(no subject)
I have a confession to make: my current fictional crush spends most of his time as a giant anthropomorphic rat. LOOK he's a totally awesome rat, okay! He is overcoming prejudice against being a giant anthropomorphic rat to attend the best university in fantasyland! He can cheerfully discourse on legal, architectural, and socioeconomic distinctions between kingdoms without being a mansplainy jerk about it! He cures psychotic and homicidal teenagers with the sheer power of his sanity! Also canonically he is quite cute when he is person-shaped DON'T JUDGE ME (I am already judging myself.)
Which is to say, I have finished reading the fourth Twelve Kingdoms book, Skies of Dawn, and IT WAS AWESOME. Skies of Dawn fills me with great amounts of joy; my giant crush on Rakushun (aforementioned anthropomorphic rat) is only one of many reasons. Here are some others:
1. I have talked before about how Fuyumi Ono enjoys kicking tired tropes in the face. She is doing it again, and she is doing it AWESOMELY. My favorite is how - well, okay, you know that game that characters often play in fiction called My Backstory Is More Tragic Than Yours? (RPers on my flist, you probably know this game especially.) A significant portion of Skies of Dawn involves pointing out that this game is STUPID AND DUMB. For example, the amazing scene that goes like this:
PROTAGONIST: Oh man my life sucks so much! I have been dragged away from all I have known!
LITTLE BOY: Here's an idea, maybe it's time to stop bitching about it and figure out something else to do with your life?
PROTAGONIST: SHUT UP YOU CAN NEVER UNDERSTAND MY PAIN.
LITTLE BOY: Um, well, we had to flee my home and then my parents were eaten by demons right in front of me, so I think I understand a little pain -
PROTAGONIST: Dude, whatever I have it so, so so much worse than you. So much worse! You're LUCKY to have had your parents eaten by demons in front of you!
LITTLE BOY: . . . . lady, you are kind of crazy and also I THINK MISSING THE POINT A LITTLE.
Hands up anyone who has ever wanted to deliver this lecture to a character in a book! Or to someone else's RP character mumble. Or even to your own RP character!
I also continue to be really, really fond of the way she handles the whole King of Fantasyland trope, in which our Standard High School Student is like, "Dude, guys, you want me to make decisions about how to run this country? I don't know anything about this country! I can't tell you whether it's more important to build dams or to fortify for winter!" And then goes off to LEARN about it. Because Fuyumi Oni is awesome.
2. I continue to love Yoko with a fiery passion. I love that her transformation into awesome kickass protagonist isn't complete, that she occasionally backslides into wanting approval and to please everyone - and then she catches herself, and is like "no, that's dumb, I'm not doing that," and fixes it. I love that she calls Keiki on his crap, I love how willing she is to learn from her mistakes, I love her continuing character development, and I also love the emphasis on accountability and responsibility.
3. And did I mention: accountability! Responsibility! These words are like music to my ears. This book is really focused on exploring the responsibility that a government has to its citizens, and what responsibility those citizens have to change the government when it's failing. I don't agree with all its answers, but I agree with a lot of them. And I love that Fuyumi Ono sets up a system where kings are literally chosen by divine fiat, and then uses that to explore the question even further: a lot of the questions I thought she backed out of in The Vast Spread of the Seas, she brings up again here.
4. TEAM AWESOME LADIES. REVOLUTIONARY TEEN GIRL SQUAD. Yoko gets to hang out with other teenaged girls! It's amazing! I am really impressed with how Suzu and Shoukei both started out from completely different places of being kind of crazy and a little bit awful, and both managed to develop into amazingness; even though I know Ono's habit of taking very flawed characters and puttin them through extreme character development, she still kept me guessing constantly about the twists and turns their characterization was going to take. And I shrieked with joy when Suzu and Shoukei and Yoko were having giggly girly sleepovers in the middle of a revolution. The only thing that could have made me happier was if Rakushun had been there hanging out with them too! (The only thing that made me sad about this book was that Rakushun and Yoko didn't get to hang out at all. :( Next Yoko book!)
And now it is a full year before the next book. ;_; Which is not even a Yoko book, though I'm cool with that because apparently it is about the King of Kyou, and I am SO CURIOUS about the bitchy immortal twelve-year-old-girl King of Kyou, who appears in this book mostly to announce to her magical unicorn advisor "I WISH YOU WERE SMALLER SO I COULD SMACK YOU IN THE FACE MORE EASILY WHEN YOU WERE BEING DUMB." Have I mentioned I love Fuyumi Ono's brain?
Which is to say, I have finished reading the fourth Twelve Kingdoms book, Skies of Dawn, and IT WAS AWESOME. Skies of Dawn fills me with great amounts of joy; my giant crush on Rakushun (aforementioned anthropomorphic rat) is only one of many reasons. Here are some others:
1. I have talked before about how Fuyumi Ono enjoys kicking tired tropes in the face. She is doing it again, and she is doing it AWESOMELY. My favorite is how - well, okay, you know that game that characters often play in fiction called My Backstory Is More Tragic Than Yours? (RPers on my flist, you probably know this game especially.) A significant portion of Skies of Dawn involves pointing out that this game is STUPID AND DUMB. For example, the amazing scene that goes like this:
PROTAGONIST: Oh man my life sucks so much! I have been dragged away from all I have known!
LITTLE BOY: Here's an idea, maybe it's time to stop bitching about it and figure out something else to do with your life?
PROTAGONIST: SHUT UP YOU CAN NEVER UNDERSTAND MY PAIN.
LITTLE BOY: Um, well, we had to flee my home and then my parents were eaten by demons right in front of me, so I think I understand a little pain -
PROTAGONIST: Dude, whatever I have it so, so so much worse than you. So much worse! You're LUCKY to have had your parents eaten by demons in front of you!
LITTLE BOY: . . . . lady, you are kind of crazy and also I THINK MISSING THE POINT A LITTLE.
Hands up anyone who has ever wanted to deliver this lecture to a character in a book! Or to someone else's RP character mumble. Or even to your own RP character!
I also continue to be really, really fond of the way she handles the whole King of Fantasyland trope, in which our Standard High School Student is like, "Dude, guys, you want me to make decisions about how to run this country? I don't know anything about this country! I can't tell you whether it's more important to build dams or to fortify for winter!" And then goes off to LEARN about it. Because Fuyumi Oni is awesome.
2. I continue to love Yoko with a fiery passion. I love that her transformation into awesome kickass protagonist isn't complete, that she occasionally backslides into wanting approval and to please everyone - and then she catches herself, and is like "no, that's dumb, I'm not doing that," and fixes it. I love that she calls Keiki on his crap, I love how willing she is to learn from her mistakes, I love her continuing character development, and I also love the emphasis on accountability and responsibility.
3. And did I mention: accountability! Responsibility! These words are like music to my ears. This book is really focused on exploring the responsibility that a government has to its citizens, and what responsibility those citizens have to change the government when it's failing. I don't agree with all its answers, but I agree with a lot of them. And I love that Fuyumi Ono sets up a system where kings are literally chosen by divine fiat, and then uses that to explore the question even further: a lot of the questions I thought she backed out of in The Vast Spread of the Seas, she brings up again here.
4. TEAM AWESOME LADIES. REVOLUTIONARY TEEN GIRL SQUAD. Yoko gets to hang out with other teenaged girls! It's amazing! I am really impressed with how Suzu and Shoukei both started out from completely different places of being kind of crazy and a little bit awful, and both managed to develop into amazingness; even though I know Ono's habit of taking very flawed characters and puttin them through extreme character development, she still kept me guessing constantly about the twists and turns their characterization was going to take. And I shrieked with joy when Suzu and Shoukei and Yoko were having giggly girly sleepovers in the middle of a revolution. The only thing that could have made me happier was if Rakushun had been there hanging out with them too! (The only thing that made me sad about this book was that Rakushun and Yoko didn't get to hang out at all. :( Next Yoko book!)
And now it is a full year before the next book. ;_; Which is not even a Yoko book, though I'm cool with that because apparently it is about the King of Kyou, and I am SO CURIOUS about the bitchy immortal twelve-year-old-girl King of Kyou, who appears in this book mostly to announce to her magical unicorn advisor "I WISH YOU WERE SMALLER SO I COULD SMACK YOU IN THE FACE MORE EASILY WHEN YOU WERE BEING DUMB." Have I mentioned I love Fuyumi Ono's brain?