#chronicles of osreth

[lordofnowhere-art]

the firsts <3

[skygemspeaks]

there are a lot of ways that chavar purposely neglected his responsibilities as chancellor but can we discuss the fact that he sent a single courier with a letter to explain to the new emperor that his father and brothers had all died?

Like, csevet should DEFINITELY have had an entourage with him.

Even allowing for the assumption that Maia would have a full household looking after him at Edonomee to explain why there were no servants sent to look after him on the journey to court, they should definitely have sent a squad of guards to make sure that nothing happened to him, right? You know, given that the emperor and three of his sons had just died and maia was the last remaining adult heir

[heyitsrink]

Amalo's Witnesses for the Dead

[my-smial]

The real problem with trying to find new books in the vein of The Goblin Emperor/Cemeteries of Amalo is that I want to find a book confident enough to just invent new grammar and let me learn by exposure. And most writers are simply not re-inventing a split formality system for English, positing more flexibility in pro-drop, and yanking a word for "if" out of Shakespeare :/

[little-cute-pink-horrible-being]

TBH, everyone who say that Maia isn't very good at politics or is naive need to reread the beginning of TGE. The guy has a keen awareness of propriety at all time and he learns to weaponise it. Sure, he lacks in understanding of the broader scheme at first, but he gets interpersonal relationships (yes, he doesn't always know what to do, but he is perceptive as all hells).

Evidence:

He is very efficient in not giving Setheris any power, beginning with inviting Csevet to watch the sunrise with him, so that Setheris could not invite himself along.

Immedeatly after meeting Csoru for the first time he tells Csevet to invite Arbelan to his coronation, knowing she will act as a counter to Csoru.

He realises that Csoru sending a personal messenger is unusual and wants to find out what it means.

And many more throughout the book!

[libralita]

I'm reading Witness for the Dead and looking back at the Goblin Emperor, Sheveän was a lot more justified to be concern someone she didn't know was rummaging through her late husband's grave.

Not that it justifies any of her other actions but in this world with ghouls being a thing, I would be extremely upset at the possibility that my late husband could turn into one of these things. It makes way more sense why that would set her off so much.

[biichama]

Holy shit was The Tomb of Dragons a fucking ride. I read the entire book within twelve hours of it being deposited onto my e-reader app and the only reason it took that long was because I had to bathe and sleep in between. Like, it is going to be a massive disruption to the fandom and its shipping and it's jossed pretty much every fic written in the aftermath of Grief of Stones, but it is good and gripping and it manages to tie up loose ends that I hadn't really realized were loose. I really, really liked it.

I have additional spoilery thoughts on why I think certain things happened in the book, which I'll put after the read more.

So I ended up getting spoiled on a very certain plot point last week when I checked to see if there were any pre-release reviews from people who'd been given an ARC and like, while I definitely get how people are going to be upset that Cehelar and Pel-Thenhior did not, actually, get together, I was actually pleasantly surprised by their dynamic in the book? Like maybe it's just because I was already spoiled that the ship wasn't happening, so I had come to terms and was able to accept what Katherine Addison gave us, but it is exceedingly clear that just because they're not in romantic love doesn't mean they don't love each other because it is really fucking clear that they do. Iäna is Thara's truest goddamn friend in the world, even more than Anora, and their friendship burns clear and intense and bright. I really love all their scenes together. Forgive me for being Homestuck on main, but they're moirails, y'all.

Also, I really did enjoy Captain Olgarezh as a character and Thara's slow burn crush on him, culminating in the thee-ing, hand-holding, and given-naming in the last scene. I'm really looking forward to seeing what comes next for them, both in fanfic and (hopefully!) in further books to come, which it does seem like Katherine Addison has laid the groundwork for. And honestly, given the direction that it looks like she's taking Thara and the way it ends with Thara on the road again, making Hanu the love interest instead of Iäna makes a world of sense. Because we all love Iäna but he's not leaving Amalo, not when he has his opera house and his community, and it would strain credulity for the archprelate to be able to endlessly find new short term jobs in Amalo for Thara to do now that Tomasaran has his old one.

(Like it says in the acknowledgments that Tomb of Dragons was a hard book to write and I get that. In some ways Katherine Addison wrote herself into a corner with Grief of Stones in terms of being able to continue telling the kind of stories she wanted to with Thara and Tomb of Dragons was her way of writing him out of that corner. Like the way Grief of Stones ends, you can see the character arc she probably initially intended for Thara, where he mentors Tomasaran through her first cases and eventually comes to fully accept the loss of his gift and ends up retiring to stay in Amalo with Pel-Thenhior—but I suspect she had trouble making that actually work with Thara in a way that felt true to his character, probably because he would rather die than retire. Hence her making sure that he can't stay in Amalo or even go back to visit for now and creating Hanu as someone who can go on the road with him. And hence him being able to get his gift back.)

Anyway, apart from all that, I was so fucking pleased to see Maia and Csevet show up again and get all those little glimpses of him coming into his own as an emperor after a year on the throne. I hope that we do get another book where Thara and Hanu reach the Untheileneise Court and we see even more Maia and also hopefully Csethiro too. And that eventually all Thara's friends from Amalo show back up again, because they're all great and he really does need to get better at accepting people care about him. Get loved, idiot.

[imakemywings]

The most frustrating thing about The Tomb of Dragons is not even the romance bait-and-switch but the feeling that core themes of the trilogy were just completely dropped and even reversed in the final half of the third book.

We start book one with Thara still grieving the death of his lover Evru and only recently returned to his calling after that tragedy, starting his life anew in the city of Amalo. Throughout the trilogy, he is aloof, reserved, and unwilling to rely on others or accept companionship or camaraderie from anyone. Despite this, his earnest nature and devotion to using his role as a prelate to help others wins him the affection of many in his new home.

Yet he is, as Anora says in the third book, a hard man to be friends with. Although many around Thara genuinely like him and wish him well, he continues to hold himself at arms' length, in part by nature, in part due to past tragedy, and in part due to complex feelings around being gay in a homophobic society (and perhaps a feeling that he must hold himself apart, to be able to keep that part of himself private). He is repeatedly shocked when others express affection or well-wishes to him beyond simply politesse. Anora has to tell him that Azanharad feels warmly to him, as it simply never occurred to Thara.

In his relationship with Iana, he starts to come around to the idea of romance again, but in his relationships with many more, he starts to come around to the idea of community. In his dinners with Anora, in his training and partnership with Tomasaran, in his working relationship with Prince Orchenis, Thara begins to develop this community, a home in Amalo.

We know that he has no love for his previous city of office, Aveio, where Evru was executed, and that he never felt at home in the imperial court with his cousin Csoru, but in Amalo, he begins to feel comfortable. He feeds the local strays on his porch, he regularly attends the theater, he regularly dines with Anora and later with Tomasaran.

After great loss, both personal and directional, forced to start his life over essentially from scratch, Thara is beginning to resettle.

And The Tomb of Dragons just tosses all that and decides that actually what Thara wants is a life on the road with some guy he met a few months ago and barely knows. All of those relationships he spent nearly three full books painstakingly building are relegated to pen pals and that's meant to be an optimistic ending. Those friendships that were sold as so important turn out to mean less than this rando love interest introduced in the final third of the last book.

Thara is not a character who ever gave off the air of being an adventurer. He is not someone who has been looking for thrills or a life living out of a suitcase; he's always seemed far more domestic and practical. Few characters in the Chronicles of Osreth seem less suited to a life of constant travel and peril. All of the dangers Thara takes on in Amalo are only in pursuit of his calling, and he does not take any pleasure in it beyond being able to assist those who rely on him.

For two and a half books it felt like Thara was building a new home in Amalo, a place where he felt safe, and cared for, and known, and for that to all be chucked at the last minute for the life of a traveling prelate feels like a second tragedy in his life. It doesn't come off like a hopeful new start, it comes off like Thara having another home snatched away from him, like his once more being forced out of a place he had, with great difficulty, made connections.

And it's so disappointing to me.