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Post by Deleted on Jun 7, 2020 0:58:48 GMT -5
so, i was thinking about mv again and the basis for it. a villain protag whos intentionally an unreliable narrator (given shes a serial killer with vendettas who clearly was hallucinating at points). and it made me wonder if the unreliable narrator aspects were intended to stretch to the way other characters acted towards her.
do you think it was intended for characters to come off as far more cruel because we were seeing the story through mapleshades eyes, and she saw herself as the victim of unrepentant cruelty? obviously some actions cant be put to that, like oakstar exiling kits, but perhaps the way others looked at her, the way they spoke to her, etc. were intended to be unrealistically awful because thats how she saw them, and the novella itself just failed to convey that?
what do yall think? a horribly botched attempt to stretch the unreliable narrator to the way other characters acted, or were they just genuinely all complete assholes? im personally in the "theyre just assholes" camp, but it does make me wonder.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 7, 2020 1:06:44 GMT -5
Honestly, I thought it was a perfectly fine book. I was happy with what I got. Though the only characters I actually liked were the kits, Reedshine and Perchpaw. Lowkey wanted Perchstar instead of Hailstar but w/e.
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#a3c5e6
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𝓣𝓲𝓷𝓾𝓿𝓲𝓮𝓵
Warrior Fanatic
All hail me, the flower-flushing queen of Prague
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Post by 𝓣𝓲𝓷𝓾𝓿𝓲𝓮𝓵 on Jun 7, 2020 4:03:58 GMT -5
I'm not even sure if Mapleshade could even be called an unreliable narrator since there's not really any contradictory information from what she told Crookedstar, nor are there any hints that everything isn't as it seems (before she gets the idea to kill so her kits may rest, of course).
And the fact that CP was released years prior to MV is perhaps part of the problem. An unreliable narrator's job is to make even the audience believe in their lies, but because we already basically know what happens, we already knew that Mapleshade was in the wrong and there's absolutely nothing in the novella that contradicts her in any way. It's why I have trouble calling her an unreliable narrator.
An example of one in this series (and the only one I can think of at the moment unless you count Mapleshade) is Dovewing, at the very end of TLH where she briefly thinks Firestar survived, only for her to be snapped right back to reality.
So no, I don't think it was done well at all.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 7, 2020 4:11:39 GMT -5
I'm not even sure if Mapleshade could even be called an unreliable narrator since there's not really any contradictory information from what she told Crookedstar, nor are there any hints that everything isn't as it seems (before she gets the idea to kill so her kits may rest, of course). And the fact that CP was released years prior to MV is perhaps part of the problem. An unreliable narrator's job is to make even the audience believe in their lies, but because we already basically know what happens, we already knew that Mapleshade was in the wrong and there's absolutely nothing in the novella that contradicts her in any way. It's why I have trouble calling her an unreliable narrator. An example of one in this series (and the only one I can think of at the moment unless you count Mapleshade) is Dovewing, at the very end of TLH where she briefly thinks Firestar survived, only for her to be snapped right back to reality. So no, I don't think it was done well at all. yeah thats my general vibe. it feels like they wanted to go that route but then couldnt figure out how to make it work. when i read mv, i just feel like they wanted to make the book star an unreliable narrator, but just botched it for god knows what reason. i wouldve found everybody acting horrible very interesting if portrayed through that lens, tho.
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Post by vectoring34 on Jun 7, 2020 11:52:49 GMT -5
It's perfectly fine the way it is. It's basically a story where terrible cruelty happens and so it creates something just as bad if not worse. I don't think there's any need to apply an unreliable narrator to it.
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Post by Brindlefern on Jun 7, 2020 11:55:32 GMT -5
Unreliable or not, it's still bad for a lot of other reasons outside Mapleshade's PoV.
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Asexual
#07B04C
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Ṣanɗypaw™
The Shiny User
🎵Guess that's just the way it goes, easy come, easy go🎵
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Post by Ṣanɗypaw™ on Jun 7, 2020 13:46:43 GMT -5
It got halfway there- the Erins didn't portray her as 100% unreliable. If they did, I believe that she would be getting much less sympathy from the fandom.
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Post by *Ottersplash* on Jun 7, 2020 19:02:38 GMT -5
I don't even think she's an unreliable narrator. There's nothing she says that contradicts anything others have said. Doesn't Oakstar even vocalize his regret about how he handled it in Pinestar's Choice?
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Post by kells on Jun 8, 2020 6:03:39 GMT -5
Not sure why this book gets so much hate, it was pretty mediocre, and nothing really special to love or hate about it.
Among the three the only one I can feel sympathy for is prolly Freckleshine. It was an innocent assumption she had made and Mapleshade killed her for it.
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