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rainwatersparkLast time, ragecapslock part 2.
Chapter 45
Celaena, Nox, and the other remaining contestants are training. Nox notices the new scars on her hand, which makes sense, since thieves probably pay a lot of attention to detail.
He demands to know what’s going on, and Celaena is kind of sketchy about it but he makes several dramatic leaps in deductive reasoning to correctly figure out that she’s Celaena Sardothien.
You know, it really feels like characters in this book are oblivious morons until the plot decides they really need to know something, at which point they suddenly metamorphose into Sherlock Freaking Holmes, if not outright mindreaders. (Good writing, what’s that?)
“All of this time, I thought you were just some pretty girl from Bellhaven who stole jewels to get her father’s attention. Little did I know that the blond-haired girl was Queen of the Underworld.”
FOR PETE’S SAKE, it’s “all this time,” not “all of this time,” what the hell was the editor for this book being paid for??!
I went back to check Celaena’s fake background, and it really makes no sense at all that people actually bought her cover story.
As a reminder: “Lillian Gordaina” was supposedly the daughter of a wealthy merchant, the sole heir to his fortune, who moonlighted as a jewel thief.
Things that the daughter of a wealthy merchant should NOT be able to do:
- Throw knives
- Archery
- Duel with weapons
- and probably everything else Celaena did during the tests
Like??? Was NO ONE scratching their heads about this during the entire competition?????
Also, while this is more implicit than anything, the book seems to assume that “heir to wealthy merchant’s fortune” = “rich girl with nothing better to do in her time than steal jewels.” Hahaha NO. As the sole child of a merchant, “Lillian” would have been trained from childhood in bookkeeping, negotiation, and all the skills she would need in order to manage the family business upon the death of her father. Especially since her mother was dead, meaning “Lillian” would’ve been busy helping her father all along.
Celaena advises Nox to leave, so Nox leaves, because apparently the book likes him too much to eliminate him through the competition. Meh.
Jump to Kaltain’s POV, and she still has health issues because Reasons. She passes by Cain and has this weird hallucination of him surrounded by darkness and…winged animals?
This book is losing coherency really fast.
Jump back to Celaena’s POV. (Well that preceding scene sure was useless.) She’s playing chess with Dorian because Reasons. Not that an assassin should ever know how to play chess.
“No. I’ll play like a man and accept my losses!”
I’m just facepalming so hard at this point.
Celaena brings up the fact that she saw the king and once again she’s so terrified by the memory that she starts trembling and whispering.
…What did I JUST SAY IN THE LAST CHAPTER??!!?
GODDAMMIT, BOOK
To stop Dorian from asking questions, Celaena tackle-kisses him. Because Reasons.
She let the touch, the taste of him fill the room of her mind with water.
*facepalm*
There’s beautifully poetic writing and then there’s writing that tries too hard to be poetic and winds up sounding pretentious at best and incomprehensible at worst. Honestly, in these cases, I wish authors would just quit it with the terrible attempts at poetry. Just don’t.
Later on during the night, Celaena is being emo and thinking about Cain or the ridderak coming after her again.
…Wait, didn’t she kill the ridderak? Or is she implying that Cain can summon another one?
Book, what is coherency.
Also, Celaena is still scared of Cain. GODDAMMIT, BOOK.
She thinks about how she shouldn’t have left the sword in the tomb. Uh, yeah, she really shouldn’t have.
Then she has a nightmare, and I’m not sure if it’s supposed to be symbolic or something, but whatever.
Chapter 46
Dorian is out hunting today. Why? Because Reasons.
He’s thinking about Celaena because Romance Plot.
…Aaaand there’s nothing else to say before it jumps back to Celaena’s POV.
Celaena stood before her balcony doors, staring down at Rifthold. The roofs were still snow-covered, and lights twinkled in every home. It might have looked beautiful, had she not known what corruption and filth dwelt within it.
???
What corruption? Crime? Slavery? Immoral politics??
Seriously, you can’t just throw out a line like that, vilifying the entire city/population of a city, without any explanation whatsoever.
And what monstrosity ruled over it all.
King who conquers other countries = COMPLETE MONSTER.
Sigh.
She’d had a say as Adarlan’s Assassin. Even with Arobynn Hamel running her life, she’d always had a say in what jobs she took. No children. No one from Terrasen. But the king could tell her to kill anyone.
GOD. EFFING. DAMMIT.
THERE IS SO MUCH WRONG HERE I CAN’T EVEN.
1. Why was Arobynn Hamel “running her life”? I thought once she was fully trained, and especially once she paid off her debt, she parted ways with him? She certainly doesn’t have a reason to want to stick around with him. What the hell??
2. “No children.” Hahahahaha. Who the hell hires an assassin to kill a child?! Assassinations are ordered on people who have power, which is not going to be a child. Maybe, maybe someone would want to kill the child of their rival to send them a message, if there’s a bitter, personal feud going on. But (a) that’s a terrible idea, because you’re just inviting vengeance on yourself, and (b) hire a garden-variety thug or someone similar to do it, children are incredibly easy to kill, you don’t need to waste money on an assassin.
I will grant that it’s possible to hire an assassin to kill an entire family, which could include children, again as part of some sort of personal vendetta. But I seriously doubt that this is a normal kind of job.
3. “No one from Terrasen.” Because once again the author actually expects us to believe that everyone from Terrasen is pure and good and saintly, but people from Adarlan are fair game? The hell is this reasoning?? And if it’s just because Celaena loves the place of her birth and can’t bear to kill anyone from there for sentimental reasons, professional murderers ARE NOT GOING TO BE SENTIMENTAL PEOPLE.
4. You know why Celaena “always had a say in what jobs she took”? Because, once again, the author fails to accept that assassin means professional murderer.
I wrote some extensive fanfiction on assassins (hi, Captain America: The Winter Soldier) and spent a lot of time trying to get into the head of an assassin. So it makes me really angry now when authors don’t put a lot of thought into how to portray a criminal and/or sanitize murder. (Sanitizing murder is probably worse.)
I talked early on in the book about how assassins are not rich, meaning that in most cases they will not be able to turn down a job, because that’s turning down money. Also, a highly skilled assassin will be able to accomplish a job while keeping the body count to a minimum, but things can go wrong during a job, and if someone stumbles into the murder scene, an assassin will probably have to kill that person to keep them quiet, otherwise they’ll risk being caught or at the very least known to law enforcement. It’s naïve to think that assassins will only ever need to kill the person they’ve been hired to kill.
This is also a cheap way to say Celaena got to exercise moral judgment when deciding whom to kill, which is totally negating the purpose of assassins. Don’t want to get into the fact that assassins probably kill people who “don’t deserve it”? Then don’t write about an assassin. You cannot have your cake and eat it too when it comes to writing about murderers.
Celaena rambles about how she has a lot to lose in her duel tomorrow. All I care about is seeing this book end soon. (Though we’ve still got 9 chapters to go, groan.)
Chapter 45
Celaena, Nox, and the other remaining contestants are training. Nox notices the new scars on her hand, which makes sense, since thieves probably pay a lot of attention to detail.
He demands to know what’s going on, and Celaena is kind of sketchy about it but he makes several dramatic leaps in deductive reasoning to correctly figure out that she’s Celaena Sardothien.
You know, it really feels like characters in this book are oblivious morons until the plot decides they really need to know something, at which point they suddenly metamorphose into Sherlock Freaking Holmes, if not outright mindreaders. (Good writing, what’s that?)
“All of this time, I thought you were just some pretty girl from Bellhaven who stole jewels to get her father’s attention. Little did I know that the blond-haired girl was Queen of the Underworld.”
FOR PETE’S SAKE, it’s “all this time,” not “all of this time,” what the hell was the editor for this book being paid for??!
I went back to check Celaena’s fake background, and it really makes no sense at all that people actually bought her cover story.
As a reminder: “Lillian Gordaina” was supposedly the daughter of a wealthy merchant, the sole heir to his fortune, who moonlighted as a jewel thief.
Things that the daughter of a wealthy merchant should NOT be able to do:
- Throw knives
- Archery
- Duel with weapons
- and probably everything else Celaena did during the tests
Like??? Was NO ONE scratching their heads about this during the entire competition?????
Also, while this is more implicit than anything, the book seems to assume that “heir to wealthy merchant’s fortune” = “rich girl with nothing better to do in her time than steal jewels.” Hahaha NO. As the sole child of a merchant, “Lillian” would have been trained from childhood in bookkeeping, negotiation, and all the skills she would need in order to manage the family business upon the death of her father. Especially since her mother was dead, meaning “Lillian” would’ve been busy helping her father all along.
Celaena advises Nox to leave, so Nox leaves, because apparently the book likes him too much to eliminate him through the competition. Meh.
Jump to Kaltain’s POV, and she still has health issues because Reasons. She passes by Cain and has this weird hallucination of him surrounded by darkness and…winged animals?
This book is losing coherency really fast.
Jump back to Celaena’s POV. (Well that preceding scene sure was useless.) She’s playing chess with Dorian because Reasons. Not that an assassin should ever know how to play chess.
“No. I’ll play like a man and accept my losses!”
I’m just facepalming so hard at this point.
Celaena brings up the fact that she saw the king and once again she’s so terrified by the memory that she starts trembling and whispering.
…What did I JUST SAY IN THE LAST CHAPTER??!!?
GODDAMMIT, BOOK
To stop Dorian from asking questions, Celaena tackle-kisses him. Because Reasons.
She let the touch, the taste of him fill the room of her mind with water.
*facepalm*
There’s beautifully poetic writing and then there’s writing that tries too hard to be poetic and winds up sounding pretentious at best and incomprehensible at worst. Honestly, in these cases, I wish authors would just quit it with the terrible attempts at poetry. Just don’t.
Later on during the night, Celaena is being emo and thinking about Cain or the ridderak coming after her again.
…Wait, didn’t she kill the ridderak? Or is she implying that Cain can summon another one?
Book, what is coherency.
Also, Celaena is still scared of Cain. GODDAMMIT, BOOK.
She thinks about how she shouldn’t have left the sword in the tomb. Uh, yeah, she really shouldn’t have.
Then she has a nightmare, and I’m not sure if it’s supposed to be symbolic or something, but whatever.
Chapter 46
Dorian is out hunting today. Why? Because Reasons.
He’s thinking about Celaena because Romance Plot.
…Aaaand there’s nothing else to say before it jumps back to Celaena’s POV.
Celaena stood before her balcony doors, staring down at Rifthold. The roofs were still snow-covered, and lights twinkled in every home. It might have looked beautiful, had she not known what corruption and filth dwelt within it.
???
What corruption? Crime? Slavery? Immoral politics??
Seriously, you can’t just throw out a line like that, vilifying the entire city/population of a city, without any explanation whatsoever.
And what monstrosity ruled over it all.
King who conquers other countries = COMPLETE MONSTER.
Sigh.
She’d had a say as Adarlan’s Assassin. Even with Arobynn Hamel running her life, she’d always had a say in what jobs she took. No children. No one from Terrasen. But the king could tell her to kill anyone.
GOD. EFFING. DAMMIT.
THERE IS SO MUCH WRONG HERE I CAN’T EVEN.
1. Why was Arobynn Hamel “running her life”? I thought once she was fully trained, and especially once she paid off her debt, she parted ways with him? She certainly doesn’t have a reason to want to stick around with him. What the hell??
2. “No children.” Hahahahaha. Who the hell hires an assassin to kill a child?! Assassinations are ordered on people who have power, which is not going to be a child. Maybe, maybe someone would want to kill the child of their rival to send them a message, if there’s a bitter, personal feud going on. But (a) that’s a terrible idea, because you’re just inviting vengeance on yourself, and (b) hire a garden-variety thug or someone similar to do it, children are incredibly easy to kill, you don’t need to waste money on an assassin.
I will grant that it’s possible to hire an assassin to kill an entire family, which could include children, again as part of some sort of personal vendetta. But I seriously doubt that this is a normal kind of job.
3. “No one from Terrasen.” Because once again the author actually expects us to believe that everyone from Terrasen is pure and good and saintly, but people from Adarlan are fair game? The hell is this reasoning?? And if it’s just because Celaena loves the place of her birth and can’t bear to kill anyone from there for sentimental reasons, professional murderers ARE NOT GOING TO BE SENTIMENTAL PEOPLE.
4. You know why Celaena “always had a say in what jobs she took”? Because, once again, the author fails to accept that assassin means professional murderer.
I wrote some extensive fanfiction on assassins (hi, Captain America: The Winter Soldier) and spent a lot of time trying to get into the head of an assassin. So it makes me really angry now when authors don’t put a lot of thought into how to portray a criminal and/or sanitize murder. (Sanitizing murder is probably worse.)
I talked early on in the book about how assassins are not rich, meaning that in most cases they will not be able to turn down a job, because that’s turning down money. Also, a highly skilled assassin will be able to accomplish a job while keeping the body count to a minimum, but things can go wrong during a job, and if someone stumbles into the murder scene, an assassin will probably have to kill that person to keep them quiet, otherwise they’ll risk being caught or at the very least known to law enforcement. It’s naïve to think that assassins will only ever need to kill the person they’ve been hired to kill.
This is also a cheap way to say Celaena got to exercise moral judgment when deciding whom to kill, which is totally negating the purpose of assassins. Don’t want to get into the fact that assassins probably kill people who “don’t deserve it”? Then don’t write about an assassin. You cannot have your cake and eat it too when it comes to writing about murderers.
Celaena rambles about how she has a lot to lose in her duel tomorrow. All I care about is seeing this book end soon. (Though we’ve still got 9 chapters to go, groan.)
