just hunter things.

YES YES YES YES YESSSSSSSS

I'm due for a re-read, so I'll stick to some non-spoilery and big picture stuff since I'm spotty on details. For the sake of saying it, I was raised Catholic, went to Catholic school, and I'm not Catholic now, so when I say these are Catholic themes, this is stuff I was explicitly taught. I'm not sure if some of these made it whole-cloth into mainline Protestant teachings, but I suspect some of them did.

A ship of space colonists due to terraform an earth-like planet end up somewhere else by mistake. The planet is actively hostile to them on a fundamental level, and they quickly figure out that their thoughts and feelings influence the planet's energy. They end up, when the book starts, with a monotheistic patriarchal church structure with a strict hierarchy of priests and a Representative of God on the Planet as well as an obsession with the importance of the Rituals they have traditionally observed with no deviations. I saw this at 13 years old and immediately understood that this is Roman Catholicism. In space.

I will skip the whole thing about sacrifice that I mentioned in the meme because I swear to god that sometimes I think she wrote this whole series to monologue about the contrast between "good" sacrifice versus "bad" sacrifice. You will hear enough about it if you actually read it.

In no particular order or importance, here are some other Very Catholic Concepts you can chew on in these books.

The concept that if you know something is sinful and you choose to do it anyway (which is different that not knowing or not understanding), that intentionally sinning puts you on kind of "slippery slope" to additional sins. I remember having to sit through an actual play in Catholic school about intentionally choosing to, like, underage drink made it easier to make a bad decision the next time, etc etc. There's definitely page space devoted to this idea that there's sort of a single Very Bad Decision made intentionally to defy God and it operates as sort of an Original Sin in miniature that everything else they do badly originates from.

The very very Catholic concept of Church = Community = Good, with the flip side being that Separateness = Bad. The concept that it's not just important to attend church and be actively working in your community, but that you have to interact with Church structures and Church hierarchy to reap any real benefits. I was, for example, never taught that Hell is a lake of fire or 17 demons whipping you, that Hell is a Separation From God. That you can't be a good person and not doing works of service, but you also can't be a good person without interacting with the church hierachy.

I can't remember if this has some Latin phrase to go with it, but the concept that nature on its own isn't inherently good or benevolent or even neutral. That since man is "superior" to the other animals and items in nature, that "civilizing" wilderness is a net good.

I think it's what's interesting about the series.

You can read it and go, "Wow! Cool Sword and wolves with hands for crimes!" and have fun.

You can read it and go, "Wow! I am so turned on by the concept of a monster barely leashed by a last immutable kernel of humanity remaining and I need him to torture me and kill me" and have fun.

You can read it and go, "Is this so powerfully latently homosexual because Catholicism is so misogynistic that its inevitable state is gay shit, or because she was trying to impart a coherent message about chastity and the priesthood and it simply did not work?" and have fun.

You can read it and go, "Are the Iezu supposed to be Nephilim-coded?" and have fun.

You can read it and go, "Do you think the bro Code on Erna says if you use magic to repair their internal organs that you're supposed to subtly enhance their dick and balls, too? Cause that's what friends are for, right?" and have fun.

But I suspect if you have zero experience with Catholicism, you will find some of the plot points inexplicable.

Over the weekend, for example, I made a post about Nightborn (the prequel book that I mostly disliked) and some plot point I disagreed with to discover that it's pretty neatly accounted for by City of God, which Saint Augustine finished in 426 CE. And it's making me reconsider Nightborn as a whole.

YES YES YES YES YESSSSSSSS

I'm due for a re-read, so I'll stick to some non-spoilery and big picture stuff since I'm spotty on details. For the sake of saying it, I was raised Catholic, went to Catholic school, and I'm not Catholic now, so when I say these are Catholic themes, this is stuff I was explicitly taught. I'm not sure if some of these made it whole-cloth into mainline Protestant teachings, but I suspect some of them did.

A ship of space colonists due to terraform an earth-like planet end up somewhere else by mistake. The planet is actively hostile to them on a fundamental level, and they quickly figure out that their thoughts and feelings influence the planet's energy. They end up, when the book starts, with a monotheistic patriarchal church structure with a strict hierarchy of priests and a Representative of God on the Planet as well as an obsession with the importance of the Rituals they have traditionally observed with no deviations. I saw this at 13 years old and immediately understood that this is Roman Catholicism. In space.

I will skip the whole thing about sacrifice that I mentioned in the meme because I swear to god that sometimes I think she wrote this whole series to monologue about the contrast between "good" sacrifice versus "bad" sacrifice. You will hear enough about it if you actually read it.

In no particular order or importance, here are some other Very Catholic Concepts you can chew on in these books.

The concept that if you know something is sinful and you choose to do it anyway (which is different that not knowing or not understanding), that intentionally sinning puts you on kind of "slippery slope" to additional sins. I remember having to sit through an actual play in Catholic school about intentionally choosing to, like, underage drink made it easier to make a bad decision the next time, etc etc. There's definitely page space devoted to this idea that there's sort of a single Very Bad Decision made intentionally to defy God and it operates as sort of an Original Sin in miniature that everything else they do badly originates from.

The very very Catholic concept of Church = Community = Good, with the flip side being that Separateness = Bad. The concept that it's not just important to attend church and be actively working in your community, but that you have to interact with Church structures and Church hierarchy to reap any real benefits. I was, for example, never taught that Hell is a lake of fire or 17 demons whipping you, that Hell is a Separation From God. That you can't be a good person and not doing works of service, but you also can't be a good person without interacting with the church hierachy.

I can't remember if this has some Latin phrase to go with it, but the concept that nature on its own isn't inherently good or benevolent or even neutral. That since man is "superior" to the other animals and items in nature, that "civilizing" wilderness is a net good.

I think it's what's interesting about the series.

You can read it and go, "Wow! Cool Sword and wolves with hands for crimes!" and have fun.

You can read it and go, "Wow! I am so turned on by the concept of a monster barely leashed by a last immutable kernel of humanity remaining and I need him to torture me and kill me" and have fun.

You can read it and go, "Is this so powerfully latently homosexual because Catholicism is so misogynistic that its inevitable state is gay shit, or because she was trying to impart a coherent message about chastity and the priesthood and it simply did not work?" and have fun.

You can read it and go, "Are the Iezu supposed to be Nephilim-coded?" and have fun.

You can read it and go, "Do you think the bro Code on Erna says if you use magic to repair their internal organs that you're supposed to subtly enhance their dick and balls, too? Cause that's what friends are for, right?" and have fun.

I suspect it's supposed to be about how Tarrant can only be hot in an unnatural way because he's unnatural and he can stay clean and perfect and primped because there are no life processes whatsoever to sully him. A kind of metaphorical sterile field.

I think it finally occurred to me in 2019 or so that literally nobody is going to read these books based on my recommendation, so there’s no point in writing why people should read the books or about what makes them unique or interesting or profound or whatever. I should focus on having fun and doing whatever I want.

“This series has a really interesting analysis of hubris and corruption and really neat worldbuilding that makes its magic system super unique.”

I get maybe 2 notes (You, and Alex if he’s not busy), zero fun had.

“Do you think they just stole his dick clean off when he did the ritual? He doesn’t piss and he doesn’t have sex so he doesn’t need it, right? Is he just an unholy Ken Doll nub? Is THAT the mark of the contract? You think Amoril makes fun of him about it? Did he get his dick back at the end? When Damien fixed his mitral valve, did he surreptitiously just give him another inch of girth? That's Bro Code shit on Erna right? If you have to replace my organs, bro, you have to do my meat too?"

Also