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hoodlessmads · 5 months

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Dark Heir spoiler thoughts:

Okay some of these are criticisms but please understand I really liked it! I liked it even more than Dark Rise. I’m just an overdramatic person and need to yell sometimes.

These don’t have any particular order, I’m just freestyling -

Reading Captive Prince years ago (and rereading since) before reading Dark Rise made me have an unfair resentment towards James for being basically the same character as Laurent but not as good and that continued here

Will is the second best character Pacat has ever made after Laurent and book 3 might push him ahead

I loved seeing Will use more and more of his evil powers

The best one being where he possesses anyone with a brand and his eyes turn black and he turns into Legion (maybe shoulda turned that off before trying to appeal to Violet…)

Finding out his mom actually was tying him to bedposts and beating him this whole time somehow shocked me because for some silly reason I believed one of the most unreliable third person subjective narrators ever, Will, that she was a nice lady just doing her best. Anyway I love this revelation because it makes such perfect sense, it’s just, “Oh. Of course.”

Violet and Cyprian are both himbos yet Violet is somehow the only character with a single brain cell left at the end of the book

Cyprian drinking from the cup makes no sense after they had a whole discussion in the first book about how drinking from the cup put the Stewards into the Dark King’s plans and made them his thralls and was the entire reason they died, a massacre which Cyprian experienced viscerally, and then he goes and drinks from the cup anyway and oops surprise Will can in fact enthrall him. Cyprian is able to fight it off but that doesn’t change the complete recklessness and out-of-character-ness of it to me.

Violet/Cyrprian is a good ship

Phillip/Visander is hilarious (in a good way)

Will/James is fine but I wish I was more compelled by them than I actually am. For being the main couple, I don’t feel like their relationship has been given the room it needed to develop organically and instead it feels like we’re falling back on physical attraction and a vague shadow of a past relationship in the old world that we didn’t get to see. It’s hard not to compare to Damen/Laurent which by contrast was developed so painstakingly.

Elizabeth is incredible

Visander sucks, actually

The whole Light kind of sucks. The Stewards, the Sun Kingdom, they were all assholes

People with black-and-white morality are truly terrible, aren’t they? And pretty much everyone is like that except for Will, James, and Violet

Sometimes I felt like that fact was really being hammered in on purpose almost as though to make James murdering like 300 people seem less bad (but it didn’t….)

But I don’t dislike James because he murdered 300 people, I actually love villains and I especially am attached to the idea of everyone being redeemable. But what I don’t like is the book telling me I should like James without giving me a good reason or the book downplaying his actions to make him seem more sympathetic. He can have murdered all the Stewards and still be compelling, we don’t need to diminish what he’s done in order for him to be likable

Also everyone in this book except like, Will and maybe Violet and James is an idiot (and I’ll excuse Elizabeth for only being ten). Someone send these characters to Psych 101, they don’t seem to understand the concept of a self-fulfilling prophecy…

Like obviously if you tell someone they’re evil over and over again for their whole lifetime they will become evil

Theory - I don’t think Violet will turn on Will. I think she’s just shell-shocked. She wasn’t really given a chance to take a stance before James Peter Panned him away. Violet knows exactly what it feels like to be told you are evil because of some past thing, and she knows Will better than any of the other characters. And she knows that morality is not black and white (Tom is her brother). She’ll definitely end up in Will’s corner by the end.

Theory - The line of the Lady and the line of the Dark King are the same bloodline and they split off later. Sarcean’s “cataclysmic night together” with the Lady was mentioned not once but twice. Pacat doesn’t waste lines. The child that the Lady had was Sarcean’s, or at least one of them.

Will better figure out how to destroy that collar quick…before they both get even more traumatized. I think that will be one of his main goals in book 3. Or I hope…otherwise it will be hard to develop the genuine romance

I sure hope Will can also figure out how to expel that shadow from Cyprian before he like… dies. Don’t do that to Violet D:

So, I’m not a huge fan of YA in general (outside of YA anime and manga which for some reason hits different). I used to like it a lot, it used to be most of what I read. I grew up reading series like Redwall, Darren Shan, Demonata, Pendragon, and so on. But I’ve grown out of the genre (I’m 27). Not every adult does - one of my best friends who is a year older than me still really enjoys YA. But because I don’t like YA, I think my enjoyment of Dark Rise/Dark Heir is influenced and my criticisms may be unfair.

But I find that with fantasy series like this, I the books really need to be longer. Or there needs to be more of them. I feel like Dark Rise has so many moving pieces, enough characters that there could be a trading card game (and there are literally collectible cards), so many different magical artifacts and magical powers, an entire magical old world beneath the semi-magical 1820s Europe world to develop, and also by the way a whole story that took place 10,000 years ago that has to be told at some point. I find myself feeling like all these different elements are being introduced and moved on from too fast and I wish they were all given more time to breathe. I think that’s part of why the relationship between Will and James feels a bit rushed to me. I don’t know if the short length of the series was Pacat’s choice or an editor’s, though. I don’t feel like Captive Prince had this issue because there were no supernatural elements, the cast was much smaller, and the plot was comparably simple so a lot of it got to be characters just talking to each other, which was great, and the world building was accomplished mainly through these interactions. The plot and world of Dark Rise is much larger in scope but the page count is the same (a little longer maybe).

So wait who is Mrs. Duval

Why did Ettore leave the Stewards anyway? Other than the obvious, which is that they suck

Where was Grace during the whole ending scene? Wasn’t she there but just not saying anything. As this total calamity befalls her only remaining friend group she finally has seen too much and just nopes out and is busy making tea in the corner or maybe popcorn

I do really like Cyprian btw in spite of thinking his moral code is shitty. Gave Violet a chance but sold Will for one corn chip… I see how it is (okay that’s not fair but you know what I mean, he has flaws)

It sounds like I’m in the majority when I say that I still don’t like Devon - I saw that theory about him being the final big bad and I’m so on that train. I think he’d make a good enough final villain. I agree there is something predatory about him and Tom. I don’t necessarily think Pacat wants us to root for them as a couple, though. There were better ways to pull that off if that was the intent.

Not to repeat myself but Phillip was such a pleasant surprise. Like who is this fruit and how did he get here

So next book, I hope (assume) we get to see the rest of the old world story filled in so we can understand where it all went wrong for Sarcean and also the exact nature of his relationship with Anharion because so far it’s been quite vague (intentionally I assume). Like….. you know….. did he agree to put on the collar?

The tricky thing about this series is that once the reader learns that Will is the Dark King, it’s hard to maintain any sort of external tension. Right? It’s hard to feel afraid of the forces of the Dark when the protagonist has total effortless control over them just by virtue of who he is. Will can literally just be like, “No, don’t” and everything’s fine. He did just this at the end of Dark Rise. I find the way Dark Heir seems to end with their “only hope of stopping the Dark army” destroyed to be pretty unconvincing. Why on earth would Sarcean create a destructible object that is the only way of controlling his own army? Of course Will should be able to control them with his will alone. If he can control Shadow Kings and make them die with his words alone, why didn’t he try yelling at the shadow army to stop trying to possess people? This doesn’t make sense to me. And if people become Returners through his magic, shouldn’t he be able to exert some control over their existence the way he does with the branded? Pacat has done a good enough job at getting us to know Sarcean (an extremely good job btw) so as to make the destroyed brand plot point unbelievable. Anyway…

Instead, the tension in Dark Heir is almost entirely internal or realized in character relationships rather than physical threats. The tension is between Will and himself, and between Will and his friends. (There are tensions between other characters but focusing on the main plot here.) The possibility that they might find out and abandon him, and the possibility that he might actually be as nasty of a guy as Sarcean was, the slim chance that he might learn something that makes him go, “You know what, I agree with my past self after all.”

Now that everyone has found out who he is, that particular source of tension has sort of evaporated, so now in book 3 Pacat has to find a way to make Will’s conflict with himself and his friends compelling enough to carry us through 450 pages (I don’t expect this will be difficult). What I see as the problems now are 1) what was Sarcean actually planning and how did he plan on getting Will (himself) to fall in line with them (this was a question in Dark Heir as well but now it’s bigger), 2) how is Will going to destroy his own (Sarcean’s) Dark artifacts so he can free James, and 3) Can he convince anyone to ever love him (oh no ouch).

If I had to rank these books at this stage I’d probably give Rise a 3.7 ish…. and Heir a 4.2. I’m holding out for Dark King to be a 5 or close. (I don’t know what the actual title will be, I’m just guessing lol.) I definitely think Dark Heir is an improvement over Dark Rise since I always thought the most interesting part of the latter by far was everything that happened once Will learns he is the Dark King at the very end.

“Are we going to talk about the magic pseudo-sex scene—“ No and I hope we never will

#dark rise #dark heir #cs pacat #dark heir spoilers #will kempen #will is the beEEeEeSsst #let me know what you think

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juliajoybell · 7 years

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Hot Wheels of Thunder

This week review guys ;)

This is just happened in “Murdoch Mysteries “

. Yeah Julia knows how to roller skating .

The first scene is Julia testing Rebecca about medecine in a very funny way. And my God, this woman knows how skating. She is perfect. * woop woop *

. Nina Bloom .

Nina is back !!!! I like her. I’m truly glad she is back and at Julia’s and Rebecca’s side. The ladies rocks.

. There is a murder .

The coach of a Roller skating team is murdered and the Station Four investigate in the universe of competition. Especially on a team of sassy women against who Rebecca James and Dr.Julia Ogden ( with Miss Bloom and another dancer ) play. But actually I gave any interest on the murder. I was too focused on the ladies, escpecially Julia that was again perfect.

. The Murdochs .

So basically William isn’t really happy that Julia does roller skating, and basically Julia reminds him that they are a modern couple . Bicycle = Roller skating. William 0 - Julia 1

. Yyaaay Rebecca .

What a saucy lady! I love her more and more !

. Big Sister Julia .

In this episode Julia is the BEST BIG SISTER EVER !! She is absolutely perfect with George, I love so much their relationship and how she try to help him, how kind and cute she is with him. But how she acted with Rebecca too. Seriously she is the best big sister of all time.

. “You’re already married” .

“Happily married ?” Murdoch’s charm oppered once again. He didn’t answered to that question…let’s pretend he is. Actually considering his sassy, independant and scandalous wife , we don’t doubt about it. She knows how to make a corpse disapear… Don’t mess with Dr.Julia Ogden, ever !

. William changed his mind about watching roller skating .

But that’s only because Julia is in the team and he can watch her derriere. But how proud and supportive he was. Ah that’s true love, right? <3

. Bracks is the boss .

I loved the scene when Brackenreid helped Rebecca for the team they are about to do. If Julia is the big sister of the show, Bracks is definetly the Daddy.

. Julia won .

That was perfect. Because she is the beeeeeessst.

. Louise .

If there is something I totally disliked in this episode, it’s Miss Cherry. Remember I said at first I disliked her, then I change my mind, actually my first feeling was right. But what did they do to her? The character changed literally and …I don’t understand. I liked Nina and as she is back, I hope George will be back to her, I only hope the actions of Louise in this episode weren’t only to be a pretext to bring George and Nina together. Honestly…I don’t understand. AND WE DON’T TALK LIKE THAT ABOUT THE MURDOCHS THEY ARE JUST PERFECT!!! IF YOU DON’T LIKE THEM,I DON’T LIKE YOU. * My Babies*

. The end .

Perfect !!!!!! Julia and Rebecca, I love them and their relationship, more I ever did about Julia/Emily, sorry.

. The preview .

Can we talk about it just one second? I mean…I can’t help but seriously, do you believe writers are reading fanfictions? I’ve talked about it some weeks ago with another fan, my answer was “ nooo, seriously, we are only fans, they may be see comments on facebook that doesn’t mean they read us and all. And if they do, they would probably never tell us ! “ Dear P. My apologies for that because, once again ( and believe me it has been a few times ) I have the feeling the next episode is really, really inspired by a fanfiction I know very well. I’m pretty sure it’s not exaclty the same, like in other episodes since somes seasons they were only few scenes in some episode that were exactly the same but….I’m not sure this is coincidence anymore. So, there is my message to you dear writers, if you are reading this, please, please, please, the author is very happy to see that her ideas looks good, good enough to be in a “real” episodes ! But as a non-professionnal and as Shaftesbury doesn’t accept unrequired scripts,I may be very happy to have my name write in the back of the screen once. You can contact me anytime, I’m currently very available !! I don’t want money, but contribute to an episode would be incredible and my only wish would to be here to see that episode filmed. Especially Julia’s scenes, but you would probably have to pay my flight tho… So, I hope you have read this and I’m waiting your e-mail… Well…I’ve try ! ;)

I liked this episode, especially the relationship between the main cast and that everyone has his own personality and place in that episode. It was funny, it was cute and it was a lot of Julia. Nice one! Can’t wait for next week !

To re-watch it, go on CBC.CA ;)

( And if you want to read fanfictions go here : https://www.fanfiction.net/tv/Murdoch-Mysteries/ Obviously I’m JuliaJoyBell but read them in french, my translations are horrible :( )

JJB

#murdoch mysteries #season10 #episode 17 #review

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