Wren
“In order to keep those you love safe, you need to become what they fear most. Are you prepared to do that?”
Well, this was an interesting experience, in a way. I went into the book mostly blind; someone on Pagebound asked for arranged marriage recs, someone recced this, and the one-line description of the arranged marriage situation hooked me. I really liked the beginning, despite the density all the Gaelic names for every little thing added to it. It was fun to see an unapologetically queer heroine in a f/m romantasy, the religious conflict was promising, and the magic system even more so, what with the magic gifts being amplified by entering bonds with magical creatures. The presence of dragons and dragon riders gave it a bit of a Game of Thrones/House of the Dragon vibe, but at this point those books/shows are such a huge cultural phenomenon that virtually everything with dragons and royalty feels like a nod in that direction.
But then I read on, and Aemyra’s father appeared, and I was like… hang on, why does this guy remind me so much of Daemon Targaryen? And then there were some scenes with the royal family, and the next thing I knew, I turned into that Leonardo DiCaprio pointing his finger meme. Oh, this is so obviously Aegon! And this is Alicent! And the MMC is clearly a slightly OOC Aemond with serial numbers not so much filed off as papered over, how was I so stupid that I didn’t notice at once?
So then I pulled up Google, and yup, this started life as an Aemond/OC HotD fanfic.
The further I read, the harder those origins were to unsee. I do appreciate how much thought was put into constructing the non-Westeros setting, but the problem is, a lot of what was seen of it in the early chapters remained in the early chapters. The characters often felt kind of divorced of the whole magical and religious context they’d supposedly grew up with, outside of the key points of the plot when that context was brought to the front of the events. The readers’ informed that the bonds with the magical beasts go both ways, the dragons are just one type of such beasts, there are specifics to the whole thing that are pretty unique and definitely not Martin-esque. But the book only gives us one creature that isn’t a dragon, and for the most part just shows us the fairly typical dragon/rider interactions that are just very HotD. The original setting shines brightest in the earliest couple of chapters + at a few choice moments throughout the book, but otherwise, it feels separate from the very HotD characters and the very HotD plot.
Also, there are just so many small details that weren’t reconstructed so much as reskinned. Like the royal family having a special hair color shared by no one else. Or even some figures of speech / names of things. Like, there was a point when Aemyra swore to take what’s hers “with fire and fury,” and my brain immediately corrected it to “fire and blood.” Or there was that part about the river lairds declaring for her, and it was hard not to go mentally, “surely you mean the River Lords.”
I’m not opposed to fanfic getting turned into original books in general, but after reading this I’m convinced that it works best when the fanfic is initially written as an AU, keeping the characters’ vibes and dynamics, but transporting them from the get-go into a different world, different set of circumstances, and letting them develop in those circumstances. That way, it’s easier for the writer to file off those serial numbers and also way easier for the reader to just enjoy the ride that may remind them of another fictional pairing, but still be its own thing. But when the entire story is mired in the canon circumstances, even with some twists put on them (or maybe especially with twists, because the “what if x, but y?” premises in fanfic work so well precisely because we’re very familiar with x)… Well, let’s just say, right now I can’t even decide if I want to buy the second book, because on one hand, I kind of want to know how the conflict resolves, but on the other hand, it literally feels like I’m asked to pay for something that belongs on AO3.
To try to focus more on the actual story… well, honestly, it’s very hard to focus on in without the HotD context 😅 I do wonder what I would think of it without being familiar with the source material, but alas, that ship has sailed. I’ll say that I liked Aemyra for the most part, although I cringed at some of her “not like other girls” moments, like when she was declaring in one chapter how she wanted to save all women from oppression and patriarchy, and then in the very next one rolling her eyes at some of the oppressed women and calling them pitiful and spineless. I also felt like she was acting younger and more naive than would make sense with her backstory.
The romance had some fun moments and some good banter, but I think I would have liked the burn to be slower. Some of the developments felt very sudden to me. Like, seriously, you’re having a tense conversation with someone over their involvement in the murder of your family, and the next thing you do is… surrender to the chemistry between you? Are the allosexuals okay? I wonder if it was the same in the original fanfic where there was no need to stick to the industry-dictated word counts and…
*throws hands up* Gah. No, see, I’m incapable of discussing it without thinking of the fanfic origins. Sorry. For all the early-chapter promise the new setting held, it just isn’t far enough divorced from the source material for me.
“In order to keep those you love safe, you need to become what they fear most. Are you prepared to do that?”
Well, this was an interesting experience, in a way. I went into the book mostly blind; someone on Pagebound asked for arranged marriage recs, someone recced this, and the one-line description of the arranged marriage situation hooked me. I really liked the beginning, despite the density all the Gaelic names for every little thing added to it. It was fun to see an unapologetically queer heroine in a f/m romantasy, the religious conflict was promising, and the magic system even more so, what with the magic gifts being amplified by entering bonds with magical creatures. The presence of dragons and dragon riders gave it a bit of a Game of Thrones/House of the Dragon vibe, but at this point those books/shows are such a huge cultural phenomenon that virtually everything with dragons and royalty feels like a nod in that direction.
But then I read on, and Aemyra’s father appeared, and I was like… hang on, why does this guy remind me so much of Daemon Targaryen? And then there were some scenes with the royal family, and the next thing I knew, I turned into that Leonardo DiCaprio pointing his finger meme. Oh, this is so obviously Aegon! And this is Alicent! And the MMC is clearly a slightly OOC Aemond with serial numbers not so much filed off as papered over, how was I so stupid that I didn’t notice at once?
So then I pulled up Google, and yup, this started life as an Aemond/OC HotD fanfic.
The further I read, the harder those origins were to unsee. I do appreciate how much thought was put into constructing the non-Westeros setting, but the problem is, a lot of what was seen of it in the early chapters remained in the early chapters. The characters often felt kind of divorced of the whole magical and religious context they’d supposedly grew up with, outside of the key points of the plot when that context was brought to the front of the events. The readers’ informed that the bonds with the magical beasts go both ways, the dragons are just one type of such beasts, there are specifics to the whole thing that are pretty unique and definitely not Martin-esque. But the book only gives us one creature that isn’t a dragon, and for the most part just shows us the fairly typical dragon/rider interactions that are just very HotD. The original setting shines brightest in the earliest couple of chapters + at a few choice moments throughout the book, but otherwise, it feels separate from the very HotD characters and the very HotD plot.
Also, there are just so many small details that weren’t reconstructed so much as reskinned. Like the royal family having a special hair color shared by no one else. Or even some figures of speech / names of things. Like, there was a point when Aemyra swore to take what’s hers “with fire and fury,” and my brain immediately corrected it to “fire and blood.” Or there was that part about the river lairds declaring for her, and it was hard not to go mentally, “surely you mean the River Lords.”
I’m not opposed to fanfic getting turned into original books in general, but after reading this I’m convinced that it works best when the fanfic is initially written as an AU, keeping the characters’ vibes and dynamics, but transporting them from the get-go into a different world, different set of circumstances, and letting them develop in those circumstances. That way, it’s easier for the writer to file off those serial numbers and also way easier for the reader to just enjoy the ride that may remind them of another fictional pairing, but still be its own thing. But when the entire story is mired in the canon circumstances, even with some twists put on them (or maybe especially with twists, because the “what if x, but y?” premises in fanfic work so well precisely because we’re very familiar with x)… Well, let’s just say, right now I can’t even decide if I want to buy the second book, because on one hand, I kind of want to know how the conflict resolves, but on the other hand, it literally feels like I’m asked to pay for something that belongs on AO3.
To try to focus more on the actual story… well, honestly, it’s very hard to focus on in without the HotD context 😅 I do wonder what I would think of it without being familiar with the source material, but alas, that ship has sailed. I’ll say that I liked Aemyra for the most part, although I cringed at some of her “not like other girls” moments, like when she was declaring in one chapter how she wanted to save all women from oppression and patriarchy, and then in the very next one rolling her eyes at some of the oppressed women and calling them pitiful and spineless. I also felt like she was acting younger and more naive than would make sense with her backstory.
The romance had some fun moments and some good banter, but I think I would have liked the burn to be slower. Some of the developments felt very sudden to me. Like, seriously, you’re having a tense conversation with someone over their involvement in the murder of your family, and the next thing you do is… surrender to the chemistry between you? Are the allosexuals okay? I wonder if it was the same in the original fanfic where there was no need to stick to the industry-dictated word counts and…
*throws hands up* Gah. No, see, I’m incapable of discussing it without thinking of the fanfic origins. Sorry. For all the early-chapter promise the new setting held, it just isn’t far enough divorced from the source material for me.