#orpheus and farid

[bluejayfiredancer]

I found out in the year 2024 that the inkworld audio dramas are on streaming so you bet your ass I'm having a skim through despite not knowing german

(I've read the books so much I can figure out some of the exact book lines by hearing the german 💀)

[lostandbackagain]

anyway I think brianna's bravery is wildly underappreciated

[maandarinee]

screaming, rereading Inkspell and Orpheus is "20, 25, idk" according to Farid?????

I first read that book when I was a kid, so my mental image has always been "ah yes, An Adult", but that's full Brat age???

no wonder he's like That aghsjdkd

[nejackdaw]

A collection of memes I made while rereading the Inkheart trilogy, of varying effort (incl. the inspirational quotes)

Inkspell 📜

For the life of me I can't find the exasperated lines from both of them that sparked this but this was the vibe (<- forgot to write it down)

+

(Dustfinger) "'But I will not take a sword in my hand, if that's what you're hoping. You know I'm no good with such things.'" // (Mo) "And Mo felt a dragging sensation in his breast, as if his hatred had given birth to something, something that wanted to kill." // (Resa) "It was Mortola who taught her to hate." // (Farid) "'We can cut their throats before they make a sound. It will be easy!'" // (Meggie) "I hope you catch the plague here and drop dead like flies."

+

"'There's a story... Roxanne knows it,' he said. '... Tell her I'm going to find out if the story is true.'"

❤️📜💀❤️📜💀❤️📜💀❤️📜💀

Inkdeath 💀

"Loving someone merely meant pain. Nothing but pain."

"'Write what you like,' replied Mo, cutting through the leather again. The bookbinder wouldn't feel the words."

+

"It sounded as if his mother were breaking into small pieces... But he wanted to keep her... He wanted to go back to Ombra. That was his castle. He was frightened of his grandfather..." // "'Your grandfather has a son now. So his grandson doesn't count for much...'"

+

He wished them all to hell. Orpheus and the Piper and his grandfather. He wanted to be like the Bluejay and the Black Prince--and then he'd kill them all. Every last one of them." // "He opened it, and Mo forgot to breathe. Pages soaked in blood. Jacopo was looking at him... Mo clutched the pencil in his fingers and opened the White Book."

"His mere name used to quicken her pulse, but now she hardly listened as he told her about his plans... Her heart leaped only when... Doria was suddenly standing there in front of her." (Girl if I had to play second fiddle to my bf he'd be gone too)

[i-live-in-dreams]

I started to once again rereading Inkspell and O HAD FORGOT THAT FARID CALLS ORPHEUS CHEESESKULL

(That was my translation from the Swedish translation)

[folcharts]

I want to remove these maids and Farid from Orpheus' clutches immediately. They deserve better!

[painted-fanbird]

Thinking about the Inkworld trilogy and Mistborn Era 1, and how they handled books 2 and 3 and why I like the Inkworld better lol

Why compare them? Because Inkheart was the last series I read before Mistborn, and I adored it, but more relevantly they’re formatted similarly. both trilogies have first books that function as standalones, followed by two connected sequels turning them into trilogies

The actual analysis is under the cut both because of massive spoilers for both series, and because this is long and I’m not about to be clogging up your dashboard lol

I adored The Final Empire (book 1), but Well of Ascension (book 2) and The Hero of Ages (book 3) were both major misses for me. Though I didn’t love tWoA, I did find it generally fine. tHoA on the other hand I actively dislike. Contrasted to the Inkworld trilogy, where Inkspell (book 2) is actually my favorite! With Inkdeath (book 3) as my second favorite. Inkheart (book 1) comes in third, but I still love that book. The other two just speak to me XD

Inkspell expands on the loose ends left in Inkheart very naturally, and I love that! Inkspell opens with Dustfinger returning home, which works perfectly since he just vanished into the night at the end of Inkheart with Farid. It additionally sets up Orpheus, and once we’re in the Inkworld we meet up with the rest of our loose ends! Basta and The Magpie. Additionally, Inkspell has the advantage of the Inkworld being generally unknown to us the reader. Cornelia Funke has basically free rein to do what she wants as long as she doesn’t violate the whimsical, magical vibe she’s already established in Inkheart. Which she does not, and Dustfinger’s initial return to his world is literally my favorite scene in the whole book <3

tWoA, by contrast, doesn’t really do this imo. The biggest loose ends we’re left with in TFE are allomancy as a whole, the missing atium, and low key OreSeur specifically. tWoA chooses to focus on literally none of this in depth, instead focusing on the government and the Siege of Luthadel. Which is logical, obviously rebellion take overs will have some kinks they need to iron out, but it doesn’t pay any serious mind to what TFE set up and I find that to be a let down. We get a little bit of Allomancy exploration in Duralumin, but that’s it. The atium is relevant exclusively because the invading armies think Luthadel has it, but there’s no anything about it outside of that. OreSeur is just straight up dead! Though I did love Vin and TenSoon, that was my favorite part of the whole book <3

tWoA also squanders one of the things I adored about TFE, the character dynamics. The whole crew was so fun, and it was such a delight to see interact with each other and Vin. In tWoA they’re barely even there! Dockson, Kelsier’s best friend, has literally three scenes in the entire book. He dies in the third one. Clubs? Also has like three scenes, including where he dies. Ham is marginally more present, but Spook is only in like two scenes himself. We see the most of Sazed, which is cool because I like him <3 Instead of focusing on the crew, tWoA introduces new characters! Which are… hit or miss. Tindwyl and TenSoon and Allrianne my beloved <3 Then there’s Zane. Whom I can only describe as a Gary Stu and frankly I want to pick Sanderson’s brain and find out what the hell he was thinking when he made Zane because by all accounts he makes no sense lol

Inkspell and Inkdeath however, introduce new side characters without usurping the focus on the main cast. This is admittedly helped by Inkheart having a smaller cast in general XD But Dustfinger, Mo, Farid, Fenoglio, Resa, and Meggie if you squint (her squandered potential is another post lol) all remain major players, and continue to interact with each other like the did in book one. It’s great <3

tHoA is where things get particularly dicey for me lol. In tone and in plot. I just found it to be depressing, boring, and I do not like Ruin and Preservation. I don’t generally enjoy plots on a cosmic, god fighting scale to begin with, and I actively hate twist, “it was him all along!” villains. I find them to be boring, and feel that they remove agency from the villains prior to them. Also, I think they were set up poorly. If you removed them from the plot, literally nothing changes with TFE, and very little would change in tWoA. Not ideal for a villain you’re about to claim was here the whole time.

This book also continues the trend of no one talking to each other by scattering our protagonists to the four winds! Vin literally only talks to Elend, and maybe Ham once this book. Spook is in Urteau with Sazed, Breeze, and Allrianne, and his message never makes it to her. They literally don’t talk once and that’s a damn shame considering what they could have had. Tonally it’s just death and distraction all the way through, and that’s just,, blegh. No thanks.

Also everyone is so grim faced and boring, I hate this version of Elend, there’s no sass, no bite to him anymore. Just a grim and dutiful general who insists he’s struggles with doing hard things but then does them anyway. I also hate that his character arc goes unfulfilled! My man spends the entire book being worried about his inability to keep people safe, then he gets beheaded after watching an entire squad of soldiers get slaughtered by koloss. Like sure he saved the world but uhhhh yeah that’s not a satisfying conclusion. (Elend as a character was actually just generally not utilized well by the narrative imo. Raise your hand if you remember that this man was forced to sleep with a skaa girl at 13 years old she avoided romance because of it!)

Vin is also kind of boring, which is deeply upsetting because she was a fav in TFE and tWoA. She’s just so,, grim. And nothing else. It sucks. Also I don’t think her arc was done well here either. I love the idea of her finally coming to terms with the two parts of herself, but it felt forced! Vin spends basically no time as Valette after book 1, so it feels dragged out. We did not have to wait to book 3 to resolve this, we could’ve sorted this our way earlier lol

Also the whole thing with Sazed and the prophecy is just,, wut? I’m not a fan of the implication that Sazed is less of a man because he’s been castrated, and since I just generally don’t like Ruin and Preservation in general turning Sazed into god is just not where it’s at for me. It felt bizarre and out of place tbh

Inkdeath, on the other hand, does not have these issues. It’s villain, The Adderhead, was firmly established and was also the primary villain of book 2. He is not a god. He’s a king who was seeking immortality and was kind of foiled. A man, at his core lol. Tonally it is pretty grim at the beginning, but when Dustfinger is brought back, about 1/3 of the way through, the plot takes a notable hopeful upswing. Things aren’t easy, but they’re looking better now <3

I’ll also be the first to admit that Inkdeath’s clear cut happy ending is my preferred story ending lol, which is absolutely major points in its favor XD

I also think Inkdeath handles its characters well. Meggie and Farid do kind of end up on the side, but Mo, Dustfinger, and Resa all really shine. This opinion is helped by the fact that Mo and Dustfinger are my favorites, but I think it holds merit outside of that. They’ve been primary characters since book 1, are continuing to participate in the main plot together, and I find their arcs to be constant and wrapped up very nicely <3

TL;DR: I think tWoA and tHoA squandered their potential by introducing new plot threads instead of focusing on established loose ends, and committing several character assassinations by book 3. Inkspell and Inkheart did not do this, they followed up on their loose ends directly, kept the focus on the characters introduced in book 1, and did not go suddenly off the rails in the climax, instead ending with my preferred traditional fairy tale ending <3

[schleierkauz]

i will explain to you, in great detail,

Balbulus remains racist - Reference to the chapters that were published in 2020. I just love that Orpheus had a near-perfect evil plan that was foiled by literally just racism. I so hope that plot point stays.

Barn Owl reference - Self explanatory

Insane good vs evil witches drama - I don't mean some big fight kicked off by the events of the story. If those fractions still exist and have for a long time, I want Lilia to give us the tea details. How did the split happen? Did it have anything to do with the whole eating children thing or was there something else? Was it a gradual thing or more of one big blowout? Are there actual differences, physical or in terms of abilities between the two kinds of witches or could one theoretically become the other? Are there set rules about what a Good Witch can do or is it a more what you'd call guidelines instead of actual rules? You get it, I have questions.

Gwin & the Bear are (& remain) alive and well - Self explanatory

All Artists Are Bastards - With the whole "written word vs paintings/drawings, which is more powerful" theme going on, I imagine some new artists are going to show up. With the track record we have (Fenoglio, Balbulus, Orpheus-) I also imagine they won't exactly be flawless people. Cornelia loves to drag her own profession.

Something big happened while Dustfinger was gone & no one ever told him - "Hey Dustfinger, remember the big Witch War ten years ago that nearly destroyed the city and caused a huge cultural shift towards- oh. Uh. I guess you wouldn't."

The Prince's sisters show up/are mentioned - Self explanatory

(Random fairy tale object) - Look, I hope Cornelia does the whole Reckless connection thing more subtle than that but.... I could see it happening.

Fate worse than death 4 Orpheus - I'm really torn between what I believe will happen to him but if neither the Prince nor Dustfinger obliterate him he has a big chance of hubrising his way into one of these. He'll either die badly or live even worse.

Dustfinger & Brianna bonding moment - I don't even care, just give me something. Anything. Cornelia, I am begging-

Dustfinger & Mo Death Bond Lore - So was Dustfinger in his head this whole time or what?

"Cornelia the IMPLICATIONS-" - Like that one throwaway sentence about the Inkworld's slave trade that's just never elaborated on. Will probably be something about the witches and I'm gonna make 75498375 theory posts about it. This one I'm 100% certain of.

Elinor gets another new obsession - Maybe she'll start attending painting classes or something. We know she doesn't care much for books anymore so let's go!

Violante kills - Maybe she has someone executed, maybe she throws her shoe hard enough to decapitate someone but she is her father's daughter. The potential is there.

"My old friend (new character)" - Not counting Roxane's witch girl since I already know about her but this will probably happen with someone else again. Someone who just wasn't mentioned before because they weren't relevant to the Bluejay's journey.

Dustfinger just barely doesn't kill anyone - Not sure about this one, could go either way but the chance is pretty high that Farid & the Black Prince will try to reign Dustfinger in even though he feels murderous in the moment.

Jehan Farid collab - I predict tension between Dustfinger's sons. But then I also predict eventual teamwork with impressive results.

At least 1 new bird person - Self explanatory. Gotta have em.

At least 1 gay artist - Going back to the "some new artists will probably show up at some point" thing. Maybe that rival Balbulus mentioned? Alongside Cornelia's statement about LGBT characters I predict that things are gonna get real Italian.

The Prince & Orpheus showdown - While it would make sense for Dustfinger to confront him, I feel like the Black Prince will get there first. Just a feeling.

Capricorn mention - Self explanatory

No more Bluejay - Not in a "Mo dies" sort of way but I think that even if he has the opportunity to pick up a sword and be the Bluejay again, he would hesitate a lot and ultimately not do it. Even if he is somehow pushed to fight, he'd do it as himself and not go back to the persona of the Jay.

Inkworld drug scene lore - Another reference to the 2020 chapters, I just loved the little tidbits about magical cocaine so much and wish to know more.

At least 1 named child dies - I said what I said.

8 MORE DAYS. THE FINAL PREPARATIONS HAVE BEGUN

will elaborate tomorrow i have to go to sleep three hours ago

[lostandbackagain]

chapter 16 update (I will come back to the other chapters that make me want to cry and throw up but I needed something lighter)

farid is the funniest child in this series istg bc Why Would He Say That

they're constantly like: dustfinger: "I went to mad at you island and no one you knew was there:)" farid: "why were you there D':"

you know dustfinger is thinking "holy shit I did leave him in the woods holy fuck"

[k-k-keroppi]

Inkheart characters as John mulaney quotes

Dustfinger:

Mo:

Meggie:

Elinor:

Orpheus:

Basta/Piper:

Farid:

Resa:

Cosimo:

[incorrect-inkworld-quotes]

Brianna: Why do you need a bone saw?

Farid: For sawing?

Brianna: What do you want to saw?

Farid: Bones?!

Brianna: I am going to tell Orpheus!

Farid: Unlikely.

[schleierkauz]

brianna propaganda: literally her parents' daughter. most beautiful girl in the world ombra. was so hurt by dustfinger's behaviour and ultimate disappearance she pretended to not care when he returned.#traumatizeyourfatherback somehow stayed close to violante through All That cosimo drama and put up with her shitty child without killing him. hated farid but still helped him because she hated orpheus even more. made dustfinger a little friendship bracelet. vote brianna

Qualifier: Inkworld trilogy

[i-live-in-dreams]

Sorry if I forgot someone

[pink-spaceturtle5]

Orpheus: I have your son

Dustfinger: I don't have a son

Orpheus: Then who keeps trying to summon fire and calling me a thrice-accursed son of a bitch?

Dustfinger: Oh my god you have Farid

[incorrectinkheartquotes]

Orpheus: Mortimer, my arch enemy.

Farid: I thought I was your arch enemy?

Orpheus: I have a life outside you, Farid!

[weepylucifer]

Alright, I'm finished reading now!! Here's my review (under cut for spoilers):

It was fine. Didn't spellbind me like the previous Inkworld books, but that's probably largely owed to personal taste. It didn't quite land for me 100% but for someone else, it might be a delightful treat :)

Cornelia Funke remains a skilled prose writer. I personally prefer a less florid style, but that's just me. People who have liked her style in the other Inkworld books will experience a return to form. I always liked the quotes at the beginning of each chapter as a kid, and was delighted to see them here too.

Orpheus as a villain works for me - he's always been a hate sink, and he feels like a real threat in a way Capricorn sometimes didn't. He annoyed me so much in the main trilogy that initially I was like "God, surely we don't need to hear more from fucking Orpheus again" but he really does work. Just sometimes his attitude and story makes me wonder a bit: does Cornelia hate fanfiction writers?

This book is great for people who love Dustfinger - I don't really care about him and never have, which probably explains why this didn't do so much for me. He's the hero here, along with Nyame, which is the name of the Black Prince. I liked the Black Prince very much in the trilogy, so I liked hearing more from him, and it's cool that he has a name now - even in a world where most characters go by some epithet, it was kinda weird for this guy to be named for his skin color and not much else. Here, we subtly zoom in on that more, and see that "Black Prince" is used more by characters who don't see much of him beyond his skin color, while characters who really know him better refer to him as Nyame. In and of itself, the fact that the Inkworld has racism (aside from discrimination against fantasy creatures, which there also is) is an interesting bit of worldbuilding, and Nyame is a good POV character to show this (although I do also wonder about Farid now, since iirc it's never brought up whether he experiences that too. He's not really in this one, so who's to say).

Apart from that, the changes as to naming conventions in the Inkworld that were made for this novel didn't really land for me. "Did his parents really fucking name him Dustfinger" was part of the mystery for me, personally, and I didn't really need to learn his or Orpheus's entire government names. Maybe in the next one we will find out Capricorn's full legal christened name was actually Craig. Or something. Dave Adderhead. The Piper's mother called him Hubert

Anyway, as I said, this book's all about Dustfinger, which you can like or not like. Personally, I had hoped to see more of my favorites - Meggie, Elinor, Roxane, Mo, even Fenoglio - but they spend most of the plot being trapped in an evil book, waiting to be saved, along with all other important characters from the last three books. Those who criticized Inkdeath for giving Meggie too little to do will find themselves disappointed, as Meggie's character, such as it is, now seems to revolve mostly around Doria. But I can understand the desire to give other characters, that didn't have much to do before, more room on the page. For example Jehan, Roxane's son, gets development and more to do. Also Darius is gay now, which is nice I guess. I wanted to hear more about that than two fleeting remarks. Let me see this dorky middle-aged man's whirlwind romance with a tightrope walker. Let Elinor be his hag

There's more shapeshifting and new magic, which is intriguing. The quill that records people's secrets, the illustrations, the magical songs... they're all nice variations on the theme of magic inherent in creativity. It's not just reading now, but it feels like a similar type of thing. Yet, I missed the Silvertongue powers - not even Orpheus uses them anymore. To me, the "reading out" was what made the Inkworld unique in a sea of generic medievalesque fantasy. I get wanting to explore new kinds of magic, but I was still sad to see the reading phased out completely.

Much of the book was taken up by two new characters: the latter part was pretty much The Lilia Show, while the first, say, hundred pages... sigh. We need to talk about Baltassare Rinaldi.

It is so funny to me that, after doing her utmost to stomp the miserable little guy into the ground, Cornelia Funke had to invent a second, worse Basta. I mean, come on. He's got the knife, he's got the Cringefail Casanova attitude, he's got the black hair, he's got the henching. His name is Baltassare, which sounds like it's long for "Basta". (He's also a minstrel because he needs one distinct character trait.) This time, however, he's explicitly an ugly slob, so that no silly misguided fangirls can possibly stan him. As a result, when he takes up an exorbitant amount of page time, it's like... remember the third Hobbit movie when everyone was like "Why are there so many scenes with this Alfrid guy? Why did they think we'd want to see Alfrid instead of, you know, our protagonists?" It's this. Just for fun, I'm headcanoning him now as Basta's less impressive brother.

Lilia is fine. She's kind of a deus ex machina who dispatches both the antagonists while all the old characters remark upon how cool she is, but again, I understand wanting to make room for new characters. It's mentioned in one line that she's gay, which is still a lot better than having no gays at all. Also it shows that the Inkworld seems to not have homophobia, which again, riveting worldbuilding detail.

Many characters we previously had not known much about are given backstories, but there's something about those backstories that gets weird after a while. Every character had an abusive father who was an alcoholic. I don't know. Having been a social worker, I'm sure Funke saw a lot of these, and maybe lost sight of how there can be many other kinds of families with different dynamics. I personally am more of a fan of complex family relationships where love is present but also every conversation is like a high-stakes diplomacy event and all the characters are complex and flawed. With Funke, often the characters are GOOD and EVIL. But, again, that's a matter of personal taste. What was done well, though, is the depiction of how different characters with abusive backgrounds turn out differently: some turn to darkness, others use their pain as a motivation to be good and help others. There's not only "hurt people hurt people" here.

Inkworld has always been a mixed bag for me, even as a kid. Ultimately, the worlds of the trilogy were, to me, so rich and unique that I overlooked the occasional silliness. With this one, I'm not so sure it is for me. Maybe I'm just too old now. Still, it might be just the thing that was desired and needed for somebody else. All in all, even as I gripe and moan, it was a quick read and not boring, so I suppose there's that.

who else out here is reading color of revenge???