#TC&TF

[playchoicesconfessions]

Sent by anonymous

‘This is a kenna rys appreciation post. I love her and I miss her and thank you, goodbye’

POST/CONFESSIONS DO NOT REFLECT THE MOD’S PERSONAL OPINIONS!

[zoeywades-spouse]

Can you imagine making a company that’s based around interactive and engaging books that were full of talking about serious issues (transphobia, trauma, mental health, misogyny, etc.) and that were truly immersive with complex characters and plots. And years later all those wonderful books have been pushed to the side and replaced with superficial, boring, and harmful books with the only goal to make money

The moment PB pushed away books like ILITW, TC&TF, ES and so forth and began writing books like Surrender, TNA, WB, etc., they lost their passion for writing complex and engaging books

[masked-alien-lesbian]

I forgot how funny Val from TC&TF is

[choices-binglebonkus]

The Crown & The Flame: An Exceptionally Rare Critical

I have made no secret of how much I love The Crown & The Flame. One of the three original series that accompanied the launch of Choices back in 2016, it holds a very dear place in my heart as one of my all-time favorites. However, I value objectivity, and am fully aware (and even appreciative) that all of my favorites, no matter how much I love them and no matter how good they are, have flaws.

The Crown & The Flame is no exception to this, and though I think the books have held up remarkably well, they’re definitely very flawed. Particularly book three. Most of my gripes with the series come from book three, actually, and that is the very subject of this post: the issues that came with the final book in the series.

As always, these are just my personal opinions. So if you love TC&TF, that’s great! I love it too. I just thought that, since the series gets so little criticism, I would take an objective stance and take up that role.

Pacing and filler

The first issue I’d like to discuss about book three is its pacing. Compared to the first two books where everything was go, go, go, this book doesn’t really do that. And I’m not a huge fan of that since the stakes are arguably larger in this book since Empress Azura has literally threatened to kill everyone in the Five Kingdoms should they not submit to her.

A lot of the chapters are positively BLOATED with fluff and filler. The first three chapters take place in Ducitora and the only major plot points that occur are that Kenna meets Azura, Leon is killed, and Azura wages war on the Five Kingdoms as Kenna and co. make their escape. I think that the first three chapters could have been condensed into one and a half chapters bridging onto the next major plot point. At the very least, we should have gotten to see more of Ducitora and Marossi. We got to see very, very, VERY little of it, and with little substance to show for it all.

Dom’s chapters didn’t have a lot of substance to them, either. It’s mostly just Dom fighting Hex’s mind control, making some semblance of progress, immediately failing and succumbing further to her control, and getting frustrated or feeling guilty. And, while I’m thinking about it, what purpose did Dom being captured by Hex serve? In what way does it further the main plot? It honestly just felt like the writers had Hex capture him just so he and Kenna wouldn’t be together 24/7 to keep them separate for their dual-lead chapters. In other words, his capture seemed to serve primarily as filler as well.

My biggest complaint regarding filler comes from chapters 13 and 14, which are E N T I R E L Y filler, no two ways about it. Chapter 13 focuses on Kenna speaking with all the allies she’s amassed, and the chapter time is seriously cut down if you haven’t recruited any diamond allies. Chapter 14 is the exact same thing, but this time, Dom is the one who talks to all the allies. Why they needed two chapters of pure filler, I’ll never know. But I’ll tell you what: back when TC&TF was still releasing on a weekly basis, I was so annoyed that we had two whole weeks of filler. There was no need.

The worst part about all the filler was the impact it had on the buildup to the final battle. Compared to book one and two where we fought tooth and nail for the entire book to get Stormholt back or to prepare for Luther’s return, the buildup to the battle with Azura felt very underwhelming: the book was mostly just a little bit of plot here, filler there and there, here we are switching POVs to one of the side characters for a couple of chapters, here’s some more filler. In books one and two, there was practically NO filler, and the buildup to the final battles was much better for it.

A lot of books are pretty notorious for filler and fluff, but TC&TF book 3, dare I say it, may have been the worst about it given the high stakes and the generally fillerless precedent set by the previous two books.

POV flipflopping

In books one and two, you got to play as characters other than Kenna and Dom in diamond scenes, plus that one time where Val infiltrated the Nevrakis stronghold masquerading as a handmaiden. Other than that, the writers stuck religiously to the Kenna/Dom POVs, and the story was much less choppy, confusing, and generally less all over the place because of it.

This is not the case in book three. You play as Kenna and Dom, yes, but the POV flip-flops around between other characters as well. Leon, Val, Raydan, even Whitlock. I’m shocked as hell that they didn’t somehow manage to cram in a chapter where we played as Annelyse or Sei.

Of these different POVs, Raydan’s was the most important and by far the least filler-y. It still didn’t really sit well with me, though. The Crown & The Flame is Kenna’s (and Dom’s, but mostly Kenna’s) story. Book 3 is 17 chapters. Kenna—the main freaking character—is either unplayable or mostly unplayable for nine of them. Nine! But she gets off much better than Dom—the deuteragonist, mind you—who only gets three chapters where he’s the main focus. And, of course, you’ll recall my previous complaints about how Dom’s chapters were filler. So.

Having all these different POV switches was not graceful in the slightest. It was unnecessary for the most part, and at times, it really came across as a Wattpad POV fic where the pre-teen author interjects every few paragraphs with <{[CHARACTER A’S POV]}> and ~{[CHARACTER B’S POV]}~ because, like I said, it wasn’t graceful, and it wasn’t necessary. Especially since TC&TF is a dual-lead story.

The allies

I actually made a ranking list from worst to best of every recruitable ally in TC&TF across all three books. It’s currently unpublished on my blog, but it’s been sitting on my computer for a while. At any rate, most of the book three allies were ranked very, very, VERY low. There are 32 recruitable allies in all, and numbers 32-27 on my ranking list are all book three allies.

Aurynn Amanth, though I liked her as a character, doesn’t do shit after you recruit her and is only in a grand total of two extra chapters if you recruit her, and for 25 diamonds, that’s so goddamn steep. Clover Hapley also serves no real purpose for 23 diamonds, but somehow appears more than Aurynn and for two fewer diamonds. Florian Tartassis and Zenobia Nevrakis were recruited just to fill the allies roster, plain and simple. Anton Luno was just kinda…there. And Luther—the Blood King who mercilessly slaughtered the royals and nobles of the Five Kingdoms, who conquered the realm and waged war against any who dared to rise against him—does fuck all unless you give him control of the Nevrakis army, then tries to murder Kenna at the end regardless.

There were only a few book three allies I ranked higher than #27. The Mechawolf Pup, who didn’t do much, and who I also found annoying as hell, but he was kiiiinda cute I guess. Lia really stuck her neck out for Raydan by translating the anti-magic book for him, but she doesn’t do much when you recruit her. And I love Madeline to pieces, but she’s 30 diamonds and only appears in five chapters.

Hex was the second highest ranked book three ally on my ranking list at #6 overall because she was such a complex character, and though she was incredibly morally grey, recruiting her nudged her towards active atonement and the chance to actually do some good in the world. Diavolos was ranked #3, and I think he really could have been an awesome character in the series if we had gotten to know him sooner because the dynamic between him and Kenna is impeccable, and he’s such a vulnerable character when you think he wouldn’t be.

Unfortunately, most of the book three allies are just there to fill the ally roster or do damn near nothing once you recruit them. The only allies we got who were heavy hitters were Hex and Anton (recruited jointly to fill the ally spots) and Diavolos. Since book three is the highest-stakes book of them all since we fight an entire fucking EMPIRE, we should’ve gotten some seriously powerful allies. Instead, most of who we got were characters who couldn’t fight: Aurynn, Clover, Madeline, Lia, the Mechawolf Pup, Zenobia, and Florian.

What kind of sense does that make?

Finishing things off…

The Crown & The Flame, to reiterate, is one of my favorite series in Choices. I’ve replayed it time and time again and never get tired of it because it’s just that kind of story. And I do like book three. I’m not saying it’s a bad book at all: it’s actually quite a good book. I just think it’s much less of a good book than 1 & 2, which were absolute titans to compete with.

Even my faves are imperfect. But that doesn’t mean I love them any less. And TC&TF book 3 is a shining example of that: flawed, but still perfectly lovable.

With all that said, I think I’ll give the series another replay soon.

[onefernecito]

Did I replay the entire thing for these scarce moments between them? Bet your ass I did. They're precious and Annelyse deserved better.

[dizzy-pixels]

[tombraidxr]

got the urge today to replay the crown & the flame, and i had genuinely forgotten about how enamored i used to be still very much am with rose blake. really wish she didn't go missing after book, cause i'd marry the hell out of that lovely face 😭

[shandsformation]

the goobers

[playchoicesconfessions]

Sent by anonymous

‘ive been playing the crown & the flame and I forgot how much I loved this series 😭’

POST/CONFESSIONS DO NOT REFLECT THE MOD’S PERSONAL OPINIONS!

[zoeywades-spouse]

Valax and Diavolos really give “my love let’s kill my evil parent together” and I love that for them

[masked-alien-lesbian]

who's your Annelyse FC?

I'm going to go with Oon Shu An, a Singaporean actress as my FC for Annelyse 💛

[choices-binglebonkus]

Currently replaying TC&TF and while the art (and some of the music) hasn’t aged well, the story itself remains pristine among the rest of the book releases. It’s definitely not the best book, but it’s pretty high quality, especially for one of the original three launch releases.

[onefernecito]

I am in love with 1 (one) bimbo.

[dizzy-pixels]

The amount of rage I had when Bartel ate my hawk and Helene killed Gabriel

[ihatebrainstorm]

Brainstorm and Nightshade Malto meet. Shenanigans ensue

I need them in Earthspark so badly, you guys have no idea

Also had some fun designing my own little rendition version of Earthspark BS and Percy lol

[nine-dandelion]

if they got that spacebridge to cybertron working...