please stop moping (The Queen of Attolia | Megan Whalen Turner)

[@somekindazeta]

Maria looked so pleased after selling out Will’s joke. 😂

[@lindala2602]

Spiritual siblings vibe

[@CrisM779]

When Maria said Gen knows all the secret tunnels, I randomly got a flashback of Avatar when they're in the Earth Kingdom and there's a dude singing "secret tunnel... secret tunnel" 😂

[@johnnyritenbaugh1214]

I still just cannot get over that there is a role "Queen's Thief." Does she really need so many things stolen that there is a full time employee? For his like three steals a year, cut him down to part time, so you don't have to provide benefits. lol

[@jasminv8653]

Okay but as far as history usually goes, isn't it just a combination of spy and curiosities collector? It's not actually rare for monarchs to steal stuff :D

[@johnnyritenbaugh1214]

@@jasminv8653 true. They take what they want without caring who it belongs to originally. 😅

[@GilTheDragon]

One could try to rationalize it by it being euphemistic like the Ottoman's Chief Gardener who was a gardener but mostly was the executioner or maybe is like A Groom of the Stool

[@GilTheDragon]

@@johnnyritenbaugh1214 or they care A LOT in which case it is traded diplomatically as a mutual flex. if you steal something people tend to get Big Mad. there was a war over a bucket

[@JerodimusPrime]

I don't normally comment here, but I have to stand up for the show The Tudors. It was revolutionary at the time it came out-which was years before the GoT craze. The Show was like GoT before GoT and was probably instrumental in getting the GoT show made, as it showed that there is an audience for political drama with spice. Also, despite it making everything seem sensational, it's surprisingly historically accurate. A lot of the scenes are either rumours believed to be true at King Henry VIII time, or are based on real historical facts. They even got Anne Boleyn's execution perfect. I think if a lot of this audience tried season 1 they'd be hooked.

[@caitlinfitzgibbon9410]

Divorced, beheaded, died, divorced, beheaded, survived.

[@HungryEyes-sl3mu]

So a little off topic, but I had such a hard time reading Brandon Sanderson's Tress of the Emerald Sea because I thought Tress was this really passive character because Sanderson decided to hide Tress' big planning stage of how she would escape her island. As it was presented, it felt like her dad and everyone else on the island was actively formulating a plan while Tress kinda sat there. And I totally blame Sanderson for wanting his "big reveal" of how crafty Tress actual was until after the 1/3 mark.

[@NaritaZaraki]

A humble offering for the ever mercurial algorithm. Stop being mean to my favorite podcast ☹

[@ari-mh6dw]

you should DEFINITELY read the 3rd book it's my favorite one. And I think you guys will be into the narrator (Costis) my beautiful himbo guard.

[@evecampbell3069]

He's my 2nd favorite male character.

[@bookworm209]

I have no idea why KZbin recommended this to me, but I'm glad it did because I read this book a few years back and I *hated* the ending. It was fun to hear other people talk about how badly done it was. I remember initially being excited when Gen revealed the secret plot, expecting it to lead into the next book which was obviously going to be about these two characters who hate each other learning to see each other in a different light, but nope! We speedrun that and claim that Gen always felt a certain way even though nothing in the book actually backs up this twist. Strongly agree that this felt like it wanted to be a more adult book and ended up falling flat in a lot of ways because it couldn't be. You're also right that Turner isn't a bad writer. From what I remember, she has fun ideas and good command of character voices/individual scenes, but the lack of connective tissue between those scenes and the need for everything to be a twist combined with how messed up the ending was made me lose all interesting in reading more of the series.

[@anonym_incognito]

For as much as I personally love this book, I have to admit that you have a point here and that maybe it would have been better if the "to lovers" part of enemys to lovers happened in the next book and took its fair time. The next book focuses an a different protagonist, even though Gen and Irene are still important characters in that one. And as likable as Costis is in his own right, I would have loved it more to be honest if we stayed in their perspective. I disagree that *nothing* previously backs up the idea that he felt a certain way all along, but I can definitely see why its not enough for some people and think its still a fair criticism.

[@Feejakka]

Enjoyed these books back in the day. Your vids have inspired me to do a reread. Funny, I remember being irked by a lot of the same things you guys mention, but still enjoying the story anyway. I guess authors don’t get everything right but we can still have fun reading what they bring to the table ☺️

[@gabimarie7953]

Very sad Katie could not join for this video, happy Maria and Wyll’s hair looks fabulous enough to be stand-in guest hosts

[@johnnyritenbaugh1214]

Divorced, beheaded and died Divorced, beheaded, survived

[@angryotter9129]

We know, Will. We were there… In the bookclub livestream! Join us!

[@sciencefantastic]

Join us in the bookclub !!

[@dishadharmraj6986]

I loved gen so much. He was my favourite

[@NonAnonD]

Late to this one because I had to go and listen to the audiobook before I came to engage, mostly because the last one was such a well-timed summary I needed that I wanted to support continuing with the series despite an inevitable dropoff. Excited to listen.

[@mirroredhour]

Oh no, I'll have to come back and check this out next month since I'm still in the process of re-reading this book myself to refresh my memory on what happened. Glad that they did get around to reading more!

[@llindberg194]

Also, for good Tudor-adjacent historical fiction I recommend Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel.

[@haggisa]

The show based on her first book is hands down the best historical series I have ever watched. Masterfully directed, written, shot and acted. I LOVED the use of candle light to make interior shots feel like they were genuinely taking place in XVI century.

[@anonym_incognito]

3. The part where you said "The book tries to act as if certain things Gen does are thievery when they are really military operations" made me want to yell at the screen "THAT'S THE JOKE, THAT'S THE ENTIRE JOKE!" I mean, not really a joke as such obviously, but Turner knows exactly what she is doing and there should be a tacit understanding that she is making this 😉🙃😎 face at you the entire time. Gen can't really be a literal thief anymore, so he learns how to be a symbolic thief, i. e. a chessmaster who applies the same modes of thinking that make a good thief - underhanded tactics, sneakiness, exploiting loopholes - to politics instead. He finds a new way to be the Queen's thief. That's his character arc. Also your criticism that his mutilation is not as impactful as it could have been or that it didn't have enough of an impact on his sense of identity left me a bit exasperated. I really don't see what more you could possibly want ... so we are just really going to have to agree to disagree in that regard. Maybe GRRM did it better in comparison - I don't know, I never got that far in ASOIAF. (Sorry, Will!)

[@KristinaMarie96]

If I remember right, I did read most of these books at that YA age (I think I was around 16 or so) and I loved the angst. I felt like I read them so fast that I forgave a lot.

[@johnnyritenbaugh1214]

Listen, if the next book is about the bodyguard entering the love story, Will's assumed archetypes could still work. 😂

[@light_reading]

read! the! third!! pls 🥺 it's the best one

[@The_Iowegian]

So Will and I both greatly enjoy studying military history, including organization, logistics, interaction with politics, etc. We both zero in way too much on historical accuracy in books and shows. And we both play Warhammer. Well, that's my identity shattered. :P

[@serceskywalker]

Do you share your reading list? I want to read before the videos :)

[@runningcommentary2125]

We got through far too many kings called Henry over here. I think at one point we also had four Georges in a row.

[@johnnyritenbaugh1214]

Not the Gen of his youth?? He's still having growth spurts...

[@anonym_incognito]

1. So as someone who is a massive fan of Megan Whalen Turner in general and this book in particular, get ready for me to SPAM YOUR COMMENT SECTION because I have many thoughts. There are some criticism that you made that I think are entirely fair, some that I disagree with but still can kind of see where they are coming from, and very few that made me wonder whether we have read the same book. The latter category being: The idea that the book is lacking in descriptions/ visual detail. What? I remember it very differently. And since I have read the book five or six times now, and you only one time, I'm going to be honest, I think you just missed some things or didn't remember them. Also the idea that you don't have to read The Thief before this one. Disagree strongly! You are simply not going to be able to truly apreciate the character developement or the thematic progression otherwise. Or understand the worldbuilding. Or be emotionally attached enough to the main character in order for the tragedy in the beginning to truly hit.

[@rosiemakes]

If you're interested in a Tudor murder mystery try Dissolution - C J Sansom. It was recently adapted into a Sky mini series which was aggressively mid... But it's a great book for creating atmosphere, character and political drama.

[@GilTheDragon]

"ancient" "greece" usually refers to like post Dark Ages (post bronze age colapse) all the way to the "Dark ages" (post west-roman colapse) so middle is east-roman/byzantine greece?

[@anonym_incognito]

2. I think a lot of your criticism ultimately come down to something that I see as a deliberate stylistic choice from Turner: a sort of ... understated way of storytelling where the gaps and the silence of things left unsaid or not explicitly said speak volumes as much as the obvious things, and you really have to pay attention to that while reading. Turners novels are designed to give you a lot of new things to discover upon a reread. And obviously there are downsides to such a way of storytelling, things that wont work for everyone, things that maybe could have been done better. Asking if fleshing certain things out should really have been sacrificed for the sake of sublety and narrative sleight of hand is justified criticism. But Wills comment "I suspect she doesn't plan out her books and is a good enough writer that it just kind of works out" is hilarious to me. I don't think that's what she does. Sidenote: I thought it was obvious that she wasn't trying to obscure Gens identity in the beginning and just referring to him as "the thief" was a stylistic choice because Gen is trying to hide himself and sneak away in that situation and not using his name communicates that general mood to the reader. Also Turner has a thing about constantly using characters titles instead of their names in general. We never learn the actual names of the Magus and Gen's Dad, for example, and then there is the weird custom of referring to rulers by their countrys name too.

[@asterya6913]

For those wondering about the. "Divorced. Beheaded. Died. Divorced. Beheaded. Survived." The reference is from the song "ex-wives" from the musical SIX. Great video as usual ! Prob not going to read this (as usual I want to say. I love listening to the trio hardcore ranting about unsalvageable book like the Savior's Champion too much lmao) but I hope there would be more book like that. Not completely lighthearted but not grimdark either. If it make sense ? I dunno if I'm just unlucky, but it seem that nowadays it's either one or the other.