Hello, Welcome this episode of Superhero Ethics. Today we're talking about Shadow and
Bones season two and all the great questions it raised with returning guest to Becky
Allen. All that more after commercial break, we have no control of her.
Welcome back from your host, Matthew. They then pronouns as I said,
I'm joined by Becky Allen. Becky's someone who I first met through wis
Con, which is a great collection of people who loved media. I want
to look at it, especially through a feminist and kind of just interesting lenses.
And Becky and Becky's been a Becky has been a returning guest on a
number of topics, many Star Wars related, but also Shadow and Bone.
And so now that season two is finished, I knew I wanted to get
Becky back. So, Becky, if you want to introduce yourself and say
hello him, I'm Becky Allen. I use both bay and she pronouns either's
fine. I am a YA author who I've written some YA fantasy. I
have read a fair amount of YA fantasy, and like anybody else who's read
YA Fantasy in the last ten or so years, I love the Gracia Verse
books, the Shadow and Bone are based on. They are amongst my very
favorites, particularly the Crow's books, but I also enjoy the Elena and Nikolai
books as well. And yeah, I'm really excited to revisit the show and
talk about it with you. And I said this when we were discussing an
email, but I promised to harp on the books slightly less this time than
I last time, because I have not just reread all of them, which
I had last time. But yeah, I'm really I'm really excited. I
think there's a lot to talk about, and I really enjoyed the show.
Awesome. Well let's just start there, so and I will just say,
obviously huge boiler warnings, we're gonna spoil everything that's in season two of the
TV show. We're going to also therefore talk about how the books portray those
same events. In cases where the books are, you know, a little
bit different, we may get into that where they're notably different, and they're
sort of major plot points that may come up in later seasons. Because it's
pretty clear that this is drawing from the books. If I'm not in any
particular order, we're going to avoid spoiling that. So if you've seen the
show, but not read the books. We're hopefully not going to spoil you
for anything yet, but just kind of putting that morning out there. And
of course you can always hit pause, watch the show, and then come
back. So Rebecca, let me just kind of start there. Give me
your overall thoughts on the show. It sounds like you really liked it.
What do you like about the show and what's kind of feeling on it.
I liked it. I love all I love all of the characters. They're
all my favorites, except that probably this season tomorrow Antolia, who are new
in this season, are my very favorites. I don't know that we have
a lot to talk about with them, but they are great. They are
very fun and funny, and I really enjoyed them. They are if you
like me and you remember characters but you don't remember names. They are the
Shoe brother and sister who are with the dread air pirate Roberts I'm sorry from
hand and who then become and he's flirting a little bit with Elena and she
to ups a relationship with one of the other Grisha who's on the ship.
Yeah, anyway, continuing very it's very nice to have Tamar, who is
queer. She's a little bit on the butch side for TV, which does
not show butch female characters very often, So that was something I really enjoyed.
And she does have it's a very very minor thread, but she does
get to have a nice little romance with one of the other grisha, which
I really liked. And I just thought Tolia was really funny. Yeah,
they're just they're both charming. I think that was one thing we talked about
some one season one was that, and certainly there was some overall discussion about
season one without One of the concerns was that you had a character who was
you know, all, this isn't a fantasy nation, but it's pretty clear
that Ravnika is a in a way that a lot of time fantasy is Great
Britain to some extent, and that often you have a stand in for other
related countries. Ravenika is basically Russia. Um they even you know that they
call the ruler of the Tsar and the tsarevich as the prince, and um
Shoe is China. And there had been some conversation about that, some of
the representation of Elena as someone from China, and some of the racism against
her was not the best kind of Asian representation and the like, And so
I did think like having those two characters as their own characters, UM really
being somewhat developed, spending some time in Shoe itself, UM was definitely definitely
a step up, although I can I think there are a couple of stereotypes
that played into that I can understands some critique of, but we'll get into
that in a bit. Yeah, UM, so I really enjoyed those UM.
I will say it's not to talk about the books too much, but
I will say they made a lot of different choices with Elena and Mal in
the show that they did in the books, and I pretty much universally thought
they were good. But I prefer Mal in the show to Mal in the
books, where he is kind of a sexy lamp. He doesn't really have
much interiority or much going for him besides being the boy that Elena loves,
and I'm okay with that. I think that's a perfectly serviceable thing for him
to be in the books. But I think they made some very different choices
in this show which made him a more interesting character. Yeah. Definitely.
Well, let's actually use that to dive right into one of the things I
wanted to talk about, because we have kind of a list of things.
Probably bounced around a little bit, but you know, starting at the end
a lot of this show, you know, season one, there was kind
of a love triangle set up between Alena choosing between either Mal, who's sort
of like the you know, the boy next door, good, dependable,
if maybe a little dull, and of course dark, sexy, mysterious Darkling.
And it was fun, it was nicely told, but it was about
cliched. And when we introduced strom Hund, I'm producing that wrong, as
I said, the dread air pirate Nikolai, Yeah, Prince Nikolai Zarovich Nikolai.
Again, I was like, okay, he's a great character. He's
probably my favorite character at this point except for Kaz. But I did think
we were going to go a little bit you know, love trianglia again,
if not love quadrangle with um Darkling still flirting with her. And I really
liked the fact that they actually didn't go that way, that there was a
little bit of rivalry between Mal and Nikolai, but it didn't it didn't go
into a lot of the cliche places. They both respected each other a lot.
And even when you get this kind of while she's gotta h you know,
look like she's interested in Nikolai, they're doing that for plot reason,
and it made some sense, and there was a lot of respect shown between
Nikolai and Mal instead of it being oh Mal gets super jealous and then Nikolai's
that are confront her comfort her and etcetc. Yeah, I think I think
the show did a really good job of balancing it because it's clear throughout she
is in love with Mal. There are no other contenders for her affection at
this point, like that's who she wants to be with, and there are
very good political reasons for her to marry Nikolai. And that's that's basically what
he said. I said what he proposes. It's a literal proposal. He
says, the best way for you to have the power that you need to
make the change that you want to change is for you to marry me.
We can do that. And I know that you're not going to be in
love with me. I know you're probably still gonna be with Mal outside,
which is not great for politics, but that is what it is. And
so it's very upfront about the fact that it's not a like, oh,
who is she going to fall in love with? It's yeah, does she
make this cical choice which will certainly hurt Mal's feelings and cause a problem before
their relationship, or is she going to just be with Mal, which will
make all of the political stuff that she's trying to achieve much harder. And
I thought that was a really interesting framing for it. Yeah, and even
like at the very end of the season, Mal kind of has to go
off and find himself, and we'll talk about that because I think that's also
an interesting direction to take a romance in this kind of, you know,
fantasy setting. And I think I think we're supposed to think that there's some
possibility that while they're away, that that Elena might start to fall for Nikolai
a little bit. But even there, there was a wonderful line in the
last episode where they're flirting a little bit about the upcoming coronation and he says
something like, you know, if you kiss me, I want it to
be or if you're smiling at me, I want it. I want it
to be because you're interested in me, not because you're trying to forget him,
which, again, oft in that situation, the Nicolai character comes in
very aggressively, and I think almost opportunistically to sort of say, well,
oh no, don't think about them and think about me instead, And for
Nicolaich to expressly name that and be like, no, I want you to
figure out what you're doing with Mao, and only once that's resolved, if
then there's a place for me, let's talk about it. It was,
again, just a really nice shift away from that cliche. Yeah, and
I think I think that's absolutely right, And I do think that basically the
way Elena's love life plays out is that she has multiple people who are interested
in her, but they've kind of dropped the idea that maybe it's a triangle
and she's interested in one or the other. How she got to choose,
She's made her choice. Her choice is very clear. So even though I
think in the season the Darkling continues to be in love with her in a
very stalkery way, and I think he does genuinely have feelings for her,
but they are very toxic, possessive kind of feelings for her. She's no
longer like, oh, that's intriguing, because it's not. She is in
love with mel and Nikolay is very charming and charismatic and understands her and the
moves she's trying to make and the things she's trying to do, and he
also wants like they're very aligned on what they want politically for Ravka, and
it makes a lot of sense that they would have an alliance and that that
alliance would pretty much have to be a marriage. But they're both also very
clear on who it is that she is actually in love with, and Nikolay
being able to say like, Okay, if that changes, then we can
do something, but not pretending that it's going to change or that he's convincing
her to change. I think that's a big part of why he was one
of my favorite characters in this, And again it's the playing against cliche,
because in stories like this, one of the things you quickly learn is that
when someone seems too good to be true, they almost always are actually too
good to be true. And here, you know, we originally meet him
as the power behind the people who are paying the Crows to go get her,
and now they're going to be angry at the Crows for not getting her,
and oh, by the way, now he's a pirate. No,
no, no, he's a private tier. As we keep getting refracted,
I should call him the dread private tier Nikolai. But um, you know,
and then he but then he's actually really he's Tsarevich and he's charming.
And I kept waiting for that other shoe to drop, and I was so
glad it didn't. I was so glad that they just let him be actually
someone who wants to be a good ruler and who is you know, he's
a little bit scheming, he's a little bit doing what he thinks he needs
to do to for what is right for his country and his power base.
But he never betrays anybody. He never has a like, oh you shouldn't
have trusted me moment. He's just a good guy. And it's rare that
we let a show like that, a show like this, just lets that
happen. Yeah, I very much agree with that. I don't think I
have a lot to add, but it is nice, and I think in
the books, again writing myself in, but you do see much more of
a contrast between him and Vassilly, who's the older brother who is supposed to
become the czar and is murdered very much because he was stupid, and that
is a much quicker plot point in the book. It's in the show than
it is in the book, so you don't get as much of that contrast,
but it is very much like, oh there has been this corrupt royal
line. We know that their father, or at least Vasilli's father, it
was a rapist who had raped Jenya. And that's something which also gets a
lot more weight in the books, just because to have more time to deal
with it than in the show. But the fact that in the show Nikolai
wouldn't is originally like, no, she she killed him, She's a traitor,
right, And then it's like, oh, actually he was a rapist
who had been abusing her for a long time, and he's like, oh
yeah, in that case, she's fine and he shouldn't have done that,
and like correctly places the blame on his father and protects Jenya. Is another
thing where I think that that shows he is actually a good person who wants
good things, and it's very contrasted with much if you can go in that
direction, especially because I do think there's an aspect for Ravka because then she's
at such a point of transition and now and nikola I speak to very different
parts of her life, and I think I did actually read that that one
book, and I do think in some ways, both in the book but
even in the show, I see where there could be potential with her and
Nikolai. But yeah, I think it's very clear that right now, this
is her choice is now, and so as you stay with that, because
here's again where I think the book raises a really interesting question and kind of
plays with the thought of how love and romance is often presented, because one
of the things we learned in this book is that there are all of these
ways in which Mal's connection to her seems like it is you know, it's
not just like storybook romance, it is fairytale romance, and that it is
fate. It is that you know that he kept finding orphanages that didn't that
weren't right, and he kept running away and going to new ones, going
further and further across the country until he got to where she was, and
that he's always drawn to her and he always knows where she is, and
that he quite literally is this last, you know, mythical beast that she
has to take power from. And we get into all the ethics about that
inched a second, and in a lot of books, it would just stop
there and be like, look, we are the one true love. We
were made for each other. It is fate that we fall in love.
And then the really cool twist he goes, no, but wait a minute,
does that mean I don't know if you actually love me or if this
is just because we're faded? You know? He kind of is like,
how real are our feelings for each other if it is just fate? And
at the end of the book he basically needs to go off on his own
and figure this out because he's not sure does he love her or is he
just mystically connected to her and vice versa. Especially as someone who's written books
and has written books they both do and don't have romance, and has read
a lot of the genre, certainly I would curious your take on that because
it seemed like, I'm sure not the only one, but it was a
really injuring twist on the traditional like we are faded lovers. Yeah, it's
definitely not standard, which I think is a really cool. Again, I
do think in the books it is much more standard, whereas the show takes
it in a slightly different direction, And I may be misremembering where they end
up in which book, because the season of the show does it combines two
books about Elena and one book about the Crows, and so there's a lot
going on that moves very quickly, So I could be misremembering what happens when.
But I think the show definitely adds a dimension to Mal by letting him
make that choice. So again trying to figure out what makes sense to do
the comparison on the discovering that Mal is literally a mythical creature, like the
show, there are three mcguffins, and Elena got the first one, which
was a stag in the first season and in the first book, and then
the second one is a ce monster, which she gets in the second book
and early on in the second season of the show. And then the third
one is supposed to be a fire bird, but it turns out it's not
a firebird, it's Mal, And that revelation happens very late in the third
book, which is the end of that story arc, and so there's not
much of a sense of after do they figure out what it is that they
mean to each other or what do they want to do, because after their
story is kind of done in the books and the show has rearranged it so
that this is assuming there's a third series, in which Netflix always a big
question mark, which is I am concerned about because I would really like to
see the third season of this show. But it does mean that this is
something that that is outside of the realm of the Happily ever After that you
get in their original you know why a fantasy trilogy, and I think that's
when I was saying earlier, I think mal is much more interesting in the
series than in the books. That's why I I'm really excited. Like the
big twist at the end, as we said we were going to spoil everything,
I just will. But like the big twist at the end where he
is going to go and become a privateer and take over for Sturm Hand and
it is very tread pirate Roberts. That's not in the books at all.
That's not a thing that happens, and so like, I'm really excited to
see a story which I don't know quite where it's going. I think it'll
be really interesting. But I also think it's a really cool choice to have
him say no, I'm gonna go find myself. And I also think that's
a little bit of a gender reversal from the more traditional female character decides she
has to go find herself, which is great, and I love as a
trope like this is not shade on that trope, but you don't usually see
that with a male character, because you don't usually see a male character whose
primary job is just to be a love interest. So I think it's a
cool rehearsal for both of those reasons. And I think it's really an interesting
dissection of like is this just fate or yeah? We especially gender thing.
A lot of times in the love triangle, it is a woman choosing between
two men, and generally part of the idea is that they are always falling
over her and she has to decide which of them she's going to pick and
and and sometimes it's a lot less empowered and sometimes that's more agency on her
part um. But so they have her be to some extent rejected by him.
I mean not in a like I don't want to be with you anymore,
but that he is leaving her, that he is saying I don't know
if we're going to be together, you know. I think it Also,
I'll be really interesting to see where her character goes with that. Yeah.
Yeah, I think in real world terms, it feels analogous to the couple
who got together in high school and really love each other, but they're going
to different colleges, and some couples stay together and get married down the line,
and that's that's they want who they always wanted. But a lot of
people break up, and I think it's it's giving them space to grow up
in that way, which is not something that they did in that form in
the books. And so it's a really different choice and a really interesting choice.
At my college, we always used to refer to the week after October
break freshman year as the Week of Tears, because that was the week when
you've been at college for a couple of months, you go back home and
everybody breaks up with our high school sweethearts. Yeah. We referred to it
as the Turkey drop because it would be Thanksgiving when everybody's back in town and
you, yeah, same same deal, everybody's back in town and they break
up with their high school sweetheart. Yep, exactly. Um. There is,
of course, the added complication to Elena's connection with Mao, which is
that she killed him, Um, and he didn't come back from the dead,
which the very statist there. They very fastidiously call him a firebird.
They never say a word that begins with p and ends with phoenix or pe
and begins with a phoenix. Anyway, you get the point. He's not
a phoenix. He's a firebird. But he comes back from the dead and
they do a cool thing where at first they think it's Nina and her magic,
but she makes clear it's not her magic. Um. But before we
know he's going to live, she's placed in this really hard situation. And
I think here's another one of the really great ethical questions of the book,
because a lot of it is it's not just him. It also starts with
the what it's called the c spike? Was that the name of it?
Um, No, you remember what the name was? The sea? Thank
you? Where? And this goes back to the first season, and it's
this idea of sort of like how much do you have power and magic versus
how much do you take it? And how much is it okay to take
magic by literally taking it from other living things, including killing them, And
so the stag, one of the things in the first season is she's looking
for a way to take the magic power without killing the stag, but alex
still kills the stag. And then with the sea Whip, she wants to
try and do this without killing the sea whip, but of course she's not
able to, and the sea Whip points up getting killed. And so I
think all that obviously is leading to this idea of will she kill now.
I'd love to hear your thoughts on that as as kind of this overarching ethical
question, because clearly alex is someone Alexander is someone who is very willing to
harm others in order to take her power, and that that's kind of the
you know, she doesn't want to be that, but it's the like,
you know, how much can I do the dark side in order to fight
the dark side? Because it's very much kind of a sith thing in that
regard as well. What was your take on that whole question as it was
raised and how they addressed it. Yeah, for me, I didn't go
to a Star Wars place. I actually went to a Star Trek place.
That it's very the needs of the many versus the needs of the one,
and it's it's a little bit more complicated because it's Elena having to decide to
sacrifice Mal as opposed to Elena sacrificing herself. But it really does come down
to in order to deal with the Fold, which is, you know,
the mcguffin thing that they've been trying to deal with for the whole series,
and in order to defeat Alexander, they have to kill Mal And it's a
tragedy in my mind, but it's not really a question like do you let
the dark Lord come to power or don't you? And the answer is you
don't, even if it requires sacrifice. And I think there does eventually reach
a point of like how much sacrifice is too much and who gets to make
that decision, which this is not quite raised to that level because like,
eventually, if you're you know, slaughtering masses of people, you're doing the
same thing he is, So what's the difference. But if you're talking about
it, it's a trolley problem to some extent of like, right, do
I let untold hundreds or thousands of people get killed or do I let the
one person who I love personally get killed? And it's it's not really a
question when you think about it like that. It's a tragedy, but it's
pretty clear cut in my mind. You unfortunately have to kill Mal right and
I think a key part of this, which in some ways I think it
would be impossible to do it without this, but it would make the question
a lot more complicated. Mal is perfectly happy volunteering for this, and in
some ways I think that that's a bit of a that's a difference between neither
the stag nor the sea whip. I mean, she doesn't really communicate with
them the same way, and they're not. I think someone could say,
oh, but they're not people, but no, they're They're clearly like beings
with a lot of agency and life, and they're living creatures. In some
ways, I feel like and contry to say this about spoiling anything. There
is another TV show that was watched recently by many people which raises a similar
question where the Mal character is never given the chance to have agency, and
I think the fact that in this one Mao does, I think really helps
to highlight how important that is, because I think like, like, if
either Mao didn't know, like Mal was in a coma something, you know,
whatever contrivance or Mal was against it, Mal was like no, I
don't want to do that, find something else I don't want to die.
How much do you think that changes the equation, if at all? That's
a really good question. I think in the grand scheme you still wind up
with the same conclusion of does this have to be done? Probably yes,
but it does it basically, it makes Elena's hands much dirtier if it's not
just a question of do I let this person who I love sacrifice himself and
assist in that, or do I murder this person who I love right but
has to die to prevent the greater tragedy? And so I think it makes
things much more complicated for Elena and would make her much harder to forgive and
much harder to root for, because murderer is bad. Yeah, but in
this case, murder is not necessarily the worst option. Yeah. Yeah,
I think that's a really good way to put it, and I think the
show doesn't go that way, but it does do a different thing which they
didn't really touch on. But I kind of wish they'd do more in if
they if we get a season three, which again knock on Netflix, but
I certainly hope so. Which is that because again, she was very she
was hesitant to killing the stag. She didn't actually kill the stag if the
dark thing did that. I don't remember exactly how the sea whip is killed,
but I think to some extent she consents to it. But neither of
those are creatures that she had this direct relationship with. And so you also
sort of wonder, like, you know, if this wasn't the love of
her life, if this was you know, random village boy, does she
have the same compunctions about it? And also what questions is that raise?
Because if then it's not are you not okay taking a single life versus are
you not okay taking this particular life that is so much value to your life?
Yeah, And I think I think that's what the show wants to lean
into. I think because at the pacing of the show was so fast,
they didn't really get to linger on that question, yeah, which they do
more in the book. It's a bit more drawn out in terms of the
like will she kill him? Yeah, she doesn't want to. I mean,
I think there's well, so there's also the question of like Matt was
a soldier, a random boy in a village is like, you know,
not necessarily was not part of the conflict and did not ask to be part
of the conflict. I don't think mal particularly asks you. It seems like,
yeah, you're an orphan in rask I, you probably get drafted.
Yeah, but at least have you know, training and understanding and knew what
was happening and was really empowered to make that choice yes or no? Does
he want to do this? Random person in a village probably doesn't, And
so that to me also feels like a different form of do you murder a
stranger? That feels a lot more sociopathic in some ways. Yeah, I
think that's a really good way to put it. And it also I think
it raises the like when you and I are discussing and it's funny. Again,
not spoiling anything, but for those who know what I was referencing about
the other series, they talked about this, this is a similar question that
I've brought up and on my coverage of that story, it raises again,
I think the question of the danger of sort of objective ethics, because you
and I can sit here and say that yes, from kind of the objective
standpoint, the idea of saving this entire country and all the people who are
who are harmed and affected versus this one life seems like a fairly basic question.
But that's because we don't. We're not connected to the one life or
to all those many other lives. And then I think part of what the
show is doing a great job of as for saying, like, yeah,
that that person doesn't exist. There isn't anyone on high who can make that
ethical decision. Everyone involved has their own subjective connections to the different pieces on
the board that we're talking about. Yeah, so let's talk about the other
side of this big decision, which is what do we do with the Darkling?
Because you're right, I think for most of this show this season,
she's not really tempted by the Darkling. They certainly give us a lot of
scenes where I think a lot of the audiences supposed to be tempted because they
figured out that the actor is incredibly attractive, and as it turns out,
Heroine's being almost tempted in very seductive ways by evil men. That sells pretty
darn well. And I've wanted to be Heroin liked that a few times myself,
so I can understand why. But yeah, I like that in this
story, she's not very tempted by it, and instead we get this really
great sort of rejection of it him, especially at the end. What was
your kind of feeling about how the Darkling story is wrapped up? I mean,
it feels simplistic to say I liked it, but I did. So.
It's another one that's difficult to talk about because the pacing was so fast
again that I think that there there's some losing some of the interplay between them
in the books is kind of a good thing, because the O am I
tempted by him? Am I not? Who will I choose? This of
it all goes on for much more of the books, and I think that
cutting that off was a good thing. And comparing how how things wrap up
here to how things wrap up in the book, it's a little bit difficult.
This is one of the things which I don't want to talk about what
the book does too much because they might use this in a future season,
and I think it would be great to talk about on this show. I
think you will really like it, and I was disappointed that they did not
do it in the series. So it's really hard to cast sort of my
feelings beyond that. But I do think like the rejection of the Darkling and
everything he stands for is good. And I thought it was really interesting that
his mother also had a just a flat out rejection of him. Yea,
even though his mother is also object pretty terrible, like she's also a war
criminal. She murdered people, many people. We get some backstory which is
partially she was probably traumatized as a little kid, but partially she just kind
of murdered some people, and that turns out to be a huge part of
the backstory of everything that happens in the series. But even she after all
of these years, it's like, oh, Alexander, I loved you,
I tried to help you and it wasn't enough, and you have to die
now, and makes no bones about it, in a very pragmatic and upfront
way of saying you are wrong. The things you are doing are wrong,
and even though I am also bad, I'm not that bad or I'm not
bad in that way, and you need to be stopped, even though I
love you. Like I thought that was Babar and his relationship to me was
in some ways more interesting than his relationship shape with Elena, who he was
just kind of obsessed with. Yeah, I think that's a really good way
to put it. And at the very end, after she's claimed her power,
after she's wiped out the fold, there's this great scene between her,
between Elena and the Darkling, and he's sort of giving his one more pitch
and he says, let me be your monster, you know where he's basically
saying, like, all these people are gonna be against you, let me
be the one who does the dark things for you. He's trying to sort
of pitch his stuff in the most positive light possible. And she says,
in one of my favorite lines, because this is it felt like so clearly
a commentary on a lot of other recent stories we've gotten Kylo Ran, I'm
a little bit looking at you, but a lot of other characters as well,
she said. She says, I will save myself. Your legacy is
already written for you. There is no redemption, and just stabs him in
the belly while he's like not a threat, not attacking her, he's like
pleading for his life and she's like, nope, I'm killing you. And
then when she and just that line especially there is no redemption, was just
you know, because we did get the sob story about his mother and we
saw it way back when that all this kind of started because him and his
partner at the time were being chased by the you know, an angry mob,
and so there's reasons to sympathize for him. And so when he's like,
no Elena, let me help you. I definitely had a like,
are we going to get the redemption story now or are we going to get
the He's going to help her and it's all going to be okay and so
for her, and we even go so far as the first time she stabs
him, one of the shadow creatures comes out of him and has to be
killed, and she looks at him and says, oh, so you were
never really in control of them, were you, which again could be seen
as leading towards Oh, it wasn't really your fault. You played with dark
magic, but the dark magic took you over. And then for her to
say or she'd already said, but still the line applies. There is no
redemption and she just stabs him again and he finally dies. I absolutely love
that. Yeah, I think that that's a really powerful thing because he will
continue to have power and followers as long as he is alive, because he
does have a compelling point, which is that the Grisha are essentially an oppressed
minority there you know, in the country next to Ravka up in Ferida,
they're literally murdered as witches. There have been many times in Grisha history where
they have been murdered by townspeople, like a lot of the Grisha saints were
their saint hood was when they were killed by other people for being Grisha.
So it's not like his points are completely without merit, but he takes we
are an oppressed group and turns it into we should be the ones in charge
because we are more powerful, and like a supremacist kind of way, which
is no good, and he is fully willing to murder as many people as
necessary to gain that power, and like that's what the fold is. He
created it as a weapon, and that was dark magic, and it led
to bad things that were unexpected. But then he continued to use it as
a weapon. And when Alina is trying to dismantle it, like it's the
whole arc of the first season, if she thinks they're going to get rid
of it, he actually just wants to be able to control it, to
use it as a weapon to maintain his power. And so that to me,
like that makes it very clear that this may have come from trauma,
and it may have come from having a valid point at some point, but
it is no longer about I am trying to protect myself as a marginalized person
and protect the other people in my community. It is very much about I
am trying to seize personal power and will do whatever I have to to do
that. And so they're kind of is no redemption from that. Those are
choices that he made, and so like, how how do you regieme yourself
from that? I would love to think it's possible, but I genuinely don't
know how a character would do that. Magneto is rooting very hard for this
character. He's it's very much that kind of a story of the you know,
the oppressed group, but they have a lot of these powers and all
this kind of stuff. Anything else we want to say about, Oh,
just one other little commentary on that. It comes later after all of this,
but I did think just to lampshade a little bit more of the point
they're making. There's a point later in it where Nikolai has left the room
after Elena's having her girl boss moment with the two other grisha we're spending time
with her, Jenya and Zoya, and they're talking about Nikolai. But Zoya
says in a kind of flirtatious way, oh, I could fix him,
which felt like a very specific callback to how many people want to look like,
you know, especially in the kind the fan fiction or just the other
portrayals of this. You know, there's the old cliche of the people who
will look at someone like the dark Thing and be like, oh, I
mean, yes, he killed all those people, but he's just so pretty
and I could fix him. I could make him good again. And I
thought like the inclusion of that line was very intentional as a way of being
like, yeah, we're not going down that road. M So just picture
me holding up a big sign that says spoilers redacted for future books. Okay,
that's fair, that's fair. We won't get into that then. But
I mean, I do think it's a very like fandomy kind of thing that
like, this is a work criminal. He's my little Miamia, and I
can fix him, Like I think. I think that's the thing that the
fans can enjoy. And I don't think that there's a problem with enjoying that
as a fan. I do think in real life trying to make that defense
of a genocidal maniac is bad. Yeah, but I don't care about it
in fan fiction, fandom or loving violance on shows, go for it.
I'm I mean, I have not checked AO three, but I'm going to
guess that Darkling Elena has far more hits than Malalina because Malalina is just not
very hot on screen, Like they're good for each other and they're just like
they should wind up with each other. But Ben Barnes is really really sexy
and really good at being seductive and evil. Well, and I think,
I mean, I think in some ways like I say this for me because
um, I feel feel bad, but Adam Driver did nothing for me.
So I feel very much like Kylo Ren wants what the Darkling has. Yes,
but it's but it's that same kind of like I'm evil but in a
sexy way and I've murdered a lot of people. But isn't that intriguing to
you the female protagonists and you the viewer of any gender, And it's like,
yeah, sometimes that isn't dreaming all right? Look in terms of seductive
but evil and bad boy, you can fix Adam Driver clears the Hayden Christiansen
bar with so much room to clear, and granted it's a low bar,
but but you're right. Note I think Ben Barnes is the top, and
then Hayden Christians in a way below and then or no Adam Driver away below
and then Hayden below that one other thing I'll say in romance, and then
we'll get to the Kaz and the six of Crows of all, because honestly,
that's my favorite part of the story. And I know I think you've
said similar as well. I love unrequited romance stories and I love will they
won't they stories, but I hate when they are overdone, and I hate
when they're somewhat contrived. And so the fact that the the season ended with
not one, not two, but three one true pairings that should be together
all being a part the kas In Andez not being together. We're going to
talk about. But like, I have a pardon from the king, but
I got I dropped it on the ground, and okay that that was really
stupid. It just felt so contrived. It just felt like so that she
could hang out in the I can't be with my one true Love group with
the other two. I hated it so much. So so I will say
to their credit, and this does involve talking about the books, they are
setting up for a really specific plotline from the books that requires Matthias to still
be in prison. Okay, so they needed a way for like they need
and as motivation had been getting this pardon, and so they needed a way
for that to be her motivation but not work. I think the execution there
was really like ridiculous, okay, because but because I know what's coming and
I'm like gleeful about it, and I can't wait for you to experience it
because I think you will. I think you will like. Okay, if
the next season, if there is a next season and it does the plotline
that I expected to from where all of the Dominoes are now waiting to be
knocked down, I will really like it. And I think you will really
like I think you're right. It's probably the execution, and it's also probably,
as you said, this is a number of books all being combined into
one. And so if we had all three of those love that almost get
together but then has to break apart over three different books, that's one thing.
But to have a Nez walk away from keV mal walk away from Elina,
and Nina not be able to get to Matthias, all within fifteen minutes
of each other, who got dumped the day before. They wrote this,
because this is just someone who's like, no one can be happy, and
I do think like comparing that to the books is interesting. So one thing
that I will say, talking not about the books but about what they did,
is they did a lot of picking and choosing because season one was book
one with some crow stuff it in Season two is books two, three,
and five, and it's setting up for books four and six, and so
it's very so like some of these things don't happen in the books at all,
Like that Malanalina thing does not happen in the books at all. So
that's a really interesting choice. The Cas and I Nesh stuff happens at a
completely different point, and the Matthias and Nina stuff is a setup at the
very beginning for them. So it's a really like weird mishmash that I think
does feel a lot like Who Got Dumped, But it also just feels like,
oh, in our grab bag of plot points that we were putting together,
whoops, we accidentally put three breakups from the completely different areas into one,
so it's a little bit weird. I think that a lot of that
is execution. I should also add that mixed in with those. In that
same fifteen minutes, perhaps the most sympathetic character of all finds out that the
love of her life just got killed. So it's like just romance is dying
all over the in terms of David and January. Yeah, that's that's wrenching.
Yeah, okay, But so let's talk about the Crows. Um,
I just love Kaz, I love all of them, But but talk to
me that you're feeling on the Crows and how they're portrayed here. Um,
I like them. So the Crows are the best. I think that's pretty
much universally agreed on. Like I am very much an Elena defense like when
it comes to the books, at least, I am an Elena defender,
But the Crows books are better. They just are, And I think the
same is true in the show. The Crows are a more engaging and dynamic
group. I think the Elena through line is a much more stand like they've
subverted in some ways, but it's a much more standard, there's a chosen
one Hiro and she has to save the world and defeat the bad guy,
and you you know on broad strokes how that's going to play out, right,
And it's fun to watch and I like it. The Crows are special,
like they they just feel special. They feel unlike other things that happen
in the genre that they're in. And they are a lot of fun personalities
playing off each other. They do pull off the thing where it's like very
dark and intense and broody and then also lighthearted and funny. They are fun
to watch. It's fun to see them go on heist. It's fun to
see all of the like reveals when Kaz's big plan suddenly comes to light and
you realize that like Nina didn't betray them, like that was part of the
plan. Like all that works so well and is so good that it's like
you would watch just a Crows series. Yeah. I think that somewhere in
the dictionary they should just cross out the entire definition that they have for the
phrase ride or die and just have a picture of a knez and at one
moment of like why are we doing this? Why are we doing this?
He killed my brother Okay, let's kill him. Yeah, so or Beauty
like in the first season, which she's like, she doesn't know if she
can kill because it's against her religion, and she's really genuinely conflicted about it.
And then in the second season she finds out when Kaz was a kid,
this is his dark backs, his big secret everything. When he was
a kid, somebody took advantage of him and his older brother, and his
older brother was killed. And he tells Ane that and her immediately there's no
morality, there's no I need to talk to the Saints about this. I
need to reconcile the you know what we're going to do with what my heart
says is right? There's just flat out then we destroy him. Yeah,
and it's so great, is right? Or die Suity Well, and he
is very much the same for her. He has is sacrificed a great deal
of like his personal fortune and his personal stakes to be able to keep her
from being sold back into slavery essentially. And one thing that I love and
I think this is often the mark of a really like compassionate character is when
they can observe the pain of one person and want to fix it, but
then instead of being like cool, I saved you were done, be like
now I want to save others. And so it's just a throwaway line.
But in that last episode when he's back in the Crow's Club and is clearly
doing really well and he sends an offer to the brothel where he basically says
that he will buy out the indentured contracts of any of the women at the
brothel to let them be barmaids. That hit at his establishment and it clearly
says, yeah that we serve at drinks, there be customers, but his
words lebino skin trade. You know, this is a salaried position, and
that's like, I think it's pretty clear he could hire people anywhere, and
yes, their customers are like, they're gonna be flirtatious and pretty. But
he's not doing that for the business. He's doing that because he saw what
happened to a Naz and now he wants to buy out others as well.
It's just such a beautiful moment. It's really good. You describe him at
one point as an anti villain. Talk more about what that is, because
he's in the really where like, go ahead, I was just gonna say,
I think that was a typo, but it's a great phrase. Yeah,
it's a phrase that my friend Paul has used on this show a couple
of times. I'm curious what, like, well, whether you use a
phrase or not. Where do you think he stands, because he's like,
he's fastidiously the you know, even at the end they've all had their big
victory, and you know, the king says, you know, we thank
you so much for your help, and I said, we'll take your thanks
in gold, thank you very much. Um where do you place him in
kind of hero villain status? I mean, he is very much an antihero.
He is somebody who is ultimately on the good guy's side, but very
much on his own terms. Um, Like, I don't think he would
participate in war crimes for profit. But if he's on the side of like,
if he's on Alina's side, he's still going to look for ways to
profit from being on Alina's side. And I think he does have a lot
of personal revenge motivation, which is is interesting and will definitely talk about.
And it spends a lot of time and effort trying to come across as I
have no morality, I have no lines. I will do whatever I have
to do to get my revenge and get my gold. But it also demonstrates
he does have a line, and he does have like he will draw moral
line in the sand and not cross it, And so I think that firmly
places him still in hero territory. But he is a hero who does not
have qualms about most murders. He does not have like in the books,
he'd straight up tortures some people. He is. He his moral bar is
much lower than most of the other characters and definitely like sort of the lowest
of the good guys, and he's okay with that. He absolutely he does
not mind, and he will be a villain when he has to, But
he is not somebody who is. And like what I had mentioned when we
were talking about this before, is like the difference between him and the Darkling
is very much one of scale, because the Darkling, I think, has
much more noble causes for his you know, villainy initially, but is a
genocidal maniac, more criminal, whereas Kaz has really only very personal motivations for
doing horrible things, but also is not going to murder squads of people,
right, Like I think one of the most revealing scenes about him is when
he's he has that final confrontation with Pecca and he brings him down, and
for a lot of the episode, he is strongly implying that he has kidnapped
Pecca's kid and literally buried the kid alive, and that, yeah, and
this is a child, This is like a six year old. Yeah,
this isn't like you know, your teen, your twenty year old son.
And I thought it was brilliantly written that I watched that whole scene not honestly
knowing if he had done that or not. Where I thought the way his
character had written, it was possible that he had done that, And in
the end we find that he hadn't, and that he but he had kidnapped
the child, which is didn't of itself a thing that should be mentioned.
But he didn't put the child in any real danger. I don't think he
ever would, and he actually Little One was kind of jokingly offended when someone
thinks he might have, but also like he wants people to think he might
have well, And he's been so convincing, and this is one of my
favorite things. He's been so convincing that Jessper and WiLAN, who are both
crows, they both work with him and generally like respect him. Also both
think he is fully capable of burying a child alive. Yeah, because he
sends them to do like reconnaissance Spain, basically at Peca Rollins's hidden country estate,
and they discover this kid and they say to each other, we can't
tell Kaz that he has a son, because they know full well Kaz will
exploit that and do something terrible to this child. And it turns out Kaz
already knows and fully is. They're like, hah, yeah, we didn't
find anything. And he's like, really, he didn't find his son and
they're like ah, And so they say, yes, we did. He's
there, but only because Kaz already knows. But the fact that people who
I wouldn't say trust but more or less trust and like Kaz also think it's
totally possible that Kas would murder a child, I think speaks to the fact
that Kaz has very effectively painted himself as somebody who will do horrible things when
the reality is that, actually, no, he's not going to murder an
innocent child. And I think I do think it's also important. I think
it's in part because he's just like he doesn't want to murder innocence in general,
but I think we are definitely Pecca's child is about the age, maybe
a little bit younger than he was. In the flashbacks, we see where
his brother got defrauded and ruined by Peca, and I think that's by no
means coincidental. He is. Yeah, No, that's it's absolutely unpre and
it's it's really well done. Yeah. I think another reason why I love
Kaz so much is I've talked for in the show that I'm disabled. I
have a prosthetic leg, I walk with a cane a lot. The way
he does. He is some of my favorite disability representation that I've seen,
in part because he's not like I think we need more people who are in
wheelchairs. We need more people who are, you know, much more.
I don't want the idea of disability as a scale, but I should.
Whose movement is much more impaired than he is. He's able to fight with
the cane. He does some great fighting moves with the cane that are great.
But if I watched that fight scene carefully, he still is he still
has a bad leg. Like he's not faking that by any means, but
there's a beautiful scene where they talk about like people go I think when they're
and shoe and talk about like someone going after your weakness, and he makes
clear that he wants everyone to think his weakness is the cane and his bad
leg. It's not. His weakness is Anez like his feelings for her,
because that's the part I know. It's so romantic and it's so beautiful.
It's just like but it's just it was just a lot of times when disabled
characters are in this show, either they're the like the thing that has to
be rescued, or they're they have such a heart of gold, they're just
perfect and wonderful, and how can you not want to help them. And
so having someone who's disabled also be kind of an a hole and just really
dark, but also have this incredible romantic side, it was just so great
to watch. It's it's really great. And the fact they never he doesn't
conveniently become not disabled. He doesn't have a he's not a grisha. He
doesn't have a superpower that makes up for makes up for that's not a great
way of putting it. He doesn't have something that makes his disapo no longer
relevant. Right, which has a bad Yes, so he has a bad
leg. He uses a cane. He can walk without the cane at some
for some period of time and will eventually need it or need to stop walking,
and he is the scene I will say it's better in the books,
but the scene where he basically walks into one of the clubs where he used
to work and is like, yeah, so I will fight all comers and
if I win, you all have to work for me now, and then
fights all comers, even knowing he is going like he's going to be in
pain because he's in this massive fist fight, but he's specifically going to be
in pain because of his disability, and it's a real risk because he knows
that he has to balance what he can do with how like how far he
can push himself, and he takes that risk. Anyway, it's really good.
Yeah, I can definitely imagine that and both I mean just the same
A graphic of it, like I'm not someone who really loves fight scenes,
but watching him use the cane to grab a chair and throw it, like,
it's clear that this is someone who has thought about did you watch the
show Hawkeye, the MCU show No Echo was one of the characters on there,
and she's kind of a villain, but she has some she kind of
becomes a good guy towards the end, good character who heard at the end.
She has a prosthetic leg, and there's a couple of times where she
uses the prosthetic leg in very specific ways in combat that you couldn't do with
a normal leg. And I just I love that and watching him do that
thing with a cane. But you're right, it's also he knows how many
spoons he has, you know, to use our own a modern language,
and he balances that. And I will say, just as like a shout
out to leave our dugo the author she has spoken about she has I don't
know precisely, you know what the background out than it is, but it
is not my point. But she has a bad leg. She uses a
cane. Yeah, And she wrote Kaz in part because she wanted to a
disabled character who was a badass. And that's really awesome, And she just
landed an enormous book deal. Like that's a whole side tangent. But she
is making eight figures, which eight figures, I think it's to write ten
books across the publisher They're like, we don't care what they are, we
don't care what genre, we don't care what h range. Just keep writing
books for us. And I think having a disabled woman writer make that kind
of bank is really awesome. Yeah, and she's really cool anyway, So
that's a whole side tangent. But I think that like, one of the
ways that you get better disability rep is to have more disabled people involved in
media creation. And I think that this is a really good like, look
at how powerful that can be. Yeah, I think it really is,
especially because and here's my one big bone to pick with the way his story
is told, and I'm curious your thoughts on it. One thing they also
make clear, and this is someone I think we often like to think of
physical disability and mental disability or mental health issues as fundamentally different things that are
totally unconnected and totally unlinked. And there are often a lot of the disability
communication like when you say, oh, this person is disabled. I think
for most people, the image as a person in a wheelchair, I mean,
like quite literally is the logo for you know, accessibility and stuff like
that. And obviously there's many other physical disabilities, but also mental disability is
a big thing, and I think we kind of get you know, this
is Grisha in approximate eighteen hundreds kind of world. We don't get modern medical
tech terminology used what I think saying that he has PTSD or borderline or something
like that is very legitimate, and seeing the way that's portrayed, I thought
was really beautiful, especially because we get a better sense of this is why
he doesn't like to be touched, and this is why he doesn't why he
keeps his gloves on all the time. It's because he has very big issues
about being touched, which again can be very common with people who have a
lot of childhood trauma. How did you feel about that was portrayed and then
how that comes about in his romance with and As I So that was one
of the few moments on the show that I did not think landed well.
Yeah, And again it's one that I can't really talk about without talking about
the books because a lot of the dialogue for that is directly from the book.
But like so I said that they do book five, that dialogue is
in book four, okay, and like I literally looked it up before we
did this. I was like, I'm not where where is that? I
think it lands very differently in the book because his relationship with her is at
a different point in the book. And just to be here, we're talking
about the scene where he finally sort of professes his feelings for her and she
kind of pushes him to do it, you know, she says, what
do you want? And he says to die under a pile of gold,
which I'm okay with the idea that Kes is a dragon now, but she
pushes a little more and he he says, no, I don't want you
to leave. I want you and and her response is to say, you
know, to kind of almost mock him a little bit and say, but
but would you want me with your gloves on? Would you turn your face
when I try to kiss you? And actual renown this, I can quote
it. And then her final line is I will have you without your armor,
Kaz Brecker, or I'll not have you at all. And as I
hear, we're going with the books, but just first, just kind of
expell it out. What about that didn't land well for you? It didn't
land well for me because it feels a lot like I don't want to deal
with your mental health issues kaz Brecker, so come back to me when you've
healed a little, which is complicated because on the one hand, you can't
necessarily ask you ask your loved ones to fix you. You can't like if
you're going to be somebody who I think he would be very toxic in a
relationship, and a lot of that is from the PTSD, but that doesn't
mean it would be okay to be toxic in a relationship, and so that's
a really complicated fine line to walk, and I think for me, the
tone of the show ended up too much on the side of I don't want
to deal with your issues, as opposed to how I read it in the
books, where it was much more about you haven't yet let me in on
understanding where you came from and what your trauma is, and I'm not willing
to commit myself to a relationship with somebody who doesn't trust me with that,
which to me, those felt like and that's some of that me reading into
it. But to me, those felt like very different scenes because I think
we had seen more of them trusting and taking care of and sacrificing for each
other at that point in the show, whereas I think in the books,
it still feels more one sided. Yeah, and so it feels much more
like, yeah, it's a good choice for her to say, I'm not
going to settle for a relationship with somebody who won't let me in, and
so, like the line about armor feels much more like please trust me,
as opposed to I don't want to deal with your issues. Yeah, And
I think that would make because I was thinking about if you just had one
or two more lines from her, that scene would land so differently because to
me, I think you're right. I think if it is about the trust
thing, it makes sense. Or even I think, you know, different
people have different levels of physical touch and physical affection that they need in a
relationship, and I think for someone to say, like, I have all
the respect in the world for where you are and that for you physical touch
is very difficult, but I really need physical touch and a relationship, and
until you're able to give more, I don't know if I can be with
you. That's a very different conversation to me. What was so hard about
it, especially yet because there was a little bit of that trust, but
it was almost more like, you know, I need you to go this
far? Is it felt like it came right after he has made a huge
step in that direction where he's like, okay, like he's loosened the bonds
on his armor and he's shown that he's trying to work towards taking it off,
but that it's going to be a slow process. And again like for
her to say I can't be here for the process, which I guess she's
kind of doing, but it just there was no acknowledgment of like, I
love that you've taken this first step, Now I need you to go further
before I can be with you. It just kind of felt like shaming him,
and especially now that we've linked that the fact that he has the problems
with touch is so linked to his trauma. It just really felt wrong,
and I kind of like I couldn't really cheer for her as she walked away.
Yeah, I feel like again, so, since I haven't reread the
books, I don't remember exactly which facets of their relationship have happened and which
haven't yet. I also think in some ways she has more so she makes
a lot of decisions in the book about what she's going to do in the
future that I think it implies that maybe Kaz has given her some of the
ideas for them or has arranged them, and that feels very different to me
in having him sort of be the one pushing those even though they are things
that she wants, they are good things, as opposed to the books,
where she cares very deeply about him and wants him to trust her, but
she's not making decisions assuming that her life is going to be intertwined with his.
She's making decisions for herself about you know, what's she going to do
with the cut of the money that they get from this pig heist. And
she knows what she wants to do and would love for him to be part
of her life, but has made a decision that because he won't trust her,
she can't build that life image around him, which I think is really
valid and it's a really good choice, and I really like the way that's
handled. So it was a little bit disappointing in the series, and I
think there were some reasons for those choices, but I think it was a
little bit disappointing that it was much more like, ah, yes, I've
been secretly looking for your family this whole time, which he may have in
the books, I don't remember if she had said she wanted to find them
first, or if he had been looking for them first, but it felt
and like her. Without getting into the details of what I do or not
don't remember, there is definitely a chance that some of what I'm remembering happened
in slightly different orders. So it may not be as off from the books
as I think it is, but I think it casts has much more.
I think I think the show tries to make him more sympathetic by making him
letting him be more open with her earlier, and unfortunately, the flip side
of that is that it means that her rejection of him there comes off a
lot more poorly than if they are still in the midst of things working out.
So it's it's really good dialogue in the context that it is in the
book, and it really rubbed me the wrong way in the show. Yeah,
and again it sounds like and I'm not complaining, I thought the show
was phenomenal. It though, does sound like it's one of those where like,
because they're trying to have this very specific rhythm of season one, we
establish all these couples who might get together. Season two, they get together,
but then they get or at least they lean towards it, but then
they get separated again so that by the end of season three we can have
you know, them all getting there happily. Ever after is that they needed
to kind of like pull things for a couple different parts, and so it
just it just it just felt like it just didn't work. So but I'm
glad we're particularly because these issues of romance and mental trauma and touch and you
know, are all thinking, like, I love that we're exploring a character
who has real trouble being touched romantically because of their trauma, and that it's
a male character or we don't see that often. So I love that we're
doing this, and I have faith that we're going to see it done well.
I just want us to comment on that one part. Yeah, I
that hurts. So you had originally like put that into the discussion, and
I was really glad that you had, because I had definitely thought about it
and been like, is that too specific? Am I reading too much into
that? So I was really glad that I was like, no, okay,
that really that moment did not land the way they wanted it too,
And yeah, and it's it's not a great moment. Which is sad because
everything else about their relationship is so good. It really is, it really
is. And again, we still have a third season, so we'll go
there, yes, and I will be. Yeah, I'm very excited for
for more of that season. So there's a lot more we could talk about.
And the question of like the Saints and religion is one that we're actually
going to talk about a little bit in the Patreon segment at the end for
patrons. But just quickly before that, is there any of the last points
or comments you wanted to make or questions you wanted to raise? Why are
pirates so cool in fiction? Pers privateers? Yeah? Now, I don't
know that I have I have much else. I just I really really enjoyed
the series. I think that there were some cool things that they did in
it that, like, like I said, I liked better than the way
some of the things were handled in the books. And I am I freely
hope they get a third season because I want to see the heist so bad.
Yeah, I think it would be really cool if they actually do the
stuff in the next season that I think they're going to, so yeah,
and it would be nice if they get the next season to actually get to
see the Nina Madias plotline. Yeah, they were set up so well.
Their chemistry in season one I reached the whole like her seducing him, and
you know, the Romeo and Juliet ands of it was so well done,
and I just I get why you were keeping them away, but I just
is he can engage in the fights and I just didn't care in the same
way, and it just felt like those two were in a holding pattern.
Um. Yeah, really glad that we're gonna see where that goes. Yeah,
Um, but yeah, I think I think that's pretty much it for
me. I definitely would recommend the show. It does have that. I
think of it as like the pacing of a CW teen drama in a lot
of ways, where it moves fast and the costumes all look a little bit
cheap and ridiculous, but it's so much fun that it doesn't matter. And
so I if you enjoyed The Vampire Diaries, you should watch Shadow and Bone.
And if you like Heis, you should read six of the Rosy,
which I know I said last time and I talked about it slightly less this
time, but for real, read these books. They are very good and
if you just want the absolute best and you're not so into the like ya
fantasy love Triangle read Six of Crows. It's the books that's that are about
specifically Kaz and his crew as opposed to Elena and now they are phenomenal.
We haven't even talked about Jasper and the I forgot. I forgot. We
had a one night stand and we turned into like long term lovers and it's
such a beautiful story. It's so well thought. Oh they're so good.
Jesper and Wilon absolute like they are the OTP. Like, let's be real.
That's very fair. That's very fair. All right. Well, Becky
has always thank you so much for me In a part you go Becky or
Becca for some reason, I got Becky, thank you. Okay, that's
Becky, That's what I got thought. Okay, Becky's always thank you so
much for this. We're gonna have you on for just a little while longer
for the patrons, but everyone who's not sticking around for that. You're a
published author and you've written some really great stuff. Talk about a little more
about where people can find you, both commentary stuff you've done, but also
your actual writings. Um. Yeah, so my books. You can check
them out at Becky allenbooks dot com if you want all of the links.
But I have written two YA fantasy novels, like I said, I Am
Part of That World, that are about a very angry teenage girl in a
desert world who discovers the water that can bring back her the magic that can
bring back her world's water. But she's a slave who has been abused,
and she doesn't really want to help anyone in her world, and so it's
very much about what what could possibly make her decide that it's that she's going
to help people after all of the trauma that she has. It's fair and
so Bound by Blood and Sand is the first book. If you want me,
like I said Becky allenbooks dot com, you can find me on Twitter
as long as Twitter's days afloat which who knows I am at all reb a
L L R EV. And you can also from either Twitter or my website
find my newsletter, which I send once every couple of months and it tends
to be a long ramble about writing or learning to swim as an adult,
taking adult swimming classes, and dealing with burnout and other just general living life
and trying to figure out how all those pieces fit together. Stuff nice,
nice, well, So glad to have you on as always, Definitely do
check that out. Some great writing in those books sounds weird. Definitely check
all that out. Becky's a great writer as well as a great commentator on
this stuff. So good to have you on. And of course those of
you who are tuning in you can find this podcast as well as my Star
Wars Universe podcast that Becky has been a guest on. We're a great couple
of things on Rogue one and the Eddie, the Hero's Journey versus sort of
the big collective. All that you can find by going to the Ethical Panda
dot com. There also you'll find all the ways to support this podcast through
our Patreon and other things like that, and most importantly, the ways to
give us feedback. Love to continue the conversation with y'all. What did you
all think of this season of Shadow and Bone and the books and how it
all connected? Find us an email, Twitter, TikTok, all those things.
So I'm so on behalf of myself and Becky thank you all so much.
We have spoken