JOINT REVIEW: The Last Graduate by Naomi Novik
Jennie: Janine, Sirius, and I reviewed the first book in the Scholomance series (originally slated as two books; now a trilogy). Sirius gave it a C- and said she wouldn’t be reading this sequel, but Janine and I, though we had some reservations, ended up liking A Deadly Education quite a bit – I gave it an A- and Janine a B+. I was really quite excited to pick this book up and even more excited to review it with Janine.
Janine: Thank you! My grade actually rose after that and I’ve read it multiple times (sometimes in its entirety, sometimes just parts of it). I also put it on my best of 2020 list.
Jennie: The Last Graduate begins with the same scene that A Deadly Education ended with. Our heroine, El, has survived the group attempt to fix the machine that cleanses the graduation hall, giving the year’s seniors a fighting chance at survival. She’s in the cafeteria for the induction of freshmen students, when one unexpectedly gives her a letter from her mother. El had not expected anything because her mother isn’t wealthy or connected, and bringing in letters for students at the Scholomance is a big deal since it reduces the weight allowance that freshmen have; they need every ounce to hope to survive the coming four years.
Anyway, the short letter ends with an ominous declaration: “Keep far away from Orion Lake.” Orion is El’s maybe-sort-of-almost boyfriend, who she spent the year of A Deadly Education getting to know (not without some setbacks; El’s default is sarcastic insults and Orion’s is wide-eyed cluelessness).
El doesn’t know what to make of her mother’s warning, but like any teenage girl being warned off of a teenage boy, she doesn’t like it.
Janine: I really liked the way El came to the decision that she would disregard her mother’s warning. Orion was the first person in the school to like and befriend her, and warning or no warning, she wasn’t going to turn her back on that. I came up with more than one theory for what was behind the warning, but when the reason was finally revealed, it was surprising, not anything I guessed at, and yet it felt inevitable, too. That was masterfully done.
Jennie: The next day, the first of the school term, there’s more not to like (El’s personality and the nature of the Scholomance often conspire to bring about less-than-ideal circumstances). El finds herself assigned to an isolated classroom with a pack of freshmen.
Janine: Another thing I really liked was El’s interactions with the students she starts thinking of as her freshmen. At first, she’s determined not to watch out for them—she reasons that if they don’t learn to do that for themselves, they won’t last a day—and then she ends up playing the white knight after all, but she’s grouchy over it. That was so loveable and so El. She personifies the reluctant hero.
Jennie: Agreed – she’s lovable and also fascinating because we know she has this capacity for darkness but she’s also a better person than many of her classmates (to be fair, the nature of their world and the Scholomance seems to toughen up the young wizards early on).
Later, El realizes that the mal attacks she must fend off in class are pretty much the *only* mal attacks in the school, which is unutterably bizarre and inexplicable. It is also frustrating to Orion, who is almost manic in his mal-fighting inclinations, and who draws mana – essentially, wizard energy – from killing mals.
Janine: El, Aahdya, and Liu conclude that the school is intent on pushing El into the malificer “track” to gain mana from the students she’ll kill (the school needs mana to run on). To get the mana to combat the mals the school sends El’s way, they invite New York enclaver Chloe Rasmussen to join their alliance.
Jennie: The plot of The Last Graduate felt a bit episodic to me, and not entirely cohesive, which makes a summary difficult (for me anyway). El is dealing with several problems, some of which are more life-threatening than others (most are at least a little life-threatening).
The New York Enclave continues to want El to join them, especially as it becomes clear to the entire school that El’s not just some random weirdo but a seriously powerful wizard. El has no intention of joining a powerful enclave, but that’s something she’s still coming to terms with after thinking for years that joining a powerful enclave was *all* she wanted.
Word comes from the outside (via the one survivor) that the Bangkok enclave has been wiped out.
Janine: I loved the minor but crucial thread about Sudarat, the surviving freshman. It was poignant. I got teary in one scene.
Jennie: The destruction of an entire enclave is an unusual occurrence – the whole point of enclaves is that they provide safety. Various factions inside the school begin to worry that a Wizard War may be going on in the outside world. This in turn leads to some of those factions thinking it would be better to take El out rather than let her join New York. So now El has humans that want to kill her along with the mals.
El herself is coming into her own understanding of what graduation means, what her plan is for surviving and helping her alliance survive, and how far she is willing to go to defeat the Scholomance once and for all.
Then there’s El’s relationship with Orion, which felt like it got short shrift early in the book, but took center stage later in the story. I missed him early on; I know The Last Graduate isn’t a romance but I really like Orion as a character (even if I occasionally share El’s exasperation with his quirks).
Janine: I missed Orion and El’s friends-to-sweethearts relationship in the first half too (it was magical in A Deadly Education), but there were some lovely shifts in their relationship later on in this book, and huge payoff for the romantic drought near its climax, both in the lull before the storm and in the very last scene, which…wow! I felt we were offered a deeper and closer look at Orion, too. I’ve always felt affection for him but by the end of this book he had developed into a fully-fledged (albeit quirky) romantic figure.
Jennie: The lack of focus on El/Orion early on did give some of El’s other relationships further room to develop. I particularly like the growth of Chloe, the New York enclaver who went from enemy to sort-of-frenemy to actual friend to El in the first book.
Janine: Eh. Not a Chloe fan here. She does her best but how privileged she is relative to El and El’s other friends still bugs me. If my theories about book three are correct, though, Chloe may play a crucial role there, so I can see why it was necessary.
Jennie: Also, El gets a familiar, a little mouse named Precious (the name is comically/ironically cutesy given that El is so…not the type to have a cutesily-named pet).
One thing that has confused me about the Scholomance is how often it seems to conspire in large and small ways to make the students’ lives even harder than they would otherwise be. Some of it is explained by the idea that a certain amount of sacrifice (in the form of students) is needed to protect the other students, specifically the Enclavers whose ancestors are responsible for creating the Scholomance. But sometimes it seems like the school is just sadistic for no real purpose – for instance, the food in the vending machines is generally very dodgy and borderline inedible. Another example is evidenced several times over the two books and described thusly:
Distances in the Scholomance are extremely flexible. They can be long, agonizingly long, or approaching the infinite, depending largely on how much you’d like them to be otherwise.
I suppose that could be another way the Scholomance puts certain kids at a disadvantage deliberately with the intention of generating fresh blood (literally). Or maybe it has something to do with the nature of the magic in this world, where it seems like intentions can have an effect on results, both good and bad. But often it comes off as capricious, and I wish I understood it better.
Janine: I read this very differently but I can see how it would be confusing.
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Jennie: The Last Graduate can be seen as a classic bridge book between the opener and closer of a trilogy – it advances the plot and characters (and El’s character really does come into her own in a lot of ways) and sets up the finale (with another – even bigger! – cliffhanger than the first book delivered). As such, middle books can be the red-headed stepchildren of trilogies – no one’s favorite.
I actually did like this quite a bit. Still, there’s a lingering sense of…dissatisfaction is too strong a word. What it comes down to is that I love the characters and the writing but I was slightly tepid on the plot.
Janine: Same here.
Jennie: A sequence in which El leads other seniors on a mock obstacle course (which can, of course, still kill them) set up in the gym and meant to prepare them for graduation felt like it took up a *lot* of the book. It wasn’t boring, but I felt like it could have been shorter.
Janine: I have noticed that in a few of Novik’s books (most notably in Uprooted)—she can draw out her action sections too long. The nature of the obstacle course kept that from being too bad here, though. I actually geeked out on the cool visuals of the gym, and some of the training action (especially early on) was exciting.
Jennie: The book felt like it was divided mostly between “action” and “El figuring things out” and I think maybe it needed a little more of her interacting with other characters. I don’t know.
Janine: Yes, I agree with that. I ended up having three major issues.
The episodic nature of the plot, which you mentioned earlier, was my first issue. I’m much more likely to be riveted when there’s a powerful central thread that pulls me the whole way through.
Another issue I had was the expansion in scale. A Deadly Education was a personal story; it focused on El and a few others, on how she changes from outcast to embraced friend. Here the stage is wider; this book is largely about how El’s relationship with the entire school. That’s interesting, but for me, a story thread that is about the character’s heart is even more satisfying than one about a situation (however interesting a situation) that affects them and everyone around them. Not every reader feels that way, of course.
As an aside, it’s an easy prediction to make that book three will have an even larger scale—the entire world of wizards and witches—and I think it will have epic personal stakes too. I don’t think it’s a spoiler to say that somewhere in there the prophecy that’s been foreshadowed will have to be reckoned with. Because of that, and because of how The Last Graduate ends, I agree 100% that The Last Graduate is a bridge book.
Jennie: I’ll admit, I am excited to get out into the larger wizard world.
Janine: Me too. I think it’ll be amazing.
My third reason for liking this one less than A Deadly Education (although I did like it a lot) is that A Deadly Education is a feel-good story that ends on a euphoric note and this one isn’t.
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Caveats aside, this book had a ton going for it. It’s hard to talk about most of that without spoiling the book, but I loved El’s relationship with her homeroom of freshmen, El’s dreams for a future involving a spell from her golden stone sutras, little Sudarat, the unsettled question of where Orion would go after graduation and the way El handled that, a couple of awesome artifices, the shifts in El and Orion’s relationship and the terrific development of Orion’s character. There were lovely smaller scenes, too, such as one in the cafeteria involving an injured student.
I’m giving this a B+. Jennie, what’s your grade?
Jennie: I *loved* both the cafeteria scene with the injured student and El’s dream about what she wants to do when she graduates.
It’s another A- for me, maybe a bit below the A- I gave A Deadly Education. I am so excited for the final book, though.
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Oooh, I really liked the first one despite a few large issues I had with it but I am still unsure if I want to read this right away or wait for the third book to come out so I don’t have to deal with cliffhangers, lol.
I might wait since the cliffhanger in thr first one did end on a hopeful note which doesn’t seem to be the case with this book which will make it even harder, lol
One thing that irked me in the first book was how the racial aspect was handled. Despite the cohorts being from all around the world they felt very generic or surface level stereotypical and sometimes offensive.
Does that get fixed at all or does it still have that overtone of locs=dirty (which i know wasn’ther intent but is how it came across) or this culture only comes into play for the language aspect without actually adding anything to the story?
I’ll be back for the review once I’ve read the book. Delighted to see you recommend it.
@J: Since it’s relevant to your decision-making, this cliffhanger has huge ramifications for book three.
I believe the locs issue was fixed. Novik also posted an unqualified apology on her site–the classiest one I’ve seen an author give:
https://www.naominovik.com/apology/
@Darlynne: I can’t wait to hear what you think!
@Darlynne: I’ll look forward to your take!
@J: Oh, sorry, I missed the second part of the question. It’s been a while since I read the book but I don’t think there’s much more sense of the different cultures than in the first book. Novik is careful to make El sound more British than the Americans–that was true of the first book too, though–and there is one very brief scene where Jacob, a Jewish boy, takes out and pulls on a prayer shawl to say a prayer.
But the latter didn’t make sense to me because he’s from a kibbutz and being kibbutz-born myself I can tell you that I have never met a kibbutznik devout enough to do such a thing. The kibbutzim were all founded by socialist atheists and shared some characteristics with communes. A lot of children and grandchildren of that generation still live there and I don’t think so much has changed on the religious front. At least that was the case when I was last on a kibbutz, thirteen years ago. Novik is Jewish, too.
I guess what I would say is this: the book isn’t, as far as I can tell, offensive like its prequel (there’s definitely nothing as glaring as the locs=dirty thing). But it’s also not a place to go looking for insight into other cultures or a deep understanding of their traditions. For that, you’d have to read Spinning Silver.
I really enjoyed it too. (I’ve also reread the first several times.) I did feel Orion was missing in action for a good deal of the book, and I’m not sure that I’ve got a handle on him yet. (My daughter who is about half the way through is convinced he will turn out to be evil, which I half hope is true.)
But I enjoyed the widening out of the story – I’m still half-reading it as a climate change book – and while I normally hate cliff hangers, this one worked for me. There’s something about the book covering the school year – my brain is happy to accept that there’s more to come that doesn’t belong in that year’s story.
(Be fascinated to know your theory: I haven’t got one yet though I’ve high hopes my daughter will have one – she’s dyslexic, so reads very slowly, and catches lots of things I miss. She remarked, a quarter of the way in, that the school is like another character in the story.)
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@MMcA: Glad you enjoyed it as well! I really don’t think Orion is evil (there’s been no hint or foreshadowing of that IMO) but given that the theory I came up with last year (you may have to click on the links twice) was totally wrong, take this next one with a lot of salt:
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And now I want to hear your thoughts on all this and your theories, from as many of you as want to share them. I’ve been dying to discuss this with other people. You can hide your spoilers by using our shush tags. It looks like this, minus the spaces inside the square brackets:
[ shush ]Write your spoiler in here[ /shush ]
@J: Definitely still has the weird racist overtones. It doesn’t seem like that’s her intent, but she handles it poorly in the telling. There’s constant mention of ethnicity accompanied by a sprinkle of racial stereotyping. It’s distracting tbh.
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Spoiler warning in case I mess up the tags.
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Sorry!
@Gale: I guess I see the decision to split the enclaves along national lines as a practical one that makes sense in the context of the story-telling. The mentions of ethnicity are a natural outgrowth of that.
There were times that it made me uncomfortable but I think, for me at least, it’s just a sensitivity or even oversensitivity to the idea of splitting people up along racial, ethnic or nationalistic lines.
I’m not sure what you saw as racial stereotyping but for me, again, there was maybe a little discomfort at the Chinese enclavers trying to kill El. But ultimately I didn’t think that there was anything negative in the portrayal of those enclavers – if anything, El herself seemed to understand the motivations of those who felt like they had to take her out.
@MMcA: No worries, I fixed it. The only thing to do differently is to delete the spaces inside the brackets.
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@MMcA:
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@Jennie: You’ve reminded me that the confrontation between El and the kids from China bothered me a bit too.
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I was disappointed to find out that the book has a sequel coming. This ending felt too perfect (even if it is definitely a downer.)
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But in addition, books 1 and 2 are totally self-enclosed. They take place in the same place, with the same general stakes. We know very little about the wider world, and the scope will have expanded dramatically.
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@Necarion: You make an excellent point. However, if that was where El’s story ended it would make such a markedly different change in tone from the A Deadly Education, given El’s character arc in that book and its upbeat, heartwarming ending, so as to feel too disjointed from it and the contrast between the two books would be too jarring. Also, I hope you don’t mind but I’m going to hide the spoilers in your comment!
I’ve read both books multiple times by now. At first I viewed El as a sort of incarnation of Kali, especially after she took out the maw mouth in book 1, and I’m still left with that impression after the final scene of book 2. As to what this might mean, I’m unsure, my knowledge of that mythology is scant, beyond the idea of the cyclical nature of reality, which may be part of the reason the story is structured as it is.
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I do wonder what it means for the story arc that someone prophesied to destroy the enclaves acquires the original spells for enclave construction. One possibility is that there’s a link between creating an enclave and creating mals that has been obscured or forgotten since the sutras were lost. El hasn’t finished the sutras by the end of book two, so perhaps she’ll discover something that motivates her to destroy enclaves.
Also, recalling that Gwen’s mother was done in by a malificer who had probably also killed her father, I’m wondering if the Higgins women aren’t under a curse vis-a-vis their men-folk. So I’m onboard with the idea that El is pregnant. And also, reluctantly, with the idea that she’ll at least consider killing Orion. Novik uses a lot of foreshadowing in these books, and the first sentence of book 1 points strongly in that direction, (again, cycles).
I suspect the gates may play an important role in book 3, El stops her incantation just short of its last syllable, so even if the rest of the Scholomance crumbles into the void, the gates might survive. Who knows what could stroll through? Orion? Patience? Cthulhu? After all, the gates are intended to keep mals out, not in.
This also leads me to wonder what is waiting for El at her induction point, or if she even gets there. The enclaves have had a year to consider the role she and Orion played in repairing the mortal flame generators, especially the fact that El turned Carlita’s defensive spell into a weapon against the giant sucker worm. Maybe she gets hijacked before she can return to her mum, or maybe she’s greeted by some heavy hitters from London who are holding Gwen hostage. Assuming the majority of the previous year’s seniors made it through, which I think is a safe bet; the enclaves surely know something’s up.
And how will the enclaves react to the destruction of the Scholomance? From El’s perspective control of the school was the primary bone of contention between New York/London and Shanghai. Once it’s gone, what will they do? Have they already embarked on a war because of Bangkok? If not will they find something else to squabble over? Probably.
Finally, I see a lot of darkly humorous inversions in this tale: El and Orion making love while hissing amphisbaenas rain down to their deaths. Patience and Fortitude, named for the lions guarding the New York City library. And finally El herself. standing like Lady Liberty, glowing like a lamp beside the gates that will disperse the graduates to freedom rather than concentrating them in hell.
@Erasmus:
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Neat theories. I really like the idea that Clarita from the previous year’s class has told at least her own enclave about El’s power and now they know about her on the outside world. Clarita is one of my favorite secondary characters in the series—I loved how she cared enough about El and Orion to try to help them survive at the end of book one, after all the griping she had done about them before that.
Re El killing Orion—but why? What could he do that would require it, unless some spell turned him evil? We’ve seen no evidence that such a spell exists and I don’t think Novik would introduce a new element as major as that as late as book three.
I agree with you about the cyclic nature of the books and so I also expect some of the things from the first two books to recur in book three. Here are my thoughts on that.
There will of course be mals involved in the story and that probably means that El will have to contend with Patience because that’s the greatest and most terrifying mal. The prophecy will of course loom over El’s choices and actions and there will be some kind of conflict between El and the enclaves, at least some of which will be over something El does or did to create a more level playing field. Gwen will be around so there will be healing spells and the contrast between mother and daughter, as well as their loving relationship. El will probably persuade people to cooperate and collaborate even though they will start out reluctant. There will be an amazing challenge/feat for El to overcome with the help and support of her allies. The Golden Stone Sutras will have an important role to play. There will be snarky narration. And from having read some of Novik’s other books, I predict a relatively happy and possibly even romantic ending.
I have also been thinking about the prophecy in a new light, and that is considering the possibility that as in many, many fantasy novels and in some myths, the wording of a prophecy is misleading. I went back and reread the mirror’s prophecy (“Hail, Galadriel, bringer of death! You shall sow wrath and reap destruction, cast down enclaves and level the sheltering walls, cast children from their homes and—”) and I spotted a couple of places where I think the phrasing may be misleading.
“You shall sow wrath and reap destruction” sounds at first like El will destroy people or property but if you stop to think about it that isn’t what it means. “Reap destruction” means she or her home or her community will be destroyed. As in “you reap what you sow.” Had the mirror said “You will sow destruction and reap wrath,” that would be a perfect fit for the scenarios we’ve all been imagining—she’d destroy the enclaves or at least their status and they of course would be furious. But what the mirror says is the exact opposite—El will infuriate them and they’ll respond by destroying her or someone/something of hers.
Then there’s “cast down enclaves and level the sheltering walls.” Since I read this the first time I’ve wondered if there’s some trick here, else why wouldn’t it say “level their sheltering walls”? I re-examined this notion recently, thinking “Hmm, what other sheltering walls could she level/have leveled?” And of course we now have an answer to that.
After having these thoughts, I reread the prophecy made by El’s great-grandmother when El was a child, that El “was a burdened soul and would bring death and destruction to all the enclaves in the world if I wasn’t stopped.” At first I thought that was a lot less ambiguous but “wasn’t stopped” doesn’t have to mean stopped via being killed. It could also that she uses her earthshaking powers to threaten to kill and destroy them if they don’t cooperate with her on her goal (whatever that may be) and that she’s upset enough to mean it. And so they stop her by reluctantly agreeing to go along with her plan and eventually collaborating with her. That’s happened in the first two books so it would also be cyclical.
(Don’t get me wrong, I still think there will be a huge conflict over the enclaves’ unfair power advantages and that by the end of the third book the playing field will be more level than it was.)
Do you (any of you) have any thoughts and ideas on whether the prophecy is likely to be misleading and if so, how?
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.I’m inclined to discount the mirror’s prophecy for the reason that Aadhya explained to El in book one; using the crush-a-pit-full-of-victims spell to smooth the silver pour was in effect imposing her will on the materials rather than coaxing them into cooperating. So I think the mirror’s wording is probably a reflection of El’s own self-doubt and dread rather than a ‘true’ prophecy.
More telling, I think, are the Tarot cards that fall into El’s lap while she plays canasta with Liesel: Death (signifying change); The Tower (signifying chaos and destruction (and possibly the fate of the Scholomance itself)); The Eight of Swords (signifying self-imposed limitations). This seems to be the crux of her character arc. El is an intelligent, extremely moral person, always trying to see the other’s point of view to an extent that could get her killed. She could have ripped Jack’s power to save herself after he knifed her, but she wouldn’t stoop to his level. She could have blasted the Shanghai group during the Field Day attack, but Yuyan had actually been polite to her once, and that was enough to send her down the path of ‘yeah, I understand why they want to kill me’. But having that kind of empathy also implies a strong degree of self-loathing that she must overcome.
As to her great-grandmother’s prophecy, since we aren’t given the exact wording I’m not sure how much can be read into it, but I think there are at least two ways ‘a burdened soul’ could be interpreted. First, because of her conflicted relationship with her self-image, which seems to have stemmed from Gwen’s parenting techniques and strict mana path, the burden could be her mother’s love which might in fact be smothering.
Second, and here I think someone else has commented on the peculiar nature of Orion’s abilities and how he might not be ‘normal’, what about the maw mouth that latched onto Gwen when she graduated? She bears the scars, and El was fascinated with them as a child. But why exactly can’t a wizard escape the grasp of a maw mouth on their own? Is there some kind of venom injected? Or is there an infectious magic that subdues their victims? I’ve long suspected that something infested El in her mother’s womb, and that was the source of her rage and the burden on her soul. And also the reason for Gwen’s ‘attachment parenting’ as an effort to save her. So far as we readers know there are only two people freed from a maw mouth’s grasp, Gwen and Tomas from Argentina, who El rescues at the gates. Perhaps one of them, (probably Gwen) will provide some insight into this in book 3.
Or maybe my speculations are nonsense and El is simply a smart girl who looks around at the world her elders have created and thinks ‘what rubish!’ Just like the rest of us.
@Erasmus: I agree re. discounting the prophecies obviously, but what I mean is this: in light of the fact that prophecies in fantasy fiction are often worded in such a way that they mislead the reader *and* the character they concern, in an intentional bit of misdirection by the author, what do you think of the specific phrasing of these prophecies? Do you discount the idea that Novik is trying to mislead us with her phrasing (I’m referring not only to what the prophecy–on the face of it– says, but also the way the sentences are structured, the order in which the words are strung together), or do you think it’s more likely that she is? And if it’s the latter, in what way?
Nice analysis of the tarot cards, I love it! That it was a pinpointing of El’s personality characteristics never occurred to me, but you’re so right.
“Burdened soul” could mean almost anything, IMO. My interpretation is that El is burdened by a lot of angst and cynicism because of the way she’s been rebuffed all her life. So another piece of her personality, formed not by the effect on the maw-mouth on her but by painful experience.
Well, let’s unpack the mirror’s prophecy in light of what we know by the end of book 2 and test it. “Hail Galadriel, bringer of death!” It doesn’t specify whose death. But at that point in the story all we know about El is that she’s very unpopular, assumes that’s because there’s something wrong with her (like a lot of teenagers), and that she’ll wind up going to the dark side. Something she struggles very hard to prevent. But by the end of book 2 she’s killed a shed load of mals. So that part was actually true.
“You shall sow wrath and reap destruction,”. She certainly makes a lot of people angry (and frightened), especially the Shanghai enclavers who take a run at her twice in book two, not to mention Magnus who tries twice to harm her in book 1. As for reaping destruction, the ending of book 2 pretty much covers that. So the first two clauses have proven correct.
“cast down enclaves and level the sheltering walls,” It could be argued that this too has already happened by the end of book 2, at least metaphorically in that by insisting that everybody graduates, she’s leveled the field and cast the enclavers down from their positions of privilege. But I’m not so sure, given the many possible meanings of ‘cast’, which include ‘deposit’ and ‘bring forth’ (as in premature birth). So it could actually refer to her plans for the future, though I’m not sure how “level the sheltering walls” might work into that, unless for some reason enclaves become unnecessary as a result of her actions. (Like, maybe magic goes away. No magic equals no mals, end of story. Literally.).
“cast children from their homes and–” Again it could be argued that this has already happened because the whole student body graduates. But I’m not sure of that either.
So, is Novik playing the readers as well as the character? I think yes, and rather handily.
As to her ‘burdened soul’, I’m not quite ready to accept that as simply her angst and cynicism because of the following passage about Cora, “…but it was more than that: she was aces at spirit magic, her family had a really long tradition of it, and she had clearly thought–and probably still did–that I was carrying some kind of unpleasant baggage on mine.” We’re frequently reminded that there’s something disturbing about El’s presence, i.e. Aadhya telling her that ‘she feels like it’s going to rain’ in book 1, and not only to wizards but mundanes as well.
And this brings me back to the maw mouth as a possible source of malaise rather than El’s own interpretation of it being the result of the principle of balance, ‘Everybody loves Mum, so it’s only right that they should hate me.’. What a hellish burden to foist onto a child, if that’s really how magic works the world would be better off without it.
But that’s the thing about this magic system, it’s so dependent on expectations and beliefs that perhaps it isn’t a ‘system’ at all, maybe it’s just a convenient myth created by the powerful, like the Social Darwinism that seems to be the Scholomance’s underlying philosophy. Maybe what El will wind up doing is changing the narrative, and thus the way magic works.
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Agreed.
Except that the implication of the sowing and reaping metaphor is that the reaping is an outgrowth of the sowing, in other words–the destruction is a direct outgrowth of inciting the wrath. There have certainly been attempts to destroy El out of fury–Liesl’s comes to mind–but has anyone succeeded? I don’t recall it if so. Which suggests that this will happen in the next book–someone else, or multiple people/entities, will wreak destruction on El because her actions incited them to wrath.
Yes, I think that’s not over yet, at least as far as “cast down enclaves,” because leveling the playing field has been such a strong theme thus far that it is clearly not over. If the school’s fate is part of it, then it’s only the beginning. And I love your idea that it might also refer to her plans (via the sutras) for the future.
However, with the addition of “level the sheltering walls,” do you think the two actions have to be connected, or do you think it’s possible that the mirror is referring to something separate–that they are two separate things? Because other than the fact that enclaves have walls, I see nothing to suggest that they are two parts of the same act.
I agree on this too. I would like to think that there’s something more to this than just a reference to the dorms because if it is that seems like a bit of a cheat. Dorms aren’t really homes. Especially at the Scholomance. But on the other hand, I can’t see El making children homeless, can you?
That’s a great point. I had thought the disturbing nature of El’s presence is the nature of her magic, the fact that she is by nature a dark sorceress, even if by choice and dint of effort she is something else. But you’re right, it doesn’t have to be that.
But..if El was infected or affected by the maw-mouth as an embryo, wouldn’t Gwen sense it? I mean, given the kind of magic Gwen has, if not Gwen, who?
(I have seen speculation that El will somehow rescue her father from inside of Patience but it seems unlikely.)
Thanks for this Janine and Jennie! I ran across your very interesting review and discussion when looking up the possible release date for Book 3 in this series (arggghhhh…the Book 2 cliffhanger!) I have been thinking about you two recently since I re-read MWT’s Thief series and then The Lymond Chronicles over the last few months (I’m trying to get back into reading more lately after a lengthy hiatus). I will have fun exploring the books that you both have recommended over the past couple of years.
But..if El was infected or affected by the maw-mouth as an embryo, wouldn’t Gwen sense it? I mean, given the kind of magic Gwen has, if not Gwen, who?
This may be the reason for Gwen’s particular parenting style and strict-mana adherence as an effort to save her child. We haven’t actually met Gwen yet, and the only details we know about her are El’s recollections, which may not tell the whole story. This is after all a first-person narrative, and as such may not always be ‘reliable’.
@Elle: Elle! Are you the Elle who was on a Yahoo book club in the mid-2000s? The one that Sherryfair and a few others were on? If so email me! janineballard@gmail. I’ve missed you!
@Elle: Oh, gosh! I loved The Lymond Chronicles back in the day but I don’t know that I have it in me to read them again!
@Jennie: I actually started to listen to The Game of Kings as an audiobook (*challenging* with all the untranslated Latin, French and Spanish bits!) on a long drive but then dove into the actual books when I got home. I finished the whole series in a little more than a week. The experience was somewhat different since I remembered the main plot points of course, but I still really loved the books.
@Erasmus: Good point!
I loved The Last Graduate so much. I love the scope of it, how many people are allowed to be smart and good and how even the ones who aren’t are still worth saving. ♥♥♥
@taiey: I agree; there’s a real moral complexity to the characters that you don’t necessarily see in this type of book often.
One small note about the irony of El’s familiar being “Precious”: it’s not just that the name is cutesy, it’s another Lord of the Rings reference — what did Gollum call the Ring?
@David Goldfarb: Ooh, good point.
@David Goldfarb: It is a great point – wouldn’t have occurred to me, since I’m not much of an LOTR person.
@David Goldfarb: ‘Bless us and splash us.’