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Rereading The Ruin of Kings: Chapters 42 and 43

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Column The Ruin of Kings

Rereading The Ruin of Kings: Chapters 42 and 43

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Published on June 18, 2019

Happy mid-June, Tor.com! I who am about to melt salute you, and also offer you this reread post, hurray!

This blog series will be covering The Ruin of Kings, the first novel of a five-book series by Jenn Lyons. Previous entries can be found here in the series index.

Today’s post will be covering Chapter 42, “The Younger Son”, and Chapter 43, “The Dragon’s Deal.” Please note that from this point forward, these posts will likely contain spoilers for the entire novel, so it’s recommended that you read the whole thing first before continuing on.

Got that? Great! Click on for the rest!

 

Chapter 42: The Younger Son (Talon’s story)

[In which Talon offers very cold comfort and a an even more depressing curriculum vitae.]

Well, gee, Talon, I can’t imagine why your idea of comfort (i.e. “my little torture recording session means you’ll be heard after you’re dead”) might not thrill Kihrin to itty bitty bits. Especially since, as Thurvishar points out in the footnotes, he would have no reason to believe this is the one time Talon isn’t lying. For all Kihrin knows she’s gonna chuck that magic rock straight into a volcano as soon as they’re done. And even if she didn’t, there’s no guarantee that anyone would actually listen, or care if they did.

Granted, it turns out they did listen and do care, at least to all appearances (at least enough to publish a book about it), but still.

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(Was it published, in-world? Or is it a private thing only the Emperor got to see?)

I can’t remember at the moment how exactly it ends up being Thurvishar who gets the rock recording, but based on what I do remember of his character, it seems like an odd choice, to say the least. Still, evidently the man got the job done, even if he was apparently unable to keep himself from interjecting his own opinion every ten seconds. It’s okay, Thurvy, I probably wouldn’t have been able to keep from doing it either—and probably with 100x more snark, too. So I won’t throw any stones, heh heh. (DYSWIDT)

In the meantime, Talon gives us the life and times of one Galen D’Mon, who I want to wrap in fuzzy blankets and give cookies and hot tea and kittens to snuggle, and then send his father directly to hell, do not pass Go, do not collect two hundred dollars. Child Protective Services: Definitely not a thing in Quur, and it’s a damn shame. Everyone in this book needs hella therapy, but it’s particularly infuriating to read about a good kid being systematically ruined by epically shitty parenting.

Still, Galen’s basic good character seems remarkably, possibly miraculously, resilient under the onslaught of having Darzin for a father, so I had good hopes for him in the future. Oops?

 

Chapter 43: The Dragon’s Deal (Kihrin’s story)

[In which Kihrin is stupid and dragons are assholes.]

[Thurvishar:] “Kihrin needs to pay more attention to what people are actually promising, rather than what he wants them to have said.”

Preach it, brother Thurvy. Also, Kihrin, maybe don’t expect a being named (among many other disturbing things) “Betrayal of Foundations” to be interested in honoring their word to puny humans. Just a thought. I mean, yes, a lot of times you’ll have worlds in which fantastical creatures cannot lie or betray an oath, but clearly that is not how we roll in Ruin of Kingsland.

(Does this planet have a name that we’re given? Can’t remember. I suppose I could go check the map. Yep, I definitely could do that. Yep.)

Also:

Being a god and destroying all my enemies did sound like the solution to many of my problems, but at what cost?

This statement is hilarious once you’ve read the whole book. Foreshadowing, what ho. And I never even noticed it (or all the other similar hints) the first time around.

Kihrin is also puzzled in this chapter that the Old Man calls him a “soldier,” which is another thing I don’t think I noticed the first time around, and which in retrospect makes a whole lot more sense, and also reminds me one of my favorite bits of the book is coming up, yay!

Of course, this chapter also reminds me one of my least favorite bits is coming up, so not yay. But also yay. It’s a Schroedinger’s Yay, really.


And on that extremely nerdy note, we out! See you next week!

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Leigh Butler

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