#acotars magic system sucks

[eerna]

I just wanted to say, I'm greatly enjoying all of these various dunkings going on in your asks atm; The only thing I know about ACOTAR is that they're somewhat popular(?) so I'm just sitting here sipping my tea and watching with delight xd Also if you need any books by dudes that don't suck!! I recently read The Warden by Daniel M. F Ford (and the recently released sequel), and it was a god dam delight, fantastic characters and it feels like a TTRPG setting/session brought to life, but without any of the tedium of needing to understand any kind of hard magic system. I had picked it up in the first place because someone had called it "if Pixar's Cars met The Locked Tomb" on twitter, and I just had to know what they meant by that. Having read it, I can say it's an apt analogy :P

Wooo happy to provide entertainment! And thanks for the rec~

[bookishfeylin]

Hello! I'm curious about your opinion when it comes to Feyre's personality when being human vs. High Fae. I feel that when she was a human she was more genuine and down to earth, but when she became High Fae she became more pretentious and put herself on a pedestal? Idk if it's because due to Rhysand's manipulation because she once said that she still remained human by heart but I don't really see it anymore.

Hi anon! Welcome!

I LOVE book 1 Feyre, but then this happens subsequently, and... this happens to be one of my biggest issues with Feyre post-ACOTAR. In my tags and posts about her personality shift, I've referred to it as "white woman syndrome," in that Feyre's behavior truly exemplifies how white women act with regards to oppression obviously not all white women but enough of them and the mindset of white feminists in particular. In short, Feyre feels, as do white women, that only her oppression and struggle in the matter, and only the people who are currently thwarting her are bad, and nobody else's problems or oppression are worth addressing or correcting. Feyre doesn't want real systemic change for a better world where humans and lesser fae and female High fae are truly treated as equals, she just wants better treatment for herself. Mrs. Feyre Archeron doesn't fight for a redistribution of power so that Lesser fae aren't, uh, lesser, or change in the magic system so that females can be chosen as High Lady. The different types of oppression in fae society are never challenged. Feyre is just given the authority fae males have (not really OBVIOUSLY as Rhysand still makes all the ultimate decisions in the Night Court even about Feyre's own body but this is what Sarah tried to write so we'll go along with this understanding for a minute).

That's it. Like you said, Feyre put herself on a pedestal, believing she deserves the authority the High Lords have rather than attempting to change society as a whole. It's because Sarah is a white feminist and cannot help writing Feyre through that lens, that oppression is bad only in that it hinders the white protagonist from being all powerful. The oppression in Prythian sucks not because oppression is BAD but because Feyre thinks that she, and she alone, deserves authority and power and her oppression stops her from getting it. Oppression is not bad because it's oppression, it's bad because it keeps Feyre from being High Lady. It's white feminism 101--only the oppression that affects white women (misogyny) is bad, because it keeps them from having the power white men have, therefore no other issues like racism or homophobia are worth fixing. In the eyes of white feminists, misogyny is bad because it keeps white women from being in the position of white men--the top oppressor. And just like white women irl, Feyre wants to move into the position of oppressor, not truly correct the issues with society as a whole.

And this explains her change in behavior in the books. Feyre gradually grows more selfish as the books go on, because Feyre is the embodiment of white feminism and ultimately wants to move into the role of oppressor, not truly correct systemic oppression. So we're told Feyre is kind, and she really is in book 1 and in the beginning of book 2, but after gaining power she relishes being cruel, enjoys using and abusing her power. She goes to brutalize people in the Court of Nightmares alongside Rhysand, mindrapes Tamin's innocent sentries, uses her daemati abilities to make Ianthe bash her hand, tricks people into worshipping her all while patting herself on the back for how amazing she is at doing so.

Again, this shift happens because Feyre, over the course of ACOMAF, gradually decides that oppression is not bad in and of itself, but that its bad because oppression keeps HER from having power. So why the shift? She didn't change immediately when she was changed into a High Fae, so that's not it. She develops white woman syndrome because of Rhysand. Because he grooms her to be like that, grooms her into desiring the role of oppressor instead of wanting to get rid of oppressive constructs in the first place. Feyre admits as much throughout ACOMAF--over and over again we hear how her "perfect mate" helped "put her back together" and "healed her" and "saved her from the darkness." So yes, it's because of Rhysand's manipulation that Feyre becomes very self-centered towards the end of this series. He grooms her into becoming this way, and while we can discuss the racism and white feminism all day (and we SHOULD) it's also so, so, painfully TRAGIC that he succeeded in grooming her so well.

[azure-clockwork]

Late Night Book Reviews with Bluejay — the Night and its Moon

Time: 1:43 pm

Regret: low. I was able to put this book down and finish it during the daytime

Summary: I’m honestly not sure why people like this. I’m not sold on the prose nor on the world building nor on the characters nor on the plot. If you’re one of the people who likes this novel, I’m glad you enjoyed it, but I really don’t understand why. Perhaps it will inspire me to create some stuff of my own.

Full thoughts:

I’m really sorry; I don’t want to be critical of this book, especially since I know people like it. I hope this doesn’t come off too mean spirited.

In theory I should have loved this thing. Two orphans, Nox and Amaris, experience trauma and then get shipped off to learn about their magic powers and become badass. Also, they’re gay for each other. Fantasy, magic, queer female leads, hell yeah!

The only problem was that it lowkey sucked.

One of my biggest problems with this book is its prose. It’s overly wordy, does not flow very well, and frequently is either redundant or confusing. The book will frequently spend two paragraphs hammering in a point that could be told in a sentence and then jump to another action so abruptly I keep thinking I’ve missed a detail. I was often left wondering where hands or weapons or people were located because it just wasn’t mentioned that character X picked up Y and then the next paragraph begins “Using the Y in her right hand, X began to…”.

I was also frequently bothered by the word choice. Most of the sex scenes have lines like “his stick of serotonin and dopamine entered her” and I gotta say, please just say “dick”. Please. Stop listing neurotransmitters. This is fantasy and also the bedroom. Why do these characters know what oxytocin is and why are they bringing it up now. I’m not kidding when I say that multiple sex scenes used specific neurotransmitter names. It doesn’t sound fancy, it just sounds strange. Also, ‘guise’ doesn’t mean that at all. Please get an editor.

I think a lot of other people have talked about how Nox being written as one of the only dark skinned characters and also being a succubus who kills/puppets men around after fucking then is A Choice, and I gotta say, I liked young Nox’s POV a lot, but once the book gets to the succubus section of her life I just fell off. It feels like the book is trying to be very ‘girl power’ and ‘look at this woman weaponizing her sexuality’ and it all falls very flat for me. “She’s so hot and can manipulate any man” ok please tell me something interesting. In general, I felt like both main characters were a bit like this, with Amaris being so badass and good with a sword and having powers and clearly being somewhat of a chosen one, but tbh, I have a lot more tolerance for montages about how Amaris knows lots of demon facts cuz she studies hard than I do for poorly written seduction.

One thing I really crave from stories like this, especially if I don’t love the characters, is a cool magic system. I’m a sucker for hard magic, but I also love soft, emotional magic that erupts at a dramatic moment. And I think that would work much better here in the story. Instead, this book delivers a magic system that I really can’t tell you about because it’s not really fleshed out, and what is told doesn’t seem to gel neatly into a single Thing. I feel like the magic (and more broadly, the world building in general) is just cobbled together from the leftovers of a few different other fantasy stories. Do people hate the fae or not? Is magic taboo or not? What gifts are possible? What the hell are demons? I’m really not sure. And more broadly, the map feels very empty and like it was concocted from tropes and not much else.

I just want this thing to be good. I really do. And it’s just. Not. I was at turns bored and annoyed by it and I still don’t get what I was supposed to love. I would honestly rather reread ACoTaR.

[kayla-2]

I'm barely getting into reading but.. what's Acotar? I keep hearing about it and I'm avoiding spoilers. How would you rate it? What's the plot? Is there an order I should be reading that series?

The series order:

A Court of Thorns and Roses

A Court of Mist and Fury

A Court of Wings and Ruin

A Court of Frost and Starlight (novella)

A Court of Silver Flames 🙄

The plot and magic systems isn’t complicated and I don’t want to spoil it but the series follows Feyre and her journey into the fae world. It has adventure and magic. It has a heavy romance plot that’s woven into many of the events and actions that goes on in the books. The series has its fault and it’s not the best books but I read it during a time where I just needed to escape reality so it’s easy to get sucked into it’s world and especially it’s characters. A Court of Mist and Fury is my favorite and most of everyone who reads the series loves that book

[wanderingpages]

is tog better than acotar helpp😭

I feel like I am the wrong person to ask this 😭💀

Like I have fond memories reading it but if I was to go back I’d probably nitpick at it too much and that would suck since I remember it like a cozy dream (same w acotar. If I go back I’d probably hate Rhys by the end of it lmao) . I started reading it as a teen because of fomo, and lowkey in my head it seemed like it wanted to be trilogy but then something shifted and it’s a whole saga now (also book one kinda reminded me of this other book called poison study by Maria v Snyder - I did like that trilogy, the magic system was interesting also there was a trans character and literally no one said anything when it was revealed and I thought that was cool af back then lmao it still is, anyway I digress!)

If I was to go back and read, I’d skip the first two books, tbh, it feels out of place but I understand its necessity. Could have been condensed maybe idk. And right before the last book, a novella that was actually a novel was released about another character doing things in tandem with the previous book I think? Anyways I skipped it cus I didn’t care for the character so there was a huge gap in my momentum. When I got to the last book I was dragging myself through it girl it was so long and just… my brain could not, I been off the addy since hs lmao what even is focus. Also I found myself more interested in secondary characters idk.

Anyways all that bein said , sjm can tell a story for sure

[a-skirmish-of-wit-and-lit]

Book Review: The Atlas Six (The Atlas #1) by Olivie Blake

SUMMARY

“I am not good,” Dalton told her, rasping it into her mouth. “No one here is good. Knowledge is carnage. You can’t have it without sacrifice.” Now, THIS is how you do adult fantasy! It's dark academia meets magical excellence meets scientific mind twisters meets character-driven competitiveness and teamwork. Thank you so much to my ACOTAR anon here on Tumblr for getting me to stop pushing it off on my tbr, where it'd likely sit for years, and convincing me to just read it already. This book featured a layered and elaborate magic system with six distinct alternating perspectives: two physicists, one naturalist, a telepath, an empath, and a sees-through-everything illusionist of sorts. I usually don't care for books with so many POV's but it works here. They're all so different in voice, personality, and motivation, you can't help but be drawn in. Every one of the characters had their own gray psychologies, their own strengths and flaws, and whenever I thought I knew what decision or discovery or emotion they'd arrive at next, they'd surprise me. Callum, the empath, is probably the one I disliked and distrusted most, but I'd argue he's framed that way on purpose. He's that devil standing on your shoulder whispering sweet, philosophical misleading nothings in your ear. He will manipulate everything and everyone without blinking. He wouldn't even consider it a problem let alone deceitful. He doesn't care. He doesn't care about anything...except Tristan. (Why? You've got me! Call him his soft spot, I don't know.) Libby is the hero-aimed purehearted underdog who is constantly battling her feelings of inadequacy. The poor thing. Somebody give her a hug, please! Tristan is the one who thinks things through and feels everything deeply, so I rooted for them the hardest. Her powers are physical whereas his are more mental. More abstract. Untouchable, so to speak. I think that combination makes for an intriguing contrast. A yin and yang, perhaps? Possibly! They have a bit of a heady unspoken dynamic that blossoms from his initial dislike. I still don't know what they are or what they will be to each other in the future but there's an electric zing! under the surface. In short, I'm intrigued to see where it all leads. Parisa is intimidating as hell. But in a bodacious, unapologetic way you can't help but applaud then shrink back from in fear. Her looks are a weapon. She may look like Aphrodite - soft, curvaceous, eye-stopping - but she will suck the sense, the thoughts, right out of people like a siren and use them to further her own agenda. It always seems like she's winning, but is she? Is she really? That's the question. Reina is an untapped powerhouse, a lockbox in tune with nature, who seems content to observe. To learn all she can. There's a threatening undercurrent to her overall silence, though, like she could be prone to detonating (lethally) under the right circumstances. I'd argue her powers are among the most mysterious of them all because she rarely rises to the bait of showing or talking about them. She makes sure as hell to catalogue everyone else's, though. A student to the core--she studies, she scrutinizes, she's careful about forging alliances. Readers learn so much about the other characters through her eyes. And Nico...Nico is arrogant and brazen and lippy, at least where his binary star, Libby, is concerned. I swear, his favorite pastime is to rile her. I still don't know what binds those two together, or how/why they're connected in physical magic, but there's something indefinable charged between them. Is it simply magic? Is it more? Again, I don't know! He also can transverse dimensions - dreams realms - where one of his roommates (possible love interest?) dwells for his own safety - which makes for a cool fantasy/science fusion. I'm looking forward to that being explored more in the sequel.

"Six students, only five available slots" is the main (yet vague) plot point of the story as well as the main mystery surrounding the induction into the Alexandrian Society itself. That seems basic on the surface, I know, perhaps a bit bland for a fantasy, but I can assure you it isn't. Somehow the vagueness of precisely what the characters are competing against each other to join, and the question of how that "extra" candidate will be eliminated, is what keeps the whole story aloft, giving it depth and density--especially since all the characters have to compete yet work together to become full members, anyway. It all makes for such riveting convolution! Just one character twist after another! I have no idea what time or dimension this story will land in next, but wherever it is, I can promise you I'll be one of the first ones there.

4/5 stars

**Follow me on Goodreads

[ilyiad]

can you rant about acotar too? i like the second book, but everyone is sk straight and white

honestly there is so much not included here i hate about these books but:

excessive use of ellipses and em-dashes aside, it still fucking sucks. it’s one of the straightest things i have ever read and it’s not even well written lmao making mor a wlw was an obvious last-minute addition to the series - which i could forgive bc, yknow, learning from the past and improving is always a wonderful thing - except her whole “i’m not out to protect azriel’s feelings” spiel was...how do i say this......dumb as Fuck

wait no there was another bit of crap representation! remember helion, our resident threesome-obsessed bisexual?  no that wasnt a joke the only thing i remember about him was that he kept trying to get people to sleep with him 

it was.......a good effort at not being a homophobe. just not a successful one! keep trying sarah you’ll get there i believe in you

WHERE ARE THE NON WHITE PEOPLE

this is !!! i shit you not !!!! a fucking fairy universe !!!!! why are they all white cishets !!!!!!!! white cishets are bland as fuck !!!!!!!!!!! make it stop !!!!!!!!!!!! 

so many opportunities and the fairies are still sexist dickbags. despite the human realm being treated as Backwards, the fairies are really no better...not only that, their society + magical system is fucking inherently sexist. why are there no high ladies? why can’t the title just pass to the most powerful regardless of gender? Who Knows

oooooh boy the fucking mate system. the fucking mate system. wow. i actually don’t know what to say. how fucking dumb is the fucking dumb-ass mate system? the answer is extremely fucking dumb!!!! it’s just an excuse for the dudes to be possessive assholes!!!!!!! what the fuck!!!!!!

also way to go having your poc-coded illyrians - who were, for the record, real people - be savage & backwards & in need of being Civilised. sound familiar? lmfao it’s both blatantly racist and just plain stupid to include it

i dont mean to nitpick (that’s a lie i absolutely do) but what the shit fucking hell kinda name is feyre archeron. when i found out it was pronounced fey-ruh i had a minor heart attack in the worst way possible. calling your protagonist Fairy Archer is the kinda laughably stupid thing id expect from my twelve-year-old self writing her first fanfic not from a published author u could at least PRETEND ur making an effort

whilst we’re on the subject of names her names have absolutely no consistency. tam lin is an existing character, is her tamlin meant to reflect that? isn’t this supposed to be a beauty and the beast retelling? how come lucien has a last name but no one else does? what’s going on? 

whilst we’re on the subject of consistency....oh boy there isn’t any

none. no consistency. not a drop of it. 

the magic system makes absolutely no sense. the whole idea of the courts is stupid. how come tamlin/his court is powerful enough to freeze the place in spring whilst Most Super Amazing Badass Powerful High Lord Rhysand’s court just has....prettier stars than everyone else or smth???? we may never know

oh also??? what do the fairies worship????? they go on about a Cauldron for ages (also they keep saying “cauldron boil me” which is absolutely fucking hilarious but i digress) and then in the second(?) book they start going on about the Mother and then some kinda Goddess completely out of the blue (well, because maas decided she wanted even more sexism and introduced the Slutty Bitchy High Priestess system) and yet they curse like we do in the real world as well as taking the name of the mother/cauldron/whatever by constantly talking about hell. this could work if it was handled by someone competent but their magic/religious system hasn’t had a whisper of any concept of hell and so it just sounds awkward and stupid

SWEET HOLY MOTHER OF GOD THE WRITING IS PISS-POOR THOUGH. they swear a lot but not in a normal way, just in a “can you tell this series is Edgy and Young Adult tm yet” because, sorry not sorry, i can’t believe they’re all-powerful 500-year-old magical beings when they curse like 12-year-olds do when they’re out of sight of their parents feeling really cool about it

tamlin’s characterisation is incredibly inconsistent and it’s so clearly because maas suddenly decided she wanted rhysand to be the love interest instead so she made him do a full 180 instead of having their relationship progress in a way that was, like...believable

feyre’s sisters??? are literally Evil Stepsister clones and i know they get redemption arcs later on but they can literally suck my dick they’re fucking useless materialistic assholes and feyre kinda flips between caring about them and thinking they need to fuck off. personally i think every single character in this godforsaken series needs to fuck off but im kind of biased

honestly it felt like maas was tryna take a page from the success of the hunger games and go for the ‘archer sister providing for her family bc her single parent is fucking useless and the siblings also can’t help’ but it felt like...how do i say this.....a Cheap Shitty & Poorly Executed Rip Off

speaking of rip offs the amount of lines that are paraphrased from harry potter & other series’ ??? “light can be found in even the darkest of hells” how unsubtle can you GET jesus

[bookofmirth]

spoiler-free acowar review

Hey friends, I was asked by @potatochile (UGH I can’t tag you) to write a spoiler-free review of ACOWAR, so here it is. I also want to thank @yumna402 and @lizziecocoa for giving me some feedback on the kind of info they did/did not want from this review, since I suck at talking about things without spoilers. It was super helpful and I basically used your suggestions to guide my writing. Most of this will be under the cut because of the length.

My overall impression of this book was positive. I’ve said a few times in other posts, but I went into it with really low expectations, and so perhaps they weren’t hard to surpass? I gave it 4/5 on Goodreads. I am struggling a bit with where I would rank this with the other books, but as of right now I’m barely putting it behind ACOMAF, with ACOTAR still being least favorite.

If I were to sum the book up in one sentence, I would say that it was enjoyable overall, but I got the impression that SJM bit off more than she could chew at times, which is causing a lot of people to be frustrated at events and characters that were either not sufficiently developed, or left by the wayside.

In terms of plot, ACOWAR was quite fast-paced, more so than the other two books in the series. I think sjm had a lot of issues and relationships to try to tackle in this book, and so occasionally things did feel a bit rushed. Especially when compared with ACOMAF, which was so focused on Feyre and her journey and recovery and was basically a lot more introspective, so this book had a different feel.

If you’ve read Empire of Storms, I’d say that this book most reminded me of that, in terms of plot, scope, and characters - there was a lot going on, and even though we were still focused on Feyre, there managed to be a lot of plot and new characters and world-building that occurred. SJM seems to have figured out some ways to give us character development and insight without Feyre having to learn the information first-hand, which... good job?

The other Courts and the characters and High Lords in them - AHHHH! That is my professional reviewer opinion, btw. All the literal squealing. But I still have a LOT of questions re: world-building and the magic system.

Regarding sjm’s writing style, I have seen some criticism of this, and I’ll say that I can see it, I understand why people see this as a shift. I think that, again, it goes back to how many questions she was trying to answer, how much plot she was trying to wrap up. She ended up being quite a bit more intentional, resulting in times where I felt her there on the page and perhaps dialogue didn’t feel as organic as it has in the past. But tbh, prose has never been her strength. It’s fine, but I don’t read her to be blown away by her use of language. So this wasn’t so much of a problem for me.

We get to see a lot of the Inner Circle, including some lovely interactions between Nesta, Elain, and Rhys & Co. There was quite a bit of tension as they tried to figure each other out, especially in extreme and stressful circumstances. We saw conflict between characters that we hadn’t previously seen, and it was interesting seeing how they all reacted to those situations and each other. Some people from the past re-surfaced, and it was... I’m not really happy with how that was dealt with, but that is delving into stuff you don’t want from this particular review.

And also - I just need to say that the developments in the Archeron sisters’ relationship as family was top notch, one scene with Nesta, Elain, and Feyre in particular was one of my favorites of the whole book.

The cover is quite nice, I got the special Target edition that comes with the letter from SJM, which I haven’t read yet, but the cover is embossed and pretty. It took me maybe 10-12 hours to read? I didn’t keep track all that well. 

And finally, Feyre’s character - her journey from ACOTAR has been really interesting. I was thoroughly pleased with how she handled herself, she matured and did really come into her own. I don’t want to get too into it, but... there were some new fairy tale and mythology elements that I really enjoyed that had an interesting impact on her character.

I know that as I begin writing fic and actual proper meta and not just ask responses, I’ll figure out more holes and have more questions, but if we take this book for what it is - a YA fantasy that is mainly written to entertain - I was not disappointed.

If you have any other questions, let me know? I haven’t written a non-spoiler review for a book in months, so I feel a bit rusty and my thoughts are still a bit of a jumble, plus I’m much more used to writing meta that really analyzes specific details, so sorry if this sucked.

[bookishfeylin]

In all seriousness though, in a way this actually makes me appreciate acotar 1 even less? I think there's a really fine line between inspiration and laziness that sarah janet constantly trips over and writing a barest bones idea with shoddy world building, characterization, and consistency based on THREE different established stories (plus all the claims of plagiarism) is...not a good look for me. And the first book is the only book in the entire series I enjoyed, so that's saying something. It makes it look like she had an idea, and rather than doing the creative work and expanding it on her own, just plugged in bits and pieces of others' works to make a story, which sucks because I have zero issues with a good fairy tale reinvention...as long as it doesn't feel like someone just took a barest bones idea and plugged in bits and pieces of the original work to make a story.

Hmm. While I have criticized many things about Sarah's writing, I think I'm going to have to disagree with you here, anon. I thought Sarah actually did a really good job of weaving The Ballad of Tam Lin, Beauty and the Beast, and Eros and Psyche into a new story in ACOTAR. YA is incredibly tropey, but as a retelling of these three stories, ACOTAR managed to keep the tropes to a minimum. Feyre wasn't a super special chosen one mary sue, she was a normal human girl who made a deal with the devil to save her love and could only hope to preserve her soul in the process. Tamlin wasn't a dark-haired bad boy with shadow powers who hurts the protagonist and then later claims it was done out of love, he was a genuinely nice guy who refused to even romance her for the first third of the book lol. And unlike most fantasy, the point of the book isn't that Feyre's on a world-ending, soul-breaking mission try to save the world, either--she's just trying to save Tamlin, saving everyone else by default lol. Although a retelling, ACOTAR is actually refreshingly original in the scene of YA. Not that it's without it's flaws, and I do agree with your point to some degree--Sarah combining the "barest bones" as you put it of so many stories came at the expense of developing any thorough, consistent worldbuilding, or a concrete magic system.