Scholomance - Tumblr Posts
Just to start this blog off right (by which I mean establish the high likelihood that any original content posts of mine will consist at least 80-90% of me throwing random headcanons and theories into the void for a wide variety of fandoms with little to no prompting), I figured I'd make my first real post by adding my two cents to a woefully tiny fandom I have recently found myself dragged into by the power of excellent writing. I read the first book in Naomi Novik's Scholomance series recently, was immediately hooked and read the second book as soon as I could get my hands on it, and now I have to wait until September to find out how the series ends in Book 3.
It's a small enough fandom that I've also already checked out what fanfic there is for it on ao3, plus the fandom tag(s) on tumblr now that I've made this blog, and... I am surprised? That no one seems to be talking about what I assumed was the most obvious theory by the end of TLG? About Orion?
I see some theories that he's a mal, and I can see the logic for that theory.
But... I thought it was obvious that he's a maleficer.
To be fair, a maleficer who is likely on track to become a mal. A very specific type of mal, moreover. The type of mal that, currently, we don't know where they come from/how new ones come to be. The type of mal that all the other mals run away from, the type of mal that is constantly hungry, constantly seeking to consume whatever's in its path.
And yes, Orion seems to be largely a decent person so far who does care about keeping other people safe in a somewhat detached and impersonal manner, but even that fits. After all, this type of mal doesn't actually kill its human victims. In fact, it keeps all its human victims alive... forever.
Trying out replies via screencap!
Anyways, @erisenyo, I just wanted to throw my own excitement back at you! The Scholomance books are excellent, you should absolutely read them. Also, I suspect you will enjoy the main character a lot.
And then I can yell at you about all my ridiculous theories :p
Putting my latest Scholomance series thoughts under a readmore. :)
Just realized one of the reasons I'm enjoying the Scholomance series so much so far. It gets pitched as this super grimdark fantasy response to Harry Potter, but it's really the opposite of that? It's so hopeful! It's honestly far more of a response to the idea of hopelessness in the face of overwhelming odds that you may not be able to ever fully overcome.
At every turn, we learn that the characters' actions come at a cost, even the heroic ones. And yet, the book says again and again that the right way to respond is not to give up, but to try harder to keep doing good. You fixed something, and it broke something else worse? Then it's your responsibility to fix that thing too! That caused yet another problem in another location? Then you work to fix that problem. You don't give up and stop trying. Maybe sometimes you lose, and maybe sometimes you have to make hard choices about how to get the most good out of limited options, but even then you still keep trying.
And sometimes it is hard! Sometimes in the process of fixing something big, you have to break something smaller! Sometimes you might not even know what the real problem is - you just see something wrong and start trying to make it better, and then you expose a much bigger flaw in the process. And the book acknowledges how easy, how tempting, how understandable it is to keep your head down and go with the flow instead of trying to solve problems that are bigger than you. But it also says, again and again, that it is better in the long run to face those issues and try to help other people, to prioritize kindness and compassion over individual survival and comfort, anyway.
The only way to truly lose in the long term is to give up, and to build your own short-term safety on the back of other people's sacrifices. When you work together though? When you do right by other people and convince them that it's worth it to build collective action focused on the common good? That's the only way to really fix things properly, to work together to make something better for everyone instead of just trying to make sure you're not the one around when and where the current system breaks.
And that's really beautiful to me.