Does anyone else feel like almost all of the conflicts that had to do with the various character dynamics in Chain of Thorns didnβt actually get resolved, they just unexplainably ceased to exist after two books of building them up because CC didnβt feel like writing them anymore and she didnβt know how to resolve it naturally after how sheβd built the issues up so much?
Like how none of the characters but Cordelia and Thomas had any clue about the Alastair and Charles situation and then suddenly in CoT it was like who doesnβt know? Of course Matthew knew and didnβt say anything before and then randomly brought it up to Cordelia in Paris while assuming she knew too
Or how Alastair and Thomas went from how things were at the end of CoI with Alastair thinking it could never work because Thomasβs friends hate him to oh look everyone suddenly is friends with Alastair with no grudge with no development of that in this book at all, just an abrupt shift
Especially the Alastair and Matthew dynamic where Matthew hated Alastair and wanted him to have nothing to do with any of their friends and he spent CoI ranting about him to Cordelia. And then suddenly in CoT itβs like of course Matthew is supportive of Thomas and Alastair and oh look Matthew and Alastair are suddenly not just tolerating each other for Thomasβs sake but friends despite barely interacting and no development actually showing and never getting any mention of the other in their own οΏΌPOVs, just having Cordelia be like Alastair stop being dumb, youβre literally friends with him now
Or like everyone other than Christopher and Grace where it was like oh we donβt like her for how sheβs treated us and her friends straight to anyway sheβs one of us. Like yes Grace was useful and yes Tatiana manipulated her whole life, but none of that was why anyone changed their minds or opinions? It was just suddenly the flip of a switch when it was convenient for CC
Or Anna and Ariadne where it didnβt so much develop as Anna just acted mean to Ariadne on and off throughout the series and at the end of CoI she wanted nothing to do with a relationship and then in CoT she was just suddenly like sure I guess I do. Also, slightly different note, but I did not like that Anna barely interacted with anyone else for the entire book and she was just off in the corner being an irrelevant romantic subplot for almost all of the book except when she showed up to barely even be shown in the background being sad about her brother being dead
(Although Anna still got more of a reaction than everyone else and his death was poorly executed all around in the sense of how did you write this so predictably and poorly that no one even knows when he died and itβs so background and 99% of the characters donβt care at all and we donβt see his parents finding out or much of Thomasβs reaction or anything and itβs just as if he wasnβt a character anymore 2 seconds later which is a different genre of issue with CoT but similar problem in the sense that both issues made the book feel a lot more emotionless to read)
And how the issues of Thomas and Alastair being together as two men and Anna and Ariadne being together as two women in this time and the issues of what would happen if the fact that Charles and Alastair were gay got out to the entire Clave just disappeared and never got addressed at all. We know how the ClVe reacted to Alec Lightwood YEARS later. We know society was homophobic at the time TLH is set and that it seems like shadowhunter society was a lot less open-minded than mundanes a century later
I understand that Charles being blackmailed and making shitty decisions was annoying but it was like suddenly everyone finding out wouldnβt have consequences and all the other queer men characters were like how could you possibly be worried about this :/ as if they havenβt spent the whole series knowing they have to be careful about who they tell. And then suddenly it was just of course itβs totally fine and safe to have everyone find out and why wouldnβt you be fine with that. And it was really written in a way that had other queer characters like oh Charles is such a coward for not being ready to publicly tell a bunch of homophobic people his sexuality and it just wasnβt it??? And super weird after Thomas was terrified of telling even Anna and Matthew for years. And also, I did not care for the fact that when Charles did go risk getting outed to finally do the right thing, we didnβt even get to see it through any characterβs perspective or how that important meeting went, we just got one line of dialogue from somebody else saying that it happened with no details at all. And I canβt think of other examples right now but there were quite a few moments like that where we got one line saying that something had happened that was important to the plot and to charactersβ development that seemed like it would have been more interesting than some of what we did get to see where it was just totally breezed over and way too easy and totally background to less important stuff
And then there was the whole no one reacting to Ariadne and Anna dancing together publicly thing was like yeah thatβs nice I guess but not realistic and it doesnβt go with the way things have been presented up to that point, it also just feels like a situation where CC was like well this would be easier for me so there just wonβt be consequences and then they can easily end up happily together
And then there was the whole Thomas and Alastair thinking they couldnβt realistically be together thing and knowing they couldnβt get married or be known to be together by anyone theyβre not close to and then at the end itβs still not really addressed how theyβre going to be together? Like there was the laziest write off of the family tree being wrong and then we still are just left to assume that eventually they move in together and suddenly itβs not a problem and everyoneβs fine with it? And then I also feel like we donβt actually know if everyone found out about Alastair and Charlesβ sexualities after the blackmail or if people are going to assume about Thomas and Alastair or if thatβll cause issues or if no one knows outside of who theyβve told and they have to be careful or what. Which like wouldnβt necessarily need to be addressed if it wasnβt for the logistics of being together as two men in that time being part of the obstacle that they were struggling with being in their way and then it felt like it was totally forgotten to even be one at the end by CC
Idk like Iβd love to think they just lived in a world where homophobia didnβt exist but it felt like homophobia was a plot point when CC wanted it to be an inconvenience and then suddenly disappeared just to make her writing easier the moment she didnβt want it there anymore instead of actually addressing the plots she raised with it if that makes sense?
And sorry, I really did not mean to go on a rant this long. And maybe everyone else had a very different reading experience than I did and other people donβt agree with some or all of this. I personally am just very confused about how the book was almost 800 pages long and it felt like so much of the development in it was us abruptly being told that development had happened rather than actually getting to see it and how so many of the issues were abruptly solved in an I donβt want to write this issue anymore kind of way rather than anything actually needing to be worked at outside of the Belial situation
Edit: You know what, I mentioned it in my tags but I feel like itβs annoying enough to put in the body of the post and make it even longer. What the fuck was with everyone outing or potentially outing everyone else just so that characters could openly talk about the queer characters and tell them to do what they want them to? Why did Matthew out his brother multiple times? Like yes, the people he said it to coincidentally already knew, but he didnβt know that. And why was Thomas outing Alastair? The straights got to keep their secrets as long as they wanted and fix their problems more naturally. Why did I have to sit through queer characters constantly having their sexualities and romantic histories to everyone else when they clearly had not okayed it? Why were the queer characters doing so much of the outing? Why were people who cared about them and knew what it felt like to be afraid of the wrong person finding out just broadcasting their sexualities to make it easier for CC to breeze past development to have their things get resolved fast? Why did no character have an issue with it at all?
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