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beccaelizabethOkay, title not fair, but:
have finally finished reading the epic fantasy novel I stalled on. A lot of fighting happens, a lot of things that read like random D&D encounters and contribute neither to endgame plot nor character development, especially since there doesn't seem to be character development. And while huge swathes of story are theoretically driven by the emotions of those involved, who are mentioned to be in love with each other at the beginning and end of each book, there's an utter absence of recogniseable emotion, except jealous rage from the one bad girl.
It is the most stereotype boy version book. It's all about who can crunch who. And really? We know who is going to still be there in book nine, we know who does all the crunching, why is this satisfying?
The worst bit though? The peasant boy who is secretly king was part of a bit of a shell game of body swaps, and while his ancestor the last legit king is wearing his body, he announces his engagement to his secretary. In front of several thousand people. While it is imperative to the safety of the isles that she helps him pull off the king impersonation.
And then everyone agrees this is a good thing because now they'll both have to go through with it.
The hell?
I should point out that those two aren't even a couple that mention they're in love yet. Nobody has said that. He hasn't declared his love to her, she hasn't declared her love for him. The only evidence of feelings is physical proximity. She follows him around. With a notepad, fantasy tech edition. Because she's working with him to restore the kingdom. If they have any feelings for each other at all, that isn't something the book felt the need to share with the reader.
But now they must get married! Party!
The layers of lack of consent in there. I mean, the guy isn't even the guy who owns that body, he never asked the girl, she looks panic and fear when he ... I was going to say proposes, but he never, he just announces they're already betrothed. And then the book glosses that as she's afraid he won't go through with it when he gets back? Ugh.
So it's creepy. And it doesn't know it's creepy. And it is just chugging merrily along with the wedding preparations at the end of the book because the peasant prince guy saves teh day and gets his body back and gets the girl!
At no point has the girl been asked if she wants to be got.
Ugh.
There are girl point of view characters too, but they don't feel the need to think about feelings, or the people they love. Bad girl thinks about jealousy and concludes she hates the woman who distracts men with her cleavage and then kills them but she hates them because cleavage and sex and if she wanted a guy she'd just go for it, rather than, you know, killing. Because it's a killing people book, nobody can just hate people for killing. So instead of having actual positive emotions towards a guy the bad girl just kind of hates herself for not jumping on that. Ugh.
But mostly it tries so hard to avoid feelings that the characters are just killing machines wandering a fantasy landscape occasionally deciding wrong about which things to kill.
Why does he think we want to read a giant epic series of that?
Fanfiction is just playing a very different game than a lot of published fiction. Even when it's all plot and a lot of things happen, it's all about feels. You want to put your characters through things and watch them react and feel for them whenever stuff happens. It's not so much about what they do to the world, that's not the interesting bit, so even if they do something interesting like declare independence then the important bit is what it does to their relationships.
Why is that so rare when I venture into male authored books?
Their cut out people are just disturbing.
have finally finished reading the epic fantasy novel I stalled on. A lot of fighting happens, a lot of things that read like random D&D encounters and contribute neither to endgame plot nor character development, especially since there doesn't seem to be character development. And while huge swathes of story are theoretically driven by the emotions of those involved, who are mentioned to be in love with each other at the beginning and end of each book, there's an utter absence of recogniseable emotion, except jealous rage from the one bad girl.
It is the most stereotype boy version book. It's all about who can crunch who. And really? We know who is going to still be there in book nine, we know who does all the crunching, why is this satisfying?
The worst bit though? The peasant boy who is secretly king was part of a bit of a shell game of body swaps, and while his ancestor the last legit king is wearing his body, he announces his engagement to his secretary. In front of several thousand people. While it is imperative to the safety of the isles that she helps him pull off the king impersonation.
And then everyone agrees this is a good thing because now they'll both have to go through with it.
The hell?
I should point out that those two aren't even a couple that mention they're in love yet. Nobody has said that. He hasn't declared his love to her, she hasn't declared her love for him. The only evidence of feelings is physical proximity. She follows him around. With a notepad, fantasy tech edition. Because she's working with him to restore the kingdom. If they have any feelings for each other at all, that isn't something the book felt the need to share with the reader.
But now they must get married! Party!
The layers of lack of consent in there. I mean, the guy isn't even the guy who owns that body, he never asked the girl, she looks panic and fear when he ... I was going to say proposes, but he never, he just announces they're already betrothed. And then the book glosses that as she's afraid he won't go through with it when he gets back? Ugh.
So it's creepy. And it doesn't know it's creepy. And it is just chugging merrily along with the wedding preparations at the end of the book because the peasant prince guy saves teh day and gets his body back and gets the girl!
At no point has the girl been asked if she wants to be got.
Ugh.
There are girl point of view characters too, but they don't feel the need to think about feelings, or the people they love. Bad girl thinks about jealousy and concludes she hates the woman who distracts men with her cleavage and then kills them but she hates them because cleavage and sex and if she wanted a guy she'd just go for it, rather than, you know, killing. Because it's a killing people book, nobody can just hate people for killing. So instead of having actual positive emotions towards a guy the bad girl just kind of hates herself for not jumping on that. Ugh.
But mostly it tries so hard to avoid feelings that the characters are just killing machines wandering a fantasy landscape occasionally deciding wrong about which things to kill.
Why does he think we want to read a giant epic series of that?
Fanfiction is just playing a very different game than a lot of published fiction. Even when it's all plot and a lot of things happen, it's all about feels. You want to put your characters through things and watch them react and feel for them whenever stuff happens. It's not so much about what they do to the world, that's not the interesting bit, so even if they do something interesting like declare independence then the important bit is what it does to their relationships.
Why is that so rare when I venture into male authored books?
Their cut out people are just disturbing.