House of Flame and Shadow

House of Flame and Shadow is the third book in the Crescent City series by Sarah J Maas. Bryce finds herself in ACOTAR world with the others trapped by the Asteri. They find the final pieces of the Asteri puzzle and figure out what to do with this new and dangerous knowledge.

Jen and Ellie return to Midgard and discuss character agency, progression and growth, before debating their chances of survival.

(Jen would like to apologise in advance.)

Transcript

Jen: [00:00:00] Today we're discussing House of Flame and Shadow aka Crescent City Book 3 by Sarah J Maas. Let's see if we survive this. This series follows former party girl turned starborn heir Bryce Quinlan as she attempts to overthrow the Asteri and save Lunathion. But first, Bryce has to get back to her own book series.

At the end of the previous book, Bryce jumps through a portal and ends up in the world of ACOTAR, on the front lawn of the Night Court, where the main characters of the ACOTAR series rule. She's taken in on questions, with both sides looking for answers. Amran admits that a Queen of Old from Bryce's world once lived in this world, with stories of them leaving for another plane, and Bryce explains that the Asteri that plague her world are a group of intergalactic magic parasites.

She quickly realizes that the Fae of this world are much more powerful than the ones in Midgard. In the process, they realize that the tattoo on Bryce's back is in the language of the Book of Breathings, an all powerful artifact that the ACOTAR Fae have had dealings with before. Nesta, who is dealt with the book, arrives to confirm that there is something [00:01:00] made about Bryce, sensing a similarity in their powers.

Bryce is left alone and decides to escape. Through a series of events that involve teleporting through grates, finding a web of underground tunnels, being found by Nesta in Asriel, and fighting a worm, the tunnels lead the trio to a hidden chamber and show Bryce the power of the mask, a made weapon that Nesta controls.

Here they uncover the truth of the legends of both of their worlds pasts. Centuries ago, the queen of this fey realm and her daughters fell for an astray trap and travelled to Midgard. Once there, they drank the water that the Asteri had infected with a parasite, locking their powers and making the drop necessary, and also significantly weakening the Fae, which gave the Asteri a chance to steal their power.

The Queen sides with Hel to try and free the world from the Asteri. Battles rage, and when she knows she has lost, she splits her power between her daughters and tries to send them back to their original world of ACOTAR. However, in the heat of battle, one princess stays in Midgard and uses her power to make sure her sister makes it [00:02:00] home.

The princess's descendants on one side are Bryce and on the other rule the Night Court. We learn that the princess on this side has trapped monsters on the island they stand on, to mask the powers she has hidden within the land. Bryce absorbs this power with thoughts of finally escaping home, but causes a cave in, discovering another secret room that houses a sleeping Asteri trapped in stasis in a tomb.

Bryce releases the Asteri and questions it. They learn that each world has a magical item that acts as a kill switch to ensure the Asteri's safety. The Asteri attacks and Nesta kills her. Bryce draws enough power from the prison to open a portal back to Midgard and flees with the star sword and its magical twin, Truth Teller.

Back in Midgard, Hunt, Ruhn and Baxian are being tortured in the Asteris Palace and things couldn't be worse. Hunt's powers have been locked again with his enslavement and Pollux is enjoying chopping pieces off them. Lydia, the Hind, is forming a plan to break them out, unable to play her double agent role much longer.

She goes to Lunathion, deciding to trust Ruhn's friends with her secrets and enlists their help. [00:03:00] Lydia's plan falls together and with the rebels attacking the main transport network, she frees the three males from the dungeon. All hell breaks loose and as Ruhn's friends act as getaway drivers, Lydia realizes they won't all manage to escape.

To ensure their freedom, Lydia transforms herself into her deer form and draws the armed forces off. She is shot and falls from a cliff, with only the Mer, Tharion's quick actions saving her life and bringing her aboard the Depth Charger. As everyone recovers on the Depth Charger, Bryce returns to her home planet Midgard.

She arrives at the Autumn King's house to find out what he knows of the ancient legends, before stealing his notes and teleporting to hunt on the Depth Charger. Her powers are much stronger now after absorbing the new power. They agree to head to Avellan, the fey homeland on Midgard, where Bryce suspects there is another clue to the dead queen's power.

She tells most of what she knows to everyone and they're horrified to learn the truth of their stolen magic. In a vellum, Bryce enters the cave of princes looking for answers. Instead, they are ambushed by King Morven and the Autumn King. Using her starborn power, Bryce and Hunt escape, [00:04:00] discovering a hidden chamber in Pellias's tomb and a way to commune with Hel.

They speak to the Princes of Hel, who tell them the rest of the tale of the past Queen, while also revealing that Hunt has been created by the Princes of Hel to specifically power up Bryce and defeat the Asteri. He's shaken by this news. Before their time runs out, Bryce learns that combining the Star Sword and Truth Teller Dagger will open a portal to nothingness, which will kill the Asteri.

On returning, they fight the two Fae Kings, Ruhn killing the Autumn King and Bryce dispatching Morven, making herself Queen of all the Fae of Midgard. Bryce then unlocks the power in the chamber and absorbs the last of her ancestor's power. Back in Lunathion, Ethan Hallstrom, an outcast wolf, is floundering.

In trying to save Sigrid, the lost Fender heir, he accidentally kills her and finds himself in the House of Flame and Shadow, begging for Jessica's help to find a necromancer to bring her back. Hypaxia, the now former witch queen, agrees to help. But once again, it all goes wrong for Ethan, with Sigrid choosing to become a reaper for the underking to exact revenge on him.

Ethan is horrified, but [00:05:00] as he reels, the Asteri start dropping bombs on the human regions of the city. Ethan and Hypaxia rush out to help how they can. When the attack ends, they head for Avellon to find Bryce, who tasks them with finding a cure for the parasite in the water. Hypaxia works, and Ethan tests her solutions.

Regaining his ancestral strength, he goes to the wolves to explain everything and get them on his side. The Prime appears and declares Ethan the next Prime, but from then on, everything goes wrong. The meeting ends with Sabine, the former Prime apparent, attacking. Death reigns and Ethan finds himself one of the last standing, the now de facto prime.

Feeling like his life is falling apart, Ethan goes to the Bone Quarter to seek advice from his dead brother. When they finally meet, he's given a special bullet crafted by those in the Bone Quarter, imbued with the second light of all the dead, and is told to bring it to Bryce. Ethan travels with the bullet and as many unstable antidotes as he can to reach her.

Bryce is left to Velen for the Northern Rift, where she opens a portal to ACOTAR world and speaks to Nesta once more. [00:06:00] She begs Nesta for a loan of her death mask to defeat the Asteri, offering her parents as collateral, and eventually begging Nesta to take her parents regardless of their safety. Nesta takes them and hands over the mask.

Bryce then opens the Northern Rift to Hel and its awaiting armies. The final battle begins and the armies of Hel face off against the Asteri. Bryce uses the mask to resurrect the soul of the angels who fought in the first rebellion, as part of them is still tied to the wings displayed in the Asteri's throne room.

These souls take control of the Asteri's mech suits, bringing them to Bryce's side. Bryce dives into battle facing down the Asteri. She combines the sword and dagger to open a portal and finish it once and for all. The portal is to a black hole and she realizes that this is what can truly kill an Asteri.

Ethan reaches her when she and Hunt teleport out of the battle for a reprieve. He gives her the bullet and rifle. She sends them away and teleports back. Refuses Rigelous offer to teach her the ways of the Asteri and shoots their first light core. She then opens [00:07:00] her own portal to the black hole. The Asteri get sucked in, but so does Bryce.

The Princes of Hel tell them the portal will only close when Bryce dies, and Hunt puts on the mask to go in after her. The mech suit, controlled by his old lover Shahar's soul, brings him into space and keeps him alive. He reaches Bryce and brings her back, with the Princes of Hel battling to keep the portal open.

Once back, he realises she is dead. Jesiba appears and offers a trade, giving her life to Bryce and finally getting to die, Willing all of her possessions to Bryce. Back alive, Bryce opens a portal to Nesta to bring her parents home. Bryce gives Nesta the mask and also the dagger and star sword before finally sending the armies of Hel back to the rift.

Some time passes and Bryce calls all the fey to her for her first official proclamation as queen. She is absolving the monarchy and plans to open her own gallery with Jessica's library with fire sprites working for her. Okay, so that is House of Flame and Shadow. Ellie, what did you think of it? 

Ellie: So, [00:08:00] I'm gonna say, dash.

I loved it, but a little bit of time has passed since I finished it. I didn't do my typical inhalation and then immediately start gushing on the podcast, so I've had some time to process. And I have some notes, but I do want to say that I will forever love Sarah J. Maas's writing. 

Jen: Nice. How about you? I didn't really like it.

I mean, I didn't. Okay. So like it is in the line of, I do like Sarah J. Maas books. 

Ellie: Yes. 

Jen: Um, so it's not like I, Oh God, I hated it, but there is definitely, there are some parts I was just getting really sick of characters as we're going through them. Yeah. Yeah. It was just, it was kind of irritating. And like some parts.

super fun to get through. There are definitely sections I really enjoyed, but like, Bryce really annoyed me for so much of the book and Ethan [00:09:00] really annoyed me for so much of the book. There are so many choices that like, to an extent, I do say like, you know, Oh, this is just a fun romanticy book. I'm just going to put that aside.

That's like, it doesn't matter if somebody is just like, Way too trusting or magically falls in love with someone straight away or it's like yeah Well, these are all tropes of the genre or whatever But there are some of them in this that just kind of stood out Irritatingly to me and I couldn't really fully get past them even while reading it, which yeah, I was a bit disappointed about Yeah.

Ellie: Yeah. Okay. I'm curious because I feel like we might have Similar, I'm not going to say criticisms, but you know, like discussion points. And I think the first thing that I still don't know how much I love or hate is this whole convergence of worlds, mass averse, [00:10:00] like Avengers style. Everything is linked because on one hand.

The last thing I wanted was for everyone to combine Avengers style for the last battle and charge off. Which then, if I'm staying with that side of my brain, I'm happy that it was only kind of a bit of a crossover. But then, on the other hand, the Ysteri were such a big bad, and the other Fae were so clearly stronger.

Surely. Yeah, I dunno. Basically, I feel like I need to read the whole series again. like to decide how I feel. I will say, okay. I like, I feel like I'm going in a bit of a circle here, but anyway, for a what? There's how many books? In Throne? At bass for a like seven close to, yeah. Let's say, let's say for close to 13.

book series, [00:11:00] or like, this isn't a series, but for having, Sarah J Maas has written 13 books. For them all to tie together in a way that vaguely, vaguely makes sense is impressive as I feel like she did not start writing book one with the plan. 

Jen: Um, I think it's more just a sign that the books are all so similar.

Like, I don't think it's, it's not an intentional, intentional, oh, these are super tied together. Like, you can definitely see it as it gets later in the book that it's like, oh, I wrote this one earlier and I'll tie this in here and whatever. But I think it's more just a, I don't want to say lack of, lack of creativity because that's mean.

And I don't mean it like that because I do enjoy Throne of Glass and ACOTAR and generally Crescent City, but she def, she has a thing. And she sticks to the thing and it works well, but since it's a very [00:12:00] solid thing, it's easy to tie them all together, you know? 

Ellie: Now that you say it that way, another kind of thing that has been kind of bugging me is So much happens in this third book, so much happens and I feel like it all happens in this third book because she has decided, like she has developed a book writing formula where the first three books are about one character and it's kind of almost like a trilogy and then any further books in that world are going to be from other characters POVs, like in ACOTAR Like the way Silver Flames is Nesta and stuff, like it feels like she went in being like, this is a trilogy and these are things that are going to happen and then we get to book three and it's like, now all of these things have to happen and we'll tie it together.

And it definitely, it was a lot in one book. 

Jen: Yeah, it definitely felt like. There was a bit too much going on. I felt like it was just like a letdown. It felt [00:13:00] like the Asteri were like the biggest of the big bad. Of anything that's in any of the other books. And they all just got killed super easy at the end of book three.

Mm hmm. Like, there was nothing to it. There was no real payoff. It was like, we went through steps A, B, C, D, E, they're dead. And it's like, oh, I wanted there to be something. You know, just something a little bit more than that, and I was like, nope, it's, it's real straightforward. And just like your earlier point on the crossover, like, I feel like the crossover, as I said myself on, on the, the previous book, like, I'm also not mad on multiple world wotsits.

But it felt like such a wasted opportunity, because she has a crossover that kind of meant nothing. The, like, the purpose of the crossover really is to get the mask. That's the only [00:14:00] thing that actually existed in ACOTAR world that was needed, because, like, Selene's power could have been taken from anywhere, it could have been hidden on Midgard, it didn't necessarily need to be in a different world.

So, she really just needed the mask. Uh, 

Ellie: I, I, I, I kinda liked the different worlds bit of that, but I, I, I accept that point. Yeah, 

Jen: like I liked that it was there, but it didn't need to be there. You know, it wasn't a requirement of the worlds coming together kind of thing. But the mask was, but, when Bryce gets the mask, they then ignore everything to do with the mask.

She magically knows how to do it, how not, not only does she magically know how to use it, she doesn't have any of the bad side effects from it. There's, nothing goes wrong for her and her random, vague concept of what it might maybe kind of do from seeing it once magically works and saves the day and it's like, how?

Like at least in the ACOTAR world, when people try things that look like they're going to [00:15:00] go wrong, they go wrong. You know? Mm hmm. It's, it just felt so It felt like the Asteriod were made to be too big a bad guy that needed to be killed in the third book, so she just needed a kind of like, uh, yeah, super powered thing that comes in and fixes everything.

And I found that so disappointing. Bryce is kind of, oh yeah, I've decided this mask I've never used, know nothing about. Aside from the fact that it is dangerous, I'm gonna put it on. And find souls attached to wings, which is not established in any ways, but she's like, I have decided the souls are in their wings.

And then those souls can pilot a mech suit. It's like, where the Hel did you get that from? Like, you just made that up in a paragraph and suddenly you can win. 

Ellie: So basically, our first few minutes of conversation are just showing just how much there is in this book. Because, like, [00:16:00] yeah, it is a lot. Like Nesta does kill in Astaire when Bryce is in ACOTAR land.

I wish ACOTAR world had a name that wasn't just ACOTAR world. I don't know what the world is called but I'm just calling it ACOTAR world. She does kill an Asteri, a severely weakened Asteri, admittedly, herself with the mask. So I guess that can be argued as where Bryce gets the like, well, if this other person did it once, I can do it again, and I've got no other options around me, so this is gonna have to work.

I, 

Jen: I get that she Knows the mask is powerful, totally, that makes sense. But the stretch that she goes with the mask is just too much of a leap for me to feel like it works in the world. And that neither she nor Hunt have any negative side effects from the mask is that like, that's the only reason the mask works in [00:17:00] ACOTAR is because it's super overpowered.

But if anyone uses it, you're pretty much dead. 

Ellie: Yeah. Yeah, I agree that that is a problem that they can just be like, and I'll now just take it off by choice. 

Jen: It's good. It's cool. It's totally fine. Like, why would anyone have a problem with it? Why would Nesta, the, you know, being that was made from the cauldron who has control over this, like naturally that is her ability.

Why would she have a hard time and I wouldn't because I'm Bryce and I got pink sneakers. She, she 

Ellie: does have, yeah, you hear, is it pink sneakers or pink leggings? Probably both. I think they're pink sneakers. Yeah, I think you're right. You do hear about them a lot. Ah. Yes. 

Jen: Also, sorry. Yes. Can I, can I continue complaining?

Please, yeah, keep going. Keep going. Bryce and ACOTAR world. Okay, so you do have to assume going into it Bryce does not have the same context, context as we do, about the characters in ACOTAR. But the way she behaves with them I find is so stupid. Oh? [00:18:00] Start of it, grand. Like she doesn't trust them, whatever.

But she appears in a world she knows nothing about. She knows it's not where she's supposed to be. She meets people who she pretty much immediately realizes are extremely powerful and like trained fighters and all this kind of stuff. First off, her response is to be like, I'm a ditzy bimbo. Even though she kind of very quickly realizes they don't have the same social setup as her world, but it's like, okay, okay, this is what she always does, so she tried it, it didn't work, but when they're, when they get trapped in the tunnel under the, under the, like under the prison, but it's before they get to the prison, but it's under the cell she was in, when she, when they're in the tunnels anyways, and they're going along and she decides to, Have the worm attack them and it's like it's so idiotic.

You're in a place with Where [00:19:00] you are trapped, there is one way forward. You have two people with you who are extremely powerful. For all you know, there is nothing at the end here. For all you know, you're going to like get them attacked. You're going to run away. And 20 minutes later, they're going to catch up with you.

There was no winning in this situation for her getting the worm to attack them in that moment. It made no sense. It was completely idiotic. And it's like, these people are actively helping you do the thing that you want them to do. And you have no idea on when you're actually going to. Get to the thing at the end.

The end could be weeks away, but no, you're going to decide to get them attacked and killed now? And, oh, like, and she doesn't even expect them to get killed, just to get attacked so she has time to run further down the corridor first. And she doesn't even know there's something at the end of the bloody corridor.

It just so annoyed me. Sorry. Mm. 

Ellie: There you go. That's okay. This is a safe space. You [00:20:00] can get whatever book grievances you have out and uh, only the rest of the world will hear it. So. Nice. Nice. I had not thought about that when thinking about the worm. I mostly just don't think I would have thought to keep smearing my blood along.

Um, even though it was like, once I realized, I was like, Oh, that was obvious. Why did I not cop that? Yes. But anyway. Okay. If I start discussing the actual worm though, that's almost like we're getting into the challenges and instead of so much, so much book discussion to get through first. 

Jen: Okay. So not to just like, complete, continue complaining about like Bryce and ACOTAR world, but like Bryce's characterization.

Okay. In this book I was, uh, I had a problem with it. And partial part of it is because she has nothing to do. She's there to have exposition given to her. 

Ellie: Mm. 

Jen: Like so much of her story arc, it's not a story arc. It's, I'm gonna go from point [00:21:00] A to B2C to have people explain what's happening. And it's so boring.

Like as a character, she used to have something to do. I even if you didn't really like it, but now she's just like, oh, I'm gonna stand on a podium and listen to someone talk at me for like six chapters. 

Ellie: Okay, actually, yeah, I can really agree with that because what I found because I guess like what I found difficult I didn't really tie these two together was that I feel like this book was very Heavy on the lore.

Hmm. It was basically a book of quests to go Like, learn about your past, which I think has worked really well in other books and other series that I've read, but when, while reading, um, this book, I felt almost a need to, like, take notes and try and, like, re transcribe who said what, when, and what is this history that I'm trying to put together.

[00:22:00] Just once or twice, I, I don't know, it might have been late when I was reading, and I'd read a section and I'd be like, wait. What? Yeah. Who? Who? Where? And yes, just like keeping the names and the context and the power and then being like, okay, so we've like, like we've found the pedestal to stand on in this area.

Now let's travel to the next area to find the next pedestal to stand on and be told things. Yeah, I, I, I, I understand that complaint. I feel like, I don't know if it could have been spread across the books better or differently or something. Like, in other Sarah J. Maas books, actually, now that I'm saying it, I'm thinking, yeah, in other Sarah J.

Maas books, there is this thing of living with the consequences of what your ancestors have done before you, but I feel like it was done better in other books than it was done here. [00:23:00] Yeah. Yeah, I, I understand that complaint. I can. Or criticism, I can get on board with. Bryce just felt like a messenger pigeon going around collecting all the notes.

Jen: Yeah, and like when we're, not to skip forward too much, but when we're trying to figure out the challenges, um, we're like, should we stick with just Bryce's challenges? So it's kind of like, I don't think we can. Should she have any challenges? It feels in this book in particular, she gets a huge amount of power.

And it feels nearly entirely unearned. Everyone else is doing stuff. Everyone else is achieving or having, like making sacrifices or doing these things. And Bryce walked down a tunnel, stood on a stone, and then got laser powers, and then released an Astarian, done something really stupid, then gets back to her world.

Walks down a tunnel, stands on a stone, [00:24:00] gets more magical powers, now she can kill the Asteri. And like, okay, I know that's an oversimplification, but for her personally, you kind of want to feel like your heroes have earned their position, they've earned their power, either like they come in with skills and you're okay with that, and then they have to do something to get more.

There has to be some form of link, some form of payoff, otherwise you just end up with a character who was just. It's given the abilities so that they can resolve the end of the book. 

Ellie: Yeah. And I guess she, she went through so much like trauma and character development, I guess in the first book that it feels almost like disproportionately balanced.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And we do have quite a cast of characters in this book. 

Jen: We do. We do. I mean, the obvious closest to Bryce would be Hunt. You know, the next main ish character who has a, [00:25:00] has a much bigger story arc in this book. He has a lot of more stuff going on. And I feel like. There's points that he could have used a lot more time to, to go through what's happening to him, then gets given to him, and we're getting all this, like, oh, all this exposition y stuff.

Cool. Yeah, sure. Whatever. I want to know more about the actual fights that Hunt and Bryce are having. That was something that was actually interesting. I found really interesting because it had been set up in the last two books that we have Hunt and Bryce coming from different angles, like they both want the freedom, but they have different histories.

They have different things going on. They're coming at it from different stances and they really get set up as polar opposites at the start of this book and Bryce seems like a spoilt little child, at least to me, and Hunt seems a lot more reasonable. Not more reasonable, but more like realistic. And you get a point where Hunt and Bryce are there and Hunt is like, [00:26:00] you have no idea what it's like to have been enslaved again, mercilessly tortured, and see your friends tortured with you.

And Bryce is like, well, I didn't know if you were dead, and that's just as bad as like, well, Hunt also didn't know if you were dead. He thought he knew you're in some unknown world. How is your situation even nearly on par with what Hunt is describing? And it just kind of, they have a few fights about it, but like, it largely gets glossed over and Hunt is like, Oh, you're right, I should have been on your side all along.

And it's like, No, come on, actually have them resolve something. Maybe have Bryce admit that she was wrong. Like it doesn't mean that she has to say that, you know, everything she stands for is wrong. She can say, Okay. Okay. Oh yeah, that was worse than I thought. I had not realized this. I have come around. I was like, no, no, it has to be Hunt just comes in and goes, torture?

What's torture? I mean, who doesn't mind getting things chopped off them and seeing their friends murdered? [00:27:00] Like no, 

Ellie: you're, you're okay. Cause like, yeah. Poor baby Hunt. He. He is just the one who's like, and now deal with the pain again, and again, and again. And then have all these internal struggles that you, I don't know.

Yeah. 

Jen: And when he has the whole thing of finding out that he was essentially constructed as a battery, really, from what it seems there have been versions of him that have been waiting for the right version of Bryce, that is a whole, that could be like a. book worth of fucking internal struggle, you know?

Yeah, yeah. I think it gets resolved in a couple of chapters, but it's not even the focus of the chapters, it just gets mentioned here and there and then, oh well, it's all right. And it's like, no, no, that is massive world shattering News, when are we going to sit with this? When are we going to see Hunt get through it?

Which we would have seen in something like Throne of Glass or ACOTAR, we would have seen them [00:28:00] respond weirdly to their friends, go off and do something that we're not really with them for, have their relationships break down, have all this kind of stuff happen, but it all just got glossed over in this one.

Ellie: Not to kind of like jump topic too much, but when When this book started with the Thunderbirds, I haven't said it out loud before and it just made me think of the Thunderbirds are a go! Yeah! That actually really excited me. I was like, oh, whoa, like the world is really opening up. I feel like there's still so much more to be gained and explored that we then just didn't quite get in this book.

And that the Thunderbirds were like the prototype. To hunt, it was like, oh, we'll just breed a whole new, like, genus, and it's like, ah, they got hunted to extinction, okay, we have to make one offs, like, yeah, absolutely wild. [00:29:00] It's hard enough sometimes when you feel like you don't have a purpose in life.

Imagine finding out That you were explicitly made for a purpose. That's like the other extreme. 

Jen: But also like you're the backup, you know, like you, you're the attachment and we didn't even know if the useful one was going to appear in your generation. So we've just made six million attachments hoping that Bryce would be born while you're alive.

Like, what? Yeah. I was really, I was hoping at the start that. They were making such a big point of people finding their mates across, uh, portals and all this kind of stuff. And also there being a connection between the made objects. I was kind of hoping what it was going to say is that Bryce and Asriel are mates and the connection between Bryce and Hunt was more to do with made objects.

Oh. Obviously that's not what they did, but I was kind of like, Oh, are they going to like complete curve ball on this? I was like, nah, nah. 

Ellie: Whoa, that, that, [00:30:00] that would have been extreme curveball. Damn. Jam. Whew.

Fantasy books are the best. Like, how else would I get this mind blown feeling? I can't think about the real world. This is amazing.

I do find it interesting how in this book, it's not, it's not really as black and white as I'm going to say right now, but I feel like it has a lot of strong female characters and a lot of men. Are males trying to do what they think is the right thing, but never actually making the right choice. Which I feel like is a slight possible, like, reverse of traditional strong male characters and women trying to figure things out.

It might have been written that way, [00:31:00] but it's a way that you can look at the characters because Both Ethan and Tharion. Oh, oh, poor boys. 

Jen: Yeah, uh, poor, poor boys. I see an annoyed face on Jen again. Ethan was like, Ethan just wrecked my head in this. Though, on your point, Hypaxia was pretty much as bad as Ethan.

Ellie: Uh, yeah, she enabled a lot of the things that went wrong. But like, I think she wouldn't have gone. To do these things, if he hadn't asked 

Jen: her. But like, starting off that there was a rebellion of the witches and she just fecked off. She was like, Oh, rebellion, I guess I'll give it to you guys and I'll go and join this other house place.

And like, Jess was really critical of her. She's like, she just gave up straight away. 

Ellie: Yeah, yeah, no, I'm not saying, like, this is why I said it didn't quite fit into black and white, like, [00:32:00] but, and there, and I have other criticisms on other female characters, so yeah, it's definitely not a black and white line, but in general, that is the way I felt it leaning.

Jen: Yeah. I like that. I like there's definitely more weight on, there definitely felt like there was more weight on, on a lot of the female characters, which is nice. I did find a few moments where I felt like a bit of. Reductive new age feminism y in some places where it's like, Oh, nobody tells Bryce what she's gonna do.

You're in trouble if you think you can tell her no. And it's like, really? Like, come on. 

Ellie: Come on. Oh, so I actually, I didn't get that at all. The one thing that actually. Annoyed me is almost the opposite with Lydia, the hind, when Ruhn and other characters find out she has like kids, she has this whole thing about, don't you dare now just judge me as a mother.[00:33:00] 

But then everything is about her kids after we find that out, everything. And I was like, the whole thing was that we weren't to judge you as a mother and now everything. And I guess that's part of just you learning about her internal motivations like that was her internal motivation the whole time. I guess.

We just didn't know. But when they had the explicit line of like, don't define me by my kids, to then continue defining yourself by your kids, I don't know, that was maybe something that I would personally just find annoying. I don't know if it was, uh, something that other people would find as Annoying, excited.

Jen: I didn't get that so much, but I definitely see where you're coming from. There, there, there is a comment in the second book, a real throwaway line about pregnancy. So that said that she had been pregnant. So in the third book, uh, like when a thing about her kids comes up, I'm like, Oh, okay. Actual payoff for, for that thing.

Yeah. But it [00:34:00] did then feel like, especially when her, so we find out that Lydia has two kids, they're teenagers now, they're twins. They've been living on the depth charger protected by the ocean queen. They're the reason that, like, she's, she's been a spy and all this stuff. Towards the end of the book, they get captured by Pollux for no reason.

Like, they've been safe their entire lives, they're like 18 or something like that. I mean, they're probably, I think they're a little younger, but they're teenagers. 

Ellie: They're like 13 or something, yeah. 

Jen: Yeah, so they've been hidden for a very long time in this place. Nothing else has changed and yet they manage to now get captured, so she has the motivation Go to the castle and do, make stupid decisions like I've had that so annoying and I think it does tie into your thing of like, just chuck the kids in because why else would she ever do anything?[00:35:00] 

Ellie: Yeah, exactly. Like when she was agent Daybright and you didn't know about the kids, I feel like she made decisions that still weren't 100 percent just based on what would best suit her boys, whereas exactly like Pollux. Um, somehow captures her kids then and all this stuff. Um. 

Jen: Yeah. And I don't know how I feel about the parallel that they made between Lydia and, um, Selina in Throne of Glass.

Or Selina. I never know how I'm supposed to pronounce her name. You know, when she, she's always had fire powers that were so strong that they even got past like the parasite drop thing. And then when she takes the antidote, she has these unbelievable fire powers and it's like, yeah, she's Brannan's line.

So it's like, oh, it's, it's a show back to an old Fae line. It's like, so she's, she's related to the, the monarchy in Terrasen. And it's like, okay, I [00:36:00] don't know if I like that or not. 

Ellie: I didn't mind it. I was like, that's fine. Like, we know that the fae from that world came over and became the shapeshifters.

Like, that was definitely made, not clear, but like, those lines were drawn in the book. That like, the fae from ACOTAR world came over and became the classic fae of Midgard. And the fae from Throne of Glass world. 

Jen: are the shapeshifters. 

Ellie: Yeah. 

Jen: Yeah, but I think it might just be more that there is an actual acknowledgement that it is of an old line.

Oh, okay. Like I'm just thinking of this as I'm actually saying it because how would she 

Ellie: Do they explicitly imply? Yeah. Oh, I must have completely missed that then. 

Jen: No, I can't find it. But like, there is a specific thing where she's like, Oh [00:37:00] yeah, it's like, I'm from an old Fae line. And it's like, Really? How would you know that?

You know? 

Ellie: Mm hmm. Admittedly, when I finished the book, even though I had internal questions and qualms and like my brain was just like overflowing with trying to process everything, it did make me want to go back and start at the very first Throne of Glass book again and read through all 13 books all over.

And it's such funny timing as well because it's right around this time, literally this time last year when you recommended. Sarah J Maas to me and I started reading Sarah J Maas it was like almost to the day. Nice. And I've read all of her books a year later and it's like do I restart now? Surely not. It did make me want to go back and look at all the kind of, yeah the different character arcs and the ways different things tied together and having finished this series like Throne of [00:38:00] Glass is still definitely my favorite.

We haven't reviewed any of the books so I'm not going to say too much but we've both read the series and it's definitely, I think.

Yeah. 

Jen: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think I feel confident in saying that. I think there's definitely a whole section towards the end of Throne of Glass that was written with the intent of being cross series and having more like background stuff because you have all these sections where they're learning loads of random things and they see all these sculptures and they do whatever, and they have.

No payoff in that book. You don't really care. You're just like, Oh, well, here's a thing. Sure. But there's lots of other things. And I wonder how those will, how those tie into ACOTAR and Crescent City. And I kind of like, I want to go back and read, read those. Yeah. 

Ellie: Yeah. Yeah. Just to see what similarities there are.

Like you might have to bleep this or cut it out of the [00:39:00] podcast completely, whichever you prefer.

Who knows? Maybe Throne of Glass will come to the podcast in the not too distant future. 

Jen: So in this. I was kind of disappointed, um, that Hel was just fine. These good guys are good guys and they've got a big army and they're good guys and they keep saying they're good guys and they're good guys and it's like, okay, I like, I was kind of surprised there was no more deft to that, you know?

Ellie: I kind [00:40:00] of enjoy the idea that it's called Hel. So everybody comes into it with an assumption of what Hel is. And yes, they are quote unquote demons and have all these like demony things, but they're not bad in any way. It did. I'm not going to say make me happy, but like it was a good subversion of expectation.

Thank you. Thank you. Those are the words that my brain does not have today. Thank you. Exactly. 

Jen: And like, I like that they're saying portals to Hel opened in, you know, the first book and that was bad and they're like, yeah, but you just opened like the pen to our pets. They're not actual, they're not like us.

It's different. That was good. 

Ellie: Yeah, it's like if we took, I don't know, rabid dogs out of our world and dropped them over, we wouldn't want them to be the, the shining example of what humanity is. I'm sure we have worse things that we could drop over, but you [00:41:00] know, that's the first thing that came into my head.

Jen: I do like that subversion. At the same time, it just seemed a little too simple. Too clean. Yeah. Yeah. But I feel like there's a lot of that in this 

Ellie: book is that there were so many things to tie together. Everything just had to be clean so that it would tie together without the book becoming another 200 pages longer.

Jen: Pretty much. Yeah. But let's, let's return. Let's return to Ethan. Okay. Yes. Ethan. Oh my God. 

Ellie: Ethan. 

Jen: The 

Ellie: boy of a thousand terrible choices. 

Jen: And just like lack of choices, so many of his choices were like the, the solution to it was do something. And his solution was always, how do I try and undo my existence?

You know, how do I avoid having any choice, any action, any, anything in the world, how do I make it so that everyone else is control and everyone else [00:42:00] makes all the decisions and I'm not involved? That would have been fine at the start. That he keeps it up throughout the vast majority of the book and refuses point blank to take any form of responsibility or action.

Like, no matter what else is going wrong, all he's doing is trying to backtrack. No matter how many times it's showing that trying to backtrack is actually making things worse for you, he keeps trying to backtrack. And I just really just got so frustrated with him. After, probably halfway through the book, I was like, I just don't care what you do anymore.

Either cop on or just go away. 

Ellie: Ah, so interesting because I did not have as negative, uh, a reading of him. I just felt sorry for him the whole time. Like, I, it was, I think he was one of the characters that felt like. They were in the first [00:43:00] book of their storyline, if that makes sense. He was making all of the mistakes, just one after the other, after the other, after the other.

It's like the early development of a character, um, and I just felt bad for the poor boy that like all he wanted was for everything else to go right. And the assumption that the power wasn't in himself to be that person and to be that change. I, yeah, I don't know. I didn't find him nearly as annoying as you did.

I just saw it as like a really, really, really, really painful character progression. 

Jen: We had so much of him in the second book being, you know, uncertain about what to do and who he wanted to be. Not knowing his place and so much of a like, he, he also had his, if you do take him as like the hero of his own story, he had his refusal of the call [00:44:00] in the second book where the prime was like, Oh, I can make you an alpha.

And he's like, no, no, no, no, no, no. I couldn't be an alpha. I can, I can find someone else who could be an alpha. And I feel like for me. That should have been at least close to his final, no, no, no, I can't do this. And then him start trying to learn in the third book, like he wouldn't be on par with the other, like the main characters of this story.

But when the thing with Sigrid goes terribly wrong and then he just makes it worse by still trying to go back and always still like, it's, it just dragged on too much for me. 

Ellie: Whereas I feel like if he had come into his own in the third book, that would have been another line that was too cleanly tied up.

Oh God. What have I reminded you of now? Yeah. 

Jen: Thinking of lines that are too cleanly tied up. The bone quarter. When [00:45:00] he gets to the bone quarter and he is, he talks to his brother and his brother is like, Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, we all know about Second Light and we've made this bullet that is magically charged with all our essences and Bryce can use it because she has to kill the Asteri.

It's like, okay, who told the brother that? How does, how do the dead know anything about this? From Danica, from Danica, before she sacrificed herself for Bryce. They know what Bryce is, is doing, like, cause they knew what Bryce was doing at the time. 

Ellie: Yes, cause they Still exist in a way. 

Jen: Like I was going through it trying to think of like who would have died who would be in the bone quarter who would tell them and give them updates but no one who actually liked them would have died and gone there like they'd gone there but they would be the enemies they'd be like um Nasha, Hara, Sandriel and and people like that and it's like they're not gonna help.

Ellie: I don't know like are there [00:46:00] quote unquote good reapers? Who? Yeah, like, okay, you're right. Like it's too cleanly tied up in this book. But I can definitely argue that they could have gotten like, like it's made clear that the dead don't have to go to a bone quarter when they die. That's just something that everyone is made to believe.

So clearly there are dead out there that haven't been either, haven't gone on to another life or. Quote unquote heaven or Hel or whatever you want to call it. True, 

Jen: but like, how did they get into the Bone Quarter to tell the Bone Quarter once about it? 

Ellie: I don't know. But there's so much, this world is so big, I can believe it can happen.

Jen: You know, I could make up lots of other things that never get explained to make sure that this works. 

Ellie: You're right. Like, I agree. Um, but yeah, I'm accepting it for now, I guess. 

Jen: JezebeJesibael. Ooh, yes. Jesiba is a character I found interesting, but the [00:47:00] way her story was revealed and the exposition was done, I felt was very lazy.

She's good friends with Bryce. She has all this stuff going on. She's had this secret that she's held for thousands of years, and she tells Ethan because he just asked her a question. It's like, this is a guy you don't even know, you just know he knows Bryce, and you're revealing your deepest, darkest secrets to him because he was like, oh, but how do you have a book?

And she's like, well, let me tell you. 

Ellie: Yeah, yeah, that could have been done differently. That's definitely true. Her storyline is really interesting. I feel like I'm playing whatever the opposite of Devil's Advocate is. Like, you come up with a plot hole and I, like, I'm desperately trying to fill it in. With whatever scraps of paper I can find.

Through her thousands of years, could she see the end coming? Who knows? Um, but is the way that she just confesses it all to Ethan feel convenient? Yes. 

Jen: I do like, [00:48:00] and I would have liked to see more of when she was talking about the fae that the Asteri had like, well, the fae and the different magical creatures, the Asteris had gathered into Midgard.

And she was talking about how the wolf shaped The Wolfshifters, in particular, were their fiercest, most loyal guards, and they were the ones who were first sent to, like, kill all the people of Parthos and killing children and all this kind of stuff. That was something that I thought was interesting that could have done with more.

Focus. And it gets a little bit that it's talking about how Danica and the Fenders were essentially bred to be that powerful and to be super loyal. 

Ellie: Yeah. 

Jen: And I just would have liked to see that kind of established and be a bit more for that to affect the story a bit more than it did. 

Ellie: You could say it is the whole reason the story exists.

Because, [00:49:00] in their breeding to try and make the loyalist, I guess, defender of the realm, they bred Danica, who saw it as her, like, her loyalty was so deep to the realm that it was to get rid of the Ysteri.

Now, the problem is, It's a good problem to have. We've been discussing the book itself for quite a while now, and I feel like we could go on discussing the book for a very long time, but this is a podcast that people have to listen to. And I fear that we must at some point decide if we will even survive in this world.

But, uh, if you do have a final book discussion piece that you, that you feel the need to, to get off your chest, I can, I can accept. Jen, if 

Jen: you want to complain, just, you have one more complaint, just, just make it a good one. 

Ellie: I can get, I can mention a funny one that I have, uh, as an [00:50:00] aside. Go for it. Was it so necessary for none of the boxers on the Depth Charger to fish hunt?

Was it so necessary that none of the underwear on this whole entire city ship could fish hunt? It was the most ridiculous line that I was like, because it's this tricky balance of like, these books are like, about saving civilizations, but then they have their like, sexy, spicy scenes scattered throughout, and they're amusing, and they're fun.

But like, that one just stuck with me for so long. It just pulled me so out of being like, What? You have never encountered 

Jen: an angel before? I, I did not pick up on that line, but that is hilarious. Oh, yeah, 

Ellie: yeah, yeah. And it's not even mentioned just on the Depth Charger, but then like when they're having their final night together before they possibly all go and die, he is still going commando because he hasn't had a chance to pick up a pair of [00:51:00] boxers.

Jen: Actually, okay, so a topic to just to say about the book that's not just complaining about plot holes. It feels like. On that note, there is definitely a move to be more fantasy than romanticy in this book. 

Ellie: Mm hmm. 

Jen: And I feel like it was like an active attempt to de romanticify it by removing a lot of the spice.

There were very few like sex scenes, spiciness, whatnot in this book. 

Ellie: Yeah, I actually, I can't remember how much there was, like, there was definitely a lot of the like, you are my mate, so many couples, but yeah, I think you're right. It was a case of like, yes, we are mates, yes, we are whatever, spice will happen at some point, but right now saving the world is a bit more important than our sex lives.

Which, I could appreciate. 

Jen: Yeah. But like, I feel like it's trying [00:52:00] to Okay, if you're looking at Throne of Glass and ACOTAR, ACOTAR really went hard on the romance with a bit of fantasy. 

Ellie: And Throne 

Jen: of Glass was FANTASY. And then as it goes on, it's like, with a bit of romance, okay, okay. Like obviously it had more romance, but like it didn't get spicy till later books, um, because of the age, Watts is.

But then it feels like Crescent City is trying to get back to the fantasy roots of Throne of Glass, but from starting at ACOTAR, that it's like, ah, it's so, so sexy. Let us get back to a fantasy thing. And I feel like it didn't necessarily have enough. development in the core fantasy that aren't romanticy sections to do that successfully.

Because you know the way the romanticy, like even the thing with most of the Sarah J Maas books is so much of it is all interpersonal and all this stuff and then plot at the end. 

Ellie: Yeah. 

Jen: Like you were saying in, in one of the previous podcasts on this series that, you know, plot [00:53:00] actually happened throughout the entire book and that was, that was brilliant.

But I feel like she just hasn't got the balance quite. Right. On having the plot work in such a way like we've gone from zero plot, well we've gone from like 10 percent plot in 90 percent of the book and 90 percent plot in 10 percent of the book to, I've just written 6, 000 percent plot and um, I'm hoping that's all fine.

Ellie: Yeah. Yeah. Ah, to be an author, like I don't envy anybody that job of trying to find that balance. I also do find it hilarious, this is still slightly, like, in, in the romanticy genre in general. In that like, online, on social media, in the world, they're like, oh my god, women are reading porn. What? And then, in the book, there's gonna be like, four sexy, spicy scenes.

And I'm like, that means, like, people still read 600 other [00:54:00] pages. Yeah. Of the book. It's not purely that, 

Jen: but like women are reading porn. They, they don't say that about like, game of Thrones. Men are reading so much porn. 

Ellie: I ah, I know, right? I ex Yeah, exactly. Because I bet you there's 

Jen: more sex in Game of Thrones than there is in this bloody book.

Worse writing sex, more 

Ellie: disturbing. 

Jen: Hmm. Worse written, but also Yes. More disturbing. . 

Ellie: Yeah. Uh, 

Jen: but, okay. Okay. There you go. That was my last point. Let us, let us go and see if we would survive House of Flame and Shadow. I think the automatic answer is no, but we're going to, we're going to do this anyways.

Ellie: Exactly. Might as well. Might as well try. Okay, so you've already touched on it a bit, but we're going to start off in the world of ACOTAR with our, with Bryce's escape attempt, navigating the tunnels, double bluffing. You know the drill. You've already said a little bit of your piece [00:55:00] here. How are we feeling about, 

Jen: yeah.

I feel like we would both be way smarter than Bryce in this situation. 

Ellie: Yeah, I feel like she didn't take advantage of being surrounded by incredibly knowledgeable and powerful beings. She was too quick to try and escape. 

Jen: She was also too quick to try and lie to them and pull one over because she knew nothing about them.

Yeah. She goes straight in and starts. Yeah, lying, making stuff up, bluffing, all this kind of stuff. If she'd actually went in and tried to see what side they were on first and then decided how much she was going to lie, she probably would have had a very different outcome. 

Ellie: And it's also tricky as well because like when I think back to like what she learns while there, she basically learns that like her ancestors came from this world.

The Fae here are still more powerful because they're not chained to the [00:56:00] Asteri. Did she have to then leave straight away? It was very clear that the characters in ACOTAR world were like, heck no, we are not possibly inviting these parasitic creatures into our world. We have just gotten stable. We've just dealt with our own, like, evil overlords.

We're not getting involved in yours, but yeah, I think, uh, like taking your time, our time to suss it all out, figure out what's happening around us. We might do slightly better here. 

Jen: Even if we end up in the same position of the people in ACOTAR world being like, Oh, we want nothing to do with you. Yes, we might even kill you because they're tracing you.

That's the result you get from, like, their decisions on things, sure, but just, like, the way Bryce is going about it with the, I'm gonna just attack everyone and blow up the room we all happen to stand in right now. It's like, what? [00:57:00] And then she's like, I'm gonna let the Asteri out of the cage. I don't know how to kill it.

I don't know how to put it back in a cage. I just know I want to ask it questions and it's like, why would you need to ask it questions? You've just gone through like what was probably six hours of exposition. Do you really need more? And she's like, yep. 

Ellie: Yeah. And so many, so many rooms caving in, like so many potential concussions.

raining around you. I've had concussions. I do not want another one. I've had my quota of concussions and freeing the estary. Yeah, that was for it. Like, I was reading it being like, this is going to happen. This is going to happen and I don't want it and I don't like it. Do not do this, Bryce. But she does. 

Jen: I was kind of hoping that the estary more accidentally would get out, but it was, it was like, no, this is an active choice to do the worst possible thing.

Anyway, sorry, go on. No, go ahead. Well, I was just going to complain about the plot hole. Pfft. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha 

Ellie: ha. [00:58:00] Okay, thank God we're actually surviving one of the challenges that we've written for this book. In that, I feel like we'd do better at thinking. We survive. We battle. We flee home. We arrive back and travel to Midgardd to find our next pedestal to stand on.

Which means we go to Cave of 

Jen: Princes! 

Ellie: Woohoo! The least appealing sounding place I've come across in a book in a long time. It actually kind of reminded me of like the never ending story and the swamp of despair, is that what it's called? No, it's just the swamp of sadness. Oh, I've seen that so many times.

It broke my heart so deeply. So, so deeply. It reminded me of basically a cave version of the swamp of sadness. Um,

okay, but anyway, Cave of Princes, navigating this weird Swampy, [00:59:00] cavey, underground Helhole. Um, having a little beacon on our chest, on one of our chests, that guides us the right way and scares away the swamp monsters, or the skeletons, is quite useful. I do appreciate my ancestors. Being kind enough to be like, yeah, you've dealt with enough have a little beacon light to scare away the bad guys overall So I think the whole navigation part to the cave of princes We would actually have fairly easy if we say that we have Bryce's power if we don't have Bryce's power Bit more difficult.

Bit more. Yeah, yeah. Like, does, do compasses work underground? This is something I actually don't know. They should. With that level of salt. Yeah. 

Jen: Like it's all, it's all magnets. Magnets work underground. Okay. Unless you're in like a cave that's magnetic somehow. [01:00:00] 

Ellie: Yeah, because they're kind of made up of like a lot of salts, a lot of weird earth minerals, because we eventually get to the tomb where we can go and talk to Hel.

And I will say, as soon as they walked in and they were like, there are two slots. And I'm like, put the swords in the slosh. Put the slords in the slosh. Put the swords in the slosh! It was I was just like, why is it not happening? Why is it not happening? Do it now! Do it now! Do it now! I, that would be my moment of being the incredibly impulsive person and being like, ah.

Clearly, the swords go in the slots, and I would just do the thing with no thinking. This would be the moment where like, okay, in ACOTAR, I'm slow and steady, I think things through. In this cave, I see the perfect, like, jigsaw puzzle clicked together. I would, without a second thought, just be like, yay, clicked together!

That is my burden. My fault. 

Jen: I mean, I think my biggest problem here is, [01:01:00] uh. For a second time, they, they get to a point of, to progress, you must jump into a fast flowing river. Oh, yes. Oh, I forgot. Oh, well, I guess we don't get to talk to Hel. 

Ellie: Ah. Hmm. I, I have done, like, I'm not a qualified lifeguard, but I have done safety, like water safety one, two and three.

Many years ago. So I do know how to like pull you along without you drowning But it would require you completely trusting me and not trying to drown the two of us. 

Jen: It's, it's like, Jen, if you die, I know CPR. Obviously in these situations, I trust you entirely. I let you belay me when we're climbing. 

Ellie: That's, that's very true.

That's very true. I, I, I can, I can lifeguards tow you through the rivers. Possibly. Possibly. Like, [01:02:00] fast flowing. I think at one point, don't you have to like, hold your breath. And go under. I think so. Yeah. Yeah. That would be a lot of, a lot of faith on your part. But, you know, I do know CPR, um. Aw, we'll figure it out.

I've done a lot of first aid courses recently as well. 

Jen: You'll only die for a short while, Jen, it'll be fine. 

Ellie: Just send someone running to get the defib and we are sorted. It has voice commands and everything. 

Jen: Ooh. I feel like the challenge here has more got to do with when the Autumn King and the King of, um, Avellan.

Attack. Yes. 

Ellie: So how do you defeat them without killing your friends? I actually don't remember exactly how this is done, but I think it's also through the luck of Ruhn and Lydia arriving at the right moment as well. Yeah. So this, this is a, a high [01:03:00] luck, like you want to roll a nat d20 on your, that's far too near to your turn, but anyway, um, like you want to get a hundred out of hundreds to not kill somebody that you love.

Jen: Yeah, so like they wake up, they're surrounded by fire. Ruhn appears, kills the Autumn King, Lydia takes care of the fire, and Bryce kills Morven. There's a level in that that's like, I don't know where Bryce only got all her great hand to hand sword combat skills from. Oh, that's from, that's from her adoptive dad.

No, she's, she's great with a gun from him. She can shoot anything, but like going a sword fight. It was also hand to hand combat. Okay. 

Ellie: Yeah. I do remember that bit, like to be allowed to go to college, it wasn't just reassembling a gun. She had to also beat him on like, like a, like a martial arts match. 

Jen: Yeah, but wasn't this a sword fight?

And [01:04:00] knives and stuff? Possibly, 

Ellie: but 

Jen: I'm 

Ellie: just gonna assume that that was part of that training. Okay. She also, she also trained with Cormac and Ruhn in book 2, which I know had a heavy teleportation element to it, but I think there was also some star swords. 

Jen: You, you've a lot more faith in, in your training montage and book two than, than I do, but okay.

Okay. That will, yeah, that's enough to say up to, to fight against a hundredth year old King who's definitely done this a billion times. So if that's enough for her to survive, then we're sorted. 

Ellie: I have never done any sort of sword fighting or fencing. 

Jen: So my dad and brother recently started. A sword fighting thing.

So I've got swords in the house now. 

Ellie: Oh, you told me about this. Yeah. Oh, I didn't even think of that connection. Oh my god. So all I have to do is 

Jen: like some afternoon be like, guys, can you show me how to use like a long sword? And as long as I do that before we go here, I'll be [01:05:00] fine. 

Ellie: Ah, then just teach me and we're golden.

We need to do like a bonus episode where we both learn how to hold a sword. Yeah. Okay. So, Cave of Princes. If Jen survives the river. Well, drink the water, no problem. The defeating of the kings is basically a flip of the coin, whether or not we either time it right or somehow develop the sword skills necessary.

So maybe it's the flip of a weighted coin not in our favor. 

Jen: Yeah, 50 50 on surviving cave of princes. Well, you're 50 50, I'm like, 30. Maybe you're 30 if I drown you with me by accident. There, yeah, 

Ellie: there we go, there we go. 

Jen: Okay, so our next challenge, um. Is the trials of Mr. Ethan Hallstrom. How long would it take us to try and keep trying to fix things and [01:06:00] realize, well, essentially move forward, but also give up on people?

Ellie: Hmm. So yeah, so first he accidentally kills Siegfried. Who doesn't seem like terribly fond of him, and then tries to resurrect her, and she comes back as a reaper out of spite. And then goes to the den, kills Sabine, and then sees Sigurd killing the Prime, the Astronomer. Like, yeah. I think, for me, it's when Sigurd comes back as a reaper that I'm like, Oh no, I backed the wrong horse.

Like, that is when my faith would have been destroyed. The fact that I feel like he keeps believing in her, even past the point of her killing people and disappearing. Like I feel like a teeny bit of him still believed in her when he was like, and now I am [01:07:00] prime. But even in killing her, trying to resurrect somebody, she would not have been accepted by the wolves.

As a resurrected zombie wolf, he so wanted, so, so wanted this future that almost could like almost mirror or tie into the future that he had expected when he was younger that Danica would become the better new wolf that he finds another friend year and he's like, Oh, this must be the new Danica, the new savior saving light ahead of me.

He doesn't even stop to see that, would a, would a pack of wolves ever even accept a zombie wolf? No. They're so rigid and set in their ways that like, even resurrecting her just seems insane in a way.

Jen: I, yeah, I, I wouldn't, I, like if [01:08:00] I started the book the same way as Ethan, after Sigrid gets killed, accidentally, that, that's, she's dead. You have to move on, and like, not only is she dead, she didn't want to be released, essentially. She didn't want to be there. She didn't want to be the heir. She didn't want to do any of this kind of stuff, and now she's dead.

There is only so much denial you can live in, you know, and I feel like, me personally, I'd be like, yeah, okay, I guess we have to figure something else out. You know, I don't know what that something else would be, but it wouldn't be trying to resurrect her from the dead. Honestly, if I was going to resurrect her from the dead, I would talk to the necromancer that I'm besties with, as opposed to just running off to try and ask someone to find me a necromancer.

Ellie: Okay, so again, in the decision making challenge, I feel like we [01:09:00] are coming out in a better light than the character in that moment. 

Jen: Yeah. 

Ellie: Yeah. 

Jen: Like, I can definitely see how, like, in the moment, in the actual fight with Sigrid, accidentally killing her. 

Ellie: Yeah. I thought that was actually really well written, or, like, developed, because Sigrid could have been an alpha, has, or like, has the alpha gene in her, but having spent so much of her life in a tank.

sold off as a, as to, to the astronomer. It made sense that she wouldn't know how to move and her fighting would be purely an instinct. Whereas Ethan's. Even if he had never ever planned on being a, an alpha, it was, he's still trained, he's still learned from his brother, he still ends up accidentally killing her because she makes a really, really [01:10:00] stupid move that anybody who had actually lived a life as a wolf would not have done.

Yeah. Yeah. 

Jen: That definitely felt. A realistic accident that could happen. Yeah. It's like when you're sparring or something and you're like, Oh, I went to do a shadow punch, but then they ducked towards where my fist was going and you're like, I didn't actually mean to punch them. They just, they, they, they actually collided with my fist.

I was going to stop. Have I had this happen? Yes. Yeah. So I definitely, I saw that as a realistic and I see that as something that could actually be. Happened to anyone, really. Mm 

Ellie: hmm. 

Jen: Yeah. With the fight at the den. 

Ellie: Mm hmm. 

Jen: Really hard to see how that would go. Oh. Killing Stabine, but the Prime getting killed.

But if we weren't dumb enough to raise Sigrid as a Reaper, would any of this be happening? We'd change the [01:11:00] entire plot. 

Ellie: Yes. I think I think Hypaxia and Ethan would have been tasked with trying to figure out the antidote anyway. Mm. And Ethan would have been the logical person to try and drink it. So I feel like he would have ended up in the den.

Whether, like, Sigurd being there, and that whole kind of thing going down, that way Yeah, I feel like the Prime need not have necessarily died in that moment that way, but maybe that would have just pushed Sabine to kill the Prime herself and try and establish herself, like conduct a coup in that moment.

I don't know. I actually, the whole fighting Sabine bit, like that is where our skills are probably lacking. Like there's one thing being like, yeah, yeah, we've got like a little bit, like fighting Sabine who throughout the books has been such a formidable, venomous. Character. Hmm. It's interesting how we're saying, yeah, yeah, we'll kill a, like, [01:12:00] 500 year old fey king.

But Sabine. Oof. She's a nasty piece of work. So I don't, I don't know how well our, our, our critique of our skills is lining up across challenges, but anyway, anyway. So that would involve a Hel of a lot of luck and a lot more training than where I am now. Like it's actually, it's interesting. I feel like not too long after we started recording this podcast, I joined a regular gym for the first time in my life because my body, my upper body strength is actually probably the lowest or the weakest it's been my entire life.

And, um, the more challenges we describe, the more I'm like, I really need to get back. Like I used to like be able to do 10 pull ups. I can't do. A single clean, like from a full hang pull up right now, I think, and, uh, these challenges are motivating me to get that upper body strength back again. Like I've got the [01:13:00] legs.

I don't got, I don't got the arms right now and I only have a little bit of core. 

Jen: Speaking of, speaking of, there is a bit. In this book, where one of the characters is in the gym, and I swear Sarah J Maas has just learned some gym turns and was trying to chuck them in there and got a bunch of them wrong.

Oh no, I missed this. But there's a bit where he's talking about how he was doing a chest press. Yes. He's doing the chest press and someone else comes in and he's like, Oh, I could have spotted you. And he's like, Oh, I'm fine. And he puts the bar up. Bush, you don't chest press with a bar. 

Ellie: No. 

Jen: You bench press with a bar.

You chest press with dumbbells. And I was like, 

Ellie: Ah. Oh, I just tried to explain that. I was like, Oh no, I didn't notice it in the moment because I think I was just kind of like. I, I didn't read the words chest press. I was just like, ah, doing gym, fine. Um, but as soon as you're like, he did, he was chest pressing.

I was like, oh [01:14:00] no, oh no, let's see where this is going. 

Jen: Yeah, I was reading it and I was like, finally me going to the gym too often pays off. I understand these are wrong and they made a comment about always needing a spot for something and I'm, I actually have like a highlight and a note going, do you just get crash barriers?

So it's like, you don't need a spot. You just need to have everything set up right. It's fine. It's fine. But, yeah, there you go, there you go. Unlike Ellie, I have never been able to do a pull up, but I was doing chest press the other day, and I haven't done upper body properly in ages. Cause I've been doing lots of running specific strength training and I was like, Oh, this is fine.

I'm using super light weights, well, super lighter to whatever I used to use. This morning I woke up and my arms were aching and I'm like, Oh no, it's like, Jen, you haven't actually done upper body properly in about four months. It's like, Oh yeah, good point self. Good point. Now that you say that. 

Ellie: Yeah, it is a very satisfying ache, but I can empathize.

I can [01:15:00] empathize. Yeah. Yeah. Okay, so, we're, we do well in this challenge in regards to the thinking things through. On the fighting a trained warrior who is just really spiteful, not so hot. Not so hot. 

Jen: Okay. So then, um, the hind is our next challenge, I guess just like the hinz challenges, um, being a spy, the having to hide the people who are important to you, but getting pulled into this world really due to that.

And how far would you go? How much can you do? How good would you be at that? I mean, I would be terrible at it. Like, 

Ellie: I would be terrible. This is, I feel like, a common theme. Back in our Amina El Sarathi episode, we had to convince some pirates to join our cause. And I feel like [01:16:00] that was, that was the challenge in that book that we failed the most at.

Yeah, yeah. I would love to imagine myself as an amazing spy. But I, my face is too readable, I blush too easily, I need so much more practice at this if I actually wanted to become a spy. I need to start going into like, random pubs that I will never be in again and start making up a completely new identity and seeing how long I can carry it for.

Because Right now. She's impressive. Very 

Jen: impressive. But yeah, no, I'd appear back and someone would be like So, what happened to you? And I was like, What do you mean what happened to me? A thing. Bad stuff. But I'm here now and it's all okay, yes? Yeah, Jen. That was totally convincing. 

Ellie: I think I am enough of an overthinker that as long as somebody questioned me, On an area that I have [01:17:00] already had the conversation with, I will be fine.

But as soon as somebody goes off of what I have mentally prepared, that is when it might fall apart. I have definitely gained some skills in the last while I've been doing a lot more public speaking, which has made me a lot more, I think, fast thinking. And when I'm asked a question that I don't want to answer in the way that I feel like they're leading me, I have gotten better at being like, ah, well that ties back to this thing and taking it the way that I want it to go.

but not in a straight up lying way. So, I don't know how we're going to develop this skill gen. 

Jen: Ah well, we won't be spies, but one day maybe, one day maybe. 

Ellie: Not right now. Not 

Jen: right now. We're too busy learning to soar fight. 

Ellie: Exactly, exactly. We're at the infancy of, of, of our spy journey. 

Jen: Yeah. Okay. So we, we failed miserably at being a double agent.

Ellie: Yes. [01:18:00] 

Jen: Which brings us to the final battle. Which, so much happens in this. So 

Ellie: much. 

Jen: I think we're gonna just try and focus on, kind of like towards the end with Bryce and Hunt with the Asteri. So like, we've already successfully sent one into a black hole, and then we're trying to blow up the first like, core, and also basically open our own portal to put the Asteri into a black hole.

And somehow not. Attempt to not die. 

Ellie: So there's something that I actually really do want to try soon because recently I got to try archery for the first time. That was really fun and I did better than I expected, which was like, yes, nice. Yeah. Which ties, which tied into then like that same day we also did air rifle shooting on targets and I have done that before and I know that I can do that.

So I was like, great. [01:19:00] However, both of these. Or all of my target, all of my shooting experience, be it archery or pistol or air rifle has all been target. So I have been stationary in the moment. 

Jen: Now you want to run through a forest and shoot a person. 

Ellie: Now I want to like teleport into a, into the middle of a battle.

And as I'm like appearing, turn, aim and shoot, it might be a little bit of a leap. I might be going further than my current abilities. 

Jen: I don't know, because Bryce was like, teleporting in and out, so as long as you knew where you're teleporting to, it wouldn't be a total, like, jump into a room and shoot a thing.

It's like, oh no, always go to this specific spot or that spot, and if you knew where your like, destination was, it probably wouldn't be too far. 

Ellie: Okay. Thank you for [01:20:00] uh, finding, uh, Bryce. A way of arguing that in our favor. Because now that we have the, it's like the God Rifle? God Slayer? God Slayer Rifle.

With the magic 

Jen: dead people bullet. 

Ellie: And the magic dead people bullet, like, we gotta succeed at this point. And it is nice that Bryce herself as a character, shooting and everything has been in her character arc. It's not just in the last book, in the last battle, she suddenly has to have this skill. It is nice that this is something that we have seen her.

Hone as a craft and have as, as a, as a trait. 

Jen: Yeah. This is something she's actually had and developed way more than any of her other powers she uses in this book. It's like, no, this is a Bryce thing. This isn't a bestowed for the plot to continue thing. 

Ellie: So like, yeah. How are you, how are you feeling about shooting the core and then creating a black hole?

Jen: I've never done shooting. But I have played a lot of video [01:21:00] games, so if this is anything like having to do grunt headshots in ODST, when, um, the. Grunt birthday party skull is on, then I'll be fantastic, sorry, this is my super nerdy moment. That was the thing, if you shot like the, the little aliens in the head, confetti came out and children went, yay!

So for that specific game, I got really, really good headshots for grunts because I thought it was the coolest thing. So, um, yeah, so, uh, yeah, if it's, if it, if it was like that, then, then maybe, maybe. Okay. Opening a portal to a black hole though. I feel like if you know that that's what it's gonna do, like if you know that opening this portal will open a black hole, that just feels like a really too dangerous thing to do.

I [01:22:00] feel it would make more sense to open a portal somewhere near ish a black hole and then you push an Asterian with momentum and then you close it because then they would still end up in the black hole, however, you would not risk sucking your entire planet into the black hole where everybody dies.

Ellie: Yes, but I feel like to, to gain the experience of knowing where that fine line is, would probably involve accidentally opening an actual void vacuum, regardless, because I feel like that's quite a, like, how do you practice that? How do you develop that skill? I don't know. 

Jen: Like, I don't know. It's just opening a black hole in the middle of your world is kind of a guarantee that you're going to destroy your entire world.[01:23:00] 

Bryce is so set on like this whole thing of, what do you mean you're going to sacrifice people around you? That's disgraceful. And that's like her entire like personality in this book is complaining about other people sacrificing other people that she nearly destroys her entire planet. Personally, I don't know if I would destroy my entire planet or risk very closely destroying it and killing everybody on it just to do that, you know?

Ellie: Yeah, but it's also if you don't kill them now, how many other worlds would they kill? 

Jen: Yeah, but like, could you still chuck them into space, chuck them into the sun? You know, like, is there another option or intermediary option that you could? Yeah, 

Ellie: I guess this boils down to how long do you have to really learn and hone this portal power.

Yeah. But for us, [01:24:00] depending on the shooting style, depending on what the, the God Slayer rifle is like, uh, if it has, um, controller buttons or not, um, the shooting of the first light core, which I also feel like it's probably a large enough target is okay. Creating the vacuum, my creation. Um, such an existential crisis in us that we miss the opportunity to.

So, I feel like whether or not we create this portal into a black hole, there is a high chance that we are dead in this book. Oh 

Jen: yeah. 

Ellie: Yeah. 

Jen: We're probably getting a strong, you know, case of deadness. 

Ellie: Especially with our inability to actually be spies. Yeah. So much of this is based on strong charisma roles and double bluffing that.

Jen: Yeah. And neither of us wear pink sneakers, so. No. No. We're in trouble. [01:25:00] That's 

Ellie: a lie! My current trail runners are luminous pink. Oh, wow. Nice! I am living my Bryce moment. I have a pair of Dynafits that I would, so personally I would never normally buy pink because in the outdoor world, for so long. The girl color was always pink.

Now it is pink or teal, but anyway, these runners came up in a sample sale and I've wanted to try Dynafit trail runners for so long and they are so pink that it almost goes off the under other end of the spectrum and I can now wear them again. There we go. I even have the Bryce runners. Ah, 

Jen: okay, so we are, we are dead yet again in the house of flame and shadow.

Will we ever survive a book in this series? Who knows? When is the next book in this series? Who knows? 

Ellie: Exactly. Maybe if there's a happy, like, novella in the middle, maybe that's the one that will survive. 

Jen: Yeah. Ah. Well, thanks for listening. If you enjoy this podcast, please subscribe and you can find us on [01:26:00] Instagram at ifwesurvivethis.

Let us know of any books you'd like us to review. See you then. Bye!