cannot believe i have to say this but. oralie is not sophie’s mom. i repeat. oralie is not sophie’s mom. edaline is. that’s kind of like. the point of the series
Keeper Suggestions: Fitz Should Have Died In Flashback
Disclaimers: I love fitz as a character. This isn't a "I hate him and want him GONE" post because that's not really helpful. I also enjoy dissecting stories, and the recent books (in my opinion) have been ass. This is basically a part of a series of suggestions about what I think could have been changed within the book series to solve some of the massive issues in the plot. I don’t think I'm better then Shannon, nor do I hate the author. I just like this book series, analysis, and writing, so decided to take up doing this.
Flashback is genuinely one of my favorite books in this series, which a LOT of people don't agree with. Mostly because half the book takes place in the Healing Center (which as someone who likes reading gore and medical trauma was awesome). I also liked it because its one of the few times in the series where Fitz is well and truly angry for a long period of time, and that anger is actually completely justified and then ignored (which i thought was an interesting set-up for angst potential down the line).
Then Shannon gave us the line "Can you live with yourselves if someone else dies tonight?" on page 764 and then didn’t kill anyone off. Except Umber, who we also met in that book and who (beyond being liked in the fandom) was not someone people were routing for?
Fitz’s character after Flashback isn't used at all. His character arc, which I would describe as a negative character arc fueled by anger and mental health issues in the face of people just not listening when he's objectively correct about things, pretty much ends here. In Legacy, he does that weird thing in London, breaks up with sophie, and is in the same city as Keefe when he gets cocooned. In Unlocked he is sad about Keefe. In Stellarlune he does more- calling out Sophie for the storehouse fire being dumb, gets angry about their breakup then apologizes, gets angry about Sokeefe, then just kind of relents at the end and stops trying. Diving into Stellarlune Fitz is a whole other post but basically: Fitz has 0 impact on the story or characters after Flashback, in any way that couldn't have been accomplished by another character or creative writing choices.
What do you do with a character who you don't know what to do with, who has a good line about living with yourself if someone dies, who's reached the bottom of they're negative arc and who your plotting for in the next few books tells you won't have a very large impact? You kill them off.
Not to mention it... wouldn't be groundbreaking plot wise? Fitz is disabled, by that point in Flashback he can't even walk properly. So, how the hell did he run away from the mutant trolls in canon? No one helped him, no one paid attention, everyone split up and decided it would be fine. Because it always is.
But then it isn't. Fitz got torn to pieces because no one thought through what they were doing. No one at any point went through the checks an balances to make sure everyone was safe. No one listened to Fitz- who again is disabled. Who knows they've gotten lucky over and over again. Who's sister is covered in horrific scars because she almost died.
Fitz, who knows with how his leg is now, that he can't run away. Fitz, who knows he's not going to get lucky anymore.
Because if Fifz actually died in Flashback:
His "Can you live with yourself if someone else dies tonight?" line suddenly actually means something (I still argue its his best line in this book hands down, the button one is stupid).
Fitzphie ends abruptly, and then we can get into the angst from a character like Grizel (as Biana doesn't seem to Fitz confident) about Fitz not wanting to be in a relationship or smth. Sophie grieving a relationship that never got to start, only to realize Fitz never wanted it to- not in that way- but felt forced anyways. (talking about ow the matchmaking system removes want and therefore consent from the equation for people, as its already set up to be an allegory for arranged marriages and heteronormity)
Sokeefe suddenly has a Fitz shaped issue they have to work around, because neither of them would take this well. Keefe tends to get angry and snapy and hide things when he's guilty/grieving, and in this case I think it would snowball. Sophie tends to get pushy, clingy, and dissociate. This would make Keefe leaving in Unlocked feel more final, if all wasn't well in Sokeefe land before he left.
The collective mind-numbing guilt of ignoring, mocking, and belittling Fitz anger and concern over the incredibly stupid choices made by everyone around him, only for those choices to be the thing that killed him. The "Fitz was right" that honestly should have happened in the main series with Alvar that never did
We don’t get any Keefe & Alvar scene. In this case, that never happens. Because Alvar killed Fitz, and Keefe- guilty, grieving, angry, and looking for someone to direct it at to not have to acknowledge his hand in Fitz dead- would probably kill him if given the chance, or at the least not give the man a second of his time
Actually impactful "Keefe-In-Humanland". Because it stops being about just hiding from the Neverseen and getting his ability in check (which he doesn't in canon). It's now also figuring out how to deal with the emotions that the Lost Cities refuses to let him feel, aka Keefe actually gets a character arc and changes as a person! Because that was SUCH a good opportunity and it went to waste.
Everyone has to take a moment to realize they have been getting lucky. They've never actually planned anything, and continuing to be reckless (COUGH COUGH like burning down a storehouse full of intell, which is the only thing the Neverseen has that they don't COUGH COUGH) is going to get more people killed.
Alden and Della facing the fact that they fucked up big time. Grizel just grieving and being upset. Idk we didn't see nearly enough of her relationship with Fitz, and I think it would be interesting to see how she would react after he died. Because part of me really thinks that she never liked Alvar back on the property and did listen to Fitz- because again Fitz was right? And Grizel ISNT an idiot as seen by the fact out of everyone's relationship with They're bodyguard, Fitz is one of the few that actually willingly brings Grizel everywhere, where Grizel listens and trusts Fitz, and the others presence seems to mutually be beneficial (AKA Grizel seems to be one of the only ones actually doing her job. No hate to Sandor, but dude's charge leaves his ass evey 5 seconds)
After his death, everyone has to take a minute to realize Fitz had no one. His funeral comes around, and no one knows what to say. Because what did they genuinely know about him? His favorite colour? That he liked baking? That he hated Alvar? They don't know him, none of them. And they have to all take a minute to realize that, and reflect on their own relationships.
Shannon has a major issue in her writing where she believes giving a team a label suddenly makes them close. That's just.. fundamentally not how that works. You need to have characters reflect, grow, earn trust, and begin to actually mean something to eachother.
We don't get a moment in KOTLC. There's never a real pause where the focus stops being on action or shipping or drama for the characters to mourn, grieve, or just be in a dark place without an expectation of it being apart of something larger. Sophie grieves her human parnets in Nightfall, but its so she has motives to push the plot forward. We have Kenric's funeral, but its just to have Sophie read the ogre kinds mind. This isn't bad writing, but at some point you do need to take a pause and let the audience feel the emotions of the characters.
You also need a backbone as your series goes on. In KOLTC that backbone in bk 1 was finding the Neverseen, but now the Neverseen have changed 12 times, half the book is shipping, and we have a whole starstone plotline. There's no tie-in because the original horror, trauma, and pain that made the first book so good has just been lost in the later ones. Fitz death could have been that backbone and given later books a foundation to work off of. Sometimes a base doesn't need to be a plotline (in the traditional sense) but you need something that continues to matter to every character chapter to chapter and book to book. We don't have that, and Fitz absence could have been it
Fitz should have died in Flashback, he stopped being important to the plot, and his death would have been a fantasies narrative device for the next 3 books to lean on, but now the series is slowly pittering out as Shannon stops being abel to figure out what to do with Fitz.
Thief of Night by Holly Black in a nutshell: two people seeing the absolute, ugliest, worst in each other and realizing they love each other because of and regardless of.
reading katabasis by r.f. kuang is really making me so glad i've taken several philosophy classes because i can at least grasp some of the discussion about logic and what these dead white men have said
I love Sophie but also she’s the dumbest teenage girl I’ve ever heard of. Keefe was three seconds from professing his love for her at all times, Dex blushed every time she even looked in his direction, and Fitz was obviously flirting with her for MONTHS before she realized he liked her. She’ll over analyze everything the black swan and neverseen do but can’t for the life of her realize someone likes her. I know she has a lot going on but girl needs to figure this stuff out.
i know you didn’t actually mean it, so this is in all good fandom fun and i am not dogging on OP, but sophie is a really good representation of what happens when your self esteem is constantly knocked from bullying and stressful and traumatic situations alike all from a young age.
sophie recognizes and acknowledges various times throughout the years exactly what the boys’ gestures and comments allude to, but she makes the conscious effort to reroute or ignore them. in certain cases, like with dex, it’s because she doesn’t reciprocate his feelings, but with fitz and keefe it’s because sophie doesn’t believe she’s good enough for them to actually like her.
if you were or are anything like sophie, you know how it feels to see the signs, but convince yourself you’re overthinking it, that you’re hallucinating simply because of how badly you want it.
this self doubt can creep in regardless of age, but i think sophie’s youth is a massive contributing factor: she’s young, she’s underestimated, she’s uprooted from her home and her worldview is completely blown apart and needs to be rebuilt from the ground up, her new government seems to have it out for her, there is a terrorist organization threatening her life, and if you remember up until Everblaze, sophie had no real clue if the black swan were also a threat to her existence. her entire life she has been shown she does not matter. even if she was shown familial love, her environment 100% makes it incredibly difficult for her to believe she could be accepted, both by friends and romantic prospects.
another important point that we can’t forget is sophie grew up in the forbidden cities, meaning she was affected by our society, specifically american culture. she grew up with the adverts, the commercials, the sexual harassment and locker room jokes, the constant pressure to be beautiful, to maintain that beauty no matter what, and that even if you meet the standard, you don’t. sophie being beautiful does not erase her insecurity. sophie meeting certain standards does not mean the damage to her interpretation of her appearance and the sexism she endured alongside every other woman didn’t affect her. it very much did. it’s evident in how she thinks she can’t accept compliments or else she’s vain and shallow, how she must apologize to fitz for being ahead of him in telepathic skill, how she is responsible for her friends’ lives and safety, how she must remain submissive to her leaders or else she might be the sole downfall of the group, how even if she thinks a boy likes her, it’s her own inflated ego because who could want a girl like that?
sophie has obviously grown and become more confident in her skin as the series continues—this is especially relevant when sophie blows up the warehouse and is instantly ridiculed and criticized for enticing and sparking a war, despite being hunted and preyed on mercilessly her whole life. because when a woman finally fights back after years of abuse, she’s seen as over reactive. she’s emotional, she’s irrational, she’s the bitch who can’t keep her temper.
also, while they are teenagers and they had their own right to react in the ways they did to their situations, sophie subconsciously absorbs fitz and keefe’s temperaments and behaviors as confirmation that the little voice in the back of her head is right—at the end of the day, she’s unloveable. keefe constantly pushes himself away, refuses to accept her help, and betrays sophie’s trust and his own promises by running. fitz bottles up his feelings until they are expelled onto the nearest target and it has been shown various times to be sophie, even if she’s undeserving. both of the people she pours herself into seem to throw it right back in her face.
sophie has been taught to stay small and remember she does not matter. it’s no surprise to me that she can’t bring herself to so much as hope that anyone truly likes her.
as a cultured tumblr girlie i can say that you don't need to do extra reading to understand katabasis, you just need to have been on tumblr for 8 years plus
at the end of katabasis when alice and peter are granted to go back and king yama is like "but don't look back!" and alice is like "fr?" and he's like "nah just kidding ;)"
romaincrisis
s-u-f-j-a-n-s-t-e-v-e-n-s
stormborns
turnnoffyourmind
pixelskylines
