side blog

which reminded me of adsom and shades of magic lmao. like, technically well written and nice prose, but the main reason for why things were happening just didn’t really make sense if you start asking logical questions 🤔

also don’t mind me cleaning up my main art acc, i like to do it every now and then

so the book acts like kell literally had no other option than to bring lila with him (both to red london and all the way to the finale) but that’s just not true and it never was 😂

i’m p confident that kell could’ve taken the black stone back from lila at any point without much struggle. sure, she could’ve conjured something to fight him with, but kell acts like the stone gives lila an instant KO against him, but we’ve seen that the stone does not in fact do that (ie, the holland fight where holland does not instant KO kell despite having the stone).

also was it really that hard to just use bone magic and make lila drop it ? like kell, i get you have qualms about bone magic, but this is potentially world-shattering levels of emergency here (i’ve seen you use bone magic for less 👀) could you really not just take the stone back from lila and leave her in grey london where she’ll be way safer? 😂

kell acts like it’s such a forced situation but it’s not. at all. i could think of a hundred ways he could cleverly use magic to get away from lila, retrieve the stone from her, and be fine. she’s a non-bender holding a lethal grenade, but kell is the avatar with blood bending. wdym he can’t figure out how to ditch her and take the grenade back?

it’s like hydrogen bomb versus coughing baby. except hydrogen bomb lays down and dies after coughing baby whines a little too much???

and yes, i get that the stone was corrupting him, and that it was convenient to have another person hold it for a little bit, but the positives of that don’t outweigh the negatives of having to keep track of her all the time and knowingly endangering her life. lila doesn’t care if she lives or dies, fine. but that doesn’t erase kell’s moral prerogative to not let her come on this suicide mission (when he’s fully able to stop her from coming). which is the problem. kell is on level 100. lila is level 5 here. at no point was i ever convinced that lila could force kell to do anything.

his argument for leaving someone behind to tell the royal family what happened to him is also terrible. like dude, just write a letter and deliver it to the palace yourself in secret using as tascen. or leave the letter with someone trusted. or tell someone you trust, like tieren or a random sanctuary novice, and ask them to tell the royals after 48 hours have elapsed. even if they tell the king early…kell is already gone off to white london. no one can follow him anyway. kell does NOT need lila to stay behind and tell his story. in fact, coming from some random stranger from a totally different world, the story may seem even more suspicious and outlandish and is even less likely to be believed than a quick letter he wrote himself or relayed to a trusted person in the kingdom.

and then he goes one step further and brings her to white london with him simply because she asked. like what? just take the token from her and go? 😂 like i said above, there was no reason to endanger her. and yes, lila said she didn’t care about dying and that she wanted to help. but

imagine this:

a rookie cop is about to go rogue and attempt the assassination of a mafia boss. a random teenage civilian from a foreign country who has never shot a gun before, doesn’t know how guns work, and basically can’t shoot guns at all (i’m well aware lila can shoot a gun, but guns=magic here) volunteers to go with the cop to help with the hit. the hit is in a hostile foreign country where everyone has guns and they all speak a language the civilian doesn’t know. the cop expects to die and doesn’t know if they’ll be able to smuggle the civilian back out of the country after it’s all over. so naturally the cop says no, they will not bring the civilian with them, because they don’t want to drag an innocent teenage civilian into this mess. the civilian says “but i want to help and i don’t care about dying”. rookie cop, after 30 seconds of thinking says “ok, if you insist🤷🏻‍♀️”

WHAT ? *tik tok boom sound effect*

the rookie cop is not in the right here for saying yes and allowing the inexperienced civilian who cannot shoot guns to tag along. even if the mafia boss is a big baddie and needs to die for the greater good. it’s just not right, necessary, or responsible of the rookie cop. even if the civilian doesn’t care. it doesn’t matter. rookie cop could’ve just driven away from the civilian and performed the hit himself. and should have.

anyway, i understand there’s arguments to be made that kell was so super afraid of dying in the white london confrontation that he didn’t put up a fight on purpose because he wanted company, but that being the only reason is so narratively disappointing and not really explored. his selfishness born of fear is not the problem, the problem is that the narrative doesn’t acknowledge it and truly presented the situation like “he had no other choice”. when he fully does.

i just wish kell had truly been “forced” into bringing lila with him. or that lila had done something more forcing. or even that kell had said no and then lila figured out a way to trick him and go to white london herself.

like imagine kell says no, lila is angry and follows him, she witnesses the holland fight, helps him win it, pickpockets the stone and the WL rook from kell during said fight, then lila uses the stone and rook combo to open a little portal to WL, she goes through, KELL now has to follow, then they end up fighting the mob of white londoners together, and then kell is finally convinced to let lila help him bc now they’re both already in WL, Lila gets to really prove herself, and it was actually a forced situation and not just kell being the biggest doormat to ever live. (don’t get me wrong, i do love that he’s a doormat sometimes, but when inter-dimensional security is at risk, there comes a point where you need to put that trait away, otherwise you just come off as selfish/stupid and/or the narrative suffers from flaws in logic.)

basically, it would’ve been so easy to tweak the mechanics of the situation so kell ACTUALLY had a real reason to bring lila with him. because it was annoying to constantly read “kell had no other choice”/“lila had forced his hand” type of lines when it was SO obvious that he did in fact have a choice and lila was not forcing his hand at all.

or the reason simply could’ve been because kell liked her or was attracted to her. but lowk we just don’t get that at all during the first book. ( and i do prefer the minimal romance, but in this case i think going a little harder on the attraction could’ve strengthened the reasoning for constantly giving in to lila’s baseless demands.)

anyway, ik everything worked out in the end, some it largely BECAUSE lila was present in the finale and BECAUSE kell brought her along all those times. but what IM saying is that the luck + plot armor of the characters + the ultimate outcome do NOT erase the sin of bad in-universe reasoning for them being “stuck together” and kell being forced to take lila with him.

bc genuinely what was the plan?

1. freak kell out, get him drunk so he accepts the job and smuggles the black stone back to red london (hope he is not curious or looks inside the package at all)

2. when kell gets to red London, send a few mindless, compelled mercenaries after him (hope they can defeat an antari) and retrieve the stone.

3. mercenaries bring stone to astrid-controlled red london citizen. astrid and athos cast a spell together at the same time using the stone halves. barrier comes down.

just WHAT about this required kell being the messenger? why couldn’t holland just go to red london and give the astrid-controlled citizen the stone?

“they were afraid holland might use the stone to break his soul seal” — no, they weren’t. the danes sent holland after kell to retrieve the stone. if they thought holland could use it break the seal, they never would’ve done this.

“they were afraid holland might get caught” caught doing what? smuggling the black stone to red london? have him as travars into a random red london forest with no one around, and have the astrid hand-off happen there. problem solved. holland isn’t getting caught simply transporting a stone, trust.

“they needed plausible deniability if it failed” — if what failed? the smuggling? holland is not failing to simply put a stone in astrid’s hand (see above point.) there are so many easy ways to avoid failing here that are a lot simpler than what they came up with.

remember, kell is NOT the one who was supposed to cast the door-breaking spell. he was never going to be. they can’t implicate him for that. ONLY the smuggling. they used him purely as a delivery service. supposedly because it was the best choice? when in reality, using kell required involving tons of other compelled people, stealing palace guard swords, and creating a huge trail of evidence.

basically there is NO reason for kell to act as the messenger here. holland is fully capable of doing it himself. kell was literally only used for the transfer of the stone between worlds and nothing else. bc they planned to take the stone back from him immediately (within minutes of him returning to red london, in fact). he was a drug mule. but…they…already…had…a…perfectly…good one…in holland ?

using kell just created unnecessary extra steps and complicated/risked their plans.

lila as the magician

kell as death

he makes me think of the current disney epidemic/issue of having no real villains anymore. just evil dark clouds of doom and despair 🤷🏻‍♀️

—

ALSO wow i’m smart, i didn’t realize you could make multiple blogs on the same acc 🤦🏻‍♀️ so i was literally signing in and out of two different accounts to make posts on my side blog lmaoo.