I read the trilogy these past couple of months following the insane hype around the series among booktubers and on Goodreads (Jade Legacy has a 4.65 rating). After reading it, it just doesn’t make any sense to me. Here are my thoughts. MASSIVE SPOILERS. Also sorry for super incoherent rambling.
Let’s start with the Pros.
The setting is pretty good. The world Lee has created feels like a lived in, breathing space with its own cogs and wheels that makes it spin. It’s possibly the best part of the book.
The series never really takes the most obvious path towards storytelling. There are hardly any clichés the story gets stuck on. Though I didn’t enjoy the series, I have to give it to the author to come up with original plot devices and character arcs that feel fresh even after 1500 pages into the series.
Now to why we are here, the cons.
First and foremost is the pacing. Jesus Christ. The trilogy spans around 3 decades in total. The first book I think occurs only within a couple of years at most I think which was fine, but then idk what kinda shit happened from Book 2, time would just fly by between pages. Oh this person is exiled, next page oh his first year was so and so. Wait wait 1 year, really?? Oh this person was exiled, next you see him after a 100 pages and it’s been 14 YEARS for him. Bro what? Give your readers some time to grasp the consequences of actions like for real. One page you find out someone is pregnant, and couple of chapters later she’s pregnant again but with another baby and she already gave birth once. Like the first book went so slow with all the relationships and character building which is just thrown away to make room for this intense political drama with strategies and moving parts and all those characters are just so miniscule in comparison. It threw me off sooo much. For example Wen gets brain damage in the end of book 2 and everyone is so sad coz it will take her so much time to recover but lo and behold she’s practically good as new after 2 chapters of slurred speaking and wobbling. It basically means there were no consequences to the climax of book 2 apart from some rando clan guy dying.
Secondly, the morality factor. So our main man Hilo (the major protagonist of the series) was all hunky dory for me uptil this one point in Jade War where he goes to meet his dead brother’s ex wife after finding that she actually has a secret son who is his nephew. He asks her to move back to their city after being told by the woman not to have any contact with her. She is visibly distressed to max seeing him. But anyways the woman and her now partner decide to reach some sort of agreement so that the kid can connect with his paternal side as well. But the woman tries to flee and our main man Hilo murders her and her partner (who is the sweetest guy) for basically NOT DOING WHAT SHE WANTS WITH HER OWN CHILD. How can you ask your viewers to root for a guy who murders two innocent, unarmed people who just want to do what they think is best for their child. And I wonder why she wouldn’t want her kid to be near fucking psychopaths who nonchalantly murder innocents and kidnap their child and groom them to be his successor. The fuck. This threw me so fucking off and even when they bring this shit up later in the book it’s just brushed off being “oh something that had to be done for the clan Yada Yada” like fuck wth. And later when this kid grows up and is like okay i dont wanna be the Pillar and wanna do my own thing, HE THREATENS TO EXILE AND CUR HIM OFF. Motherfucker you killed his mom and step dad in cold blood, kidnapped him and now that he’s grown up and wants to do his own thing you wanna discard him. What was Fonda Lee thinking? And he comes around this fact only when Anden (one of his leading clan members) threatens to leave which would cause major financial loss to the clan. Bruh fuck this dude.
Another thing is how Lee makes things happen in the story. The book spends so much time world building and explaining how non-important cultural shit happens for every other faction in the world but when it comes to actually showing character events happen, she cops out hard. Like it is just basically told to us that so and so characters is really smart and has this and that strengths, but hardly shows us that. In the latter 2 books she is in such a hurry to move the plot along, that the new characters are given no introductions or moments. Take for example Juen, the new clan Horn after Kehn dies. He is supposed to be one of the main 3 dudes in the clan, but what do we get in the name of his character is just a decade later when he’s retiring and she decides to tell us how good he has been with his street smarts or some shit I have already forgotten coz it was so half assed. She has the time to tell us how some rando country’s politics which matters so little to the story is happening but cannot tell us something about the new Horn. Even with Shae, we are just told how smart and savvy she is with handling the weatherman duties, but despite focusing a major chunk of the series on her, the times when characters are praising her for her work far outweighs what she actually is seen doing.
Lastly, idk why but the book is Hella sexist. Which is so surprising since the writer is a woman herself. I won’t go too much in detail with this coz i dont wanna be a dude telling how women should not be sexist or whatever. Some examples are how our main man Hilo is basically fucking sex workers while his wife is recovering coz i mean he has to get that dick wet right? Oh and did I mention that she is recovering after successfully killing the main antagonist of Book 2 while his husband was busy being irresponsible and letting his kid swallow some magic stones he left unguarded? Yes, this guy is utterly unbelievable. And what’s worse is she knows he’s been visiting the brothels and feels sad she can’t be there for him. Bitch have some self respect wtf. Also our main man Hilo is disappointed that one of his son is a stone-eye (non magic) and the other kidnapped kid ran away so he doesn’t have an heir. But he literally has a girl child who IS magic and excels and wants to be in the clan business. They never even mention her being the next pillar for some reason. And you may think oh well the clans must only have male leaders, the the main antagonist of the series is a FEMALE PILLAR OF THE MOUNTAIN CLAN…. Like how is there not a single sentence of discussion about Jaya being the next pillar. Moreover, she is kinda discouraged initially in her ambition to even become the horn due to the fact that she’s a woman.
Anyways. I probably have a lot more to rant about this series but I’ll leave it at that. Although there is a lot of good in the series, it just frustrates me more than anything else. I will never understand the hype. Anyways, if you made it this far, thanks for reading. What did you guys find good or bad with this series if you have read it. Will love to hear more opinions.
by Slaiden_IV