#stygian spiders

[bookishherondales]

“Only a great warrior can slay a kharankui. The greatest in the land.”

And guess who killed it? Yep. Dorian Havilliard.

[elliepassmore]

Tower of Dawn Review

5/5 stars Recommended for people who like: fantasy, magic, desert fantasy, multiple POVs, healers, Chaol Westfall, court intrigue, thriller I really like this one, but I will also readily admit that this is the creepiest book in the series. ToG had the creep/thriller aspect with the Ridderak and Cain, and CoM sort of touched on the side of thriller without actually diving in, but Tower goes further in than even ToG did. I like it, even the thriller aspect, but it’s definitely creepy. I can’t tell how I feel about Chaol for the first half of the book. He’s definitely still going strong on his end-of-QoS vibe, and he seems to have forgiven a lot of what he was angry about in that book, but he also still hasn’t let go of things—such as his loyalty and obedience—as much as he had in HoF. For starters, though, it’s nice to see Chaol return to being the kind of playful snappy he was in CoM, I’d forgotten how funny he could be. So, I really liked how jokey Chaol was in this one, and I liked his handling of the royal family, going so far as to scheme his way into a meeting with the khagan. I still felt that Chaol was a bit…condescending throughout the book, though he once again got better about it at the end of the book. I did really like being in Chaol’s head in this one, though. After reading this, I feel like he wasn’t really present in QoS as much as he was in the other books. Like, he was there and narrating, but he didn’t feel there. Seeing in his head in this one makes a lot of things suddenly make a lot more sense, and we even get an explanation for his previous blind obedience. Yes, admittedly, some of it was him being willfully ignorant, but more of it was him giving up certain privileges to knowledge in order to protect Dorian. Chaol’s journey with his injury was interesting. I’m not really a fan of how ableist he was being, but I can also acknowledge that shedding that ableism off was a crucial part of his journey and that we probably aren’t supposed to like it. Chaol needed to realize for himself that just because he couldn’t move his legs didn’t mean he was less than or couldn’t still contribute to the coming fight. His realization comes from the healing process, which has three different parts. One part is the physical healing that Yrene does to repair the damage to his spinal cord. Another part is the metaphysical/psychological healing that both he and Yrene have to participate in, and this is the part that really makes me understand him and how he sees things better. And then there’s the part that involves seeing things from the outside and realizing no one really looks down on him, and that his injury does not remove him from the prospect of fighting against Erawen. Chaol’s journey is a different version of Celaena’s story in HoF. They are both struggling with similar emotions, both wanting to be rid of them and ignore them, and both come to realize that ignoring them and being rid of their negative emotions and memories won’t solve anything. Same general arc, different people, different situation, different story, but a way to show many sides of the same issue. I love Nesryn’s side of things in this one. She’s a fun narrator, partly because she’s so excited to be in her home city, but also because she’s got a very relaxed vibe that none of the other characters really have. She’s worried and tense about certain things, but she definitely handles it better than a lot of the other characters in this series. Nesryn ends up with the rukhin riders and Sartaq for most of the book, and I would probably kill for a whole separate book just about the rukhin riders, Sartaq and Kadara, and Nesryn and Salkhi. Nesryn’s journey is one away from Adarlan. She loves the country, is willing to fight for it and the innocent people there, but spending time in the Southern Continent, exploring its reaches, has her slowly switching over. Nesryn’s main development in this one, I think, is deciding where she calls home. Regardless of where it is, she’s going to fight against Erawen, but I think a part of her needs that identity settled when we first come into this book, and her development centers around that. The world and culture there is so different from those seen in the rest of the book, and the prospect of people who live in mountain homes and ride the wind on the backs of giant birds is pretty awesome. Nesryn’s main goal is to find information to help defeat Erawen and to convince Sartaq to lend his aerial legions to the cause. Of course, things never really go to plan and Nesryn ends up venturing beyond the rukhin riders’ homes and seeing Stygian Spiders, which are called the khalankui in the Southern Continent, as well as visiting some thousand-year-old ruins, so a pretty wide range of places all in one go. It’s interesting to see a new land from the POV of someone who hails from that land. We didn’t really get to see that with Rowan and Wendlyn, since Rowan barely narrated that book, but Nesryn is one of the main narrators in this one, and she’s spent most of her life in Adarlan, so we get to see a mix of someone who loves that land, who sees it as her own, but is also an outsider and is still, to an extent, getting introduced to the land. I think it’s an interesting way to introduce a new land, and Maas sort of did it with Terrasen in EoS, except the group in that book didn’t stay long enough to really get as good a feel of the land as we do in this one. I also think it’s a nice break from either a character has lived in land forever and has exactly zero reason to give us exposition, or a character is 100% new to the land/situation. Yrene is a new character if you haven’t read Blade. A healer from the Torre Cesme, she takes no one’s shit, not even Chaol’s. Actually, since her mother was burned alive by Adarlanian soldiers when she was 11, that makes her particularly unwilling to put up with Chaol’s shit. She hates Adarlanians the same way Aedion does, the same way all those other children of fallen kingdoms do. But she’s a healer and so she helps Chaol with his injury and unwittingly gets dragged into things. Based on who the Big Bad is in this one, though, I wonder if she wouldn’t’ve been dragged into things anyway. Yrene’s journey is for herself and for the rest of the world. She’s ready to go to the northern continent and heal people injured in the fight against Erawen, but she still has that simmering rage in her that started when her mother died. Her internal journey and arc is about repairing the hole her mother’s death made and cooling that rage until she realizes no one group is ever homogenous in its beliefs and actions. She’s healing and realizing this as she heals Chaol, which requires research. Unfortunately, her research sparks the interest of the Big Bad in this story, and that’s when the external struggle begins. Yrene has to contend with healing Chaol, healing herself, hunting for answers, and being hunted herself. Yrene has a connection to nearly everyone in the story. She’s a healer from the Torre, she’s actively healing Chaol, but she’s also a friend of the royals who rule over the Southern Continent. Yrene wants to help as many people as possible, and yet she also befriends royals and ends up in court schemes. One of the princes, Kashin, has a romantic interest in her, though she turned him down, and is protective over her. One of the princesses, Hasar, is Yrene’s friend and asks her to occasionally spy for her. It’s a complicated situation, and it goes to show the delicate precipice Yrene balances on. Hasar is the eldest princess, second oldest of the royal kids, and a nasty piece of work. She’s fiercely protective of the ones that are hers and over her country, but that just means she’s ruthless and cunning in other areas. She has no issue manipulating Chaol, Yrene, Nesryn, and others to get what she wants. This manipulation even includes backing Chaol into a corner where he has to swear Aelin would never do anything like burn Ellwye’s coast…which Chaol being Chaol can’t answer with a definitive ‘she’d never.’ Other stuff includes her using Yrene as a spy or threatening to block the Narrow Sea between the continents to prevent passage. I can’t tell if I like her or not, but I appreciate her character. Maas does a good job of depicting her as someone who cares deeply and will do anything to protect those she cares about. As a plus, Hasar is an openly gay, main side character, which is definite improvement for these books re: representation (I know we had Emrys and Malakai, but neither were ‘main side characters,’ nor were they together as much as Hasar and her lover, Renia, are). Sartaq, a rukhin rider and one of the princes, is another main side character. He spends most of the book with Nesryn in the mountains. I liked his character, he had a healthy dose of protective, relaxed, and funny rolled into one. I also liked the concept of his family in the palace being different than his hearth-family, or the family he has with the riders, and that the latter is far more relaxed and less vicious than the other. Sartaq wants to fly north, wants to do the right thing, but he also doesn’t want to go into it blind, which is part of the reason they end up seeking the Stygian Spiders to begin with. He’s definitely one of my favorite side characters in this book. That being said, it’s also pretty obvious that he’s mostly around to serve as a new love interest for Nesryn and to introduce the world of the rukhin riders…which is fine, but it would’ve been nice if he’d had a little more of his own development in the book. Hafiza is the Healer on High for the Torre, and she’s essentially Yrene’s adoptive mother. She teaches Yrene and helps guide her, but she also loves Yrene and genuinely wants her to succeed and stay safe. Like a mother, she even expresses disappointment when she feels Yrene is going against something she feels would strengthen Yrene. She was another funny character with a pretty dry sense of humor that I can definitely appreciate. I can’t entirely remember, but I hope we get to see more of her in KoA. Other side characters include Shen, a guard who lost part of his arm and had to have it replaced and is one of Chaol’s catalysts that makes him realize that if his wheelchair is a prison, then it’s a self-imposed one. The Khagan is someone we don’t see a lot of but holds a shit ton of sway over everything. Arghun is one of the princes and definitely the worst of the siblings, and he has no qualms undermining Chaol, Nesryn, and even Yrene at every turn. Kashin, who has already been mentioned, is really the one who gets Yrene researching, as he thinks there are already Valg in the Southern Continent. Below Sartaq, he’s my favorite prince simply because he’s open to what Chaol and Nesryn are saying, and he remains respectful to Yrene despite her rejection of him. Duva, is the now-youngest princess and doesn’t get a lot of page-time, but seems sweet enough. And then there’s Falkan, a shapeshifter from the northern continent who lost 20 years of his life to the Stygian Spiders. If he sounds familiar, he should, Celaena met him in Blade as well. In terms of the romance in the book….umm. When a character like Yrene, who hates Adarlan and Adarlanians, is going to end up with a character like Chaol, who is not only Adarlanian but an Adarlanian lord and ex-Captain of the Guard, there needs to be more build-up. They’re cute and sweet together, but the two (??) months that they got to know each other were not enough to overcome all of that enough to start a romance, in my opinion. It probably would’ve been better for them to get together in KoA, following a similar timeline to Celaena and Chaol, or even Aelin and Rowan. I like them together, don’t get me wrong, but I don’t think it should’ve happened in this book. Nesryn and Sartaq make more sense to me, especially since they had a more obvious chemistry between the two of them. They complement each other really well in terms of attitude and respect for one another’s abilities—it will never not be funny to me when Nesryn blocks Sartaq from doing something and he gives her ‘an incredulous face’ or whatever. Despite their chemistry and the fact they liked each other, even if not romantically, from the get-go, Nesryn suggested they survive the war first and then see what happens. Obviously they’re going to get together, but at least the pretense of waiting a little longer is there….even if this is the couple I wanted to see formalize it in this book. Overall, good plot, characters, and world-building. The romance leaves something to be desired, but I think the rest of what happens and is revealed in the book more than make up for it…especially what’s revealed. The heartbreaking end chapter I could’ve done without, mostly because I had to then wait a year for KoA, but whatever.

[sartaqkhagan]

Me reading about Sartaq and Nesryn facing the Stygian Spiders:

[badasskaltain]

Stygian Spiders

[the-heir-of-terrasen]

I would just like to say that I have never felt scared reading a book, I don't find them scary, ever. But seeing the Kharankui in TOD for the first time was terrifying and I had difficulty sleeping

[orynth]

i'm rereading heir of fire and i just read the part where manon visits the stygian spiders. one of them mentions that it gained a shape-shifter's abilities along with 20 years off of his life and the spider would like to try out those abilities if magic returns (basically to know what it's like to lay with a human man)

do you think we'll ever get to see the human form of that spider...?

[tigerlilyrequiem]

Throne of Glass Theory ...

The merchant in The Assassin and The Desert who sold Spidersilk... He approached Aelin (Celaena), asking her to slay the spiders so that he might get his years back, right? In Heir of Fire, when Manon goes to the spiders to get silk for Abraxos' wings, did she kill the spider? If so, then the merchant might have gotten his years back. Also, I still think that he's of some relation to Lysandra, and I hope we meet him again.

[photofeesh]

Please tell me this spider isn’t the one with Dorian...😱