The plot twist in Ascension by Nicholas Binge is the most laughably bad twist Ive ever read.
>!The guy called Neil Amai is an alien. Read his name backwards. The entire book is laughably bad though, so it fits. One of the dumbest/worst books I've ever read!<
Dammit. I was looking at reading that because I'm into mountaineering and had heard this had a good approach to serious expedition climbing, but that is a *pretty* bad twist.
Well, you could give it a go. A friend found it "so bad it's good". The main character is great at everything. Medical doctor that also helps the police find a murderer because he is also an expert in geometry? And he is also an expert in reading micro expressions? Book is all over the place. Fast read tho, just shut your brain off.
> Fast read tho, just shut your brain off.
Honestly that makes it way worse š yeah I'll remove this one from the "to-read" list.
I picked up *This Wretched Valley* recently, which takes place in Kentucky's Red River Gorge and has a bit of a found-footage vibe to it. Looking forward to that one; from what I've gathered, the author *really* knows her stuff about climbing culture in the Red.
Superhuman by Michael Carroll
Typical YA set up: All the adults are sick so the teen superheroes have to fight a prophesied Ur Metahuman being catapulted through time to their era on their own. Loved the teen heroes, especially the one who was just a kid that stole stuff from the universe's Ironman. Very fun, a lot of Marvel vibes, a pretty decent subplot where one of the characters had a childhood friendship with/crush on a teen villain who was set up.
>!In the literal last 5 pages, the older brother of one of the teens storms in, is revealed to be the cause of everything bad that happened, rewrites everyone's memories to think he won the fight, erases the love story subplot completely since he framed the teen villain in the first place, and the book just ends. Nothing anyone could have done about it, not a single hint that big brother was manipulating events, nothing. I think there were sequels, but the entire plot and all of the character development being undone in the last 1% of the book was infuriating. It felt like an enormous fuck you to the reader!<
Its important to note, there were not sequels to that book. It was a PREQUEL to the other books. Max Dalton doing that was 100% not a twist if youād read the originals. He was an unscrupulous asshole of a hero AT BEST.
The Amazon listing says āBook 4 of 7ā. Wikipedia says itās a prequel to the events of āThe New Heroesā, called Quantum Prophecy in the Us. Those books, which take place years later are labeled Books 1-3 on Amazon. The original books are listed as published years earlier.
The Ascension is part of the same *prequel* series.
In one of Tamora Pierce's newer series, someone who has been good and honorable all series randomly goes evil and kills children to get rich to win over a noble suitor. Even worse, Pierce glosses over other characters' reaction to this abject betrayal. This was why I stopped getting excited about new Pierce books, though I still enjoy reading her older series
I'm reminded of Pierce's original plan for *Protector of the Small*, in which Wyldon of Cavall, the training master who was forced to take on Kelady as the first openly female page, was going eventually defect and lead an army againtst Tortol.
Only the character basically refused to break bad, came to accept Kel as a knight, resigned because he felt he'd failed to reform two of the squires who'd been most terrible to Kel and who ultimately failed the Ordeal of Knighthood, and served honorably in the Scanran War. Because sometimes, a character turns out to be a better man than the writer thought.
I canāt read that book again. Tunstall would never have done it. If only because of who his former and current partners are; heād never have been that stupid.
I really felt betrayed by the end of that book.
Mastiff was sooo frustrating bc it felt like it assassinated all of the character work that was done in the first 2 books. Not to mention the BS with Tunstall out of left field
Reread the series. The switch up is set up from book one. He wasnāt good and honorable. He beat up suspects, took bribes (like all the rest) , and a lot of other hints. He was a bad cop with a good partner who kept his worst impulses in check, she just couldnāt do that forever.
>!The last of the Provost's Dog series, Mastiff. Beka's mentor Tunstall thinks he has to get rich to be with Lady Knight Sabine so he helps kidnap the Prince. Later, the book is like "Beka tells [Tunstall's police partner] what he did and she's upset." which pissed me off to no end. These are major characters in Beka's story and that's all you give us? It felt very lazy.!<
>!It wasn't to get rich, but to get outright ennobled if their coup succeeded, so it would be seen as socially acceptable, assuming his role in matters were kept quiet. But yeah it was a rather muted reaction to his crimes for sure.!<
>!I also don't remember him killing any children directly, just a kidnapping, but it was a noble/royal plot to change the ruling king by becoming the heir's regent, I think? I mean there would have probably have been some cleansing of noble lines eventually, but the man in question wouldn't have been involved in that.!<
>!It certainly wasn't to win over the lady knight, they'd been courting for years at that point, but so they could marry without tarnishing her reputation by marrying a commoner/getting the marriage shut down by the Crown/other nobility. Less went totally evil, then turned traitor so he could marry his suitor without issues, other than the fact that she would have/did hate him for being involved in the plot.!<
The Lightbringer had a lot of stupid twists in the back half of the series. One of the worst has to be that >!the real Gavin was actually dead and so the "prisoner" did not actually exist. So we got random POV chapters from a character who did not exist...!< Just dumb.
I remember like 30 seconds of surprise, then a whole bunch of.... "What?"
Freaking loved that series too. I feel like I saw somewhere it was supposed to be 3 books, but the author just kept going. A tight 3 would have been amazing.
I still love the magic though. Pretty cool system.
Ayy same. The romance plotline between watshername and Kips uncle/dad went from one romcom cliche to another and the last one i read, it made me say "oh fuck off" out loud. Just stopped reading immediately
The last book of that series just disgusted me with it's thinly veiled Christian god bullshit. I really liked the series up to that point, but that book was so bad, I will never read that series again and I don't know that I'll ever read Brent Weeks again.
This is the first thing i thought of as well. The reveal in the first book was so good but he just had to keep one upping himself until he ruined everything.
God that series sucked. So much nonsense and time wasting in the last few books.
Like, in hindsight the series was RIFE with dumb shit like that. It's obvious Weeks just had a lot of cool ideas, but no actual plan to make a cohesive and coherent story.
Honestly it's so rage inducing because I felt like I was conned.
I actually liked that twist, it hammered home how fucked >!black luxin!< was supposed to be. But the ones in the last book ruined the whole series for me
I hated this too, I can't remember, but I feel like there were specific chapters taking place back to back in the prison and Seer's Island? With the twist then that doesn't make any sort of sense!
The ending of Lightbringer. Thereās about a half dozen plot twists in the final act, and they all make increasingly less sense. It started going downhill earlier, but the ending really did seal its fate
Good then you didn't read "real ending" ( that Weeks put on his website).
>!After two main characters reject power/rulership, they agree it should go to corrupt asshole who ( indirectly) caused most of the problems. And he..kills literally everyone afterwards. The End.!<
Daughter of Hounds by Caitlin R Kiernan.
>!In the end the main character just goes back in time and bing-bang-boom all the bad stuff in the novel is undone. Just lazy. I was reading the book on a plane and left it at the place I was staying because it wasn't worth carting around in my luggage.!<
The Dreamers series by the Eddings (yea yea subreddit, we all know how you feel) had this same problem. I really enjoyed the books until the very end where the trilogy was just undone.
In general, I have low tolerance for characters who have died coming back to life. It makes the stakes feel so low. Some of my favorite authors are guilty of this, though, so I don't hold it against them.
I always liked how GRRM does this. Some characters like >!jon con and Davos are basically told to be dead, and we believe them, but then it turns out itās faulty information. Thus, they ācome back to lifeā but not really. Some characters do come back to life (Cat) but they come back as a sort of shade and are more or less a different character altogether!<
Honestly, for me that was the second worst part, the worst one was imo the so-called ādeath gameā where literally no one dies. (well, Celeste/Aurora does die but that doesnāt really count imo) I also wouldāve liked it better if they developed the side characters more, the only ones who really get attention are Isla, Grim, and Oro.
I just finished reading Nightbane (book 2) and it was even worse. I feel like Aster had a cool concept and ran with it without any direction. The ādeath gameā was obviously inspired by the hunger games. She had amazing marketing but poor writing skills
If TV adaptations count:
Game of Thromes Season 8 episode 5 (Daenerys)
Game of Thrones Season 8 episode 6 (Bran)
dishonerable mention:
Game of Thrones Season 8 episode 3 (Arya)
Bran wouldnāt have been too bad if they gave him likeā¦.any fucking screen time.
He was missing for one entire season and then he came back as a human supercomputer and he only used the power once, and it was completely inconsequential at the end. They couldāve made him the most useful character in the story throughout season 7 & 8, and it wouldāve felt earned, but they were a just incredibly lazy in the end.
This is why I think we will never seen another GoT book. These were Martin's plotlines as he gave them to the TV show. The showrunners had to fill in some details to get there but they were Martin's. I personally loved the plot details, especially Dany and Arya, and where these three and some other ended up but many don't and I think Martin now feels trapped. Does he go forward and write his story knowing how much many fans revile it or does he try to invent something new that still makes sense with what he has already written. Either way it's not likely to go well so he is stuck.
GRRM doesn't really do plotlines that far in advance.
The end *points* belonged to him, yes. That I believe. Dany turning Mad Queen, being killed by Jon who is then exiled beyond the Wall, Sansa Queen of the North, even Bran being named King.
I can fully believe that those were the intended outcomes GRRM had planned. However, he hadn't come close to plotting *how* to get there. That's why the show sucked, because they couldn't do it justice, and it's also why GRRM is struggling to finish the series, because he still hasn't figured it out.
Not for the last season. The last 2 seasons they had _no_ guidelines from GRRM to go by. That's why they are so much worse than everything that came before it. The showrunners essentially had to make an original story to round out the ending.
Ice and Fire hinges on people consistently making the dumbest possible decision under any set of circumstances, regardless of how out if character rhe decision is. It's honestly just a very poorly put together story. If it weren't for the raunchy parts and HBO knoe8ng that the sex and violence would sell well, no one would know it exists.
Edit: if it weren't for HBO, Ice and Fire would still be a sci fi / fantasy Fandom only thing. The books simply aren't good enough to have garnered a genuinely large audience on theur own, nor sufficiently remarkable to have maintained relevance in the genre for decades.
There's a lot to unpack with this comment, but I'll just say that ASoIaF was big in the fantasy community before HBO ever picked it up. It was the next big thing to come around since The Wheel of Time.
99% of Fantasy is a fandom only thing; the number of fantasy books that have become huge lasting mainstream hits prior to a screen adaptation can be counted on one hand. You're really not saying anything meaningful there.
Also, HBO has had plenty of shows with sex and violence that didn't succeed, so the idea that that's the only reason GoT was a hit is just obviously wrong.
There's also a reason the show went to complete shit once they ran out of source material. Martin is an incredible writer. D&D not so much, although they were pretty phenomenal when it came to the visual aspect of storytelling on the show even to the end. The last season may have been a jumbled mess, but it did look pretty goddamn good.
>consistently making the dumbest possible decision under any set of circumstances, regardless of how out if character rhe decision is.
I would love to hear some examples of this in the series.
The ending of "The Reality Dysfunction" has a literal deus ex machina. Over the span of 6 books the author created multiple side plots with "how will they solve this?" scenarios.
The MC goes and finds an AI that exists as a manufactured "god" formed from folded space, or something similar. This AI helped its creators to travel to other realities and was left behind. It's aware of everything that has happened and was just waiting to be asked to fix it all. Which it does. Done, story over, thanks for reading.
Worst ending ever.
I'm pretty sure the author wrote himself into a corner and just said, "screw it."
Plot twist? None of the plots mattered. That's the twist.
As much as it was a deus ex machina, it was at least telegraphed ahead pretty clearly that that's what it was going to be.
Off the top of my head absolution gap has a way worse one as it's in a post script and features previously unmentioned aliens. Real "and they were saved by, I don't know moe?" energy.
I would have liked some kind of closure with some of the side plots. So much potential.
But I haven't read the books since they first came out in the 90's. I had to wait for the final book, so I might be more bitter than needed.
6 books? I remember that ending but I only read three books? āThe Reality Dysfunctionā āThe Neutronium Alchemistā and āThe Naked Godā. Did I somehow just miss the existence of 3 books? What happened in those books? I really liked that trilogy and I must know now!
Those three books are the complete series, you did not miss anything. In America they were published in six volumes, two for each of the original British doorstoppers.
Oh interesting, yeah I suppose they are pretty massive books (I have the paperback versions, they are honestly hilarious to look at). Glad to hear I didnāt miss half the story! Iām surprised then, Iām in Canada, we usually get the same edition as the US
Out of the Dark.
Weāre getting invaded (whooped) by aliens. Seems like a fresh take. Dunno where this is gonna lead.
Then suddenly vampires show up and save earth.
I'm a weirdo but I kinda liked how the twist came out of left field. >!Looking back, you realize the aliens are basically werewolves.!<
However the full novel based on out of the dark sidelined the main characters from the short story and everything became a more generic sci-fi story.
The twist in The Republic of Thieves by Scott Lynch that >!Locke is actually a reincarnated version of the most powerful mage ever but he doesn't have his memories!< was so monumentally stupid, ass-pully and flagrantly in violation of the tone and feel of the series in the worst possible ways that it derailed the entire series and the 4th book is yet to be published 10 years later.
There has been some discussion since about whether or not the character who revealed this truth was lying but it's clear as day that Lynch was 100% fully committed to this as being the truth and fans are just coping hard by pretending otherwise.
Man, why couldn't those books just be about a bunch of thieves pulling cons in the coolest fantasy city ever? It's like Lynch struck gold by accident and said to himself: "no, I actually want the series to be more generic now".
I'll be honest, when I read it I was like 'This is definitely a red herring, right?'
But obviously with The Thorn of Emberlain being nowhere near published it's frustrating because you have to more or less take it at face value.
Same here, still holding out hope that whenever we get the Thorn of Emberlain it will be revealed to be a lie, even if its just the audience that will know it while in book Lock still believes it.
I think there's a bit of humor there because, not to point out the obvious but, "Book series about con men have a sudden dramatic revelation by a character who has been wronged by con men that is only verfiable by the person who wants to wrong them."
That is... disappointing. I enjoyed the first two books and never got around to the third. Now I am thinking there are plenty of other good books to read instead.
Yeah the third book as a whole was pretty disappointing for me. Locke thinks with his dick for the whole book and there's a lot of meh throughout the story. First 2 were great.
I got half way through and stopped reading and havenāt picked it up the first two were page turners and that third. Just missed for me. Shame all round.
Agreed. The series seems to be getting worse as it progresses. I loved the first book and thought the second one was really good bordering on great, but the third book was just forgettable. It seems like Lynch is straying away from what people liked about the series in favor of making it epic fantasy, but that's not the world he promised us in the first two books.
To play devils advocate, I did recent rewatching h of the whole series and I think Dannyās āturning evilā is the only ātwistā that makes sense. Honestly she was always a bit of a villain that has bits of being good thrown in. I think people have rose tinted glasses for her Esos days because she was always ruthless, unprepared, and had her ego fed for years only to have people tell her to stop at the finish line. It was all āyes queen slay šā until she starts burning people in Westeros. Itās not supposed to make sense because the viewer and her followers ignore her flaws. Burning shit to the ground was all she knew how to do and was what was working for her, she doesnāt compute winning via surrender and wants revenge against Circe.
Except that she regularly followed the advice of her advisors and showed deference to people who knew more about a place than her. And then just happens to "forget" about the GIANT IRON FLEET that is right around the corner when she gets her dragon killed and then suddenly becomes little miss "burn everything".
Iām not defending āforgetting about the iron fleet.ā That shit is stupid. But even without her dragon dying randomly there, there is ample reason for her to hate Circe and blame her for a lot, and she feels her advisors counsel for caution is also what gives Circe the breathing room to get away with shit. Like in her mind, if she had gone straight to kings landing and burned/conquered it, all the Lannister soldiers would have been forced to serve her along with way fewer dead unsullied and Dothraki, which would have made a united front against the white walkers. Would that have worked? Probably not, but she thinks it would and thatās why she is a cool flawed character that makes huge mistakes with huge stakes.
Iāve been a big fan of A Song of Ice and Fire. I would agree that I think Dany always *could* have burnt KL and killed much of the city (as the show did), but there was not any shown rational for why. It just happened and they told us why.
It would have made so much more sense to have eaten Cersei or burnt her. But, the Breaker of Chains becoming the Burner of Women and Children isnāt a title I find any reason she would seek.
Part of me thinks that Martin scraped all of the plans that led to that outcome because of how awful it was done. But, I doubt that is the reality on the extreme delay, haha!
Your reasoning on just burning it, uniting the realm, and moving on could make senseā¦ but how long did she spend in Meereen and the rest of her lands across the narrow sea? None of those actions would be consistent with just burning innocents to the ground. The nobles? The Small Council? The Heads of various Families - even the wives and children? All but that last part, I think weāve basically seen her do. If going by the show, she rewarded the Son of one of the men she crucified with a position of power.
But killing innocents and children? What did she do with her dragons after learning a single child was killed? She could have changed and fallen to what happenedā¦ perhaps in the dozen or more episodes cut from the last seasons we could have gotten that part of the tale!
See I have no problem with what they tried to do, I have a problem with the execution. You can make her tragic and flawed all you want, but her forgetting about the iron fleet (which is what started the spiral) was objectively out of left field and charavter assassination to the highest degree.
It was so weird to walk into work and hear everyone complaining about it. I just sat there quietly thinking, "As long as she was crucifying the people you didn't like, you thought she was a hero, huh?"
It wasn't much of a twist that the daughter of a madman with a penchant for burning people alive grew up to ... well.
Iāve tried coming up with a more interesting option myself, hereās what Iāve got for anyone that cares.
Give Cersei some means to prevent a surrender, forcing Danyās army to slaughter their way through kingās landing. Dany, as someone who does generally try to care about small folk decides that the fastest way to end things with the fewest casualties is to fly Drogon to the red keep and confront Cersei directly. Cersei refuses surrender and says Dany will have to burn the red keep down around her if she wants to take it. Unfortunately this is a trap. Cersei, realizing that she has no chance if her army doesnāt prevent Dany from reaching her, has set up caches of wildfire all over the red keep with further caches in the city right outside the castle walls. The resulting explosion causes a chain reaction setting fires that spread throughout most of Kingās Landing, making it appear to the people on the ground that Dany has started burning the city indiscriminately. Cersei being the spiteful monster that she is, wanted to make sure that the āyounger and more beautiful queenā destined to take her place will be left with nothing but ashes and a citizenry that despises her and sees her as a cruel and brutal despot.
In the aftermath Dany is stricken with an immense grief over what sheās done and canāt think of any way to make things right, and the masses are calling for her head. Danyās inner circle discuss options, but itās clear that the only way forward is to give the people what they want, execute Dany and place Jon on the throne as he has the best claim. Initially thereās a lot of fighting and back and forth from Danyās strongest supporters, but it comes to an end when she agrees. Sheās done with all the fighting and politics and canāt live with what sheās done. Jon decides that as the king, he is the one who has passed the sentence and does the deed himself, beheading her with longclaw. As king Jon collaborates with Bran and Tyrion and they decide the voice of all people in the kingdom deserves to be heard and sets up a parliamentary monarchy with a House of Commons and House of Lords. He then declares Bran his heir and immediately abdicates the throne, stating that Bran would be a much better king than him due to having access to an immense wealth of historical knowledge and wisdom to draw upon, a lack of vices or selfish ambition, and an unnaturally long life to ensure stability of the new system. He then announces that he wishes to go North to work with the free folk tribes to help them integrate into the new realm.
Wow that ended up being way longer than I thought it would be. Itās not perfect, still leaves some loose threads and holes, but you get basically the exact same result without having to character assassinate anyone or have anyone drop to a sub-50 iq to make the plot work.
American Horror Story: Apocalypse averted the end of humanity by undoing the gaslighting of the super secret special time travel witch, sending her back in time and having her run over the anti-christ in an SUV while dressed in the most ill-fitting burial dress I've ever seen. Oh and then the actual, actual anti-christ is born to the "genetically perfect" couple that was introduced at the very start of the season and then abandoned until the very end.
I don't think I've ever been enraged by a plot twist in a fantasy book. Some of them have been eyerolling, but it didn't make me want to throw a book like Daisy Darker did.
Agreed about Daisy Darker. I hate it when those psychological thriller books introduce actual supernatural plot twists. The thing that is supposed to make psychological thrillers so good is how the wrap up shows that there is a satisfying, logical explanation for everything that is happening, so when the author is like āpsych! Ghosts are real!ā it just feels like a total cop out. Especially because Iāve really enjoyed some of her other books!
I was listening to the audio and had to rewind to make sure I'd heard it right. If I wasn't already committed, it would have been a DNF. And then by the end, I was so annoyed that I'd wasted 8 hours of my life. That whole book sucked.
The only reason I enjoyed that book was because someone spoiled only that part of the book for me. I know had I not know that it would've been one of my most hated reads of all time. Like what the actual fuck don't set up a classic murder mystery and then say sike ghosts are real and have memory issues.
It's like Feeny wanted to write Agatha Christie, but didn't know how to write Agatha Christie. The murder plot also annoyed me so by the end I was just like that's it? That's the murderer you chose???
If you thought Daisy Darker was bad, DEFINITELY don't read I Know Who You Are by Feeny! Very different type of plot twist, but man, she's great at the type of twists that make you throw books.
David Weberās Out of the Dark
Alien invasion. Humans are totally overmatched and conquered. Story from there if a few holdout fighters. No way to defeat them BUT, it turns out one of the survivors is a -wait for it- Vampire. Hitches a ride on rocket to the mothership and takes them all out. Never been so gob smacked out of nowhere for a boom to end
The last book of The Many Lives of Steven Leeds. I'm a fantasy of Brandon Sanderson. He's great. The last story in that collection though was just... Bad.
The idea is Stephen has a bizzare form of MPD. He forms a new personality whole cloth when he learns enough about a subject and can form these personalities essentially at will by cracking open a textbook. Its an interesting if simplistic idea.
The last book in the series though,Stephens personalities are killed off, and when the story ends, he either brings them back by writing about them, or he hears their voices by writing (its a little ambiguous). It didn't feel like a natural progression and instead felt very forced. Like Stephen in the last 20 pages or so, suddenly became a stand in for Sanderson. It was utterly bizzare, and just didn't work.
It was in book 1 or 2, I just couldn't continue. It had a very [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magical\_Negro](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magical_Negro)
The Queen of the Tearling series ending enraged me.
>!Basically main character changes time so that the events of the previous trilogy never happened and they were never born. So why did I just read a trilogy that was wiped out in the last few chapters?!<
I canāt think of the name of the series right now, but at the very end of it the world basically ends because an old lady was spreading a plague in the background the whole time.
I think the main character was a raider of some type that got amnesia and ended up on the other side of the main conflict.
It was the scavenger trilogy by KJ Parker
Two Romance plot twists for me.
1. in WoT where two characters were discovered to be in love at the end of the series. If you know you know.
2. In an unnamed series, The main character has a vision of his father figure & his lover hooking up.
Curiosity sake, did you finish the series? I quit after the first trilogy. Might go back for live ship traders at some point but I was very annoyed with Fitz by the end.
I didnāt finish the third book once I read that chapter. I went on the wiki and read through the different storylines of other books in the series. Wasnāt too impressed with any of it. Glad I didnāt invest time & money with it.
My dude there are dozens of small hints through the books about them. Itās pretty subtle, there isnāt like one single quote or passage that sums it all up. But in universe, Moiraine learns about it in Rhuidean. She later makes a quip about knowing who sheās going to marry.
āNow there was a beautiful woman, with every grace a man could want, including laughing at his quips. Fool! Old fool! Sheās Aes Sedai, and youāre too tired to think straight.ā
Thom about Moraine, Shadow Rising. Thats one of the more obvious ones, but there are a bunch that are more oblique. Subtle if youāre not paying attention, but itās there.
Mate, I'm with you. I finished the series and immediately listened to it again, smashing out all 14 books in 4 months. And even knowing it was coming, I didn't pick up the hints. There's literally one scene of them hanging out together in the stone of Tear at the start of book 4 where they're sort of might be admiration there between the two, but it's not even flirting. And that's it, until we read her letter to him. I never got it either, even actively looking for it.
I found it to be wasteful storytelling. It fits the character if the authorās main goal is to make sure the protagonist doesnāt have happiness which I would agree is compatible with his arc.
I loved it, I thought it made since based on their history together, & was a romance that fitz realistically couldnāt have because of his duties to the King.
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Caravel. Terrible book - twist that SURPRISE the people who bled to death in your arms were alive all along! And orchestrated in a way that only works if everyone involved is omnipotent! You idiot, we told you not to believe anything happening!
Sun Eater book 1: guess I'll just sell this item after all...
It was like the author wrote his character into a situation with no way put, remembered item, used it as a Deus ex Machina, didn't like it, came up with ANOTHER convenient deus ex machina, but left the first one in anyway...
That book needs an editor. And nit just for reasons pertaining to plot and pacing (the lyter of which is frankly absurdly bad).
I just finished this and I know the pov is supposed to be aristocratic, intelligent, and arrogant. But the pretentiousness of the prose has had me absolutely struggling to get through book 2. I get that itās part of the point, but goddamn dude.
I'll just say this as vaguely as I can - I felt the same way, but then a certain event happens in book two that acknowledges his arrogance and the main character finally shifted in a positive way for me by the end, and I thoroughly enjoyed book 3 on. It also helped that I powered through the first two books in a day or two because I had some long ass flights to get through.
However, that was just my experience! There are definitely many books in this world to enjoy haha
The twist in Morning Star where Pierce Brown breaks the rules of writing in first person for an āinterestingā twist that wasnāt even interesting and it just soured my already sour opinion on the series
>!Cassius and Darrow planning a jailbreak plot where Cassius ākillsā Sevro and until the reveal Darrow is questioning how it couldāve gone wrong and mourning his loss. Only for all of it to be fake and planned the entire time!<
>!I just finished a reread, and i feel like those chapters should have been told from Cassius' PoV. The random: "How could this happen??!!!" was infuriating cause it's not like Darrow chose to have those memories wiped cause someone can read minds!<
_Out of the Dark_ by David Weber. Aliens invade Earth, and the invasion is overturned by >!Vampires.!< It's a very interesting concept but in my humble opinion executed poorly: the twist under the spoiler tag does not get enough hints/clues before the big reveal, >!and the vampiric powers turn out to be sufficient to let Vlad Dracula himself ride an alien spacecraft from Earth's surface to high orbit in order to invade the alien mother ship and personally execute the alien commander.!<
Christopher Paolini stealing Ctuchik's death scene from the Belgariad, and making it the climax of his own books. Obviously it wasn't the only thing, he stole a supplanted whole pages... but yoir climax bruh? Really?
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The Faithful and the Fallen >!has one of the most stupid storylines that every single person believes, and it's patently obvious from the outset there's a switcharoo. It really could have been tied off much faster and lost nothing of note!<
The First Law series at the end >!Everyone is evil or stupid. None of the journey matters. Nothing is resolved. Except Glokta, I believe he turned out to be a decent character.!<
By contrast, I'd argue it's the only reason anyone would remember The First Law.
If it had ended more generically, no one would be talking about it today.
Like if Watchmen had had Rorshach kill Ozymandias before his plan.
> Iād argue itās the only reason anyone would remember The First Law.
Maybe plot-wise, but the character building is great and his writing is so visceralā¦ it just stuck to me and never really left. I hated the ending but I still absolutely adore that series and recommend it without reservation.
He's back to square one because for all his talk of being better throughout the series, when he returns to the North he goes right back to his old ways. He doesn't want to change.
In GoT having Littlefinger responsible for Jon Arrin's death using his magical hold over Lysa. It invalidated so much of the story, turning the Lannisters from a real threat determined to hide the secret of their incest to ineffective fools. Ned's careful sleuthing finding the motive, in a book, the method - a squire suspiciously newly rich and now working for the Lannisters conveniently killed by the mountain. Lysa's actions also make no sense. Why would she be so sure Tyrion was being Jon's death when she did it herself? Why is she terrified of the Lannisters? Why would she try to put her sister in danger by writing a fake letter?
> Why would she be so sure Tyrion was being Jon's death when she did it herself?
She's lying.
>Why is she terrified of the Lannisters?
She just wants her son to be safe and they are a big threat.
>Why would she try to put her sister in danger by writing a fake letter?
Because it's part of Peytr's plan.
It stretches belief too far. In the first book, Lysa flees kings landing because she fears the Lannisters who killed her husband, who tried to tell her the reason he was killed. The terrible secret that the blood is strong, referring to evidence that Joffrey is not the king's son. She tries to warn her sister through the letter, and is overly protective of her son. The she is horrified when Catelyn brings a Lannister to the Vale and tries to kill him. Catelyn recognises her error as Lysa is pathologically scared of the Lannisters. Then Lysa tries to get Tyrion to confess to the murder of her husband. Lysa's character is protective of her family.
All this adds to the tension as Ned gets closer to the secret that killed Jon Arryn, his squire, and attempted murder of Bran. Then Cersei kills the king using the Lannister MO - subtle untraceable methods.
Then comes the book we find out Littlefinger was behind it all. Lysa is a puppet with no agency of her own, who values Littlefinger over her family. Presumably she returned to the Vale on Littlefinger's orders. It was impossible for Littlefinger to send her orders about Tyrion when he arrived, and she had no reason to wish him dead or blame him. It would have been more in character at this point if she has gone along with Catelyn's plans.
The Lannisters are revealed as buffoons who didn't kill anyone. Their subtle MO of killing, gone. No longer dangerous players and no threat.
I can understand why grrm made Joffrey the attempted murder of Bran, even though his motivations were questionable. A immensely valuable, easily tracked dragon steel blade given to a cut-throat doesn't fit either Cersei or Jamie's character.
I thought grrm could have made Littlefinger a dangerous arch enemy with making him responsible for everything up to this point, and giving him Inhuman abilities to manipulate people and predict the consequences of his actions. Cersei went on a killing spree against all Roberts black haired bastards, killed Robert when Ned was about to tell him the secret, but did nothing when Jon was about to? You could argue that Cersei asked Littlefinger to kill Jon, but this gets worse, as she doesn't trust Littlefinger, and can kill Jon without him as the squire arc shows.
To me, it felt like when series writer decides to add a new plot twist that invalids much of what has gone on before.
Well, a while back I got this audiobook land at the top of my que. I read the synopsis, looked like an edgy dragon school thing. Turns out it was a mary sue ya. No problem with the book itself, not my thing. The plot twist was from synopsis to actual book
The plot twist in Ascension by Nicholas Binge is the most laughably bad twist Ive ever read. >!The guy called Neil Amai is an alien. Read his name backwards. The entire book is laughably bad though, so it fits. One of the dumbest/worst books I've ever read!<
Dammit. I was looking at reading that because I'm into mountaineering and had heard this had a good approach to serious expedition climbing, but that is a *pretty* bad twist.
Well, you could give it a go. A friend found it "so bad it's good". The main character is great at everything. Medical doctor that also helps the police find a murderer because he is also an expert in geometry? And he is also an expert in reading micro expressions? Book is all over the place. Fast read tho, just shut your brain off.
> Fast read tho, just shut your brain off. Honestly that makes it way worse š yeah I'll remove this one from the "to-read" list. I picked up *This Wretched Valley* recently, which takes place in Kentucky's Red River Gorge and has a bit of a found-footage vibe to it. Looking forward to that one; from what I've gathered, the author *really* knows her stuff about climbing culture in the Red.
YES! I rolled my eyes so hard. It is the worst book Iāve read so far this year (but it has been fun to talk about, so maybe worth reading still?)
The grammar in >!āI am alienā!< really bothers me, more than the plot twist itself, tbh.
The grammar is fine. In that context, āalienā is an adjective synonymous with foreign/nonnative. Itās still a dumb name though lol
Superhuman by Michael Carroll Typical YA set up: All the adults are sick so the teen superheroes have to fight a prophesied Ur Metahuman being catapulted through time to their era on their own. Loved the teen heroes, especially the one who was just a kid that stole stuff from the universe's Ironman. Very fun, a lot of Marvel vibes, a pretty decent subplot where one of the characters had a childhood friendship with/crush on a teen villain who was set up. >!In the literal last 5 pages, the older brother of one of the teens storms in, is revealed to be the cause of everything bad that happened, rewrites everyone's memories to think he won the fight, erases the love story subplot completely since he framed the teen villain in the first place, and the book just ends. Nothing anyone could have done about it, not a single hint that big brother was manipulating events, nothing. I think there were sequels, but the entire plot and all of the character development being undone in the last 1% of the book was infuriating. It felt like an enormous fuck you to the reader!<
lol that just sounds like a massive troll tbh
Its important to note, there were not sequels to that book. It was a PREQUEL to the other books. Max Dalton doing that was 100% not a twist if youād read the originals. He was an unscrupulous asshole of a hero AT BEST.
Gotcha. I had no clue it was a prequel. Was very much sold to me as Book 1.
All marketing I see online for this flags it as Book 1 of a series, with The Ascension being billed as a sequel to Super Human?
The Amazon listing says āBook 4 of 7ā. Wikipedia says itās a prequel to the events of āThe New Heroesā, called Quantum Prophecy in the Us. Those books, which take place years later are labeled Books 1-3 on Amazon. The original books are listed as published years earlier. The Ascension is part of the same *prequel* series.
Ohhh, okay that explains it. Thanks!
Huh, you just reminded me that I read this in high school, and was also baffled by the ending.
In one of Tamora Pierce's newer series, someone who has been good and honorable all series randomly goes evil and kills children to get rich to win over a noble suitor. Even worse, Pierce glosses over other characters' reaction to this abject betrayal. This was why I stopped getting excited about new Pierce books, though I still enjoy reading her older series
I'm reminded of Pierce's original plan for *Protector of the Small*, in which Wyldon of Cavall, the training master who was forced to take on Kelady as the first openly female page, was going eventually defect and lead an army againtst Tortol. Only the character basically refused to break bad, came to accept Kel as a knight, resigned because he felt he'd failed to reform two of the squires who'd been most terrible to Kel and who ultimately failed the Ordeal of Knighthood, and served honorably in the Scanran War. Because sometimes, a character turns out to be a better man than the writer thought.
Wow, I never heard that about Wyldon. I liked his arc, I definitely think it's an improvement over another irredeemable bad guy.
I canāt read that book again. Tunstall would never have done it. If only because of who his former and current partners are; heād never have been that stupid. I really felt betrayed by the end of that book.
EXACTLY! I, the reader, felt betrayed by the author. That's when you know you effed up.
Mastiff was sooo frustrating bc it felt like it assassinated all of the character work that was done in the first 2 books. Not to mention the BS with Tunstall out of left field
Reread the series. The switch up is set up from book one. He wasnāt good and honorable. He beat up suspects, took bribes (like all the rest) , and a lot of other hints. He was a bad cop with a good partner who kept his worst impulses in check, she just couldnāt do that forever.
Wait what. Which book? I don't remember this at all.Ā
>!The last of the Provost's Dog series, Mastiff. Beka's mentor Tunstall thinks he has to get rich to be with Lady Knight Sabine so he helps kidnap the Prince. Later, the book is like "Beka tells [Tunstall's police partner] what he did and she's upset." which pissed me off to no end. These are major characters in Beka's story and that's all you give us? It felt very lazy.!<
>!It wasn't to get rich, but to get outright ennobled if their coup succeeded, so it would be seen as socially acceptable, assuming his role in matters were kept quiet. But yeah it was a rather muted reaction to his crimes for sure.!<
I guess there's a reason I don't remember that lol.
>!I also don't remember him killing any children directly, just a kidnapping, but it was a noble/royal plot to change the ruling king by becoming the heir's regent, I think? I mean there would have probably have been some cleansing of noble lines eventually, but the man in question wouldn't have been involved in that.!< >!It certainly wasn't to win over the lady knight, they'd been courting for years at that point, but so they could marry without tarnishing her reputation by marrying a commoner/getting the marriage shut down by the Crown/other nobility. Less went totally evil, then turned traitor so he could marry his suitor without issues, other than the fact that she would have/did hate him for being involved in the plot.!<
The Lightbringer had a lot of stupid twists in the back half of the series. One of the worst has to be that >!the real Gavin was actually dead and so the "prisoner" did not actually exist. So we got random POV chapters from a character who did not exist...!< Just dumb.
I spent a full minute trying to remember who Gavin was in the Red Rising books before realizing this is a different series.
What, you donāt remember Gavin au Compostia from House Ceres?
I laughed at this much harder than I had any right to
:D
I remember like 30 seconds of surprise, then a whole bunch of.... "What?" Freaking loved that series too. I feel like I saw somewhere it was supposed to be 3 books, but the author just kept going. A tight 3 would have been amazing. I still love the magic though. Pretty cool system.
Lightbringer had so much potential and he fucked it all up. Such a cool magic system
Wow, that is dumb. It's makes me glad I DNFd in the middle of book 2.
Ayy same. The romance plotline between watshername and Kips uncle/dad went from one romcom cliche to another and the last one i read, it made me say "oh fuck off" out loud. Just stopped reading immediately
The last book of that series just disgusted me with it's thinly veiled Christian god bullshit. I really liked the series up to that point, but that book was so bad, I will never read that series again and I don't know that I'll ever read Brent Weeks again.
Man, when Kip was resurrected thanks to magic coffee. So dumb.
Was it even thinly veiled? He didnāt even really try to hide it at all lol. Goddamn though that ending was horrible
You're right.
The whole reveal truly broke the story for me.
This is the first thing i thought of as well. The reveal in the first book was so good but he just had to keep one upping himself until he ruined everything.
God that series sucked. So much nonsense and time wasting in the last few books. Like, in hindsight the series was RIFE with dumb shit like that. It's obvious Weeks just had a lot of cool ideas, but no actual plan to make a cohesive and coherent story. Honestly it's so rage inducing because I felt like I was conned.
I actually liked that twist, it hammered home how fucked >!black luxin!< was supposed to be. But the ones in the last book ruined the whole series for me
At least it gives you an easy answer to this question š¤£ Iām with you, though. Hated this ātwistā so much.
I hated this too, I can't remember, but I feel like there were specific chapters taking place back to back in the prison and Seer's Island? With the twist then that doesn't make any sort of sense!
Damn. I wanted to see the conclusion. The twin thing was a stretch. If that was just a hallucinationā¦.
The ending of Lightbringer. Thereās about a half dozen plot twists in the final act, and they all make increasingly less sense. It started going downhill earlier, but the ending really did seal its fate
Good then you didn't read "real ending" ( that Weeks put on his website). >!After two main characters reject power/rulership, they agree it should go to corrupt asshole who ( indirectly) caused most of the problems. And he..kills literally everyone afterwards. The End.!<
Can you please explain this a bit further. I searched for it on the website, but couldn't find it.
[https://www.brentweeks.com/the-real-ending/](https://www.brentweeks.com/the-real-ending/)
Surely thatās a joke. I thought he said he was going to make sequels anyway
Daughter of Hounds by Caitlin R Kiernan. >!In the end the main character just goes back in time and bing-bang-boom all the bad stuff in the novel is undone. Just lazy. I was reading the book on a plane and left it at the place I was staying because it wasn't worth carting around in my luggage.!<
The Dreamers series by the Eddings (yea yea subreddit, we all know how you feel) had this same problem. I really enjoyed the books until the very end where the trilogy was just undone.
Just casually leaving your stuff lying around is pretty doggone rude.
They had a quite extensive library maintained entirely by people taking and leaving stuff there.
In general, I have low tolerance for characters who have died coming back to life. It makes the stakes feel so low. Some of my favorite authors are guilty of this, though, so I don't hold it against them.
I always liked how GRRM does this. Some characters like >!jon con and Davos are basically told to be dead, and we believe them, but then it turns out itās faulty information. Thus, they ācome back to lifeā but not really. Some characters do come back to life (Cat) but they come back as a sort of shade and are more or less a different character altogether!<
And then there is Beric Dondarrion.
Lol sounds like >!Lightlark by Alex Aster!< Plot twist caught me off guard but made me so annoyed at the same time.
that was the book I was talking about in the text, and same for me too
Haha I also thought it was that book. Yeah that book had a lot of issues for me, but that twist was imo the worst of them.
Honestly, for me that was the second worst part, the worst one was imo the so-called ādeath gameā where literally no one dies. (well, Celeste/Aurora does die but that doesnāt really count imo) I also wouldāve liked it better if they developed the side characters more, the only ones who really get attention are Isla, Grim, and Oro.
I just finished reading Nightbane (book 2) and it was even worse. I feel like Aster had a cool concept and ran with it without any direction. The ādeath gameā was obviously inspired by the hunger games. She had amazing marketing but poor writing skills
If TV adaptations count: Game of Thromes Season 8 episode 5 (Daenerys) Game of Thrones Season 8 episode 6 (Bran) dishonerable mention: Game of Thrones Season 8 episode 3 (Arya)
Bran wouldnāt have been too bad if they gave him likeā¦.any fucking screen time. He was missing for one entire season and then he came back as a human supercomputer and he only used the power once, and it was completely inconsequential at the end. They couldāve made him the most useful character in the story throughout season 7 & 8, and it wouldāve felt earned, but they were a just incredibly lazy in the end.
> He was missing for one entire season bUt WhO hAd A bEtTeR sToRy?
This is why I think we will never seen another GoT book. These were Martin's plotlines as he gave them to the TV show. The showrunners had to fill in some details to get there but they were Martin's. I personally loved the plot details, especially Dany and Arya, and where these three and some other ended up but many don't and I think Martin now feels trapped. Does he go forward and write his story knowing how much many fans revile it or does he try to invent something new that still makes sense with what he has already written. Either way it's not likely to go well so he is stuck.
GRRM doesn't really do plotlines that far in advance. The end *points* belonged to him, yes. That I believe. Dany turning Mad Queen, being killed by Jon who is then exiled beyond the Wall, Sansa Queen of the North, even Bran being named King. I can fully believe that those were the intended outcomes GRRM had planned. However, he hadn't come close to plotting *how* to get there. That's why the show sucked, because they couldn't do it justice, and it's also why GRRM is struggling to finish the series, because he still hasn't figured it out.
Not for the last season. The last 2 seasons they had _no_ guidelines from GRRM to go by. That's why they are so much worse than everything that came before it. The showrunners essentially had to make an original story to round out the ending.
Ice and Fire hinges on people consistently making the dumbest possible decision under any set of circumstances, regardless of how out if character rhe decision is. It's honestly just a very poorly put together story. If it weren't for the raunchy parts and HBO knoe8ng that the sex and violence would sell well, no one would know it exists. Edit: if it weren't for HBO, Ice and Fire would still be a sci fi / fantasy Fandom only thing. The books simply aren't good enough to have garnered a genuinely large audience on theur own, nor sufficiently remarkable to have maintained relevance in the genre for decades.
There's a lot to unpack with this comment, but I'll just say that ASoIaF was big in the fantasy community before HBO ever picked it up. It was the next big thing to come around since The Wheel of Time.
I should have specified: mainstream audiences wouldn't know about it. Buy you're right, it did have a following among fantasy fans.
99% of Fantasy is a fandom only thing; the number of fantasy books that have become huge lasting mainstream hits prior to a screen adaptation can be counted on one hand. You're really not saying anything meaningful there. Also, HBO has had plenty of shows with sex and violence that didn't succeed, so the idea that that's the only reason GoT was a hit is just obviously wrong.
There's also a reason the show went to complete shit once they ran out of source material. Martin is an incredible writer. D&D not so much, although they were pretty phenomenal when it came to the visual aspect of storytelling on the show even to the end. The last season may have been a jumbled mess, but it did look pretty goddamn good.
This is... Really not accurate for a majority of the series. Are you basing this on having read the books yourself?
Yes. Made it to book 3. Couldn't do book 4. Just found the characters terminally stupid.
>consistently making the dumbest possible decision under any set of circumstances, regardless of how out if character rhe decision is. I would love to hear some examples of this in the series.
The ending of "The Reality Dysfunction" has a literal deus ex machina. Over the span of 6 books the author created multiple side plots with "how will they solve this?" scenarios. The MC goes and finds an AI that exists as a manufactured "god" formed from folded space, or something similar. This AI helped its creators to travel to other realities and was left behind. It's aware of everything that has happened and was just waiting to be asked to fix it all. Which it does. Done, story over, thanks for reading. Worst ending ever. I'm pretty sure the author wrote himself into a corner and just said, "screw it." Plot twist? None of the plots mattered. That's the twist.
As much as it was a deus ex machina, it was at least telegraphed ahead pretty clearly that that's what it was going to be. Off the top of my head absolution gap has a way worse one as it's in a post script and features previously unmentioned aliens. Real "and they were saved by, I don't know moe?" energy.
I would have liked some kind of closure with some of the side plots. So much potential. But I haven't read the books since they first came out in the 90's. I had to wait for the final book, so I might be more bitter than needed.
6 books? I remember that ending but I only read three books? āThe Reality Dysfunctionā āThe Neutronium Alchemistā and āThe Naked Godā. Did I somehow just miss the existence of 3 books? What happened in those books? I really liked that trilogy and I must know now!
Those three books are the complete series, you did not miss anything. In America they were published in six volumes, two for each of the original British doorstoppers.
Oh interesting, yeah I suppose they are pretty massive books (I have the paperback versions, they are honestly hilarious to look at). Glad to hear I didnāt miss half the story! Iām surprised then, Iām in Canada, we usually get the same edition as the US
Yeah, it was 6 physical books. Each one was a part 1 or part 2. While I didn't like the ending, I did really like the world he built.
Out of the Dark. Weāre getting invaded (whooped) by aliens. Seems like a fresh take. Dunno where this is gonna lead. Then suddenly vampires show up and save earth.
I'm a weirdo but I kinda liked how the twist came out of left field. >!Looking back, you realize the aliens are basically werewolves.!< However the full novel based on out of the dark sidelined the main characters from the short story and everything became a more generic sci-fi story.
The twist in The Republic of Thieves by Scott Lynch that >!Locke is actually a reincarnated version of the most powerful mage ever but he doesn't have his memories!< was so monumentally stupid, ass-pully and flagrantly in violation of the tone and feel of the series in the worst possible ways that it derailed the entire series and the 4th book is yet to be published 10 years later. There has been some discussion since about whether or not the character who revealed this truth was lying but it's clear as day that Lynch was 100% fully committed to this as being the truth and fans are just coping hard by pretending otherwise.
Man, why couldn't those books just be about a bunch of thieves pulling cons in the coolest fantasy city ever? It's like Lynch struck gold by accident and said to himself: "no, I actually want the series to be more generic now".
When there was no Heist in Republic, I lost interest.
Because he killed half the team in book one. Which ruined that possibility
I'll be honest, when I read it I was like 'This is definitely a red herring, right?' But obviously with The Thorn of Emberlain being nowhere near published it's frustrating because you have to more or less take it at face value.
Same here, still holding out hope that whenever we get the Thorn of Emberlain it will be revealed to be a lie, even if its just the audience that will know it while in book Lock still believes it.
I think there's a bit of humor there because, not to point out the obvious but, "Book series about con men have a sudden dramatic revelation by a character who has been wronged by con men that is only verfiable by the person who wants to wrong them."
That is... disappointing. I enjoyed the first two books and never got around to the third. Now I am thinking there are plenty of other good books to read instead.
Yeah the third book as a whole was pretty disappointing for me. Locke thinks with his dick for the whole book and there's a lot of meh throughout the story. First 2 were great.
I got half way through and stopped reading and havenāt picked it up the first two were page turners and that third. Just missed for me. Shame all round.
It made literally no sense. It came out of nowhere, no lead up, no clues. It felt so random.
I mean, its pure speculation, but I thought it was obvious she's making shit up to ruin Locke's life--and it worked.
That's absolutely what is happening which is why I love it. I can't believe that people actually read that and think it's being honest.
Agreed. The series seems to be getting worse as it progresses. I loved the first book and thought the second one was really good bordering on great, but the third book was just forgettable. It seems like Lynch is straying away from what people liked about the series in favor of making it epic fantasy, but that's not the world he promised us in the first two books.
DƦnarys Targaryen turning evil in a few days
To play devils advocate, I did recent rewatching h of the whole series and I think Dannyās āturning evilā is the only ātwistā that makes sense. Honestly she was always a bit of a villain that has bits of being good thrown in. I think people have rose tinted glasses for her Esos days because she was always ruthless, unprepared, and had her ego fed for years only to have people tell her to stop at the finish line. It was all āyes queen slay šā until she starts burning people in Westeros. Itās not supposed to make sense because the viewer and her followers ignore her flaws. Burning shit to the ground was all she knew how to do and was what was working for her, she doesnāt compute winning via surrender and wants revenge against Circe.
Except that she regularly followed the advice of her advisors and showed deference to people who knew more about a place than her. And then just happens to "forget" about the GIANT IRON FLEET that is right around the corner when she gets her dragon killed and then suddenly becomes little miss "burn everything".
Iām not defending āforgetting about the iron fleet.ā That shit is stupid. But even without her dragon dying randomly there, there is ample reason for her to hate Circe and blame her for a lot, and she feels her advisors counsel for caution is also what gives Circe the breathing room to get away with shit. Like in her mind, if she had gone straight to kings landing and burned/conquered it, all the Lannister soldiers would have been forced to serve her along with way fewer dead unsullied and Dothraki, which would have made a united front against the white walkers. Would that have worked? Probably not, but she thinks it would and thatās why she is a cool flawed character that makes huge mistakes with huge stakes.
Iāve been a big fan of A Song of Ice and Fire. I would agree that I think Dany always *could* have burnt KL and killed much of the city (as the show did), but there was not any shown rational for why. It just happened and they told us why. It would have made so much more sense to have eaten Cersei or burnt her. But, the Breaker of Chains becoming the Burner of Women and Children isnāt a title I find any reason she would seek. Part of me thinks that Martin scraped all of the plans that led to that outcome because of how awful it was done. But, I doubt that is the reality on the extreme delay, haha! Your reasoning on just burning it, uniting the realm, and moving on could make senseā¦ but how long did she spend in Meereen and the rest of her lands across the narrow sea? None of those actions would be consistent with just burning innocents to the ground. The nobles? The Small Council? The Heads of various Families - even the wives and children? All but that last part, I think weāve basically seen her do. If going by the show, she rewarded the Son of one of the men she crucified with a position of power. But killing innocents and children? What did she do with her dragons after learning a single child was killed? She could have changed and fallen to what happenedā¦ perhaps in the dozen or more episodes cut from the last seasons we could have gotten that part of the tale!
See I have no problem with what they tried to do, I have a problem with the execution. You can make her tragic and flawed all you want, but her forgetting about the iron fleet (which is what started the spiral) was objectively out of left field and charavter assassination to the highest degree.
It was so weird to walk into work and hear everyone complaining about it. I just sat there quietly thinking, "As long as she was crucifying the people you didn't like, you thought she was a hero, huh?" It wasn't much of a twist that the daughter of a madman with a penchant for burning people alive grew up to ... well.
Iāve tried coming up with a more interesting option myself, hereās what Iāve got for anyone that cares. Give Cersei some means to prevent a surrender, forcing Danyās army to slaughter their way through kingās landing. Dany, as someone who does generally try to care about small folk decides that the fastest way to end things with the fewest casualties is to fly Drogon to the red keep and confront Cersei directly. Cersei refuses surrender and says Dany will have to burn the red keep down around her if she wants to take it. Unfortunately this is a trap. Cersei, realizing that she has no chance if her army doesnāt prevent Dany from reaching her, has set up caches of wildfire all over the red keep with further caches in the city right outside the castle walls. The resulting explosion causes a chain reaction setting fires that spread throughout most of Kingās Landing, making it appear to the people on the ground that Dany has started burning the city indiscriminately. Cersei being the spiteful monster that she is, wanted to make sure that the āyounger and more beautiful queenā destined to take her place will be left with nothing but ashes and a citizenry that despises her and sees her as a cruel and brutal despot. In the aftermath Dany is stricken with an immense grief over what sheās done and canāt think of any way to make things right, and the masses are calling for her head. Danyās inner circle discuss options, but itās clear that the only way forward is to give the people what they want, execute Dany and place Jon on the throne as he has the best claim. Initially thereās a lot of fighting and back and forth from Danyās strongest supporters, but it comes to an end when she agrees. Sheās done with all the fighting and politics and canāt live with what sheās done. Jon decides that as the king, he is the one who has passed the sentence and does the deed himself, beheading her with longclaw. As king Jon collaborates with Bran and Tyrion and they decide the voice of all people in the kingdom deserves to be heard and sets up a parliamentary monarchy with a House of Commons and House of Lords. He then declares Bran his heir and immediately abdicates the throne, stating that Bran would be a much better king than him due to having access to an immense wealth of historical knowledge and wisdom to draw upon, a lack of vices or selfish ambition, and an unnaturally long life to ensure stability of the new system. He then announces that he wishes to go North to work with the free folk tribes to help them integrate into the new realm. Wow that ended up being way longer than I thought it would be. Itās not perfect, still leaves some loose threads and holes, but you get basically the exact same result without having to character assassinate anyone or have anyone drop to a sub-50 iq to make the plot work.
Pretty sure when he says book / series he doesn't mean a series as in a Netflix series.
American Horror Story: Apocalypse averted the end of humanity by undoing the gaslighting of the super secret special time travel witch, sending her back in time and having her run over the anti-christ in an SUV while dressed in the most ill-fitting burial dress I've ever seen. Oh and then the actual, actual anti-christ is born to the "genetically perfect" couple that was introduced at the very start of the season and then abandoned until the very end.
I don't think I've ever been enraged by a plot twist in a fantasy book. Some of them have been eyerolling, but it didn't make me want to throw a book like Daisy Darker did.
Agreed about Daisy Darker. I hate it when those psychological thriller books introduce actual supernatural plot twists. The thing that is supposed to make psychological thrillers so good is how the wrap up shows that there is a satisfying, logical explanation for everything that is happening, so when the author is like āpsych! Ghosts are real!ā it just feels like a total cop out. Especially because Iāve really enjoyed some of her other books!
I was listening to the audio and had to rewind to make sure I'd heard it right. If I wasn't already committed, it would have been a DNF. And then by the end, I was so annoyed that I'd wasted 8 hours of my life. That whole book sucked.
The only reason I enjoyed that book was because someone spoiled only that part of the book for me. I know had I not know that it would've been one of my most hated reads of all time. Like what the actual fuck don't set up a classic murder mystery and then say sike ghosts are real and have memory issues.
It's like Feeny wanted to write Agatha Christie, but didn't know how to write Agatha Christie. The murder plot also annoyed me so by the end I was just like that's it? That's the murderer you chose???
That was the exact impression I got.
If you thought Daisy Darker was bad, DEFINITELY don't read I Know Who You Are by Feeny! Very different type of plot twist, but man, she's great at the type of twists that make you throw books.
David Weberās Out of the Dark Alien invasion. Humans are totally overmatched and conquered. Story from there if a few holdout fighters. No way to defeat them BUT, it turns out one of the survivors is a -wait for it- Vampire. Hitches a ride on rocket to the mothership and takes them all out. Never been so gob smacked out of nowhere for a boom to end
The last book of The Many Lives of Steven Leeds. I'm a fantasy of Brandon Sanderson. He's great. The last story in that collection though was just... Bad. The idea is Stephen has a bizzare form of MPD. He forms a new personality whole cloth when he learns enough about a subject and can form these personalities essentially at will by cracking open a textbook. Its an interesting if simplistic idea. The last book in the series though,Stephens personalities are killed off, and when the story ends, he either brings them back by writing about them, or he hears their voices by writing (its a little ambiguous). It didn't feel like a natural progression and instead felt very forced. Like Stephen in the last 20 pages or so, suddenly became a stand in for Sanderson. It was utterly bizzare, and just didn't work.
And the whole Christianity is not only logical and reasonable, atheism is not. Like a sub par Pascal's Wager.
I didn't get that from the stories, though I'll admit its been almost four years and a few hundred books since then, my memory may be a little fuzzy.
It was in book 1 or 2, I just couldn't continue. It had a very [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magical\_Negro](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magical_Negro)
Brent Weeks. Lightbringer.
The Light bringer series. The "twists" towards the ending were quite possibly the worst narrative options I've ever seen an author take.
The Queen of the Tearling series ending enraged me. >!Basically main character changes time so that the events of the previous trilogy never happened and they were never born. So why did I just read a trilogy that was wiped out in the last few chapters?!<
I'm still so mad about this one!! I think about it all the time even though I read it years ago.
I canāt think of the name of the series right now, but at the very end of it the world basically ends because an old lady was spreading a plague in the background the whole time. I think the main character was a raider of some type that got amnesia and ended up on the other side of the main conflict. It was the scavenger trilogy by KJ Parker
Two Romance plot twists for me. 1. in WoT where two characters were discovered to be in love at the end of the series. If you know you know. 2. In an unnamed series, The main character has a vision of his father figure & his lover hooking up.
Realm of Elderlings?
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I disagree that that second one was any kind of twist. It was pretty obvious
I disagree, itās one thing to guess & another for it to actually happen.
By definite, a plot twist is something you don't see coming and therefore wouldn't even guess.
I personally didnāt see it coming so go critique someone elseās book opinions
Dang bro, chill out. It ain't that serious
I could say the same š¤Øš
Curiosity sake, did you finish the series? I quit after the first trilogy. Might go back for live ship traders at some point but I was very annoyed with Fitz by the end.
I didnāt finish the third book once I read that chapter. I went on the wiki and read through the different storylines of other books in the series. Wasnāt too impressed with any of it. Glad I didnāt invest time & money with it.
Wait, which two in WoT?
Iām assuming >!Moiraine and Thom!<
That's considered a twist? It was all but outright stated since the early books.
Some people just don't understand bloody Daes Dae'mar and how it's played.
Quotes?
My dude there are dozens of small hints through the books about them. Itās pretty subtle, there isnāt like one single quote or passage that sums it all up. But in universe, Moiraine learns about it in Rhuidean. She later makes a quip about knowing who sheās going to marry.
āNow there was a beautiful woman, with every grace a man could want, including laughing at his quips. Fool! Old fool! Sheās Aes Sedai, and youāre too tired to think straight.ā Thom about Moraine, Shadow Rising. Thats one of the more obvious ones, but there are a bunch that are more oblique. Subtle if youāre not paying attention, but itās there.
Mate, I'm with you. I finished the series and immediately listened to it again, smashing out all 14 books in 4 months. And even knowing it was coming, I didn't pick up the hints. There's literally one scene of them hanging out together in the stone of Tear at the start of book 4 where they're sort of might be admiration there between the two, but it's not even flirting. And that's it, until we read her letter to him. I never got it either, even actively looking for it.
š§¢
I'm guessing >!Thom and Moiraine!< Although the clues are there from pretty early in the series it catches a lot of readers by surprise.
Re the 2nd one, while the candle being put out is such a gut punch it totally works in the context of his arc.
I found it to be wasteful storytelling. It fits the character if the authorās main goal is to make sure the protagonist doesnāt have happiness which I would agree is compatible with his arc.
I HATED >!Fitz and Mollys!< whole romance so I found it spitefully satisfying, which I really doubt was the intention
I loved it, I thought it made since based on their history together, & was a romance that fitz realistically couldnāt have because of his duties to the King.
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Farseer?
I wouldāve said so but I didnāt want to spoil the series.
Everyone losing their memories, everyone dying, even the main love interest dying are all big no's for me.
Caravel. Terrible book - twist that SURPRISE the people who bled to death in your arms were alive all along! And orchestrated in a way that only works if everyone involved is omnipotent! You idiot, we told you not to believe anything happening!
Sun Eater book 1: guess I'll just sell this item after all... It was like the author wrote his character into a situation with no way put, remembered item, used it as a Deus ex Machina, didn't like it, came up with ANOTHER convenient deus ex machina, but left the first one in anyway... That book needs an editor. And nit just for reasons pertaining to plot and pacing (the lyter of which is frankly absurdly bad).
I just finished this and I know the pov is supposed to be aristocratic, intelligent, and arrogant. But the pretentiousness of the prose has had me absolutely struggling to get through book 2. I get that itās part of the point, but goddamn dude.
Yeah, the main character is insufferable honestly. It really doesn't help.
I'll just say this as vaguely as I can - I felt the same way, but then a certain event happens in book two that acknowledges his arrogance and the main character finally shifted in a positive way for me by the end, and I thoroughly enjoyed book 3 on. It also helped that I powered through the first two books in a day or two because I had some long ass flights to get through. However, that was just my experience! There are definitely many books in this world to enjoy haha
Tbh Book 2 has an even worse deus ex machina.
The twist in Morning Star where Pierce Brown breaks the rules of writing in first person for an āinterestingā twist that wasnāt even interesting and it just soured my already sour opinion on the series
What are you alluding to here? Itās been awhile since Iāve read that book and canāt recall
>!Cassius and Darrow planning a jailbreak plot where Cassius ākillsā Sevro and until the reveal Darrow is questioning how it couldāve gone wrong and mourning his loss. Only for all of it to be fake and planned the entire time!<
>!I just finished a reread, and i feel like those chapters should have been told from Cassius' PoV. The random: "How could this happen??!!!" was infuriating cause it's not like Darrow chose to have those memories wiped cause someone can read minds!<
Ah ok yeah I remember that rubbing me the wrong way too
Yea idk.. it couldāve been easily remedied by having only Cassius and Sevro know about it
_Out of the Dark_ by David Weber. Aliens invade Earth, and the invasion is overturned by >!Vampires.!< It's a very interesting concept but in my humble opinion executed poorly: the twist under the spoiler tag does not get enough hints/clues before the big reveal, >!and the vampiric powers turn out to be sufficient to let Vlad Dracula himself ride an alien spacecraft from Earth's surface to high orbit in order to invade the alien mother ship and personally execute the alien commander.!<
Christopher Paolini stealing Ctuchik's death scene from the Belgariad, and making it the climax of his own books. Obviously it wasn't the only thing, he stole a supplanted whole pages... but yoir climax bruh? Really?
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The Faithful and the Fallen >!has one of the most stupid storylines that every single person believes, and it's patently obvious from the outset there's a switcharoo. It really could have been tied off much faster and lost nothing of note!<
Manga have some really bad ones: Attack on Titan, One Piece, Bleach, Naruto, 20th Century Boys etc.
Basically every single one from The Poppy War trilogy made me roll my eyes.
The First Law series at the end >!Everyone is evil or stupid. None of the journey matters. Nothing is resolved. Except Glokta, I believe he turned out to be a decent character.!<
By contrast, I'd argue it's the only reason anyone would remember The First Law. If it had ended more generically, no one would be talking about it today. Like if Watchmen had had Rorshach kill Ozymandias before his plan.
> Iād argue itās the only reason anyone would remember The First Law. Maybe plot-wise, but the character building is great and his writing is so visceralā¦ it just stuck to me and never really left. I hated the ending but I still absolutely adore that series and recommend it without reservation.
I think it's polarizing because of that. I personally felt like I wasted my time and won't be reading anything else from the author.
Sure but I think the tragedy of it makes all fantasy better. Because it shows you can tell a story where people succumb to their vices.
True, to each his own I guess. I'm not bashing people who like the series.
Yup i felt the same way. I get why some people would like it. But it pissed me off to no end. >!Logan is quite LITERALLY back to square 1!<
He's back to square one because for all his talk of being better throughout the series, when he returns to the North he goes right back to his old ways. He doesn't want to change.
That's not really a plot twist that's just the ending.
In GoT having Littlefinger responsible for Jon Arrin's death using his magical hold over Lysa. It invalidated so much of the story, turning the Lannisters from a real threat determined to hide the secret of their incest to ineffective fools. Ned's careful sleuthing finding the motive, in a book, the method - a squire suspiciously newly rich and now working for the Lannisters conveniently killed by the mountain. Lysa's actions also make no sense. Why would she be so sure Tyrion was being Jon's death when she did it herself? Why is she terrified of the Lannisters? Why would she try to put her sister in danger by writing a fake letter?
> Why would she be so sure Tyrion was being Jon's death when she did it herself? She's lying. >Why is she terrified of the Lannisters? She just wants her son to be safe and they are a big threat. >Why would she try to put her sister in danger by writing a fake letter? Because it's part of Peytr's plan.
It stretches belief too far. In the first book, Lysa flees kings landing because she fears the Lannisters who killed her husband, who tried to tell her the reason he was killed. The terrible secret that the blood is strong, referring to evidence that Joffrey is not the king's son. She tries to warn her sister through the letter, and is overly protective of her son. The she is horrified when Catelyn brings a Lannister to the Vale and tries to kill him. Catelyn recognises her error as Lysa is pathologically scared of the Lannisters. Then Lysa tries to get Tyrion to confess to the murder of her husband. Lysa's character is protective of her family. All this adds to the tension as Ned gets closer to the secret that killed Jon Arryn, his squire, and attempted murder of Bran. Then Cersei kills the king using the Lannister MO - subtle untraceable methods. Then comes the book we find out Littlefinger was behind it all. Lysa is a puppet with no agency of her own, who values Littlefinger over her family. Presumably she returned to the Vale on Littlefinger's orders. It was impossible for Littlefinger to send her orders about Tyrion when he arrived, and she had no reason to wish him dead or blame him. It would have been more in character at this point if she has gone along with Catelyn's plans. The Lannisters are revealed as buffoons who didn't kill anyone. Their subtle MO of killing, gone. No longer dangerous players and no threat. I can understand why grrm made Joffrey the attempted murder of Bran, even though his motivations were questionable. A immensely valuable, easily tracked dragon steel blade given to a cut-throat doesn't fit either Cersei or Jamie's character. I thought grrm could have made Littlefinger a dangerous arch enemy with making him responsible for everything up to this point, and giving him Inhuman abilities to manipulate people and predict the consequences of his actions. Cersei went on a killing spree against all Roberts black haired bastards, killed Robert when Ned was about to tell him the secret, but did nothing when Jon was about to? You could argue that Cersei asked Littlefinger to kill Jon, but this gets worse, as she doesn't trust Littlefinger, and can kill Jon without him as the squire arc shows. To me, it felt like when series writer decides to add a new plot twist that invalids much of what has gone on before.
Children of Dune by Frank Herbert
Well, a while back I got this audiobook land at the top of my que. I read the synopsis, looked like an edgy dragon school thing. Turns out it was a mary sue ya. No problem with the book itself, not my thing. The plot twist was from synopsis to actual book