#anti tower of dawn

[lady-embers]

Sarah can turn around relationships/buildup for couples pretty fast, despite any amount of buildup for them.

Look at Chaol and Aelin.

Look at Feyre and Tamlin.

Look at Dorian and Aelin/Sorscha.

Look at Azriel and Mor.

Sarah can introduce a couple meant for endgame and tell their story in one book.

Look at Chaol and Yrene. Yrene was a very minor character at one point yet became a bigger character in just one book with Chaol and helped significantly in the end of the series.

Look at Nesyrn and Sartaq. This relationship was built upon in just one book as more background but they still stood out on their own.

The other side might say they have 3 books of buildup but do they really when you look at the scenes and context within?

Also look at these facts:

Sarah introduced Gwyn to us in ACOSF. A new character who she made equal to Azriel.

Sarah wrote potential for Gwyn and Azriel in ACOSF. If you want to deny it, that's fine, but it's there.

Sarah has the typical endgame banter, shared history, competitive behavior between Gwyn and Azriel.

Sarah spent ONE book and ONE bonus chapter dismantling any "potential" buildup of previous characters to make way for a new endgame couple. The true endgame of Gwyn and Azriel.

[anghraine]

Do you have any favorite/interesting short essays? I'm in between semesters and not wanting to fall totally out of practice reading academic writing.

I do! It seems like you're specifically thinking of academic essays, which for me are generally specialized enough that it's a bit difficult to recommend them without knowing what topics someone is interested in.

That said, some academic essays worth reading, which are available on JSTOR:

Julia Prewitt Brown's 1990 review "The Feminist Depreciation of Jane Austen" articulated a lot of my frustration with feminist critics' often rather narrow readings of Austen (it's not anti-feminist, but rather pointing out the short-sighted form of feminism and bizarre hot takes in what was then the established feminist literature on Austen specifically). 11 pages long.

Elizabeth McGrath's 1992 article "The Black Andromeda" about the whitewashing of Andromeda (especially in reference to Ovid's Andromeda) in art and general discourse around her. 16 pages long.

Jacqueline Jones Royster's 1996 essay "When The First Voice You Hear Is Not Your Own." I have a lot of gripes with composition studies, but this one's good. 11 pages long.

William K. Wimsatt and Monroe C. Beardsley's 1946 "The Intentional Fallacy" is very dated, but also very worth reading in terms of the history of anti-intentionalism, especially given how important anti-intentionalism is to modern fandom (usually in reference to Barthes's "Death of the Author" but the basic concept long predates it). 19 pages long.

It belatedly occurred to me that you might be looking for shorter or more casual essays than these, or on less directly academic topics (though maybe not!). For instance, if you're more "here" for SF/F than my other interests, there are some great essays in Uncanny Magazine and Reactor among others (I find Reactor a bit hit and miss, but when it hits, it hits hard). For instance, I recently read and enjoyed "Seven of Nine is a Third-Culture Kid" by Dawn Xiana Moon and "On Learning to Read Generously" by Molly Templeton.

I could also give you some recommendations for essays more directly about history or psychology in some area that I find interesting, but that's likely to be less accessible and I assumed not what a follower of mine was likely looking for.

[gwyns]

e/riels either skipped tower of dawn or have short term memory loss if they think sjm can't make two characters fall in love in one book. hell, she has chaol and yrene and nesryn and sartaq MEET in the same book they fall in love in... there was no previous bUiLd Up or even overt foreshadowing for them. just pure chemistry and banter, two things sjm does and does well

[ennawrite]

“four books of buildup” doesn’t really mean much to me when SJM’s best couple (Chaol x Yrene) had ONE book of buildup 🙏

(also, her second best couple (Nesryn x Sartaq) was formed in half of that time so i don’t think books of “buildup” is all that important to Mrs. Maas 🤣)

[tilseptemberends]

Whenever I see Elain and Lucien compared to Yrene and Chaol my soul feels lighter.

It gives me hope that SJM could make another Tower of Dawn for Elucien instead of another Silver Flames incident...

[reblogandlikes]

Is it a concern that I dislike characters I'm meant to cheer for, but adore/interested in the characters I'm meant to, by the narrative presented, hate? What is this rebellious gene? 🫠😂

Give me dynamic characters, and I'll eat that shit up. But a character that can do no wrong when they have, in fact, done many wrongs...Next.

[1800naveen]

The way Sjm wrote about Chaol and his paralysis/disability in tower of dawn is something else...

And he gets healed and can walk again, bro. I don't have any body injury but if I had to read that, I'm crashing out.

[galaxyofstars]

'sjm is a romantasy author and it's not that serious. it's meant to be fun" for you. i started tog when romantasy was not a genre. i remember waiting for QoS to come out. i went and bought it at the bookstore the week it was released. it was just another ya series (that i was obsessed with and loved). i witnessed the degradation of her writing after HoF. it felt like a betrayal. i started reading her when i was a lot younger, and followed her series for years. it's too late the obsession was already created. the betrayal was personal (sjm has no idea i exist). so no i will not get over it let me have my fun.

like. look. i love the concepts and ideas and blueprints for the characters. they're fun and you can have a good time reading them. i hated chaol and still read CoM and ToD. i hated rowaelin and still enjoyed the series. just when the quality is at the point where it feels almost insulting that she published it and expected people to pay money for it it pisses me off a little.

[lovelygwyneth]

Recently I've seen a lot of e/riels trying to draw parallels between Azriel's BC and Nessian's BC to try to prove that they are endgame, with the parallels being literally just in the sex/desire parts…

What makes everything even funnier is that if you search for Chaol's BC to read (that is stated before Tower of Dawn) you can also make many parallels between Chaol+Nesryn and the e/riel scene 🫢🫢

[highladyofterrasen7]

“Why do people hate chaol”

We hate chaol because for the longest time Celaena/aelin hated chaol. When reading you somewhat absorb the feelings of certain characters, with c/a’s dislike of him, we disliked him. She disliked him because he didn’t tell her of the threat to nehemia’s life which caused her to spiral into despair and we sympathised with her, after all the death of a friend you felt like you could’ve prevented is heartbreaking. It’s why due to ToD many people came to like chaol because the book was free of the bias that came with c/a’s pov.

And lots of people were able to overcome that and like chaol and ToD, some were not and some (like me) are somewhat on the fence

[acourtofquestions]

I OFFICIALLY ADORE NESRYN FALIQ

[shadowqueenjude]

I just don't understand how anyone can hate Chaol after reading this:

Burned alive burned alive burned alive The void showed him fire. A woman with golden-brown hair and matching skin screaming in agony toward the heavens. It showed him a broken body on a bloody bed. A head rolling across a marble floor. You did this you did this you did this It showed a woman with eyes of blue flame and hair of pure gold poised above him, dagger raised and angling to plunge into his heart. He wished. He sometimes wished that she hadn’t been stopped. The scar on his face—from the nails she’d gouged into it when she first struck him … It was that hateful wish he thought of when he looked in the mirror. The body on the bed and that cold room and that scream. The collar on a tan throat and a smile that did not belong to a beloved face. The heart he’d offered and had been left to drop on the wooden planks of the river docks. An assassin who had sailed away and a queen who had returned. A row of fine men hanging from the castle gates. All held within that slim scar. What he could not forgive or forget. The void showed it to him, again and again. It lashed his body with red-hot, pronged whips. And showed him those things, over and over. It showed him his mother. And his brother. And his father. Everything he had left. What he’d failed. What he’d hated and what he’d become. The lines between the last two had blurred. And he had tried. He had tried these weeks, these months. The void did not want to hear of that. Black fire raced down his blood, his veins, trying to drown out those thoughts. The burning rose left on a nightstand. The final embrace of his king. He had tried. Tried to hope, and yet— Women little more than children hauling him off a horse. Poking and prodding at him. Pain struck, low and deep in his spine, and he couldn’t breathe around it, couldn’t out-scream it— White light flared. A flutter. Far in the distance. Not the gold or red or blue of flame. But white like sunlight, clear and clean. A flicker through the dark, arcing like lightning riding through the night … And then the pain converged again. His father’s eyes—his father’s raging eyes when he announced he was leaving to join the guard. The fists. His mother’s pleading. The anguish on her face the last time he’d seen her, as he’d ridden away from Anielle. The last time he’d seen his city, his home. His brother, small and cowering in their father’s long shadow. A brother he had traded for another. A brother he had left behind. The darkness squeezed, crushing his bones to dust. It would kill him. It would kill him, this pain, this … this endless, churning pit of nothing. Perhaps it would be a mercy. He wasn’t entirely certain his presence—his presence beyond made any sort of difference. Not enough to warrant trying. Coming back at all. The darkness liked that. Seemed to thrive on that. Even as it tightened the vise around his bones. Even as it boiled the blood in his veins and he bellowed and bellowed— He's barely old enough to be a college graduate. He grew up in a lord's house, grew up being taught to despise magic (was kicked out of his own home too but that's a whole other story). And yet he tried so hard to support his friends, to help Dorian and Celaena/Aelin (even after Aelin tried to kill him) and try to depose the King of Adarlan. He has withstood so much and lost everything dear to him...and you think he deserves it? He has tried so hard, arguably harder than any character in ToG. None of what happened to him was his fault, and yet he views all of it as his failures, as something he should be ashamed of, should DIE for even. Y'all hate him because he's one of the most complex and best developed characters SJM has ever written. I honestly feel like he and Nesta would be able to relate to each other so much in the way that they view their miserable circumstances as products of their own failures. Y'all hate Chaol and Nesta because they had difficulty accepting magic/Fae like NORMAL PEOPLE would. Y'all hate them because they didn't immediately kiss the MC's ass and beg for forgiveness for nothing.

But you'll obsess over Rowan Whitethorn, who is 300+ years old and should know better than to punch a teen in the face (absolutely uncalled for) and tell her she should've died 10 years ago.

But you'll obsess over Rhysand (I prefer the name Reece's Piece of shit) after he sexually assaulted Feyre and locked Lucien and Nesta up in houses. But you'll obsess over Cassian who physically abused Nesta by making her climb a mountain and you could even make an argument for sexual manipulation/abuse (but I'm not going to get into that because I don't know enough on the topic). But you'll obsess over Azriel, who almost choked Eris to death for insulting Mor back after she'd already insulted him, who has known anger issues and scares even Feyre with his utter lack of feeling. Not to mention the bonus chapter with the creepy way he spoke of Elain and Lucien. Wow, Chaol is so evil! Nesta is so evil!

[readingabookmostofthetimes]

I'm already tired of the royal family and all their names

[lucien-calore]

rowan is a cheap, boring and rude version of chaol. they're both grumpy, annoyed, no-nonsense warriors who at first are wary of aelin/celaena but grow to care for her deeply. they even have the same mbti!! the main difference is that chaol did it first, and chaol did it better.

[westfall-castle]

hey! Aelin stan here, I just wanted to say that i've seen your anti Aelin posts and you make really good points! You're completely correct in pointing out that Aelin should in no way have all the "life experience" SJM throws at her or be able to play the queen card all the time. In my opinion, the root issue is bad writing and SJM's apparent inability to write MCs who aren't some glorified, deified "perfect" being who checks all the boxes ever imagined.

I honestly wish that we saw more of Aelin making her mistakes and having to deal with the consequences. Like yeah, we sort of do, but not in any real way, and I think that's one of the things we as readers in general but also as Aelin stans tend to gloss over. She was rash and impetuous and never seemed to suffer the consequences, and everyone around her backed her up even when they "were mad that she didn't tell anyone her plans." Again, i think a decent part of this is bad writing and a too-heavy relance on the fantasy as opposed to making characters believable, but Aelin was the main main character, she deserved more than being exalted to god status.

thank you for being a voice of critique :) feel free to respond however you think this giant rambling braindump deserves :)

Hi Aelin Stan! I hope you’re doing awesome.

First of all I’m so sorry for taking centuries in replying to this 😭 Thank you very much for taking the time to drop by and leave your question.

Thank you so much for reading my posts! I wouldn’t consider myself fully anti-Aelin, but I include the tag so people can navigate through the content easier and well, because that post, as you remember, wasn’t precisely hyping her up hahah 😅. I do, however, see she has lots of positive traits to her and actually like her, she has a special place in my reader heart.

I agree with you completely! It was most likely because lots of things were going on throughout the series. First, it heavily relied on fantasy, as you say (which is not bad and it’s part of why I loved it) but soon SJM was tasked with

-Generating lore for this fantasy world

-Explain fantastic elements as more characters were added (For example: Introduce Manon= Explain the whole dynamics about witches. Introduce Rowan= Explain the whole dynamics about fae and demi-fae)

- Weaving the characters and making them interact so we had a story

-Developing each character’s arc

- Bringing the story forward making it make sense

-Write romance for all these characters ending with more than 6 pairings

SO IT WAS A LOT GOING ON! And I do admire as a reader the amount of work this represented and how she brought it forward. in the end, the series counts with 8 books and it still left us wanting for more!

At the same time, maybe this was the reason there wasn’t enough space for development, introspection, accountability for Aelin. There simply was no space for this to happen! If Aelin suffered the consequences, as you very smartly mention, it would have required to edit the text and narrow certain elements to have space, or add 2 more books to the series and make it 10 (which I’m personally not opposed to hahah, but we know how editorial publications work and it’s already hard as it is to publish 8 books in a row!)

Perhaps the work got so big no amount of words did it justice. Maybe we wouldn’t have gotten Elide or Aedion. Who knows how it would’ve gone.

Many readers mention in their critiques of TOG the space management (aka: reading and editing to cut out irrelevant parts and make reading more efficient and straightforward) What I can say about it is: I agree, however, SJM is the writer. We must respect as readers that maybe these parts in her mind were specifically relevant to her and helped her build this big fantasy world in her head. Many parts could be left out to make it “neater” but it’s easy to critique when you’re not the one who’s writing.

Throughout the 8 books, I felt SJM’s necessity to transmit. She wanted to take us into the narrative, clarify all of the reader’s questions and she did a commendable job in doing so. However, she did drown in words in some parts. Sometimes you were reading and the narrator was talking and talking and you couldn’t help but think: ???? Why is this relevant? Hahaha

Maybe these parts could be used for the character development we were seeking at the expense of cutting out certain details from the books.

Well, you have no idea how much I love engaging in these types of conversation so I really have to thank you 🥹❤️ I send you a hug wherever you are and you’re not rambling! It makes so much sense! I can see you’re an avid reader 💕

Lots of love and if you ever want to discuss books again I’m here! Promise to take much less in replying.

[simpofhans]

TOWER OF DAWN MY BELOVED 😭❤️❤️❤️

“Azriel can't have a book because SJM only have female protagonist”

Chaol Westfall somewhere in the MaasVerse: