#Kotlc discourse

[camelspit]

btw i hate when people comment or post abt when fanart isnt entirely accurate to canon. like ok dipshit do u want a prize ?? should i tell everyone that u know the vackers r canonically white and only ancients have pointy ears ?? ur canon knowledge is so impressive omg i couldnt possibly have known that

[aurenflare]

shocked to find out that people are actually super upset about shannon's new announcement. like hello ?? this is the best news ive gotten all day. she gets to take her time on this next book and make it the best she can AND we get some awesome new scenes in graphic novel format w an awesome new artist AND i get to stay here in this stupid fandom for another billion trillion years. why are u bitching

[keefetheshimmerbooty]

Giving Keefe Sencen grace because if I found out my less abusive, abusive parent tried to kill me and my friends, tortured my crush, used me to hunt down the people I loved, and only cared about me because I am a biological weapon of their own creation leading me to doubt the very fabric of my own mind and morality by the age of 15 I'd probably have a few crashouts too

[phyllisamaryllis]

Does anyone just really like platonic SoTam? Because Sophie with all the other boys just feels wrong and annoying due to the romance thing, but Sophie and Tam? Only platonic.

I'm a SUCKER for boy-girl platonic relationships and friendships. I love those. Shannon, more SoTam, please?

[multi-fandom-lunatic]

shannon wrote the matchmaking system so convincingly that people online are actually convinced its a good system

[findmewheretheseameetsthesky]

Shannon needs to take the leap and have keefe and fitz stop being friends. And i don't mean the weird off-putting relationship they have going on right now i mean i need them to FIGHT. AND JUST STOP.

It's not like it's unrealistic, I've lost a best friend who i loved for a very long time and once we stopped talking I did start to view her differently. My perception shifted, I was meaner to her (in my head). It would help explain how keefe was thinking about fitz in unravelled as well. And honestly story wise, it would put a fresh spin on the current group dynamics which feels boring and repetitive. She tried to do some civil war thing in stellarlune but it didn't work at all imo and this might.

[bookwyrminspiration]

It's fun to bemoan the odd lines and such, and I was gonna make a joke, but I do think it is genuinely sad how much of Unraveled's promo is leaning so heavily into shipping.

Not because I hate sokeefe or Keefe, but because this is such a massively popular story that has so much to offer outside of a single ship, and it's such a disservice to the years of work Shannon has put in to crafting these characters' stories and world. And to the countless fans who adore the story and characters outside of this single ship.

Both Sophie and Keefe are more than sokeefe, and the way this story about injustice, and rebellion, and loss of self, and grief is being overshadowed by a relationship? See the kiss scene! sokeefe art! foster-related quote! These things themselves aren't bad, but there's no balance; they should be part of more, not the whole thing. KOTLC deserves to retain its complexity in marketing! The readers, including young, deserve to have the story not watered down for them when it's being pushed!

There's also something about how publishers told Shannon KOTLC wouldn't sell because Sophie's a girl, and she pushed through that, only for Sophie to become almost an accessory to Keefe's story here? Making appearances that focus on what Keefe thinks of her instead of Sophie herself. I don't have this fully articulated, but hopefully you see what I'm getting at

Shannon's said for years she hates love triangles, didn't mean to write one, and tries to stay firmly Team Sophie. And I believe her, which makes it worse seeing how despite Shannon's efforts, her story about a brave, stubborn, reckless, passionate girl trying to find herself and do what she can to right the wrongs she sees in the world is getting pared down to a love story.

Now we do have six more weeks to go, so we could get some variety in the future. it's just frustrating so far, and as fun as it is to make silly little jokes about it, I do think there is a genuine critique here of publishing and marketing and treatment of female led stories (yes, unraveled is about keefe, but Keeper is about Sophie), and I wanted to say something

[the-way-astray]

“within canon, the gnomes are not slaves, wanted to stay within the lost cities of their own free will, are perfectly happy to work and provide, and are generally not being exploited by the elves” and “books do not exist in a void, and creating a race of people that have brown skin and, within the series, tend to be shown serving a supposedly superior race without pay and are happy to defer to the rule of said supposedly superior race, even when offered their own homeland, was tone deaf of shannon” are two ideas that can coexist

[lavender-iced-coffee]

I've held this in for such a long time, and I have to say this. The way people on here talk about the children in this fandom is so WEIRD. You can hide behind calling them the "Pinterest" or "Instagram" fans, but these posts are actually just making fun of the 12-year-olds who like this book. And I don't mean to be that person, but the kotlc fandom should theoretically be their space not ours anyways. Idk but it gives me a bad taste to see people make fun of the childish takes that CHILDREN make in fandom spaces that should be for THEM. To call them attractions or say they have bad reading comprehension is just odd. Like you are an adult, what are you doing. And it's one thing to poke fun of them on Tumblr since not a lot of young kids are on here anyways, but its another thing to make accounts on Pinterest specifically to invade their space and lowkey taunt them. Which is why I made this post in the first place. Get any other hobby. Engage with takes by people your own age. You sound like the "I challenged a 9-year-old kid to a basketball game and won" guy.

[thatrandomlemononyourcounter1]

cannot believe we're having Elwin discourse in the year of our lord 2025

[book-lover85]

a lot of people miss the point of Sophie and Keefe's relationship (especially in Neverseen and Lodestar) as well as the meaning of "Don't hate me" "I'll never hate you" and it really shows

[aurenflare]

"kotlc should have been harry potter level of popularity" nuh uh. i like kotlc exactly where it is. it becoming a global phenomenon would be the worst possible outcome for everyone involved.

[the-great-gullon-incident]

The discussion on whether kotlc is too violent for the age demographic reminds me of a conversation my mom and Grade 4 teacher had once when I was trying to convince my mom to let me read The Hunger Games.

My teacher said something along the lines of “When reading books you can only imagine the violence to the limit of any violence you’ve seen.” So at 9 the most violence I’d seen at the time was some light blood which meant when I did read the books I didn’t imagine any scenes in all the gory detail they were meant to be imaged in or even described with.

Basically kotlc is only considered “too violent” because people our now rereading the books with more context to how bad the violence Shannon’s describing would be in live action.

[myfairkatiecat]

Okay guys I was debating making a post about it but I’m just going to make a short one with just the root of the point

You’re allowed to criticize media you enjoy, especially the writing itself, but if there’s something about the content of the story being told that isn’t your thing, that’s not an objective issue with the author

If you’re reading KOTLC and you really dislike sokeefe, you can either keep reading for the other stuff in the story that you like, or you can stop reading because it really ruins it for you, but what you really shouldn’t do is act like Shannon’s done something wrong by writing sokeefe into the story she wants to tell, I mean that’s actually pretty disrespectful to the author. You don’t have to LIKE her story, but she’s not objectively doing something wrong just because it isn’t the choice you would have made

For example: if Shannon made sophitz canon that would definitely not be my thing. However I would keep reading kotlc for my enjoyment of the story she was telling. I would not come into tumblr and start picking out every issue with their relationship, calling it terribly unhealthy (unhealthy dynamics can be storytelling devices btw) and saying therefore Shannon has made an objectively wrong decision that ruins her own story. That would just be disrespectful, not just to other shippers but to Shannon herself!!

That’s all I’m gonna say unless someone miraculously misses the entire point of this post to a terrible degree

Have a great day

[everliving-everblaze]

a few points

Sophie, even being the protagonist and hero of the story, has made and will continue to make mistakes.

We are inside Sophie's head all of the time, so we are always seeing her actions through the framework of her own justification.

SO, if you want to be able to analyze the characters' actions at even the most basic level, you have to first learn to step out of Sophie's head. Not even just to analyze her actions, though that's key, but to even analyze the other characters' actions at the most basic level of objectivity.

also

Most fans giving opinions on the characters' actions haven't bothered to step out of Sophie's head at all, instead just adding their own views on top of Sophie's.

That (plus sexism) is part of how you get rancid takes like "this character deserves Sophie," as though Sophie isn't her own character -- because people view Sophie as flawless.

She's the narrator, of course she's going to appear more flawless than the other characters. She's telling the story! And no one is a reliable narrator of their own story.

Please start thinking about these things before you give an opinion on a character's actions. I am so tired. If you can learn to do this, it will help you in media analysis for the rest of your life. thank you