Status Updates From Manzakar (The Slave-Soldier...

If Coxani doesn't follow him, I will 🫣😂

Very exciting! ⚔️🛡🏹🐎

hold THE FUCK UP. THEY'RE MAKING TIKRAN KING?

WHY??????????

Reasons: tired of blue-blood Anzori, they want a warrior king who will strike fear into the kingdom's enemies.

1) What are they going to do with Delger's son/relatives
2) The Anzori are just okay with this? Hard to believe
3) Why choose Tikran when he was literally spoon-fed into leading a rebel army with zero experience

Why are the citizens cheering for T and the rebel army? I find it very difficult to believe that the average citizen would support the rebellious slaves fighting for equal rights and thus becoming legitimate competition among them for the same resources. And the citizens have been taught for generations that the Gohari were brutes who have to be colonized into civility, otherwise they would become violent

The durais' votes have equal weight as those of the Anzori nobles. How do the slaves/durais differ meaningfully from free nobleman if they have equal status in the kingdom's governance?

Haydar reveals to the king that he is Enlil the Weaver. He just kinda... does it? No fanfare, no agents at his side, just him sitting in a meeting with the king and his loyalists.

The king ofc is outraged and reminds H that he is a slave. What does that even mean when he is a durai: a slave who can own property, hire servants/own slaves, marry whomever, and advise the king?

Does T have any military strategy experience? His training seemed to focus on marshal prowess but I can't recall anything about troop formations or war tactics. Certainly there has been no on-page practice, esp not with T practicing as a general. Why on earth would anyone have faith in him enough to follow him into battle? He's just Haydar's figurehead, no matter how popular he is as the "Caged Kingfisher"

So D is the most powerful mage in the southern kingdoms that he knows of. The Essence (magic) is based in pulling elements out of the world around them, helped along by catalysts like dry tinder for conjuring fire or tapping shallow water tables for water. The king keeps track of essence users to deprive the Gohari from benefitting; keep them dependent on Anzor

Zarina isn't imprisoned like we'd been told at the start; she goes by Moti, and is one of Haydar's agents. Has been for a long time

The dialogue has some nice moments, then it nosedives into: "Oh yeah? Boo-hoo, Stalking Lion!" (fight ensues)

Boo-hoo? That's the best you got? I'd expect that from a middle-schooler, not from an elite soldier and (usually) not from an author

Dubcon scene with N x brothel sex worker.

Lots of noncon for C, though it's off-page SA for the most part. There should be some CWs for the SA, pregnancy, and abortion that are somewhat constant in the story.

D suddenly shares that he is half Gohari, and he had also been taught that the Gohari were savage brutes and must be colonized into civilization. D believed it more strongly bc he has a high amount of Essence and thus needed more control

D gives C a knife so she can defend herself even while married as Nasch's wife. He does this in spite of his political affiliation and any potential fall out from his interference in foreign affairs, and bc he loves T. I... Don't have the words for how reckless and stupid his actions make him look. There isn't any waffling before he hands over the knife or attempts to deny his feelings for T to C.

Even the leper is hot 🤦🏻‍♀️💀 PLS, WHAT DOES BEAUTY MATTER IF EVERYONE IS HOT. BEAUTY WOULD BE NOTHING REMARKABLE IF IT IS UBIQUITOUS AND BANAL

T has a page long exposition about what he thinks the king, Nasch and Saltanat think about him when we hadn't been shown or even hinted that he had pieced it together before. Feels kinda outta nowhere

T, C, and N don't make any attempt to have a relationship with the other Gohari slaves in Anzor. The only ones T tried with was his former Gohari tribe, and even then it was mostly with his sister. There is no sense of kinship with the Gohari people. Arguably bc they're Manzakar but I think that was a weak narrative choice