting that she be careful in EVERY situation. He also says something to her that I can’t ever believe because no brother would ever say something like that to a sister, his own blood. He should lay off Zélie and frankly, I find him pretty annoying. One of the few things that I like about him is that he’s pretty good looking. He’s really tall. And hot.(having successfully swooned over the two main males, I will try to stop saying ‘hot’ now) 

But another thing I absolutely love about this book is that every character has flaws. Every character is realistic. Brave but arrogant, ambitious but still inside their shell, talented but a little dull in personality, means well but doesn’t have independent thoughts. It’s portrayed amazingly. The plotline is also very exciting, and I didn’t want to put this book down. 

Overall, this was a very good read, and I’m glad that I spontaneously picked it up at a bookstore without knowing the first thing about it.

Hope you enjoyed this and possibly added something new to your booklist.

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HARRY POTTER AND THE CURSED CHILD- Some unpopular opinions.

I remember everyone going crazy that something after Deathly Hallows was coming out in the Harry Potter series. I was too. Come on, we were all dying to know what happened after the ‘Nineteen years later’ part of the last book. And when this came out, we expected something solid. Something realistic. Some people may have liked the book(even though I haven’t met any yet), but I honestly hated it. When I got the book, of course, I went around parading it, boasting about it to all my friends, because I was one of the first people to have it in my hands. I did this before I actually even bothered to even read the cover of the book. I know. Great move. When I actually read the cover though, I was surprised to find that it was the “Special Rehearsal Edition Script.’ I flipped through the pages and saw that it was a play. It didn’t bother me much. I decided to read it because it was something about Harry Potter and it was written by JKR. And I was SO disappointed. Allow me to explain why.

One. Fanfiction can be wonderful, okay, or just plain terrible. I’ll tell you about how fanfiction relates to HPATCC in a moment. After everyone read the Nineteen Years Later part, of the Deathly Hallows, we imagined and wrote about lot of scenarios. One of the most popular ones was that Albus Severus Potter was sorted into Slytherin, which would be pretty interesting. Over time, this got too widely used in my opinion. And it got included in TCC. I didn’t like this, but this is small compared to the other reasons I don’t like the book.

Two. TCC is pretty good in terms of how it presents Albus’ situation being Harry’s son. The fame and stuff gets pretty hard after a while, and yes, he didn’t choose to be Harry’s son. But I think its pretty exhausting to read page after page of angst for such a reason. Harry’s trying everything he can to make life better for the boy, and he just won’t let him. Yet, he still blames his father for all the shade he gets. Rose is also represented horribly. I would like to think that the daughter of Ronald Weasley and Hermione Granger would know better than to treat an innocent boy like dirt all because of her immature opinions. I know Ron hated Draco, but guess what? People grow up. People forgive. I can’t comprehend the fact that she’s so rude. Also, Scorpius on the brink of falling in love with his best friend’s cousin who tries to avoid him, always snaps at him and looks at him with venom in her eyes. Masochistic much? And Harry. He always wanted to be an Auror. Not just a senior employee or whatever he is. The book just crushed my dreams about Harry actually doing something he was interested in. He just sits in a desk doing paperwork. He also would NEVER tell his son that ‘he sometimes  wishes that he wasn’t his father’. HOW? THIS IS NOT THE HARRY I REMEMBER! Not to mention, Ron. He’s practically invisible. And he’s silly. There isn’t a shadow of the man that who risked everything for his best friends. Also, in this strange universe, Remus Lupin and our beloved Tonks are missing, and so is their desperately anticipated son, Teddy. Why. Just... why.

Three. The time turner affair. Everyone must have thought about it before, why didn’t they use the time turner to go back and kill Voldy in the series itself so he couldn’t kill Cedric and James and Lily and so many other people? So the playwrights probably thought, ‘Oh! That’s a nice idea, let’s just have his inexperienced son go back in time and try to prevent a boy from winning something just so he doesn’t die and so that everyone is happy again, because he thinks his father is some coward. And THEN have him realise that it was all a bad idea and have him freak out and put his bestie in mortal danger.’  We had the answer to that question when the time turner concept was first introduced. YOU MUST NEVER MEDDLE WITH TIME. If you can recall, when Hermione and Harry used their time turner, they used it sensibly. They weren’t spotted by anyone. And they had a well made time turner of good quality. And one of them had experience using it. What more do you need?

Four. The absolutely crappy rumour about Scorpius being Voldemort’s SON. Really? Oh, not to mention, Delphini Diggory/Lestrange/Riddle. Voldemort, having a baby with Bellatrix Lestrange. Imagine that. I know, I know, Bellatrix seemed besotted with him and seemed to have some passionate feelings. But there are SO many reasons why this is bullshit. For one, Bellatrix doesn’t have time for a child. She’s too busy scurrying along to do Voldy’s bidding. Secondly, would Voldemort really allow a child? He would’ve known if Bellatrix was pregnant, like come on, one of his most prominent minions goes missing for nine whole months. He would’ve killed Bellatrix or the child, because as we know, he’s not above killing children. And would Voldemort really allow himself to, ahem, do it with a woman he’s going to be around for most of his life? Kinda embarrassing really. Not to mention, he’s around twenty five years older than her. I'm no ageist, but wow. And that one situation with Ron and Padma

Five. The fact that JKR did not actually write it. Jack Thorne did. And John Tiffany helped. The play was ‘based on a new story by JKR’. I noticed that something was wrong in the first few pages itself. It was not the writing that I was used to, but something different and not very alluring. I have no doubt that Jack Thorne and John Tiffany are both great, but writing like someone else is magnificently difficult, impossible even. And continuing the same storyline? Even more gruelling. The writing that I’ve read in seven books, it’s special. It doesn’t go away that easily. This just made me feel sadder. When I read Fantastic Beasts, I felt that spark again. I knew it was JKR, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. The plot was better, the characters were better, everything 

There are more reasons, but this post is now too long, so goodbye, and have a nice day. Don’t hate me!

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The beauty that remains

I just finished reading this and it is brilliant. Although it isn’t for everyone. It captures grief and how people deal with it perfectly, and with such relatable characters. I think the best part of the book was that is showed the ugly side of all its characters. It didn’t glorify anything, and showed how everyone is a little messed up from the inside, which will definitely make you feel so relieved that you’re not the only messed up person in the world. It shows us that even when everything in the world is gone wrong, there is beauty that remains.

Don’t read it if you’re looking for a light read, as it triggers some pretty heavy emotions.

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Attachments by Rainbow Rowell

I have to say this is the purest book I’ve ever read. At first I was so skeptical about the plot.. he falls in love with a girl he has never even seen? Impossible. But as the story progressed, I started to like this idea more and more. At the end of the book I was in tears because of how adorable the end was. I’m not saying this was the perfect love story, and I am still very skeptical about that idea. But.. Rainbow Rowell is such an amazing writer, that she made me love the story so much. I was very “attached”😏 to the characters by the end of it. 100/100 recommend for the purest love story you will ever read.

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TELL ME THIS ISN’T HOW YOU IMAGINED JEM CARSTAIRS

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Tamlin- probably unpopular opinion

I don’t hate Tamlin. There were points in the series where I was absolutely frustrated with him but I still don’t hate him.

1) He helped Feyre’s family out of poverty. I know it was for his curse and all but he saved their lives, he deserves credit.

2) He helped Lucien- he was the one who got Lucien the metal eye, and gave him a position in the court. God knows what would’ve happened to Lucien otherwise.

3) He genuinely loved Feyre, still does- “Be happy Feyre” , he could have let the man who stole his love die, but he didn’t because he wanted her to be happy. If that doesn’t prove how much he loves her, I don’t know what does. Also, in the hybern camp he betrayed his alliance to save her.

I’m not saying he didn’t deserve what he got for what he did to Feyre, but I don’t think he deserves all the hatred he gets, and his only supports- Lucien and Feyre leaving him. I pity him, I hope he finds someone.

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AKOS KERESETH

(supposedly.)

This is something that occurred to me last night in my wacky dreams. Akos might not be from the Kereseth family at all. Read on:

Akos is said to speak Shotet like a native, extremely fluently, even though he is Thuvesit, and he was never taught the language. And Shotet(the language) is inherited by blood, so it doesn't have to be taught. This hints at Akos being of Shotet origin. One or both of his parents were probably Shotet.

He is also said to bear little physical resemblance to his siblings. He has curly brown hair and grey eyes, while Eijeh and Cisi are described as having dark, curly hair. Eijeh has green eyes. Veronica has mysteriously not described Aoseh and Sifa Kereseth meticulously.

What's the point? You probably must have realised this already. It's obvious. But this can actually mean something quite wonderful to all 'Carve The Mark' fans.

The third child of the family Kereseth is fated to die for the Noaveks, right? We all have to prepare for another heartbreak after Allegiant. BUT WHAT IF WE DON'T HAVE TO?

If this theory is true, Akos is not the third child of the Kereseth family, so he will not be dying for Cyra or Ryzek. YAY! But believe this at your own risk. If Akos does die, then... Um.

This also reveals that there is a missing Kereseth child. Who could it be.

Thanks for reading!

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Sam

What is Sam never died? It sounds far fetched, I agree but think about this.

1) The face Celaena saw was destroyed. His eyes were apparently plucked out, and his face was burned. The only visible thing about his face was his hair- golden brown, not an uncommon shade.

2) Celaena was already overwhelmed by grief, anxiety from the last night, and that untimely and short sleep she had. Her thoughts were not organised, she wasn’t able to think straight. She could’ve looked past the body not being Sam’s.

3) Sam was the second best assassin in the keep. Sam trained literally everyday, even when he wasn’t in the keep. He was talented, trained well, in good shape, and so confident. What sort of monster was his murderer then? I know he was betrayed by Arobynn, but could it have been so bad that Sam was tortured to death?

The only thing that doesn’t add up is why Arobynn would bother saving Sam, unless of course there’s something he would want Sam for. Knowing Arobynn, the man with a hundred tricks up his sleeves, anything is possible. Even after his death.

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Argus Filch appreciation post

You may not think he deserves any, but I do. Filch was a misunderstood man, not a bully. While you may think he was always turning up where he wasn’t wanted and foiling Harry’s plans, we all know that he was just doing his job as best he could. And as for all those that claim that he was adamant in getting Harry into trouble, then that was because HE was bullied. Yes, he was. Everyone in Hogwarts knew he was a Squib, they just didn’t mention it. Instead, children like Harry, Ron and the Weasley twins(RIP Fred) ridiculed Filch for being dominating, controlling and for being rude and unpleasant, and hated him because he hated them. If he really did hate them that much, would he have helped the students out of the school during the Battle of Hogwarts and then go on to participate in the battle himself? 

There are many places in the books where Filch asks Dumbledore if he could use drastic measures to punish children, including hanging them from the ceiling by their ankles. Sure, this sucks, but what else could you expect from a man who had pranks played on him, jokes made about him, was ridiculed for doing his job, etc.? 

Moreover, it isn’t only the children that hated him, it’s also the most frustrating poltergeist in the school, Peeves, who just happened to love making him the victim of all his cruel fancies. 

And Heaven knows, the man even tried not to be a Squib by applying for that Kwikspell course thing. And that didn’t work. Argus Filch was by no means a mainstream character, and was probably put in for amusement and to be hated by readers, but he needs some sympathy too.

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Kaz Brekker appreciation post

Kaz brekker is so brilliant it terrifies me. He’s one of those people that are intimidating because they’re so damn good at everything they do. I mean, he fought his entire crew down a staircase with a walking cane! He survived as A 9 year old boy alone in a city like Ketterdam. And oh he loves Inej with all his heart no big deal.

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Seriously I’ve come to the conclusion that all I want to be is Tessa. She reads, she gets to discuss books with Will, she gets to listen to Jem play, she got to marry BOTH of them, she toured the world with Magnus, she has Sophie as her best friend, she gets to go on quests with Jem, she got to visit book places with Will, AND SIMON FINDS HER FOXY. We can ignore her tragic family life.

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Overused phrases that are now a part of my vocabulary

Seriously, have you noticed how many times Sarah J Maas uses "rutting" and "piss-poor"? Also, Cassandra Clare, using "dripping with sarcasm" and "hair pasted to the forehead with sweat". I use them in public and sometimes get judged for it

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Fandoms

Honestly fandoms are such beautiful things. Like when you first see a bunch of people thinking the same things as you and feeling the same emotions as you it's so amazing. Crying and laughing and obsessing over people and people's relationships written on a piece of paper is so lunatic but so much fun. Oh lord, we're all a bunch of hallucinating obsessive teenagers. Lord save us 😂

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Sorry Chaol, Celaena Sardothien can't come to the phone right now.. Why? Oh, Cause she's dead! Ps it's Aelin now

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September 1st, 2017

Today is the day of the "nineteen years later" in deathly gallows part 2. Today is the day Albus Severus Potter goes to Hogwarts for the first time. Today is the day of the very end of the Harry Potter series (excluding the cursed child)