Monique’s Reviews > Queen of Shadows > Status Update

“For her fiend, for her family, she would gladly be a monster… monster of no, never in ten thousand years would she have let Dorian face his father alone. Even if Dorian had told her to go. A month ago, she and Rowan had chose to face the Vlag princess together-to die together, if need be, rather than do so alone.”

#chaolsucks

After Choal calls her a monster she responds: “I’ve made my peace with that… I’ll be at my old apartment, should you decide to take your head out of your ass.”

Still willing to trust him and work with him. Even after he insults her, withholds crucial information from her and unveils his ridiculous plan.

Aelin finds out Dorian has a wyrdstone collar:

“She wasn’t entirely certain she she could handle being touched without ripping his face off.”

She told him what had been going on… his response: “so you’re here alone… you came back, but without an army. Without allies. You came back empty handed.”

🤬

You should have gotten Dorian and Sorscha out the day the king butchered those slaves. Did you learn nothing from Nehemiah’s death? Did you somehow think you could win with your honor intact, without sacrificing something? You shouldn’t have left him; how could you face the king alone? How could you…how could you?

Biggest difference between Aelin and Choal: she thinks these things but doesn’t say them.

“Need I remind you, Captain, that you went to Endovier and did not blink at the slaves, at the mass graves? Need I remind you that i was starved and chained, and you let Duke Perrington force me to the ground at Dorian’s feet while you did nothing? And now you have the nerve to accuse me of not caring, when many of the people in this city have profited off the blood and misery of the very people you ignored?”

An army that could crush any Juan resistance. But...but maybe not if they allied with magic-wielders. That is, if the magic-wielders, after all that had been done to then, even wanted to bother saving their world.

Chaol=ass. Now that he needs magic to save the world it’s all right? He even acknowledged the world has done them wrong. He needs Aelin to save the world while he puts her down and distrusts her.

“What checks would there be against her? Against Aedion, and that Fae Prince of hers, and all the warriors like them? A new world, yes. But a world in which the ordinary human voice would be nothing more than a whisper.”

Every time I read this series I find more and more reason to hate Chaol. Again, he doesn’t have a problem with Dorian having magic. He has no problem with magic saving his life and Dorian’s.

“Perhaps we’re better off without magic. Perhaps magic didn’t exactly make things fair amongst us mere mortals.... magic makes people dangerous.
“Magic has saved your life a few times if I recall correctly.”
“...where are the checks against your kind?”... who is to stop you?”

Chaol sucks.

“You’ve risked everything-multiple lives-to get out one man. I think you find this city and it’s citizens expendable.”
“Need I remind you, captain, that you went to Endovier and did not blink at the slaves, at the mass graves? Need I remind you that while I was starved and chained, and you let Duke Perrington force me to the found at Dorian’s feet while you did nothing?”

. A queen of the realm was in the Shadow Market, in head-to-toe black, and looking more than happy to start slitting throats. He hasn’t been wrong to fear her reunion with Aedion-what they might do together.

...”don’t let your men be stationed at the southern wall.”

Chaol blinked. Not a request or order- but a warning.”

Again, she’s proving steps ahead of him and concern for innocents.