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transvaltrans · 4 months

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Looking back on the books I read this year, and was reminded of just how much Megan Whalen Turner's The Thief- absolutely frustrated and disappointed me. Spoilers ahead.

To some degree, this was going to happen; the whole series has been heavily hyped up to me, it's hard for any book to live up to such lavish yet vague praise. But, you know, I actually got through most of the book without being distracted by my own expectations. It was tense, and spare- it felt like every word mattered and hinted at an underlying truth. I love when books withhold from the reader, and nudge at you to consider what might be left unsaid. And I was so, so satisfied when my predictions paid off (totally called Gen palming the stone rather than losing it).

The worldbuilding was interesting and unique, I enjoyed that the author wasn't committed to a super specific and our-world-accurate timeframe for technology, and I found the characters compelling and variable. I always enjoy travel stories, nevermind stories about thieves.

Which is exactly why I was so annoyed by the ending.

Again: I love twists. I love being able to predict them, and I love being surprised. I did not feel like any of the twists in The Thief were unearned; it's a well-composed book, with plenty of foreshadowing.

However, one of the twists, despite being foreshadowed, absolutely blindsided me- because I would not have considered it as a possibility, due to undermining exactly what had me so excited to read The Thief in the first place. Fantasy literature sometimes shies away from politics, into pure escapism and fluff. Even some of my favorite fantasy books are pretty hollow when it comes to their fundamental beliefs, and shy away from challenging the status quo- unless it's to restore old glory (cough The Old Kingdom series).

But I can almost always count on stories about rogues, and thieves, and con artists, to at least bring up the issue of class. These characters so often come from disenfranchised backgrounds, from the poor and displaced. They're street rats and gutter scum, who have clawed their way up from the bottom, and never forget where they came from- can never forget, from the way others treat them. Theft is subversive; there's a reason we won't let go of Robin Hood, but even more self-motivated thieves often have something to say about the unfairness of wealth distribution. Stories about thieves almost always have something to say about the relationship between the wealthy and the poor.

So, yeah, I was really fucking annoyed at the reveal that Eugenides was actually the Queen's cousin. That pretending to be from a lower class background was so insufferable to him; that of course he's only so educated and knowledgeable because he's a noblemen, that it was so hard for him to pretend to be stupid and crass like a peasant. That the reason he was so pissed about being disrespected by his captors wasn't because they beat him and imprisoned him and insulted him constantly, that they treated him as less than human because he was poor and a criminal, a tool for their own use and disposal- but because he was one of them, and it injured his pride- his noble pride, not his human pride- to be treated like that. Like he wasn't one of them, and deserving of their respect.

Fuck, I hate it so much. It immediately took away my favorite parts of the book- the tension between Gen and the magus's companions, the weight of the magus having been a commoner once, the way Gen constantly stuck by himself and refused to just accept his shitty treatment- the way every monarch treated him as a means to an end. I thought there would be more tension in Gen having conflicted feelings of resentment and camraderie with the magus- I thought it would pay off with either some of them acting in his interest for once, and/or some of them rejecting their freindship and leaning back into that class difference between them.

I'm not opposed to Gen having been working for the mountain kingdom the whole time! But there are so many other ways to do that- I was suspecting that someone was holding his family hostage in some way. It's easy to imagine a story where Gen is a lower-class thief, who was also being used by his own country's royalty.

But, making Eugenides a nobleman is a subversion of the classic trope- which means it's clever and interesting. Uugh. It just exhausted me, and- disappointed me. I loved so much of this book, and it had been a while since I'd read a good low-fantasy story about thieves. It was suspenseful, with rich descriptions, and interesting character dynamics. I thought I was getting something like Fly By Night by Frances Hardinge, or The Goblin Wood by Hillary Bell- not necessarily stories about thieves, but stories about the underestimated and undervalued, peasant con artists and hedgewitches. But with more of the tension and bite of your average dnd rogue getting up to stupid shit (my go-to class since I was a kid).

I totally understand why people love this book. There is a lot I really admire within it. But man, I don't think I can get over how much that final twist- not just rejected my original interpretation of the story. That's fine, plenty of good science fiction or horror does that. But that it specifically rejects the character and story type of the lower class thief. The very name of the series, The Queen's Thief, had me expecting a story about that seeming contradiction; about the power imbalance, and a constant game of cunning, of maintaining autonomy despite being bound to a royal power. And I expect there will be some of that, in the later books; it just loses a lot of its appeal, when it turns out Gen himself is a nobleman, who was doing a favor for his cousin, the queen.

I liked that the book ended with more insight into the mountainous kingdom, and Gen's feeling of belonging and pride to a cultural group everyone else had been deriding- but that didn't have to be accomplished by him being related to the nobility of that country. None of this had to be accomplished through Gen being a nobleman; it just felt like a 'gotcha' subversion, taking away, rather than adding more.

#I emerge from the mists a hater sdfghjdf #god I wanted to love this book. and I did- up until the very end.#also gotta be clear: I was not expecting The Most Class Conscious Themes- just the basic ones all thief stories dip their toes into #anyways I read this several months ago ergo me not naming the various kingdoms. because I'm lazy and just needed to get this out of me #going to main tag it because- I'm curious if anyone else felt the same way! I've seen so much love for this series on tumblr #and again: totally get why! It's well written! it's fun and compelling and tense!#but boy it was a let down for me personally #the thief #the queen's thief

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anakinthetrashking · 7 months

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One of the things I love about Iñaki's Luffy is the way he can make a smile look menacing or turn it into a grimace in just the blink of an eye—and the way he portrays Luffy's carefree attitude that makes everyone underestimate him until he gets serious and the tone switch is just,,, monumental??

And for some reason, this all translated in my head to: hey Iñaki would make a REALLY GOOD live action Gen, especially KoA Era. I would lean in the direction of getting someone younger for The Thief, I think, but??!??!! The mischeivous, trickster, laid back but constantly observing vibes? I think he could EASILY change up Luffy's version of "charismatic in an irritating but loveable way" to Gen's version!!!

Aaaghhhh. Many thoughts head full

#iñaki godoy #opla #tqt #the queen's thief #eugenides #i dont tend to do fancasts bc i don't know about enough actors and a lot of characters should be played by someone unknown or up and coming #but ive seen opla twice now and have been watching the interviews bc the strawhat cast is so cute together lol #also his curls are perfect imo #'for some reason' i say. lol i was reading Ere by audreycritter again #and also thinking about grainjew's loyalty fics specifically 'that certain calmness' and that tag #dark ao3 show me the forbidden platonic intimacy #Ere is definitely that. right up grainjew's alley imo #anyway #very beautiful #very powerful #do not mind me i just like to ramble

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itspileofgoodthings · 6 months

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you know, for all my non-understanding of Attolia, at least at first, I reacted to Gen exactly as she did.

#me INSTANTLY defensive. like. Is he SMIRKING at her????#reader he was not #I missed the softness amidst the cleverness on the first read #because whenever someone is clever in a way I don’t understand #I become immediately insecure and defensive 😂#so for different reasons than Attolia but #anyway it looks very different on a calm reread #This is like my Steve journey tbh #queen’s thief

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kingofattolia · 3 months

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the minister of war's name was Hector the whole time 😭

#grace for ts #queen's thief #UNDONE simultaneously by how this tiny detail is so inexplicably important to me #and how it's not inexplicable at all bc MWT just chose to not name a recurring bg character for FIVE BOOKS #and we still don't even know the magus' name at all........... incredible #anyway. so much about this book that i did not remember #it killed me & then brought me back to life & then killed me again #can't wait to read moira's pen now and see if it makes any more sense than last time #still so stunned by how much of an everybody lives/nobody dies book this is .......

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child-of-hurin · 3 months

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Irene 'Man In The Iron Mask' AU when

#(movie) i haven't read the book #could also be helen w/ gen as the nominative man in the iron mask (realizes too late that them looking a lot alike is just my hc)#anyway whoever secures gen for usurpation purposes gets to break his nose... Hector later reveals he is gen and helen's father both ⚰️#queen's thief #inane post #nightblogging at 10:43... a true sunday... never thought it'd experience one again

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ah-bright-wings · 2 years

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“Why did you come if not to murder my king?" "I came to steal his magus." "You can't," said the magus in question. "I can steal anything," Eugenides corrected him, "even with one hand.”

-The Queen of Attolia, Megan Whalen Turner

#have you read the queen's thief series yet?#no?#what are you doing buddy???#go read it #my love for this series is unending #also pls stop reblogging my old Eugenides art and forcing me to see it lolllll #my poor eyes #that's a joke you can still reblog it #but I WILL be cringing every time #the consequences of growth #anyway #queen's thief #eugenides #digital art #yes the oranges symbolize Irene

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pristina-nomine · 10 months

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I’ve learned my lesson with La Passe-miroir, I won’t even breath in the direction of The Queen’s Thief tag. I shall not look for pretty fanarts.

#looking for pretty fanarts is the mind killer the little death that brings total spoileration #amazing book anyway!! gen is such a character (and gives me slight jonathan strange vibes?)#the queen of attolia showed up for literally one scene and I was already sold #the queen’s thief #the thief #currently reading #messaggi in bottiglia

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chimaerakitten · 1 year

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All fantasy stories need more politics, except the ones that already have too much politics. Those ones need more dragons

#I prefer my fantasy protagonists devilishly clever and politically savvy #yes this is because I read too much Queen’s thief as a child #anyway I love fantasy politics right up until the politics supersede the fantasy and then I want nothing to do with it

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biscuitscheesebiscuits · 4 months

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Reading physical copies of The Queen's Thief series for the first time and realizing that the maps in them are inconsistent???

#the only map i'd really seen before was K's map to P in Thick as Thieves #but now looking at the map from the last story of Moira's Pen I'm like. wait. the empire is opposite in this one.#like according to K's map C and K generally move west in TaT but the other map has them moving east #it's not that big a deal to me bc i had to read the entire series twice to conceptualize where anything was #(bc i spent the whole of The Thief not realizing just how important every nation mentioned was. good move mwt you genuinely fooled me.)#but now that i thought i had it down i am once again thrown off #also the map that's referenced in Moira's Pen shows up in the physical copy of TaT?#the beauty of this series is that I NEVER would have guessed what was up in that story even had i seen the map beforehand #anyway all i wanted was to conceptualize where Roa was & now i'm like spiraling. like is K's map incorrect bc its from an imperial lens #which honestly? yeah absolutely (it makes the peninsula look so small) but also how would the mede empire have #conquered so much land with inaccurate resources even if it is for propaganda's sake #nothing in this series is accidental so i'm like *pepe silvia meme*#anyway this is just me trying to put my thoughts somewhere ignore me my tags are a mess #The Queen's Thief #The Queen's Thief spoilers #like not exactly but since everything is spoilers i'm tagging that just in case #Thick as Thieves #Moira's Pen

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silverysongs · 2 years

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FINALLY starting Thick as Thieves

it is once again time for my bullet point comments. chapter one:

hasn't even started yet and i love the epigraph. "We think we steer the ship of fate, / but all of us are guided by unseen stars" - there are things threaded together here that i can't see but i know i will LOVE

Kamet's voice is so casual but it's so interesting (and horrifying) to see how his perspective has been informed by his place as a slave. he doesn't grab the wall for support because he'll have to see his own blood for (presumably) weeks. he sees Nahuseresh's beating as a consequence of his own stupidity rather than his master's cruelty. i know there's more of those moments later and they will make me laugh and they will make me cry inside.

the image of Kamet, shaking and sick after Nahuseresh's appraisal, even though he's bandaged Kamet, because he's still the abuser - gross. effective, but makes me shudder.

Kamet is so smart. i guess you could call it calculating - and there is some of that there - but there's something else, something about being able to understand people, to look ahead and anticipate the outcomes, that's not so malignant.

Kamet always assumes that Nahuseresh knows about the loans. wonder what else Kamet assumes? (theory: fatal flaw - assumptions?)

Ornon mention makes my heart warm!

first costis/kamet interaction is a DISASTER. EUGENIDES. COSTIS. WHY.

"My king wants your master to suffer the loss of his right hand" / costis. what do you think that sounds like. there's a reason why kamet's so freaked.

"[The Attolians] weren't very civilized" / omw. Kamet. you've got some pride my friend.

"He could have just spoken in Attolian" / are you TELLING ME that Gen had Costis learn Mede for NOTHING. later. they will all laugh about this i hope.

"...they were all still memorizing their poetry because none of them knew how to read." / KAMET. this is going to be the worst road trip ever for these two. besides being an ignorant generalization, maybe a strong oral storytelling tradition is a good thing culturally and socially, Kamet?

kind of want to write a meta on the role of Laela in this book. like. that moment that she lies to Kamet - it's kind of the crux of the plot, right? it's so subtle but it's so important and he believes her because he has no reason not to (ooh BELIEF in these books is another thing. mmm). if Ornon or Costis tried to lie in the same way, Kamet might take it differently.

"There had been a number of imperial dinners that were the stuff of nightmares." / now I want to know more about the Mede. what are their politics like?

some nobility from Kamet as he's thinking through which slaves would be tortured because of the poisoning - and how he could spare them some suffering by leaving now.

"...the lie easy on my lips" / so Kamet has the ability and the experience to lie. INTERESTING. not like Costis or Sophos, the last two narrators.

#this is so long i'm so sorry #thick as thieves #queen's thief #silverysong reads queen's thief #maybe i'll split chapters up like i did for KoA?#anyway i'm excited

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ohmysmokeythebear · 1 year

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Finished Moria’s Pen

Devoured it in a matter of hours

Obvs will need to reread many many times to fully absorb but

Might cry

There’s such a FINALITY to it

I love all the short stories and anecdotes but good lord the ending killed me

I need…several months to process

…..

tl;dr

Excellent, exquisite work, as always, 10/10 stars

#tqt #moira’s pen #the queen’s thief #megan whalen turner #it was delivered to my parents’ house so I went there for dinner #(they pay for my company in free food. excellent for my grocery budget and veggie intake)#anyway I intended to trade the dogs for book and food but #instead i started reading and now it’s midnight and I just want to reread immediately #I def still have clothes in the dryer at home rip

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ethereiling · 2 years

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okay besties and worsties i got a kindle and it seems to be a great way for my adhd ass to read books so please give me book recs

#avpswjy #gona schedule this so it doesnt post at literally 1am lmao #anyway. please tell me of the books u enjoy #got locked tomb looking at queens thief idk abt anything else #i like fantasy and sci fi and horror and classics #open to many things tho but vary rarely enjoy romance #fiction preferred but if you rly want to rec nonfiction go for it #i would actually appreciate books on writing bc i want to study it more and i doubt im gonna be able to go to school ever lmfao #but ANYWAY give me things to read idk what to pick up (in time) (after i read current things) (as i have money)#i havent read consistently since i was a kid and i wanna fix that SO BAD

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lairn · 2 years

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Oooh, if you ever read king of Attolia, I'd love to hear your thoughts! It's probably my favourite book in the series:D

Of course! I've enjoyed the first two books and definitely plan to continue the series.

#right now i'm reading a science fantasy series i read years ago but don't remember well #except that i really liked the world building #but i also like the world building in the queen's thief books and will be back #anyway if anyone is reading the tags i just finished the first installment of the book of the new sun #world building is on point as i remember - so atmospheric and ethereal with surprising and jarring details all the time #but i'm still trying to parse if the society's general structural treatment of women matches any author opinons #i feel like the women are written like real people but there's still a little of that Man Writing in the 80s vibe #but there are 3 more books so i'll just see how things develop with Dorcas and probably others

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makethosenarratorsfight · 10 months

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UNRELIABLE NARRATORS; SEMI FINALS

*NOTE; propaganda is out of order due to the post length!

Eugenides Propaganda:

the entire plot hinges on a detail he lets the reader (and every other character) assume is true. I don't want to spoil it because it's a really fun reveal but he is lying from the first second he appears on the page and you can't trust him to tell the full truth about ANYTHING related to himself and his goals. he mostly does it to keep his advantage and not have other characters be suspicious of him but it's just so fun when you realise he's been lying the whole time

Kim Dokja Propaganda:

I haven't read orv but he's fucking gotta be from what I've osmosised

He tries to remove his emotions out of the narrative soooo much, literally the most repressed guy ever. Okay so for context orv is about how this guy, Kim Dokja, has been the only reader of an obscure post-apocalyptic webnovel for years and the novel suddenly becomes reality. And at first you'll probably get the weird impression that his behavior is pretty strange for, you know, a literal apocalypse happening in his world - like yes, he is concerned with survival but he doesn't seem all that scared and he kinda treats it like a video game where he has to grind to make himself stronger and he also treats his companions like a party in an rpg. Then there's also the way he approaches the protagonist of the webnovel, from the start he just kind of describes him as a ruthless psychopath and jerk that is unfortunately a pretty useful ally. And also there's the fact that he carefully omits any mention of his past and when somebody asks if he's worried about his family when the apocalypse starts he just kinda... brushes it off? Anyway so yeah, this bastard is definitely traumatized, although I don't know how much of spoiler territory that would be, considering the fact that literally when he first reveals his trauma he's also unreliable about it. And turns out he does indeed, care A LOT about this world and the people around him. Because well, he kinda didn't care to mention that this webnovel that has become reality was like... literally his whole world before it literally became his whole world. Like, it was the only thing keeping him going for 10+ years and the protagonist that he likes to call a stupid jerk was his comfort character who he pretended to be when he felt like he couldn't handle something in his life by being himself. The protagonist is also canonically the person he loves the most according to a prophecy and he literally can't fathom the thought of him dying, even the timeline versions of him that directly oppose him. And I haven't even mentioned the Fourth Wall yet but I feel like this propaganda is a little long already

misreading the intentions of his companion (yoo joonghyuk) so many time.

YOU DON'T UNDERSTANDDD DOKJA IS SUCH A UNRELIABLE NARRATORRRRRR GOD I COULD WRITE AN ESSAY BUT I KNOW YOU LOVE DOKJA TOO BUT OMG HE'S JUST SO AAAAAAAAAAAH

Rest of Propaganda under cut!

he is the worst like actually. he starts the story talking about how normal and average he is. he is not. he is constantly mischaracterizing his friends and he's so good at lying to the readers that you don't even realize it at first. almost every single time he cries we have to be told by other characters because he never says it himself. there is literally a scene where his narration says "i wasn't crying" and then the in-universe entity that narrates the actions of people (orv is really weird and meta) says that he was, in fact, crying. honestly genuinely anything he says about himself (or doesn't say) cannot be trusted. he is just so frustrating. he drives me mad. i love him dearly. but he drives me so mad.

Dictionary definition of unreliable narrator. Does not tell the reader anything and then things happen and he's like oh yeah btw there was also this and this earlier but i just didn't feel like mentioning it. There's even a thing called the "Fourth Wall" that is able to see through kdj's bs so occasionally you get gems like,

Kim Dokja: I didn't cry

The Fourth Wall: [Kim Dokja was crying]

Imagine being so unreliable as a narrator you need a more powerful narrator to call out the actual narrator.

^ same submission, just spacing it out

This goes into spoiler territory, but; Kim Dokja is in possession of a skill called the Fourth Wall, which on the surface seems like it appears because he read the book that reverse-isekai’d into his own. However, as the story goes on it becomes clear that it’s pretty much a souped up version of his pre-existing dissociation. You cannot trust him to be honest about his feelings, his past traumas or his feelings about his past traumas, not to mention his tendency to just outright omit information that only gets revealed later on either when it becomes relevant or when an outsider POV reveals what’s actually happening.

Exhibit A: he says (in 1st person POV) that he’s not crying. The Fourth Wall immediately contradicts this (as it is literally words of the novel) by saying (in 3rd person POV) ‘Kim Dokja was crying’.

Exhibit B: Fails to mention entire actions when it shows him emotionally honest even in the slightest; we had to read from another character entirely when Kim Dokja was being physically affectionate with his companion. It’s so bad that there’s this entire paragraph about Kim Dokja describing himself hiding his eyes in his hands in jerky, weirdly specific detail and just AVOIDING EVERY WORD THAT MIGHT SHOW HE’S CRYING. The brilliance of ORV is that when you re-read the entire thing you get hints that ‘yes, this WAS hinted at the entire time’ but you have to dig it out of Kim Dokja’s repressed, depressed self-hating internal dialogue with your own two hands.

^ same submission, spacing it out (i really should've done this earlier.)

i am a simple man (not a man). i see a tumblr text post with the words “unreliable narrator in it”. i read nothing else. i reblog & tag #kim dokja okay but in all seriousness i’m just going with the musty basic example: so there’s this moment where he sacrifices himself to save this guy. as he lays on the ground bleeding out, he says “hey, you don’t like me, right? you should kill me to get some money” the guy says “no kim dokja i cant do that (going through the five stages of grief except there’s only one and it’s anger)” the constellations (twitch viewers irl) are like omg he (the guy) doesn’t want to kill his companion (kim dokja) and shower him (the guy) with money kim dokja: oh, he’s not killing me for the money. smart!

as i quote a brilliant youtube video (all of omniscient reader’s viewpoint in 6 minutes) “yoo joonghyuk sees kim dokja as a c_____”

yoo joonghyuk: companion

kim dokja: cunt

^ same submission, once again. spacing it out.

Hides his true feelings, tells the readers what he thinks is convenient for the plot and that his own personal feelings don’t matter or are not so significant. Has unreliable thoughts abt his companion and is a liar. And is also an omniscient reader.

Kim Dokja always perceived his companions in this like nonchalant way like “oh yeah we get along but really we’re just fighting to survive (apocalypse setting) it doesn’t run that deep” when they all do genuinely care for him and he does in turn. He just, doesn’t think of it as an equal relationship? Dokja’ll sacrifice a lot for them but will get seriously flabbergasted if they do the same thing, so fricking problematic. Not to mention Yoo Joonghyuk, his “Life and Death Companion” (read: husband). Kim Dokja always seems to think that Joonghyuk has it out for him, which is kinda true, but he is literally blind to the fact that he’s attached to him. Like, it’s so obvious??? Also they have hella sexual tension but that’s another thing entirely

se get some many pov changes where kdj in his pov just assumed things based on what he knew the characters would do. however because of his interference the characters have changed and he wouldn’t know that if it hit him in the face

He's an unreliable narrator because he lies to himself and thus the audience. He literally rewrote his own childhood core memory. If someone says, "this guy is my friend!" He will go through so many hoola hoops in his mind just to rationalize it. Because he fundamentally believe that no one could love him and even if they did they couldn't know him and he's just gonna hurt them. He cries sometimes in canon but a lot of those times it's not even mentioned as crying he's that unreliable of a narrator. No joke, one time this guys he has a gay thing with called him his "companion" to someone who had just killed him (long story) and this bitch thought "oh wow he's doing it for the coins (another long story) he's so smart i wish I'd thought to that. He's terrible. He literally has an exchange with something called the Fourth Wall (an even longer story) where it said "you're crying" and he said "no I'm not" but he was crying. He makes me insane because the reader is supposed to project onto him. He made me see how much of an unreliable narrator I WAS. ORV is just like that tho.

#kim dokja #kdj #orv #omniscient readers viewpoint #once again #if kdj gets this poll blacklisted again im blowing him up #eugenides #the queens thief #queens thief #unreliable narrators battle #unreliable narrators #polls #semi finals

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