Musings on a Moonlit Night

[notprocrastinatingatalltoday]

Dark Rise, page 338-343, where Devon kills Robert.

There is so much emphasis on Robert being human, take this for example:

It was Robert. It was ordinary, human Robert. The look on Robert’s face wouldn’t have been there on the other.

In these few pages it's mentioned four times. Human. His blood, a thing he cannot change. Black, white. You are or you aren't.

I think, if Robert hadn't been human, Devon wouldn't have killed him. In the old world they fought the unicorns, killed them sure, but didn't hunt them down for sport like the humans did. Like they still would do.

He's known Robert for 10 (!!) years. A whole decade. But then again, what is a decade to a person who's lived for 10,000 years?

(And on another note, what other Robert?!)

[sarceanswife]

I find the whole Devon’s POV interesting. Why do we have it? Surely, there’s something important there. Something Pacat wants us to know, and since it’s emphasised that Devon was there, in the old world, I would expect it to be something to do with that.

I think the “other” mentioned is Visander. Let’s have a look at the moment Robert comes in, just a shape in the doorway:

In the next moment he felt a sudden flickering sense that it might not be Robert after all. He looked up, feeling a startled spatter of heartbeats, as if rolling around in the mud with lions could conjure up a figure impossible and long dead.

Dead, meaningful to Devon? Visander. It would, then, make sense for Visander to be the reference point also in the following paragraph aka the very one you quoted. Also, Visander wasn’t human. So that’s just another hint.

I also find Devon’s words at the very end interesting.

“You thought you knew what a unicorn was,” he said, his breathing still shallow. “But you were wrong.”

Is this a hint at other beings, too, being not what people believe them to be?

[sarceanswife]

I recently read a discussion about the possibility that the Sun King was reborn, too. And so, there’s someone I’m wondering about as I reread Dark Rise.

James was born to the Stewards.

Will to the blood of the Lady.

Both to the enemy.

And if the Sun King was reborn, too? Would it also be to the enemy, like those two?

Sinclair is the blood of the Dark King, so we are told. But what do we know from Sarcean’s past? We know the Sun King had Sarcean do the dirty work for him; he utilised his powers. Sinclair, too, is using Sarcean’s powers for his own benefit.

Could he be the Sun King?

He, too, had James on his side. Like the Sun King had Anharion. Only to lose him to Will.

I don’t know. Is there something there? Maybe, maybe not.

[himbotheninth]

whenever dark rise 3 comes out (MANIFESTING) i am going to be so insufferable

[yiling-lao-who]

Y’all C S Pacat released another Dark Rise #3 snippet on substack and…

CAN SOMEONE WITH A SUBSCRIPTION PLEASE TELL ME WHAT IT SAYSSSSSS😭😭😭😭😭😭

[j6stenisms]

“Sarcean never had this.” still my favourite Will Kempen line. If he could he would gloat directly at Sarcean’s face about how James loves him and protects him out of his own free will

[theladyofbloodshed]

Feyre fell in love with tamlin without a magical bond. Amarantha had Rhys for 50 years but still wanted tamlin. Rhys himself is still hooked on tamlin. In this essay I will prove that the dark, shadow daddy pales in comparison to the blond, fiddle-playing beast of a man

[laurents-laces]

Here’s Pacat’s Dark Rise Q&A so far! Highlights:

Will has an awesome horse! All the horses in Dark Rise are awesome! But the real horse lover is James

James is like Laurent if he was Team Evil and could do magic

The protagonist is Will, but it’s told from several different POVs: Will, James, Violet, Catherine, and Devon

It’s a slowburn enemies to lovers romance! (emphasis on slowburn)

Will is bi! All of Pacat’s protagonists are bi, including Nicholas from Fence (bi Nick confirmed, yay!)

The book is very gay

There are no love triangles

Dark Rise is about a lost, ruined world, so Pacat looked at fragments of museum artifacts and ruins from around the world for worldbuilding inspiration

[laurents-laces]

New info:

Inspired by LOTR, but Dark Rise is more about the enemy within than the enemy without, and it explores grey areas in the battle between light and dark

Die Young by Sylvan Esso is the song of James and Will’s relationship

The books are racially diverse and also have diverse gender identities and sexual orientations

The demographic is YA with adult crossover

The ending will make us cry

The climax of book one is gonna make us scream

The character most like Laurent is James. Pacat doesn’t know who would win if they fought

Was hard to write because of the epic scope of worldbuilding and storytelling. The worldbuilding took 15 years to plan. We’ll feel it when we read it

[marzipanthots]

Sarcean and Anharion animated - utena reference of course

[gleerant]

if you ever find yourself thinking “wow I scraped the bottom of the barrel with my energy with that and came out okay!” that’s the devil talking. you did not come out okay. you borrowed energy from the future. you will repay it if you don’t rest and replenish the borrowed energy first.

[gleerant]

this one took off quickly - are you guys ok

[wizard-of-interesting-failure]

WIZARD PSA: Chronomancy might be weird and confusing, but one of the few solid rules of the discipline is keep your promises. Time is a library, and you don't want to meet the librarian.

[sensiblereblogifposts]

Reblog if you have met the librarian

[mewvore]

Sometimes you need to read something twice to get it. You might need to watch a movie three times to understand it. You might have to have that album on repeat for a week until the lyrics make any sense. You're allowed to engage with it and can keep engaging with it until it means something to you. People will see a painting at a museum and laugh about not getting what the big deal is but like you can come back, you can see it at another time, and maybe that next time it'll be different for you. I'm of the belief the "media literacy crisis" would solve itself if more people just sat down and did it again. Watched, read, played, listened, etc like I don't think people are getting more ignorant necessarily I just think we're not glorifying personally replaying things nearly as much as we should be.

[petrilousart]

Will kempen Fanart from the Dark Rise Book Series!

Will kempen from the Dark Rise Book Series by C.S. Pacat! I love him so much, I had to draw him right away.

[sourdough-seal]

bingewatching will never come close to bingereading. there is nothing like blocking out the entire Earth for ten hours to read a book in one sitting no food no water no shower no bra and emerging at the end with no idea what time it is or where you are, a dried-up prune that's sensitive to light and loud noises because you've been in your room in the dark reading by the glow of a single LED. it's like coming back after a three-month vacation in another dimension and now you have to go downstairs and make dinner. absolutely transcendental

[daunart]

[ninicaise]

what's so refreshing about will as a character is that he doesn't throw a denial tantrum about it at any point like most characters with Darkness Within Them do. he's not a moral paragon, his angst and secretkeeping don't get annoying at any point. and i think it's because there's no contrast between who will Really Is, which is Good and True, and the dark king as his shadow or his dark self.

will is the dark king. he behaves like the dark king. he lies and he manipulates and he's a "sneak" and he's scaringly charming and he's possessive over james and a ton of other messed up shit and he tells himself it's for a good reason, and maybe it is!! and will is clearly you know. a Good Person. while his methods are sneaky, he does not actually do anything wrong. but those are his methods still, and they are cool moments and badass and also kind of eerie.

with the way he's written, i would argue will doesn't have or even need a corruption arc, he's just like that from the get-go and he's not gonna change. and i don't mean he was born evil or whatever other bullshit i mean that he was born a full person, including the dark king and will both, and there's complexity, but no clear line separates them.