SYNOPSIS
After serving out a year of hard labor in the salt mines of Endovier for her crimes, 18-year-old assassin Celaena Sardothien is dragged before the Crown Prince. Prince Dorian offers her her freedom on one condition: she must act as his champion in a competition to find a new royal assassin.
Her opponents are men-thieves and assassins and warriors from across the empire, each sponsored by a member of the king's council. If she beats her opponents in a series of eliminations, she'll serve the kingdom for three years and then be granted her freedom.
Celaena finds her training sessions with the captain of the guard, Westfall, challenging and exhilirating. But she's bored stiff by court life. Things get a little more interesting when the prince starts to show interest in her... but it's the gruff Captain Westfall who seems to understand her best.
Then one of the other contestants turns up dead... quickly followed by another. Can Celaena figure out who the killer is before she becomes a victim? As the young assassin investigates, her search leads her to discover a greater destiny than she could possibly have imagined.
INTRODUCTION
What better way to start off the new year than with a good hero's journey?
I picked "Throne of Glass" up in my favorite bookstore when I was sixteen and have been a faithful fan of Sarah J. Maas ever since. I think this book is better than some reviewers give it credit for, and it gives a great example of the hero's journey--I would even say it gives many.
This analysis of Celaena's hero's journey will include spoilers for the series! To be marked with (!) before a spoiler.
The Call to Adventure in "Throne of Glass"
In the series' first installment, Celaena Sardothian arrives at the Glass Palace to compete to become the King of Adarlan's official champion, sponsored by his son, Prince Dorian. Celaena is asked to compete for her freedom, something she has never truly had. If she fails, she will be returned to the slave mines of Endovier, a place she was willing to die to escape.
The "call to adventure" is an important part of any story, and it requires several important ingredients. First and foremost, to be a proper call to adventure, it must matter to your hero. By placing Celaena's freedom on the line, Maas has created sufficient motivation for the girl to act. However, more than just the plot of the book has been kicked off here. A decade ago, Celaena's loving parents died, and she was forced to flee from her wartorn home country, finding herself on the doorstep of Arobynn Hamel, a self-styled assassin king who takes Celaena in and trains her to become an assassin. In the prequels, we see that though Celaena is full of swagger and attitude, she is ultimately subservient to Arobynn until she finds a greater friend and genuine love in Sam Cortland, the son of a courtesan. However, Sam's death at the hands of Arobynn breaks her, and any moment she had gained to change her world is sapped.
For the first time, Celaena has hope for freedom. All she has to do is win the competition and serve her time as the royal champion and all she ever wanted, a peaceful life in the country, is hers. But a CTA has to do more than just matter to a protagonist. It has to disrupt their life so much that they must act. Maas does this by putting Celaena in prison so that she has no real choice, but also by bringing the bright and driven Princess Nehemia into her life. Celaena and Nehemia are fast friends and find that they both find the king tyrannical. Without Nehemia to guide her forward, Celaena may never have had the motivation to actually begin her journey, as Nehemia's vision is unable to be completed without her.
Celaena's call to adventure comes in the form of the two things that matter most to her: freedom, and love and friendship.
Crossing the Threshold in "Crown of Midnight"
"Crown of Midnight" is most people's least favorite book in this series. It's slow and stagnating. Not much of note happens with Celaena, and much of it is people trying to get Celaena to react in some way. Perhaps Maas didn't need to drag this story on quite as long as she did, but there was a reason for this book.
Before I get into Celaena's arc in this journey, I want to bring up another major journey in this series. Dorian is one of many viewpoint characters, and while this is undeniably Celeana's story, he seemed more important than many other characters, to the point of being a deuteragonist. He is one of our first viewpoint characters, along with Chaol and Celaena, his actions kick off the plot, and he serves as a foil for Celaena. The two share many similarities. !They are both bookworms, both very confident and flirtatious, both royalty, and both heirs to their kingdoms. They even met once before Celaena's world came to a crashing end, back when she was a princess.
Foils aren't just the same character, though, and Dorian differs from Celaena in a few distinct ways. !Whereas she was the princess of a destroyed kingdom, he was the son of the conqueror who destroyed it. Her father guided her through the isolation her volatile magic caused for her, while Dorian was terrified of his father finding out.
You can buy "Throne of Glass" on Amazon or your favorite bookstore.
No comments:
Post a Comment