The Inheritance Triology - Book 1 Discussion 9/23/17

atargbyanothername, lojzelote,Lils, Maesteress, dje, Lady Sansa's Direwolf, @thewhitedevil, azraelsings, milyagaryen, daeronthegood, freypies, @atimeforwolves

The thread is now open for discussion.

Story

1. What were the themes of the book? Do you feel they were adequately explored? Were they brought to life in a cliche or in a unique manner?

I was surprised by the godly love triangle. I would have expected that the two ! extreme" brothers would fight over their "balanced" sister.

On the whole, I liked what Jemisin did with Enefa; we never really see her, but she sounds kind of callous and cold, from the way she apparently treated her "children" as experiments and didn't mind killing them. Much more a calculating scientist than a passionate artist or a nurturing mother figure. Even in that scene where Yeine has a flashback of Enefa having sex with Nahadoth, she's not lovey dovey. This Mother Nature could have been a cold bitch occasionally (and I like it!). I'm glad that Jemisin avoided the cliche that *women are closer to nature, while men have closer to culture* and that means they are too passionate and irrational, etc.

OTOH the Darren culture annoyed me. Apparently, it's a traditional warrior culture, but it is led by an oppressive matriarchy? I need some believable explanation for why that is. In no known culture that has ever existed were women considered superior to men. Even in matrilineal cultures where the line of descent derives from one's mother, men still are fighters and hold pretty much all the political power.

It's not that I am especially interested in women being portrayed as downtrodden whenever I read fantasy set in a non-modern setting, but once the author made the point of Darre men being unequal to women, I expected her to follow up with some reasoning for that. Being different just for the sake of being different does not work for me.

It did not seem to me that the misandrist Darre upbringing had much influence on how Yeine viewed Dekarta, Relad, or Nahadoth.

2. What did you think of the structure and style of the writing?

The first person distracted me at first. I have still not decided how I feel about how each chapter begins with Yeine's inner monologue - or Yeine and Enefa's post-mortem discussion. Sometimes the story was flowing smoothly and naturally, sometimes these starts felt too intrusive.

3. What scene resonated most with you personally in either a positive or negative way? Why?

The relevation that Tvrill secretly wanted to become an Arameri heir. It was nice to see an ambitious character depicted in a positive manner. I've never understood why in works of fiction people are supposed to look down on ambition as an evil trait. The benevolent king and all that BS commonly found in fantasy. There's nothing wrong with wanting to become influential or wealthy as long as one doesn't hurt others getting there. Then again, violence is used plenty in both media, but that is acceptable.

4. Were there any particular quotes that stood out to you? Why?



It's so perfectly forebonding.

This exchange between Yeine and Kurue, too:

I followed her through the winding aisles, my awe growing as I realized just how truly big the place was. “This library must hold all the knowledge of the world.”
My dour companion snorted. “A few millennia worth, from a few pockets of humanity, nothing more. And that picked and sorted, trimmed and twisted to suit the tastes of those in power.”
“There’s truth even in tainted knowledge, if one reads carefully.”
“Only if one knows the knowledge is tainted in the first place.”

History is always written by the winners. About how many historic events we actually know the truth?

Characters

5. Which character resonated the most with you? Why?

Dekarta and the gods. I felt that Dekarta was a well-realized villain. He was a clearcut bad guy, but one still felt a bit sorry for him by the end. Nahadoth was interesting... I was a bit scared that he will turn into some Edward Cullen character, but in spite the romance and the bed-trashing sex, he was not. I mean, we've seen him ruin an entire continet with all the people on it because he saw it as a way to vent his frustration and anger. In the appendix we find out that the people there honored him, although he was not their main deity. They did not harm him in any way, but he went out of his way to destroy them by misinterpreting Shahar Arameri's order. In spite of that, I felt for him because of his apparent love and dedication to Enefa and her memory. I've already spoken of Enefa at length. We haven't seen much of Itempas yet, but I imagine we will get to know him better in the next book.

Sieh was a fun character as well.

s6. Which character resonated the least with you? Why?

Scimina. A classically beautiful rich bitch with no redeeming qualities. Allegedly very clever, but I have not seen any of that cleverness. For one, who the f*ck eagerly puts themselves eagerly on the first place on the shitlist of one of the most powerful and violent beings in the world? Particularly since she knows how the ritual goes... what if Nahadoth decided that he will reconcile with Itempas solely because he wants to twist her neck? Not to mention that I would have reacted just like Yeine if I was to choose the next head of the family. Even if Relad offered me nothing at all, Scimina would have scorched Darre deal or no deal. Scimina would have broken her word and laughed at the destruction in sadistic joy. If she was indeed clever, she would have pretended to be Yeine's friend to get her to choose her.

7. Did you think the character were well developed?

This is the place to talk of our protagonist, I think.

Yeine... I very much wanted to like her, but her character did not work for me all that much. Her narration was a bit... dry, and even at the end I didn't get a good grasp of her. She was down-to-earth, unsentimental, practical, she could do cruel things when pressed, but ultimately she had a good heart and cared for justice. But she did not come fully alive. Her previous life in Darre might not have even existed. She mentions her mother, her father, her cousins, her friends, but we don't get much in the way of her interactions with them, or her life's turning points etc.

To be honest, I would have preferred if it turned out that she was a resurrected Enefa and that Kinneth indeed sacrificed her fetus in favour of her husband. (My original theory was that Enefa's soul somehow possessed Kinneth, which would have explained her sudden character change.) It would have also made the romantic subplot easier to swallow. I mean, does Nahadoth really care about Yeine, or does he show her his kinder side only because she wears his sister-lover's face and bears her soul? If she was fully human and looked Amn like Kinneth or Scimina, would he still give a fig about her? We've found that apparently there had been other Arameri that fell in love with him and he had torn them apart...

8. How does the way the characters see themselves, differ from how others see them? How do you see the various characters?

Not really the point of the question, but it was hilarious how human characters view Itempas as this warm heavenly father, while in fact he's a raging asshole that considers them vermin that he wouldn't mind to annihilate and the whole point of Nahadoth's imprisonment is not to protect precious humankind from his evil self, but to demonstrate him that humans are filth. I'd love to know what Scimina made of Itempas' words, although she apparently didn't fully comprehend them.


Ending

9. Did you think the ending was appropriate? How would you have liked to have seen the ending go?

I didn't expect the story to end in one volume, sooo... I thought that the ceremony will go badly for Yeine and the gods, and that in Book 2 they will have to fight Scimina.

I thought that maybe it went to easy. It was a long, riskant journey for the Enefadeh, it was their plan, and although it failed, at least they tried, and in the end it kind of worked anyway. Yeine did her best to save Darre and to help her divine friends, but ultimately she was more a pawn than a player.

10. How have the characters changed by the end of the book?

Well, I think that the span of time was too short to say for sure. Yeine wasn't a naive good girl when she came to Sky, and I don't feel that she changed for better or worse due to her recent experience. She learnt a lot new information, but that's not the same as the change of character.


Overall

11. Are there any books that you would compare this one to? How does this book hold up to them?

Not really? I guess that urban fantasy comes close as far as inteaction of humans and superpowerful supernatural beings are concerned. Neil Gaiman has plenty of those: American Gods, Anansi Boys, Coraline, The Ocean at the End of the Lane.

The ending reminded me a lot of his comic series Sandman as well.


12. What did you learn from, take away from, or get out of this book?

Stay away from politicians, don't fuck with powers beyond your comprehension?

I guess that Kurue's end is worth reminiscing. She was the Goddess of Wisdom and she betrayed fellow Enefadeh. Was that truly wise in her situation? Are there situations where a rational thought should step aside in favour of emotion?

13. Have any of YOUR views or thoughts changed after reading this book?

I thought that I wouldn't like a high fantasy setting, but it wasn't much of a problem in the end. In fact I liked the supernatural characters most of all.

14. What did you think about the author's writing style (prose, pacing, etc)?

Well, English is not my mother tongue, so I don't feel entirely comfortable about answering this question. The languege didn't feel like "simple English" to me, but I didn't need to reach for a dictionary either.

As I said earlier, the interruptive (is that a word?) beginnings sometimes irritated me.

I must say that I was genuinely curious about the climax, so I believe that the book succeeded in sucking me in. From when Yeine finds out she is to be sacrificed, it flows quickly and I was hyped for the ceremony.

Characters (pronunciation)

Yeine' ("YAY-neh")'

And here I wanted to make my life easier and call her Jane.

1. Your point about the Darre culture is well taken. The underdevelopment of most of the culture in the books was my complaint as well. Perhaps it's because our perspective is skewed by our own world but it's hard to believe in such a strong matriarchal society like the one NKJ describes. 

3. This has been a complaint of mine for a long time the vilification of characters with ambition (especially when it comes to female characters). Especially as you say without taking into consideration the motives behind it. In real life, we need good people with ambition to step forward and try to make a difference. Or just in real life, your personal ambition to better yourself. 

4. I thought the idea of history being written by the victors was explored well throughout the books. It's something that is very much true in our world. Now, we technology and better investigative tools we've been able to uncover truths from the past that remained hidden. But we'll never truly know what really happened and how much of what we know happened the way we know it. 

5 & 6. For me, both Dekarta and Scimina could have been better developed. You right that there was more nuanced in Dekarta's character, his love for his daughter gave him more complexity than the simply hateful just to be hateful Scimina. I enjoy a more nuanced antagonist, even though, a well constructed mustache-twirling villain can be fun. 

I'm glad I looked at the pronunciation halfway through the books because I was pronouncing some of them incorrectly in my head. 

I did, it was peculiar.

1. Good point about revenge, it was pretty much everyone's driving force in one form or another. But of course, in order to enact revenge, you need some sort of power. It's sort of a vicious cycle. 

2. I think this is the problem with creating original powers for your world without providing clear rules for that power. It happens in asoiaf with magic, it's not defined, in purpose, but this creates inconsistencies that can drive readers crazy. T'vrill could have easily given Yeine the parameters of her power to command the gods which might have included no major destruction of your enemies or whatever.

6. Yeah, I think this is a common theme with us all. 

14. She did have beautiful prose and was very easy to read. Which I'm very happy with. 

The Darre woman-in-power situation is explained in book 3.5, the novella takes place at the end of book 3, is a rather short story. The reason behind the Darre situation is rather weak and unbelievable. I did not buy it. Not at all.

eta

I misquoted, this is an answer to the post relative to Darre's culture.