New chapter's up.

Spoiler

Though the signs have been there for ages now, seeing my boy Robber finally go out in a blaze of goblinfire was damn sad.

Also R.I.P. to the Iron Prince and Tariq's entire bloodline.

RE: Cat's new Name - we got a statement from the Ophanim that she won't get her new Name from this war... Makes me wonder what the hell the Gods are planning with her.

 

Spoiler

I was kind of curious how Cat was going to get mutilated in this book, going for both body and soul this time.

Press F to pay respect for all the people that died in this battle. Mainly for the two, maybe three people actually cared about.

Hakram proves once again he is our best big green boy.

Definitely curious about her future Name. I'm assuming it will be a brand new one just because claiming one we've already heard doesn't quite jive. That or we go back to that old song and dance of the girl who climbed the tower.

 

Goblins continue to be the best thing about this story. The absolute lack of shits given is almost inspiring.

 

Spoiler

Assuming Malicia is going to be the next Big Bad (a cornered animal being dangerous etc.), maybe Cat's new Name will help her erase the Dread Emperor from the picture? Replace the madness inherent to it with something Practical?

 

I'm not gonna lie, the previous deaths/sacrifices in the war were a bit meh in my eyes and I didn't care much either way. This is the first time I really felt much of anything in that area.

Spoiler

Robber went out like a fucking champ, but the Pilgrim burning his entire bloodline alive as sacrifice in exchange for the miracle that will turn the tide was intense.

 

The whole ritual sacrifice aspect of that is more than a little disturbing by the way. Not very "good."

 

Yeah, another reminder that Good and good are not the same.

Very curious about how it'll be spun.

Spoiler

If it was just him and the star then it's a sacrifice on behalf of future generations, but it burning up everyone with a drop of that bloodline is... dark, to say the least.

 

A small part of me hopes it's everyone with even a single drop of the Pilgrim's blood. A classic case of the cure being worse than the poison.

 

Judging by the stated consequences of the battle being lost I don't think the cure can be worse than the disease.

Also I think the Pilgrim walked into what he did with both eyes open. He was pretty clear about that imo.

 

What are the odds on us getting Shining Princess (or even Heiress) Vivienne? It does seem the most likely story wise but then from an author's point of view it might be simpler to keep Vivienne Nameless.

 

Spoiler

This seems pretty clear cut to me (emphasis mine)

Not even as he felt the burn spread through the bloodline, through every last one of his kin. Through everyone with so much as drop of Isbili blood. And the Ophanim threaded their fingers through his, heaving even as his insides charred and his kin turned to ash, until at last the sky gave.

It would be pretty sweet but IIRC not having Named rulers around was one of Cat's aims with the Liesse Accords, so it would put a huge wrench in that plot. Unless the Accords don't come into fruition until after Viv kicks it.

 

Eh, Cat has largely conceded that her position on named rulers will have to be scrapped though. It was mentioned at some point in what I thought at the time was a bit of backtracking from EE as it had previously been a cornerstone of her views.

I get the feeling that EE's plans for the ending of the story changed radically at some point a while ago as there's been a few little incidents where he's dropped some small bit of revisionism in. Like Cat being salty about Vivienne someday being Queen when previously she hadn't given a fuck, intending to get shanked by something eventually.

 

Not sure if the endgame changed or not, but there's definitely been a change in themework and internal conflict with Cat. We swapped from questioning Cat's morality to it being more about her control freak nature and power and all that. Really makes the latest Cordelia chapter all the more alarming.

Also, Tariq burning up his entire bloodline for the greater good is just peak him. Good is not gentle and all that. Pilgrim was pure utilitarianism no matter the cost. There was this striking thing during his backstory bonus chapters that he started off his legend selflessly healing plague victims, and at that point in the main story he had just weaved his plague and killed an entire town to get Black. While I definitely thought (and still kinda do) that resurrecting him was a mistake - or at least it played out poorly - this was a good end for him.

Anyhow, Dead King is just styling on the Grand Alliance so hard it really begs the question of how past Crusades made it to the gates of Keter in the first place. I guess we're supposed to imagine it's because the Bard could handle things? If the next Book is going to be all about Cat bringing Praes and the Elves into the fight, really not sure how the Grand Alliance is going to last long enough for her to do that. Definitely appreciate that Errata wasn't pulling any punches in the Battle of Hainaut but goddamn.

 

I'm kind of split on how I feel about the past few weeks of chapters. On one hand, EE is much better at writing characters that aren't Cat. Her PoV sections are just weak in comparison to the interludes, in large part because she's just an author's pet in a ton of ways and just hasn't been interesting in years. Meanwhile the extra chapters and sidestories get to play around with themes and ideas or just run a story straight and that plays to their strengths as an author.

The other hand is that EE can't do larger scale battle talk to save their life. Trying to talk through various tactics without a nice map is hard enough, but in what is largely a character based story there's just no anchor to give a damn about the maneuvers and strategies. In part it's shot the pacing to hell, not that it was great to begin with, but in general it's just made for a clusterfuck of events happening.

The standard narrative's biggest strength in PGtE are definitely the JJ Abrahms moments, where they ends a chapter with Something Big Happening which sends a chill down your spin. EE nails that how to get it done, like Michael Bay knows how to do explosions, but after a while it just feels incredibly manipulative. It's a strength for serial writing for sure, but overall it saps the energy from the story as it's just big moment to big moment.

 

Good news: the Guide is back!

Bad news: Extra chapters will be Patreon exclusive starting in April. It's a shame, some of the best writing was in the extra chapters.

 

Huh, that kind of murders my will to read any more. Damn shame

 

Sorry but the extra chapters which aren't essential to the primary characters or story being locked behind I think literally $1/month min murders your will to read? Guess you didn't actually like the story much lol.

I recognize that even $1/m is not available to some people, but damn man, the rest of the story is still great fun to read.

 

It took a two month break between the previous book and this one. Normally that's a one month break but this one was two, probably because it's the last book so they wanted to make sure they were good to go with the outline plotted out fully.