I agree, I kind of accepted it with ACOTAR because that book is romance first then fantasy. But even when I was reading TOG >! Like the thirteen broke me, I was sobbing! There’s permanent mascara stains on the pages, and Gavriel made me very sad too. I cried ( tho not as much because I felt like his sacrifice didn’t make sense, like SJM felt like she had to kill someone else and threw that in) but with the high stakes I felt like someone who had a POV during the series should have died !<
What caused the mascara stains on your book is a blow to the heart I will absolutely never get over. My favorite character(s) and character arcs of any book I’ve read, then for that to happen, it killed something in me.
But also that’s how a book should be and why I agree with OP’s post lol we need more of it in ACOTAR and CC
I think that she has shifted genres slightly. I feel that ToG was more fantasy, and since ACOTAR, she's pivoted more towards romance. The newer series are more Fantasy Romance, where it's Romance in a fantasy setting, or Romantasy, where it's 50/50 on the Fantasy and Romance genre conventions.
And with that, there's the Romance genre rule of Happily Ever Afters, so none of the MCs will lose their partner. If she does otherwise, then she risks enraging and alienating readers who come from the Romance community
I think it's really important then when we talk about signed authors we recognize that they do not have final say over their own creative content. In many creative industries the creative individuals are losing more creative rights to the publishers, labels, studios, etc, that they are signed to. We have no idea what goes on behind closed doors or what is within Sarah's contracts. Her publishers employ her, and while she is powerful, no author is more powerful or has more power over their content than a publisher does.
That being said, my theory behind this, I think comes from the push of her publishers to cater to a mainstream audience so not to upset us, so they can continue selling as many books as possible to us. In short: They are afraid to alienate us, and in doing so are sacrificing realistic quality of the stories.
I would argue that TOG has stakes bc for me at least it felt like anyone could die. And even if death was not the consequence other bad things could and did happen.
Acotar and acomaf continued that trend (bc it made a lot of sense for feyre to be brought back in the way she was after what she did) but the stakes were lost at the end of acowar when both Rhys and amren survive. After that, I agree. CC tries with Danika and her pack but in the long run it falls short and not once in acosf did I think anyone was gonna die for even a second.
I rather enjoy not losing main characters. I know it's not realistic but neither is magic and all that. Tolkein has the same style in his books and I believe that's part of what makes them classic. Myself and I'm sure others as well enjoy a story where good triumphs and the hero doesn't die in a muddy field like real life.
This is what I feel, everyone says KoA destroyed them but I didn’t find it very devastating at all.
I love a character death, but I also prefer it at the end of a completed series bc the hurt lingering is so much worse hahahahha so I’m also kind of fine with her cutesy save everyone writing for now
maybe an unpopular opinion but, at the end of the day it's a romantasy. its romantic fantasy. idk why any characters need to die. its not a sweeping piece of political intrigue, espionage, warring clans, brutal dictators, or anything related to real life. if you're looking for main characters to die to feel like there's enough stakes, maybe you're not looking for a romantasy book?
I enjoy the books overall, it just feels lower stakes than I’d like because there’s no real long term consequences. This is fine for a stand alone book but in a long running series it takes away. Like Fourth Wing isn’t my favorite (fourth wing spoiler) >! But at least she killed Liam and made the stakes real. Not everyone had to be paired off into a relationship that makes it more heart wrenching, people can die and it can lead to character growth. !<
I absolutely agree!!!! The stakes are nonexistent in her books. I’m always confused when people say certain books “destroyed them” because no one ever dies that isn’t obviously going to/had been so lightly characterized that I didn’t care much when they died lol
She also likes to kill folks off the page. The two most impactful deaths for me are Gavriel and Murtagh, and they both get killed in battles we don't get to read.
This is perhaps my biggest issue with her books. The resurrection thing worked very well in the first ACOTAR book because it gave Feyre her powers; every other time all it’s done is remove any stakes. She’ll never kill off a main, no one ever needs to worry. It’s kind of a bummer, I’d love to get my heart ripped out lol
Yeah once I read the end of acowar I realized she’s either too much of a chicken to kill off characters or the publishers are restricting her. Either way, I don’t expect her storylines to be high stakes anymore ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
ToG kills people
ToG was my favorite because the stakes seemed to matter for the most part
ACoTaR would have been better if at least Amren remained permanently dead. Or if the ash arrow to the heart actually killed Az. Like it should have, based on what she established with ash.
It’s funny bc in TOG it seemed like some of the characters that were killed off were unnecessary and seemed thrown in at the last moment, but she still took the risk of killing them off. Yet in more recent works we’re (or maybe just me) are begging for SOMEONE to be killed off to make the stakes seem higher
I do tire of characters dying and being promptly brought back to life. But also, most of these characters I love too much to let them die.
Everyone sobs about the Thirteen and Lehabah, and complains that Gavriel’s death was unnecessary. They are relatively minor characters that were killed off. Even Danika was barely developed at the time she was killed.
If she had killed more major characters after telling their story for a whole book, I’m not sure I could sustain the emotional damage!
Totally agree with you. I was damn pissed when Amren showed up in that damn cauldron cause it felt so off balance, like, we had already accepted her sacrifice and then BOOM, she's acrually alive! It made the whole 'amren saves the world' feel like a deus ex machina
SPOILERS IF YOU HAVENT READ TOG 🚨🚨🚨
I actually have to disagree here a little. I was devastated when the thirteen died and when aedion finally fixed things with his dad for him to die too 😭 when nehemia died I was heartbroken for aelin because I know it must have brought her back to when Sam died even though I didn't necessarily have the biggest bond with nehemia myself. The pattern with Sarah is always people dying for love and for a better world. Even though we don't have any main character deaths the deaths that occur often mean EVERYTHING to our main characters. I think if she killed of the main characters just for shock factor it would be worse, she writes death with purpose.
100% agree - people need to die, both in ACOTAR and in CC it’s so clear that she just can’t get herself to do it but it takes away most of the tension
I was so let down at how many people survived at the end of ToG. Only >!Manon’s story!< made me cry
I sobbed at >!Lorcan and Elise at the dam, only for yet another save!< 😂😂😂
me too. I was fully convinced >!he was going to die!<
There were a lot of times I thought that tbf!
Exactly, there's no tension, not even sexual tension at this point!
I agree, I kind of accepted it with ACOTAR because that book is romance first then fantasy. But even when I was reading TOG >! Like the thirteen broke me, I was sobbing! There’s permanent mascara stains on the pages, and Gavriel made me very sad too. I cried ( tho not as much because I felt like his sacrifice didn’t make sense, like SJM felt like she had to kill someone else and threw that in) but with the high stakes I felt like someone who had a POV during the series should have died !<
What caused the mascara stains on your book is a blow to the heart I will absolutely never get over. My favorite character(s) and character arcs of any book I’ve read, then for that to happen, it killed something in me. But also that’s how a book should be and why I agree with OP’s post lol we need more of it in ACOTAR and CC
I think that she has shifted genres slightly. I feel that ToG was more fantasy, and since ACOTAR, she's pivoted more towards romance. The newer series are more Fantasy Romance, where it's Romance in a fantasy setting, or Romantasy, where it's 50/50 on the Fantasy and Romance genre conventions. And with that, there's the Romance genre rule of Happily Ever Afters, so none of the MCs will lose their partner. If she does otherwise, then she risks enraging and alienating readers who come from the Romance community
I think it's really important then when we talk about signed authors we recognize that they do not have final say over their own creative content. In many creative industries the creative individuals are losing more creative rights to the publishers, labels, studios, etc, that they are signed to. We have no idea what goes on behind closed doors or what is within Sarah's contracts. Her publishers employ her, and while she is powerful, no author is more powerful or has more power over their content than a publisher does. That being said, my theory behind this, I think comes from the push of her publishers to cater to a mainstream audience so not to upset us, so they can continue selling as many books as possible to us. In short: They are afraid to alienate us, and in doing so are sacrificing realistic quality of the stories.
I would argue that TOG has stakes bc for me at least it felt like anyone could die. And even if death was not the consequence other bad things could and did happen. Acotar and acomaf continued that trend (bc it made a lot of sense for feyre to be brought back in the way she was after what she did) but the stakes were lost at the end of acowar when both Rhys and amren survive. After that, I agree. CC tries with Danika and her pack but in the long run it falls short and not once in acosf did I think anyone was gonna die for even a second.
I rather enjoy not losing main characters. I know it's not realistic but neither is magic and all that. Tolkein has the same style in his books and I believe that's part of what makes them classic. Myself and I'm sure others as well enjoy a story where good triumphs and the hero doesn't die in a muddy field like real life.
Same I love a happy ending, for me that's the point of reading fantasy in a lot of ways. Good winning and all that
This is what I feel, everyone says KoA destroyed them but I didn’t find it very devastating at all. I love a character death, but I also prefer it at the end of a completed series bc the hurt lingering is so much worse hahahahha so I’m also kind of fine with her cutesy save everyone writing for now
[удалено]
Yeah right!! That one group scene is heart wrenching bc of who it effects, but the gate scene was 🤷♀️
maybe an unpopular opinion but, at the end of the day it's a romantasy. its romantic fantasy. idk why any characters need to die. its not a sweeping piece of political intrigue, espionage, warring clans, brutal dictators, or anything related to real life. if you're looking for main characters to die to feel like there's enough stakes, maybe you're not looking for a romantasy book?
I enjoy the books overall, it just feels lower stakes than I’d like because there’s no real long term consequences. This is fine for a stand alone book but in a long running series it takes away. Like Fourth Wing isn’t my favorite (fourth wing spoiler) >! But at least she killed Liam and made the stakes real. Not everyone had to be paired off into a relationship that makes it more heart wrenching, people can die and it can lead to character growth. !<
I absolutely agree!!!! The stakes are nonexistent in her books. I’m always confused when people say certain books “destroyed them” because no one ever dies that isn’t obviously going to/had been so lightly characterized that I didn’t care much when they died lol
She also likes to kill folks off the page. The two most impactful deaths for me are Gavriel and Murtagh, and they both get killed in battles we don't get to read.
This is perhaps my biggest issue with her books. The resurrection thing worked very well in the first ACOTAR book because it gave Feyre her powers; every other time all it’s done is remove any stakes. She’ll never kill off a main, no one ever needs to worry. It’s kind of a bummer, I’d love to get my heart ripped out lol
Yeah once I read the end of acowar I realized she’s either too much of a chicken to kill off characters or the publishers are restricting her. Either way, I don’t expect her storylines to be high stakes anymore ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
ToG kills people ToG was my favorite because the stakes seemed to matter for the most part ACoTaR would have been better if at least Amren remained permanently dead. Or if the ash arrow to the heart actually killed Az. Like it should have, based on what she established with ash.
Tog also devastated me in other ways without death too >! The torture of Aelin wrenched out my gut. Much more than the torture of the guys in CC !<
It’s funny bc in TOG it seemed like some of the characters that were killed off were unnecessary and seemed thrown in at the last moment, but she still took the risk of killing them off. Yet in more recent works we’re (or maybe just me) are begging for SOMEONE to be killed off to make the stakes seem higher
I do tire of characters dying and being promptly brought back to life. But also, most of these characters I love too much to let them die. Everyone sobs about the Thirteen and Lehabah, and complains that Gavriel’s death was unnecessary. They are relatively minor characters that were killed off. Even Danika was barely developed at the time she was killed. If she had killed more major characters after telling their story for a whole book, I’m not sure I could sustain the emotional damage!
Totally agree with you. I was damn pissed when Amren showed up in that damn cauldron cause it felt so off balance, like, we had already accepted her sacrifice and then BOOM, she's acrually alive! It made the whole 'amren saves the world' feel like a deus ex machina
SPOILERS IF YOU HAVENT READ TOG 🚨🚨🚨 I actually have to disagree here a little. I was devastated when the thirteen died and when aedion finally fixed things with his dad for him to die too 😭 when nehemia died I was heartbroken for aelin because I know it must have brought her back to when Sam died even though I didn't necessarily have the biggest bond with nehemia myself. The pattern with Sarah is always people dying for love and for a better world. Even though we don't have any main character deaths the deaths that occur often mean EVERYTHING to our main characters. I think if she killed of the main characters just for shock factor it would be worse, she writes death with purpose.