By: SA Chakraborty
SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS
Ok, now that is out of the way. This is your last chance. I’m going in and I’m not holding back. You were warned.
GAAAAH. They did Dara so dirty!!! There is a little redemption for him at the end but the whole time I was just gritting my teeth at Ali and Nahri’s hypocrisy. Did Ali grow on me? Yes. Did I overall really like Nahri? Yes. But they still both pissed me TF off. Dara is hands down a tragic figure for the ages. By the way, I’m not structuring my thoughts on this trilogy because most of it is just me emoting and there’s no reason behind it.
Jamshid and Muntadir! Love. Would have really liked to have more Zaynb in the series. She was amazing. Queen Hatset also amazing. Sobek - such a cool concept. End of the day I want so much more from this world. I want to follow Dara to the ends of the Earth. I want to circle back to Ali and Nahri’s descendants and see how they interface with Dara and the slave rings. I want to know more about the Peri. There’s endless material here.
Surprises that made me happy: Nahri’s grandpa. I straight up did not see that coming. It was a great way to end on a positive note where so much else was tinged with sadness. Speaking of - Dara riding off into the sunset to gather slave rings and free the enslaved Djinn. It was the mature thing to do and so I begrudging accept it. Did I want he and Nahri to end up together? 100,000%. But in all honesty, they are both damaged goods and their love, though real, was also a tangle of trauma bonds. And he needed to go heal and she didn’t need to save him. Its a RuPaul moment. If Dara can’t love himself…
Final thoughts. Still angry the author is white. It means some POC writer somewhere who also could have written and published this story was displaced. I’m obsessed with this world and excited to see it come to screen on Netflix. There is SOOOO much room to cast this with actors who cover a wide range of skin tones and ethnicities. I’m am hoping desperately that they don’t white-wash everyone. Ugh. pleeeeease let them get it right!! I want more books. I would love to see Chakraborty team up with an actual author of color to flesh out some of the stories that are begging to be told. Overall I fell in love with this trilogy. And was happy to spend the 60+ hours of listening to see it through to the end.