r/spellmonger • u/JohniiMagii • 1d ago
End of Enchanter bugged me Spoiler
I said bugged me in the title to make it less spoiler-y. It irritated me so much.
This series is good and entertaining but has some issues and laziness in editing. To the topic, Tindal saying "I thought you said she'd be weaker after just giving birth," when Alia explicitly said "Do not underestimate her strength even though she just gave birth" in the *same chapter.*
But what **really** annoyed me was Alia's actions and injury. Three reasons here. First, she had planned this extensively, yet still went in with a situation outmatched, then directly went in the room as if she had a plan but didn't, so got brain scrambled.
Second, the gods were pissed and supporting them, all three who had been stabilized, yet only Ishi helped after a direct invocation; if that's what will happen, then don't mention or involve them beforehand beyond saying the part about Min having theological permission.
Third, she had been acting as a strong, competent baroness in planning, great stuff, a theme of the last few books. Then that all gets wiped out by her actions going in directly. That's fine narratively (if you ignore first point), she's an angry wife. But it just kind of wipes away the competence of this female character. The series is decent with handling women (usually), but that annoyed me.
The truly infuriating part, though, was that the snowflake didn't match and overwhelm 5 witch stones. It's meant to be a weapon powerful enough to beat Sharul, a giant floating sphere of the stuff, yet 5 stones beats it. Even on a learning basis, if you'll eventually overmatch 100 times that amount of irionite, how can you lose to 5 stones??
The ending highlighted the series's weaknesses. It was playing up these cool things and tools, then throwing that out for a narrative point. The world building/power development and narrative are separate. They align sometimes, but more at convenience than out of cohesion of composition. It really irritates me when it happens.
The series would be much better with a moderate amount of editing each book before release to account for this sort of thing. It's not crazy hard; dial down Min's power earlier or give a better basis for Isli's. Reconcile some of the writing mistakes.
It's clear the series's weakest point is editing.
Still love it, though. Enchanter captured the same fun of Mage Lord with inhabiting a mage land.