rainwaterspark | Throne of Glass - Deconstruction

Last time, nonsensical decisions and bad romance.

Chapter 25

This time on Throne of Glass, a dream scene in a tomb reached by the secret passage…that serves for some convenient infodumping. We learn that the first queen of Adarlan was apparently Fae or half-Fae and came from Terrasen, Celaena’s homeland.

the sword that had slain the Dark Lord Erawan.

Dark Lord? Seriously, author? Seriously??

Anyhow, Celaena meets the spirit of the first queen, Elena, who talks about the gargoyles on the clock tower guarding a portal and everything was destined to be and Celaena needs to win the competition and something evil lives inside the castle that needs to be destroyed and what the hell, did we just jump genres here?

I’m not—I’m not who you think I am!”

Celaena, where is your backbone when you need it?

“Courage of the heart is very rare,” she said with sudden calm. “Let it guide you.”

Can you get any more cliché than this?

Celaena returns to her room and thinks it’s all just a dream until she sees the talisman the queen gave her and notices the secret door is open.

She jumped from the bed, slamming into the wall so hard that her shoulder made an ugly cracking noise. Despite the pain,

Uh. What is with this author’s love of describing physical harm? If it made a “cracking” noise, that means SOMETHING IS BROKEN. Or fractured. Shoulder bones are pretty sturdy, so it’s more likely to be a fracture of the shoulder blade (scapular fracture). Even if you fractured your scapula, you will have reduced ability to move your shoulder and pain when you move your arm. Which means that Celaena is basically screwed for the rest of the competition.

But, this being Throne of Glass, the narrative probably has no idea that “cracking” noises from your bones mean something is broken, and it will probably just assume Celaena is bruised. Or maybe not injured at all.

(Seriously, this isn't even a flaw in research. All the author had to do was NOT write that Celaena's shoulder made a CRACKING SOUND when it hit the wall.)

Celaena keeps rambling to herself about what it all means and then finally goes to sleep. That’s something else I’ve noticed a lot of in this book: characters frequently ask themselves questions, but then shrug their shoulders and wait for the plot to answer them.

Chapter 26

The doors to her bedroom banged open, and Celaena was on her feet in an instant, a candlestick in hand.

A candlestick? You mean a potential murder weapon??

Do the guards (and the author) really not realize that anyone, let alone an assassin, can use a candlestick to kill people?? For crying out loud, anyone who’s played Clue (the board game) knows this!

Chaol storms into Celaena’s room to inform her that another champion was killed and half-eaten.

She made herself grin at him. “Cain is the most likely candidate. You’re from Anielle—you should know more than anyone how they are in the White Fang Mountains.”

Hello, fantastic racism.

Chaol asks her where she was last night.

“As my guards can attest,

Wait, so there are guards outside her door? Why is everything so inconsistent???

She pulled the blankets up to her chin and batted her eyelashes at him.

Argh.

Some vermin probably got to the body before it was found. Very, very hungry vermin.

Vermin? Wikipedia: “Disease-carrying rodents and insects are the usual case, but the term is also applied to larger animals—especially small predators—typically because they consume resources which humans consider theirs, such as livestock and crops. Birds which eat cereal crops and fruit are an example. Pigeons, which have been widely introduced in urban environments, are sometimes considered vermin. Some varieties of snakes and arachnids may also be referred to as vermin.”

So no, none of these animals sound like they can actually eat people. Except maybe rats, but that would have to be a lot of rats to eat half of the body.

Celaena was terrified of the tomb the night before, but now she decides to investigate it. Because Reasons. Except she doesn't actually find anything, so that's pointless.

If this evil was as threatening as Elena made it seem, then how could she possibly defeat it?

I thought Celaena was supposed to be confident. Consistency what are you anymore.

Some time later, Celaena’s being marched around by guards.

She smiled at the young chevaliers they passed—and smirked at the court women who eyed her pink-and-white gown. She couldn’t blame them; the dress was spectacular. And she was spectacular in it. Even Ress, one of the handsomer guards posted outside her rooms, had said so.

Oh my god, why.

She sees the dead competitor’s body. As with the others, the internal organs and brain have been removed. So, no, it seems unlikely that an animal did this. Also, she notes some Wyrdmarks on the body.

No wonder Chaol had looked so disheveled this morning! She straightened. He’d thought she did this? Fool. If she wanted to knock off her competitors one by one, she’d do it quick and clean—a slit throat, a knife in the heart, a poisoned glass of wine.

This actually makes sense, because assassins (save for assassins of the Psycho For Hire flavor) should be trained to kill as quickly as possible and then escape.

the Wyrdmarks made this something more than a brutal killing. Ritualistic, perhaps.

Well, DUH??! Characters keep making comments about this murder mystery as though it were the weather, instead of feeling any sense of urgency.

We skip back to Dorian’s POV (ugh) and he’s practicing swordplay with Chaol. We also learn he likes reading better (HINT HINT, WINK WINK, NUDGE NUDGE).

…And they don’t talk about anything important, other than: “Where did the king run off do?” “Dunno.” “Why do you visit Celaena’s room?” “Why do you visit Celaena’s room?” Chaol: “Well you’re an idiot but no one can stop you because you’re the prince.”

There was something so defeated, so bitter, underlying the captain’s words that Dorian, for a heartbeat, felt badly.

This better not be subtext for Chaol’s jealousy. (It totally is.)

He should stay away from Celaena—Chaol had enough to worry about. But then he thought of the list his mother made and realized he had enough, too.

Oh, sure. Because trying to pick someone to marry is JUST AS HARD AS SOLVING A GRUESOME MURDER and babysitting an assassin and being in charge of general security, GUYS.

Are we even supposed to like Dorian? Because every time he has his internal monologues I get the sense that he’s nothing more than a spoiled brat.

Chapter 27

This chapter is pretty dull. (Noticing a trend here?)

Celaena and Nehemia chat, and Nehemia’s Adarlanese accent magically improved by leaps and bounds, even though generally speaking accents don’t improve that quickly. Celaena also continues to act like her Eyllwe is bad, when according to the book it’s clearly not.

Probably the only interesting thing that happened is that Cain reveals that he knows “Lillian” is Celaena.

“I think if she doesn’t get too riled and keeps a cool head when they duel, she might. But she’s…wild. And unpredictable. She needs to learn to control her feelings—especially that impossible anger.”

Which was true. Chaol didn’t know if it was because of Endovier, or just being an assassin; whatever the cause of that unyielding rage, she could never entirely leash herself.

…SIGH.

So much wrong in these few sentences, from a factual standpoint.

Celaena has occasionally shown bouts of rage, but they’re so sparse and inconsistent it’s hard to say that she’s “wild” and “unpredictable” in general. Also, I don’t think it’s ever affected her ability to fight before (not that there have been more than like 3 scenes of her fighting in this book).

Also, it is REALLY BAD for an ASSASSIN to be impulsive and unable to control her feelings. Assassins can’t survive if they aren’t cool under pressure. They are PROFESSIONAL MURDERERS. Their entire life revolves around planning their target’s death down to the last detail, stalking and then killing them, and the margin for error is tiny. I just…are we sure Celaena is the best assassin ever???

After that, we’re treated to Dorian getting jealous when Celaena spars with Nox (yeah, I’d really hate to have Dorian as a boyfriend). Then Celaena tries to research the Wyrdmarks, cuing a long infodump for the reader about portals to other worlds, though nothing is particularly noteworthy.

.

I'd like to talk about genre instability for a moment.

What the book wants to be about is something like this: Celaena is drawn into a competition for her life, but while she's busy trying to survive the competition, she's also falling in love and learning about the evil that lurks in the castle that she's destined to destroy.

How it actually feels like to read this book is this: Well, we have our Mary Sue protagonist who has to join this competition. Except who cares about the competition when she's busy wearing pretty dresses and flirting with the guards and chatting with Nehemia while mocking all of the other courtiers. Oh, and Dorian is falling for her but Chaol is also falling for her, GASP LOVE TRIANGLE ROMANTIC DRAMA. Some murder mystery is going on but nobody is actually solving it. Oh wait, Celaena's "destined" to be in this competition because there's some evil whatever that lives in the castle fate prophecy Chosen One save the world!!!

In other words, all these elements are thrown together almost at random, popping up at random moments in the novel. It's as if the author were thinking: "Hey, I need to get Celaena into the castle so she can have all this romantic drama with the prince, so I'm going to say there's a competition in the castle! Except this competition is really boring, let me go write about pretty dresses and romantic drama instead! Oh wait, this is getting a bit too plotless, I think I need some other drama. How about a murder mystery? Okay, okay. What do fantasy stories usually have? Prophecies and Chosen Ones and saving the world. Okay, let me add that too! Now it's perfect!"

The book doesn't know what it wants to be about. And let me make clear before I go further that I am fine with complex, multilayered plots that weave a lot of strands together. That's the key word, though: weave. You can't just randomly add cliché plot devices all over the place and hope it forms a coherent plot, because it doesn't.

Is the focus of the book supposed to be on the competition, only it's linked to something much larger, like the return of magic in a world where magic has been eliminated? Then pare down the infodumping and dream sequences and "Chosen One" rhetoric and give the murder mystery more spotlight, highlighting the fact that the competitors are being specifically targeted, adding a tangible layer of tension to the competition itself. Only gradually reveal that it seems to be related to something much larger.

Is the focus of the book supposed to be on the return of the supernatural element, with the competition only as window-dressing? Then make the competition more bland, introduce the Wyrdmarks and stuff earlier, and make a bigger deal out of the prophecy/Chosen One/generic fantasy elements early on. The murder mystery should either not be a murder mystery but a supernatural occurrences mystery, or its supernatural/otherworldly aspect should be much more heavily emphasized.

Is the focus of the book supposed to be on the romance and the "political intrigue"? Well, I can't help you there because the romance is terrible and the "political intrigue" nonexistent.