Shadows of the Apt 4: Salute the Dark

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Yeah, that break between books that I wanted to take to do something more productive didn't happen. I read book 4 today, and THINGS happened. Whoa.

SALMA :( Dammit, I was hoping he would survive, I liked him a lot :( Lord of the Wastes, and he saved Sarn. I even liked his relationship with Prized by Dragons much better here (I wonder if she'll change her name again?) I like that she'll carry on and preside over the city he dreamed of, the one for refugees and dispossessed and with no native kinden, and that they named it after him. Princep Salmae.

Regent-General Thalric! After killing General Reiner and Colonel Latvoc. Wow, what a journey. I'm not sure why Seda married him and not Brugan or any other nobleman. Maybe because he has no power of his own so he's not a danger to her? Maybe she liked that he's an idealist. It's cute that he had a crush on Che.
Aagen as the ambassador to Collegium, nice choice. Let's see how the Empire develops. It lost several armies, it has to stabilize internally, but eventually Seda too will want to conquer to gain the approval of her people. Good on Seda to recognize how dangerous Uctebri is and kill him.
(Can we have a feminist movement among the wasps, yes please.)

Totho… He turned on the Empire, he freed Szar and killed almost an entire army, but he is still working with Drephos. I don't really understand him. At least he's not working for the Empire anymore. Drephos doesn't care who we works for as long as he has the resources he needs, which will be a bit harder outside of the Empire, but he's still extremely dangerous.

Tisamon would have needed so much therapy. So much.
Tynisa now too, but making her way to Capitas on her own and almost freeing Tisamon was very impressive.
Similarly, Che! Helping Kymene take back Myna! With the help of the moths of Tharn's failed ritual and Achaeon's death, ouch.

Nero also died, after following Taki to Solarno. Many people in this world fall in love very quickly. I liked how Taki handled it, even that she mourned the destruction of her flying machine more. She'll be the best pilot in the Lowlands.

We got a brief look at the Commonweal, interesting. At least Salma got a chance to say goodbye, if only in a letter. Nice trick, Stenwold, you did learn a lot from the spiders. That Collegium didn't fall was luck and timing, but hey, every once in a while…

Collegium and Sarn didn't fall, many cities shook off the Empire, but Felyal was destroyed and the mantis-kinden almost wiped out, the Spiderlands suffered a defeat, and the moths of Tharn sort of accidentally committed suicide. High cost. The Inapt suffered some of the worst losses.

There are six more books!, a lot more to come, but this is a good stopping point for now.

Comments

[sholio]

I think this was the point where I started sending plaintive, tragic emails to Frith about these books. I was so stupidly attached to Tisamon -- I think his death hit me harder than anything else in the series -- and Salma's just came out of nowhere and shocked me.

I do really like how NOTHING ends up the way you think it's going to, especially shipping. When the characters are introduced they seem so ... standard? You can go, "Oh, he'll end up with her, and it'll be her and him" ... and then WHAM, everything gets blown apart and nothing is what you expect.

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I was surprised how okay I was with Tisamon's death. At that point it was clear that he was so deeply messed up that I doubted he'd ever get to a point where he could actually be happy - especially because I very much doubted he'd get the time and opportunity to heal - that death didn't seem like such a terrible ending anymore. I'm sorry for Tynisa though.

Salma, however, Salma could have done great things. On the one hand I "get" his death, he's reached one goal on his journey and became a leader, but he could have had a second career working to build his city that he never got to see.

I was surprised that so many of the ships were across race divides, especially after we heard a lot about the prejudice against halfbreeds. I don't have any strong preferences, I just want Che to end up with someone who makes her happy and supports her and recognizes how great she is.

[sholio]

At that point it was clear that he was so deeply messed up that I doubted he'd ever get to a point where he could actually be happy - especially because I very much doubted he'd get the time and opportunity to heal - that death didn't seem like such a terrible ending anymore.

Probably accurate. It still gutted me, though. Of all the things I wanted for him, being absolutely miserable for four books and then dying was REALLY NOT IT. (Although I think you're right that there just isn't enough therapy in the world by the end of book 4.

Nero also died, after following Taki to Solarno. Many people in this world fall in love very quickly. I liked how Taki handled it, even that she mourned the destruction of her flying machine more. She'll be the best pilot in the Lowlands.

I have to say Taki/Nero was one ship I was not terribly happy about and ... well, I wouldn't say ENJOYED that it was shot down (poor Sten, he's the only survivor of his friends group now) but we've already got enough older man/younger woman pairings in these books that, while I'm fine with Sten/Arianna, I didn't want Nero/Taki too (as well as the possibility of Che/Thalric, on his side at least). I never really got the impression Taki reciprocated, though.

Totho letting Drephos live made very little sense to me in this book, but makes more sense to me later on. I think he's just desperate for approval. He never got it from Che, and he broke away from Sten -- I think he's slotted Drephos into the older-male-mentor role where Stenwold almost was, but never quite got there. So he's disgusted by Drephos's actions but can't bring himself to let him die, because he still wants someone to reassure him that he has intrinsic worth, and Drephos is the only person he's allowed that close to him. Or something along those lines, anyway.

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Yeah, it would have been nice if Tisamon got to be happy! Maybe in an AU where Atryssa survived, though even then it probably would have been very hard for him to let go of his guilt over going against his kinden's traditions.

I was fine with Nero/Taki precisely because it was one-sided. I didn't like how many people went off somewhere because of a crush - it even worked out for Salma and Achaeon - and I liked this perspective because it was different. Taki was never really interested in him as anything more than an ally, and possibly a friend. He's not even a pilot!

Totho looking for approval is most likely a part of it. Also praise, and a purpose, and a place to belong. I'm curious what he'll do next.

[sholio]

Yeah, it would have been nice if Tisamon got to be happy! Maybe in an AU where Atryssa survived, though even then it probably would have been very hard for him to let go of his guilt over going against his kinden's traditions.

I ... may have actually kicked around the idea of writing an AU like that. Honestly, I think back in the age-20s era, he seems to have been handling it better, at least up until the "betrayal". He went and got a really special sword to propose to her Mantis-style! It is possible that, given things turning out differently at Myna, he might have been able to mellow a bit with a wife and baby to be responsible for.

One thing I was actually just thinking about this morning, re: Atryssa and Tisamon, is that of all the halfbreed children we see in the series, I think Tynisa might be the only one who was explicitly mentioned to be wanted and intentional. Mostly, they seem to be foundlings, orphans, products of rape, etc. -- children who were unwanted or abandoned by their parents. (Not every single one, I don't think, but the majority by far.) Atryssa, though, loved Tisamon and genuinely wanted to have his baby. It would have been awfully helpful if she had MENTIONED THIS TO TISAMON BEFOREHAND, but Tynisa was wanted, planned, and conceived in love, and I really liked that about what little we see of the relationship her parents apparently had.

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It would have been awfully helpful if she had MENTIONED THIS TO TISAMON BEFOREHAND
Heh!

Loving husband and father Tisamon! Atryssa and Tisamon continuing to travel around as duelists, while working as Stenwold's agents, and raising Tynisa together! Yesss, you should write it. This can be the AU where they weren't betrayed at Myna, so Marius survived too.

Since all the wasp soldiers seem to like raping and pillaging when they conquer a city there likely will be many (abortions and) wasp halfbreeds in these parts. I can't remember how the Empire treats halfbreeds, better or worse than other auxiliaries? Or the same, slaves are slaves (except when they're useful like Drephos.)

[sholio]

Loving husband and father Tisamon! Atryssa and Tisamon continuing to travel around as duelists, while working as Stenwold's agents, and raising Tynisa together! Yesss, you should write it. This can be the AU where they weren't betrayed at Myna, so Marius survived too.

OH YES, this would be such a delight. I really want to write this. :D (I do absolutely love Sten essentially dropping everything to raise Atryssa and Tisamon's baby, it's so incredibly sweet, but actually having Atryssa and Tisamon both alive and at least reasonably happy would be THE BEST THING.)

Since all the wasp soldiers seem to like raping and pillaging when they conquer a city there likely will be many (abortions and) wasp halfbreeds in these parts. I can't remember how the Empire treats halfbreeds, better or worse than other auxiliaries?

I don't remember to what extent it's addressed in the books, but given the Empire's "superior race" rhetoric, I would imagine that half-Wasp children (and I agree there are probably a lot of them due to the Wasp army's actions) are mostly either aborted or killed as infants. At least, we don't seem to see nearly as many of them as there should be, since both rape and non-Wasp women slaves (for sex purposes) seem to be common in the conquered areas of the Empire.

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I wonder what Tynisa's childhood would have looked like if her mixed heritage had been more obvious. Life would have been much harder for her. (Possibly easier for Totho? If Stenwold was regularly confronted with unfair halfbreed prejudice against his own adopted daughter.) I'm sure there would have been some people in Collegium who had seen Tisamon and Atryssa flirting and would put one and one together.

Mass-murder of halfbreed infants seems likely, unfortunately. Depends on how often the desire for more slaves wins out.

[sholio]

I wonder what Tynisa's childhood would have looked like if her mixed heritage had been more obvious. Life would have been much harder for her. (Possibly easier for Totho? If Stenwold was regularly confronted with unfair halfbreed prejudice against his own adopted daughter.)

Yeah, I did feel that it was a little bit of a narrative cheat for Tynisa to not be visibly mixed. Her life would have been very different if she'd had outwardly visible Mantis features. And yeah, people who knew them back then would have probably put the clues together.

In the "Everyone lives!" AU, I do wonder how to get Che into it, because I got the impression that the main reason why Sten raised her was so Tynisa would have someone to play with. (Poor Che. Her family loves her, but she's still always an afterthought. ;__;) Maybe similar circumstances could've led to her parents wanting to send her off to be fostered at the College, but it's harder to see Sten taking her if he wasn't already raising a child. Still, I could handwave it. Maybe Tisamon and Atryssa helped raise her too. (Wow, that's a weird thought.)

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Good point about Che!

...wow, Che raised by Tisamon and Atryssa. I don't think they would know what to do with her, at all: would they have tried to make her a better fighter? As for how it could happen, maybe they have an even more dangerous than usual mission, so they leave Tynisa with Stenwold's relatives in Helleron, and during that time Tynisa and Che become best friends. And then Tisamon and Atryssa realize that Tynisa wants someone to play with, and Che's parents... uh. Are killed? That could work.

If her parents are killed Stenwold might take her in, especially if Tisamon and Atryssa ask him to. Maybe Che's parents don't even need to be dead for that, I don't think Stenwold is good at saying no to his goddaughter, and Tynisa might want Che in Collegium because it would make Che happy and because Tynisa visits Collegium more often than Helleron, or at least stays there more often.

Or there are other ways to handwave it, it should work somehow.

...I just imagined Tisamon and Atryssa finding out that Tynisa has a crush on Salma, for some reason I think it would be hilarious.

(Does "Everybody lives!" extend to Felise's family? I'll just imagine it does.)

[sholio]

Yeah, thinking about Atryssa and Tisamon raising Che ... no. Watching her for periods of time when Sten is elsewhere, sure, but I think they would be exactly the wrong kinds of people to handle her overall upbringing. With her general lack of martial skills, not to mention Aptitude, she would've ended up feeling like even more of an odd child out than she was in canon. She could never have been a good fighter, and I don't think they would have really understood any other way to raise a kid.

But her parents dying is actually a possibility -- it's not like they are more than briefly mentioned in canon, after all. Or the family simply falling on even harder times and having to farm out their kids to various relatives. And Tynisa spending her childhood periodically being dropped off with various members of Sten's (apparently quite spread-out and large) family makes a lot of sense, really, because there would certainly have been things Tisamon and Atryssa would have needed to do that would be too dangerous to do with a small child along. And I'm sure Sten would have tried to help out in finding places to put her when they needed to. So the girls could have already been friends, and then when Che needed a place to go, she ended up with Sten.

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Now I'm wondering what would have to happen for Che to grow up self-confident, and it's harder than I thought. Definitely in Collegium. Something that she is better at than her peers, and that is valued equally to what the others do better. A family situation where she's not the throw-in. Maybe mastering her Art sooner.

[worlds_of_smoke]

Whyyyyy does my library only have the first book? -sob-

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Because libraries can be slow :( You could ask them to add the others? Sometimes that works.

[worlds_of_smoke]

Maybe. I both want and don't want to read the first book -- what if I like it and the library refuses to get the others?! D: