#The Scholomance Series

[pangaeaseas]

oh my God yes, of course, of course it's the mothers paralleling the children. the principle of balance is THEM. Ophelia and Gwen, mirrors in every way. their children whose lives they both traded away in what will ultimately save the world except gwen did it hoping for a better life not knowing she was potentially trading for her daughter's life and was rewarded with the dark sorceress she raised to be a true heroine, and ophelia deliberately made her child a monster and got a hero instead, in spite of her. the boy who couldn't count, couldn't make those calculations his mom was so fond of. because he learned differently while his mother was in the lab in spite of what she wanted. while Gwen actually put in the effort to raise her child and so El is the hero she was meant to be.

Rereading the scholomance (yes again, shush) and I’m a bit obsessed with the differences between Ophelia Lake and Gwen Higgins. Strict malia vs strict mana. Lives in a luxury enclave apartment vs lives in a yurt in the middle of nowhere. The way that they raised their kids.

Mostly though it’s their worldview that hits me, because they’re DEAD OPPOSITES. We spend three books being told that Gwen gives as freely as a person can, even when logic says she could stand to take more in return, and when she’s in need she just kind of blindly trusts in the goodness of humanity and the universe at large. Even when summoning the sutras, it’s the same pattern! She didn’t name a price, trusting that the world would be kind enough when asking her to pay!

On the other hand, Ophelia is a full maleficer. She takes even when she absolutely doesn’t need to- she has New York’s mana supply at her fingertips and STILL drains the people in her lab every day. And when confronted with the horror of mals being made when people use malia, she defends it by saying that everyone uses malia anyway- she builds her life on the assumption that the world will be selfish in the end, the exact opposite of the way Gwen banks on it being kind.

I just think it’s so fascinating the way that these two women are foils, even as El is trying to set up her and Orion as the ones truly balancing each other out. Every time she says that she’s balancing out her mom’s goodness, I need to shake her because 1) honey you are every bit as good as your mom, you’re just angrier, and 2) OPHELIA is balancing out your mom, you just don’t get to know it until after you survive graduation!!!

[queer-book-character-tournament]

Character, book, and author names under the cut

Coronabeth Tridentarius/Judith Duteros- The Locked Tomb by Tamsyn Muir

Galadriel “El” Higgins/Liesel- The Scholomance Series by Naomi Novik

Viv/Tandri- Legends and Lattes by Travis Baldree

Tommy Fairfield/Carter Batudev- Crushing It and Winging It by Jen Desmarais

[pangaeaseas]

scholomance is fascinating as an example of the chosen one trope because it plays Chosen One in such an interesting way. Like as I was in the middle of reading it I was reccing it to people (because so clearly it was something to rec) with the note "it's a subversion of the Chosen One". Which is kind of true and especially the kind of truth you can figure out after book one and especially into book two. But ultimately I don't think it's a subversion: it takes a good long while to get to the Chosen One-ness and plays in very strangely but we do end up with a Chosen One. El IS a straight-up Chosen One who will save the world. The prophecy was always actually good, it's just that Scholomance thinks through the implications of prophecy in a way many other works don't, and so the prophecy must be claimed to be bad otherwise it won't come true. And of course Chosen Ones don't just come for free in this universe: El's parents had to ask for one! And in the same way our other Chosen One, Orion, was very much asked for and deliberately made. At first I thought of him as another subversion of the Chosen One, but now I'm thinking he is the actual subversion of the prophesied enemy. He was born to be evil (if for ultimately good purposes) but he CHOSE not to be. The Chosen Ones who chose themselves. Maybe not quite a subversion but definitely not the typical way to do it.

[shokuheshi]

The Golden Enclaves gave me INTENSE Orion Lake feelings!!! have some angsty doodles i did a few months ago  when i reread the book i’ll probably draw something more substantial

[pangaeaseas]

the scholomance is about to become a real school...

when orion says “when the kids go back for the summer” because they’ll be able to Go Back!!!!! and they won’t have to fight through 4 back to back years of school hell!!!

[izartn]

Rereading the scholomance series, and on the bit after El and Orion have their first time and wow.

Orion knows so so well there's something incredibly wrong with him, from the way he seems to have been avoiding getting more intimate with El bc he fears feeding on her mana (the implication it was this from the start of his mana starvation on senior year, not just the general risks El fears) to how he breaks down sobbing right after they have sex because she's the only (first) right (human) thing he ever wanted, and he explains he only ever wanted to hunt mals and suck their mana since he was little so he doesn't resent his parents for letting him do that (and he knows exactly what el thinks of that but orion is grateful, bc yeah. mawmouth-boy amalgama he needed it) (and the were desperate to make him more normal, except in golden enclaves we discover they're at fault orion is like this and wow.) and how he knows going fucking nuclear on the Shanghai Enclaves and co who tried to murder El wasn't normal, and that it unsettled El. I love that he remembered that it scared her, bc he doesn't want to, and tht after the incident he thought on it all and decided he didn't want to be that kind of guy.

I mean, getting angry and trying to reflexively retaliate when someone tries to murder you and El (whom he adores) I get it, most of us aren't heroine El Higgins as much as she likes to pretend she isn't, but that scene lasted more than just the moment, El got her giant shield, and then Orion demonstrated he's got a fucking nasty temper and a reflex for going to inflict gruesome violence, after taking the most chilling seconds on book canon trying to process just what almost happened to them both, but mostly El on his PoV. El tried to redirect him like twice and he went back to try very intently to have his chance offing Yuyan, Zixuan and Co, the second one when Magnus came with New York and the rest of allied enclaves thanks to Liesel and wwiii magician versión almost gets off was O.o, until El threatens everybody with mass destruction which brought back Orion to the world of, oh yah my scary girlfriend who could kill everyone in this room including myself is awesome. Dude.

It's the way you end reading all that scene and their conversation almost at the end of the book, and you feel El is not getting what Orion is trying to say, missing that there is something really really wrong with him. Because I think senior year Orion has had no choice but notice all the ways he doesn't make sense, and the way he seems to always need more mana from mals so much he starts looking mad to the outsiders and not caring for anything else (I think it feels to him like executive disfunction in that he gets into a loop of "I should be doing homework x but I can't bc I first need to hunt mals except I can't find any so I'm tired so I can't do anything") , to the point he starts fearing taking El's which almost happens in the library if not for Precious (hello??? rereading that having read the golden enclaves sent chills through my skin, holy shit) and I think he must have noticed by then. Because Orion is simultaneously more observant and more out of touch than he seems on first impression.

Agh no wonder he decides to stay behind and disappear into the void with the Scholomance, I wonder if face to face with mawmouths and his own almost lost of sense of himself to the rush of mal-mana consumption right at the end of The Last Graduate he realiced what he must be and just. Choose it as the only option so as to not go mad and hurt(eat) El. Must have killed him.

No, given The Golden Enclaves I'm sure this is exactly what happened. Orion needs a hug so so badly.

And then he passes that last book lost on the hunger, then goes through a grueling purification to bring back what's left of his sense of self and humanity, with the knowledge that hes more like a mawmouths but back (but still a monster inside) , discovering his mother did this to him after killing hundreds of kids actually, and she may love to get her hands on El and use her (which Orion isn't thrilled about), and the enclaves may go to war in wwiii magic version (this time for real) , and you know, no wonder he quits trying to stay (alive, as a person) a quarter to end or so of The Golden Enclaves.

I love him, I want his perspective on a spin off novella or something after canon, bc it has to be the most weird mix of super transparent and also heartbreakingly sad and heartwarming once you read between the lines, and because I want his super subjective PoV on Galadriel because he loves her so so much in both the adorkable teenagy way and in a "you've saved my life and existence and the world makes sense bc of you" which has to scare them both a bit. Also Orion PoV on the rest of characters now he isn't blinded by the hunger and he can actually interact with others and have interests of his own. Fascinated by his possible hobbies.

[myartdumpster]

Orion “puppy-dog-eyes” Lake my beloved

[school-of-all-time]

Round 1, Bracket 3

[pangaeaseas]

i love how El is glowing green with dark sorcerous power....that's my girl

POV: you’re a mal and you just interrupted their study date session (rip)

(mini-rant and bonus under the cut)

i arise from the dead to share this because I am so brainrotted and also so goddam DESPERATE!!! I NEED people to read the scholomance series by naomi novik pls pls PLS i love them so much i'm actually going INSANE

also i tried out new brushes and a new way of coloring for this so idk how i'm feeling about it but i had fun i guess?? here's the flat colors before rendering because i like how it looks as well hehe

anyway i'm going to slowly spiral by myself about this series :DDD I NEED MORE PEOPLE TO TALK TO ABOUT IT AAA

[mollyolikeme]

heyyy yea, just joined the fandom and I’m here to say 

what the fuck, when the fuck, where the fuck, how the fuck, who the fuck, and just fuck yes.

[raventhekittycat]

Gonna be thinking about mawmouths for a long while

[pangaeaseas]

gotta love the structure of scholomance. it is in my opinion such a well structured trilogy. now i've read a lot of this author's work inc. most of temeraire (gotta read spinning silver and uprooted at some point!) and I know that often it doesn't follow the most predictable pacing--twists come when you don't necessarily expect them and the series could have gone rocketing off in any number of directions. but this isn't temeraire and it isn't a novella, it's a trilogy, which demands careful thought to what function each of the three books serves, and in my opinion does this very well. (actually reminds me somewhat of the hunger games but not going to elaborate and not a perfect comparison)

so. book one. book one must do something very crucial in any trilogy which is that it must set up the main conflict, set up the characters, and most crucially sell us on the premise. and A Deadly Education knocks the premise out of the park, even as it sows the seeds of destabilizing that same premise. It also gives us a book-length character arc that begins El and Orion's growth. It makes the rules of the world, so the rest of the trilogy can break them.

book two: we know what the scholomance is. We expect the main conflict to be El and Orion having to graduate, because we've just spent a whole book doing that. Personally I was expecting some kind of twist with the graduation, but not the scale of that twist: I expected the first twist, not the second. anyway. so book two serves the important purpose of UNDOING the premise. we know how this world normally functions. Now let's change it--and also get El and Orion to the places they need to be. This also means that their relationship has its honeymoon period, because book three needs them to have loved each other.

book three: we're changing the world. of course not the way we expect. and a good deal of the lore info needs to be dropped here because they are finally out of the initial premise, the scholomance itself, and now we need to see the rest of this society. (and then tear it down). and also resolve the plot and character threads dangling since book one, such as the prophecy. the main premise has been altered and executed, it now must be expanded. and then it has to come to some sort of resolution. happy ending, except the work isn't done, and it will be the rest of their lives (take that harry potter epilogue). there is no main villain to be defeated the villain is like their magic system. the selfish nature of humanity. everyone lives, because this whole series is about no one deserving to die.

each book/act does its job very well in making the series work.

ok so this isn't particularly groundbreaking or coherent meta but I just love this series and I love how the structure works so :/ here you go.

[pangaeaseas]

it all BUILDS on each other. every book is a necessary step to the next as it plays with the world. things that are mentioned offhandedly in book one become massively important. characters that seem unimportant become crucial. I love it so much.

My thanks to folks who have been recommending The Scholomance series by Naomi Novik to me. I cannot find the post describing it as "if Harry Potter were better written," but that was the one that finally got me to read A Deadly Education. The book starts strong and keeps getting better.

I can see why people say it is hard to describe the books without describing everything. A pleasant aspect of the writing is how it builds on itself. Groundwork is laid in one chapter and explored later on; El is not quite an unreliable narrator, but she can relate facts while avoiding their significance or misinterpreting their motivations and emotional valence. For example, she says that her mother is a hippie crystal chick; we later learn that her mother is The Hippie Crystal Chick, actually world famous in her specialty, and El has been hiding that connection from both the narrative and her classmates for three years. I am waiting for all the groundwork on Patience and Tolerance to pay off in the next book or two.

Spinning Silver is probably a better book than A Deadly Education, but A Deadly Education is a faster and more compelling read. It is perhaps easier genre fiction, while Spinning Silver and Uprooted are full-on literature.

[shinxposting]

liesel doodles!!!!

1st one is how i imagined her in the school and 2nd is how shes described in the 3rd book

[patriciavetinari]

I'm continuing to enjoy the Scholomance series and it's fine. So after the wizards graduate the sadistic school, some of them go to live in eclaves which are basicaly wizard trump tower esque apartment complexes (the level of trump depends on power and resources of the wizards involved). Obviously each enclave has a council that rules the rest of the wizard plebs and ponders all the orbs and head of the enclave and council is called a Dominus if it's a man and Domina if it's a woman.

Which leaves few options for the nonbinary wizards but one those clearly is Domino which is just deightful and makes me imagine Domino's pizza as a form of an enclave masquerading as a mediocre pizza chain.

Thank you, that's all the thoughts for the moment.

[clonerightsagenda]

This week one of my coworkers said to me "you have a really strong sense of morals and want everything to be done the right way which sucks for you personally but is a net benefit for everyone else around you" and I think I should put that on my resume