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Apr. 24th, 2013 12:57 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
skygiantsWhen I started reading the Seven Kingdoms Trilogy with Graceling, I was pretty much expecting that Bitterblue was going to be my favorite.
Now I've read Fire and Bitterblue, and my preferences did not totally shake out as I expected. I liked both of them! But I think if I had to pick one of the books in a cage match, it would be Fire.
Fire is about a woman named Fire who is a monster, which means she has the magic powers of being almost irresistible and a certain level of mind control over others. This is deconstructed as much as it ought to be. The plot isn't really a plot, per se, in that dramatic things happen; there's a war inching closer in the background, but most of the book is about Fire balancing her abilities with her responsibilities as a moral and ethical person, which she is. It's the quietness of Fire I like, as much as anything. I like seeing the dynamics shake out between the characters, who feel like real people with real concerns. I like seeing Fire figure out a place for herself on her own terms. It all feels very solid to me.
Bitterblue, meanwhile, is about learning how to rule and recovering from trauma -- on a personal and a nation-wide scale -- and both of these are things I really like, so theoretically it should be the book I like the most. And I do definitely admire a lot of what it's doing, but somehow the internal logic of it never felt one hundred percent solid to me. There's something almost dreamlike about the experience of reading it -- I mean, part of this is because everyone is super traumatized and so they keep spitting out trauma-related non sequiturs, and partly this is because all the architecture in the book was designed by a psychopath, including lots of weird sculptures and secret passageways, and partly this is because the government policies are designed by a lot of traumatized people and explicitly make no sense. But it means you get a lot of conversations like this:
BITTERBLUE: I would like to discuss our problematic governing policies with you.
ADVISOR: Just please don't bring up bones in the course of this conversation.
BITTERBLUE: What?
ADVISOR: Also, I don't know what you're talking about, Your Majesty, everything in the city is perfectly fine.
BITTERBLUE: What?
ADVISOR: Have you ever wondered what would happen if you jumped out a window? I wonder that. ALL THE TIME.
BITTERBLUE: What?
ADVISOR: May I be excused?
And then Bitterblue will wander off down a secret passageway and stare at some surrealistic architecture and think about how none of her advisors make any sense, which they don't. So, I mean, I liked it, and I'm very glad she wrote it, but I had a little bit of a harder time investing in it . . .
(Also, and unrelatedly, I was incredibly bored and annoyed by the love interest, although I liked the way it was evently resolved.)
(Also also, even more unrelatedly, but can we have a moratorium on characters-named-Death-pronounced-differently? I actually liked this particular character, but I kept getting distracted!)
This is just me, though! I know a bunch of people who say Bitterblue is their favorite of the trilogy, and there are definitely good reasons for that. So because I'm curious, a poll:
Now I've read Fire and Bitterblue, and my preferences did not totally shake out as I expected. I liked both of them! But I think if I had to pick one of the books in a cage match, it would be Fire.
Fire is about a woman named Fire who is a monster, which means she has the magic powers of being almost irresistible and a certain level of mind control over others. This is deconstructed as much as it ought to be. The plot isn't really a plot, per se, in that dramatic things happen; there's a war inching closer in the background, but most of the book is about Fire balancing her abilities with her responsibilities as a moral and ethical person, which she is. It's the quietness of Fire I like, as much as anything. I like seeing the dynamics shake out between the characters, who feel like real people with real concerns. I like seeing Fire figure out a place for herself on her own terms. It all feels very solid to me.
Bitterblue, meanwhile, is about learning how to rule and recovering from trauma -- on a personal and a nation-wide scale -- and both of these are things I really like, so theoretically it should be the book I like the most. And I do definitely admire a lot of what it's doing, but somehow the internal logic of it never felt one hundred percent solid to me. There's something almost dreamlike about the experience of reading it -- I mean, part of this is because everyone is super traumatized and so they keep spitting out trauma-related non sequiturs, and partly this is because all the architecture in the book was designed by a psychopath, including lots of weird sculptures and secret passageways, and partly this is because the government policies are designed by a lot of traumatized people and explicitly make no sense. But it means you get a lot of conversations like this:
BITTERBLUE: I would like to discuss our problematic governing policies with you.
ADVISOR: Just please don't bring up bones in the course of this conversation.
BITTERBLUE: What?
ADVISOR: Also, I don't know what you're talking about, Your Majesty, everything in the city is perfectly fine.
BITTERBLUE: What?
ADVISOR: Have you ever wondered what would happen if you jumped out a window? I wonder that. ALL THE TIME.
BITTERBLUE: What?
ADVISOR: May I be excused?
And then Bitterblue will wander off down a secret passageway and stare at some surrealistic architecture and think about how none of her advisors make any sense, which they don't. So, I mean, I liked it, and I'm very glad she wrote it, but I had a little bit of a harder time investing in it . . .
(Also, and unrelatedly, I was incredibly bored and annoyed by the love interest, although I liked the way it was evently resolved.)
(Also also, even more unrelatedly, but can we have a moratorium on characters-named-Death-pronounced-differently? I actually liked this particular character, but I kept getting distracted!)
This is just me, though! I know a bunch of people who say Bitterblue is their favorite of the trilogy, and there are definitely good reasons for that. So because I'm curious, a poll:
Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 20
My favorite book in the Seven Kingdoms Trilogy is . . .
View Answers
Graceling!
6 (30.0%)
Fire!
8 (40.0%)
Bitterblue!
3 (15.0%)
I can't pick, I loved all of them!
3 (15.0%)
I can't pick, I hated all of them!
0 (0.0%)
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Date: 2013-04-25 04:00 am (UTC)Bitterblue's scope seems so ambitious for a YA novel that I am willing to give Cashore points for even attempting it, even if she didn't entirely succeed in the execution. In comparison, Graceling/Fire were relatively smaller in scope, so it makes a lot of sense that they would be better executed, and I think Fire fares best there.
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Date: 2013-04-25 05:31 am (UTC)And for all my quibbles with Bitterblue, I definitely am super glad she wrote it. I feel like you so often get HEINOUSLY TERRIBLE VILLAINS in fantasy and then they're defeated and everything's fine -- it was a really nice change to actually see the long-term consequences of that explored. Like, this feels weird to say, but I think writing Bitterblue was the responsible thing to do, and I have a lot of respect for Cashore as a responsible writer.