#their ACoL dynamic was... So Good

[purplebass]

A comment under something I wrote about Kell's childhood got me thinking about antari and how they are objectified. I also briefly touch on their boundaries and dynamics and parallels.

I want to believe that Kell's parents cared about his well being and that the only reason they surrendered him to the Maresh family was to protect him. Imagine if Kell had continued living with his biological parents. They were likely thieves on the run without a home and they probably lived on scraps. Once it would be known that Kell was antari, someone could've taken advantage of him, or worse. Someone could've attempted to kill him. Offering Kell to the king and queen would grant him protection, an education in magic. He wouldn't have to worry about eating and where to sleep. I don't think it was an easy choice for his parents, but they did it because they believed it would be for their son's good. They couldn't know that Kell would end up being dehumanized by his new "parents" and like a bird in a golden cage.

The main og antari and how their storylines reflect each other in different ways.

Holland is the representation of the life Kell would've probably had if his family wouldn't have surrendered him to the royals, and if he wasn't born in Red London. His brother and the woman he loved tried to end him and he had to murder them to survive. Then the Danes and then Osaron made him their pet by literally erasing his humanity by controlling him.

Lila's father sold her to pay a debt and he didn't care about her. But she didn't know she was antari, so her magic couldn't be exploited and this somehow was her luck. Lila could run away from her oppressors, and in theory, is what Kell and Holland both longed for. Freedom. (Side note: that's why Kell likes Lila so much but she also gets on his nerves - affectionately -. The things that come easily to her, are harder for him. And he gets a little irritated by this but I think she also inspires him to improve and believe more in himself.)

Lila is the only antari who wasn't objectified up to this point. She didn't let the black stone or others take control of her, unlike Kell and Holland. It isn't a question of power. This is more of a question of mindset/personality. Lila shares personality traits with Kell and Holland and so do they (and they're a trio of introverts). While the other two are still trusting and kind despite it all, Lila is selectively trusting and kind. She built strong walls around her to protect herself and this is probably why she could resist possession. Perhaps this is her strength. She is also vary and hardly lets people in. She has strong boundaries but she's is selective about them.

Having been treated as servants and not human beings, Kell and Holland do have boundaries but they waver. Kell tries hard to put boundaries but he sometimes loses the fight. Holland has his boundaries destroyed after he was possessed, so it's no wonder he doesn't know what boundaries are anymore. They knew that they needed to get away and could try to leave (they were powerful magicians, after all!) but at the same time, they didn't know how. Oftentimes, the person who lives in a toxic environment knows it's toxic but is unable to leave. Holland was teetered by an enchantment to the Danes and then to Osaron. Kell was bound by duty and by loyalty to Rhy, whom he didn't want to leave because he loved his brother. Rhy was the only reason for him to endure this treatment.

This is why, once again, when Lila appears in Kell's life, she is the catalyst for his growth and for his possibility to get away from the toxic environment he was in. And at the same time, Lila appearing in the story influences Holland's story too. And they also influence her personal growth, because Lila learns to trust people a little more. At the end of the series, their power come together to destroy the enemy, which is cool.

After seven years, things have changed a bit. Kell is free from his royal duties at the end of acol, but his magic is broken and he finds himself without purpose. I think of him as a broken vase that was fixed with a thread of silver just like Japanese do (but with gold) to embrace the philosophy that humans have flaws and they're not perfect.

Lila is more trusting and letting people in (albeit still selectively), and I think that these seven years weren't easy for her either. She was the last antari left (I don't think she counted Kosika because she was still a child and uhm, what did I say about Lila trusting strangers? Read that again lol). I think she felt a huge responsibility on her shoulders, especially because she didn't want to involve Kell in any of the things regarding antari and such (see, reason why she didn't tell him about Kosika either). She was also emotionally tested because of Kell. She was desperately looking for a way to help him but also tried not to show him how desperate she was because she didn't want to show her feelings so openly (vulnerability again).

Holland is haunting the narrative. If the ghost Kosika sees is the real Holland, because I have few doubts that he is the same Holland we know. He's doing to Kosika what was done to him, but in a softer way, because he quietly speaks to her and helps her, and only later she realizes that was the reason she knew how to use her powers. He is using Kosika to act as his vessel so she can finish what he started years before. There's an interesting parallel with Kosika and Tes and the antari but I need to reread Threads to analyze it better.

If you read until the end thank you! lmao and if you have questions please send because I like to talk about adsom

[crookedcrowclub]

Review for A Conjuring of Light by V .E. Schwab

5/5 ⭐️

WOW.

reading this felt like reading a crossover novel of all my favourite characters from the previous two books because each of them were so incredibly fleshed out that this could’ve been anyone’s story. it feels as if i’ve met these characters and had conversations with them because they seemed so tangible.

Plot & Pacing

what book 2 lacked in terms of plot and pacing, book 3 more than made up for it. the story picks up right where book 2 left off and the momentum doesn’t slow down one bit. it only kept getting better with surprises and twists at every turn. if you know me, you know that books are my sole sustenance when it comes to escaping the horrors of reality and ACOL swept me off my feet from the very first chapter!

Characters

the character dynamics were much more nuanced and their interactions were TO DIE FOR (!!!) not to mention, they all had insane chemistry with each other and some wholesome moments thrown in as well. kell, lila, and holland have cemented themselves as my ultimate disaster trio and i just couldn’t get enough of them.

the flashback scenes gave a deeper insight into each of the characters’ backstory and i ended up caring more about them than i imagined. holland’s especially packed a punch. his chapters were agonizing to read, emotionally charged and tugged at my heartstrings. i saw him as the villain at the beginning of this trilogy but it turns out, he’s an anti-hero who deserves to be happy after everything he’s been through. his chapters alone were a solid 5/5 stars for me, and he has earned a top ten spot in my Most Favourite Fucked Up Characters of All Time 😌.

as for lila, she had it all: beauty, brains and brawn! but besides that, we also see her come to terms with her attachment and abandonment issues that she’s struggled with since book 1. her arc was moving yet powerful. most of it strongly resonated with me because it hit too close to home. delilah bard is basically me but in different font and i adore my knife wife so much 🫶🏼.

kell’s daring persona that i sorely missed in book 2 made a sweeping comeback and his character was even more striking than before! unlike in the previous book, he was very level-headed in this one and took on the fitting role of a natural leader who guided his team in their quest to defeat evil. he kinda reminded me of kaz with the easy way he almost always got the final word. his chapters were poignant with direction and focus, which was refreshing to read.

i was thrilled that we finally got alucard’s POV (!!!!) i like his character but sadly, he didn’t really stand out in the book for me. it felt as if he was merely a plot piece to keep the story going. things were happening and he was just kinda there. either way, i enjoyed being in his head and learning more about his past.

rhy was less annoying and bratty (thank goodness) which i think had a lot to do with alucard’s presence at the beginning. he also had lesser chapters in this book but he started growing on me around the 70% mark. i liked how resilient he was in never giving up or cowering in face of adversity and how much he cared for his people. towards the end, he proved to be a well rounded character with a satisfying arc.

side mention: the minor characters (hastra, lenos, tieren, maris, ned, maxim, emira, even cora!) were amazingly well developed and despite their limited page time, they stole the show all the same! i would deadass be down to read each of their spinoff stories if the author ever decided to write them.

Conclusion

overall, ACOL struck a perfect balance between character-driven and plot-driven storyline to the point where the characters ceased to be fictional and started seeming like actual people in my head. not only that, this trilogy felt like getting a warm hug from an old friend because it reminded me of six of crows and a couple other YA novels which i loved during that time. it was nostalgic reading it even though i’d never read it before.

as for the ending, it was satisfying but the suspense was over quick. i wanted to see more action in the final fight scene after all that buildup but either way, it was fulfilling to see my beloved characters find closure after everything that happened. i can see where the continuation trilogy is headed and im beyond excited to read it!

ANOSHE✨

[ravencromwell]

For the character ask game, Athos Dane: 7, 10, and 20.

7. A quote of them you remember: "No one suffers as beautifully as you." And before everyone starts laughing at my terrible cliche—it is terribly cliched, I would pair it with "My plaything is dead". The no one suffers as beautifully as you comes just after Athos's interlude with Beloc where Beloc tried, and did real damn good for a teenager, to be defiant, but eventually answered Athos's questions about his name etc. without yet having the Soul Seal on. Contrast this to Athos's "Sing for me, Holland" in ACOL, which Holland refuses to do.

Yes, Beloc is undoubtedly fun, but fundamentally, he knows how this game is going to go. The fact that Holland still has defiance, after seven years, seems to just fucking enthrall Athos. He makes Holland fill the blood goblets partially just to fuck with Kell, but also for that flicker of rage and humiliation Kell notices as being so out of character. Fundamentally, he doesn't know when Holland will give him the last scrap of power, and that's what keeps him coming back.

But any love or fascination or what have you is utterly gone once Holland is no longer a spectacle: my plaything, he says, in his own pov while talking to his sister. He feels "annoyance at his servant's incompetence" The one time he mentions Holland by name, it's to tell Kell how he and Holland are fundamentally flawed when compared to Athos.

Everything this man did for seven fucking years around Holland was either about furthering his goals or getting some kind of reaction, be it in his choice of conversation topics or experiment subjects.

Holland has a line that is so fucking sad to me in that context in ACOL where he says he never screamed if he could help it, out of the quixotic hope if Athos didn't get a reaction, he'd just kill him already. There's something so fucking tragic I don't have words for the fact that Holland's refusal to stop being a person, at least in small ways, and even the ways he tried to provoke Athos, were so much of what made him interesting enough to never let fade into the background as a particularly useful pair of hands. Because as we see with essentially sending Beloc out as canon fodder, and again with the dismissive "my plaything" comment after Holland's dead, once there's no longer potential for interesting power dynamics, he's bored moving on. 

10. Describe the character in one sentence.: "Intelligence has never tempered my desire. It merely ensures I take what I wish without consequence."—Athos Dane, to his hypothetical biographer, poor bastard.

20. A weird headcanon:

He may have learned to read on the coast primarily to sniff out magic, but when he arrives at the castle, he finds he quite enjoys books outside of magic. Vortalis was a military histories fan, which Athos "journey of the battle" absolutely fucking devours for the play by play.

Astrid likes the White London version of Caesar: careful, methodical, only moving when the field was to his advantage.

Athos, though, it's the underdogs. The White London Hannibal bringing his elephants in what everyone called folly; the Lord Caradoc/Caratacus resisting a much larger force. Just _immensely his jam.

And once he got started, he wanted more of anything Holland thought might rouse his interest. I don't think the Danes had any _reason to go to Grey London, but I suspect that by God, if the Mareshes Antari could go, they sent Holland there on the semiregular (I will play with the toys, too!) One of the things Grey had neither Red nor White did was a thriving fiction culture. And if you're one Holland Vosijk, who wants to be able to bring back some escapism for yourself, you'd better be prepared to bring back gifts.

Which leads me to: Athos Dane, sometime Shakespeare fan and more often critic.

1. Huge, huge fucking fan of Iago. Iago knows how to properly manipulate some people. (Except of course, as is the problem with so many people, he got squeamish in the end. If he had killed the messengers from Venice when they found him in the alley, he would never have needed to kill his wife and certainly never have been tortured and executed. But Iago pre–Othello Act Five: _spectacular.

2. Huge Richard III fan—likes all the histories, honestly. But that "winter of our discontent" monologue: gets him _every time. Richard, now there's a man who knows how to embrace being hated. (Though that he cares at all about fool's opinion of him just demonstrates he lacked an Astrid. Without that one person for unconditional affection and non-judgment, he could only embrace it so far.

3. Hamlet completely cracks him up in an awful way. Or rather, the ways in which Holland and Hamlet's desire for revenge mirror one another. "You thought you were Hamlet, coming down that hall and did not understand we were not his foolish uncle!"

4. The rest of it: Romeo and Juliet, the comedies, most of the other tragedies, just _trash. Characters too weak to dominate the way they should or unrealistic ("blood never denies blood what they want" he says of the Capulets etc. smiling beatifically at Astrid.

5. Astrid has the copy of Titus Andronicus. Major Queen Tamora fangirl "We shall serve the Arnesians their royals in pie," Athos says, when Astrid sighs over missing their opportunity with Holland.

Athos is very theatrical, has a multitude of ideas for how to stage the Shakespeare sets with magic when they take Arnes, and is very keen to read other plays.

[incorrectsom]

Holland: You know, if I ever saw you do something that wasn’t ninety percent selfish, I’d die of shock.

Lila: Oh, that’d be reason enough for me.

[purplebass]

I can’t wait to see where V is going to go with the Threads series thought I seems like we are going to have to wait awhile until then since she is going to be working on other books. I does make you wonder though about all the Easter eggs in her writing though since I read in a interview that she has everything planned before she writes so she works backwards and knows how her stories end. I always knew Holland was her favorite so I’m excited to see how she continued to incorporate him and I know she said she’s extremely exited to write Kosika. She said we already met the new main character for book 2 but it was brief and I felt like Tes considered the main character of book one but won’t be going forward? I wonder if Ren is every going to be a main character in those series or the next… like the world feels rich enough that it could continue with the offspring :)

Anon, sorry for the delay but I've been a little on/off these days :( but I do appreciate your messages!!! I love discussing this series 🥺

I've just read V's monthly newsletter and it seems like she will go back to Threads #2 and #3 soon. I mean, she didn't say it openly but I thought she hinted that after she finished her last novel she might go back to works that are part of a series because it's easier to do. I also believe she plans ahead! I remember a story she posted in 2020 about Threads. She showed her progression board with post-its, and I think her favorite way to plan is know the beginning and the end and then plant the middle. So she knows how it starts, main events in the middle, and the end. It's a good way to know where you are going. So I think she definitely has a plan, she just needs to start writing. I don't know if she'd write the two books back to back, but I don't believe the #2 book will see the light until 2025 😭 it depends on her deadline with the editor. I think Threads #1 took about a year and half to be completed (between planning, writing, editing).

I think Holland will be consistent in the future. I read that she was sad when she knew she had to give him that ending in ACOL, so him being here is definitely a way for her to bring him back because she also missed him.🥹

I also thought Tes was a main character, and I think she will be important in the future. Ren might be a main character too. In a way, being a child, her pov would be fun to write because a child's pov could be highly unreliable XD so the reader might have a hard time figuring it out lol because she would see the world through innocent eyes. I believe V could surely pull it off because she knows how to write younger characters.

Another character that might be important in Threads #2 could be Nero, Tes' friend the bone magician. Nero might actually be a royal (maybe from the fourth or fifth family in line). He might not even know about it. He might've been abandoned as a child and had his memory erased after his family found out he was a bone magician. Bone magic is powerful but also forbidden. Maybe, if he is truly the son of royals, his family might've abandoned him because he couldn't be useful to them since bone magic is illegal. The royal family might've suspected of them, so decided to abandon the child before the royals would know he had bone magic. They might try to find him again because the Hand is stopping at nothing to dethrone Rhy. They would find a bone magician super useful for their goals, since this magic is not easy to counter-attack. We saw that even a strong magician like Alucard couldn't do much when Nero used his magic on him. He would surely be a powerful ally to have, if I were the Hand. It would also show good dynamics because Tes considers him her friend and she's sort of forced to be on the side of the royal family because she has their protection. Imagine her reaction when she learns who he is and with whom he allied. She had been resistant to ally with the Hand, finding out Nero is one of them could feel like betrayal, in a way.Also, the name... lol. Nero like the emperor. I thought he would be a fire magician when I heard his name.