Just throwing this out there right off the bat… this review is gonna have spoilers in it. They will be unavoidable, and the entire review is going to assume that you have also read this book, because I need a safe space to discuss the ending and what that means retroactively about the series and for my feelings in general. If you’re looking for a general sense of how much I recommend this book, I point you toward my four star rating and encourage you to start from the beginning at The Raven Boys.
SPOILERS
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So, I just put down The Raven King, and I have some lingering questions. Unassailably, this is the series ending the fans wanted. No one dies — at least not permanently — and two ships get their HEA (or HFN). Lingering questions were answered. Antagonists were quickly dispatched. There is still magic in the world.
I wonder if Game of Thrones, or some other relentlessly dreary saga, hasn’t ruined happy endings for me. All of the bleakness in storytelling that is so very in vogue right now kind of has my back up about the simple, cathartic pleasure of things going right for characters, to the extent that when it actually happens, after having my shoulders around my ears for so long wondering if Stiefvater actually has the ovaries to KILL kill Gansey, catharsis becomes anti-climactic. Oh, they’re… happy? Things worked out? That’s… that’s it?
Because, really, it was kind of easy. The idea — to bargain for Gansey’s life with Cabeswater, asking the forest to give up its own gifted-into-existence spirit for Gansey’s soul — is somewhat obvious in retrospect. (Not nearly as obvious as just having Gansey ask the air in his Authoritative Voice, as he had done so many times previously, to show him where Glendower is.) And, for a second, it looked like that wasn’t going to work, like Gansey was really gone or like they’d have to come up with something else. But then, it just kind of did work? I’d really love some clarification on this, because there is a whole chapter that basically says,
“Cabeswater, can you sacrifice the forest so that Gansey can live?”
“Okay.”
In a bit more detail: “It is impossible for Cabeswater, a thing that exists in the infinite, to simply die so that a mortal life can be restored. Also, that body is dead, so Cabeswater would have to make something new. But, through the power of images in Ronan’s mind and also Blue being part tree spirit, Cabeswater will create a human soul that is basically identically Gansey and put it back in his body anyway, at the cost of the trees in the forest.”
What I’m saying is, I think Stiefvater’s prose does a lot of heavy lifting here in making this section seem very dramatic and poignant, when in fact it’s Cabeswater the forest just going ahead and doing the very thing it said it couldn’t do to resurrect Gansey after making only perfunctory skeptical noises.
It’s not like I wanted Gansey to die. The trick about telling you that he is going to die at the beginning of your four book series is that you’re pulling the rug out from under your readers at the get-go. They don’t know who this guy is, but they know he’s going to be important and that they probably will be invested in his life. Forecasting his death sweeps away the tacit assumption that he is going to live unless the author is going for a *shocking moment*, so to a reader, it seems equally likely that the author will stick to his/her word and kill that character as it does that the author will find a way to prevent or cheat that death. The problem is, if you go with the expectation that he will in fact live (as I did,) you’re now waiting for a truly spectacular turn of circumstances that will grant that, something almost as surprising as an unexpected death. And when the answer to that prayer is, “Gee, why don’t we ask the magic forest from whom we’ve already been granted a bunch of favors,” well, am I wrong to feel a little underwhelmed? Call me cynical, it’s cool, this is just a bunch of immediate-impressions word vomit.
For all my griping, can I truly deny that this was a satisfying series-end to one of the better-written and more imaginative YA series in recent memory? No, I cannot. Furthermore, for all of my multitude of conflicting feelings from the final chapters, I enjoyed this book as I had all of its predecessors, with a sense of wonder, involvement, and deep attachment to the characters with concern for their well-being. Stiefvater has a gift of writing people where the depth of their character and singular voice leaps off the page without spelling it out with facile exposition, like “Blue was angry and so channeled her rage into growing ever more deadly through her exceptional talent at krav maga.” Her language lives in the spaces between words and in the shifts of the face before their final resting expressions. That attention to detail and subtlety is what paints the clearest pictures and makes you feel that you really see and know these people, and that’s why, for all my complaining, I am happy that Gansey didn’t have to die.
I loved the ending. I thought it was great that Blue, who has known since before she met Gansey that he was going to die, Adam, who has known about the death prediction for a while and thought he was going to kill Gansey for even longer than that, and that Ronan, who was used to those he loved dying, just GAVE UP and that it was Henry who was like, “No, get your shit together and fix this.”
That’s an angle I hadn’t thought about. I liked the increased presence of Henry, as it was another opportunity for Stiefvater to show off how good she is at creating memorable, complex characters. It’s an interesting take that he, who is newest to the group and possibly had less reason to develop a sense of fatigue around all of the *complications* with the ley line, would be the shot in the arm to get everyone thinking about a solution.
At the same time, though, it was a little strange to me that this new character kind of slipped in out of nowhere and took Noah’s place, while Noah himself resolves his part of the story by slipping out of the time story and being the person all along who whispered in Gansey’s ear at his first death? It’s a nice revelatory “OH!” moment, but considering that Glendower turned out to be a big nothing, I found it to be kind of a weird way to exit Noah, stage left. He was such a presence throughout and his big arc is to be the one who sends Gansey on a wild goose chase? Okay, I guess.
I didn’t think of Henry as taking Noah’s place, I thought of him joining the group as more proof that everything is circular. The series began with Blue joining the group and ended with Henry joining it.
Noah’s story was likewise circular, he said the words that started Gansey on his quest because otherwise Noah would have never met Gansey. That said, I always want more Noah and was sad we didn’t get that in this last book.
I’ve been ruminating on this since I finished a few days ago and am finding the more I ruminate, the less satisfied I am with the book. Although please know that I ADORE this series, author, and like 90% of the Raven King. But…
– There were so many balls in the air coming into this book that were just dropped and yet she’s adding new unnecessary ones. For example there was this huge anticipation built up around the “don’t wake the third sleeper” thing that was just dropped. And the sleepers they DID wake didn’t have much to do so the whole thing feels a bit pointless in retrospect.
– Also pointless and dropped, the build up of the people who seek magic items and how TERRIBLE it will be if they descend upon Henrietta, especially Lumiere (sp?) the mysterious 3-person who also end up being a big of a dropped ball.
– Why did we need Henry? All books have been around our core group and in the 11th hour this kid shows up and is like, “Can I be your friend and oh lookie, I’ve got a sonic screwdriver…uh I mean robobee that can fix almost anything.”
– Seriously. Cannot robobee without eyerolling.
– Blue barely gets any screen time or agency. She’s just along for the ride on this one. Disappointing. Also does the fact that she’s half-tree matter at all or is this another tangent that could have been edited out?
– I didn’t want Gansey to die. But “ask magic to fix it” was just too clean and deus ex machina. The theme of dread all along has been so palpable – these people are messing, recklessly, with powers far beyond their understanding! That dread is one of the things that has made the series so great! There needed to be some consequence to all this, but instead we got two HEA and a magic pig. I totally wanted the HEA (Ronan and Adam 4EVA!). But the whole finale was far too neat and a bit of price to be paid would have elevated the whole thing beyond “neatly wrapped up”.
Thank you for your review I’ve been DYING to discuss :)
I totally agree with all of your points. Other than my slight snark over “antagonists being quickly dispatched,” I didn’t even get into my bemusement over the giant shrug that turned out to be Lumineer (double sp) and Piper. The third sleeper/demon was truly a terrifying thing, and it seemed right that Gansey’s sacrifice/life could be the only thing that counteracted an unmaking presence. But we are in total agreement that “ask the magic forest” is such an easy way out, irregardless of the initial existential objections of said forest.
See my other comment re: Henry, also in other words, totally agree.
And yeah, what exactly was the purpose of Gwenllian and Artemus? To yell at each other and spout vague nothings, reveal to Blue that she is a tree, so that Blue can communicate vague tree-nothings to Cabeswater during the Gansey remaking? Insert ButWhy.gif .
I don’t understand, I thought the demon was the third sleeper, so I’m not sure how that is a dropped ball?
Yes, I too thought the demon was the third sleeper. I also didn’t mind too much about whatsherface (Glendower’s daughter) and Blue’s dad not being instrumental to finding the sleeping king exactly because it’s nice that not absolutely everything needed to tie into Gansey’s (fairly pointless, in the end) obsession. While initially, the book series seemed to be about his quest for Glendower, it was in fact, much more significantly about the friendship between Blue, Gansey, Adam, Ronan, Noah and in the end, Henry) and their various links to Cabeswater.
I listened to this whole series on audio so I am just now finding out that it’s Cabeswater and not Caveswater. Mind blown.
The happy ending was so refreshing to me. I don’t feel like it was easy or forced to get to that happy place, so I was okay with it. Also, stuff like GoT has actually made me weary of unrelenting unhappy endings. It’s nice to get the occasional ending where things turn out well.
I absolutely feel like I SHOULD be happy that it was happy, and I am kind of disgusted with myself that I am not completely. This is why we can’t have nice things?
I somehow totally forgot (already) about Blue being part tree person or whatever.