#maybe what johannes lost that was affecting his personality was really a 'support network' and not just a 'soul' lmfao

[surfinthehighway]

Last Cabal Liveblog/Thought Dump

I finished The Fall of the House of Cabal a couple days ago. I do like the ending a lot. It leaves enough room for more Cabal adventures (and I'm really disappointed there haven't been any more). Also, Cabal sweetheart name reveal (I was starting to think "Berenice" was fanon). And Alisha reuniting with Horst was so sweet.

Johannes has come so far from his selfish persona from the early books to someone who is not holding himself back from doing good and more openly cares about his friends. It's really neat to see. (I also can't help but think about Johannes rationalizing saving Alisha by saying that Berenice wouldn't want him to let her boil. A decade or more apart, re-kindled romance or not, I do hope that Cabal is the type of person she would still like. Especially considering where he comes from earlier in the series.)

I do like the early character of Johannes, but he strikes me as someone who was hurt by the world and put up this defense mechanism of "I don't care about anyone" despite, well, most of the things he does. Even in the first book, he has that whole rant about obliterating death which seems equal parts altruistic and egotistic-- and it seemed like he had always planned to cheat the Devil out of the Barrows' souls. (As a side note, I did not liveblog my reading of the first book, but I loved that book up until the third act. Because it seemed to me like Johannes was only ever planning to actually give the Devil the souls of the wicked, Horst's death seemed completely pointless and a result of Johannes not communicating his plan with him. There was so much baggage between those two. These last books, especially The Brothers Cabal, did so much to remedy my gripes with them lol. I can't see them being so out of sync with each other in the later books.)

That said, not knowing what happens to Berenice is going to make me insane. Also, Zarenyia and Leonie adventures will be interesting (I remember something on Twitter about a possible spinoff idea JLH had regarding this? I completely forgot about that until typing this now), but I do hope Miss Smith gets to hang out with them again. I believe in my heart she does. Also, I'm glad they're going to help Minty :)