God, book 19 is always and has always been my favorite book in the entire series, strictly for how it sat the reader down with the main villain and said “Ok, but consider; they have an internal life and experience too”. It’s just such a beautiful and harrowing debate of philosophies between characters who don’t understand each other until they finally do. I’m still mad about the criticism I saw once calling it slavery apologia to have Cassie (a black girl) empathize with Aftran, which is stupid on multiple levels up to and including “ok there’s an interesting underlying thought to your criticism but have you considered phrasing things in a less deliberately inflammatory and exaggerated fashion?” It just… this fic reminded me of everything I liked about book 19. Sorry about the tangent
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Starryoak Sat 08 Oct 2022 05:24AM UTC
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