Duck: So like, if you were in one of the Lightlark factions, which would you be?
Dia: Which do I want to or which do I think I'd end up with?
Duck: Both.
Dia: Because for chronological reasons related to how long I've been on this planet I would not like to be in Starling. I do vibe hard, I do vibe hard with Moonling. But like in terms of quality of life, I think I would be best off in Skyling, because they're the one that objectively doesn't suck.
Duck: Just regular guys, like their curse is to be regular guys.
Dia: I understand how going from being able to fly to not being able to fly would be a like, mass casualty event on day one.
Duck: Right, but it’s been five hundred--
Dia: This is 500 years later. They’ve added ladders.
Duck: Welcome back listeners to this bonus episode of Analysis Roulette, where instead of doing serious analysis of Lightlark, we're going to talk about our feelings.
Dia: Just for the benefit of anybody who, for reasons I cannot comprehend, has chosen to listen to this without listening to the accompanying psychoanalytical analysis of Lighlark. That's a very hard phrase to say.
Duck: It is.
Dia: I’m DIa.
Duck: I’m Duck
Dia: We are the hosts of Analysis Roulette, a podcast where usually, we spin a wheel to give ourselves a media to talk about and a school of analysis to talk about it with but this week, we simply could not be contained.
Duck: We just-- in order to perform a serious analysis we needed to know we were going to have an outlet for all the other things we want to say about this book.
Dia: Because this book is a lot.
Duck: So much happens here.
Dia: if you want to hear our synopsis of this book, you can go and listen to the episode but just a very brief introduction for again, whatever people there are out there clicking on this bonus episode without knowing anything about Lightlark or the podcast. This is a story that was advertised widely, particularly on TikTok as a high fantasy Hunger Games meets A Court of Thorns and Roses. YA with spicy elements sort of front runner in the thing of other thing and third thing category of literature.
Duck: Yes, I applaud it for having a name that is not a light of larks and ladders.
Dia: It would have been related locks and ladders.
Duck: No it wouldn’t, that would have been centering Azul.
Dia: That's true. It would have been queen of light and thorns or something, wouldn't it? Queen of Shadows and thorns.
Duck: Yeah, it would not have mentioned the sad gay man in any way. This is a book that
led to an active effort to not mention the sad gay man more than necessary. They literally put him in for diversity points and then do not use him.
Dia: The fact that he is canonically black and we could not think of a single thing to say about that because it's only mentioned once when it says he has dark shoulders and big eyebrows. Eyebrows bigger than his eyes specifically.
Duck: Right. But like, speaking as a white person, I have seen some very large eyebrows on white men. Like I thought that the eyebrows were bushy. I did not from this interpret that the gentleman was black. I was just like--
Dia: I don't think that was the clue. I think the fact that he has dark skin was the clue but it says dark shoulders, which isn't a phrase that meant anything to me in a universe where the sky is yolky.
Duck: The sun is yolky. I think I think to be honest, the reason I missed it is I think that I interpreted that as meaning he has the kind of tan you get by walking around outside without your shirt on a lot.
Dia: Yeah, which seems highly in character.
Duck: More tanned than the rest of him.
Dia: Dark shoulders imply left dark non shoulders.
Duck: Right exactly. And I think that's the light in which I read it which means I fully miss that he's supposed to be the black man.
Dia: I was only aware that he was black because I was already familiar with the
character portraits which Alex Aster has made available, along with the book on all of her platforms, which are to be fair gorgeously illustrated. I can't recall the artist's name now but they are lovely.
Duck: I have nothing against there being character portraits and then being used as advertising I feel like however, you should actually mention this in text ifyou wanted to…
Dia: I have to say also that the character portrait for Azul is very very funny because it, I don't have it in front of me. I don't remember the exact phrasing.
Duck: Does he have the eyebrow?
Dia: He doesn't, but it has, they have little blurbs about what the curse is, what their kingdom is, what their magic powers are.
Duck: The curse that says regular guy.
Dia: And they will have a little hook. It says he's a regular guy who can't fly. And the little hook for him is he seems sort of serene and perfect, but what secrets lie behind his smiling facade and it's like literally none.
Duck: He’s just sad. He's not even got a smiling facade--
Dia: He’s just sad!
Duck: He starts off looking kind of pensive and then it turns out his big secret is he's sad.
Dia: I think I can't remember the exact phrase and I'll look it up. But I think by that she meant that he's hot. Not that he's actually smiling.
Duck: I did get the impression that he was meant to be hot. So you know that part was communicated, but everyone in the book is meant to be hot. There are no non-hot people in this book.
Dia: I’m looking up the character portraits.
Duck: All the background characters are also hot.
Dia: There's someone who has a slight limp, I think is the closest to physical less than perfection.
Duck: But that gets fixed.
Dia: Here we go. As always description is Azul, ruler of Skyling, a realm of jovial wind masters who were able to fly before they first bound them to the ground. Everything about as well as perfect or so it seems his glittering smile a mask his glimmering jewels a distraction. What mysteries lie beneath his cleverly cleverly crafted facade? None.
Duck: Nice, it sounds like someone who was another player in the love triangle situation. And it literally is just--
Dia: He’s just sad and gay.
Duck: Sad gay and hardly ever present as well. It's just feels deliberate.
Dia: I will say his jawline is amazing. The other guys are both sort of generically hot but in his character portrait his jawline is fantastic.
Duck: Yeah.
Dia: That's his facade. It's just how good his jawline is.
Duck: You know, we're joking. Well, not necessarily joking. Like we are pointing out that the gay black man is the one who does not in fact appear in this book. But I think that after the fact--
Dia: Yes but consider, off screen he is the one who recognises and takes out the villain immediately and then just walks away tells no one.
Duck: Tells no one has no material impact and--
Dia: Poisons her non-fatally.
Duck: Wel, of course, what they do is cure the non fatal poisoning and get right back on the stupid prophecy train.
Dia: Literally he just like could have put a Post-It on her that says evil, and it would have been more helpful to the plot.
Duck: Right, yeah, I mean, the diagnosis for Azul is actually very straightforward, which is that this is not a book that needed six factions. It's a book that needed four.
Dia: But one of them has-- Okay, Grimm was too obviously evil so there has to be one that's like bitchy, obviously mean evil--
Duck: That’s Cleo.
Dia: Instead of just straight up I am the Dark Prince. And then there had to be like a dude who wasn't in love with Isla and the only reason that could happen is for him to be gay. So Azul had to exist.
Duck: Yeah, I think I think it is as straightforward as I wanted Cleo so we could have a fake out villain which to be honest, Cleo was fairly well written as a fake out villain when actually what is up with Cleo is she just doesn’t want to be here.
Dia: Just, like, mean.
Duck: Does not respect twenty year olds.
Dia: She’s just rude.
Duck: She's mean she's fed up she is not impressed by your antics, and this is enough to make her a plausible villain. Which tells you a lot about the society that you’re portraying.
Dia: She’s a bisexual queen who has slightly more screen time than Azul.
Duck: I think it's honestly as simple as wanting to be able to seat them boy girl boy girl, you know, it's we've got, I I need these three. I need these two guys. And I need these three girls and that doesn't make, doesn't match up as not symmetrical. So there has to be six of them because it's a better number than five because it means they pair up properly. And then I can do the pairs thing but I want to make a big thing about who you're paired with. And for that to be true there needs to be six of them. So we need another spare.
Dia: It is sort of it's not fantasy Hunger Games. It is a little bit love island
Duck: It is a little bit yeah.
Dia: Can I read you another character portrait? they're so good.
Duck: Yeah, I think marketing it as--
Dia: Can I read you Oro’s character description?
Duck: Please read me Oro’d bio, I wish to scour it with my mind
Dia: Oro, ruler of sunling, a realm famed for their ability to control fire drawing power from the sun and cursed to never again see the light of day. As the King of lightlark his abilities are endless, trapped in his castle from dawn to dusk Oro is distant, untrusting, cruel. To break the curses once and for all. He must break every rule. And he looks uncannily like Peter from The Lion the Witch in the wardrobe movie.
Duck: So none of this is correct.
Dia: No, none. Not a single bit.
Duck: I mean, yes, about the castle. He is, He is in the castle during daytime. That part is true. He does not break every rule that--
Dia: He is sometimes in a cave.
Duck: He's big on rules. Actually. He's a big rules guy.
Dia: He is a rule follower. I guess he's not following rules in that he and his partner are off doing something useful instead of sitting around the castle doing nothing.
Duck: Right.
Dia: Is that against the rules?
Duck: They're supposed to be plotting assassinations but not clearly motivated ones.
Dia: I really want to know what the other two pairs were getting up to.
Duck: Maybe I'm showing my age here my age being not 20. But he is a boring guy.
Dia: He is. He's also not cruel. He's just like slightly mean like twice.
Duck: Right like the cruelest, I mean, I will say, because the cruelest thing he does is the whole dinner party scene. I do think executing four times as many people as necessary to supply the dietary requirements of his cannibal houseguest is a bit cruel.
Dia: Yeah, she needed one.
Duck: Not kind behaviour.
Dia: Why are you killing people every day? Even if they're in prison for murder?
Duck: Right. I think she gets one heart a week while she's staying there. She needs one a month. Dia: Yeah. Also, I have to say, the fact that he specifies that the heart has come from a murderer. The fact that he feels the need to say that implies to me that they are, if they are supplying any hearts, they are not necessarily always from murderers, which I don't like. I don't like that at all. Duck: Right, I mean, the best option I can imagine here is they like have a long term death row situation where they collect condemned criminals for however many necessary years running up to the centennial so they can feed the Wildling attendee--
Dia: We’re not getting into the death penalty again, we already did this with Batman.
Duck: We already cancelled ourselves on the death penalty. And I'm not trying to get into the death penalty, I'm just saying that that is elaborate. Because there's no good way to deal. Logistically it doesn’t work.
Dia: I mean we have been messaging about the world building for this and the logistics don't work. There are ways it could have worked, which are annoying us.
Duck: Right! We have this whole theory-- can we talk about the Starling thing?#
Dia: Yes.
Duck: Because the wildlings should have depopulated everyone forever, there's no fixing it. But like the starling states--
Dia: Just make it one a month, make it one a year at least it would still be difficult, but it would be suspension of disbelief difficult, not unhinged, difficult to make work.
Duck: I mean, even that is a lot.
Dia: I think even that you can sort of write off in the back of your head as Oh, that's not that many, even though if you really think about it is.
Duck: If you think about it it’s too many.
Dia: Whereas one a month is enough that even if I don't think about it, it still sounds like too many. Duck: Right. That is 12 or 13 people a year depending on whether we're counting moons or calendars. And that's so many people.
Dia: Yeah.
Duck: There's no fixing it. You can't worldbuild a way around it.
Dia: No.
Duck: But the thing about Starling is that, we have this-- we are told that basically the Starling state is literally crumbling into ruins. Because no one is over the age of 25. And we came up with two things--
Dia: Oh, but before you do! Can I read you Celeste bio just before we get into it?
Duck: Yes.
Dia: Celeste ruler of Starling, a realm that manipulates energy from the stars but not the sun. That's not in our in it, I’m just adding that each subject is cursed to die when they turned 25, the youngest ruler of the smallest realm with the cruelest curse, Celeste must prove her people are worth saving her first Centennial will be her last unless she can find a way to win. Now I know all of this had to be lies, for plot reasons, but even within the lies, it is stupid.
Duck: This bio suggests that if she wins, she will keep having Centennials. It will not be her last, if she manages to break all the curses.
Dia: Maybe they’ll just keep meeting on the anniversary.
Duck: Right, they’ll just have a regular jubilee or something.
Dia: Well, like maybe whoever doesn't get cursed can keep trying. It's not implied that they can't.
Duck: I guess.
Dia: Just like you uncurse yourself and fuck off. And everyone else is like, well, yes, I'll see you in another 100 years. We'll have a go.
Duck: Right. You turn back up to maybe get assassinated this time instead?
Dia: Yeah.
Duck: Yeah. So no, no, there are no starlings over the age of 25. And it is implied that everyone else just sort of leaves them to get on with this. But also, this has had no material effect on our society apart from to like, make a lot of people be dead. And we have a number of questions here.
Dia: Yeah.
Duck: Such as why--
Dia: I think it’s implied that their infrastructure is pretty lax.
Duck: Right, because they keep, because there's sort of no, no experts and not a large working population. But mostly the no experts thing is sort of implied there's nobody who gets good at stuff because they die too young.
Dia: Yeah.
Duck: So our questions are one Why did the starlings not regard themselves as like full adults at 14?
Dia: We don't know they don't, but it should be implied that they do. It seems like Selena
was young. Right? So let's thinks of herself or put Aurora in disguise portrays herself as Celeste as thinking of herself as being too young for this. Not a proper grown up. And I mean,
yeah, you're an elder statesman by the standards of your people. Yeah, like that could be to manipulate Isla but it doesn't still doesn't totally make sense. Because if I hadn't the brain cells, she would think the same thing we do. It's just that ISIS doesn't. Right. And the implication also is that they've been having like little sleepovers in auroras bedroom where she is, like, sheltered in the same way Isla is pushing access to
library which I suppose doesn't. But apart from that, yeah, who exactly? is popping out babies? She also isn't popping out babies. She is an old lady who was going to die in the next couple of years. Where are the babies? What is she like? 19? She was six years. Yeah, she's got what, like babies,
baby. Yeah, and you can't have an official heir when you go to the centennial, but it doesn't say you can't have like relatives who could conceivably become your heir. Right? For badly explained magical reasons. But so so we have this this this question, which is well, the first question was, why why does starlings not consider themselves adults at 14? And, you know, in a very common theme, the character portrait for Celeste
definitely looks like she is supposed to be a child posing as an adult. It's very Barbie 12 Dancing Princesses. Yeah, stylistically. I like it. I think it looks very nice. But yeah. Why? Why would anyone think they were not an adult? Right. And then that led me on to the question of hang on a minute. What Why? Why are the starlings an independent state? Why is their civil service and the infrastructure of their state not being helpfully taken over by one of the five other factions who don't drop dead at 25 and managed on their behalf in exchange for the most of their resources, a thing that would happen in the real world if the population of a given nation always died at 25? My conspiracy theory answer to this is they don't know how the curses work very well. And there's a chance if you took over Starling, you would then get this darling curse might be infectious. Well, like if you are the ruler of starlings, does that not make you automatically dropped out at 25? With all the other rulers?
I was gonna say we have a test case, because, as all, in addition to his other mediaeval character traits, has turned his kingdom into a democracy, of which he is merely the titular head.
So that when he dies, it will be fine. Yeah.
Because the prime minister of grayling can't fly.
Englishness from the Prime Minister of Scotland can't fly because people can't fly. This is true. Like, is this current not flying or just regular non flying? How do you test that, you know, yet realistically, stalling should not be being left to try and handle infrastructure when everyone is under 25. Right, someone should be taking this place over. Because I don't know if you know this. But like 24 year olds who are going to die next year, not the savviest negotiators in regards to the natural resources of their country. No, I mean, this is the thing is we know that Celeste is Aurora has been every single ruler of Starling and kind of say, I know she's like evil or whatever. But hats off to you pretending to be under 25 for 500 years. Being honest, only five is
the path this I find so implausible. It only just occurred to me as I'd sort of been assuming that starlings mostly knew they had an immortal ruler, and it was like everyone else who was fooled. Because very unclear, it's not mentioned how he's pulling off this deception. Right? Like every every few years, resetting yourself to your own younger descendant is exhausting to contemplate. Why even if we assume she lives in relative isolation, as Isla does, it's still not clear when she announces that there is a new her. Right and how that all goes down. But on the other hand, getting to stage your own increasingly dramatic death every few years does sound fun. It does have fun, you could have a funeral every 25 years for yourself, right? You can the entire kingdom will mourn, right? You get to go to your own wake. You, you get to and you are absolutely Monique. So you can punish anyone who doesn't look sufficiently unhappy. Right? And you can just find ways for your curse to find you and delay in dramatic and hilarious ways. And no one's allowed to how they died. They just dropped dead of natural causes or like a wizard show up. I like the idea that it's like that one. Is it an HP Lovecraft right with the wizard who occurred on your family to die at this age? It's just his turns. And it turns out he just shows up and shoots them or whatever. Right? He has cursed them with a pedal vengeance of I'm gonna find you. Yeah, yeah, they break the curse by like, arresting him.
Yeah, they just did they just take away the weapon.
Take his
curse of bullet. Should we talk about iceless isolation because my god this woman's upbringing doesn't make sense. Is this the time to do I suppose character betrayal. Let's can we do iceless character there's so much to say about
useless characters. So should we start with the bio? Please? What does the book tell us? A couple of notes about Isla in this little promo bio. It's cropped like it's for Instagram. I assume that's where it originally was, but it could it's in any number of places. One she's the only one with a surname, her name as I look around. Stupid surname, by the way, too. I don't know if you've seen the illustration, but her boobs are going in completely different directions and it's very distracting. I have not seen this illustration, but that does sound distracting. Is she wearing a very sexy dress. She is wearing some red fabric wrapped around herself. And it's wrapped around her boobs, but it's wrapped around each breast separately. So it pulls them in different directions like this isn't a failure of jiggle physics. This is a sartorial choice. That sounds uncomfortable. It is held up with sort of
thorn Bramble
that goes around her chest and down her arms. Nothing is holding it up so it is supported entirely by her breasts. That sounds bad. I don't want to wear that. Yeah. It's like it's a top and bottom piece. She's completely bare from sort of armpit level up. And then there's the thorns are wrapped around her arms down to the wrist and over the chest and then the fabric sash that is wrapped around her chest is attached to the thorns. And it looks sort of once around one boob then comes around the back and over the other boob and then sort of tightens at the bottom in a way I assume means it's tied up. It is the same shade of red as her crown which is made of flowers and thorns as well. In many ways, I suppose like Jesus Christ with her. That's very high fashion. I would expect to see this on the catwalk but on the other hand, that is catwalk culture that is not close. No, also, I say this again, the degree of separation implies that this is quite tight and it looks so uncomfortable. It's so hard to believe that there is an entire society of warrior women running around in this outfit. Anyway, this bio reads icecrown ruler of wildland a realm of temptresses, who can control nature and a curse to Fort kill anyone they fall in love with. The Centennial is her only chance to break the curse and save her well. To survive she must lie, cheat and betray even as love complicates everything. It also shows her using magic powers. Right the one she doesn't have she appears to be making a rose blossom into existence that we fatty does fake that with her blood at one point but she doesn't seem to be bleeding. Also, I will note again it's a realm of temperature says we know there are Wildling men we never in here have one we never even never meet one. I use this male parent is not one. And Wildling is consistently referred to as a realm of temptresses not temperatures it's always temperature says and seductress is also I do not follow how the temperatures thing is supposed to come from the you must kill people you fall in love with. To be fair, I think the idea is that they already because they have magically good singing voices. I think the idea is they're supposed to be sort of siren elves who already had a reputation for being horny. And then the killer eating hearts and killing anyone they fall in love with went from Oh yeah, the sexy wilderness people to the sexy murder wilderness people who will write your heart. It sort of tries to imply that the reason they're very sexy is because they will they they're using this to catch you so they can eat your heart. But that it also says that they mostly at the heart of jewel fix
the jewel thieves who come into their realm to steal the jewels that bloom up from the ground wherever they walk. Right. And also they're not like mythical creatures who show up once in 100 years and sing your ship onto the rocks. They're just a whole nation of people who are cannibals. I feel like you're gonna need the weapons more than you need the seductress of this thing after the first five years and yet the jewel thieves apparently have not learned because I thought it implies that is like the number one source of food which might bring us back to our points about Starling. Right, which our theory is okay, so everyone's dropping dead 25 otherwise healthy people just dropping 25 Just eat the starlings yet why starlings not got like some kind of Y range, not farming the starlings like, I feel like it's not even that bad a deal. You know, hey, we will make your country function because we have adults who know stuff. And you will provide us with a steady supply of hearts from young healthy people. Right? They wouldn't be dead anyway, crucially, we're not going to kill those people. We're just going to institute some very specific shared funeral arrangements.
We don't sense of whether other wildlings are okay with the hottie saying what we see that there's a few who seem to have her visibly recently eaten which implies they're just kind of like Dracula in blood and not washed
Their faces like they've eaten messily Yeah. And then they have not wiped them out. Which, which is pretending when I slit is pretending to be a normal Wildling she cuts a little slice off with a knife with a knife and so like it doesn't seem like they are compelled to be beastial. It's just some people out there
not watching their faces. Yeah, they're fine with the heart eating. It's not disturbing or gross to them. It's just that morally, they would prefer to have ethically acquired hearts. There is a nation of people right next to you dropping down at 25 who could use some help, they need support. Unfortunately, the wildlings the economy is in shambles. State and child rearing is so stupid. That's so funny we have to talk about so. Honestly, this is one of the places where this book most resembles the Hunger Games. But in that very specific you read the Hunger Games, and what you took away from it was not what it was saying because the Hunger Games has a protagonist who is unexpectedly good at one specific martial art, which is archery for the very practical reason of you either go out there and learn to shoot rabbits or you starve to death. Yeah, she is notably not good at like combat in general. Only martial skill is she's good with a bow and arrow. Yeah, like she has enough physical strength that she is not like the easiest target around. She's a fit strong, healthy, 16 year old. With with one combat skill. This puts you in a better position than like, a 12 year old with none. Yeah, but the number of people however, right a number of people read The Hunger Games and we're like, Katniss is so cool. The new model for for ya protagonist is all the combat skills at a very young age, super soldier or inexplicable combat skills from the minute they start being taught them. Oh, people were very fond of the No, no, I didn't learn this painfully over several years of living on dandelions. No, no, no, no, no. Somebody was handed me a knife. And I was like, I'm so good at this. And then I was, well, what usually happens is they hand them a knife and they suck at it. And what did you think it was gonna be easy? And then they practice for two days and they're a master.
Right?
Such as you know, Isla, who? Almost irrelevantly, there is one stage jewel she's in and then there's a knife fight, she loses.
Yeah.
But she is just the best of icing. She has been trained. She is, she is an elite of Wildling culture, you know, she is the finest Pinnacle product of them their martial prowess. And we get so many flashbacks to this suppose a training regime, and it is all batshit stupid.
The bit that seems like it is pointed and useful, even though I think it's stupid in general, is that she is repeatedly trained to experience various forms of pain without responding.
This is the only bit of training that comes in useful to her at any point. They traumatised her out of flinching, which yes, she
was stick it into a fire. Yeah, it's not clear why.
Because you may be aware of this dear listener, but the ability to function in stressful situations is not closely related to the ability to like, hold your facial expressions still. Through pain. That's not the not the same thing, especially pain that you knew was coming with every time it is pain that she knows is coming and to be able to write functions very badly under stress. She does because she is also deeply shelters. Because she's not cursed. Yeah, so they can't go out. Given the Wildling curses are not protected in any way. I do not understand how being not curse meant she couldn't go out. Well, she also does have magic powers.
The nature around her but like you can make a story for that. You can make a rule. You didn't have a vow of silence situation. Or you know, magic equivalent thereof. Absolutely. What I'm saying is you could do something other than shut her up in like a semi, a semi derelict wing of
the windows
more towards URI. Right. There's no good reasons to do this, as I said that we could see in like, well put a rid of regular room them with walls. No, they put her in a
window, and they close it because she's not allowed an open window and it's like,
what is that helping? It's a child's torture situation. But also they're teaching how to be an elite warrior, but their methods are not
Like, nothing sorting lessons Oh, no, no, no, no, no. They do things like take her out of the wilderness and dump her that. And she makes herself a bow and arrows in the three. She says it took me three days to get back. And in that time, she made herself a bow and arrow and lived on the things she was shot shooting because she has gotten as she was also saying to you knew she was so sick when she made it back because she was sick for weeks. If you have been in the woods for three days, and then you are sick for weeks, I feel you may have sepsis. Yeah, I think that's a blood poisoning situation. He was girl between wretched blood I think you might not be well, I mean, the longest I've ever been running around the woods with no adult supervision as a child was about 14 hours. But I can't imagine doing that three times over would be like four weeks worth of illness. Right? Also you did not make a bow and arrow and would not have had you taken three days of bank at home. No.
And also because making you may not know this
arrow, even a crude bow and arrow takes both of three days during which you are also hiking. Just hiking along with I got my little
sexy, right? Honestly, this is how I thought making a bow and arrow would work. When I was eight years old. I was like you pick up a stick, there's like sort of bow shaped. And then you put a string on it. And that's a bow and arrow. Yeah, I think I was made
out of sticks out of strings and elastic bands to throw other sticks at my friends with slightly higher velocity than I could do with my hands. Is that what she did? Did she just make a stick thrower?
Right, I used to use the rubber band on a stick of suitable length is a classic. And it's also not how a bow works.
And also not good for hunting food. I think that is actually what she had. At the point where we were doing that we were a little, at least a teenager. Yeah, she really thought she made a bow and arrow, but also whose trading method is this? How is this make you feel better? What we see that actually do which is a formula.
The final exam at the Red Room in Black Widow is just like yeah, that will teach you things. But no, no, the point of that was that it was like dehumanising and testing that their training had made them survival and killing machines loyal only to Mother Russia. It wasn't supposed to teach them anything. Like dunk them three days away in the woods and make them hike back. Like, isn't a pedagogical method. It might be a not very smart final test situation. But it's not how you teach someone anything. But we never see anyone actually teach her anything. We do see them hug her off a tree until her arms dislocate, told her she could go on a tour of her own kingdom if she did it. And then they didn't let her do it anyway. Because she was too she made too much of a fuss like a big baby about being hungry retreated her arms dislocated. So you know how you get stronger arms by dislocating them? I do, right? I mean, my medical experience is that when you have severely damaged your joints, this is good for them. Yeah, that's exactly what you're supposed to do with joints is rip them out of their sockets. That's how you become the goodest at swords. Right? I've also unconvinced that hanging statically. Well, this Okay, your shoulders couldn't quite work out the mechanics of this because it feels like the shoulders would not be the first thing to go. Like I don't find it unbelievable that being suspended by your shoulders, which causes damage to them. But it will
dislocate them because what will actually happen is your circulation to your hands will give out your grip will weaken and you will fall exactly like I can't like it's not even if if you're not attached to the branch in any way. Your hands are gonna go first hand some more delicate than shoulders and are further away from your heart. Right. This has been deemed as medical expertise.
What we're saying is that we are this these are the examples we are given of iceless good Oh, careful, its stringent preparation for being a warrior temperatures is a beacon of dressing. She doesn't like and go hiking. It's implied that they have a sort of very, very detailed, meticulous plan for seducing or
fuck all about talking to men or fucking them, despite the fact that she's having sex with grim for a year, but she doesn't remember that. Right? The really notable thing to me is not that she doesn't know how to have sex, because Fair enough. That's honestly not very relevant to the whole seduction thing. But she has no company manners. Like it's not just that she has decided not to pursue the plot of seducing or oh that she has been given because she just she doesn't know how to talk to anyone first ever spoken to and she doesn't know what to do. But also like it doesn't. I mean, okay, she could just not be thinking about it because he's chosen not to go with that scope, but it didn't seem like they had any
plan for seducing Oro apart from be vaguely sexy near him, and explicitly.
It worked.
They have explicitly been stated that Wildling rulers have been trying to seduce him at every sentence centennial. This has been everyone's plan since forever because they have two things and it's being sexy and eating hearts like and therefore they have tried the beam sexy manoeuvre over and over, it has never previously worked for Hey, we put this traumatised youngster in His presence and he will fall for her
brilliant plan, maybe in sending people who do actually know how to seduce and they're like, What if he has a thing for traumatised children? And they're fucking right. Right? I think that must be it because also that's a robust plan. And also it fully works. Like they just know somehow that Auro has a real cake for traumatised children. I've got this guy's vibe. You know what you've been sending a different type of vibe of wildly temperatures every year. They're like, Okay, what about a competent adult? What about someone who shares your interests? What about somebody who's just really into you and comes on to you explicitly? What about styles? Are we going without weight going with heavily scarred Lolita, the latest fashion craze? She's not scarred because they have magic potions that prevent scarring. This is very important to mention. But also to mention that the wildlings have tan skin except for Islip because she has been kept inside all of her life. Right?
I mean, yeah, I was I don't mean this. I don't know how to phrase this without it being mean. And obviously, like, I'm not, I'm not like Spanish. I'm not Hispanic. I'm not Latina. But I have to say there's something very, very weird about how much of the like promo stuff mentioned, oh, ASTRA includes a lot of sort of Latin elements and Spanish language elements, because that's our culture. And then he read the book. And the elements in question are like the word Otto is used. Right? It's not that I don't think it's bad. Like, you don't have to include that it just feels weird that it was so heavily promoted, along with a lot of other things that were heavily promoted with the azul thing, it's not so much that this book is unusually racist. It's that this book did an unusual amount of promotion about how diverse it was. And then it wasn't. And like it is an extension of the this is the thing is, we want to I did say when we were planning this bonus, that I wanted to talk about the things I liked, because there are things in this book I really like. And there are things. And there were more things in this book that I would have really liked. If I was like closer to the age I was when this was the kind of book I read.
On a really fundamental level, I do agree that it was falsely advertised. And if I had picked up this book based on that advertising, I would have felt really betrayed. In a way I would have gone on the same journey as Iceland as if I'd expected actual Hunger Games, I would not have found it if I'd expected actual court intrigue, I would not have found it. If I had expected a plot that made sense. I would not have found it. Yeah, I'm like if I expected the gay black man to feature in the book in any way, I would have been disappointed. Fortunately, I did not go in knowing that I should expect him to do things. Therefore I was just towards the end of the book, Greg is, as all just not in this. This is very funny.
Because he is just not in this. This is a thing. Before we get on to the topic of things we like can I do another character bio because we've got two and I'm enjoying them so much. I want to highlight before I get into Graham's character bio one. He is known by his nickname grim
right, which is your Grimshaw, which I think is a town in the north of England is
to really spoils the bad boy vibe. I don't know why the character design looks like Hawkeyes uniform from the first Avengers movie, so there's that except with armour over it. And his crown is made of like shards which sort of implies they're like clips in place with little hair clips, which I love. I'm looking at him is such an anime boy. Yeah, there's a slot of light directly over his eyes, which I have to assume is about to kill him because he can't go out in the sun.
Yes, we have grim ruler of nightshade, a realm of shadow that draws power from darkness cost to live during the day and never again feel the energy of night. Rumours grim disabilities abound, the power to disappear to move through walls to spin nightmares and curses.
This centenial is the first nightshade has been invited to join and all targets are all grim. No one talks about any point. Not at any point. That does not happen. They do all assume that he is evil and constantly plotting war, which it turns out is true, but nobody seems to mind. This is it's just such a weird choice. Like I'll read the last one because we're getting to the false advertising section of our conversation sold if we'd love to you and click Can I point out first things first. I do feel like I would be remiss if I did not mention this. Clio has very equally weird character designed to everyone else but I have to draw it out
addition to the fact that she has an illusion neckline like you know when I don't know how much listeners at home will care what an illusion neckline is when you know when you have like a sort of low cart or like sweetheart kind of dress and then there's a mesh panel and some kind of jewellery or embroidery at the top that makes it look like they're two separate pieces and you have like vines trailing or jewellery at the top and then like a very low cut dress that isn't part of the whole thing. Right, but actually, I've seen them on like tailgaters, and brides. Yeah figure skaters do this a lot where they have what's actually a leotard that looks like it's a little corset dress. Yeah, because it also helps if you want to look like you see it a lot with sort of ethereal style dresses that want it to look like there's magical Sparkle, sparkle or flowers just click into holding this thing up. Yeah, it makes things look quite ethereal and majestic or clear has one that is holding up a
necklace. It is but I have I've just read does not match the rest of her outfit. I know I want to address rigidly gauzy white skirt over this like white satin show frati It's great though I will say in the tech she is described as being covered collarbone to ankle indicate she is not currently wearing her cape, I assume yes, she is D caped anyway clear ruler of Moon Ling, a realm of water masters that can control the sea and occurs to drown in droves each time the moon is full. But the moon lungs have not been weakened. Their curse affects them the least of all the realms. The sky cannot fire like everyone else who cannot fly, cold and cunning. If Cleo can't make allies during the centennial, she'll gladly make enemies. Well That part is true. True, but mostly because she thinks this is a waste of time. She literally didn't come to the last one. Literally like Cleo is just bored and hates everyone. She's like I have come to this 100 Day diplomatic summit in which we have never achieved anything and never will. But seriously, I'm not having fun. And I hate you all Clio is just a member of European Parliament representing Iceland.
Keo is listening with like half an ear to the simultaneous translation.
actually thinking about how she is like, how, yeah, missing her favourite karaoke bar? Yeah. But now that I've read you all of the character bios and bear in mind, this is just the character bios, it's one element of the general promotion of the book. And does it does it seem a little odd to you that every single one of them that I have read out, we have immediately noticed something that is fucking not in this book? At all?
Not here.
Right. So himself, not really here. But yeah, all of these are just advertising the thing that the book, I think this is the thing is, I think the book, I think Alex asked to set out to write the book that these buyers claim. Yeah. But that's not the book that actually made it to public is she wrote this book. According to her. I don't know if this is verified in any way. But according to Alexandria, she wrote this about 11 years ago, I published it about a year ago. And a lot can change in 10 years. But this does not feel like a book that had extensive revisions. No, this sorry, my mouth is full of tea leaves. Because I'm gonna mention actually because I think this is entertainingly. psychoanalytically relevant. That this evening, I have been drinking a tea called black rhino. Very fun. It's really nice. Actually. It's just pure Kenya. Do you like that? But ya know, and like, other elements that weren't like there were a lot of trope based marketing. Things. We've said things like sort of bad guy gets the girl I can't remember the exact tropes us but they were in the vein of death games. Bad guy gets the girl love
triangle. Yeah. Yeah. And the finish it very, very interesting to me is a lot of them are arguable. Not not true. But like, only tangentially true like they're the kind of things that if you're on TV trips show up in the Your mileage may vary page with a lot of like under comments, right? Where it's like, you could argue this applies but like, it's not really big. Yeah, like even the love triangle, like I went in knowing there was a love triangle and how it works and which characters are and I was still surprised when it happened because I expected it to happen on screen. Right? the love the love triangle, isn't there. I mean, there's there's a mutual relationship between Grimm and Isla felt like most of the book, and then in the last three chapters, we have weighed or has been in love with you all the time. You know that you find this out at the moment you find that you have his powers because he's so in love with you. And then there's like 10 minutes worth of showdown during which time she also goes and changes clothes, and then discovers, literally she discovers that she's in love with or Oh, because he can use her powers after all. Yeah, I thought it's not
She's
very justified. She never has a feelings of elation. She never goes, Oh, I like Auro it's just like, Oh, my magic has chosen aro I must pay for thing like, it was a triangle. He was just guy you didn't like. Like Vilem gets the girl is one of the tropes referenced in his book and he straight up doesn't. He does not get the girl villain guy as the girl and then by the end, he doesn't know he has exorcised the girl from this relationship like he's the one that removed her. He got her and then he was the girl. Like he is her ex boyfriend and he did the dumping. He did not get the golf.
Villa dubs the girl is a much more interesting trope, honestly. I mean, two equally unpleasant brooding men, like the girl is not the same thing as villain gets the girl. Also not the same thing as a love triangle. Oh, like to be fair, I think a lot of people make that mistake of like, Oh, I think like it is very believable to me that Isla is incompetent at identifying her own feelings and those of others because she was raised in like, weird torture greenhouse. She was raised in a blacked out greenhouse.
Her education was one book at a time for the library, no formal education and everything in the book, just you were allowed to read a book, interspersed with bouts of physical torture that are supposedly somehow combat training. And then they sent her to the most important political summit in 100 years with a plan to seduce the immortal King.
Sure, if that doesn't have a clue what's going on in her heart or her head and honestly, the most believable thing she does is for like a period of a couple of weeks, goes and just hides out in the ruins with the one seven that was assigned to her like bringing her porridge. And honestly, in her situation, I think she is entitled to do that. Yeah. But like, yeah, like I said, like, okay, let's, it's now a good time to bring in the stuff we did like because we didn't say we were it's only fair.
Because we need to talk about credibly funny grim it's at all time is so funny. I'm not sure it's always on purpose, but it is very funny. At least sometimes it is on purpose because his whole we produce that. We have a challenge to compare the things of value our own produce, and everyone else's like here are healing potions. And we have invented the telephone and grip walks out and he's like, we produce nothing of value of walks off stage.
That is funny on purpose really is trying. Alex Nasta is trying to be funny, they are both succeeding, it is funny. He writes a note with a knife instead of a pen at one point like you have flashcards in this universe, but not pens.
It's very, very funny.
He can fly a teleport. Even so he just sort of brutes in corners.
He's literally just here to watch his girlfriend, get off with someone else. He has got some kind of voyeurism thing going on. Because he is like flirting with her really heavily. You're then pulling back to push her towards Auro but not in a very effective way literally just to make sure she spent time with him. But then coming back, I Yeah, his pattern of like, I think Greg was enjoying watching his girlfriend with a little too much is what I'm saying. If she resolves this love triangle with like a voyeuristic polyamory situation in the next book, I will forgive a lot of the things I didn't like about this one. Guy hoping it goes to threesomes. Yes, I think it would be very funny.
I mean, six does divide very deeply into two threesomes Yes, but one of them is azul who is absented? Also gay? It's true.
Might be dead. really unclear or no idea what happened to him. At the end of the book he walks off into a magical storm and I think he dies but like everyone is like oh, he died with a smile as if he had seen his beloved one last time he died oh my god, I missed him die. I thought he just disappeared.
He might just have walked into a storm and not been seen again. I thought he just wandered off yeah.
It will not be out of character.
But yes no other things I we both said there was a lot of descriptive stuff we did like while there are some very interesting descriptive choices. I don't think as all is dead, I think he just would never get an update on his fate. He watches as the storm goes away, as he might have seen his boy for his his husband for what last time that we do not know where he went or what he did. But this Yeah, I thought he had just wandered off. Honestly. He appears to have just wandered off.
icon. I love him.
I made a little list of my suggestions if I were in charge of this book number one was actually we'll get to number one later. Number two was hire an editor number three was more agile.
will say hi as well as your editor how that would work. But like I feel like he's the man who will tell
have ideas about literature. But yeah, they reject us on to him because he is not present that has no character. But yes, there are some really nice descriptive passages. There are some really fun descriptive passages that are just genuinely well written and good. Yeah, we were noticing when we were talking about the description that there's, there's not a lot of description. There's a lot happening in this book for the length of this book. And part of the reason is we don't get a lot of time spent on sort of appearances of things.
So people, people, people's faces, people's clothes, we don't get a lot of wear. We do get descriptions mostly of place, but some of the place descriptions are really nice. Yeah, and I will say I did. Again, I mentioned this in the main episode, but I actually looked up reviews of this guy, I was like, this really appeals to some people. Let's see why. And a lot of it was very much in the vein of like, I just liked books that are unpredictable, which I think is fair. I enjoy things that are weird. Yeah. A lot of people in the negative reviews were dunking on asters weird descriptions, and while some of them I do think that is valid, because some of them made me laugh. I particularly like light light was a shining cliffie thing, and the sun was a Yoky thing. Those are both great. Yoki twice I swear they have been put in specifically to set up the revelation that
there are a couple of there are a couple of like ones that I saw being laughed at, like a one point I saw describes herself having a stripe of chill where a hot guy has touched her or like the seed banging against the cliff. It's not that it's fine. It's not mockable it's not like the greatest description I have ever read in my life, but it's not bad. But I do think people were dunking unnecessarily on some of the descriptions which were perfectly serviceable, and some of them are really good. Yeah, but a couple of them are quite funny. A couple of them are quite funny. The sun is an egg. Sun isn't. The moon is also an egg. Because the sky is an egg.
We are within the egg shell of the sky is an egg
with egg your egg. Eisler is an egg she lives in a greenhouse. But but a blackout.
Yes. So if you if you are if you I genuinely think like if you really like being surprised by books, if you're here for the descriptive passages, if you like these kinds of sort of Tropi ancient princes warring over the ingenue main character. I'm not going to say there's anything wrong with that, like I like objectively worse novels than this.
Yeah, it's you know, what, so what it really resembles? Is, like the structural difficulties that it has, you're in terms of sort of the amount of time that is spent on what turns out is actually the plot versus the amount of time that is spent on side quests that that can't go anywhere because the plot is for them not to work.
out that kind of structural issue. Yeah. feels to me like when I try to do NaNoWriMo. And I don't have a plot planned out, like is the start writing and then never go back and fix anything and just barrel towards the finish? Kind of structural difficulty? Yeah, like if it does feel like to me, it does feel like it needed more editing. And I do find it wild that this was written in, like over 10 years? Well, I do I do find it does feel weird to me.
Because it from the character bios and the film of the promos being so different to the final product, there is a part of me that is like, this feels like it was rewritten. And you never went back and revisited your original concept to see what had changed when you're advertising it. And a lot of the passages that were promoted on social media are different to the ones that appear in the final novel. But at the same time the final novel so does not feel like it was rewritten extensively.
No, the the BIOS feel to me like they're what you write, when you don't really have
a well laid out plan for what's going to happen in this book. But you have some ideas and some aesthetics and you're doing your it's when they feel that the biography right of the character before you write the book, yes, references for yourself of who these characters are. And then you don't revisit them. You just put them in the marketing and don't notice that actually, the book you wrote isn't the one that you were planning on when you first wrote those bios. I genuinely don't think this is a public first draft. I think it's that I was asked his writing style favours a lot of very sudden twists and turns that makes it hard to do structural edits. Yeah, I don't want to say that that shouldn't be the case. Because clearly people like the twists and turns and the changing and the way that the carpet keeps yanked out from under you at several points. But at the same time, it makes it read to me like she just needed an editor to tie her to a chair. Yes, I think without sacrificing padding twists. Duo next second draft right I think this is the thing I think there's there's even I don't think you needed to lose all the twisty turn in us and I don't even think that you needed to like, push it like
Even the ones that are only there for the sake of being twisty and turny, I think you could have left in. But you there needed to be an editor. This book could have stood to be longer. Yeah, that it's too short. But you could have added 5% of foreshadowing sprinkled through the book and still had a reasonable length of book. Yeah.
had more grounded in its own story. I think also if a story is this centred on the trails, we should have more time to care about the relationships these characters have. Because I yeah, I laughed out loud when I cut to the betrayals because it's so out of nowhere, right? This is the thing like surprise, I am secretly your boyfriend and also secretly the villain like whoa.
Celeste turns out to be Aurora would hit a lot better if we had more of their friendship than like a flashback to a sleepover. And a couple of worried conversations and corners during the centennial. They spent hardly any time together during the centennial. i It's not that I don't believe their friendship. I just don't. There's just not enough of it. Right? Exactly. I just needed to see more of it in order to care about Celeste as more than I useless friends who I am aware of like this. It doesn't hit that Celeste isn't a real person. It only hits that Celeste has been lying to Isla. I think it would be stronger if Celeste was a person who I cared about who then turns out to be like, exactly like I don't really mind that you can see most of the betrayals coming I know, not everyone said they could I think to me, it was more just because I had been spoiled for it. Like, I don't know if I would have gotten that first round. It feels to me like it seems obvious that everyone is gonna betray her because that's the kind of book it is.
But like, I don't I think the betrayals would have hit harder if we'd been given reasons to care about these people's relationships, which we just weren't, were given. Like, when I was first told the plot of this. I was like, Yeah, sounds like Celeste slash Aurora has a pretty good reason actually, to do anything, everything to win this game. She's gonna die in like, I know she's not gonna die. But I know she's not gonna die. She's immortal, objectively, absolutely the worst curse. But like she has an entire kingdom to run where everyone dies at 25. It's not made clear at any point that she's a complete monster who doesn't give a shit? Right? Like, even in her true self as a ruler, who is not personally subject to the curse. That seems like something you'd want to break. If there's got to be inconvenient. Your Prime Minister can never be older than 25. That's a problem. I also imagine being the only adult in the entire kingdom.
Right? I mean, just having to be an autocratic ruler. Why even just socially children and teenagers, even just like socially, like
500 years old, and the only people you can ever spend time with are all under 25. Just you are the weird, the weird, old person at the university parties forever. Yeah. It just sounds horrendous. It's no good. Like she she deserves to like, she objectively has the worst curse, even if she will not accidentally responsible for them. Like, she has reason to resent people who are like, Ah, I am so cursed. I can only go outside during the day, and I can't fly. She's like, everyone I know will drop dead on their 25th birthday. So I don't care about your ladders. It's a lot.
And this leads us Can I just leave back to I mentioned that I had a little list of things I would like to fix about this novel. I say my number one thing I would do to change this. If I were permitted to be the editor, make Isla actually be a hot eating wildland. Right? It actually makes everything less impactful that she is not. There's no she does the thing her not being cursed does is make her not realise that she doesn't have magic powers. And it's like why why? Why would that work like that? Surely she could just not realise anyway. Yeah. Or you know, the thing about
I don't think it's necessary to the the impact of the betrayals that she is not aware until that moment that Oro loves her. Yeah, so her having access to his powers because he loves her can be something that happened two days ago that she's just not figured out any way to the idea is that she's supposed to
exploit it yet. And then
is that it's meant to stop her from realising that Grimm is in love with her because they've been dating for a year as well. But like, I think if you had your memories of that wiped, it might take you a while to realise that you actually have powers and that would be a really cool moment. If
She suddenly does not change it and go oh, wait, what I've barely spoken to him. Right? How can he love me? How can this possibly have happened? That would be way cooler intrigue than him for taking a droplet date. But also, how can he love me? Ah, because I am in fact, a wildling and it is the nature of my curse. I am a seductress. So of course, of course, this is how it will go down. Of course, I would accidentally come to dinner in my sluttiest dress, and both of them will just fall in love with me like that. It would make so much more sense it would be so much better. It's not good when you look at a book and you say, well, this will be better without the hook. Yeah, it would I just feel like it would be a vast improvement and also looping back to our styling should be supplying the hearts to Wildling it would make the Celeste Eisler relationships so much Meteor if Isla was actively planning to eat Celeste heart if this plan didn't work out, right? Because you can't give royalties hearts to just anyone. Right? Exactly. And obviously you can't waste it. And I would really enjoy the bisexual tension of the as a wildlife I have to murder anyone I fall in love with I'm not obliged to eat their heart I just do that because why waste food but I have to murder anyone I fall in love with. And when you add that to the mix of like your first real friend and like your secret best friend and you're having these sleepovers and the the tension it introduces to be like, am I actually falling in love with my friend because if I am I have to kill her but also I might have to kill her anyway. So does it really matter if I am but maybe I am. And that is like
it's not that that like reveal that she would be an actual temperature the the reveal with Celeste the fact that she kills her if she was an actual Wildling temptress who eats hearts. The fact that she kills Celeste at the end would be so much she was in love with her. It would be tragic. She'd never know though because she had to kill her for plot reasons. Right had to kill her to save the world. But also did like Did I did I kill her because I had to or did I kill her because it was my fate to do so because I loved her. And it will make the future love triangle so much more engaging. If right now I don't have to burden either of you. This is where it
she's gone from like these two guys who are in love with me because of my Wildling temptress ways and I will have to kill them if I fall in love with them, too. Well, I've already killed someone I'm in love with. And now I don't have to do that. And I've never experienced emotion without that weighing over me. Right? I have literally never contemplated a relationship that does not end quickly. And tragically. I am suddenly having to come to terms with the idea of being with someone for like, multiple years, let alone not even grappling with the whole immortality thing like more than months. What do you do after the first couple of months if you don't murder them?
What's the relationship? I wouldn't be so good and like it would also make grip more interesting like what kind of human you have to be to get into a love triangle where the prize is a wildling who will kill you and eat your heart frights to you, especially when you are an immortal being is this like is this in fact just the death drive? Is this just suicidality through your chosen method is 20 year olds temperatures? Well, I'm just gonna go out having a good time.
But crucially, I think if you're if that's your attitude, I feel like what you're trying to do is go out. Yeah, I said it would be so much better without the hook. Honestly, all of all, everything we've been talking about all of this analysis we've been doing I think loops us back to what for me is the best feature of this book. Which is that it does provoked you to write I want to go and write so much. Why
this is an extremely
fertile ground for fanfic they were going to be so many people who write their first stories, because they are fixing like luck. It's provided one more thing that bothers me about like luck. Just one if you're gonna have a mystical item called the heart that everybody is talking about this. Why are there two separate thematic elements about hearts the heart eating and grim calling is the heart that are literally never connected to it even as a red herring. This should be a central theme. Hire fucking editor Alex. You could have tied this together so much and made this about hearts. But no, it's about twists. Could have been cool for Matic. This is the thing is like when I say this could have been I mean I literally somewhere in this there is a really cool book. Yes, like not not in someone else's hands. A different book could have been written with this premise. But this book could have been good
like this has the, this has the bones of a really interesting theme. It has the core structure of a really good novel. I just feel like it rattles from bit to bit in a way that is less than the sum of its parts. Yeah, I have to agree that I wanted a cannibal temperatures novel
was enjoy cannibal temptress novel. I want to read a cannibal temptress novel right now and the fact that I have not been given one that is very sad. It's so sad. You're sad about this book, though, please. So, one of the things I again, I went looking for positive reviews. And I have to say, a lot of people were very, very strongly opinionated on the love triangle.
Nobody should get with Yes. Which surprised me because I found both of these men to be equally hard bodied. But whether or not a single person was in disagreement about the Clio being the coolest characters Wi Fi, she has like two pages. I love that. I love that she just shows up hates everything. box off. And every single person who likes this book that I could find went yeah, yeah, we love her.
More. Please, I love I love that word clear as she has survived the book so we maybe we will get more of Cleo. I think the best thing apart from I think it's going to work a lot of fanfic that I personally can say about light like is although I think it is a bad book badly written. For hopefully I'm gonna end up reading the sequel. I'm absolutely going to read the sequel. Are you kidding me? I had so much fun reading this book. I laughed out loud several times. Not usually when the book was trying to be funny. But sometimes it is funny on purpose. Sometimes it is funny on purpose. Sometimes I'm just like, this is the most farcical description of a seductive. 20 year old I've ever read. Oh my God. Everything about ICER is so funny because her two main character traits are that she is felted and dumb and extremely sexy.
And it's just a very funny combination when she is surrounded by men who are
in a sexy dress. She is constantly soaking wet.
Like I cannot explain to you how many times in this book isolette is dunked in water and ended up soaking wet. It's like six or seven times. That is where the sexy is stored. It's right. The one time she's caught in the rain
specifically so that she can be you know, rain soaked and sexy. That is the psychoanalytic thing This book tells us about Alex Aster is Alex Assa thinks it is sexy when you're wet. I mean, many people have this opinion. Yeah, it makes sense. It's like having a thing against spiders. You know, it's very common. But I think if we were doing a what does this tell us about the author thing? I think sexy clinking white dresses is possibly one of Alexander's things. Yeah, I have to say in a universe where everybody wears modesty capes, though, it is a very, very funny kink to have because it has to be inconvenient.
Imagining the ball falling in the water in their modesty cakes, like swimming like manta ray.
Which is an amazing image,
genuinely to Ray cloaks. Whereas I genuinely wholeheartedly recommend this book, if you have listened to this podcast and thought, yeah, that sounds fun, go read it, you might enjoy it, you might not enjoy it. But in entertaining ways. It is fairly short. It's a young adult book of not excessive, like it's a small investment. It's so worth reading. Because you will go away with so many opinions, you will have opinions at the end of this, this is not a book that will make no impact on you, you will in fact, have an emotional reaction to this book. And sometimes that's all you need. If you believe that the purpose of art is to promote or provoke feeling in the viewer, then this is high art. Because it provokes so many feelings. If you start with Plato, and you regard the purpose of arts to be to open the soul to excellence. This is not the book for you.
But if you build it, the purpose of art is to make you feel things. You will you may not like what you feel, but you will feel and I have to say like I quite like sort of, I don't know if there's a real name for the genre, but the kind of Mary Sue on purpose section of teen girl lit you're gonna be like there's kind of there's a lot of books that go in very openly and say, I am a book about girl who is good at everything and super cool and great things happen to her and only bad things happen to make her sad and sexy. And a very on the front cover on the front page about it. It's a very important thing to have available to you as
I the one of that, like Yeah, exactly. And the version of that that resonated with me is the gargoyle Legend series by Heather Fleming which is very obscure and no one's ever read it but we'll be going in the hat at some point. And I do think I enjoyed those books so much as a teenager. And when I was reading this I did find myself kind of transported to how much I enjoyed those books. Were the main character
cutter is cool and sort of not necessarily good at everything but bad at things in like ways that show that she's good at other things. Like all of her flaws are there, she's not completely flat. But they're not flaws that cause real problems because she overcomes everything in the end. And everybody wants to be her or to be with her or to be like her. I think there's it's just a fun story to have this kind of No, I'm doing all of this trophy shit on purpose. And you're along for the ride. Yes. This is, is wearing it's It's taste on its sleeve. Yeah. And really, that's the part of the advertising that I think is doing the job. Its intended. I lost I said, I have a lot to defend in this book. I have nothing to defend in the advertising of it. I do think it was genuinely very disingenuous. And if I had purchased this book on the basis of it, I would be fuming but on the basis of what the book actually is, it certainly is the thing is, it is the thing that it is and it is the thing that it is on purpose. I don't think Alex Astor set out to wrote to write a book different than the one she created. I think she set out to have a Rick rolling good time. And she absolutely did.
Yes. Which was gonna ask for more from our massively successful Tiktok sensation. debut, I will be reading the sequel. And if we ever get around to making the film, I will be watching it
into the future and like Andy is gonna make me watch it. I will come to your fucking house and make you watch it.
Notes. Thank you for coming to our bonus episode about you know, our true feelings, of which we have so many about light like and some of them were good. This truly is a book that was written and is in the wild. You can go out and get a copy. And I cannot express to you how much you will look at the cover design and think this has nothing to do with anything in this book.
But you will unquestionably receive a text that you will
Alright, thanks for joining us guys. See you next time for some real episode instead of whatever this nonsense was. Oh, this nonsense was everything was correct. Bye bye. Bye.
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Duck: You've been listening to Analysis Roulette, a podcast applying a randomly selected mode of analysis to a randomly selected creative work, just to see what happens. Your hosts have been Dia and Duck. You can find us on Spotify or on YouTube, and if you'd like to get in touch you can send us an email at analysisroulette@gmail.com. And remember, if you like our show, share it with your friends, and if you don't like our show, share it with your enemies. Thanks.