#my one issue with the burning god would be how the trifecta were handled. i loved daji and jiang

[barryhbo]

AUUGGJJFNFNDNNFNFNF YEAH IVE BEEN THINKING ABOUT IT ALL DAY……… just. the fact that literally everyone except nezha dies. the way i knew there was no way rin could survive there was no other way this story could be told. how she spend a the whole trilogy under someone’s thumb and being controlled and then once she BECOMES the one on the other end how the power corrupts her…….the way she’s SUCHHH an unreliable narrator at the end and can’t trust anyone NOT EVEN KITAY. THE WAY KITAY DIES WITH HER ANYWAY. the way she’s changed so much but can’t see it so she thinks kitay and venka are the ones who changed. the way rin and nezha surrender to each other when it matters. like i’m just auuiuiicucucgjbvgghfdhjdjdjdjdjhdhhj. fucking hell.

real!! the last section of the book was so painful to read, seeing rin without a clear enemy to fight and how her paranoia leads her to distrust those closest to her.... without a war to fight, rin collapses inwards. she turns against venka and kitay, and oh kitay😭. when rin realises she's hurting kitay, when she realises she's lost everything and none of it matters, that her story was written before she was even born, history moves in circles, when she realises she has to die. absolutely broke me. rin is haunted by ghosts of the past, she banished tearzas ghost in the first book, she couldn't understand why tearza did what she did. but finally, here in the same place where tearza put the blade in her heart, rin understands. she knows there is no way forward, the war will never end.

and it's like. rin also dies with kitay hating her. the only person who has always been by her side, the person she loves more than anyone, and she turns on him at the very end. and their fight is painful because rin could so easily overpower him but realising she's hurting kitay makes her pull back and suddenly everything hits her - everything she's done, the horror of it all exhausts her. and she realises that she's seen this scene play out before - kitay is jiang, rin is riga, nezha is daji - daji and jiang were terrified of and loved riga, and riga would've burned down the world. rin realises there's only one way to end this, to break the cycle. 'i'll hate you for it but i'll love you forever. i can't help but love you. ruin me. ruin us. i'll let you' and rin does. there was no world where kitay lived and rin didn't.

and nezha 😭 it's the cruelest thing she could've done. she made him hold the blade, made him take responsibility for her death. nezha is left alone, he'll be remembered by history as the one who gave the country away, a hesperian puppet. nezha is left, just like daji was and he will be hated just like her. he's the only one left alive after spending his whole life trying to kill himself.