#catherine foundling

[gwennafran]

The Mantle of Woe Speculation

Counting down to Book 2 of A Practical Guide to Evil publishing on August 25th by reposting old fanart with new commentary.

January 2020 - The cursed year. (It's been a while, eh?)

This one had me systematically try to make the most correct Mantle of Woe going over all the book descriptions. Which had it challenges, as EE never quite could decide if it had a hood or not.

One of the interesting things of putting things like this visually, is that it reveals just how many fan interpretations of the same things that exist. Some fans have been pretty disappointed to learn just how nice, proper and systematic the HORRISONTAL rows applied by super orderly Hakram are on Cat’s cloak.

Cat is a trophy hoarder. She stopped after applying Akua’s soul as a “I have no mouth but I must scream” torture trophy, but that’s only because the giant undead ratling dissolved before she could turn his fur into her cloak collar. And after the book ended, she almost certainly added a Dead King trophy.

Why is it OK for Cat to want to add TWO intelligent Evil monsters to her cloak – one of them still conscious and very much added – when it’s not OK for Raphaella to have ONE? Because Cat says so! And Cat is always right, even when she’s not! Also, there’s no better standard than double standards. Which is not applied here because Cat says so!

[dubious-wisdom]

Poison is the weapon of the trade, knife the weapon of the intimate, and sorcery the weapon of war. To use any for the improper purpose is the mark of inferior breeding, save if greater game is yet afoot. —Extract from The Behaviors of Civil Conduct by High Lady Makena Sahelian

Gentle reminder that the Praesi consider killing with knives to be intimate. Its specifically a Sahelian saying this.

[noctilia]

[daydrawings]

Anyone else love Catherine Foundling????? :’)

[brightchrysaor]

Saw a post about soulmate tropes and I would like to posit that Catherine Foundling's soulmates are: Hakram Deadhand, Akua Sahelian, Yara of Nowhere, and Amadeus of the Green Stretch

Was thinking specifically of a fic where flowers appear under your skin like tattoos for major moments of connection. Akua has three black roses over Catherine's heart. Black has stalks of wheat trailing down her spine. Hakram has fritillaria around her right wrist. Yara is represented by narrow-leafed campion that start growing around major injuries. Catherine herself leave the red marigolds from Red the Flowers on their skin

[crunchbuttsteak]

Been listening to the audiobook for PGTE and Catherine Foundling is such a little freak I love her.

Hmmmm yes let me just use necromancy to pull my body back together after being injured by The Lone Swordsman, this is a totally normal and not at all horrifying thing to do.

[sistersorrow]

As part of my genius scheme of reading very long works of fiction so I don't have to pick new books to read every few days while waiting for Alecto the Ninth to finally come out, I started reading A Practical Guide to Evil back in October after finishing Worm (assuming Alecto still isn't done by the time I'm finished in like three months minimum, I'll probably read Ward next)

I'm currently a quarter way through Book 5, and in Books 4 and 5, there's this really fun contrast/parallel between Catherine Foundling and Taylor Hebert in how they both underestimate just how abjectly terrifying they are

I've said before in a prior post that it's hilarious how Taylor views herself as a teenage girl well out of her depth when to everyone else she's a ruthless crime lord, but it's even funnier that Catherine is in a similar position despite generally having a much firmer grasp on what she is

Catherine is a self-described warlord who crucifies deserters, has tackled a demigod, stolen names and titles from the fae, wreslted with demons, dropped a geographic landmark on an invading army as an opening maneuver, died at least three times and in one case effectively mugged a member of the Heavenly Host and took a resurrection from their pockets, and is not only fully aware of all that, but actively leverages her reputation to pull stunts like standing alone in front of charging cavalry and drawing a literal line of the dirt which said charging army refuses to cross for the sake of their own safety

Knowing all this, she still spends thousands of pages wondering why during the 10th Crusade, the Grand Alliance simply refuses to make peace with her, even when one of oldest evils still walking the earth is marching his armies of the dead towards their northern holdings and they need those armies they sent west to fight him

Then it suddenly dawns on her that they all have good reason to believe that if left to her own devices, she has the capacity and motive to become something not only as bad as the Dead King, but Dread Empress Triumphant, a villain so feared that even after she finally died after having conquered the entire continent, people continue to live in fear of her for centuries because there is a good chance that when she finally made it to whatever Hell was foolish enough to claim her soul, she quickly took over

Catherine Foundling, who styles herself as the Black Queen, still failed to grasp that to a lot of people she is genuinely too dangerous to be allowed to live

[alicelufenia]

Sure the Guide is, for the most part, a decently serious YA fantasy war story

And then you've got moments like this

Don't worry Cat, you'll get your wish some day ^_^ (it won't make your life easier of course)

Sometimes the Rule of Funny pulls through in our hero's villain's favor