Kingdom of Ash (Throne of Glass, #7)

by Sarah J. Maas

[pamela]

Kingdom of Ash finally ended the Throne of Glass series, and I’ve got to say, I’m breathing a sigh of relief. It was like a runaway train that I couldn’t get off until I’d seen it slow to a grinding halt or crash and burn. I honestly don’t think Maas is a bad writer, but I do think that she just let this story get away from her.

Now that the series is finished, I can look back on it from a birdseye view. Where Maas writing really excels is when her world is small, and her characters focused. We can almost pinpoint the exact moment when Throne of Glass went off the rails – the second Aelin left to go to Wendlyn. Up to that point, the story was focused. Rifthold was built as a real world unto itself, and the small, tight-knit cast of characters were well developed with real personalities, a great dynamic, and realistic interactions.

The King of Adarland and Arrobyn were great villains with real motivations, and it made Celaena’s arrogant swagger bearable, as it fit into a cast of flawed yet relatable characters. As soon as the world widened, Maas just kept introducing more and more characters, and it kind of felt like she didn’t know what to do with them. By Kingdom of Ash, we ended up with a book that was at least 400 pages too long, full of repetitive filler while Maas tried to give all of the broad cast a POV, whether it was needed or not.

Without a doubt, Maas’ best work of the series is The Assassin’s Blade. By the time that book was released, she’d matured as a writer, but the short story genre meant that each chapter was tight and self-contained. The action was exciting, and the characters were well developed. Maas’ quality appears to suffer when she’s given carte blanche on length.

The longer the series got, and the wider its world, the more the characters were rewritten or overlooked. Dorian, Chaol, Aelin, Manon, Lorcan, Rowan, Lysandra, Aedion, Maeve – all of them were re-written entirely to fit a runaway plot. They got pushed into archetypes, rather than developing in keeping with the personalities developed when we were first introduced. Every major character was also pushed into a heterosexual coupling, which seemed wildly unnecessary. The worst of these was the Manon/Dorian romance. They had absolutely no chemistry, and their romance was not at all in keeping with their characters.

Another huge issue with the runaway plot was the timeline of the series as a whole. In Kingdom of Ash, we are continuously reminded that the entire series happens within the space of a year. I keep thinking about it, and there’s no way I can make it work. In only a year, we are meant to believe that Aelin is released from Endovier, Erawan creates an army from nothing, characters travel to various different continents, battles are waged, traumas are overcome, over half the cast meet and get married (!), and Manon and the Thirteen are meant to have overcome a lifetime of brainwashing and social conditioning? There’s just no way. None whatsoever.

But, my biggest issue in the series as a whole is Aelin herself. I have so many issues with her characterisation, especially as she’s represented in the series as being the rightful heir to Terrassen and would do anything to protect her people. The reality in Kingdom of Ash however is that she doesn’t actually do anything for Terrasen. She spends the first quarter of the book captured by Maeve, then the rest of it travelling. Aedion, Ren, and Lysandra are the ones fighting for Terrasen, while Aelin’s people die by the thousands as she has a little side adventure. When Aelin finally arrives to be the fire bringer in battle, it’s not in Terrasen. It’s in Anielle. They search for a way to get the army to Terrasen, but when they find the solution, it’s cast aside and forgotten until the last 50 pages or so when we introduce a new group of characters who have never been mentioned before and arrive by way of the solution that could have carried her army to Terrasen in the first place. And when it comes to taking a vote to see if Aelin can seal Erawan away in advance and give Terrasen and fighting chance, all her companions vote for her to do that. She then doesn’t do it, choosing to both ignore the outcome of the vote, and trade the lives of thousands of her people in exchange for the soul of a queen who has already been dead for centuries. So, thousands of her people continue to die on the battlefield, and when she finally faces Maeve and Erawan, it’s not her that saves the day, it’s Dorian and Yrene, but Aelin still gets the crown and the glory despite doing very little throughout the entire series to actually save her people. Also, the blood oath is just slavery, and you will never change my mind on that.

There are other issues in Kingdom of Ash like sexism, ableism, transphobia, a lack of diversity, and some pretty blatant outright plagiarism from Lord of the Rings (the films, not the books, to add insult to injury), but other reviewers have done a much better job of outlining those things. I recommend you check out Aentee’s excellent review.

What started a fun series that could serve as a trashy popcorn read turned into a long, sometimes boring slog through to many locations and too many characters. Kingdom of Ash could have been half as long and been a much better book for it. The great characters and detailed world-building flew out the window, replaced with an emphasis on “mating” and pairing all her characters off. If Maas goes back to books that are smaller in scope with a core cast of focused characters, I’ll totally be here for her again. But until that day, I’m afraid that Kingdom of Ash was probably the last Maas book I’ll be picking up.