Reading rambles

The deeply annoying thing about this book isn't that it's bad. It's that it is so so close to being very good.

Maybe there are too many characters and the names have too many syllables for my ADHD brain to follow. But I like a book with ambition.

The world building is genuinely interesting. A sacred city colonised for 200 years, book explores the clashing cultures, religions, and magic systems. The population is broken into the elite noble ruling class of colonisers, the gentry that sit below them, the insular population of the 'pure blood' traditional owners, and the poor mixed race people who belong to neither. While the society is heavily stratified by race, gender identity and sexuality is largely level - female, queer and trans characters occupy all levels of society with no apparent prejudice.

The main character is a mixed-race woman named Ren. She grew up on the streets and has no family besides a couple of fellow street kids she adopted as her siblings. To scrape her way out of poverty she poses as the long lost cousin of a noble family. She prides herself on her ability to manipulate people and is out to take what she can for herself and her sister.

The cast of characters are genuinely interesting and well rounded - but my favourite was Vargo - one of the best examples of a genuinely morally grey character I've read. Born on the streets, Vargo isn't above using magic, manipulation, violence, drugs, or sex to get ahead. Despite the wealth and power he has accumulated, it's always clear that he is only using unjust means because he has to in order to succeed in an unjust world. He doesn't make excuses for himself or take pride in the bad things he does - and he is still capable of feeling guilt when people get hurt.

He is generally as fair as he can afford to be with the gangs that serve as his underlings as a smuggler, the nobles he sleeps with in return for favours, and our main character Ren, who finds herself teaming up with him when they appear to have a common enemy in the noble Mettore.

Mettore is in charge of the city's police/military force. They are a blatantly corrupt organisation, available to all noble families as a private service. Criminals are shipped off to be sold as slaves, and rumor has it that Mettore occasionally uses the organisation to ship people he just doesn't like off without trial. Spoilers from now - He is plotting to permanently remove the traditional owners from the city by destroying their sacred/magic 'spring' and murdering a big chunk of them with a magic explosion.

If you think that sounds like a really great and interesting story - I would agree with you! So can you imagine my dismay when it was revealed at the very end of the book that the male lead for the series is - drum roll - a cop.

You might be thinking - surely you don't mean a cop in the openly corrupt force run by a genocidal supremacist?

Ah but you see - he is a 'good' cop. His boss is a good cop too. He might roll his eyes when he has to do boring tasks for nobles, but sometimes he's allowed to investigate missing street kids.

He's also secretly a vigilante who dresses in all black, doesn't kill, and has tragically lost his close family due to crime. So, if you ever wanted batman to be a cop this might be the book for you.

My problem with this character, ironically named 'Grey' isn't that he is a cop. My problem is that he's presented as noble and honorable, as opposed to Vargo, who from almost the moment he steps into the story, is tainted as 'bad'. Grey - who might I remind you, works for an organisation that ships people into slavery - looks down his nose at Vargo - who is mostly known for being a smuggler in a society where the corrupt nobles control trade for their own financial benefit.

This book criticises corrupt colonial power structures, but it stops short of subverting colonial ideas around what moral compromise makes you dirty, and what moral compromise leaves you clean. To do this, it presents a wildly naive version of a corrupt oppressive institution. We are expected to believe that Grey and his boss were both able to move up the ranks to positions of relative power while keeping their hands clean of blood and keeping their oppressive, corrupt nepo-colleagues somewhat in check.

The book mostly forgives Vargo for working outside of the system, but stops short of condemning or even properly interrogating Grey and his position within the system.

This is the first book in 'the Rook and Rose' series, and the reveal that Grey is 'the Rook' comes as a deeply unwelcome twist in the final chapter, after Vargo is explicitly teased as the love interest and vigilante 'the Rook' for a good third of the book.

Bashat is Bashasa's son

There's a lot of hints for this. eg. Kai thinking it's a relief Bashat doesn't look too much like Bashasa, Kai taking a part in raising Bashat. When Ramad asked if Kai is Bashat's Mother Kai says "No" and thinks 'Unfortunately'.

Of course Bashat feels betrayed by Kai leaving. He was more or less his step dad, and he disappeared at the exact moment Bashat needed him more than ever.

2. Arnsterath is good

Kai and her both lean into this uncaring bad guy act when they feel vulnerable - but I think she was captured in the past timeline because she went back for Kai.

When we first meet her in the present timeline she is bitter - from her perspective she has suffered for years and gave up everything to try and help Kai. Meanwhile he was fine - he had a new family and was a big famous war hero. She'd decided to stop caring and get that for herself as well, using the methods she assumed he did.

These two are so angry at each other because they both feel like the other betrayed and abandoned them. But underneath all that I think they are very similar.

3. Ramad is the present day parallel of Bashasa...

In that he is able to look past common bias and people's mistakes, and bring out the potential in people. Bashasa did this with Kai, Tahren, and with the Dust witches. Ramad is doing this with Arnsterath.

(Also in that Kai's gonna fall for him...)

4. They will discover a new Demon power that is the ability to heal/revive

I've seen people comparing the Blessed/Tahren to Nazi's and I really disagree. If anything, the Heirarchs are Nazis - but they're much more similar to old school colonialists.

I believe the Blessed are suppose to represent modern western countries. They are rich, mostly white, live longer, have a social structure with 'patriarchs' at the top, have all this powerful technology, know very little about the rest of the world, but consistently look down on them.

Immortal Marshals are your standard white straight middle class, and the Lesser Blessed are other citizens - they are distinctly more disposable and less important within their own country's power structures, but still considered above the dirty poor people in the countries they know nothing about.

Their participation in the Heirarch's war is more like being Vietnam conscripts then Nazis. They were there against their will, but they were probably half convinced by nationalism that it was necessary. The patriarchs were willing to sacrifice 'lesser blessed' lives for the cause.

The Blessed are conditioned to believe that their lives are worth more than others. But that's due to being privileged, insulated, and ignorant more than outright hateful/genocidal.