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Chances are by now you've heard of (or been compelled by friends/family to watch) This is Us. But with all the options out there is it worth the investment? Lets find out! To preface, I happen to be a huge proponent of fragmented narrative. Prime examples would include the masterpieces of Christopher Nolan (ie. Memento, The Prestige) and Quentin Tarantino (Pulp Fiction). But what is fragmented narrative? Simply put, a story can either been told linearly (from A to B/start to finish) or broken up into pieces in a manner that allows for drawing connections between events and people. If you’ve watched AMC’s The Killing you’re well familiar with multiple storylines that move concurrently. And if you’re a sleuth at heart and live for twists that baffle and delight, then you’ll certainly appreciate this mode of storytelling. This is Us is not a crime mystery, though, so why a fragmented narrative? Because even crime mysteries are less about the crime and more about the people who committed it. Or were victimized by it. Affected, and changed by it. We watch shows because they allow for self-growth through vicarious experience of circumstances we'll likely never be in. For better, or for worse. Let’s start with our first all-star and my personal favorite:  JACK |
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Remember that the Narrator is telling Jane's story in the past-tense. And although he may choose not to reveal certain details to us before it’s time, he knows exactly how things will transpire. He did, after all, show us pictures of Faith M. Whiskers, Michael’s third cat when he was out of surgery, long before Jane and Michael adopted her. He flat out admits to ‘breaking the rules’ in this instance.
THE HEA
I've noticed with 'Jane the virgin' is that the writers are absolutely meticulous, and every little detail of the show has been worked out well in advance. In fact, nothing on TV is an accident. The structure of an episode is crafted down to the syllable. Every word, action and reaction is deliberate and tied to the show’s main and/or episodic theme.
Episode 1 of Season 3 (right after Michael was shot) begins with a flashback of a young Jane contesting the ending of a Romance Novel at an Author’s public reading. Jane insists that one of the conceits of the Romance Genre is that the characters get an HEA (a happily ever after). The author responds by saying that “sometimes you need to subvert the ending for the element of surprise," to which Jane responds “then don't call it Romance, call it Fiction. There are rules to the genre.”
This is very important, because Narrator repeatedly reminds us that this is a telenovela. When Petra tells Rafael about the existence of her twin, Anezka, Rafael says this is unbelievable, on which the Narrator comments, “and yet somehow, believable enough.”
In fact, people returning from the dead, evil twins, or concealing one’s identity with a mask of another person’s face are very common themes in telenovelas. So, reminders that this is the kind of show we’re watching is a great way to prime us for if and when the writers choose to bring a character back from the dead.
Continuing the example:
After Xo and young Jane are heading back from the reading, Jane vows to read the ending of a book first from now on. And this is where the Narrator raises the question of how knowing the end of the story can affect the journey. He later mentions that because we can't skip forward and find out what happens to Michael, "instead, let's flip back to earlier in our epic romance.”
By calling 'Jane the Virgin' a Romance, is he giving the viewers license to expect an HEA?
You could also argue that Rafael is ‘the one’ for Jane, and that her HEA was always meant to be with him. But Jane chose Michael, which means her HEA would ultimately be about finding her way back to Michael. In fact, Jane finds an old love letter from Michael in which he'd written destiny being a series of detours. This is something the Narrator even quotes Michael on. You don’t emphasize something like this unless there was a point to it. This, to me, is laying the groundwork for Michael’s eventual return, which needs to feel surprising, yet inevitable. It's even likely that Michael knew he was going to fake his own death, and this ways his way of letting Jane know he'll be back some day.
Episode 1 of Season 3 (right after Michael was shot) begins with a flashback of a young Jane contesting the ending of a Romance Novel at an Author’s public reading. Jane insists that one of the conceits of the Romance Genre is that the characters get an HEA (a happily ever after). The author responds by saying that “sometimes you need to subvert the ending for the element of surprise," to which Jane responds “then don't call it Romance, call it Fiction. There are rules to the genre.”
This is very important, because Narrator repeatedly reminds us that this is a telenovela. When Petra tells Rafael about the existence of her twin, Anezka, Rafael says this is unbelievable, on which the Narrator comments, “and yet somehow, believable enough.”
In fact, people returning from the dead, evil twins, or concealing one’s identity with a mask of another person’s face are very common themes in telenovelas. So, reminders that this is the kind of show we’re watching is a great way to prime us for if and when the writers choose to bring a character back from the dead.
Continuing the example:
After Xo and young Jane are heading back from the reading, Jane vows to read the ending of a book first from now on. And this is where the Narrator raises the question of how knowing the end of the story can affect the journey. He later mentions that because we can't skip forward and find out what happens to Michael, "instead, let's flip back to earlier in our epic romance.”
By calling 'Jane the Virgin' a Romance, is he giving the viewers license to expect an HEA?
You could also argue that Rafael is ‘the one’ for Jane, and that her HEA was always meant to be with him. But Jane chose Michael, which means her HEA would ultimately be about finding her way back to Michael. In fact, Jane finds an old love letter from Michael in which he'd written destiny being a series of detours. This is something the Narrator even quotes Michael on. You don’t emphasize something like this unless there was a point to it. This, to me, is laying the groundwork for Michael’s eventual return, which needs to feel surprising, yet inevitable. It's even likely that Michael knew he was going to fake his own death, and this ways his way of letting Jane know he'll be back some day.
MICHAEL + PETRA
"But alas, this isn't a Romance novel. It's a telenovela. And we're right smack in the middle," the Narrator says at the beginning of Season Three with Michael's fate hanging in the balance.
When Michael was shot and his fate uncertain, Petra was lying paralyzed in the same hospital, thanks to her evil (yet adorable) twin sister, Anezka. And we heard the Narrator mention twice that “Michael and Petra's fates are linked.”
When information was relayed to the cop watching Anezka at the hospital (that Michael’s surgery was a success), he was distracted and Anezka got a chance to quickly administer a paralytic to Petra. I believe the writers of the show used this moment to make us believe this is what he meant by their fates being linked. But in reality, the real ‘link’ could be revealed much later in the show.
Why do I suspect this?
By the end of Season 3 Petra is held at gunpoint by Anezka and Louisa has taken over the Marbella. What if Petra’s fate in this moment is the one the Narrator was talking about? What if through Anezka and Louisa, Petra and Michael’s fates will be intertwined, resulting in solving the Sin Rostro case?
When Michael was shot and his fate uncertain, Petra was lying paralyzed in the same hospital, thanks to her evil (yet adorable) twin sister, Anezka. And we heard the Narrator mention twice that “Michael and Petra's fates are linked.”
When information was relayed to the cop watching Anezka at the hospital (that Michael’s surgery was a success), he was distracted and Anezka got a chance to quickly administer a paralytic to Petra. I believe the writers of the show used this moment to make us believe this is what he meant by their fates being linked. But in reality, the real ‘link’ could be revealed much later in the show.
Why do I suspect this?
By the end of Season 3 Petra is held at gunpoint by Anezka and Louisa has taken over the Marbella. What if Petra’s fate in this moment is the one the Narrator was talking about? What if through Anezka and Louisa, Petra and Michael’s fates will be intertwined, resulting in solving the Sin Rostro case?
AH YES, THIS IS A TELENOVELA
It’s a telenovela that’s often mirrored with Rogelio’s telenovela. In fact, Rafael’s mom being a crime boss was compared by Xiomara to another telenovela they Villanuevas used to watch. And evil twins like Roman/Aaron Zazo and Petra/Anezka Andel were admittedly “well-worn” telenovela tropes. And just as Rogelio was killed on Passions of Santos and brought back from the dead, there’s no reason Michael’s return won’t be categorized as yet another case of life imitates art. Or from Jane the Virgin fans’ points of view, art imitates art.
THE INVESTIGATION
Having been so heavily invested in the Sin Rostro case, there is no way the Miami Police Department would demote Michael to desk duty and refuse him sitting in on briefings. Failing his physical would not warrant being shunned out of the investigation. Given that Michael was going through case files while in recovery, surely the Miami PD deemed him essential to the case.
Even if field work was out of the question, he would far more likely have been promoted to a much higher position, overseeing other field officers on the case. Now, you might refer to Dennis and the fact that he was taking pictures of Michael’s journals post mortem, trying to “clear his name,” but if Michael really was under the gun for possibly being a crooked cop, then why was his “new boss” discussing the case with him at all after he had surgery? Why wasn’t he in the hot seat, being interrogated, instead of being sought out for his expertise? And why was Lieutenant Armstrong replaced?
Even if field work was out of the question, he would far more likely have been promoted to a much higher position, overseeing other field officers on the case. Now, you might refer to Dennis and the fact that he was taking pictures of Michael’s journals post mortem, trying to “clear his name,” but if Michael really was under the gun for possibly being a crooked cop, then why was his “new boss” discussing the case with him at all after he had surgery? Why wasn’t he in the hot seat, being interrogated, instead of being sought out for his expertise? And why was Lieutenant Armstrong replaced?
MICHAEL'S LIEUTENANT
Could this be that Armstrong KNEW Suzanna Barnett was Rose? It’s more than plausible if you think about it. How else would Rose be able to embed herself into Miami Police Department? They do background checks on employees. If Suzanna Barnett never existed in the first place, they’d know about it. And yet Armstrong introduced her to Michael as Suzanna Barnett from Tuscaloosa. It’s possible that Armstrong also covered the truth about Rose’s strangulation in the hospital, knowing full well the real Rose is disguised as Suzanna. Because come on, don’t they do autopsies on dead bodies anymore? Fingerprints, anyone? Surely the coroner would notice that the woman on their table is wearing a mask.
FAKING HIS DEATH WAS PREMEDITATED. WHY?
Michael could’ve arranged it so that being refused back on the force would make him seem like less of a threat. He took himself out of the picture by changing careers, and studying for the LSATs would make him seem over the Sin Rostro case, just in case anyone was spying on him.
The show was very adamant to depict Michael as weak and physically inferior to Rafael at the gym to further drive home the message that Michael is no longer the threat he once was. In fact, everything following Michael surviving the surgery could’ve been orchestrated to paint him as no longer a threat, so that when he fakes his death, nobody would question it, and simply move on.
When Michael thinks of the possibility to becoming a lawyer, it seems like a revelation. But is that plausible given that his mother is a lawyer? Shouldn’t Law have been higher on Michael’s list of options?
This isn’t sloppy writing, and certainly not something the writers of show would miss. It’s possible that Michael was torn about whether or not to leave Jane behind in order to catch Sin Rostro, and once he made up his mind, he came up with the LSAT excuse. It is also possible that his decision not to return came after ‘fainting’ in his LSAT Examination room, but I find that less likely.
The show was very adamant to depict Michael as weak and physically inferior to Rafael at the gym to further drive home the message that Michael is no longer the threat he once was. In fact, everything following Michael surviving the surgery could’ve been orchestrated to paint him as no longer a threat, so that when he fakes his death, nobody would question it, and simply move on.
When Michael thinks of the possibility to becoming a lawyer, it seems like a revelation. But is that plausible given that his mother is a lawyer? Shouldn’t Law have been higher on Michael’s list of options?
This isn’t sloppy writing, and certainly not something the writers of show would miss. It’s possible that Michael was torn about whether or not to leave Jane behind in order to catch Sin Rostro, and once he made up his mind, he came up with the LSAT excuse. It is also possible that his decision not to return came after ‘fainting’ in his LSAT Examination room, but I find that less likely.
THE 'EPISODE' - MICHAEL'S DEATH
In this section I will gloss over some of the points I've already made, but I wanted to do a thorough break down of this episode to help illuminate the hidden patterns:
The theme of this episode was being an ‘unreliable narrator’. The episode starts with the Narrator saying, “looking back, you could say it felt different right away. Which might be true. Or might just be memory. In any case, when Michael Cordero Jr. was seven years old, he had the worst day of his life.” Here, we are led to believe that the first line of this episode is about Michael’s childhood and trick or treating. But I think the Narrator is actually talking about Jane, and how she suspected something was off with Michael the day before he allegedly died.
“Of course, young Michael was an unreliable narrator… Which I’m not.” A suspicious thing to say for a Narrator we’ve come to trust, isn’t it?
Looking through old pictures, Michael and Jane have the following conversation:
Michael: “Oh man, I remember this moment exactly.”
Jane: “Oh. Well, not exactly. You were seven. Plus, the act of remembering changes things. I read this article in the New Yorker.”
Narrator: “Show off.”
Jane. "It was about Flashbulb memories.”
Narrator. “Oh, yeah, I read that one. Apparently, memories around big events seem clearer, but the periphery disappears. You remember the feeling, not the details.” (details like Michael being quieter and more withdrawn, even slightly somber the day leading up to his ‘death’)
Michael: “No. I remember it exactly.”
Narrator: “He doesn’t.”
Michael: “Cause it was so traumatizing.”
Narrator: “You can trust me.”
Jane: “Okay. Okay, I believe you.”
With Michael’s death being such an emotional experience, it makes sense that Jane would forget the details and only ruminate on the grief.
Right after, Jane gets a great job offer: $40,000 a year, plus benefits. This reassures Michael that she’d be provided for once he’s gone. But of course, there would also be Rafael. This is followed by Mateo throwing up on Jane, just so that the writers can work in, “I hope he’s not coming down with a stomach bug.” So that Michael can work in the fact that he “woke up feeling a little off. Thought it was pretest jitters.” When Jane then asks him how he feels now, Michael hesitates with a serious look on his face, then answers, “totally fine,”. He then switches focus back to Rogelio’s news.
Next, we have Rafael meeting with lawyers about the plea deal: about cooking the books about his father’s crimes. What if this meeting wasn’t about going/not going to jail, but about Rafael once again teaming up with the police to help Michael with the Sin Rostro investigation?
Later, when talking about Jane’s job interview:
Michael: “Are you nervous?”
Jane: “No, because I’m not gonna make the same mistake that I made last time.” The subtext here could also be referring to Michael not making the same mistakes with Sin Rostro as he did last time by remaining in plain sight. But this fact is masked by his mocking, falsetto imitation of Jane’s cousin when he says, “Fake it till you make it.” Another reference to Michael faking his own death.
Jane: “Yeah, and this time I’m gonna prep it till I crush it.”
Again, a reference to Michael being determined to solve this case once and for all.
Next, we have a reference to James Frey, author of A Million Little Pieces, a famously debunked memoir. Since memoirs are real life events you cannot twist or exaggerate, doing so would be plain deception. So only six and a half minutes into the episode we’ve already laid on the ‘unreliable narrator’ thickly.
Later on, during Jane’s interview, her future boss Chloe Leland talks of her fired predecessor, saying “someone had to take the fall.” At which point the Narrator jumps in with, “the cost of being an unreliable narrator. Which as I’ve said, I’m not.”
The problem is, as the narrator, even if he was unreliable we wouldn’t be able to know since he’s the one telling the story. And to my point, he quickly follows up with, “then again, I’d say that if I were.”
Chloe: “I hated getting my big break at the expense of another woman’s failure, but this isn’t summer camp. No participation trophies. Anyway…”
What Chloe is speaking of is exactly what Michael would be doing by abandoning Jane to solve the Sin Rostro case. The parallel between the situations is extremely strong.
Later in the episode, when Jane tells Michael that she might be pregnant, he is genuinely happy. But the moment in pulls her in for a hug, and she can’t see his face anymore, a look of sorrow overcomes him.
“And only two and a half years younger than Mateo, which is kind of ideal distance for siblings,” says Jane, to which Michael replies a faint “mm-Hmm,” with a deflated sense of enthusiasm. And once Jane finds out she’s not pregnant, he says, “maybe it’s for the best. With me in school… It’s okay. We’ll have plenty of time.”
Deception theme is embedded even with smaller plotlines of the episode, like Tess, Bruce’s drunken daughter being awake on the couch while he and Xo discuss her behavior.
This brings us to the Fair, the night before Michael’s ‘death’.
Jane: “You feeling okay?”
Michael: “Yeah, yeah. It just… feels weird to be out. Not studying.”
Jane: “The night before the big test you know everything you’re gonna know.”
Jane then refers to the last time she saw Michael this nervous, which was at a Carnival also.
During this entire exchange, Michael seemed detached, somberly at peace, as if anticipating something he was dreading. His demeanor was contrasted with the nervous energy of not knowing where he and Jane were headed. In the flashback, Michael was the one who was in the dark, not knowing of Jane’s true feelings towards him. This was contrasted with the present, in which Jane was in the dark regarding what Michael was about to do.
Here is another subtle clue about Michael’s state of mind: when he suggests that they take the Ferris Wheel, Jane smiles and says, “You remember.” And he says, “Everything. Exactly,” and then his smile fades completely, before he quickly puts it back on.
This is not a mistake, and certainly not something the show’s director/editor would miss. It was put there intentionally to show that Michael is dreading the decision he’s made about vanishing tomorrow.
On the Ferris Wheel:
Jane: “Okay. What’s going on with you?”
Michael: “I’m nervous.”
Jane: “You’ve got nothing to be nervous about. You crushed those practice tests. You’ve got this.”
Michael: “I do feel prepared. I just want to do well. For us.”
And when Jane says, “I just want to stay up here with you. I don’t want to go back down,” Michael says, “me too,” as if already knowing that won’t be the case. For Jane and Michael who are always on the same page, this disconnect felt jarring, with Jane’s head in the clouds, and Michael’s thoughts back down to earth.
Next, Jane points out the islands. She tells Michael that the author she’s reading right now used to swim back and forth between those islands to escape her home life. But Michael replies with, “no, that’s impossible. There are jetties just under the water that you can’t see. I remember, during our drug bust, our boats had to go around. I guess the author just embellished a little for artistic effect.”
Here, we once again have the unreliable narrator theme emerging.
“No, you can’t embellish a non-fiction memoir. It has to be true,” Jane protests.
“Well, it’s not.”
“Then, the girl’s…”
Narrator: “an unreliable narrator.”
Jane: “a fraud!”
And then she kisses Michael, saying “and you’re a genius!”
Next day (The Big Day):
Michael: “It’s nerves.”
Jane: “Fine, but if you’re not feeling better after the test, I’m taking you to the doctor, end of story.”
Michael: “Got it.”
She kisses him and says goodbye, but calls out “Michael,” causing him to turn around abruptly, seeming almost scared. As though he’s been caught.
But she says, “I’m so proud of you,” diffusing his worry.
That’s the moment when we see a flashbulb, and the screen freezes, with the Narrator’s voice-over: “and friends, it should be noted that Jane would play this moment over and over, until it became a memory. And therefore, unreliable.”
Not only is this claim loaded with subtext, it also relays back to what the Narrator said at the beginning of the story, about the ‘periphery disappearing’. The periphery being Michael’s reaction when Jane called out his name, the apprehension in his eyes. The truth. The fact that the narrator tells us this now, in the middle of the scene, means that Jane would later relive this moment, blaming herself for not having sent Michael to the doctor, instead of noticing the periphery: the clues that Michael’s nerves are actually about something else: the fact that he’s planning to fake his own death.
We then immediately cut to Jane going back to Chloe (her potential new employer), saying about the memoire she was proofing, “it’s filled with gross exaggerations and flat-out lies.”
Chloe claps, saying, “Bravo. You passed the test.” Then we intercut with Michael signing in for his test, and Chloe’s voice over continues with, “people cheat. Lie.” and we cut back to her continuing, “so I have to be vigilant. I’d written you off, but you’re the only applicant who figured it out.”
And here, my dear readers, I’d like to prematurely pat my #TeamMichael, desperately hopeful self on the back with having ‘figured it out’. But I digress.
Later, when Rafael’s made his decision about taking the prison deal he says,
“I want a clean slate. I don’t want this hanging over my head anymore.” But by this, he could be talking about Sin Rostro, Derek, and his father’s sins hanging over his head. With his father’s addendum to his will hanging over Petra’s head, and Sin Rostro hanging over Michael’s, the theme of this episode is deceiving loved ones for a greater purpose. For safety and freedom.
It’s also important to note that we meet Louisa’s new girlfriend, Eileen (Rose in a mask,) in the same episode in which Michael allegedly dies.
The theme of this episode was being an ‘unreliable narrator’. The episode starts with the Narrator saying, “looking back, you could say it felt different right away. Which might be true. Or might just be memory. In any case, when Michael Cordero Jr. was seven years old, he had the worst day of his life.” Here, we are led to believe that the first line of this episode is about Michael’s childhood and trick or treating. But I think the Narrator is actually talking about Jane, and how she suspected something was off with Michael the day before he allegedly died.
“Of course, young Michael was an unreliable narrator… Which I’m not.” A suspicious thing to say for a Narrator we’ve come to trust, isn’t it?
Looking through old pictures, Michael and Jane have the following conversation:
Michael: “Oh man, I remember this moment exactly.”
Jane: “Oh. Well, not exactly. You were seven. Plus, the act of remembering changes things. I read this article in the New Yorker.”
Narrator: “Show off.”
Jane. "It was about Flashbulb memories.”
Narrator. “Oh, yeah, I read that one. Apparently, memories around big events seem clearer, but the periphery disappears. You remember the feeling, not the details.” (details like Michael being quieter and more withdrawn, even slightly somber the day leading up to his ‘death’)
Michael: “No. I remember it exactly.”
Narrator: “He doesn’t.”
Michael: “Cause it was so traumatizing.”
Narrator: “You can trust me.”
Jane: “Okay. Okay, I believe you.”
With Michael’s death being such an emotional experience, it makes sense that Jane would forget the details and only ruminate on the grief.
Right after, Jane gets a great job offer: $40,000 a year, plus benefits. This reassures Michael that she’d be provided for once he’s gone. But of course, there would also be Rafael. This is followed by Mateo throwing up on Jane, just so that the writers can work in, “I hope he’s not coming down with a stomach bug.” So that Michael can work in the fact that he “woke up feeling a little off. Thought it was pretest jitters.” When Jane then asks him how he feels now, Michael hesitates with a serious look on his face, then answers, “totally fine,”. He then switches focus back to Rogelio’s news.
Next, we have Rafael meeting with lawyers about the plea deal: about cooking the books about his father’s crimes. What if this meeting wasn’t about going/not going to jail, but about Rafael once again teaming up with the police to help Michael with the Sin Rostro investigation?
Later, when talking about Jane’s job interview:
Michael: “Are you nervous?”
Jane: “No, because I’m not gonna make the same mistake that I made last time.” The subtext here could also be referring to Michael not making the same mistakes with Sin Rostro as he did last time by remaining in plain sight. But this fact is masked by his mocking, falsetto imitation of Jane’s cousin when he says, “Fake it till you make it.” Another reference to Michael faking his own death.
Jane: “Yeah, and this time I’m gonna prep it till I crush it.”
Again, a reference to Michael being determined to solve this case once and for all.
Next, we have a reference to James Frey, author of A Million Little Pieces, a famously debunked memoir. Since memoirs are real life events you cannot twist or exaggerate, doing so would be plain deception. So only six and a half minutes into the episode we’ve already laid on the ‘unreliable narrator’ thickly.
Later on, during Jane’s interview, her future boss Chloe Leland talks of her fired predecessor, saying “someone had to take the fall.” At which point the Narrator jumps in with, “the cost of being an unreliable narrator. Which as I’ve said, I’m not.”
The problem is, as the narrator, even if he was unreliable we wouldn’t be able to know since he’s the one telling the story. And to my point, he quickly follows up with, “then again, I’d say that if I were.”
Chloe: “I hated getting my big break at the expense of another woman’s failure, but this isn’t summer camp. No participation trophies. Anyway…”
What Chloe is speaking of is exactly what Michael would be doing by abandoning Jane to solve the Sin Rostro case. The parallel between the situations is extremely strong.
Later in the episode, when Jane tells Michael that she might be pregnant, he is genuinely happy. But the moment in pulls her in for a hug, and she can’t see his face anymore, a look of sorrow overcomes him.
“And only two and a half years younger than Mateo, which is kind of ideal distance for siblings,” says Jane, to which Michael replies a faint “mm-Hmm,” with a deflated sense of enthusiasm. And once Jane finds out she’s not pregnant, he says, “maybe it’s for the best. With me in school… It’s okay. We’ll have plenty of time.”
Deception theme is embedded even with smaller plotlines of the episode, like Tess, Bruce’s drunken daughter being awake on the couch while he and Xo discuss her behavior.
This brings us to the Fair, the night before Michael’s ‘death’.
Jane: “You feeling okay?”
Michael: “Yeah, yeah. It just… feels weird to be out. Not studying.”
Jane: “The night before the big test you know everything you’re gonna know.”
Jane then refers to the last time she saw Michael this nervous, which was at a Carnival also.
During this entire exchange, Michael seemed detached, somberly at peace, as if anticipating something he was dreading. His demeanor was contrasted with the nervous energy of not knowing where he and Jane were headed. In the flashback, Michael was the one who was in the dark, not knowing of Jane’s true feelings towards him. This was contrasted with the present, in which Jane was in the dark regarding what Michael was about to do.
Here is another subtle clue about Michael’s state of mind: when he suggests that they take the Ferris Wheel, Jane smiles and says, “You remember.” And he says, “Everything. Exactly,” and then his smile fades completely, before he quickly puts it back on.
This is not a mistake, and certainly not something the show’s director/editor would miss. It was put there intentionally to show that Michael is dreading the decision he’s made about vanishing tomorrow.
On the Ferris Wheel:
Jane: “Okay. What’s going on with you?”
Michael: “I’m nervous.”
Jane: “You’ve got nothing to be nervous about. You crushed those practice tests. You’ve got this.”
Michael: “I do feel prepared. I just want to do well. For us.”
And when Jane says, “I just want to stay up here with you. I don’t want to go back down,” Michael says, “me too,” as if already knowing that won’t be the case. For Jane and Michael who are always on the same page, this disconnect felt jarring, with Jane’s head in the clouds, and Michael’s thoughts back down to earth.
Next, Jane points out the islands. She tells Michael that the author she’s reading right now used to swim back and forth between those islands to escape her home life. But Michael replies with, “no, that’s impossible. There are jetties just under the water that you can’t see. I remember, during our drug bust, our boats had to go around. I guess the author just embellished a little for artistic effect.”
Here, we once again have the unreliable narrator theme emerging.
“No, you can’t embellish a non-fiction memoir. It has to be true,” Jane protests.
“Well, it’s not.”
“Then, the girl’s…”
Narrator: “an unreliable narrator.”
Jane: “a fraud!”
And then she kisses Michael, saying “and you’re a genius!”
Next day (The Big Day):
Michael: “It’s nerves.”
Jane: “Fine, but if you’re not feeling better after the test, I’m taking you to the doctor, end of story.”
Michael: “Got it.”
She kisses him and says goodbye, but calls out “Michael,” causing him to turn around abruptly, seeming almost scared. As though he’s been caught.
But she says, “I’m so proud of you,” diffusing his worry.
That’s the moment when we see a flashbulb, and the screen freezes, with the Narrator’s voice-over: “and friends, it should be noted that Jane would play this moment over and over, until it became a memory. And therefore, unreliable.”
Not only is this claim loaded with subtext, it also relays back to what the Narrator said at the beginning of the story, about the ‘periphery disappearing’. The periphery being Michael’s reaction when Jane called out his name, the apprehension in his eyes. The truth. The fact that the narrator tells us this now, in the middle of the scene, means that Jane would later relive this moment, blaming herself for not having sent Michael to the doctor, instead of noticing the periphery: the clues that Michael’s nerves are actually about something else: the fact that he’s planning to fake his own death.
We then immediately cut to Jane going back to Chloe (her potential new employer), saying about the memoire she was proofing, “it’s filled with gross exaggerations and flat-out lies.”
Chloe claps, saying, “Bravo. You passed the test.” Then we intercut with Michael signing in for his test, and Chloe’s voice over continues with, “people cheat. Lie.” and we cut back to her continuing, “so I have to be vigilant. I’d written you off, but you’re the only applicant who figured it out.”
And here, my dear readers, I’d like to prematurely pat my #TeamMichael, desperately hopeful self on the back with having ‘figured it out’. But I digress.
Later, when Rafael’s made his decision about taking the prison deal he says,
“I want a clean slate. I don’t want this hanging over my head anymore.” But by this, he could be talking about Sin Rostro, Derek, and his father’s sins hanging over his head. With his father’s addendum to his will hanging over Petra’s head, and Sin Rostro hanging over Michael’s, the theme of this episode is deceiving loved ones for a greater purpose. For safety and freedom.
It’s also important to note that we meet Louisa’s new girlfriend, Eileen (Rose in a mask,) in the same episode in which Michael allegedly dies.
This is to further reinforce Rose’s ever presence, something Michael and his partner Dennis Chambers were most likely aware of, having been monitoring Luisa’s actions ever since she returned. This is after Rose released her from captivity in the submarine, telling her to tell the cops everything.
Note that Rafael demands a bunch of tests that Eileen should take, saying of Louisa “her ex killed my dad,” to which Eileen replies, “I know. But that’s only if you believe that death is finite.”
Another clue the writers brilliantly implanted.
Even Rogelio agreeing to do the reality show with Darcy is a hiatus of sorts (like Michael and Rafael’s absence), a bridge to what he really wants to do, which is be a movie star in America.
And eventually we arrive at Michael’s death, voiced-over by the Narrator:
“And friends, I did say Michael would love Jane until his dying breath.”
Woman: “He’s not breathing!”
But technically, he didn’t say this was Michael’s last breath. His last breath could be taken in his nineties, way into the future. After all, we don’t know who the narrator is. He could well outlive Michael, and be telling this story in his old age. So, let’s dissect this, shall we?
Note that Rafael demands a bunch of tests that Eileen should take, saying of Louisa “her ex killed my dad,” to which Eileen replies, “I know. But that’s only if you believe that death is finite.”
Another clue the writers brilliantly implanted.
Even Rogelio agreeing to do the reality show with Darcy is a hiatus of sorts (like Michael and Rafael’s absence), a bridge to what he really wants to do, which is be a movie star in America.
And eventually we arrive at Michael’s death, voiced-over by the Narrator:
“And friends, I did say Michael would love Jane until his dying breath.”
Woman: “He’s not breathing!”
But technically, he didn’t say this was Michael’s last breath. His last breath could be taken in his nineties, way into the future. After all, we don’t know who the narrator is. He could well outlive Michael, and be telling this story in his old age. So, let’s dissect this, shall we?
HOW RELIABLE IS THE NARRATOR? (YES. THIS AGAIN.)
When for the third time, our Narrator fails to notice Abbey who was in the room the whole time, sitting right next to Rafael, or another character, he apologizes to the audience for not noticing her: “Wow, sorry about that so embarrassing. I should look into this. He leads us to believe he should be looking into being spaced out, but would he could be implying that he needs to look into Abbey as a person because there is probably more to her than meets the eye.
Furthermore, the Narrator has demonstrated on countless occasions that he isn’t above deliberately leading the audience astray, like when Michael and ‘Suzanna’ faked Louisa’s DUI accident in order to lure Rose in. The Narrator expresses relief in finally being able to tell us what’s actually going on. “I’m sorry I couldn't say anything before. I wasn't sure who I could trust,” he says. This isn’t an isolated incident, but a trend in which the Narrator willfully withholds information from the audience. In the case of Michael still being alive, this could very much be the case of keeping things under wrap to keep the Villanuevas safe.
Even if the Narrator is reliable, doesn’t mean he is trustworthy. He has on several occasions been shocked at the turn of events, ie. When Rose killed Emilio Solano. Furthermore, he has deliberately kept the viewers in the dark to maintain suspense, or has mislead us. He might be reliable in that he doesn’t get things wrong, or that he doesn’t make things up when he doesn’t know and does admit to his lack of knowledge. But that doesn’t mean he won’t lead us astray for the sake of the characters’ ‘well-being’, if need be.
Furthermore, the Narrator has demonstrated on countless occasions that he isn’t above deliberately leading the audience astray, like when Michael and ‘Suzanna’ faked Louisa’s DUI accident in order to lure Rose in. The Narrator expresses relief in finally being able to tell us what’s actually going on. “I’m sorry I couldn't say anything before. I wasn't sure who I could trust,” he says. This isn’t an isolated incident, but a trend in which the Narrator willfully withholds information from the audience. In the case of Michael still being alive, this could very much be the case of keeping things under wrap to keep the Villanuevas safe.
Even if the Narrator is reliable, doesn’t mean he is trustworthy. He has on several occasions been shocked at the turn of events, ie. When Rose killed Emilio Solano. Furthermore, he has deliberately kept the viewers in the dark to maintain suspense, or has mislead us. He might be reliable in that he doesn’t get things wrong, or that he doesn’t make things up when he doesn’t know and does admit to his lack of knowledge. But that doesn’t mean he won’t lead us astray for the sake of the characters’ ‘well-being’, if need be.
SMART WRITING
The news about Derek being dead (his name was on the list Rose gave Louisa) was revealed right before the news about Elena being dead. In mysteries, you always reveal the real clue right before a bigger clue that’s aimed to mislead. With everyone concerned about Rafael's mother’s death, they would assume Derek is surely dead too. But I think it’s possible that when Rose told Louisa about being done with crime, she was in a way lying because Derek had already stepped in to fill her shoes. And we all know how Rose loves a good play on words.
ONE STEP FURTHER
It's possible that after Rafael realizes he was adopted, he and Michael begin looking into his biological parents and discover that Rafael was the son of arrival crime lord, kidnapped by Mutter for the sake of leverage. Because really, why would Mutter go through the trouble of replacing his son with a fake from an ‘orphanage’? What if Mutter tied Emilio’s illegal art dealings with a made-up story about Rafael’s origin to make it impossible to trace back to her competitors? What if (ready for this?) Rafael isn’t the half, but the FULL brother of Derek’s, sharing a father with him, who Elena (Mutter) killed? That would make Rafael and Rose half-siblings, but hey, weirder things have happened on this show.
It's possible that in the three years where Michael was absent, he and Rafael had been jointly working in order to bring down a crime syndicate the audience do not even know about yet. A Syndicate now run by Derek, in essence continuing the Sin Rostro investigation. Because come on, this show wouldn’t be the same w/o the crime angle. It’s just too good! And no way Michael would die before solving the most important case of his life.
It's possible that in the three years where Michael was absent, he and Rafael had been jointly working in order to bring down a crime syndicate the audience do not even know about yet. A Syndicate now run by Derek, in essence continuing the Sin Rostro investigation. Because come on, this show wouldn’t be the same w/o the crime angle. It’s just too good! And no way Michael would die before solving the most important case of his life.
ELVIS YEAGER
Elvis Yeager was supposedly the new lounge manager who replaced Scott. The narrator claims that Elvis’s “biggest difference” with Scott is the fact that he doesn't wear vests, and he's not dead. Now, you might think that like Abbey and Dennis, Elvis too is one of Michael’s eyes into Jane’s life. But what if Elvis WAS Michael? If Rose can wear masks, so can he, can’t he? Rose outsmarted Michael repeatedly, and every single time the culprit was someone close to him. His first partner, Nadine, and then his second partner, Suzanna Barnett (Rose in a mask). It would make sense for Michael to go undercover, work solo, and perhaps pull some of Rose’s tricks on her. And I think although we were led to believe that Rose (masked as Louisa’s girlfriend) was captured due to the dead Scott investigation, that it had always been a continuation of Michael’s Sin Rostro investigation.
If Elvis either works for Michael, or IS Michael in a mask (they do have similar facial features), it would make perfect sense for him to send Scott’s Burn Book to his partner Dennis. But the clever writers would make us think it was Abbey who sent the book in out of resentment towards Petra. Which let’s face it, it’s pretty out of character for someone so under-involved and passive in the story.
The reason I suspect Elvis and not Abbey is that he had no reason to be lurking around Petra’s suite in the first place. Louisa’s, sure, but neither Rafael nor Michael had any reason to be spying on Petra when she walked in on Elvis. So, the only reason Elvis would be in Petra’s room would be that he already knew about the Burn Book and was trying to retrieve it. But of course, Abbey walking in after Petra moves the Burn Book misdirects the audience, hiding this critical clue.
Given that masks are possible on the show, Michael could be hiding in plain sight, disguised as another character entirely. Or even several characters, always present, looking over Jane to ensure she’s okay. If Elvis winds up being Michael, you heard it here first!
If Elvis either works for Michael, or IS Michael in a mask (they do have similar facial features), it would make perfect sense for him to send Scott’s Burn Book to his partner Dennis. But the clever writers would make us think it was Abbey who sent the book in out of resentment towards Petra. Which let’s face it, it’s pretty out of character for someone so under-involved and passive in the story.
The reason I suspect Elvis and not Abbey is that he had no reason to be lurking around Petra’s suite in the first place. Louisa’s, sure, but neither Rafael nor Michael had any reason to be spying on Petra when she walked in on Elvis. So, the only reason Elvis would be in Petra’s room would be that he already knew about the Burn Book and was trying to retrieve it. But of course, Abbey walking in after Petra moves the Burn Book misdirects the audience, hiding this critical clue.
Given that masks are possible on the show, Michael could be hiding in plain sight, disguised as another character entirely. Or even several characters, always present, looking over Jane to ensure she’s okay. If Elvis winds up being Michael, you heard it here first!
If you've made it this far, I truly commend you! You're a real fan. :D
Sorry this post is a bit messy. It's 7:51pm and I'm eager to publish this prior to the Season 4 Premiere!
Did you enjoy this post? Do you have your own thoughts/theories? Comment below! I'd love to hear your thoughts!
Sorry this post is a bit messy. It's 7:51pm and I'm eager to publish this prior to the Season 4 Premiere!
Did you enjoy this post? Do you have your own thoughts/theories? Comment below! I'd love to hear your thoughts!
*** All photos used in this blog are courtesy of CW.
Hi everyone!
Due to multiple requests, I've extended the deadline for The Fray Theory giveaway to March 15th so people with exams can have more time! Also, if you have read The Harbinger, reviewing it as well can earn you extra entries!
Due to multiple requests, I've extended the deadline for The Fray Theory giveaway to March 15th so people with exams can have more time! Also, if you have read The Harbinger, reviewing it as well can earn you extra entries!
 |  |
It is an eerily beautiful night. The downpour is nearly horizontal, and the bare branches of trees outside are cutting into the hissing wind. It's late, but nowhere near past my bedtime. And like most nights I am kept up by a thought.
I was thinking to our early ancestors. The ones without language. Ones who communicated with sighs and grunts and angry shouts. With looks and with their body language.
When I imagine myself living way back then, it's beyond inconceivable that one day, people would be able to communicate with words, in hundreds of different languages. That one day, we'd be able to soar into the sky inside metal beasts, or see and hear people who are alive, but not 'here'.
Television.
The internet.
Gluten-free cookies.
Global warming.
Most people fear us repeating history. But what I fear for the most is the history we may never get to make. It's terrifying for me to think that after millions of years of evolution, after all that we've accomplished, we could very well be mere decades from extinction.
Yes. It is an eerily beautiful night. But it heeds us a warning. One day I will be on my deathbed, wrinkly and old, and on that day, as I prepare to say goodbye to our beautiful world, I'd like to gaze through the ceiling of my room, envisioning a future that is long, and distant, and glorious. I'd like to be able to imagine it as wondrous and not frightful.
Imagine us further down the path of evolution.
Will we have wings? Glowing eyes? Dark skin impenetrable by UV rays? Extra limbs? What will we look like? Sound like?Think like? And would we look back at the internet, at social media, and our current technologies in museums with wonder and nostalgia? Or would we have been long gone, millennia ago?
What a shame it would be to have come this far, only to let the greed of a few bury us all.
I was thinking to our early ancestors. The ones without language. Ones who communicated with sighs and grunts and angry shouts. With looks and with their body language.
When I imagine myself living way back then, it's beyond inconceivable that one day, people would be able to communicate with words, in hundreds of different languages. That one day, we'd be able to soar into the sky inside metal beasts, or see and hear people who are alive, but not 'here'.
Television.
The internet.
Gluten-free cookies.
Global warming.
Most people fear us repeating history. But what I fear for the most is the history we may never get to make. It's terrifying for me to think that after millions of years of evolution, after all that we've accomplished, we could very well be mere decades from extinction.
Yes. It is an eerily beautiful night. But it heeds us a warning. One day I will be on my deathbed, wrinkly and old, and on that day, as I prepare to say goodbye to our beautiful world, I'd like to gaze through the ceiling of my room, envisioning a future that is long, and distant, and glorious. I'd like to be able to imagine it as wondrous and not frightful.
Imagine us further down the path of evolution.
Will we have wings? Glowing eyes? Dark skin impenetrable by UV rays? Extra limbs? What will we look like? Sound like?Think like? And would we look back at the internet, at social media, and our current technologies in museums with wonder and nostalgia? Or would we have been long gone, millennia ago?
What a shame it would be to have come this far, only to let the greed of a few bury us all.
 | I'm so happy with how this cover turned out and just had to share it! Look out for The Harbinger on January 31st, 2017 on Amazon, and all other major online retailers! |
 | Hello lovelies! I am so happy, humbled, and proud to announce that my debut novel, The Fray Theory - Resonance, has ranked #1 on The Somewhere Library's list of top 10 books of 2016, out of a total of 106 books! There is nothing quite like getting to share something of yourself with people and have them genuinely enjoy it. I am truly grateful! CLICK HERE to check out the post for yourself! |
 | After nearly two months of non-stop work, the cover for The Harbinger is finally done! I'm so excited to be nearing the publication date for the first novella in The Fray Theory series! If you'd like to check out the first novel in the series, click here! And if you've already read The Fray Theory, and would like to place a pre-order on Amazon for the first novella, The Harbinger, click here! ;D Love, Nelou |
 | Great news, everyone! The Fray Theory - Resonance is now officially published! For a limited-time introductory price of $2.99 you can grab the ebook in Kindle Format, and if you're all about physical copies, you can grab a Paperback for only $12.99! If you enjoy the story, please take a minute and leave a review on Amazon and Goodreads. Reviews are extremely important, especially for a debut author, and I will be forever grateful for your support! Thank you in advance ;D. Love, Nelou |
Congratulations to Shrilaxmi P for winning the August 2016 giveaway! The prize pack includes a signed copy of The Fray Theory - Resonance (Now available on Amazon in ebook and paperback formats!), signed bookmarks & postcards.
Thank you so much Shrilaxmi for subscribing! I sincerely hope you enjoy the novel!
And to all my other lovely subscribers, keep it here! I will continue to host a monthly giveaway as a small thank you for all your support. And the prizes are only going to get better and better with time!
All my love,
Nelou
Thank you so much Shrilaxmi for subscribing! I sincerely hope you enjoy the novel!
And to all my other lovely subscribers, keep it here! I will continue to host a monthly giveaway as a small thank you for all your support. And the prizes are only going to get better and better with time!
All my love,
Nelou
 | OPENING REMARKS: I had not intended for this review to be this long, but it seems like I had a lot to say about it. The first segment will be general observations about the narrative. The following segments will mention character names and refer to specific incidents/quotes, and are thus in SPOILER territory. If you have not read the book yet, please ensure you stop reading before the spoiler section (denoted with *****) begins. |
ACOTAR REVIEW:
A review is more often than not nothing more than an opinion, yet I feel that the issues I’m about to raise are not about personal taste. For example, some readers adore love-triangles, and others loathe them. If an author chooses to incorporate a love-triangle in their story, they must do it convincingly. If they choose to incorporate crude language, sexuality, and violence, they must do so with purpose and not just to grab a reader’s attention. Readers are intelligent. They can tell if a scene or an incident in a story is acting as filler, propels the plot in an inorganic manner, or serves as an element of shock.
POV:
The story is told in first-person perspective, through the eyes of a human girl named Feyre. The problem with first person narration is that the reader experiences exactly what the protagonist experiences. We see/hear/feel/taste as the protagonist does. So when the protagonist sees something dangerous (and fully acknowledges it as dangerous), she cannot then <i>act</i> as though it isn’t dangerous, because that would be implausible.
In third person perspective, we are not in the character’s head, so there is always a possibility that the character has misinterpreted the danger ahead. But when in first-perspective narration a character goes on and on about how lethal their enemy is, it is not believable for them to mouth off or say something snide. This doesn’t make the character brave. It makes them appear foolish; too foolish and devoid of common sense for a reader to be able to root for them.
A good character does not need to be ‘good’. They don’t need to have honor/integrity. They can be vicious and cruel. They can be weak and cowardly. What makes a character real and relatable is authenticity; that their character traits, motivations, desires, fears, and behaviours match. If they think cowardly thoughts, they must take cowardly actions. If they are arrogant, it should often translate into behavior/dialogue. But when characters are forced to say things out of character, or when they behave contrary to their inner thoughts/beliefs, they become intolerable plot-devices. Their speech and behavior becomes contrived and the reader loses interest in their fate.
That is what happened with the protagonist of this story. Changes in her thoughts and behavior were erratic, irrational, and uncalled for. She did not have a smooth arc that stemmed from personal growth, an incident, or an epiphany. She was hard-headed not out of principle, which didn’t make her a strong female character, but an aggravating one.
A major issue I had with this book was the fact that for the first ¾ of the book, virtually nothing happened. The protagonist is held captive in the lap of luxury and makes defiant small talk with her amiable captors. Any time she enquires about something, she is refused clarity in a passive manner, and so instead of suspense, the story quickly began to lose steam. It was boring at best, and irritating at worse.
What I found especially off-putting was how after two dozen chapters of a particular character uttering one or two short sentences at a time, keeping the protagonist in the dark and refusing to provide information, there is suddenly a 21-page info-dump; 21 pages of long, expositional paragraphs that read dryly, as though being regurgitated by a drone. It’s unfortunate because these 21 pages of backstory could have been sprinkled throughout the story in order to build suspense/anticipation. Instead the reader is simply waiting during the first 200 or so pages of the book as the protagonist eats lunch, takes walks, eats dinner, skips breakfast, rides on horses, avoids making conversation, drinks, eats, tries to steal a butter knife at breakfast, thinks about painting, remembers painting back at home, attempts painting, fails at painting, admires other paintings.
******************* FROM THIS POINT ON, SPOILERS MAY BE EMBEDDED IN THE STORY *******************
CONCERNS WITH THE PLOT:
A ‘life for a life’ is the same adage as ‘an eye for an eye’. But what makes this adage powerful is the notion that one ‘pays’ for their actions by enduring the same fate as the person they wronged. In this instance, since Feyre killed a wolf (a High Fae in disguise), her punishment should’ve been death, not captivity. Now, I can fully sympathize with the punisher’s choice to show mercy; to decide to lessen the punishment they are entitled to dole out. But what didn’t make sense is the high lord claiming there is no way around the ‘Treaty’ and that Feyre must pay for her crime, and then diminishing the value of the Treaty by not adhering to its stipulations.
Onto the notion of Feyre’s captivity as atonement: Had Feyre been confined to a dark cell, or had she been forced to work as a lowly maid, I would’ve found the High Fae Tamlin to be generous and merciful for sparing her life. But when Feyre, an allegedly lowly human is ‘sentenced’ to an eternally beautiful spring court and a lavish lifestyle at a palace, well-fed, treated with respect, and waited on by a personal maid, I have a hard time viewing her circumstances as punishment. Especially since the ‘wolf’ she killed wasn’t just any High Fae. He was a close friend of Tamlin’s. This scenario risks the possibility that the reader resents Feyre; she committed what is deemed to be an unforgivable crime, and she is in a way being rewarded for it. Conversely, this arrangement between the two makes Tamlin appear weak for not enforcing the Treaty as he was required to. It makes his actions questionable, making him an unbelievable character with no genuine motivations.
In spite of tremendous wealth and comfort, Feyre attempts to escape on multiple occasions. I had a difficult time tolerating this behaviour because her reasoning for wanting to escape made little sense. She thinks very low of her father because he has done virtually nothing to support Feyre and her sisters. Her sisters are selfish, shallow, and blatantly cruel to her. The author makes it very clear through Feyre’s interactions with her sister Nesta (and her inner thoughts) that she wishes she didn’t have to support her family. Furthermore, the author never displays any redeeming quality in Feyre’s family for the readers to believe Feyre cares about them to any extent. In fact, Feyre’s thoughts repeatedly mention that had it not been for her promise to her cold-hearted mother, she’d want to leave and be elsewhere. Because of the hostile conditions of Feyre’s status quo, risking escape through the lethal forest lining the immortal land of Prythian (to get back to her shack of a home and a family she obviously resents) was quite unbelievable, and frankly, frustrating.
FEYRE’S PAINTING:
The entire first act of the novel, Feyre dismisses beauty as something useless that cannot aid her in survival. Yet from the moment she arrives at the court, every other page she mentions how she’d like to paint. Her preoccupation with art became rather irritating when under life-threatening circumstances, she’d have a random thought concerning painting. For example, she is thrown at the feet of evil Queen Amarantha who could kill her at a moment’s notice, and Feyre’s thought over the Queen’s evilness is: “to paint her would have driven me to madness.” Painting should be the last thing that comes to someone’s mind when their life is hanging in the balance. Too many instances Feyre’s inner monologue interrupts the flow of the story with truly insignificant thoughts.
In all fairness, Feyre’s obsession with painting was likely meant to be a replacement for reading. As a twist to the classic ‘Beauty and the Beast’ tale where Belle is different from other girls due to her intelligence, Feyre is illiterate. Now, I believe it’s the author’s prerogative to retell this story any way they want. But if painting is to be a crucial part of Feyre’s identity, it needs to be more than a shallow depiction of “so much light, so much color.” Without any deep meaning behind painting, the concept becomes vague, and the activity turns into a cheap distraction for the protagonist. If Feyre’s preoccupation with painting stemmed from her need to capture moments of her fleeting mortality, or the need to remember the face of a deceased loved one, or to remember the beauty of a home she’s lost, the readers would deeply empathize with her character. Painting would become an incredibly powerful plot device, symbolizing emotional turmoil, grief, hope, and solitude. Instead, painting remains a simple excuse for Feyre to open up to Tamlin when he offers her brushes and canvases; in a way, he ‘buys’ her affection. This is especially problematic since Feyre thus far had been completely blind to Tamlin’s mercy, generosity, kindness and integrity, and it is only when he facilitates a ‘hobby’ of hers that the ‘attraction/flirting’ between the two commences; attraction which comes far too suddenly, far too strongly, and deepens in the absence of any meaningful conversation/interaction.
BEAUTY AND THE BEAST and ACOTAR COMPARISON:
Like I’ve mentioned, I believe any author is free to make any changes to a classic tale as they wish. What I find a cause for concern, however, is when the story is ‘sold’ as a ‘retelling’ when the premise strays too far from deep attributes that made the original a classic:
Belle is smart and well-read, whereas Feyre is illiterate.
Belle selflessly loves her father (who is a brilliant inventor and loves his daughter in return). Feyre resents he father who sits around and does nothing, and is always at odds with her sister, Nesta.
Belle is unimpressed by Gaston’s beauty. Feyre is incessantly talking about Tamlin’s perfect jaw, his tanned skin, green eyes, golden hair and muscular body. Whatever shade of green there is in the world it seems Feyre has compared Tamlin’s eyes to.
Belle risks her life to find her father, then sacrifices her freedom for him. Feyre kills a wolf Faery out of blind hate and ignorance, and her punishment for this is being captive at a luxurious spring court, waited on by magical folk and her family being more than provided for.
Belle escapes because the beast becomes violent and terrifies her. Feyre plots and tries to escape for no plausible reasons beyond ‘keeping a promise’.
Belle gives the beast an even trade: ‘a captive for a captive’, and he accepts her request begrudgingly. Tamlin claims ‘a life for a life’, but instead of killing Feyre, he brings her to the court and hopes she will fall in love with him so that he can be free of his curse, which plays as dishonest, and borders on manipulation.
The beast is an actual beast, inside and out. He is arrogant, short-tempered, cruel, ugly, and immature. Tamlin’s curse is a mask covering the top half of his face (and slightly diminished powers). He is impossibly attractive in spite of it as we are repeatedly reminded, the only beastly thing about him being his claws. He is generous, forgiving, kind, polite, mature, and well-dressed; and he rarely (ever, actually) transforms into his beast form after his first encounter with Feyre.
Belle, despite the beast’s dominating personality, stands up for herself with grace and dignity. She teaches him to be well-mannered, patient, and kind. Feyre, instead of being grateful for everything Tamlin has done for her, repeatedly insults him. She antagonizes him despite her running inner dialogue of how dangerous he is and how quickly he could “shred her to ribbons.”
The beast grows from Belle’s behavior and shows her vulnerability. Over the course of months, they slowly get to know one another. They slowly fall in love with each other’s souls, not appearance. Feyre is completely oblivious to everything, rude and crude, and the moment Tamlin offers her a place to paint, she begins to fall in love with him. Their dynamic which was stiff and underdeveloped for roughly 100 pages is suddenly romantic, flirty, and lustful, and from then on, Feyre is repeatedly objectified.
Beauty and the Beast is a beautiful story about growth, honor, integrity, self-sacrifice, and ultimately, love. A Court of Thorns and Roses has similar plot elements, but with respect to growth, intelligence, and integrity, I’ve had a difficult time drawing correlations.
THE AUTHOR’S WRITING STYLE:
Maas’s descriptions are beautiful. Stunning even. And the faeries themselves were creatively described. I thoroughly enjoyed the way she conjures imagery in the reader’s mind. There were however some notable issues, mostly having to do with era-appropriate dialogue and descriptions:
For example: In a world where we speak of high lords and high ladies, where people live in shacks, villages, and palaces, hunt for a living and speak old English, the following stand out as glaringly modern and unbecoming:
“Having the balls to even ask…”
Referring to the coachman directing a horse-carriage as the “driver.”
“My father was throwing a ball at our home.”
In addition to the aforementioned words that belong to modern dialogue, there were many contemporary slang phrases that did not fit the ‘world’ of ACOTAR. Replacing words of an idiom with classic synonyms is ineffectual. What we deem as sarcasm is a modern phenomenon, and when characters in an old-era fantasy speak these ‘adapted’ idioms, the dialogue sounds synthetic, or worse yet, the characters sound like urban teenagers.
The author too often breaks a sentence and repeats the words surrounding the ellipses/dashes, like:
“All this—all this he had done for me.”
“He said he would come… come to the festivities.”
“And he knew—he knew I’d say no.”
“I—I don’t know.”
FEYRE’S BEHAVIOR:
Too often Feyre impulsively blurts out something outrageously inappropriate, then immediately thinks, “I surely will be killed for that.” And yet she continues to behave in this ludicrous manner over and over again. This can be quite frustrating for the reader to put up with. The author best avoid giving graphic descriptions of just how dangerous the High Fae can be through the protagonist’s own voice, and then have that same protagonist behave in a completely contradictory manner to their own thoughts and beliefs. She “barks” insults at Tamlin and Rhysand, calling them names, but takes offence to absolutely everything, even when their statements are completely innocent.
She insists on not believing/appreciating Tamlin taking care of her family and providing for him. She insists on putting her life in danger in order to escape, even though Tamlin has done nothing to instill doubt in her mind regarding his intentions.
Feyre has known her entire life, an further warned by the maid in the palace not to enter the forest for it is filled with dangerous faeries that would kill her in a blink. And yet she does this multiple times in order to get ‘answers’. Answers she (for some reason) refuses to ask of good-mannered Tamlin who is clearly eager to please her. It’s implausible for a character to repeatedly raise the same question in her head as if it’s of vital importance, and refuse to obtain the answer from the easiest imaginable source because of her pride.
It is never established why either Tamlin or Rhysand fall for Feyre. She isn’t described as a great beauty. She is illiterate and ill-mannered. Her personality is often repulsive (the sort only fiction tolerates as acceptable for a person).
Amarantha, the villain in this story is evil for the sake of being evil. No depth or layers to her. She wants Tamlin, only Tamlin and no one else, and tortures Feyre and other women out of spite. She appears far too late in the narrative and despite the hype around her powers (and half a century of domination over thousands of powerful faeries and High Lords) she is easily defeated at the end of the story by her minions. This was problematic because she is introduced far too late into the story for her crippling grip on Prythian to feel like a real threat.
WHAT I ENJOYED:
The beginning of the book was the most enchanting to me. Maas’s descriptions of snow, of the cold, of the cold and barren forest and the dangers lurking in the niveous labyrinth were eloquent, beautiful, spellbinding.
The conversation between Rhysand and Feyre in the cell. Rhysand isn’t that complex of a character, but there was more dimension (a duality) to him than most characters.
The trials: they were imaginative, fast-paced, and the way Feyre completed them was witty (Rhysand’s involvement was plausible and clever).
Maas’s descriptions of settings. Very vivid and beautiful.
SOME OF MY PERSONAL DISLIKES:
Feyre’s importance to Tamlin and Rhysand never felt authentic. Both men’s attraction to her felt contrived.
The author’s repeated references to one soiling themselves, vomiting (far too many variations of it), and ineloquent statements like “my bowls turned watery.”
CLOSING REMARKS:
Writing a book is a tremendous task. It requires immense dedication, and I have the utmost respect for anyone who attempts it. Mrs. Maas is clearly gifted, and the amount of work she has put into this work is by no means lost on her readers. My opinions on her novel are simply a reflection of my thoughts and feelings, and in no way a reflection of the quality of her work. What I might have difficultly resonating with might be the very thing another reader develops a deep connection with, and that is who the author writes for. Those who <i>do</i> connect with a story. I sure hope my opinions of this story do not deter anyone from experiencing its wonders for themselves, for there is a lot to enjoy, appreciate, and be in awe of.
ACOTAR REVIEW:
A review is more often than not nothing more than an opinion, yet I feel that the issues I’m about to raise are not about personal taste. For example, some readers adore love-triangles, and others loathe them. If an author chooses to incorporate a love-triangle in their story, they must do it convincingly. If they choose to incorporate crude language, sexuality, and violence, they must do so with purpose and not just to grab a reader’s attention. Readers are intelligent. They can tell if a scene or an incident in a story is acting as filler, propels the plot in an inorganic manner, or serves as an element of shock.
POV:
The story is told in first-person perspective, through the eyes of a human girl named Feyre. The problem with first person narration is that the reader experiences exactly what the protagonist experiences. We see/hear/feel/taste as the protagonist does. So when the protagonist sees something dangerous (and fully acknowledges it as dangerous), she cannot then <i>act</i> as though it isn’t dangerous, because that would be implausible.
In third person perspective, we are not in the character’s head, so there is always a possibility that the character has misinterpreted the danger ahead. But when in first-perspective narration a character goes on and on about how lethal their enemy is, it is not believable for them to mouth off or say something snide. This doesn’t make the character brave. It makes them appear foolish; too foolish and devoid of common sense for a reader to be able to root for them.
A good character does not need to be ‘good’. They don’t need to have honor/integrity. They can be vicious and cruel. They can be weak and cowardly. What makes a character real and relatable is authenticity; that their character traits, motivations, desires, fears, and behaviours match. If they think cowardly thoughts, they must take cowardly actions. If they are arrogant, it should often translate into behavior/dialogue. But when characters are forced to say things out of character, or when they behave contrary to their inner thoughts/beliefs, they become intolerable plot-devices. Their speech and behavior becomes contrived and the reader loses interest in their fate.
That is what happened with the protagonist of this story. Changes in her thoughts and behavior were erratic, irrational, and uncalled for. She did not have a smooth arc that stemmed from personal growth, an incident, or an epiphany. She was hard-headed not out of principle, which didn’t make her a strong female character, but an aggravating one.
A major issue I had with this book was the fact that for the first ¾ of the book, virtually nothing happened. The protagonist is held captive in the lap of luxury and makes defiant small talk with her amiable captors. Any time she enquires about something, she is refused clarity in a passive manner, and so instead of suspense, the story quickly began to lose steam. It was boring at best, and irritating at worse.
What I found especially off-putting was how after two dozen chapters of a particular character uttering one or two short sentences at a time, keeping the protagonist in the dark and refusing to provide information, there is suddenly a 21-page info-dump; 21 pages of long, expositional paragraphs that read dryly, as though being regurgitated by a drone. It’s unfortunate because these 21 pages of backstory could have been sprinkled throughout the story in order to build suspense/anticipation. Instead the reader is simply waiting during the first 200 or so pages of the book as the protagonist eats lunch, takes walks, eats dinner, skips breakfast, rides on horses, avoids making conversation, drinks, eats, tries to steal a butter knife at breakfast, thinks about painting, remembers painting back at home, attempts painting, fails at painting, admires other paintings.
******************* FROM THIS POINT ON, SPOILERS MAY BE EMBEDDED IN THE STORY *******************
CONCERNS WITH THE PLOT:
A ‘life for a life’ is the same adage as ‘an eye for an eye’. But what makes this adage powerful is the notion that one ‘pays’ for their actions by enduring the same fate as the person they wronged. In this instance, since Feyre killed a wolf (a High Fae in disguise), her punishment should’ve been death, not captivity. Now, I can fully sympathize with the punisher’s choice to show mercy; to decide to lessen the punishment they are entitled to dole out. But what didn’t make sense is the high lord claiming there is no way around the ‘Treaty’ and that Feyre must pay for her crime, and then diminishing the value of the Treaty by not adhering to its stipulations.
Onto the notion of Feyre’s captivity as atonement: Had Feyre been confined to a dark cell, or had she been forced to work as a lowly maid, I would’ve found the High Fae Tamlin to be generous and merciful for sparing her life. But when Feyre, an allegedly lowly human is ‘sentenced’ to an eternally beautiful spring court and a lavish lifestyle at a palace, well-fed, treated with respect, and waited on by a personal maid, I have a hard time viewing her circumstances as punishment. Especially since the ‘wolf’ she killed wasn’t just any High Fae. He was a close friend of Tamlin’s. This scenario risks the possibility that the reader resents Feyre; she committed what is deemed to be an unforgivable crime, and she is in a way being rewarded for it. Conversely, this arrangement between the two makes Tamlin appear weak for not enforcing the Treaty as he was required to. It makes his actions questionable, making him an unbelievable character with no genuine motivations.
In spite of tremendous wealth and comfort, Feyre attempts to escape on multiple occasions. I had a difficult time tolerating this behaviour because her reasoning for wanting to escape made little sense. She thinks very low of her father because he has done virtually nothing to support Feyre and her sisters. Her sisters are selfish, shallow, and blatantly cruel to her. The author makes it very clear through Feyre’s interactions with her sister Nesta (and her inner thoughts) that she wishes she didn’t have to support her family. Furthermore, the author never displays any redeeming quality in Feyre’s family for the readers to believe Feyre cares about them to any extent. In fact, Feyre’s thoughts repeatedly mention that had it not been for her promise to her cold-hearted mother, she’d want to leave and be elsewhere. Because of the hostile conditions of Feyre’s status quo, risking escape through the lethal forest lining the immortal land of Prythian (to get back to her shack of a home and a family she obviously resents) was quite unbelievable, and frankly, frustrating.
FEYRE’S PAINTING:
The entire first act of the novel, Feyre dismisses beauty as something useless that cannot aid her in survival. Yet from the moment she arrives at the court, every other page she mentions how she’d like to paint. Her preoccupation with art became rather irritating when under life-threatening circumstances, she’d have a random thought concerning painting. For example, she is thrown at the feet of evil Queen Amarantha who could kill her at a moment’s notice, and Feyre’s thought over the Queen’s evilness is: “to paint her would have driven me to madness.” Painting should be the last thing that comes to someone’s mind when their life is hanging in the balance. Too many instances Feyre’s inner monologue interrupts the flow of the story with truly insignificant thoughts.
In all fairness, Feyre’s obsession with painting was likely meant to be a replacement for reading. As a twist to the classic ‘Beauty and the Beast’ tale where Belle is different from other girls due to her intelligence, Feyre is illiterate. Now, I believe it’s the author’s prerogative to retell this story any way they want. But if painting is to be a crucial part of Feyre’s identity, it needs to be more than a shallow depiction of “so much light, so much color.” Without any deep meaning behind painting, the concept becomes vague, and the activity turns into a cheap distraction for the protagonist. If Feyre’s preoccupation with painting stemmed from her need to capture moments of her fleeting mortality, or the need to remember the face of a deceased loved one, or to remember the beauty of a home she’s lost, the readers would deeply empathize with her character. Painting would become an incredibly powerful plot device, symbolizing emotional turmoil, grief, hope, and solitude. Instead, painting remains a simple excuse for Feyre to open up to Tamlin when he offers her brushes and canvases; in a way, he ‘buys’ her affection. This is especially problematic since Feyre thus far had been completely blind to Tamlin’s mercy, generosity, kindness and integrity, and it is only when he facilitates a ‘hobby’ of hers that the ‘attraction/flirting’ between the two commences; attraction which comes far too suddenly, far too strongly, and deepens in the absence of any meaningful conversation/interaction.
BEAUTY AND THE BEAST and ACOTAR COMPARISON:
Like I’ve mentioned, I believe any author is free to make any changes to a classic tale as they wish. What I find a cause for concern, however, is when the story is ‘sold’ as a ‘retelling’ when the premise strays too far from deep attributes that made the original a classic:
Belle is smart and well-read, whereas Feyre is illiterate.
Belle selflessly loves her father (who is a brilliant inventor and loves his daughter in return). Feyre resents he father who sits around and does nothing, and is always at odds with her sister, Nesta.
Belle is unimpressed by Gaston’s beauty. Feyre is incessantly talking about Tamlin’s perfect jaw, his tanned skin, green eyes, golden hair and muscular body. Whatever shade of green there is in the world it seems Feyre has compared Tamlin’s eyes to.
Belle risks her life to find her father, then sacrifices her freedom for him. Feyre kills a wolf Faery out of blind hate and ignorance, and her punishment for this is being captive at a luxurious spring court, waited on by magical folk and her family being more than provided for.
Belle escapes because the beast becomes violent and terrifies her. Feyre plots and tries to escape for no plausible reasons beyond ‘keeping a promise’.
Belle gives the beast an even trade: ‘a captive for a captive’, and he accepts her request begrudgingly. Tamlin claims ‘a life for a life’, but instead of killing Feyre, he brings her to the court and hopes she will fall in love with him so that he can be free of his curse, which plays as dishonest, and borders on manipulation.
The beast is an actual beast, inside and out. He is arrogant, short-tempered, cruel, ugly, and immature. Tamlin’s curse is a mask covering the top half of his face (and slightly diminished powers). He is impossibly attractive in spite of it as we are repeatedly reminded, the only beastly thing about him being his claws. He is generous, forgiving, kind, polite, mature, and well-dressed; and he rarely (ever, actually) transforms into his beast form after his first encounter with Feyre.
Belle, despite the beast’s dominating personality, stands up for herself with grace and dignity. She teaches him to be well-mannered, patient, and kind. Feyre, instead of being grateful for everything Tamlin has done for her, repeatedly insults him. She antagonizes him despite her running inner dialogue of how dangerous he is and how quickly he could “shred her to ribbons.”
The beast grows from Belle’s behavior and shows her vulnerability. Over the course of months, they slowly get to know one another. They slowly fall in love with each other’s souls, not appearance. Feyre is completely oblivious to everything, rude and crude, and the moment Tamlin offers her a place to paint, she begins to fall in love with him. Their dynamic which was stiff and underdeveloped for roughly 100 pages is suddenly romantic, flirty, and lustful, and from then on, Feyre is repeatedly objectified.
Beauty and the Beast is a beautiful story about growth, honor, integrity, self-sacrifice, and ultimately, love. A Court of Thorns and Roses has similar plot elements, but with respect to growth, intelligence, and integrity, I’ve had a difficult time drawing correlations.
THE AUTHOR’S WRITING STYLE:
Maas’s descriptions are beautiful. Stunning even. And the faeries themselves were creatively described. I thoroughly enjoyed the way she conjures imagery in the reader’s mind. There were however some notable issues, mostly having to do with era-appropriate dialogue and descriptions:
For example: In a world where we speak of high lords and high ladies, where people live in shacks, villages, and palaces, hunt for a living and speak old English, the following stand out as glaringly modern and unbecoming:
“Having the balls to even ask…”
Referring to the coachman directing a horse-carriage as the “driver.”
“My father was throwing a ball at our home.”
In addition to the aforementioned words that belong to modern dialogue, there were many contemporary slang phrases that did not fit the ‘world’ of ACOTAR. Replacing words of an idiom with classic synonyms is ineffectual. What we deem as sarcasm is a modern phenomenon, and when characters in an old-era fantasy speak these ‘adapted’ idioms, the dialogue sounds synthetic, or worse yet, the characters sound like urban teenagers.
The author too often breaks a sentence and repeats the words surrounding the ellipses/dashes, like:
“All this—all this he had done for me.”
“He said he would come… come to the festivities.”
“And he knew—he knew I’d say no.”
“I—I don’t know.”
FEYRE’S BEHAVIOR:
Too often Feyre impulsively blurts out something outrageously inappropriate, then immediately thinks, “I surely will be killed for that.” And yet she continues to behave in this ludicrous manner over and over again. This can be quite frustrating for the reader to put up with. The author best avoid giving graphic descriptions of just how dangerous the High Fae can be through the protagonist’s own voice, and then have that same protagonist behave in a completely contradictory manner to their own thoughts and beliefs. She “barks” insults at Tamlin and Rhysand, calling them names, but takes offence to absolutely everything, even when their statements are completely innocent.
She insists on not believing/appreciating Tamlin taking care of her family and providing for him. She insists on putting her life in danger in order to escape, even though Tamlin has done nothing to instill doubt in her mind regarding his intentions.
Feyre has known her entire life, an further warned by the maid in the palace not to enter the forest for it is filled with dangerous faeries that would kill her in a blink. And yet she does this multiple times in order to get ‘answers’. Answers she (for some reason) refuses to ask of good-mannered Tamlin who is clearly eager to please her. It’s implausible for a character to repeatedly raise the same question in her head as if it’s of vital importance, and refuse to obtain the answer from the easiest imaginable source because of her pride.
It is never established why either Tamlin or Rhysand fall for Feyre. She isn’t described as a great beauty. She is illiterate and ill-mannered. Her personality is often repulsive (the sort only fiction tolerates as acceptable for a person).
Amarantha, the villain in this story is evil for the sake of being evil. No depth or layers to her. She wants Tamlin, only Tamlin and no one else, and tortures Feyre and other women out of spite. She appears far too late in the narrative and despite the hype around her powers (and half a century of domination over thousands of powerful faeries and High Lords) she is easily defeated at the end of the story by her minions. This was problematic because she is introduced far too late into the story for her crippling grip on Prythian to feel like a real threat.
WHAT I ENJOYED:
The beginning of the book was the most enchanting to me. Maas’s descriptions of snow, of the cold, of the cold and barren forest and the dangers lurking in the niveous labyrinth were eloquent, beautiful, spellbinding.
The conversation between Rhysand and Feyre in the cell. Rhysand isn’t that complex of a character, but there was more dimension (a duality) to him than most characters.
The trials: they were imaginative, fast-paced, and the way Feyre completed them was witty (Rhysand’s involvement was plausible and clever).
Maas’s descriptions of settings. Very vivid and beautiful.
SOME OF MY PERSONAL DISLIKES:
Feyre’s importance to Tamlin and Rhysand never felt authentic. Both men’s attraction to her felt contrived.
The author’s repeated references to one soiling themselves, vomiting (far too many variations of it), and ineloquent statements like “my bowls turned watery.”
CLOSING REMARKS:
Writing a book is a tremendous task. It requires immense dedication, and I have the utmost respect for anyone who attempts it. Mrs. Maas is clearly gifted, and the amount of work she has put into this work is by no means lost on her readers. My opinions on her novel are simply a reflection of my thoughts and feelings, and in no way a reflection of the quality of her work. What I might have difficultly resonating with might be the very thing another reader develops a deep connection with, and that is who the author writes for. Those who <i>do</i> connect with a story. I sure hope my opinions of this story do not deter anyone from experiencing its wonders for themselves, for there is a lot to enjoy, appreciate, and be in awe of.
NELOU KERAMATI
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