#just frustrated and wrote it out of my head witjout planning so it may not make a lot of sensz

[padfootagain]

Crooked Kingdom spoilers (and heavy criticism) ahead, please don't read if you don't want to.

Okay, I've just finished reading Crooked Kingdom, and let me tell you something: the end was absolute shit.

It has ruined the entire book to me honestly. Because you either make all your heroes lose, or you make them all win, but you do NOT decide to kill off one of the main characters FOR ABSOLUTELY NOTHING when all the others get a happy ending.

Because it simply does not work. The whole point of the first book is that they become some sort of a found-family group. The whole point is that they will do this all TOGETHER. No matter their fate they will do it as a united front. And yes, of course, there are tensions and evolutions and progress and step-backs but the point is that either all win or all lose.

It's even clearly mentionned when Wylan says that they were all supposed to make it. They were supposed to all make it. Or to all fail. And it was probably a way to say 'hey, reader, you thought they would all make it but no! They can't break from the doom of their lives' but THAT WAS THE WHOLE POINT ON THE TWO DAMN BOOKS!!!! To me it just ruins the whole thing. Because why then give an ending that's almost too good to everyone else except for Matthias and Nina ?

And when I say a too-good ending, don't get me wrong, I'm glad that everything ends well for the rest of the group. But Inej did not need to find her family to get a happy ending. Breaking free and getting to hunt slavers and having a chance with Kaz was enough. Wylan didn't need to get his father's money and property, getting away from his father's grasp and staying with Jesper and getting his mother back was enough. Some got it almost too good. I would have been contempt with less for them, they could have had progress to make still. A promise of a search for her family, a place to find of his own will. I like these happy endings for them, don't get me wrong. But to me it isn't balanced. Why offer too much to some and nothing to others?

Especially given that Matthias's death is MEANINGLESS in the story. What is the point? It doesn't teach anyone a lesson. It doesn't make the plot progress drastically or move in an unexpected twist. It's just there, coming out of the blue, it ovcupies barely a chapter, it doesn't draw enough grief at all. It misses the impact. If the message was simply to say 'not everyone can get a happy ending' or 'not everyone can change' it was proven time and time again in these books. And yet Inej's final thoughts with Kaz are that indeed everyone can change. So again... what is the point? There isn't any. Nina doesn't use her powers to resurrect him, which would have made sense. Again... what's the point?

And don't give me the 'but in life people just die with no reason...' because that's the whole point. This is not life. None of it is realistic. And in such a book where the whole plot relies on carefully crafted plans... why put something that doesn't make any sense and doesn't better the story by any mean?

To me it's truly about breaking a contract with your reader. You have enough plot twists in the story to wonder a dozen times whether or not they will make it. But you KNOW that they will, because it is the contract. Everything leans towards the final happy ending. They are not doomed enough to fail. To kill off your main character like this, with a death that means nothing, you must show the reader it will happen. They must try to get away and yet you KNOW they will fail. The element of surprise, to me, is better used when it leads to what you expect: you wanted to hope that they would live, they got so many chances, and they fail, every time, and they die. Or on the contrary, you know they will live, they have plenty of surprises thrown at them to make you doubt it, and yet they survive. It's not about not liking to be surprised, it's about the lack of consistency in the writing and the structure of the plot. Pulling something out of nowhere like Matthias's death, shot by a stranger, does not make sense. He was shot by a younger version of himself, you will say, it is a sign of doom indeed, but it wasn't foreshadowed enough to be relevant. Matthias is still struggling but he's winning. There is no doubt thay he's getting over his hatred for Grisha, that he will not fall back into it. So why bring his past back like that? He is not tortured enough for that. He is still struggling, but he is not going to go back to his old ways, so why pretend that his past is killing him, when he has already stepped out of it? It doesn't make sense, it's not logical enough. Not to me, anyway. I guess the message was that Matthias had a fool's hope, that the Fjerdans won't change, not that easily, at least. But the point of the book is NOT that the Fjerdans can change or not. IT IS NOT THE POINT OF THE PLOT. This could have been a story for another book, focused on Nina and Matthias, and them failing to change the ancient ways. That I could have accepted, but here? The point of the books was never about Fjerda, it was about the Crows. The point was not really to protect Grisha at all, it was to protect THEIR group. Grisha or not. It would have been better suited to the ending of Six of Crows, because he struggled more then and Fjerda was central to the plot. So again... Matthias's death misses the point. It comes out of nowhere in Crooked Kingdom, answering a question that was never asked in the first place and failing to bring any element of doom, because to have doom, you need attempts that fail and succeed. One step forward and two steps back. It isn't how it worked here.

I'm just so frustrated and angry, because once again, I am disapppinted by an ending on Grishaverse. It was the same in SaB, and here again... it's so frustrating.

Anyway, end of my rant. I'm just so angry, I had to talk about it.