#scholomance

[ace-and-ranty]

See, El's core character trait of, "What if it were really damn easy for you to be evil, but you kept choosing to be good, at every single given chance, at great personal cost, even when the world tells you that you can't?" is already catnip to me, but, "What if you were pissed the fuck off about it all the time?" makes it into pure crack cocaine.

[daisukitoo]

My thanks to folks who have been recommending The Scholomance series by Naomi Novik to me. I cannot find the post describing it as "if Harry Potter were better written," but that was the one that finally got me to read A Deadly Education. The book starts strong and keeps getting better.

I can see why people say it is hard to describe the books without describing everything. A pleasant aspect of the writing is how it builds on itself. Groundwork is laid in one chapter and explored later on; El is not quite an unreliable narrator, but she can relate facts while avoiding their significance or misinterpreting their motivations and emotional valence. For example, she says that her mother is a hippie crystal chick; we later learn that her mother is The Hippie Crystal Chick, actually world famous in her specialty, and El has been hiding that connection from both the narrative and her classmates for three years. I am waiting for all the groundwork on Patience and Fortitude to pay off in the next book or two.

Spinning Silver is probably a better book than A Deadly Education, but A Deadly Education is a faster and more compelling read. It is perhaps easier genre fiction, while Spinning Silver and Uprooted are full-on literature.

[starling-illu]

I'm reading Scholomance and their friendship is v important to me

[pangaeaseas]

Liesel from scholomance is like the exact character type I like most. Like the stereotype of the scheming manipulator political ew a woman but she's one of the heroes and the narrative is sympathetic to her. She's a pragmatist with a moral compass. She knows exactly what she wants out of life and goes to extreme measures to do it. Also the decades long revenge plan. I love her so much. She's also so fun bc she comes out of nowhere in book 2 and I like the idea novik just really liked her and so made her more prominent and let her run off with the series and I here am so glad.

[erosia-rhodes]

It took me 14 months to write my fic, but it only took 2 months to turn it into this:

That’s right, y’all. I learned the art of bookbinding. This is the dark path fic writing can lead you down. I wanted a copy of my 220K-word monstrosity on my shelf, but paying to have it bound is illegal. (Damn you, intellectual property law!) When I learned I’d have to make it myself, I was like, are you fucking kidding me? No way. That is insane. Then 24 hours later I was like, okay, I guess I’m learning bookbinding? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Then I started to enjoy it! Rejecting a life of crime gave me a new hobby. And it does look nice sitting on the shelf next to the Scholomance series that inspired it.

It really is gorgeous to me, mostly because I created the whole thing from concept to hardcase. I wrote the story, created the typeset, designed the cover, and bound it—all by myself! I feel a bit like Gwen Higgins creating that healing patch for El: tilling the soil, planting the linen seeds, spinning it into thread, and then weaving it into a patch. (Okay, I didn’t make the paper or the ink or the heat transfer vinyl, but we have to set boundaries somewhere.)

It was rather exhausting though. I feel like I’ve completed a never-ending quest full of side missions that each required a different set of skills and required me to obtain a wide variety of obscure supplies. I also spent a bunch of money that I don’t really have, which makes this the most expensive book I’ve ever owned BY FAR, which is ridiculous because all the flaws in its construction undoubtedly decrease its value. It cost so much that I feel obligated to bind a whole bunch of more books to bring down the average cost per project. That, or I’ll have to eat all the supplies instead of buying groceries next month.

I plan on writing a series of posts about how I made this thing, including all my trips to the hardware store, the fraudster on Amazon who sent me weird paper, and my newfound love for craft knives and bone folders. When I do, I’ll post the links down below.

In the meantime, if anyone has an urge to bind a copy of my fic themselves, here are links to zip files of the signatures and the cover images: Spellbreaker signatures | Spellbreaker cover images

Oh, and here’s a link to the fic on AO3. Spellbreaker: A Scholomance Sequel by Erosia Rhodes. Enjoy!

[metataxy]

Scholomance Fanfic Premise - GE spoilers

So Orion’s somehow in contact with the void, yeah?  Imagine if this influenced his offspring to have a magical affinity for dealing with the void.  

So what if Orion and Galadriel’s child, years and years later, somehow discovers he can walk out into the void, and come back without being having his magic and anima put out of phase with the real world?  What if he could explore the void, moving through the bits of half-existant artifice left out there, or bring back people everyone thought were lost forever?

I’m picturing this kid getting pushed out into the void at the Scholomance when someone decides to get back at El via him.  And then he comes back, days later after his room’s been reassigned and everyone’s mourning him, but he comes back speaking absolute gibberish.  It only lasts a few days, though he gives everyone the impression it lasts longer, and he terrifies the shite out of his would-be murderers when they try to take him out again, and he’s just like, “Dude.  So not cool.” 

And then he brings back Mika, who got pushed out into the void during ‘A Deadly Education’.  Mika, who hasn’t aged a day and who is terrified to find himself back in the Scholomance--the void was boring, but at least nothing was trying to kill him.  Mika, who has no idea what has happened in the past twenty years.

His little sister is proving to be as good as a healer as Grandma Higgins, with a twist: she has an especial knack for people who have been in the void.  She manages to help Mika get more or less in phase with this reality, but the kid still has a habit of disappearing when he’s stressed out and reappearing at odd times and places.  Gradually, he develops it into a new affinity for translocation, albeit not one anyone has ever seen before.

I also kinda want this hypothetical child of Orion and El’s--we’ll call him Jon, because I imagine El would either name him after her father or give him the most boring name possible, sorry to any Jons in the audience--to interact with Yancy’s crew.  No concrete plans.  Maybe just have him spelunking the dark depths of the London enclave with a hot older girl from the indie wizards and uncovering some surprises the enclavers wish had stayed buried.

[nepttunnee]

i just finished a deadly education and let me just say i adore el and orion. i love how they fall for each other but for the exact opposite reason of the way other ppl see them. el looks at loved for being a knightin shining armor who can do no wrong orion lake and goes. hes actually cringe and fail. i like that in a man. and orion lake looks at weapon of mass destruction knows multiple languages to roast you galadriel and goes shes actually kind of nice. she shares her food with me. i want to marry her i think. thinking abt them

[ao-ihinata]

Hats off to Gwen Higgins

To raise your daughter who thinks she has nothing and nobody to help her with the exception of her mother and is so confident in her mothers love towards her is so- 👌😙

El is so confident that her mother will drop everything and leave their home of nearly 18 years for her daughter... some people might have things to say about her parenting style and I do too sometimes, but overall I think Gwen Higgins is one of the best fictional biological parents ever to exist

[germylemon]

also side note the scholomance is so underrated like i reread it with the fear of "oh no the book i read multiple years ago as a teenager is not as good as i remember" EXCEPT IT WAS! it was even better because i actually took my time to read it and catch everything and see all the foreshadowing. also teen me sooo wanted to be as badass as el but alas. i wasnt. so grateful i pwn all three books even though i only have the third in a big ass hardback since i havent found the matching paperback i have the first two in. its gen so hard. i need to like go to a bookstore in a bigger city because my local bookstores never have cool books, i think its mostly cooking books and colleen hoover and smut with cartoon covers.

also the drawings and maps!! so great!! it needs to be mandatory because the blueprints of the school?? sick as fuck!! it is so cool to actually be able to visualize what is where

[cucurbitapuella]

I think I loved El Higgins so much bc she really digs deep into a core character trait I find so powerful and fascinating and that's selfishness as fuel for selflessness. The ones who look around and tell the world, don't you dare touch that one, They're Mine, and pour all of that and all of themselves into protecting what's Theirs, and also btw fuck off that one is Also Theirs, in fact, Everyone Is.

(See also: Tiffany Aching, Beka Cooper).

The Last Graduate is most obviously about this (El has her alliance who are Hers and then despite her best efforts she has her pack of freshmen who are, ugh, Hers, and eventually must grudgingly open up to realizing that now absolutely everyone is Hers and she's getting all of them out there, fuck you very much), but then. Then! The Golden Enclaves shows the struggle of that kind of selfishness, of saying these ones are mine and fuck the cost, I will pay it (off of the backs of those ones). Because the modern enclaves ARE paying it, because their children are Theirs and what wouldn't you do? (A lot, actually, it turns out, if you had to do it with your own hands, eyes open and ears unblocked)

The way that most of the contributors to an Enclave need the wool pulled over their eyes (literally!!) so they cannot even register that the gift horse HAS teeth, because then they might see what horrible gore is stuck in them. They just want to save their children, and the cost is so high - but it's so removed, so, is it really even real? And El's the cosmic foil to that, the one who looks at it and goes "no, that's real. You have to pay it yourselves you can't defer the cost." Even before she works out that the price is higher than the first sacrifice (which is. Horrifying enough on its own), she's desperately trying to get to one of Hers and she can't pay the cost to save Liu on her own, she needs them all to buy in, and she taps into everyone's collective selfishnes and gives them an out and they have to work for it but they take it and they do the work! They pay up front! They try to make some fucked up reparations!

And that selfishness, of El's audacity to even dare question the system, but also most people's basic selfishness (wanting to keep yourself and your children safe and to do it without all the blood on your hands) - that's what's going to see them all through, together.

[ace-and-ranty]

In retrospect, the scene of El going down the library stacks trying to get to Orion is so funny, because. She's doing such grim, survivalist, cold mental gymnastics to try and make sense of the school behavior. Over the course of it, El thinks the Scholomance is:

Trying to keep her from helping Orion so it can finish killing him

Accidentally loosing an invaluable, literally priceless, world-changing treasure to her in the attempt

Bribing her with an opportunity to show off, if only she lets the Mawmouth go devour all the little children

When in reality, what it was doing was:

Trying to keep El away from the Mawmouth, because its fucking job is to protect her.

Giving her a book that's already been paid for by her parents. It is literally just handing over her inheritance.

Asking for her help killing the Mawmouth, so it doesn't go devour all the little children.

It's. It's so funny. El is basically a cat trying to eat a piece of plastic, fighting against its helpless owner that just wants to help. She accused the school of trying to kill Orion whilst it was busy trying to save her fucking life. Herding teenagers: the world's most thankless job.

[teaandspite]

The Golden Enclaves Spoilers Without Context

El

Orion

Enclave building spells

:)

[crossedwithblue]

El Higgins and Discworld comparisons

So I've seen a couple of comparisons between El and Tiffany, and to an extent I guess I agree - they're both young female YA-ish protags who are passionate about injustice. However, I'm not convinced that El really does weaponise her selfishness into a virtue the way Tiffany does - El (at least where I'm up to) is more about being crankily selfless despite her better judgement.

Which Discworld character does that remind me of a lot more than TIffany? Prickly? Aggressively practical? Expresses concern and affection via tough love? Tall, attractive in a scary way, with a death glare that could melt steel? Perhaps a tad arrogant about her own raw ability, or at least, not precisely humble? An unreliable narrator convinced that other people hang out with her only for whatuse she is to them, and continually surprised when someone wants her for who she is? Constantly battling not to take the easy path of becoming a monster, arguably despite a world determined to paint her that way? Has a himbo boyfriend she keeps trying to push away?

Am I describing El, or Granny Weatherwax?

(PLEASE no spoilers beyond the middle of book 2/Field Day, I am aware that the boyfriend situation has different outcomes in the two cases but it's still a parallel IMO.)

[secret-keeper18]

So i’m doing a re-read of the Golden Enclaves and got to the part where El leads Orion out of the Scholomance. And it has me GAGGED because

Is really giving

[pangaeaseas]

One of the things that scholomance, and naomi novik in general, excels at is the delicate art of exposition. Exposition is what fantasy lives and dies by. You need to have enough of it so that your beautiful worldbuilding makes sense, and you need to make it feel seamless and immersive so that it makes sense as something the character would say, not just like they're talking to an invisible audience. Maybe el's really actually well written first person narration voice helps with this bc it feels like it is her, a specific person, is commenting on her lived in world instead of pointing out textbook stuff. El has a specific voice and she does first person so well and also y'know the sentences are just beautiful on a technical level. But I was never once bothered by exposition that pulled me out of the story and that's not something that happens too often for me in fantasy.

[jalytown]

POV: you’re a mal and you just interrupted their study date session (rip)

(mini-rant and bonus under the cut)

i arise from the dead to share this because I am so brainrotted and also so goddam DESPERATE!!! I NEED people to read the scholomance series by naomi novik pls pls PLS i love them so much i'm actually going INSANE

also i tried out new brushes and a new way of coloring for this so idk how i'm feeling about it but i had fun i guess?? here's the flat colors before rendering because i like how it looks as well hehe

anyway i'm going to slowly spiral by myself about this series :DDD I NEED MORE PEOPLE TO TALK TO ABOUT IT AAA