*****SPOILERS*****
Zelie and Amari
Zelie
and Amari’s relationship suffers more turmoil than in the first book. It’s like
storm-made waves on the ocean.
If there opposite feelings towards
Inan weren’t opening a rift between their friendship, their squabbles would
have been softer and rarer. Amari believes Inan’s good intentions but Zelie
won’t let Inan betray the Iyika like he did her.
Timid Amari from book one is now a
confident Amari rearing to be queen. Before, she wanted to become queen to save
Orisha. Now, her focus is on becoming queen: saving Orisha is always the
justification but she acts like the role is more important than the goal. So
the Iyika wanting Zelie on the throne (sorry, ‘my thrine’) upsets Amari to no end.
Amari uses an incantation against a
maji despite promising Zelie she wouldn’t (using someone’s sacred language
against them is a bit shitty). Zelie accuses Amari of winning at any cost, just
like her dad and brother. Seeing as Amari wants to fix what her father did,
this is a blow.
Zelie blames Amari’s family for both
her parents being dead. Obviously Zelie’s upset but lashing out by specifying
Amari is harsh, especially considering Amari has worked for Zelie. Amari points
out she killed her dad and both her parents tried to kill her. So Zelie runs
away (which is, of course, the grown-up thing to do).
Zelie
Zelie
sees ashe flowing over people’s skeletons. So far, we’d been told ashe flows
through blood. This isn’t entirely odd, considering considering blood is made
in bones. But surely organs would have a lot more blood, and hence ashe, so
they should be more vivid than the bones?
It surprises me that Zelie’s always
able to raise spirits to help her fight. This isn’t a comment on her talents.
Rather, how are there enough spirits trapped in the plain of the living for
Zelie to use? Especially when Reapers are meant to put spirits to rest! Or do they
use the spirits of the dead animals and maybe plants too? Many belief systems
are pantheistic so everything in the natural world, even rocks, have spirits.
Zelie says ‘I abandoned my vow to
get my revenge.’ Does this mean that you made a vow to get revenge but you
abandoned this vow? Or does this mean that you made a vow but you abandoned it
to get revenge instead? The sentence would mean the former but the context
means the latter. Perhaps ‘in order to get my revenge’ would have been a better
choice of words.
Zelie says Inan believes his own
lies. I’ve never really understood this phrase. A lie is claiming something to
be true when you know it’s not. A belief is something we think is true. To
believe your own lies, you have to believe (i.e. think something is true)
something you know is false (i.e. a non-true). How can you think something is
true if you know it’s not true? You can’t. So it’s logically impossible to
believe your own lies.
‘Inan the prince I believed I
loved.’ You did love him. You can doubt if he loved you or if you should have
loved him, but your feelings towards him now don’t erase your feelings towards
him them.
Inan
I don’t like Inan. But he does push against bad actions to do some good. Amari and Zelie (whom I like), on the other hand, are determined to push with bad actions to do good. So Inan is my preferred perspective character (even if he still wants to impress dead daddy Sarren) because he made the biggest effort to do the right thing.
Everyone
behind the monarchy want the maji eliminated but Inan only has eyes for the
Iyika. That way, he thinks maji will no longer be seen as criminals. But he
knows the maji were hated before the Iyika even existed. But he makes point
that kodisan attack diviner attack kodison. No one takes any steps to end the
cycle.
Nehanda
Nehanda
is one mighty schemer and is a force to be reckoned with.
Queen Nehanda should be known as
‘Queen Dowager’, ‘Dowager Queen’ or ‘Queen Mother’. She’s not married to a king
and nor is she a regent. ‘Queen’ by itself is insufficient.
The queen says a lot of things that
are contradictory to actuality. She says
she can break through the defences but can’t put them back. Why ever not? You
clearly have the capability and the titans to take energy from. Plus you’ve
been willing to do anything for your son. But she was probably trying one last
thing to make Inan change his mind.
As a side note, Nehanda says they haven’t been able to bring food into the capital and yet she with a sizeable guard could sneak out to go destroy Amari’s speech? Surely you can send some soldiers to raid for food at the very least.
Roen
Roen
takes on a kinder role. He comforts Zelie a lot and it does warm my heart, I’ll
admit. He can be kind, gentle and patient when it matters. He’s tender when
Zelie feels like it’s hopeless. Well and truly cute.
Roen takes her swimming and it is a
beautifully vivid scene. They see a blue whale that glows and eats fish. Blue
whales in real life eat krill BUT there’s no reason why a fish-eating whale
that’s blue can’t be called a ‘blue whale’. (Either that or the author thinks
blue whales do eat fish in real life.)
When they come back, he’s got
seduction on full blast but he finishes it with a forehead kiss. That’s a
lovely touch. Then they share a kiss and he asks if it’s okay. But when he
touches the scars on her back, Zelie is savage to him to make him leave. It’s horrid to watch but it does add realism,
in regards to Zelie’s personality and to Zelie as a person with an awful
experience.
Roen gets his arm trapped under a
boulder and Zelie cuts it off to get out the water. He jokes for her to let him
drown rather than chop off a ‘certain appendage’, bringing in an Orishan
saying: ‘Don’t chop it till you try it.’ Whilst I snorted, it’s ‘ ‘til’, not
‘till’, because it’s short for ‘until’, hence an apostrophe is needed whilst an
extra ‘l’ is not.
Throughout the book, Roen calls
Zelie ‘zitzol’, making up humorous meanings to go with the situation. Now we
find out it means ‘home’. Oh, my heart!
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