#to make up for it in story and on the meta level more than shu?

[4giorno]

this song and mv IS mika yeah but i just love how everything, even shus own event, has been ultimately about mika and thats why ive been saying why i think shu is such an amazingly written character and easily one of my favorite redemptions ever

[mihai-florescu]

I also have more thoughts on ES!! from a few nights ago if you'll permit me being annoying about the things i'm passionate a bit more tonight. I know I made a similar post a few weeks ago but I'm still turning the subject around in my head.

I keep rewriting my thoughts on the direction of enstars!! since we're about to enter a new era soon... to me enstars! and !! have become completely different stories. ES!! has expanded way too much and it's doing everything, but in the process forgot what was good about the story before. Leaving aside that i think they should slow down, most of the stories of !! are filler and they have added too many writers imo. But it's working well for them, they're constantly at the top of charts in revenue, so i don't think they're gonna change this...

But i can't help but think of the conversation in wonder game about alice in wonderland vs through the looking glass about the clumsy but loved story vs the sequel made for demand, and how in the climax events akira is deviating from what made enstars! special before (which is to me the focus on humanity in all its forms and what it can do, working for a better future to make up for past sins, learning to love and be loved, as well as on a meta level the relationship between author, audience, and protagonists). The more science fiction plotlines are in line with akira's other non enstars stories, and the climax events do end with a message that's reminiscent of enstars' themes, but they feel very sudden and disjointed from the previous fillery unit stories? Like how did we even get here (sentient AI born from a comatose girl, for example).

I don't even think the addition of npcs is inherently bad, there are npcs i'd loveee to see more of, like maguro, the oukawa sisters, amano, etc. But it doesn't read as these climax events wrapping up 4 years worth of stories as much as setting up a side quest and then wrapping that up, but leaving it still open enough for future explorations. And sure ! era had foreshadowing and setting up for !! in the form of Tsumugi going to work at a new agency after graduation, Izumi going to Florence & Shu to Paris, the creation of ensquare, but at the same time those final stories wrapped up their units' journeys over the course of that in universe year satisfyingly, relying on interpersonal drama rather than external influences to push them around. Maybe it also helped that they were following a formula: having to perform a repayment festival. Whereas now that we've expanded So Much, the world is their oyster and they're getting too ambitious.

I guess... there are just way more memorable character moments and hard hitting scenes in ! era for me personally, a nicely contained story. Forever waiting for !! era to finally have Subaru learn of the Tojou family's past, hopefully with no gimmicks, just heart to heart conversations about the event that changed all their lives forever, and how to deal with finding out Kaname's mom is the reason Subaru's dad is dead. That is I would say my biggest wish rn. But as much as I can criticize enstars, I am saying all of this *because* I love this story and characters, and especially what it was but lost along the way.

[animebw]

I think episode 8 of Yuri Kuma Arashi is kind of the perfect example of the issues I’m having with this show. Because on the surface, all the symbolism and commentary are spot fucking on.

I’ve danced around it a bit in my posts, but to me, YKA is very clearly commenting on the “pure yuri” genre, as it’s sometimes known. To simplify for time, it’s a certain attitude that goes into writing yuri stories where the girls are shut off from the real world. They don’t read like actual lesbians living full lives, they come off as porcelain dolls kept safe and pristine in their little doll houses. It’s an infantilizing strain of writing that doesn’t really care about portraying queer experiences as much as it cares about selling fluffy fantasies of surface-level cute gayness, separated from the reality of what it actually means to be gay in today’s world.

To be clear, I don’t think there’s anything inherently wrong with queer escapist fantasy like that. God knows us LGBTQs could use a few perfectly happy stories where we don’t have to think about how much the real world sucks for us. But there’s a certain point where it feels like a lot of yuri stories aren’t written to actually speak to a genuine lesbian experience, but just to present a safe, non-threatening plastic approximation of it to make it more palatable to hetero consumers. Trapping queerness in an unbreakable bubble where it can play out in harmless separation from the real world, a greenhouse full of beautiful flowers that can’t survive outside its walls. No need to think about gay people’s place in “normal” society, either from the perspective of a gay person trying to navigate it or a straight person trying to understand and empathize with their struggles. And I say this as someone who’s loved plenty of fluffy yuri stories: it’s not healthy for so much of the genre to be dominated by that stuff.

So theoretically, I should be really receptive to what YKA is doing. A vicious deconstruction of the harmful expectations that the pure yuri genre places on actual queer people? How it boxes in their experiences and stunts their humanity by reducing it to a harmless, commodified product? With a main villain who was explicitly broken by being locked one such box until she began to see herself as filthy for every minor misstep and grew obsessed with trapping all girls like her in those boxes too, scared the world wold break them as badly as it broke her? I should be so on board for that. That’s exactly the kind of commentary I should be foaming at the mouth over.

The problem is that the show serving that commentary just isn’t very interesting on its own terms.

Like, do I understand the point of Yurika’s role as antagonist? Sure. Do I get the importance of the metaphors that drive Kureha to try and kill Ginko? Absolutely. Do either of those things make me care about them on a deep, personal level? No. Because the sad truth it, these characters are not interesting outside their place in the metanarrative. Strip away the commentary these characters exist to serve and there’s basically nothing left. You can watch Utena without a master’s thesis in feminist theory and still care about Utena trying to save Anthy from her shackles. You can watch Sarazanmai without a PhD in child psychology and still have a blast with the kids’ struggles for connection. You can even watch Penguindrum, confusing mess though it may be at times, and care about Kanba, Shu and Himari even when you don’t understand exactly why things happen the way they do. But you cannot watch and enjoy Yuri Kuma Arashi unless you care more about the overarching metaphors and message of a story than the story itself. If anything, it reminds me less of any other Ikuhara show and more of the similarly meta-narrative heavy Re:Creators: a very good message that I definitely agree with, but man does the story conveying that message not measure up on its own.

[sokkastyles]

I was wondering what your thoughts were on Katara blushing at the end of A Cave of Two Lovers? I am 100% Zutara but just noticed this on rewatch :). Thank you for all the metas!

Thank YOU for the compliment!

And I think I've said before that blushing doesn't necessarily mean romantic interest, and it certainly doesn't mean true love. She blushed at the idea of them kissing because she's fourteen and it's an intimate situation. You can be into the idea of kissing someone but not necessarily be into them specifically. Girls, especially, tend to romanticize a situation, and Katara had just been very interested in the tragic romance story of Oma and Shu, so she's got romance on her mind already and it doesn't necessarily have to do with Aang. She suggests they kiss because that's what the situation calls for, and the situation is manufactured to be romantic.

Which to me says she's more into the whole setup, the idea that they would have to kiss to find their way out, just like Oma and Shu did. It's the situation that appeals to her romantic senses. To underscore that further, Aang totally kills the mood by getting nervous and putting his foot in his mouth, which shows that he's not on the same level as Katara emotionally.

The thing that's so funny about this to me is I have been in this exact situation. A lot of people have said (and I agree) that the chronic problem with KA is that it's only shown from Aang's side, and this just highlights that further, because when we are shown Katara's side, when we're shown a Katara who is like, practically throwing herself at Aang, we're supposed to relate to Aang's nervousness instead.

But if you're a girl watching the show, and you identify with Katara, what you see and relate to is not Aang's nervousness. You see that boy you liked that just did not get the message, the boy who was more interested in playing video games than paying attention to you, the boy you wanted to love who just wasn't mature enough to be in a relationship. And the show sort of makes fun of Katara at the same time that we're supposed to find Aang's panic cute and endearing, because he likes her, guys. And I mean, that's cute and all, but if he ain't gonna show it, then why bother?

On top of that, he actually insults her and we're supposed to feel for him because, again, we know that he likes her. The scene leans heavily on the trope of "easily offended girl" and "clueless boy" for its humor and it comes across as lowkey sexist.

I actually watched the scene again for this analysis and one interesting thing I realized on rewatch is that it seems to be implied that the kiss wasn't what let them find the way out, it was the fact that the light happened to go out at the same time, as Katara says afterwards that the lovers found their way by putting out their lights and following the crystals. It's obviously supposed to have a symbolic meaning, that being that if you trust in love then you'll find a way through your problems, but Katara and Aang don't reach an understanding in this scene. She runs off right after the crystals light up and it's clear Aang wants to talk about the kiss, but she ignores him. Romantic moment over, Aang. You blew it.

Furthermore, if we put this scene in the context of their relationship as a whole, neither Katara nor Aang being able to trust each other or be honest with their feelings is something that is never resolved, throughout their entire arc. And all the blushing and hot and heavy feelings in the world aren't going to solve that.

[thealexchen]

i’ve actually read both of the articles that you mentioned earlier! I could see where both of them were coming from at varying points, though shannon liao’s struck me as a tad harsh, as someone who felt very seen by Alex, particularly with regard to her asian-american identity, and the cultural details and familial attitudes you see displayed throughout the game (especially in episode 5.) I could see why others would like them to be more overt, but they’re still present & relevant as is, imo.

I'm happy you read and enjoyed them! Well, since we’re on the subject, I might as well give my fuller thoughts about all this. This answer got horrendously long, so I'm putting it under a read more. I really wanted to talk about this more fully, so thank you for sending this ask!

I definitely see Robert's point in his article. Alex didn’t need to be Asian for the story of True Colors to be told, but it’s still meaningful that she is so that Asian fans and fans of color can look up to her and feel represented. The Chens buck a lot of stereotypes too: Mrs. Chen was not a “tiger mom” and her kids and husband remember her fondly. Mr. Chen doesn’t push Alex and Gabe to excel in school, and in fact neither Alex nor Gabe went to college, but they still had happy futures. Alex isn’t the best friend or the Asian schoolgirl or the dragon lady or the Asian nerd. But at the same time, when Robert says "Alex never really talks about her thoughts on Chinese culture,” that’s like— well, what’s wrong with talking about it? Why not talk about it more explicitly? The words “Asian” and “Chinese” and “Vietnamese” aren’t even used in the game when "gay" and "lesbian" were, and that's a little disappointing.

I figured people would figure out Alex was at least Chinese because of her last name, but I saw some streamers unsure of what Alex’s ethnicity even was (“Alex is… Chinese, right?”). That was disappointing because Asians tend to be treated as a monolith when we’re so internally diverse. Also, it’s completely possible to miss that Alex and Gabe are also half-Vietnamese. Their mother’s name is Giang “Wendy” Chen, a Vietnamese name, but that’s only in the credits. There’s far less Vietnamese (and Southeast Asian) rep than Chinese, so I wish that had been made more explicit.

In Life is Strange 2, Sean and Daniel’s struggles (personal and institutional) were centered around their identity as half-Mexican boys. True Colors almost seemed to be going in the opposite direction in that Alex’s Asian heritage never really becomes plot-relevant, but Alex and Gabe’s background comes into focus in the last chapter.

Part of Shannon’s critique was that because Alex’s parents aren’t in the picture, the game can’t explore Asian culture through a familial lens. There is some truth to that: for children of immigrants in particular, their parents are their strongest (and sometimes only) link to their race and culture. I thought a big missed opportunity was exploring Alex’s possible sense of isolation and struggle to reconnect with her Asian heritage after being separated from her family.

After growing up with two Asian parents, eating Asian food, celebrating Asian holidays, likely speaking Asian languages, etc. it would have likely been disorienting and lonely for Alex to suddenly be raised by non-Asian foster parents and lose all those traditions all at once. Possible comments like “I really miss Mom’s pho” or “Do you know how difficult it is to find hoisin sauce in the stores around here?” could have inferred more at that specific kind of loss and isolation in Haven Springs. The game touches upon this very briefly when you look at Gabe’s shrine, and Alex does comment “I don’t even know if I’m doing this right… but I felt like I had to do something.” In this way, I find it especially poignant that she still held onto cultural traditions after so long.

But I still thought Shannon’s critique was overly harsh. The little details really do add up, like in Alex’s childhood home, and meant a lot to me too. And most importantly, there was representation behind the scenes too: Alex was voiced by two(!) Asian American women and the lead writer, Felice Kuan, is Chinese. I think Alex naming her mouse Shu-shu was my favorite detail. Because it’s the one detail you can’t miss. Every streamer remembers Shu-Shu’s name and loves how cute she is and they can probably infer it’s a Chinese term. It just is so visible and empowering in that way and my heart felt warm every time I heard someone say “Aw! Shu-shu!"

But that doesn't mean Alex's Asian heritage didn't matter at all. I really appreciated that Alex's backstory still mattered because she came from a poor, working-class immigrant family. Her life circumstances were used for drama, but none of Alex's suffering was racially motivated and that felt tastefully done. I’m gonna paraphrase a comment I saw on alliebeemac’s playthrough of episode 5: "It's no coincidence that both Alex and Ryan lost their mothers at a young age, but because Ryan's father was a military veteran and had a high-paying job as a Typhon foreman, he got to keep his childhood whereas Alex's entire world was torn apart... And if you want to look at it even more metaphorically, the white patriarch Jed was able to preserve his own image as a hero and 'good old boy' of Haven by literally sacrificing an immigrant family to the mines with the expectation that nobody would come looking for them. Whether you're an immigrant or whether you're a foster child, the system is saying 'we don't care about you.'"

And at the end, Alex tells Jed, "You want to look away and pretend the men you hurt weren't people. But I won't let you.” It's a deliberate stand against Jed (a white man)’s dehumanization of poor laborers, including her Chinese immigrant father. Jed isn't explicitly portrayed as a racist, but his actions come from a privileged, and subsequently racist and classist place. For me, it worked better than LiS2's portrayal of racism because it was subtler and more personal. Alex stands up against Jed out of a personal sense of justice for her brother (and her father).

Do I wish we had more? Yeah, absolutely. I wish Alex got to actually speak Mandarin or Vietnamese in the game because that's so rare in games, even though I knew that would be unrealistic because Erika Mori is Japanese. I wish the character artists had at least made a version of Alex and Gabe’s models without shoes, because it just didn’t look right to see them wear shoes in the house (especially in bed??) and even LiS2 had Sean and Daniel in their socks in some scenes. I wish Alex and Gabe talked more about their family while Gabe was still alive and Alex could have had that comfort of someone who misses the food and customs they used to celebrate. But like I said, one piece of media isn’t gonna please everyone. And Asian representation in particular is so tricky because not only is there not enough of it, but Asian Americans are so diverse and come from so many different backgrounds. Children of immigrants are going to feel more connected to their Asian heritage than third or fourth gen kids or mixed race kids for example. Everyone is going to have a different definition of “Asian culture” and “accurate representation.”

But on a meta-level, it really means so much to simply have an Asian face on the box of a major Western game ❤️ Like even just seeing the way Alex's eyes crinkle when she smiles or how other characters find her attractive (like Steph’s note during the LARP preferring Alex’s natural black hair), it feels so affirming. It’s incredible to see an Asian girl be called the hero of her own story, to see her succeed and fail and cry and laugh and fall in love and kiss another woman and be comfortable in her bisexuality. It acknowledges that the queer community includes Asians, that Asian girls can also be curvy, that Asian girls can and do struggle with mental health. And like Erika Mori said, Alex is a fully-realized character and that’s what makes her so compelling, first and foremost. She also has a strong moral compass and dreams and fears and is such an incredible role model for people of all backgrounds, and that’s what makes her identity as a queer woman of color so much more meaningful.

[remainingso]

WHAT ARE YOUR THOUGHTS ON KING OF SCARS???

HELLO FRIEND okay so uhhh i hope you wanted (-checks word count-) nearly 2.5k of meta. Because. That’s what I have. I clearly have so many thoughts on King of Scars. 

So without further ado, let’s dive in!!! (spoilers ABOUND like literally EVERYWHERE under the cut) 

To start: I wanted to love this book so, so badly. In fact, I find it basically unratable? I loved the first 50% with my entire heart and the latter 50% just felt like… the world’s longest disappointment. Ultimately I think this book could’ve been so much more, and the reason I’m kind of mad at it is that it promised me so many things that it never ended up delivering on.

So! Sections, because I’m articulating my salt, dammit.

on breaking open your world

One of the things I loved the most about the first part of this book was the sense of scale we were finally getting from the world. it made sense for Ravka to be isolated in the original trilogy—the whole plot was about getting rid of the Shadowfold to open it back up to the rest of the world. And we got glimpses of the wider Grishaverse politics in Crooked Kingdom especially. I thought King of Scars was going to finally be the book where we go GLOBAL in scope. I adored all the political talk early on—I genuinely thought we were building up to some sort of fantasy World War I! The Zemeni navy starting to challenge the Kerch hold on the seas! Messy alliances between the countries!

I wanted so much more of that—I wanted to know more about why there was war brewing. A lack of resources? The Zemeni new and hungry and eager for more? Fjerda wanting a holy war against the Ravkan Grisha presence? Kerch Greed? I wanted to see what Ravka looks like at war with something outside of itself. I wanted to see Nikolai struggle over how to protect his people and his land. I wanted to see him mess up. I wanted to see him make difficult decisions about how to govern.

Instead, I got half a book of…training montage.

And instead of widening the world globally, we got a lot of Lore.

(Just so much Lore. I really didn’t need to know the origins of why the Grisha are named after a diminutive of Grigori, man. That felt lame and kind of defensive after years of that criticism lol.)

Right off the bat: I didn’t like the revelation of the Saints being real. I didn’t like the weird in-between location Nikolai and Zoya spend literally half the book in. First of all, I never thought that Bardugo’s magic system was built on the most solid of foundations, and I think that this attempt to deepen the mythos, essentially, does more harm than good. I end up with more questions than answers: how does it count as mutual sacrifice when you make an amplifier if you don’t actually die and there’s one obvious dominant consciousness? How does it work that you can become one with an amplifier and then someone else can then become one with you+amplifier? Is there a limit to how many times you can do that? WHY were these particular Saints drawn to the shadowfold? And, beyond that, what are the Saints in service to? I think Bardugo tried to dig into the nature of her religion, but I don’t understand the fundamental Core to this belief system: who’s god? Without god, who are the Saints being martyred for? And when people pray to the Saints, what values are they purporting to uphold? I feel like these are all sort of central questions you need to make clear when you go deep into religious world building, and because she focused so much on the Saints without answering those questions for me, it ultimately felt kind of cheap and hollow.

And because Nikolai & Zoya are…basically stuck there for the whole second half of the book, we don’t get to see them actually interact with Ravka as it is? There’s a lot of narration about Nikolai thinking of what Ravka means to him, but that’s ultimately meaningless for me if I don’t see him make any decisions in service to her. He’s isolated and cut off from the government! This is a book about a King who never does any real King-ing.

the feminist aesthetic

This book has a very empowering aesthetic. And by that, I mean it claims to be empowering without actually supporting that with textual events. There are a lot of nice quotes about powerful women, but at almost every single turn, it undermines the power the women in the book have.

so Let’s Talk About Zoya

I love Zoya! I think YA needs more girls like Zoya, who are unapologetically mean, who gets to be ruthless and prickly and aren’t seen as wrong for it. I love that Nikolai clearly wants her to step on him. I love so much about her.

What I don’t love is how the narrative treats her.

I don’t like that she lets herself be drowned over and over and over, all so Nikolai can level up—and she doesn’t even punch him in the face for it after? She just literally smiles and lets it happen. Why does she have to be reduced to the precious thing he’s fighting for? Why does she have to suffer to force him to action? I love that Nikolai thinks Zoya can be Queen—but, does he really? He says he does. But he literally doesn’t listen to her a single time in the book. And she has good suggestions! Killing his dad? Would’ve solved their problem at the end where he aligns himself with the Fjerdans. Not listening to Yuri? Would’ve solved their entire Darkling problem by the end. Pick a bride? Stay in Ravka? Kill the Darkling at the end? All really good ideas! The book tells us that Zoya can be queen, and then spends the entire run-through relegating her to support role. What does Zoya do for herself? I don’t like that in order to have her “level up” they took away her power, and then had a man give her his power in order for her to thrive.

Okay so this line: “Men looked at her and wanted to believe they saw goodness beneath her armor, a kind girl, a gentle girl who would emerge if only given the chance.” I LOVE this idea so much. I love the notion of like a girl who doesn’t need to be saved, because she isn’t soft underneath; she’s all steel. But I can’t help but feel like the scene where Zoya confesses how she got her amplifier in the first place basically entirely undermines this concept. I thought, going in, that we were going to get a story about baby Zoya who snuck out in the middle of the night to stake a kill for herself, a baby Zoya who stole the tiger out from under everyone’s nose because she was wanted to show them all she could do it, and she didn’t mind the blood on her hands. I don’t like that we got a story about how she wanted to protect the baby cubs instead! I don’t like that this bonding moment between Zoya and Nikolai is one where she…reveals the kind, gentle girl underneath her armour. I didn’t want the story of how she got her power to be rooted in her secret maternal compassion for baby cubs; I wanted her to be ruthless. I wanted her to have killed and regretted it, maybe. I wanted that moment between them to be one where she tells him about her raw ambition and bite, and he understood that about her.

I’m not super here for all the… women have to suffer in order to Overcome vibe either? I mean it’s Bardugo’s prerogative, and I’m not saying it’s problematic or anything, but just that she has a history of making female characters necessarily suffer for growth (see: Genya, Inej) and I don’t like how Zoya’s trauma backstory with being exploited by a shitty man falls into that pattern. Why can’t she have been just angry? Why does she need a reason?

the shu han problem

I’ve had a long-standing issue with the way the Shu have been depicted in the Grishaverse, and this book did nothing to alleviate that. To start off, the strange Mongolia-China mashup culture is problematic in and of itself. In the Original Trilogy, we get the sole asian martial artist teacher trope full blast; not good! I never talk about this, but I actually hated how the Shu were treated in Six of Crows. I really do love that duology, but I sure don’t like that the Shu are…basically one dimensional villains throughout. The committee gets called “greedy” explicitly out of all the other committees present at the auction in Crooked Kingdom? Kuwei doesn’t get to speak for himself, and his entire storyline is basically a proxy for Jesper and Wylan to get together. I still don’t even know what his personality is like.

So I went into King of Scars hoping for…something more. Something better. And I mostly came away cold.

I still feel like we don’t know anything about Shu Han. Sure we know they have poetry. And a single instrument. But the matriarchy thing is so often used as a lazy shorthand to make a foreign country seem interesting and more foreign that I feel like it doesn’t tell us anything. What’s their word for Grisha? What’s their relationship to the Grisha? Are they evil, like in Fjerda? Wanted, like in Ravka? What’s their religion? What do their people believe in? Why do they want to go to war with Ravka? We’ve seen nuance in how a country can be a beautiful place even if its government holds terrible tenants: look at Fjerda. Why don’t we have the same nuance here? Sure, Tolya and Tamar exist, but they’re framed as like traitors? And on the Good side because of that? I don’t like that their number one allegiance is to a white girl, in the end. I don’t like that we got almost nothing from either Ehri or Mayu about their relationship to their country. I don’t like that Mayu was basically forced into helping her country, so we still have this… villainous view of the government & everything it stands for. I don’t like that Ehri is literally still a disposable girl, DESPITE that we supposedly have this matriarchy happening. I don’t like that they’re literally forcing her to marry Nikolai. I don’t like that they framing is the benevolent (white) protagonists, swooping in to save this naive princess from her monstrous home country.

I think Isaak’s POV is ultimately kind of useless and only there so we feel sad about him dying at the end. Functionally, we don’t need Isaak’s POV to know that there’s a fake Nikolai, and not much actually happens that only he can know about. Why couldn’t we have gotten Mayu’s POV? We know Nikolai’s elsewhere; so as soon as “Nikolai” shows up we’ll know he’s a fake. Why don’t the Shu get a voice?

the man of the hour

hey if you’ve made it this far, I’m going to talk about the Darkling now! (…yay?)

So this book spends like 90% of its run subtly reinforcing that the Darkling was Wrong and his ideas were dangerous and that overall he was bad for Ravka. it’s hard not to see this in a sort of metatextual bent—a lot of what Yuri espouses is what the fandom reaction to the original trilogy was and continues to be: That he could’ve ruled Ravka and led them into glory. That he was misunderstood. That he deserves to be worshipped. And I thought the existence of the Cult of the Starless Saint was a clever nod, a sort of guiding hand for Bardugo to reinforce the message of the original trilogy. That message being that like, guys, he’s kind of a shitty dude. And would’ve been a bad leader. I thought there was something really interesting she was doing here about how people always will gravitate towards powerful demagogues. That powerful men often are heard above all.

But I thought she was going to like… refute that. Alina’s entire war was to get rid of this fucker. The original trilogy told us that powerful men can be defeated. That who we should want to emulate instead are the girls who fight against them.

And now he’s back.

I can’t help but feel betrayed. I can’t help but feel like bringing him back, especially as the culmination of the book, reinforces the idea instead that, actually, the whole goddamn grishaverse revolves around him. That Yuri was right. Because he was. He was right about the visions, he was right about the return of his saint, and so what does that mean this book is saying about the voice of this powerful men? That it deserves to be heard? The Darkling gets the very last word of the book—it’s hard not to think that this is what the whole thing has been building up towards, in the end.

I don’t actually think that Bardugo is trying to say that we should all worship the Darkling. But I do think that this was a clumsy move that inadvertently muddles so much of what came prior—and for what? A cheap twist?

on expectation and disappointment

again, at the end of all this, my point is that the core of my issues is that the book simply doesn’t deliver on a lot of what it set up. It feels like I read two different books. I don’t expect this book to be perfect, but I find it hard to forgive a lot of the faults I find when the feeling I came away from was ultimately…dissatisfaction. I felt empty, finishing. I feel empty thinking about it. I’m just really sad about all the things it could’ve been—because I think it could’ve been so great.

There’s so much I loved! Like I said, the entire first 50%? Gorgeous, magnificent, showstopping. I adored all of it. The underground bunker! The science and magic mingling! Nina and Matthias!!! And there’s stuff I don’t really want to get into because it gets nitpicky lol (some logistics stuff with Nina’s plotline near the end). But basically I likened reading this book to feeling like I was on a rollercoaster, and super enjoying the cranking climb upward for the first half, and then, instead of the swooping, exhilarating fall, the entire track just collapsed underneath me.

So that’s where I’m at. I’m happy to talk about it and I really enjoy discussing the parts I loved! And I’m happy to field anyone who wants to tell me why they loved it, because, again, I would love to love this book. Please. Convince me. But at the end of the day, I’m sad and I’m mad and I’m disappointed. What a bummer.