Throne of Glass - Deconstruction - Ch44
Nov. 15th, 2014 03:02 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rainwatersparkMini-updates: The deconstructions for Chapters 11 & 23 have had new insights added.
Last time on Throne of Glass, ragecapslock.
Chapter 44
This time, a useless and boring but thankfully short filler chapter.
Celaena’s scared to death by the appearance of the king. Why? I don’t have a clue. I thought she hated his guts, but apparently she’s just terrified of him instead.
She could feel him searching, looking for something inside of her. He knew that something was wrong, that something had changed in his castle—something to do with her.
SIGH.
Bad Writing Exhibit #65729: Unless Celaena is telepathic, there’s no way she could know this, and it’s a pretty strange conclusion to jump to. It’s almost switching to a quasi-omniscient POV to convey information to the reader, which, as I have said 5467 times already, IS NOT GOOD WRITING.
I’ve seen a number of authors say that they find first-person or third-person limited POV to be too restrictive in certain situations. And I suspect this is also why a lot of books written in third-person have multiple POVs.
But seriously?
That “restrictiveness” is the nature of third-person limited and it’s just something you have to work around. I have very strong opinions about this because I personally love third-person limited and the challenge of having to work around the restrictions of a single POV. To me, it’s like a magic trick, a sleight of hand by the author—you get to choose what to show and what to hide, and sometimes you run into problems and don’t know how to convey information that’s beyond the scope of the narrator’s consciousness, but isn’t that the point of writing? To figure out creative ways to solve these kinds of problems?
Don’t tell us Celaena “intuitively” “knows” that the king is suspicious of her. It’s lazy and a cop-out. If you really need that source of dramatic tension, at least have a conversation between Celaena and the king, not “Celaena looked into the face of the king and knew he knew that she was up to no good.”
Could he see what lay beyond her flesh? Did he know that Cain had the ability to open portals, real portals, to other worlds?
There is only one circumstance in which this line of thinking makes sense, and that’s if Celaena is outright paranoid by this point. Otherwise, for crying out loud, THE KING DOESN’T HAVE FREAKING TELEPATHY AND WHY WOULD CELAENA THINK HE DOES??
There’s a lot of purple prose that follows to establish how EVIL the king is, because apparently “conquering other countries” = “desire to destroy the world”???
Author, “conquering other countries” has a name and it’s called WORLD HISTORY.
This book sucks so hard at the “show don’t tell” thing. “Show don’t tell” isn’t a monolith; there are some situations in which telling is good, because if you can’t tell anything, your book will probably end up being a thousand pages long and your readers will get bored and frustrated.
But if you can’t establish that the king is evil except by rambling about how his eyes are dark and he smells like death (??), you’ve got a problem.
Something dangerous lurked about him. It was an air of death that she’d felt standing before that black void summoned by Cain. It was the stench of another world, a dead world. What was Elena’s goal in demanding that she get close to him?
SIGH.
Once again, FORCEFEEDING THE PROTAGONIST SUDDEN OMNISCIENT REVELATIONS TO CONVEY INFORMATION TO THE READER IS NOT GOOD WRITING!
Jump to Chaol’s POV. Some rambling about fishy circumstances about how everyone in the king’s traveling party died and the king’s being really sketchy about it.
Because we clearly don’t have enough hints that the king is PURE EVIL.
Poor Celaena. Did she know that she looked like a frightened animal when the king appeared? He’d almost wanted to pat her on the back.
I will throw a hardcover book in the face of anyone who tries to tell me Celaena Sardothien is a badass. THE BOOK *SAYS* SHE’S A BADASS BUT HAS NEVER FREAKING *SHOWN* HER TO BE A BADASS AND IT’S GETTING REALLY OLD.
I’M STUCK ON CAPSLOCK, THAT’S HOW ANGRY I’M GETTING OVER THE AUTHOR’S INABILITY TO ACTUALLY PORTRAY A CHARACTER AS A BADASS
She never hesitated when they sparred, but she seemed to sink far within herself, into a place that was calm and cool, but also angry and burning. She could kill anyone, Cain included, in a matter of seconds.
Seriously. No.
Stop TELLING us that Celaena is such a master fighter, “can kill anyone in seconds,” “ooh so badass and dangerous” when she has NEVER ONCE shown that she’s actually capable of doing so.
Also, stop associating anger with assassin. ANGRY ASSASSINS ARE INCOMPETENT ASSASSINS. YOU CANNOT BE IMPULSIVE AND UNABLE TO CONTROL YOURSELF IF YOUR JOB IS PROFESSIONAL MURDERER.
She’d looked so small when she saw the king.
…
*GOES OFF TO FLIP 100 TABLES*
Last time on Throne of Glass, ragecapslock.
Chapter 44
This time, a useless and boring but thankfully short filler chapter.
Celaena’s scared to death by the appearance of the king. Why? I don’t have a clue. I thought she hated his guts, but apparently she’s just terrified of him instead.
She could feel him searching, looking for something inside of her. He knew that something was wrong, that something had changed in his castle—something to do with her.
SIGH.
Bad Writing Exhibit #65729: Unless Celaena is telepathic, there’s no way she could know this, and it’s a pretty strange conclusion to jump to. It’s almost switching to a quasi-omniscient POV to convey information to the reader, which, as I have said 5467 times already, IS NOT GOOD WRITING.
I’ve seen a number of authors say that they find first-person or third-person limited POV to be too restrictive in certain situations. And I suspect this is also why a lot of books written in third-person have multiple POVs.
But seriously?
That “restrictiveness” is the nature of third-person limited and it’s just something you have to work around. I have very strong opinions about this because I personally love third-person limited and the challenge of having to work around the restrictions of a single POV. To me, it’s like a magic trick, a sleight of hand by the author—you get to choose what to show and what to hide, and sometimes you run into problems and don’t know how to convey information that’s beyond the scope of the narrator’s consciousness, but isn’t that the point of writing? To figure out creative ways to solve these kinds of problems?
Don’t tell us Celaena “intuitively” “knows” that the king is suspicious of her. It’s lazy and a cop-out. If you really need that source of dramatic tension, at least have a conversation between Celaena and the king, not “Celaena looked into the face of the king and knew he knew that she was up to no good.”
Could he see what lay beyond her flesh? Did he know that Cain had the ability to open portals, real portals, to other worlds?
There is only one circumstance in which this line of thinking makes sense, and that’s if Celaena is outright paranoid by this point. Otherwise, for crying out loud, THE KING DOESN’T HAVE FREAKING TELEPATHY AND WHY WOULD CELAENA THINK HE DOES??
There’s a lot of purple prose that follows to establish how EVIL the king is, because apparently “conquering other countries” = “desire to destroy the world”???
Author, “conquering other countries” has a name and it’s called WORLD HISTORY.
This book sucks so hard at the “show don’t tell” thing. “Show don’t tell” isn’t a monolith; there are some situations in which telling is good, because if you can’t tell anything, your book will probably end up being a thousand pages long and your readers will get bored and frustrated.
But if you can’t establish that the king is evil except by rambling about how his eyes are dark and he smells like death (??), you’ve got a problem.
Something dangerous lurked about him. It was an air of death that she’d felt standing before that black void summoned by Cain. It was the stench of another world, a dead world. What was Elena’s goal in demanding that she get close to him?
SIGH.
Once again, FORCEFEEDING THE PROTAGONIST SUDDEN OMNISCIENT REVELATIONS TO CONVEY INFORMATION TO THE READER IS NOT GOOD WRITING!
Jump to Chaol’s POV. Some rambling about fishy circumstances about how everyone in the king’s traveling party died and the king’s being really sketchy about it.
Because we clearly don’t have enough hints that the king is PURE EVIL.
Poor Celaena. Did she know that she looked like a frightened animal when the king appeared? He’d almost wanted to pat her on the back.
I will throw a hardcover book in the face of anyone who tries to tell me Celaena Sardothien is a badass. THE BOOK *SAYS* SHE’S A BADASS BUT HAS NEVER FREAKING *SHOWN* HER TO BE A BADASS AND IT’S GETTING REALLY OLD.
I’M STUCK ON CAPSLOCK, THAT’S HOW ANGRY I’M GETTING OVER THE AUTHOR’S INABILITY TO ACTUALLY PORTRAY A CHARACTER AS A BADASS
She never hesitated when they sparred, but she seemed to sink far within herself, into a place that was calm and cool, but also angry and burning. She could kill anyone, Cain included, in a matter of seconds.
Seriously. No.
Stop TELLING us that Celaena is such a master fighter, “can kill anyone in seconds,” “ooh so badass and dangerous” when she has NEVER ONCE shown that she’s actually capable of doing so.
Also, stop associating anger with assassin. ANGRY ASSASSINS ARE INCOMPETENT ASSASSINS. YOU CANNOT BE IMPULSIVE AND UNABLE TO CONTROL YOURSELF IF YOUR JOB IS PROFESSIONAL MURDERER.
She’d looked so small when she saw the king.
…
*GOES OFF TO FLIP 100 TABLES*
