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What Sophie should've punched Rhian in the face with in ACOT.

What is your favorite thing about SGE series and why?

I have multiple favorite things, so you can expect me to elaborate for a while.

One of my favorite things from the series is Soman’s novel concept of "psyche travel," and for christening it with an actual name.

I’ve only seen this concept in a few other, more science-fiction or speculative type of stories, like the Divergent series, The Giver quartet, "The Veldt," a fascinating short story by Ray Bradbury (which TOTSMOV41 is very much inspired by) and the Artemis Fowl series, which involves time manipulation that wasn't strictly time travel (which is far more commonly seen in fiction). And I love Soman's more fantastical spin on psyche travel! To me, the concept was previously called "mental landscapes" or simply "simulations" of reality. "Psyche travel" as a term is just far broader and more versatile, and I feel like you could do more with it, experimentally.

In fact, I would've loved it if Soman could've left more room in his tight plots to explore human consciousness and "the cauldron of the unconscious" more in TCY, so I will be doing exactly that with the themes in my longfic TOTSMOV41. If anyone wants to know more about TOTSMOV41, I'll redirect you to this table of contents/introductory post.

My fic's entire premise reflects how much I loved that one scene in ACOT. It was absolutely brilliant, especially with the edited views of what reality once was, how subjective memory could be. Plus, in that moment, ACOT managed to combine a few of my major interests: psychology and how generally error-prone the human mind and memory are, surreal imagery in literature, and delving further into SGE’s soft, irrational/nebulous, thematically-relevant magic system. (The way I see it, problems are more often unintentionally created than intentionally solved with magic, and we understand little of it, what goes on magically, really, and can't logically extrapolate what the characters could possibly do said magic. So, the magic is framed as unstable and flexible, even while it does reflect the state of the world and the important relationships in the tales. Thus, that's how I might classify the SGE system. You're welcome to disagree on which type of magic system it is though!)

The following points are probably more obvious:

First, Soman’s prose and images overall are enthralling, and his use of VERBS, especially, rivals few authors that write for a younger demographic, at least in my opinion. It’s often just so well done. It's the little things, like using "scalded" or "pinked" instead of "blushed" that I love. Soman's use of language is so inventive at times, and I love trying to imitate it. Verbs can make or break a piece of writing in my mind.

Also, I love the extravagance and length and readability of this particular book one sentence that I think is underrated for the sheer exasperation embedded in it:

“After chastising her for slipping in the Ever ranks, explaining every assignment thrice, and berating her to cover her mouth when she coughed, Pollux finally left in a circus of hops and falls.”

It’s fabulously sweeping and exhaustive.

In addition, the third person omniscient pov is less common nowadays, I think. So much of middle grade and YA is in first person these days, so it may be a trend, for its immediacy. Though, I tend to prefer third person, even if my preference also generally depends on how well the work was executed.

I love SGE for its basis in fairy tales since I loved reading the classic Grimms' fairy tales before I discovered SGE—they were probably my favorites for a while (and still sort of are, alongside SGE). And they inhabited my storytelling before I ever discovered more subversive things existed. Thus, it's the overall darkness and the dramatics I find compelling about Soman's work.

The cleverness in the writing, when it’s well-executed, is phenomenal. And this applies to two aspects: first, Rafal, obviously, and second, the plot structure itself.

When I say Rafal, I mean specifically during the moments in which he shows off his conniving craftiness, his prowess at outfoxing others. And I love any instances of scenes in which he tricks or outwits people and systems.

Someday, I’ll have to remember to discuss the Fala-shoe-fairy-kiss scene from Fall, one of my favorites ever, in a future post. Those particular thoughts must be somewhere in my scads of drafts... I’ll have to look for them. For now, I will give you any thoughts I have now:

I'm referring to the scene in which Fala lures a fairy with a golden kiss and traps it in his shoe without a single word of verbal explanation, and he expects everyone to intuitively follow his genius thought process, the solution to their dilemma. Then, everyone, except Aladdin, manages to catch on, when they watch his demonstration.

Here's an (exaggerated?) approximation of how I'd imagine his internal monologue could've gone:

Watch and learn, youths. I’m better than you. In innumerable ways, and this is one. But fear not! I will lead you to success. No one else is capable of doing it. Yes, I will take on this burden myself. Give me all the credit. But don’t even bask in my cleverness, even if it deserves your attention. My actions speak for themselves. Just get the task done. Now. We don’t have all day to dilly-dally like inane cowards.

I will redirect you to this post, if you would like to read more about how I happen to interpret Rafal's "trickery," or rather, absence of trickery, perhaps.

And for my second spiel on the series' cleverness, elaborating on its predictable unpredictability, on a structural level, even if I only saw it in hindsight:

I love any kind of legerdemain or sleights of hand, or twisting of plots, except the devastating Fall one, I suppose. And there is something very characteristic of SGE I've observed: there are often, very, exceedingly late third act turning-points. These points are likely hallmarks of the series, to the extent that I've come to expect them by now, especially after Rise, and sometimes, I'm probably actively on the lookout for them when I read other books. Besides, Soman likes to lull readers into a false sense of security, that much we can probably confirm.

Furthermore, these turning-points seem to take two forms and you can literally only expect one of two things to happen.

It's either: 1) the characters reach a point of what should be a settled peaceable resolution, that is then rapidly negated, or 2) the characters reach a darkest-night-of-the-soul moment, the prospect of temptation in the story, often for an individual, and wishes are granted (often in subversive, unfulfilling ways to almost everyone's dismay).

Examples:

1) In Rise and TLEA: you think you are safe, that you're out of the dark Woods (which often represent the darkness of the soul or the human psyche as a symbol) but you're not. There is no built-in "warmth" to the narration, as Soman puts it in one of his interviews. This all is literally the narrative's "liar's tell" or "slip" in the third act, a revisiting of conflict, the reopening of the tale. You know there is more disaster to come. The ride is not over yet, however much you may think or desire it to be so.

In AWWP, characters say and believe the wrong things, are misled, and narrowly miss a possible "happy" ending because Sophie felt alienated enough to choose Rafal, who chose her.

In TLEA, we think everything is resolved, but all of a sudden, we get one more little impact, a jolt, that not all is well or completely restored, the moment Aric kills Lady Lesso.

In Rise, when Rafal is revived and reclaims the Schools from Vulcan, setting everything back into their original, proper forms, back to order, we think we've averted all crises, and have reverted back to the status quo. But, that resolution, again, is only momentary. Supposedly, Rhian's Evil, his rot, was awakened, and the moment Rafal considers leaving again and does, to seek out a new replacement student, is when the plot begins to race downhill again. When Rafal leaves, he leaves a gap for Rhian's poor judgement to bleed through, and Rhian hires Hook, effectively setting off the second wave of awful plot events in Fall. Rhian sort of resurrected old conflicts, and breathed new life into them.

2) Before the Great War in TLEA and the climax, we get tonal signposting that nearly "all is lost," that we're approaching, marching towards our imminent demise. There's an ever-present fog of "Abandon all hope, ye who enter" because if there's anything Rafal's good at, it's cultivating an air of stifling oppression. Hence, we have the narrow aversion of the darkest moment:

Agatha (unlike prequel Rafal with Evil Rhian) doesn't use the wrong emotional appeal. She gets through to Sophie, she and Tedros aren't executed, and Sophie destroys the ring, killing Rafal. Despite everything that said otherwise, that said Good would lose.

Lastly, a few other bits I appreciate are the roles the Seers play in the series, the meta aspects of the Storian (or Lionsmane) and the tales in general, and the names of a lot of the proper nouns such as the kingdoms—I don't know why I love some of them. The alliteration is oftentimes fun, and the names feel right and plausible.

Thanks for the additional context! Every time you elaborate this much, the appeal of a Japeth prequel increases in my eyes! That could genuinely have a lot of material to it, for Soman to unpack.

In my opinion, Aladdin somehow was able to have a distinct voice, in his narration, and yet, I have to agree—his "personality" seemed to just revolve around: "get the girl." (After Rise, he follows Kyma and Hook, and the three sail to Neverland, illustrating their end of The Rule of Three with that whole cannibal subplot.)

Is the theory that Rhian II is homophobic? It definitely sounds like that.

"I choose... love." hits hard. And interestingly, to me, it parallels Sophie herself, considering how her verbal manipulation tactics, especially in TLEA with Agatha and the position of queen, often involve reframing things, pitching them in a new light. So, it seems like Japeth did the same, and almost said, "secret third option," which I think is not only sincere of him but clever.

I think Rhian thought Kei betrayed him because Kei let out a secret, or more likely, a rumor, to the public, so he could be the one to break the news/sow doubt in the people's minds (something around Rhian's parentage or Arthur's affair, was it?) to Rhian instead of an enemy, as if being betrayed by a friend would've been any better than being outed by a enemy. Of course, it wasn't a softer blow, being doubted by the only person you thought believed in you from the start, being seen as delusional or unlikely to win in the end. Also, Sophie may've had some involvement, casting Kei in a poorer light, and I think Rhian believed Kei had some romantic involvement with her, viewing it as yet another stab in the back? That's what I vaguely remember, at least.

I am really curious to see your take on Aric and Japeth's relationship. I mean, the beloved author and creator of the series have addressed this issue with 'in their own sick wicked way they had loved' so yeah it's cannon cool. But I feel like the further implications of this? We saw evil 'unable to love'/ 'only ever have true love'. From what I remember Japeth mentioned Aric more than once, how they would write letters to each other how Aric 'begged' for Japeth to come to him but Japeth never did so and then bro spent the last of his life trying to bring Aric back to life. There are so many implications, the dynamics, the context, everything, but I love how you theorise and explore all sorts of ideas so I can't help but wonder how you view all of this :D.

Thanks for taking the time to read this and have a great day/afternoon/evening/night!

Sorry to disappoint, but I should probably start off with the fact that I don't ship Japeth and Aric. While I like Japeth, partly in thanks to @discjude winning me over, and further recognizing the tragedy surrounding him, his relationship to Aric never canonically does him any favors. And, with Aric, I think I'm apathetic enough towards him that I don't actively hate him; I just don't care about him. In truth, if not for Aladdin's pitiful existence actively hammering on my nerves, Aric would probably be my least favorite character.

The first thing I want to address is that Evil being "unable to love" or "only Evers have True Love" is actually false, despite the many times the series puts forth this claim. Yes, we are explicitly told this "fact" in book 1, but the book's point was to subvert/deconstruct the myth.

First, by the end, with her self-sacrifice, Sophie proved Evil's capacity to love, meaning: Evil being unable to love is just a commonly-held belief in the Woods, not the absolute, be-all, end-all truth.

(And the belief could've been perpetuated by "Rafal's"/Rafal's way of running his institution that literally shapes the Wood's perceptions and the future. Alongside this claim about love, consider the existence of the Doom Room, created to punish a singular mutinous class of first-years, based on a now-revised philosophy about Nevers' learning from harsh treatment and (probably) disproportionate retribution that an excessively stubborn dead man already too entrenched in his old ways never had the chance to change because he died—and this is all aside from the fact proven by the display at the very first Circus of Talents, that Rafal's students did indeed learn better when he finally listened to them and mentored them as an equal in their position (as Fala). In addition, the statement: "Nevers learn from deprivation" similarly reveals how the Woods really do generalize about Nevers—until Sophie, the "exception" and iconoclast, comes along.)

Second, Sophie's non-romantic True Love at some point was said to be Agatha, and I think this established fact is consistently maintained throughout the series, even if other elements overshadow it, so not only Evers can have True Love.

My take on Japeth and Aric is that Japeth's love for Aric, however twisted or sincere it was, drove him to become the Snake, follow along with Rhian's Camelot ambitions and initial staging-terrorism-and-hostage-scenarios plot, and commit all his other, duplicitous, villainous acts throughout TCY, later by his own will, which is a motive I find fascinating (and contradictory about the nature of the Woods' Good and Evil souls, whenever Japeth is set next to the rather grey Rhian).

So, while Japeth's devotion to Aric could be viewed as romantic, it's just not appealing to me, personally, due to the relationship's ambiguous one-sidedness in particular. And, I think I once may've read something about Japeth as a Never fighting for True Love (or his perception of "True Love") and Rhian as an Ever fighting for power (the Nevers' ideal fairy-tale ending) being ironic or inverted in some way. That's also some world-building fodder to consider, or even just another point that could overturn the Rules as we know them, yet again. I'm not surprised by that subversion honestly. Japeth is very much like his parents. Nearly every SGE villain Soman has ever written has been motivated by the pursuit of love, or by the overwhelming force of their own (often obsessive) infatuations (with the exception of somewhat flatter, less-developed, secondary villains, like Aric, Vulcan, Marialena, and Peter Pan).

Also, thanks for the compliment!