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Shout out to Charlie Thorne and Ben Ripley, I just know you two are blasting The Great Divide
I don't know if there is a fandom for me to discuss this in or am I speaking to the void...I really don't care either way but I need to say this....the spy school series by Stuart Gibbs should have ended after British invasion.
Every single book since then has basically made caricatures out of every character and the plots have been increasingly nonsensical. The SPYDR arc was the best arc and also should have been the only arc because after the gang defeated SPYDR there was really no other point. Yes, I'm aware that after British invasion there were a couple loose ends that needed tying up...HOWEVER I think they could have either been tied up in a single extra book or could have been incorporated into the plot of British invasion.
Now each book has a new villain and most of the time that villain is not even original...besides revolution, every villain was a returning character or a character related to a character we've seen before. In at Sea. it's the Shangs again and then in project X it was Murray and SOMEHOW Joshua EVEN THO HE FELL OF THE EIFFEL TOWER IN BRITISH INVASION, and goes north it was again Murray, and in goes wild, it was Murray and also the Shangs (for the third time)...
and it's not just the villains that have kind of jumped the gun a little bit, but like the characters themselves have just become so far off from their original idea. It's not like a character arc like they're just like changing from being kind of cold-hearted to being nice sometimes, it's like they're a different person...
I went and reread the original spy school book after I read blackout and it's actually insane to me how different the characters are. Take Zoe, part of her original character was giving people nicknames i mean... SMOKESCREEN, ICE QUEEN, CHAMELEON...that has not been a thing for at least five books and it's just kind of sad....it's like she's lost some of her whimsy. Sometimes people grow out of quirks like that but it was her thing for the longest time and there's no explanation as to why she would stop... it just sort of happens??
Erica also got completely character assassinated and hers is probably one of the worst out of all the characters because she just started saying stuff... I think hers is mostly a completely fumbled emotional arc, which makes it the worst type of character assassination because unlike Zoe who just randomly lost personality traits, there was a clear attempt to make Erica's transformation understandable. It just didn't work and now she just says things that feel wrong and out of character but they're justified by her "character arc" even though she's barely seen actually changing her ways. Like at the end of at Sea, she just like, "I'm ready for a relationship now" what? how'd that thought process happen??? when did it happen?? why??? Maybe I don't remember properly but it just felt out of nowhere to me...
As well with Erica's character, it just feels like now she's still kind of distant from people except sometimes now she just says oh the power of friendship!! And it's all fine and I'm supposed to believe it...like no???
I think genuinely one of the best examples of Erica's characterization and her whole character is literally in the original Spy School book...yeah she's distant, she's cold when she doesn't trust people, but that scene where she and Ben are in the Washington monument and they spent like half an hour just like making fun of Alexander together, that's her character. She's a bit stoic, she's cold but once people have proven their trust and ability to her, it's possible for her to have fun, to let loose a little bit. She is still a teenage girl! She's still a human! She's able to form meaningful and honest connections with people... she still learns how to trust other people, slowly yes, but she does do it despite her trauma...
And yet... in the recent books... it feels like she's been reduced to a caricature, the basics of that idea is still present in her character, it's just been flattened out to make her more "one note." In the recent books, she has three personality traits and those are really good at spying, being a little closed off but kinda believing in the power of friendship, and loving animals.
However, a lot of her original trauma has been sanitized from her character, removed from her character, it would be one thing for her to grow past it, persevere through it and create, you know, stronger friendships, relationships, whatever with people, but she doesn't really do that? You have to kind of assume that she trusts all of her friends now but she really never says or does much of anything to indicate that... but now she can be a little hippie with expressing herself, despite the books never showing her putting real effort into her actual friendships & relationship that would indicate being more comfortable with her feelings. No...she just can freely express her love for animals and that's about it.
Now who cares about the originally established characters, we need to talk about the characters that were introduced in the recent books because...oh boy...
The exact same problems I have with the original cast being completely butchered are the same problems I have with the new characters...except they don't have any old material to go off of they just somehow already start off butchered and one note...like Trixie.
Her one thing is that her family lied to her her entire life and she feels left out because she's not a spy and everyone else is. There is so much potential to explore with that dynamic but it's just done in such a piss-poor way that I am inclined to roll my eyes...
Svetlana is Russian and a good spy. That's it. That's her whole character.
Mary was an analyst! yup that's all I got.
And now I just have to bring it up. How many members of the Hale family are there? how many can there be? How many unmentioned siblings and grandparents can there be before it gets ridiculous?
I think the last Hale that was ever introduced properly was Catherine and that's because she was introduced in secret service back when the books had actual plot and reason. It makes logical sense for her to be included because Alexander was already around the whole time. Why not introduce Erica's mom too?
I think this line of logic could have worked to introduce Mary because, you know, Cyrus was already there from pretty much the beginning so introducing his wife, Erica's grandmother, wouldn't have been out of the question, but again it was done in the recent books so it was done badly....
However, this line of logic does not apply at all to Trixie because she was simply never mentioned nor assumed to exist. Unlike Mary or Catherine, who are assumed to exist because obviously Erica & Alexander exists so there must have been another person involved in the making of child.... Trixie can never be reasonably assumed to exist in the earlier books because there are ZERO allusions to the fact that Erica has a sister...
It's awfully convenient that Trixie was, you know, put in boarding school and you know, was lied to her whole life and that no one ever seemed to mention her.
Not Cyrus, not Alexander, not Catherine, not Erica.
None of them ever mentioned like oh, by the way, I have a sister. Oh by the way I have another daughter. Oh by the way, I have another grandchild like I get it... it's a secret and you're trying to protect her, but at some point this is obviously just a ploy to introduce a new "interesting" Hale character. Because it's kind of clear that Gibbs never planned on introducing Trixie as a character and just decided to shoehorn her in as something fun to add to the plot by the time he got to the 8th book....so he decided to make Trixie and conveniently make her excluded from the family business.
Now, besides everything, I just said about characterization, character assassinations and shoehorned in stuff blah blah blah... the series is called spy school yet there has not been a school for spies since project X. Project X is definitively the point where the series lost everything it was trying to cling on to because without a school for spies what the hell even is spy school. I get it a lot of the time there mission takes them away from the actual spy school, but without the school what's even the point of the books? the books are still called spy school but there is no academy of espionage anymore!
The whole vibe of going to a boarding school for spies is the original premise of the series....the grounding point of the series just doesn't exist anymore... it's really no wonder the series completely went off the rails after project X and the destruction of the academy of espionage because without it there's no spy school in spy school which is just completely ridiculous...
This post is absolutely way too long and no one's gonna read it...but basically you get my point. Everything that has been added on since British invasion has been pretty much unnecessary and just serves as character assassination that ruins the original cast and premise.
made some moodboards (inspired by @scrambledd3ggss) for funjungle. Might make one for fitzcracken and the other characters :)
(Sorry for the resolution theyre screenshots from canva)
yellow= summer, navy= teddy, green= funjungle
Have you read Belly Up by Stuart Gibbs (2010)?
yes
no
I didn't finish it
I've never heard of it
HEYY!!
Hi guys its ZOEE!! Ben showed me this tumblr thing so I made an account :p (also murray ive SEEN your account dont you dare interact with me.)
UPDATE/SPOILER ⚠-> I JUST FINISHED SPY SKI SCHOOL. I think that the way they had Jessica be mad at her dad and Erica being jealous.... THEY KISSED!!! THE BOMB WAS GONNA DETONATE AND THEY KISSED!!!! SHE KISSED HIM!!! I can't handle it guys. Also the plot of this one was very good... I enjoyed every part of it but the banter between characters was amazing. PLUS THE GIRL TALK THAT HE LISTENED IN ON! Also Mike now finding out about them being spys and possibly being recruited! I'm about to start reading book 5, Spy School Secret Service. Im soooo excited!
(Also Cyrus was kinda ticking me off the whole book. I hope it doesn't stay like that.)
Charlie Thorne!!
Charlie from Charlie Thorne and the Last Equation by Stuart Gibbs! Each thing in her hair is a reference to a book, lightning for pandora, turtle shell & bone for Darwin, vial for cleopatra, and telescope & apple for Newton <333
