Plot Flaw - Spoilers

[Mrsbooks]

I can't recall if this was addressed or not but it was something that I wondered about through the whole series.

The Curse is simple. If the King doesn't kill a bride a night up to 100 nights he and his Kingdom suffers. But wouldn't the curse be over if he were to die?

For this reason I found it difficult to like him. Wouldn't it be better to kill yourself than have to kill 100 innocent people?

[Liz]

This is an excellent point. However I interpreted the curse as not just on Khalid but on the entire city of Rey as well.
If for any reason he does not fulfill his side by killing 100 brides, then the city will be punished. If he killed himself he is not doing what the curse asks and so the punishment is enacted.
A great thought though! There definitely could have been something about this mentioned. Perhaps when the father is giving the curse he makes some ominous claim about how there is nothing you can do to escape my curse, not even death! At least so Khalid doesn't look like he missed an obvious solution. Honestly, I think if he could have broken the curse by killing himself he would have.

[Mrsbooks]

Liz wrote: "This is an excellent point. However I interpreted the curse as not just on Khalid but on the entire city of Rey as well.
If for any reason he does not fulfill his side by killing 100 brides, then t..."

Excellent point. This is something I hadn't thought of. So I've gone back and tried to find where they talk about the curse, although I'm sure there is probably multiple times.

Here is the first time: (view spoiler)[
“One hundred lives for the one you took. One life to one dawn. Should you fail but a single morn, I shall take from you your dreams. I shall take from you your city. And I shall take from you these lives, a thousandfold.”
Shahrzad listened to him recite these words from memory, his eyes adrift in their meaning.
And realization crashed down on her, like lightning to a crag on a mountaintop.
“A curse?” she whispered. “Ava’s father—cursed you?”
“He gave his life to this curse. Before my eyes, he ran a dagger through his heart, paying for the magic with his own blood. To punish me for what I had done to his daughter. For my rampant disregard of his greatest treasure. He wanted to make sure that others would know his pain. That others would despise me as he did. He ordered me to destroy the lives of one hundred families in Rey. To marry their daughters and offer them to the dawn, just like Ava. To take away their promise of a future. And leave them without answers. Without hope. With nothing but hate to keep them alive.”
Shahrzad brushed away the hot tears coursing down her cheeks.
Shiva.
“I refused to comply at first. Even after we realized he’d sold his soul to the darkest magic to enact this curse, even after nights without sleep, I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t begin such a cycle of death and destruction. Then the rains ceased. The wells dried up. And the riverbeds vanished. The people of Rey fell to sickness and starvation. They started to die. And I began to understand.”
“I shall take from you your city,” Shahrzad murmured, recalling the devastating drought that had destroyed the crops during the last harvesting season.
He nodded. “And I shall take from you these lives, a thousandfold.”
(hide spoiler)]

I find your explanation plausible but not clear in the book.
Mostly though, because of how other curses tend to play out in literature. Not that I have a degree in how curses work lol. But I've never heard of a curse upon someone that lasts after they're dead.....

Unless it's a curse passed on to their offspring, or someone else to fill their role. So for this instance, if another King were to step up after Khalid killed himself - it would make sense if the curse was handed down to the new King. But that is usually explicitly expressed in the curse itself.

Where this curse was upon Khalid so that the things he put ahead of his wife would be taken away from him "his dreams...his city....these lives" because he neglected the mans daughter.... it doesn't seem much of a curse for Khalid, if he's dead and isn't there to witness the devastation of it in the future. The people wouldn't "despise Khalid as he (the curse maker) did" if Khalid wasn't the one killing their daughters.

I don't find this clear in either direction.

[Mrsbooks]

Liz wrote: ".Honestly, I think if he could have broken the curse by killing himself he would have."

^^^This is what leaves me to feel your assertions are correct. Even if I don't find this thought expressed clearly within the curse. Khalid wasn't written in a way to make me feel otherwise.

[Samantha]

I also thought that the curse would remain to punish the city, but I also thought that.... well, is there another royal to take the thrown? Sure he could impregnate a wife and once a child was born, then kill himself and leave an infant ruler with a regent in charge. We honestly don't know too much about the political structuring of Khorasan and how possible this would be.

And to be realistic, there is a lot of worth put on bloodlines and needing someone with actual royal blood on the throne. I am not well versed in any monarchical system other than those of Europe, but - for example- this is why rich lords didn't oust the king and put themselves on the throne to rule - they needed someone with royal blood. So I mean I guess they could Jalal take up the throne through his mother's line? But other than that Kahlid doesn't seem to have any relatives who could take the throne.

Even if the whole, make a royal baby plot could work....realistically you need her to get pregnant - doesn't always happen right away, the baby needs to be born and then...there are really high infant mortality rates, so it might die anyways... so that's a huge chunk of time where destruction could/would start to rain down on Khorasan. Further, even if that much time could be spared and the baby lives and whatnot, then baby regencies can be really politically difficult, and has to have the full support of the lords to keep the kingdom together. It could create a really turbulent time for the nation.

True, killing 100 young women also causes a turbulent time, but arguably not as much as the death of the only royal heir to the throne. I actually, struggled a lot with the whole overthrow Kahlid plot, just because they don't have anyone they are holding up as the person to take on the role of king in his place. Unless the plan was to give their kingdom to Salim...

But anyways, that was my thought on the matter. However, I DO definitely feel that the question "why not kill yourself" should have been addressed.