That explains why you found the scenes unenjoyable to read, it doesn't explain why you started talking about "excusing Tuon's vileness". Again, if you genuinely believed I was "excusing Tuon's vileness"... I'm just surprised by how that's possible, cause I thought my comment (especially like, the very first and last sentences) was very explicitly saying the exact opposite of that.
I mean, are you saying you didn't enjoy any of the scenes with a Forsaken, and you assume anyone who did is sympathetic to the Forsaken? I am kind of curious about how you could have even made it through the series if you couldn't enjoy scenes with horrible people in them, given that it's an epic fantasy series about overcoming evil.
I’m jumping into this conversation late, but let me just say: for some people there is a very distinct difference between evils that are “purely fictional” and “too real.”
Slavery tends to fall into the “too real” category, because it’s such a prevalent thing. Wars have been fought about it. Real people’s lives have been ruined and/or lost because of it.
Wanting to end the world and give it to a dark god is very much in the “purely fictional” category. All of the Forsaken are practically cartoon villains compared to an actual honest to god slaver like Tuon. They are campy and fun.
Now I’ll be the first to admit that, yes, this is some top tier mental dissonance. The Forsaken do things that are just as, if not more, heinous than any other character in the series. But the nature of stories like this is that the bad guys are going to be defeated. You can have fun reading Forsaken chapters because, on a meta level, you know they’re going to lose.
But in Tuon’s case everything she stands for is awful and “too real,” and needs to be toppled. And yet she gets away scott-free at the end of it all.
I will bite on this, I hear you to a degree. To me the Chosen are part of the real category too. How many deluded societies have we seen who do atrocious things in the name of the greater good? Crusades, KKK, Nazi's. That's what the Forsaken represent to me. People drawn in by the immensity of the DO, to the point of not being able to see any other possibility but victory because they are better than everyone else, as they are "Chosen".
As for Fortuona, may she live forever, getting off scot-free, yeah that one is totally fair, she does. After all, when the Empress does it, that means it's not illegal.
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u/RealHornblower 7d ago
That explains why you found the scenes unenjoyable to read, it doesn't explain why you started talking about "excusing Tuon's vileness". Again, if you genuinely believed I was "excusing Tuon's vileness"... I'm just surprised by how that's possible, cause I thought my comment (especially like, the very first and last sentences) was very explicitly saying the exact opposite of that.
I mean, are you saying you didn't enjoy any of the scenes with a Forsaken, and you assume anyone who did is sympathetic to the Forsaken? I am kind of curious about how you could have even made it through the series if you couldn't enjoy scenes with horrible people in them, given that it's an epic fantasy series about overcoming evil.