#eff reads: crown of midnight
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Crown of Midnight: Chapter 3-4
Chapter 3
Nothing fucking happens. Sardines has a nightmare about Cain and later she and Nehemia talk about the rebellion and the king’s plans without really saying anything, and my hatred for that fucking dog just keeps growing. Observe.
Fleetfoot took off through the pale grass like a bolt of golden lightning
[...]
Dorian had never said what breed, exactly, he suspected her mother had mated with. Given Fleetfoot’s size, it could have been a wolfhound. Or an actual wolf.
Are you telling me this fucking dog is a fucking golden wolf?
I will eat this spaghetti-lookin’ bitch.
Nehemia’s creamy brown face paled slightly.
Why does the word “creamy” upset me so much in this?
Nehemia wants Sardines to try to figure out what the king is planning, but Sardines is like “nah”.
She wasn’t even sure if she truly wanted to know what the king was up to—let alone share that information with anyone else. It was selfish, and stupid, perhaps, but she couldn’t forget the warning the king had given the day he crowned her Champion: if she stepped out of line, if she betrayed him, he’d kill Chaol. And then Nehemia, and then the princess’s family.
But then, literally the next sentence:
And all of this—every death she faked, every lie she told—put them at risk.
Sardines: Hmm. Finding out the king’s sinister plans and telling my allies about them is a bad idea -- even though said allies desperately need that information -- because that might put them at risk, but saving various noblemen for no reason and put my unknowing allies in danger just so I can keep the moral high ground makes total and absolute sense!
What a master schemer this idiot is, huh?
WHAT A KWEEN.
People say they love Sardines but hate Alien and I frankly don’t get it. Sardines has always been a dumb, selfish twat, that will clearly never change.
Celaena swallowed hard. That word—“act”—scared her more than she’d like to admit.
Good self-burn there, buddy.
Chapter 4
Salad (which is my new nickname for Chaol) and Sardines are having a jog.
They’d bundled up as best they could without weighing themselves down—mostly just layers of shirts and gloves— but even with sweat running down his body, Chaol was freezing.
Layers of gloves? What the fuck?
Noticing his stare, she flashed him a grin, those stunning turquoise eyes full of light.
Eat my entire ass, Sarah.
Salad angst about how he killed Cain. He’s very sad about it. This is what you get for hiring an inexperienced twenty-something to be the captain of the guard. But if we don’t make him young it’ll be icky for Sardines to fuck him, and if we don’t make him captain then he’s just NOT GOOD ENOUGH for Sardines, ain’t that right, Sarah?
I’d say you’re being transparent but you’re already pretty white.
He was the Captain of the Guard—he was bound to have killed someone at some point. He’d already seen and done enough in the name of the king; he’d fought men, hurt them.
SJM: Hey guys I’m clearly aware that this is dumb but if I acknowledge it’s dumb you’ll accept it, right?
No.
Salad asks Sardines if she ever thinks about the people she’s killed, and since she’s the most ruthless and epic and badass assassin the world has ever known, ever, she angsts on about how she never forgets anyone she kills.
I don’t give a single shit.
Salad angst about how he desperately wants to nestle his dick between Sardines’ pearly white and hairless asscheeks, but can’t because uuuuhhh angst angst loyalty to the king and also Dorian wants to do her and he doesn’t want to betray his friend.
Whatever. I don’t give a damn. Unlike many other antis, I don’t consider Chaol to be a good character and I couldn’t give less of a shit about his problems.
Listen. You guys only think he’s good because everyone else is pretty much terrible. You cling to him because his mediocrity looks impressive when compared to the literal ass-garbage that is the rest of the lineup.
We jump POV back to Sardines.
And what’s this? GIRL HATE? FOR ME?! IN CHAPTER FOUR?!
Christmas Yulemas has come early this year.
Since Salad is all sweaty from their jog and his shirt clings to his HOT MUSCLED MALE MANLY MASCULINE VIRILE MAN-BOD, there are DUMB VAPID BITCHES there to check him out.
Celaena could have sworn their eyes had bulged out of their heads and their tongues had rolled onto the ground.
Then the next morning, they’d appeared along the path again—wearing even nicer dresses. The day after that, more girls showed up. And then several more. And now every direct route from the game park to the castle had at least one set of young women patrolling, waiting for him to walk by.
“Oh, please,” Celaena hissed as they passed two women, who looked up from their fur muffs to bat their eyelashes at him. They must have awoken before dawn to be dressed so finely.
You see, when Sardines ogles Salad or Doriass, that’s okay because uuuuuuuuh Sarah loves her little baby girl and she can’t do no wrong and also she feels TRU WUV (even though her TRU WUV is made irrelevant with the arrival of Ratty to the point where every other love was just useless before that I guess) when she checks those boys out.
THESE GIRLS DRESS NICELY!! TO IMPRESS MEN!! WHILE ALSO CHECKING THEM OUT!!
THEY’RE VAPID DUMB BITCHES!! EVEN THOUGH THE ONLY WAY FOR WOMEN TO GET POWER IN THIS SOCIETY IS THROUGH MEN!! LOOK AT THEM AND LAUGH!! SO PATHETIC!!
Cool cool.
God, I hate this series so much.
Salad offers Sardines to help her with her Archer-related business and she turns him down.
Hey Salad, aren’t you, like, I dunno, the captain of the guard? Don’t you have STUFF TO DO?!
Sorry, I forgot that this world and its characters all revolve around Sardines and her problems. How silly of me.
They come across Doriass who is walking around with his cousin Roland, who I’m sure is totally chill.
His voice was pleasant enough, but something in it made her pause. It wasn’t amusement or arrogance or anger … She couldn’t put her finger on it.
[...]
Just the way he spoke told her enough about his history with women.
[...]
As she let Chaol lead her inside the castle, she realized she was in desperate need of a bath. But it had nothing to do with her sweaty clothes, and everything to do with the oily grin and roaming eyes of Roland Havilliard.
Yeah, I’m sure this guy is totally cool!
We all know that SJM can clearly write very nuanced characters and that this incredibly obvious and cliché character introduction is just here to mislead us and make us think that Roland is a gross douchebag only so Kween Sarah can prove us wrong and develop his character into someone truly heroic!
Anyway, turns out that Roland is the “lord” of some place called Meah, which doesn’t tell me anything, but whatever. He’s been offered a position on the king’s council, which is suspicious, apparently, because Roland is more interested in getting his dick wet rather than politicking. This is framed as disgusting, even though that’s pretty much exactly what Doriass is. It’s not the first nor the last time SJM makes hypocritical exceptions for her faves.
Doriass introduces Sardines as Lillian.
They still used her alias whenever she couldn’t avoid running into members of the court, though most everyone knew to some degree that she was not in the palace for administrative nonsense or politics.
So the official story is that a petty jewelry thief became the king’s champion, then?
Holy shit, this world is filled with morons.
I also love how “administrative nonsense” and “politics” are looked down upon, but when Sardines does her BRILLIANT MIND GAMES, it’s not politics, it’s uuuuh ... Fuck man, I can’t even begin to imagine how SJM’s mind works.
Roland hits on Sardines, and her two daddies really don’t like that.
Chaol smiled—if you could call it that. It was more a flash of teeth.
Have you considered that I don’t care and that this clarification doesn’t matter?
She wouldn’t mind working with him—but not in the way Roland meant. Her way would include a dagger, a shovel, and an unmarked grave.
Actually, her way would include a corpse, a staged murder scene, and the hope that he stays hidden and nobody recognizes him for who he is.
Eat my entire ass, Sarah.
We switch to Doriass’ POV.
Chaol positively hated Roland, and whenever he came up in conversation, it was usually accompanied by phrases like “conniving wretch” and “sniveling, spoiled ass.”
So Sardines and Doriass, respectively, though “conniving” might be overstating it.
Roland was a pain in the ass, and too aware of the effect his looks and his Havilliard name had on women, but he was harmless. Wasn’t he?
Dorian didn’t know the answer—and he wasn’t sure if he wanted to.
SJM: Subtlety? I don’t know her.
We switch back to Sardines’ POV.
Her salary as King’s Champion was considerable, and Celaena spent every last copper of it. Shoes, hats, tunics, dresses, jewelry, weapons, baubles for her hair, and books. Books and books and books.
Books? She likes reading? How relatable? You like reading too, don’t you, young female reader who is the target demographic for this book? Don’t you feel connected to Sardines on a deep, meaningful level?
You see, when other women dress nice, they’re whores and idiots and brainless. When Sardines does it, she’s just embracing her femininity!
Ain’t that right, White Feminism?
Whatever. Doriass is there in her room/s when she returns, which she doesn’t approve of.
“Aren’t friends allowed to visit each other more than once a day?”
She stared down at him. Being friends with Dorian wasn’t something she was certain she could actually do.
Seems like SJM has been taking writing lessons from Cakeass.
Didn’t you spend an entire book angsting about how you couldn’t be friends with Doriass and then deciding that you would rather stay friends than be lovers? And now you’re back on square one? Are we really doing this again?
I’m so tired.
“And you have so much time on your hands these days that you can spend hours with me again?”
“Well, I have my usual flock of ladies to attend to, but I can always make time for you.”
Dorian is written as a player, but whenever we see him interact with women who are not Sardines, he’s shitty and hateful towards them. But it’s okay though, right? Because those dumb sluts are worthless and stupid, not amazing and brilliant like Sardines! It’s okay that Dorian clearly doesn’t respect any other woman aside from Sardines (and presumably Nehemia, since SJM has bestowed her godly blessing upon her for now), because those other women are simply not worthy of any respect!
And obviously, even though Dorian clearly wants Sardines but plays around with other women, that’s totally fine! Women checking out men though? That’s disgusting.
SARAH J MAAS IS A FEMANAST KWAAAN!
Doriass makes it clear he still wants to tap that, but Sardines tells him to fuck off.
Alone in the foyer, Celaena clenched and unclenched her fists, suddenly disgusted with all of the pretty packages on the table.
Eat my entire ass.
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Crown of Midnight: Chapter 1-2
Fuck you.
Fuck me.
Fuck this.
Let’s do this.
Chapter 1
We open on Sardines being all assassin-y (took you long enough, you silly blond bitch) and sneaking into some nobleman’s house.
Concealed beneath a black mask and hood, she willed herself to melt into the shadows, to become nothing more than a slip of darkness.
*deep sigh*
I can’t believe I’m doing this shit again. Why do I hate myself this much?
The [servant] hadn’t noticed the wet footprints on the floorboards.
How convenient.
Lord Nirall was no older than thirty-five, and his wife, dark haired and beautiful, slept soundly in his arms.
Gotta make sure the wife is beautiful!! What else are women good for, right?
Feminism!
Sardines wonders what this man did to offend the king so. But then she doesn’t?
It wasn’t her place to ask questions. Her job was to obey. Her freedom depended on it.
If you wanted freedom so bad, why didn’t you just escape as soon as you found the secret escape route, you dumb bitch?
Her sword slid out of its sheath with barely a whine. She took a shuddering breath, bracing herself for what would come next.
I can’t believe it’s only chapter one and I already have to bust this one out, but damn:
Some assassin.
Chapter 2
Sardines is back in the castle delivering “Lord Nirall’s” severed head and some other goodies.
No one spoke as it bounced, a vulgar thudding of stiff and rotting flesh on marble. It rolled to a stop at the foot of the dais, milky eyes turned toward the ornate glass chandelier overhead.
Mmm, yes, Sarah! Sarah, I just LOOOOVE it when you get so edgy! Look how dark and mature your books are, Sarah!
The king notes that he can barely recognize him because of all the cuts and slashes on his face. I’m assuming since Jammo can’t actually write a morally grey protagonist, it’s not actually Lord Nirall and Sardines has just been finding coprses that look like her victims or some shit.
Celaena gave him a crooked smile, though her throat tightened.
Yep, ok, that’s exactly what it is.
Supposedly Sardines is supposed to be this brilliant social strategist, but as soon as somebody even slightly doubts her lies, she just flips her shit and starts getting nervous.
Some MASTER MANIPULATOR.
She extended the hand to Chaol, whose bronze eyes were distant as he took it from her and offered it to the king. The king’s lip curled, but he pried the ring off the stiff finger.
Why didn’t you just ... bring the ring. Without any hands.
Is it just to make it more gruesome, Jammo? Is that what it is? You realize it just makes it dumber, yes?
And why aren’t these chunks of rotting flesh filled with maggots? Would that just be too icky, Jammo? You can only handle Hollywood edginess? PG-13 edginess?
“What of his wife?” the king demanded, turning the ring over in his fingers again and again.
“Chained to what’s left of her husband at the bottom of the sea,” Celaena replied with a wicked grin, and removed the slender, pale hand from her sack.
Why did the king even have to ask this? Didn’t he give the order? Did he just say “uuuhhh kill the guy” and Sardines didn’t even ask what to do with the wife?
God, these people are so dumb.
The king mentions that there’s a rebellion brewing in Rifthold but he only has one name so far.
On [the paper] was a single name: Archer Finn.
It took every ounce of will and sense of self-preservation to keep her shock from showing.
1) Someone teach this bitch how to pokerface.
2) There’s just one name on the piece of paper that Chaol hands to her on the king’s order. Why couldn’t he just SAY THE GODDAMN NAME? With his mouth hole?
Whatever. Sardines recognizes Archer and mentions that he’s hot and she used to have a crush on him, so he’s probably mildly important or his death will be super tragic.
He’d been several years older, already a highly sought-after courtesan … who was in need of some training on how to protect himself from his rather jealous clients. And their husbands.
Uuh ... bonus points for male courtesans, I guess?
He’d been handsome and kind and jovial, not a traitor to the crown so dangerous that the king would want him dead.
It was absurd. Whoever was giving the king his information was a damned idiot.
Sardines, the smartest being in this world: UUUUHHH THIS DOESN’T MATCH THE THINGS I KNOW!!! EVERYBODY ELSE IS WRONG!!!
Though that’s probably true, since we all know Smaas could never handle Sardines being anything but absolute perfection.
“You know Archer? I’m not surprised.” A taunt—a challenge.
She just stared ahead, willing herself to calm, to breathe. “I used to. He’s an extraordinarily wellguarded man. I’ll need time to get past his defenses.” So carefully said, so casually phrased.
If you say so, curiously crusted book page. I mean it’s an obvious and rather clichéd attempt at making more time for herself, but I guess the king is a dumbass and SJM can’t actually write for shit, so this passes for cleverness.
It works, too. The king, who’s supposedly a shitty dictator who’s afraid of this rebellion killing him, still gives her an entire month. Yeah, that makes sense. Gotta love it when you have to nerf your villains because your hero is a fucking imbecile.
Honey, king-boy, the correct response here is: “BITCH, MY ACTUAL LIFE IS ON THE LINE, YOU HAVE TWO DAYS, GET!! ON!! IT!!”
It’s especially stupid when this is happening IN THE TOWN THEY LIVE IN. So the fact that this dumbass lie works is just pathetic, honestly.
“Then you have one month,” the king said. “And if he’s not buried by then, perhaps I shall reconsider your position, girl.”
Wow. Damn. SJM, be nicer to your heroes. We’re on the edge of our seats here. How will they possibly defeat this very intimidating villain.
“Be discreet. Your payment for Nirall is already in your chambers.”
1) Do you really have to tell your stealthy assassin to be discreet? Well, I guess since it’s Sardines, you kinda do. What a nice self-roast there, book.
2) Do you also have to tell her that her payment’s in the chambers? Hasn’t she done this a couple of times already? Shouldn’t she know this?
Smaas, why.
We switch POV to Doriass, who angsts about how edgy and evil Sardines is now and how she maybe doesn’t actually love him and manipulated him to love her!
Yeah, she’s not that smart, Doriass.
Actually, for the two months since she’d been named the King’s Champion, she’d been like this. Her lovely dresses and ornate clothes were gone, replaced by an unforgiving, close-cut black tunic and pants, her hair pulled back in a long braid that fell into the folds of that dark cloak she was always wearing. She was a beautiful wraith—and when she looked at him, it was like she didn’t even know who he was.
1) UNFORGIVING TUNIC.
2) This is the second time she’s described as a wraith in the first two chapters. Who edited this?
A gibbon.
But he couldn’t help wondering if he’d ever meant anything to Celaena at all.
Cry me a river with your manpain, Doriass.
We switch POV back to Sardines. (Well, that was utterly pointless.) She angsts bout how Chaol hasn’t been looking at her the same way ever since she started with the murder and stuff, and she meets with him in the secret passages of the castle or what-the-fuck-ever-who-gives-a-damn.
“Are you still acting like the King’s Champion, or are you back to being Celaena?” In the torchlight, his bronze eyes glittered.
This is the second time his eyes are described as bronze in this chapter.
I have a feeling that this book was created and “perfected” by a bunch of horny drunk women throwing their own shit at the walls.
We get more of Sarah’s trademark tepid banter that the fangirls probably think is super hilarious and SASSILY FEMINIST.
Chaol tells her that he’s been worried and thought she’d been murdered, so they hug it out.
He hadn’t held her since the day she’d learned she had officially won the competition, though the memory of that embrace often drifted into her thoughts. And as she held him now, the craving for it never to stop roared through her.
ROARED.
He tells her that she smells bad.
She hissed and shoved him, her face burning in earnest now. “Carrying around dead body parts for weeks isn’t exactly conducive to smelling nice! And maybe if I’d been given time for a bath instead of being ordered to report immediately to the king, I might have—” She stopped herself at the sight of his grin and smacked his shoulder. “Idiot.”
This is, like, AT LEAST 10 feminisms.
We get another scene change.
After a joyous Fleetfoot calmed down enough for Celaena to speak without being licked [...]
I’m gonna eat that fucking dog.
Sardines angst some more about Elena and about how ...
Fucking called it.
She’d given Lord Nirall the same choice she’d given Sir Carlin: die right then, or fake his own death and flee—flee far, and never use his given name again. So far, of the four men she’d been assigned to dispatch, all had chosen escape.
Apparently, this LE EPIC ASSASSIN saw that Sir Carlin was a cool dude and just couldn’t put a knife in his throat. She only killed BAD PEOPLE, remember? Which makes no sense, considering how shitty evil her mentor was. Why would he even allow that? Whatever.
God forbid we have an actual female anti-hero, right Smaas? You wouldn’t wanna imply your bitchy little twat princess is anything but a perfect beacon of morality.
Curiously, we don’t find out whether she saw the other men acting as kind and cutesy perfect as Sir Carlin. What if they were assholes? I wouldn’t enjoy Sardines playing god, but the fact that she did it before and doesn’t do it now makes no sense either.
We find out that she’s been finding corpses from sick-houses to replace the dudes for the crime scenes.
But with magic gone and those wise healers hanged or burned, people were dying in droves. Dying from stupid, once-curable illnesses.
Alright, here cometh an epic rant:
1) I can maybe buy that the king doesn’t know all of the nobles who live far away, at least not enough to recognize them by appearance. What I can’t buy is the servants not recognizing their masters. That’s just plain dumb. Even if she fucked up their faces or cut their heads off, they’r still recognize the bodies as not theirs.
2) So, do they not have non-magical healers? Did the king know that the world needed magic to survive and that they had no non-magical medicine and still went “nah, just kill them all”. We never really find out if the king truly killed magic of if it went away, so like ??? What’s the truth here?
3) If they have no non-magical healthcare, WHY THE FUCK DOES THE KING LET HER JUST BRING DEAD THINGS INTO HIS THRONE ROOM AND WHY DOES HE TOUCH THOSE DEAD THINGS. WHAT THE FUCK!!!
4) If Sardines has been stealing corpses and not actually killed any of the dudes, then her little angsty thoughts about how bad she feels about killing this man and how it’s not her job to question but to obey are nothing but misleading bullshit. It doesn’t make any sense for her to be thinking that! WHY DID SHE EVEN UNSHEATHE HER SWORD IF SHE KNEW SHE WASN’T GOING TO KILL HIM?! HE’S MENTIONED TO OPEN HIS EYES SO HE’D JUST SCREAM AND FREAK OUT AND CALL ATTENTION TO HER!!
SJM why.
Celaena fought a shudder. She was playing a very, very lethal game. And now that her targets were people in Rifthold—now that it was Archer … She’d have to find a way to play it better. Because if the king ever learned the truth, if he found out what she was doing …
He’d destroy her.
God, I fucking hope.
It’s only been two chapters and I’m already tired.
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