i don't know

and i don't point this out to talk down on anyone who's thought this—it is, after all, an extremely common trope of the genre, and most often i hear it from people who haven't gotten far in enough to see the story touch on these themes—but in fact one of the biggest reasons i'm so compelled by this story is because that concept is so completely out of the question.

this is a story that presents you, right out the gate, with a hard line— and then does everything in its power to force you to confront it. the integrity of the pact is challenged relentlessly by the story and its characters. "you will sit down, and lose hope in brighter futures (like saving coco's mom) without crossing the line, and you will empathize with people who have suffered terrible injustice because of the line, and you'll watch faithful enforcers of the line break down as their worldview is shattered before their eyes, and you will question that damned line Or So Help Me God," the story says.

so why would there be such a line, baked right into the world itself?

despite the medium of choice, nothing in this story is black and white. every single part of it lives in shades of gray. there is no such thing, strictly speaking, as "witches" and "non-witches." spells of healing and harm are cast with the same sigils. the knights' ability to enforce the pact at all hinges singly upon the very same magic it forbids.

there is no higher being, no "natural order of the world" to meter out punishment for crossing some fixed line of morality—of "good" and "bad" magic. the consequences wrought by a spell are only determined exactly by how that spell was designed and how it is used—whether with the intent to cause harm or as a result of ignorance.

olruggio's phantasmal fireball is a completely normal, non-forbidden spell designed with only the best of intentions, which also has the capacity to cause great harm incidentally. qifrey says it pretty plainly:

the concept of star-eating microbes causing a crisis and the solution being the introduction of space wolves to space yellowstone to control the space elk population. i love a good trophic cascade

dr ryland grace immediately pitching "turn the spaceship into a giant centrifuge to generate gravity" and then not balancing his actual centrifuge later on

the entire "life is reason" scene really

grace forgetting to open the mystery alien container in a fume hood AND immediately sticking his nose in it. if we did this in chemistry lab we were executed on the spot

academia drama being one of the cornerstones of grace's character

grace switching through every spectrum setting on the microscope to try to see into the astrophages and not being able to (relatable)

also: the astrophage dying and grace going "ohhh it died..." (very relatable)

grace having his not-scientist buddy Carl to give him frank solutions when he's overthinking. yes, often the solution is just to put the box in another box

copious duct tape usage

just sticking a filter into the path of the petrova line to collect astrophage goop

eva going "so it's alive" when grace tells them the astrophage are moving, and him being like "WELL ok that could be for a lot of reasons" in the tone of someone who doesn't even know where to start explaining why that's a hasty assumption

grace referring to the first new astrophage as his and carl's baby multiple times (HIGHLY relatable)

Recently I started the webcomic Unsounded since physical copies were recently released of the first two books and I tend to do better reading physical books. Comics are not usually my medium of choice so I wasn't sure how I would like it going in but I can say that I really enjoyed reading this first book and will be continuing my read online until the next books come out!

Anyways, here are some of my first thoughts/notes I took while reading. I will say I have some spoilers of the later chapters but nothing I can get a clear picture of. Some of these things might be "wrong" and explained in later chapters, but I wanted to preserve some of my first predictions/notions here!