Mare Barrow (hiatus)

Part 1

Here’s a short video

On Sunday, Victoria Aveyard answered questions by fans at the Frankfurt Book Fair and I took some notes (not in chronological order):

(She asked to keep the questions spoiler free for every potential new reader. Also, she laughed all the time, she wasn’t dead-serious about anything.)

Broken Throne will include the two prequel novellas, two novellas taking place after War Storm, and one taking place during WS in another location with other characters. There’s more “nerdy stuff”/worldbuilding to be found too (note: as was announced by the publisher recently)

Her new series will be young adult fantasy that will come out in 2020. There isn’t a draft yet, but she knows where it starts and where it will finish.

Mare is the most like her, although not in every aspect. She’s short like Aveyard to show the anger short people often feel at life. In a movie though, Mare doesn’t necessarily have to be short. She only wishes Mare to be mixed-raced and to resemble/be able to reflect her personality with her determination and doubt and flaws. The movie is in planning, but not certain to happen.

Farley is inspired by her best friend who also encouraged her to continue writing RQ when she needed it. She asked Aveyard, “You made me into a terrorist? And you cut my hair??”

Mare, Eve and Maven are the characters she respects/admires the most while Cal can be “more like a brick”. But it also depends on the scene which character she loves most. She loves how Eve and how she’s viewed by the audience has changed.

She enjoyed writing Cameron since she calls out the other characters who can be up their own heads (eg. Mare and Cal). Maven is the most interesting (and difficult) to write, but she always knew who he is, where he comes from and where he’s going.

She wouldn’t change the ending regarding any “backlash” she’s receiving. She doesn’t see it as backlash, really, since she always knew she’d never be able to please everyone and rather is happy to evoke so many different emotions in her audience. (note: as frustrating as that can be for a reader, I respect that a lot in writer) She likes to “mess” with us.

She tries to make every death meaningful; it should hurt like George RR Martin has hurt her.

She chose lightning as Mare’s ability since she had this idea about a girl going to be executed who saves herself with lightning, but also because lightning is very destructive and very visual.

Coming from screenwriting, she’s generally a very visual writer. She’s been writing fan fiction since middle school, but chose to study screenwriting in case she wasn’t good enough for an actual book. Now, she tries to merge the techniques of both styles. Often, she starts with one idea and tries to build the story around it.

RQ is inspired by historical rulers/dictators as “history repeats itself”. However, fantasy literature shouldn’t shy away including from political themes.

The blood is Silver because is looks cool. She also wanted to turn around the idea of mutants with superpowers being outcasts like in X-Men since she believes they’d try to take power.

If she were in RQ, she’d be an oblivious Red without an ability, not getting involved in anything (note: I kinda doubt that ;-))

If people ask Aveyard a question like this, they expect her to answer, and we can’t blame her for giving an answer. But in the end, what counts are her books since those are available to every reader. I do not think Cal, Farley or Cameron are written as lesser in the books, but are seeing their personal strengths stressed and considered (while Cameron doesn’t get enough attention in WS, sadly). Hell, Aveyard always says Farley is based on her best friend who encouraged her to keep writing RQ in the first place! Which she also said in the inteview above - of course Farley is important to her too! But it’s always the fandom who ignores Farley for the sake of Eve, so I do not understand why I should blame Aveyard, who wrote an awesome feminist icon, when the fandom don’t give enough attention to her or Cameron. You don’t have to like every character or create content with everyone, but still none of that is @vaveyard‘s fault. Not to even talk about the whole Cal and Maven discourse. Ladies! Please, we all talk too much about those two, if you ask me. Is it really necessary we still have to quarrel over who is better, or whose fans are, when the story is over and we could just as well enjoy the things we like about the series?

While I have no problems with the Marecal ending, I agree that the Cal arc isn’t convincing. War Storm has issues and I think it really would’ve benefitted from more editing, meaning a later release. WS is a very long book, so I don’t understand why many details and certain character development can’t be found there. But as Aveyard says, she isn’t able nor obliged to make everyone happy instead of writing the story she thinks is best, apart from trying to avoid offending content. Nor do I think she should tell readers which characters are the good ones they should like and praise. Readers can make up their minds themselves, and I’d bothered to see her trying to control our opinions on them. That’s not disregard. 

Since the novellas were announced very close to the WS release, they must’ve been in planning for a while, meaning Aveyard and the publisher knew there’s enough unfinished stuff even before fan reactions came in. So why didn’t she try harder to hone WS into a better book with more resolutions instead of writing like, “oh, I can always release novellas later on”? There’ll always be some unanswered questions in any work of fiction, but there’re a bit too many in WS. The Lakelander arc, for example. Or why we couldn’t get a scene where Mare doesn’t faint when she stabs Maven?? Passing out is pointless when she’s well and alive the next second anyway and instead, there could’ve been a scene clear about Maven’s fate and a moment of Mare mourning him. 

I don’t blame Aveyard that the novellas will come, because I’m too much of a fan not to be happy about extra content. But since they’re many unsatisfied reactions and uncertainties, Broken Throne leaves an impression of a money grab that people have to read instead being a fan option. And I’m annoyed about the information policy of BT, too, as I mentioned in another post. First, we got the info about the novellas, then we heard about five novellas, and everyone started to have their own ideas what they’ll be about. Even knowing they’ll be info dumps and new characters, five is a number big enough that fans will start to hope for novellas about a bigger number of favourite (side) characters with potential for more. But then, Aveyard released more information piece by piece, saying that there’ll be basically only two novellas about canon characters we care about and who already have a lot canon content (apart from Elane). Cool if she wants to show more of the world, but in the end, fans will want to see more of characters we already know and care about. IDK what to make of Farewell consisting of actual short stories, but I guess it’ll be really short scenes and who knows who’ll be in them.

Lesbian film Rafiki has shattered box office records in Kenya – after a government ban was lifted for one week only.

The lesbian love story from director Wanuri Kahiu debuted to international acclaim at this year’s Cannes Film Festival, but the film was banned in its home country after state censors took exception to the “homosexual” themes.

It was permitted to screen in the country for exactly one week in September, after a court ordered it should be permitted to meet the requirements for Oscars eligibility.

Under Academy Awards rules, submissions to the Best Foreign Language Film category “must be first released in the country submitting it… and be first publicly exhibited for at least seven consecutive days in a commercial motion picture theater.”

From the first night of the film’s release on September 23, cinemas in Nairobi were surprised by an influx of fans, who queued around the block to snap up tickets and get a chance to see Rafiki. Extra screenings were rapidly added and promoted by the film’s accounts on social media, as cinemas struggled to keep up with demand.

The film is now again banned in the country, following the end of the seven-day exemption – but in a final humiliation for state media censors, it was revealed that the film dominated the country’s box office in the period it was released.

Rafiki was the top performing film in Kenya for the week it was unbanned, edging out major Hollywood blockbusters The Nun and Night School.

The film grossed more than $33,000 in its week of release, with more than 6,500 tickets sold.

The start of the film was greeted by raucous applause at screenings, while the crowds “laughed and booed” at the logo of the Kenya Film Classification Board—the body that suppressed its release.

The re-imposed ban makes it an offence to even own a copy of the film in the country.

1.000 Followers Jubilee - Maven Calore from Red Queen by Victoria Aveyard for @pigeonbooks

Tears.

They roll out of big ice blue eyes.

They stream down and stain porcelain cheeks.

They leave a salt taste on the beautifully carven face.

They come out every night.

The glaciers of his eyes are very good at concealing.

But not at this time.

The beautiful things don’t have to when no one is looking.

Oh, they’re so beautiful.

They could take on so many personas.

They could be kind and gentle and they would be a light lake or blue sky.

They could be harsh and cold and they would be an iceberg or the deep ocean.

They could be sad and desperate and then they would twinkle like crystals.

But no matter what, they’re always on the same broken boy.

With the paper white skin and jet black hair.

With the iron crown and flames.

And the tears that always seem to drown him in the deepest part of the deepest ocean.

Even though the tears are only very small.

They represent the shell of a young boy who used to love. //////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

RED QUEEN series- the known lands & their rulers

Norta

The Lakelands

Piedmont