Nenekiri Bookwyrm, [17 Aug 2022 13:00:31]
Ok! I have other thoughts in regard to True Name and her journey to becoming Sasha, since she is so integral to the plot of the book but want to let those percolate a bit more first
The sub-head for this book could be “Ioan’s fucking pissed” and this is me full well knowing ey had every right to feel that way. I appreciate that when presented with those situations that cause em to yell or lash out that they responded how they did. While anger is not exactly an emotion ey expresses often, it felt believable for the times it came up to me. Wanted to mention that in case that was a concern.
There were a few sentences throughout the book where characters are referred to by a different pronoun or a name is transposed for a dialogue tag. I figure this will shake out in editing, so that’s not a concern for me.
I need to go back and re-read the section with In Dreams visiting and giving the ultimatum to not communicate with other members of her side of the clade again. I know that it’s a big shift in their dynamic, but I don’t think I fully grasped how big it is at that moment.
As strange as this may sound, I think the Ode clade falling apart is a good and healthy thing for the members. Especially so many years on, it shows that they are individuating enough that they no longer feel the need to be bound strictly to the Ode and the memory of AwDae as much. There could definitely be less messy and dramatic ways to go about it, but it is still early in this process for them. It’s sad for sure, but I think it will be better for all of them to be able to step forward and move past some of their shared trauma.
While not funny in context, I had a good laugh at May saying, “Ioan, did I fuck up?”
I think having Jonas lose his cool and act like a straight up villain works to establish that he is slipping and possibly losing his mind. I will say, however, that he might be too cartoonishly evil at times. It’s a very difficult balance to strike, and I’m not sure where the sweet spot is exactly. I also understand the difficulty in writing politician characters that seem believable enough in the ways in which they are corrupt without becoming satire when our own reality has its fair share of cartoonish displays of evil. He still works within the context but might be too machiavellian. Though thinking through this, I guess he would have to be to pull one over on True Name for this long. So perhaps that is the point and I’m just now getting around to it.
I enjoyed that the ending of the book hints at Sasha being comfortable enough to talk about AwDae years after everything has calmed down some. It shows that she’s grown enough to place aside that taboo she herself set in place. It also promises a greater understanding of their world for all the residents of the System, which is just neat to think about. I’m not sure if I would call it an anti-climax, but the ending snuck up on me when I read it. I went back when I realized the selected letters section was additional and re-read the ending paragraph.
Having chapters where Debarre is the main point of view was cool to see. We haven’t gotten his perspective of things often so that was fun to read and inhabit his headspace for a short while.
I’m curious to hear what the plot point that got changed at the end of book turned out to be? If you’re comfortable sharing of course.
Madison Scott-Clary, [17 Aug 2022 13:14:35]
The plot point change was EW dropping out of the clade and changing his name. I wanted to show more of the clade falling apart and he felt like a good outlet for that, especially after his comment about “we have turned out clade into idolatry.”
I also added the diegetic headers from Sasha’s work. I was torn about maybe naming AwDae then, but I think that’ll come up on Selected Letters, with her telling Ioan and moving carefully.
I’m glad to hear that it was a good journey for Sasha. One of my concerns is that it felt like a bit of an apology, so another dev edit was to make her apology to Debarre a teensy bit manipulative in a May fashion, in that it’s mostly what he needed to hear rather than how she might normally speak.
Selected Letters will basically be an epilogue for the entire series, wrapping up Codrin and Sorina a little better, though I don’t want to get everything in too neat of a bow.
Jonas was originally less cartoonish, so I amped him up. Interesting to hear that I may have overdone it, so I’ll do another pass to get that balance right. Also, Utunu is doing a copy edit pass that might catch some of the dialogue tag issues. I’m weirdly bad at keeping pronouns straight, because I have a doc with a bunch of backstory that describes changes in Ioan and AwDae and when they changed, so I tend to mess that up when I refer to it x.x
Madison Scott-Clary, [17 Aug 2022 13:16:45]
Thank you so much for this, though! Only questions I really have left are:
* Does it feel like an apology for True Name and how relatively villainous she was in Toledot?
* I mention some plural stuff that I’d started on in Nevi’im but got more into after reading some reviews. I don’t know how connected you are with that, if at all, but I’m curious if including that with Sasha cementing May and EW was separate identities also felt shoehorned in.
Nenekiri Bookwyrm, [17 Aug 2022 16:21:24]
So I started blocking out a review earlier and the first few sentences feel like they answer this question: I’m struck by how my initial impression of the shape of the story was going to be a redemption arc for True Name and how that assumption changed over the course of the story. It is less a redemption arc and more so a reckoning arc. One full of consequences for herself and her cocladists for all of her meddling and the way in which she has lived her life up until the inciting incident of the book.
So I would say it is less apologetic about how she acted in Toledot and more so giving a chance at her changing. And with that change can then come some kind of reconciliation. I wouldn’t say that anybody excuses what she has done in the past, as they remind her of what she was and has done consistently. She fucked around, and now is finding out.
I don’t know if “shoehorned in” is the best descriptor, because it’s brought up multiple times even before the ending section where she reveals that she kept herself as three identities in one. I’m not sure it has quite the narrative flow you might want when it’s brought up though if you’re questioning it. I have heard of the concept of fronting an identity in passing before and picked up on that so that came through to me as a layman. You could honestly explain it as the characters trying to figure out how to define what Sasha is experiencing without them having the terminology to describe it. That happens all the time with folks after all. While I sense you probably already reached out to other plural systems to get their take on it, if you haven’t, I would suggest doing that. They’ll be able to speak to the similarities/differences better than I think I would since I don’t have as much reference to draw from.
Wish I could speak to it better, but this feels as though I won’t know enough about the topic to provide the best guidance. If its anything, I felt as though it made sense in a literal context as Sasha is 3 different identities all vying for primacy.