Oh... I just had a thought. I know I sent you an ask about fictional book recs of sorts when you had first posted it, but if I can, I'd like to make an amendment to it. (As rambling as I was that time too.)
What if; The Scorn Prince, was a time travel story instead.
Oh, are you talking about The Scorn King? Because let me tell you, that is one of the wildest sequels I've ever read, and if you want to know where I stand on the fandom controversy, it's that I love it to bits.
The more I think about it, the more I love that Meryl North had the audacity to follow up The Scorn Prince this way. Because it starts as such a normal-sounding sequel--a few years after the bittersweet ending of The Scorn Prince, the Yates siblings have at last found a magical artifact that will let them travel to Jerrigan's kingdom of Ardwick. And we naturally assume this will lead to another cozy-yet-silly fish-out-of-water tale, this time with the Yates siblings learning to navigate Jerrigan's world.
Except, the artifact that lets them cross worlds also messes with time, and the very act of their arriving changes history--the ripples across time created phenomena of glowing lights that were interpreted as omen signifying that Jerrigan was meant to rule, which meant that the coup that displaced him and drove him to our world never happened, so he was able to take the throne and has been ruling for several years without undergoing the character reformation that happened when he was in our world.
And I've seen people outraged at the fact that the sequel erases the events of the first book. But the thing is, it doesn't. The fact that the Yates kids are from a different world lets North justify some timey-wimeyness where the kids remember the old timeline while finding themselves in the new timeline, facing a King Jerrigan who's a great big jerk who doesn't remember them at all. And the tension between those two timelines, as they try to reconcile who they know Jerrigan could be with who he is now is so painful and so great.
The political intrigue alone! Ruth stubbornly holding onto the idea that Jerrigan can be reformed despite no signs that it'll happen in a place and a time where he's secure in his power, while her brothers are tempted into helping a revolution to overthrow him. On the one hand, you want to side with Ruth in liking this guy we grew to love in the last book, but on the other hand, the boys kind of have a point that maybe the revolution is the only way to spark his character arc, but on the other hand, if the Yates kids betray him, they're not going to be in a position to help him undergo the character arc the way they did in the last book.
And they're stuck in a scheming royal court with its intrigues, which they have no experience navigating, and Ruth is kind of wrestling with the tiny bits of romance with Jerrigan that came from the last book, and Jerrigan himself is having to face the fact that these weird people from another world are disappointed in him and for some reason he cares and starts to undergo a character arc that might be too little too late.
It's just so complex and not at all what I'd have expected as a follow-up to The Scorn Prince, and I know that makes some people mad, but I adore it. If people want to ignore the sequel and write their terrible fluffy fanfic versions, that's fine, but I am going to treasure this story instead.
