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Sep 2, 2021Liked by Jonathan L. Rutan

Admittedly, I'm really not *huge* into such stark fantasy, but it has been a long time since I've read a story that straight up tells you what's going to happen. Jury's out on how effective this is going to be, but props for doing something a little different. Then you've got Galadriel over here all like,

In place of a Dark Lord you would have a Queen

Not dark but beautiful and terrible as the dawn

Treacherous is this deed

Stronger than the Foundations of the Earth

All shall love me and despair!

Anyway.

A couple things that I liked: I liked the bit about the Elves turning away so they could not look upon an image of their dead queen. I also like the hint that SpellMaker has been abandoned by the Father and seems to be using magic out of propriety only versus religiosity. (It makes sense to me, but I get it if it doesn't make sense to you.) It gives a little depth to the Elves as a whole as well as SM.

Last time you were all worried that the conversation was going to be too much like an info dump. I didn't think so, but my opinion only. This kind of feels like an info dump, or maybe a deus ex machina. Literally everything is being solved via Remembrance. Everything. We've gone from Elves and Centaurs and Man and Errun and Thrones and this and that to standard black-and-white, one line on the battlefield, for Narnia and Aslan. All of the factions on the white side are being condensed down via Remembrance with basically zero nuance. Maybe this will change as more factions are introduced, but when you have a savior character (or characters), different groups are going to have different ideas on how this savior is supposed to save them. Battle, politics, miracles, hands-on, hands-off, etc. Maybe it's coming, I don't know.

Meanwhile, all of the factions on the black side are pretty well already condensed down just as "bad guys led by Syndon (and now Ophallo, which was a nice tidbit, by the way; totally approve)" but, since there is little time given to that camp, I don't know, maybe there are politics going on there. Not going to expound more than that.

The general feel that I'm getting is that this entire story so far is actually the last couple chapters of a larger novel and they're getting blown up way out of proportion. Like, the king is killed, the hero is framed, there's war and conflict, and finally the hero is able to definitively clear his name, so he goes around to recollect his scattered allies and marches to the castle to defeat the true villain once and for all. But we're just going to take the fun bit, where the hero clears his name and defeats the enemy, and draw it out. Anything that needs to be known will just be dreams or memories or a random servant. And it will only be the super relevant bits in order to make the plot happen, but with no emotional or political depth. It's like taking The Hobbit and repeatedly murdering it for money over three movies, somehow taking one or two chapters at the end and making a near 3-hour movie out of it. I mean, even the Ringwraiths were converted via Remembrance at the Pool so there isn't even a lingering predator prodding the heroes on.

I also feel like you're trying to take a Game of Thrones approach to the launch of this particular adventure, in that, okay, this last adventure (GoT: killing the Mad King and installing Robert) is finally complete, things are pretty cleaned up, but now there's this new threat that stems from it (some still call him Usurper, Dany and her brother across the sea, other groups who want independence) and it's just another piece of history to go through. But it's being set up more as the, as stated before, black-and-white, one line on the battlefield, for Narnia and Aslan.

My personal problem is that I expect a more advanced reading, so I have a hard time stepping down to simpler, younger stuff. (Although, quite honestly, I think the Warriors series had better politics, and those were talking cats intended for an 8-12yo audience.)

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