Palala’s Reviews > The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms > Status Update

Sex is funny, but I'm not so sure that was the intended moral here.

"... but barbarians grow up faster than civilized folk."
Ten pages later:
"Don't be a child."
This is a book that revels in tearing down the convenient lies the narrator tells about herself, and this is a wonderfully satisfying, and rare, thing to read.

For me at this point, the author has gone all-in with the Arameri/not-Arameri dichotomy. If blood tells, and Yeine ends up as much a self-interested, manipulative, magnificent bastard as the rest of them, the payoff is enormous. If her actions support her self-proclaimed status as a good person, everything to this point seems wasted.

Hypothetically, let's say you had a subordinate. And let's say that, again hypothetically, you probably had the power to sic a mad god of chaos on this subordinate. Finally, let's suppose that you came onto this subordinate. Would you be at all shocked if that subordinate was a bit lackluster in their attentions to you?

I can sympathize with a character who finds sexual tension to be sexier than actual sex, but this still feels like not-very-sexy sex.