#giving him that body chain was just a product of my own hubris

[ratislatis]

you can all thank my best friend bella for the yassification of sparrow oak. she was like “there a shirt or does he just have his girls out?” and I was like “yes”

[redorblue]

Tiamat’s Wrath, by James S.A. Corey

It’s been a while since I finished, and I’m still A MESS (and, apparently, not the only one). So this is not going to be coherent in any way, just me rambling about what stood out to me in those 541 pages of pure stress.

I’m tagging it as spoilery, but still: CAREFUL, SPOILERS! (also, long)

Alright. No way around that: the first sentence messed me up badly. I’m pretty sure that’s never happened to me, having a character die on me in the very first sentence of a book (not even the first chapter! The prologue, ffs!). And technically not even that, she’s been dead for a while, I just learned about it now. The thing is, I expected something like this to happen at some point, I was already dead scared for her in Persepolis Rising once it had sunk in that we’d just done a time jump of several decades, but I thought we’d get her death on screen, if only because she’s been such an influential character over the last seven books. It feels odd to just have her gone, without drama and fanfare. My guess is that, besides being really old at this point, she also didn’t have much energy left because of her failure to protect Sol system against the Laconians and the feeling of powerlessness and inevitability that came with Laconian rule. With the political center of the galaxy moving to Laconia, she probably lost most of her influence, and I think that takes a heavy toll on a born politician and decades-long power broker such as Chrisjen Avasarala. So it makes sense that she’d just... die (and it certainly sets the tone for the rest of this bloodbath of a novel).

Once I got over the initial shock, I also came to appreciate the way her death (or rather, her being dead) is written. I liked that we got a tiny peek into her relationship with her granddaughter that doesn’t sentimentalize her, but gives an interesting inside view into her worldview. The quote on her tomb broke my heart:

“If life transcends death, then I will seek for you there. If not, then there too.”

I loved every single word of the tiny snippets of information we got about her relationship with Arjun back in book 5 (or 6?), when it became ever clearer that he’d just disappeared, never to be found again, like millions of others on Earth. So to see that she still misses him, and that the fact that she never even found his body still haunts her... It breaks my heart, but it’s also really sweet. It says a lot about her personality (determination was her second name) and it shows this soft side of her that nobody around her ever got to see. But even though she mostly came of as mean and ruthless to other people, it’s nice to see that she had a positive impact on their lives (and that it’s acknowledged!). It so often happens that once a character is dead, they’re never mentioned again, and certainly never mourned. I appreciate it a lot that this didn’t happen here, that it’s pointed out several times how even in death she’s helping the other characters deal with their situation, especially in the few Holden POV chapters. I’m really grateful that her memory is being honored, especially since it’s honored by characters imagining her bossing them around, which I’m pretty sure she would have liked.

Second, I like the view on humanity that’s presented here, in the series in general but especially explicitly in this book. I’d argue that it’s actually quite positive, despite all the power-hungry,conscience-proof narcissists like Duarte and Inaros and Errinwright and Mao and Cortázar and... Yes, they exist and they naturally have a lot of tools to screw things up, which is only realistic, but they’re presented as outliers. The rest of humanity is messy, and unruly, and sometimes has an impressive ability to ignore paradoxes, but it is also capable of empathy and mercy, and most people can find the strength to stand up for what’s right when it matters. I think the best summary of this philosophy is found in a monologue from Emma:

“Easy to make rules. [...] Easy to make systems with a perfect logic and rigor. All you need to do is leave out the mercy, yeah? Then when you put people into it and they get chewed to nothing, it’s the person’s fault. Not the rules. Everything we do that’s worth shit, we’ve done with people. Flawed, stupid, lying, rules-breaking people. Laconians making the same mistake as ever. Our rules are good, and they’d work perfectly if it were only a different species. [...] I’ll die for that. [...] I’ll die so that people can be fuckups and still find mercy.”

What she’s saying is that our general aversion to rules gets us into a lot of trouble, but it also gives us flexibility, and therefore the capacity for mercy even if we’re perfectly certain that a person screwed up. She’s also saying that it’s important to stand up for that, to not just care about one’s own tiny bubble and put every terrible thing that happens down to “guess they had it coming”. Because it’s not as easy as that.

I also love this quote because it’s one of the strongest statements of what’s actually wrong with Laconia. Several characters, in this book and the last, point out that it’s really hard sometimes to not loose track of why Laconia’s version of authoritarian rule is actually terrible, and I gotta admit that I agree. Sometimes, on paper, the whole organising principle just seems so... sensible. There aren’t any graphic descriptions of bloody massacres like when Eros got infected with the protomolecule or when Inaros dropped the asteroids on Earth. Even the actions that are clearly atrocious, like Trejo destroying Pallas or the protomolecule “production” in the pens, are described in a way that feels very surgical, almost hygienic, so that you loose sight of what’s actually happening. I’m pretty sure that that’s deliberate, that the authors want their audience to slip into this mindset of “are they really that bad?” every now and then in order to make the audience see that authoritarian regimes aren’t only bad when they have obvious bloodstains on their hands. They’re actually bad all the time, and even more dangerous when they’re not that obvious. When the arbitrariness that most of us associate with dictators is replaced by a set of rules so strict that you gotta slip up some time, and once you do there’s no fixing your mistake. Plus, the absolute confidence (read: hubris) in their own decisions that often comes with this specific kind of dictator makes them immune to any kind of outside opinion, which, as this book clearly demonstrates, leads to some astonishingly short-sighted decisions and a whole lot of very dangerous complications. So all in all, I think this book does a pretty good job at exposing the nature of authoritarian regimes, from the system of distributed (read: lack of) responsibility that comes with a strict chain of command and their complete lack of accountability or checking for logical errors, to the treacherous allure that some of them might have.

Third, I love the way the romantic relationships are written. I’m usually not a big fan of romance because I think in most cases the romance is more a necessity that comes with the medium than an actual gain for the plot, but I love these. Probably because at this point, all the romantic relationships have been an established fact in the couple’s lives for a few decades now, and they give me this feeling of being... settled, in all the best ways. It can be exciting to watch a new relationship being formed, and I love slow burns to death, but once the new couple gets together my excitement normally fades away pretty quickly. Apparently there’s only a limited number of ways to introduce conflict in such a situation (and no, it can’t come from the outside and the rest of the plot for... reasons), and usually the new couple is way too busy with sudden attacks of irrational jealousy, a dark secret in the past, the do-they-really-love-me-agony etc. for me to enjoy this relationship that I’ve been rooting for for so long. Especially since it’s usually a problem that the couple could solve by having a long and honest conversation, but for REASONS that’s not an option and... I digress. So I like established relationships because they generally don’t come with that particular brand of drama, which means that there’s space to actually focus on the couple itself or on (gasp) the plot. This whole series does that pretty well - I already mentioned that I adore Chrisjen and Arjun as a couple - and in this book there is a lot of it. Naomi and Holden, obviously, and Elvi and Fayez, and for me also Drummer and Saba, although he doesn’t show up on stage at all and she does so only briefly, so in their case it’s more of an aftereffect of Persepolis Rising that’s exacerbated by him dying.

I don’t know how to put this into words exactly, but I love that these relationships are so stable (and by that I don’t mean boring). The fact that it has been an important part of the characters’ lives for so long doesn’t mean that they don’t express their love anymore, that they don’t think about each other with affection, that they don’t worry about the other or miss them. There’s lots and lots of fluff, if you want to put it that way. But most of all, they provide what a committed relationship is actually supposed to provide: an anchor, a sense of belonging, stability, mutual understanding, acceptance... without taking away the characters’ agency, identity or personal freedom. It’s most visible in Elvi and Fayez, where Elvi is the one with the important job, the long hours and high security clearance, and Fayez just supports her through all of the awfulness. He doesn’t pry, he doesn’t pick a fight with her for never being home, and he doesn’t reproach her for not eloping with him in the end because he can see that this is important for her. And while we don’t get his POV, I’m pretty sure that he’s not just swallowing his anger or feeling unfulfilled in his clearly supporting role - he just has his priorities straight, and No. 1 on that list is Elvi. Which is what a healthy relationship should look like.

And I think the same goes for Naomi and Holden. As painful as it was to watch her mourn him over almost one and a half books, I think it might be good for their relationship. He’s always been the one in the spotlight, not because he wanted it so badly but because he’s naturally good at it, and she was the one in the shadows (of her own volition, I need to add). I think that the events of this book, with her rising to the very top of the resistance movement and putting her logistical brilliance to work, will add a whole new layer to their dynamic. She’s now finally in a position where she might be able to prevent at least some of these situations that trigger his instinct of running head first into danger for the good of others. I don’t think she’d try to pull rank on him, but she has a bit more control over circumstances now so that she’d at least be able to do the whole rushing into danger thing together, and it puts them on more equal footing, hierarchically speaking. That’s never been an issue in their relationship per se, but it has been a factor in the way they interact with others both as a couple and as individuals. He often deferred or at least conferred with her, but Holden was the one other people addressed first, and that’s going to be different in the next book.

In the same vein, this book also made my shipper heart both glad and utterly devastated at the same time because there’s so much Alex-Bobbie-content. I’m not sure if you can actually call it shipping - I never wanted them to be an item romantically, but I think they’re one of the best examples of a queerplatonic relationship that’s out there. It’s canon that they never slept together, probably never even kissed, and it’s still made abundantly clear that they’re each other’s person. Alex stating that he intents to grow old with Bobbie (I think that was book 7? I’m not crying you’re crying); Bobbie worrying all the time about Alex’ safety and that he feels like he’s missing out on things like being with his son because he’s out fighting Laconia with her; the fact that he’s the only one who can get to her when she would have punched anybody else - I don’t know, they do more for me than any of the romantic couples, and I already said how much I love those. Bobbie and Alex share all of the positive traits that the romantic relationships have, but their bond is presented in a much less conventional format. It says that relationships not based on romance and/or sex can be just as lasting, committed and loving as romantic relationships, and I need to hear that more often.

Which, of course, made it all the more devastating when Bobbie died. It made sense for the narrative - with Clarissa dying at the end of Persepolis Rising, and Bobbie now, we’re down to the original Roci crew, and it solves the captaincy confusion that was part of the problem in Persepolis Rising. And I guess it also made sense for her character in that it’s a fitting death for her - it shows off all of her best personality traits from her loyalty to her crew and her convictions to her military genius, and it’s just generally badass. It still makes me very sad, though, because it’s the end of this beautiful bond that my ace ass needed, and watching Alex grieve is heartbreaking. I love Alex to pieces, he has such a caring soul, and those scenes after the battle against the Tempest where he’s working himself half to death over his grief and guilt while knowing perfectly well that he’d have killed the entire crew by trying to save her - those were absolutely awful. But as much as my heart bleeds for him, Bobbie dying also brought me one of my favourite moments for him as a character and for Naomi and Alex as a family, namely when he returns to the Roci and talks to Naomi about what it’s like to have lost Bobbie. It goes like this:

“[Naomi] ‘I am so sorry about Bobbie. I cried for a whole day.’ Alex looked down and away. His smile shifted invisibly into a mask of itself. ‘I still do sometimes. It’ll take me by surprise and it’s like it’s happening again, for the first time,’ he said. ‘Thinking about Jim does that to me.’

This direct comparison between Naomi losing her lover and Alex losing Bobbie is, to me, the ultimate confirmation that their relationship was just as loving and committed as the main romance of the series. Plus, Alex freely admits that he cries a lot, which is, of course, a normal reaction, but also such a good example of a healthy kind of masculinity that he shares with Fayez, for example. Their partners taking point is not presented as a sign of them being incompetent, unimportant or “emasculated” because it doesn’t take away from their personality in any way. It just shows that they have different, equally admirable strengths that form part of their personality - not their gender identity.