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johndotdoe · 3 months

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My opinion on Jaren in The Blood Traitor:

Spoilers.

Frankly, Kiva is having a goddamn awful time in the last book.

First of all, she is hooked on angle dust and back in a place she'd thought she'd finally escaped. Not so good. But Cresta is helping her through it. (I love Cresta.)

Then she's kidnapped by Navok, who basically makes her his slave. She's rescued (yay!) everyone hates her (nay!).

When they're in the market and they're trying to get information about the rings out of that seer lady (I don't remember her name, sorry), she gives Kiva two options: kiss Jaren (the person who she is under the impression hates her) or take some angle dust (which she had previously been addicted to, and only recently recovered from). That is such an awful thing to do. The fact that Kiva chooses the angles dust over Jaren shows how much she's doing for him. He hates her. She doesn't choose that option because of that.

Later, she says, half delirious, "I’m in love with him, can you believe it?". I'm not really sure how to put what I'm thinking into words, but you can see what she did for him, right?

And then he kissed her when she was under the influence, half-unconscious and falling asleep?! What the fuck, Jaren. You need the tea talk.

Anyway, after Jaren nearly dies falling off that cliff, Kiva is crying a bit (understandable), but he kind of makes fun of her for it—at least, that's the was I saw it.

Then,

Jaren: You’ve been avoiding me. I have no idea how you feel. So I asked.

Kiva: I’ve been avoiding you because it’s what you want.

Jaren: I’ve been trying to talk to you for days, you know that. It’s been incredibly frustrating. You’ve been avoiding me because you’re afraid.

Kiva: I’m not afraid.

Jaren: You are. You’ve barely been able to look at me for weeks.

Kiva: You’re the one who wouldn’t look at me! You told me you wanted nothing to do with me — so I gave you that!

Jaren: I lied.

He says "I lied" like Kiva should have known that, should have seen through him and talked to him or whatever. It's like he expects, after a whole book of hating—or at least seeming to hate—her, that she accept that he was lying. That it was all fake. I think that's unfair. He's assuming that Kiva is avoiding him because she's "afraid", and completely ignoring his own actions. If I was Kiva, I would also be avoiding him because, know know, he's acting like he hates me.

By saying Kiva is afraid, it's a little bit like pinning all the angst on her. Which, yes, to be fair she did technically steal his powers, but their angsting is on both of them.

I think Jaren has a good reason for hating her. I would to if she'd stolen my magical powers. The thing that makes me hate him, however, and not her, is the fact that after spending the whole book ignoring her, being rude, and implying that he hates her and never wants to have anything to do with her ever again, he says "I could never hate you, Kiva." It seems, to me, a bit like he's gaslighting her.

He proceeds to tell her all the ways it isn't her fault. A good thing, but it goes against everything he's said and acted for the whole book.

I get that they obviously need to make up and stuff, but I think it could have been done better. In enemies(ish) to lovers, it tends to work better (for me) if they do hate each other and don't deny it. It's more like "I hated you before, but I don't anymore" instead of "I've pretended to hate you, but I actually don't".

Because Jaren does have a real reason to hate her. He could have just said like "I'm sorry for being an ass, but I promise I see you are now. And it's not your fault." I think that would make more sense.

Anyway, this is, once again, just my opinion. I'm not trying to be particularly hateful and if you loved this book, good for you.

I hope this made sense, thank you for coming to my TED talk, bonne journee :)

#the prison healer #warning: opinion #:)#the blood traitor #i'm supposed to be writing as essay #but instead i'm ranting about the prison healer #:')

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