Commodore > Recent Status Updates

What do you store the destroyer of bonds in, asks the young woman who saw an appropriate sheath for a knife that could cut through anything, once.

Pan made a huge decision that was impulsive but not necessarily incorrect. He doesn’t want to be like these people at the station though; he doesn’t want to be an afterthought to Lyra, picked up “as if he were nothing but a handkerchief”. He left for good reasons but fundamentally DOES want to reunite. I’m gonna bite clean through the cover of this book jfc.

Pullman taking the jokey insult of “these people are not ensouled” and really thinking about what that would mean for dæmons in Lyra’s world… this is the complexity and subtleties the show *thought* it was conveying with Mrs. Coulter and her dæmon.

“He was beginning to feel that it had been cruel to leave her in the way that he did, and she might not find it easy to forgive him.” THIS IS THE JETTY ALL OVER AGAIN WITH THE ROLES REVERSED

“Swords? Good God, [Marcel], are you dreaming?” What a callback with a twist!!

“I was a child. I couldn’t argue with a being like her.” Lyra. Be so serious right now.

Oh, an understandable but *devastating* off-page character death.

I understand *thematically* what it would mean for Lyra to lose or give up the alethiometer, but if she doesn’t get that thing back by the end of the book I’m going to tear my copy in half like a strongman with a telephone book

“Mrs. Lonsdale to you.” Damn right MY GIRL

Iorekova!!! 😭

Of course the PR flak has a chameleon dæmon lol

Aw, Chandra is revealed to be incredibly based—and then immediately killed. Lame. (Also uh… as a midwife slave wouldn’t her incredibly low success rate render her worthless pretty quickly?)

She thinks Kadra is her would-be murderer on flimsy evidence and is going to spy on him (which is a dumb idea even if it were righteous!) but thus far Kadra has defied expectations in a positive way and Cesuré and her Tetrarch have in a negative manner. Feels like this is only happening for Romantic Tension and Stakes.

I can’t tell if it’s my lack of patience for writers who use misogyny as so much set dressing, but I find myself skipping long paragraphs of Aliena’s chapters to get to whether she triumphs or it’s another setback. Pretty sure this book could’ve been trimmed by at least a third.

Mother Abagail telling a man that butt stuff with his wife wasn’t a sin because it was “done with love” sounds shocking but is actually so in line with how Stephen King originally wrote her. One of my favorites so far.

Ah, the Anthology Problem, where some of these stories are intriguing, grown up explorations of themes commonly found in fairy tales… and some decide the best way to adult up the Little Match Girl is graphic gang rape and page after page of misogyny.

The next time I read the Inda series I’m getting a big map of Iasca Leror and writing everyone’s name (and nickname!) over their holdings so I can keep everyone straight. It’s a testament to how *good* this series is that I can get past this. “Wait, is Algo-Vayir Tvei Cherry-Stripe or a different guy? What’s his real name again? Which one is his brother? And what’s his specific nickname?”

I know this is still true to this day to an extent, but it seems insane how much of these characters lives changing is entirely based on chance. Thought you were going home for the first time in two years? Psych! You got kidnapped, you’re a pirate now (something something no wonder they needed religion so badly)

Leslie Z you just need to find Dirk McDonald and Weetzie Bat and everything will be slinkster-cool

I don’t think Levine is doing a good enough job explaining why Evie doesn’t just club the bad guy to death and then flee the city. She’s bigger than him! She canonically could eat him!!

Is it twee YA affectation that Marga is often described as “middle-aged” when she’s in her early 30s? She’s got nearly a decade before she hits even the low end of middle age. Not even counting certain people live to be nearly 200 in this world, which has GOT to skew perceptions like that.

Bold fuckin move to name your dragon character, essentially, Spyro.

Oh my godddddd we get it you think Joan Didion is overrated and are desperately jealous of her success and her ability to not belabor the point until it’s 6 feet underground. Literally how much longer is this… I hesitate to call it an essay so much as a too-long twitter thread???

So far a lot of these plots seem to hinge on how easily women catch pregnant when both parties would prefer they hadn’t. (Lev has super-sperm apparently)

I know that GRRM was cribbing from this selfsame British history, but isn’t it a bit cliche to have “brilliant warrior wins every battle but loses the war because of… a woman (and all the delicate politics he upset because he ‘had to have her’)” at this point? Robb Stark had an excuse at least—Arthur just *does*

I don’t think this marriage was well enough explained or justified.
“Arthur is a great man who sees things farther out than any other warrior and has a grand vision!”
… uh-oh, a redhead! Plans all scuttled I guess!

The misogyny in this book is honestly really boring so far.

Beautiful people dazzle plain people (and then often burn up afterwards) and then like four stories about Adam and Eve. I’m getting more into it but I think I can allow myself to not like Tanith Lee’s adult work after this because I have it a fair shake

The theme of “helpless [ugly] woman is overpowered by beautiful charismatic (usually) woman” is both strong and kind of weird in these stories. Feels like Tanith Lee is working through some things in her life here.

It’s probably not fair to knock off an entire star just because Cashore used the phrase “daddy issues” in her magical fantasy series, but it also wasn’t very fair that she made me read that.