#my omnibus of haterism increases

[selamat-linting]

i cant say "hey i know that this characters' narration is unreliable and self-serving but i still dont like that the only guy who is explicitly mentioned as hating billionaires and would do political activism analogues to the real world here is described as a vengeful man who'd murder the whole world and oppress the generations of said billionaire the moment he had power over them." or they will rake me to the coals saying i got caught in his manipulative trap.

and i cant say that its weird that the one character whose status as poc and indigenous is more than just set dressing, has an origin story that are reminiscent of actual news stories of indigenous faith leaders accused as cult leaders, is the antagonist who called himself a god, except since the empire is covered in greco-roman set dressing and christianity, its fine and not weird? the author is literally a white woman lol. but then again someone's gonna say that nooo, his character doesnt have unfortunate implications, he's just lying and there exists in this book, actual indigenous faith leaders who is not cult leaders or secretly just using their status as indigenous when theyre actually deeply christian. but theyre simply not in the story i guess.

like i hate him too, but damn if some parts of this story reminds me of that trick marvel writers do when they make villains with understandable motivations but then have them kill an entire orphanage for it.

i actually dont even hate the series, im actually a huge fan, i just think its not as progressive as most people think it is. for two whole books, imperialism and colonialism is abstracted in magical terms, with the sadness of the people benefiting from said colonialism in the forefront. and even in the third book where you can actually see people suffering from constant displacements, its just flashes of poverty and people suffering instead of like, actual instance of imperialism and unequal development

also the genderfucky stuff here is wayyy overrated i mean, queer book but no canon transfem character? i guess the closest thing is a cis butch woman who got bodyswapped to her male partner's body. or that nerd who had to live in his best friend's body for a year because his carcass got blown up to smithereens. but like, thats reaching. i guess if youre really really reaching, there's that rapey dictator who used to really love playing with barbie when he was younger. but like, im veering on the territory of drawing unfortunate connections that weren't actually there.

honestly, my prediction is that the final book is going to walk back on some of its core themes and the people acting like this sf series is the second coming of the conquest of bread is going to look very stupid. but then again they're probably gonna pretend its still the best thing on earth and gaslights everybody who think otherwise.