I noticed that too during re-reading, it seemed more exciting when I was in middle school but now in college it feels to basic, simple or even nonsensical
I think you need a bit of unhinged to really get people talking about your books. I mean, we are sitting through an hour plus long video talking about them so the author did something right.
You skipped over Winter's backstory of why she doesn't use her powers!? That's what stuck with me the most, it goes so hard! A servant tried to off herself because she was being r**ed over and over so Winter mind controls her to be happy for years, while she's still being r**ed, until the servant finally actually offs herself and winter realized she had tortured this girl, and she vowed to never do it again!
As a black woman, I just want to say thank you for pointing out how subtle racism can sneak its way into literature. 1. Taking countries largely holding POC and reducing them to one country (“Asia” and “Africa”) while not doing that for Europe is wild. And 2. Most plagues and pandemics throughout history started in Europe but for some reason the author decided to have her plague come from Africa. I know they’re just books but when this stuff happens constantly, it’s so hard to ignore.
Not meant to offend, just trying to learn. Most Americans for example doesn’t know all the countries in Asia and Africa, hell not also Europe but they probably heard of some. How would you write in an African character from example Rawanda or Namibia or Angola without directly stating from the character own mount where they are from? I’m in no way a author, but I like to write, and that’s always a thing I wonder on when it comes to characters when the main may not be the best when it comes to countries or like other than - oh they probably from Scandinavia they say they from the north - type of stuff. I have a character from myanmar, not at all a big character, very much a side character and I have no idea how to show he’s from there without having him say it. He has a traditional name from myanmar or Burma as it was once called, and I looked up facial features to see how people from myanmar looks. But readers that doesn’t know myanmar, will probably just think - oh he’s Asian - and leave it at that. How would be the best way to show he’s from there? I have a character from Rawanda who also have a common name who directly state in a dialogue his nationality due to referring to something that happened to him while he lived there ( doesn’t anymore ) but my character from myanmar, I have no away how to naturally show it as he’s such a minor character but still think he deserves it.
@@happyweek11 hey I'm just a random white guy so maybe I'll be super off base, but maybe talk to a Burmese person if you're researching how to portray a character from Myanmar?
@@happyweek11 bestie, maybe don't ask a random black woman a question about writing an African character if she never offered advice on the topic??????? there are tons of creators and platforms that you can find that offer advice, including youtube videos if you don't want to leave the website for whatever reason.
@@happyweek11 Just do your research lol. You need to know abt political tensions in the region, how patriotism is seen, what divides the people, what are some cultural perspectives that impact their worldview etc. Yes, it's that easy.
Hearing about "Jacin" immediately shot me back to mt first time playing Sims4 and I had a preloaded sim named Jayceon in one of the fancy houses and I tried to make him electrocute himself so he would die and I could give the house to someone else who didn't have a stupidass name, but then he aged up into an old man and I realized his life's ambition was to find true love and he had NO FRIENDS so I felt bad and made it my life's mission to get him a girlfriend before he died. Which I did, and he and his gf died on the same day and I was so emotional that I turned off aging forever. This has absolutely nothing to do with anything but I felt the need to share it. Anyways thanks for the trip down memory lane, love your videos xo
i totally agree with bringing up the mistreatment of black people by the medical industry but i thought that the "cyborg draft" was supposed to be some allegory for disabled people? the reason cinder is a cyborg is because of an accident that occurred, meaning the cyborg-ifcation process is some type of medical procedure similar to our prosthesis work. i also think it makes sense to compare because they're seen as less "important" than humans and they're "owned", maybe similar to a conservatorship or medical power of attorney? i don't know, just rambling here. i'm not disabled so i'm very happy to hear others' thoughts on this. great video!
Reading them as a kid I always felt the same, and interpreted all the cyborgs as their perceived "second class citizens" who had disabilities and were being shunned from society. But I guess I had grown up with disabled siblings and family members, so I was kinda set up for that interpretation I guess lol
Disabled people and black people have both been abused by the medical industry, and there are nuances to each kind of medical abuse, but I think the cyborg situation in the book could be an allegory for either. Idk if the author was really thinking it through that much lol, so the allegory is so vague that I think it's just about like general medical abuse of people considered second class citizens.
@@lunafowler5736it’s fine for something to represent multiple things and it doesn’t make the messaging less impactful. What does make it less impactful is the secret “actually we had a reasonable and justifiable reason for doing these things.” It undercuts the messaging a little bit to be like “we needed to do this awful thing to save the world” unless the author is trying to make a point of “the ends don’t justify the means.”
i think its cus its a rlly small village but they could like at least name what country its innn, like we know its off the saharah destert but thats it
The way I was obsessed with Scarlet and Wolf’s relationship as a child and was so absolutely crushed and devastated with the way they ended. I immediately learned I wasn’t a furry lol
tell me more about the disproven misconceptions. I'm guessing it's not the fun stuff like 'wolves communicate via telepathic image sharing'. (I have no idea who came up with that, but some documentary claimed this. It always sounded f🎉ar-fetched to me.
as someone who is a little entrenched in internet culture... the alpha/omega thing originally didn't come from the manosphere alpha male stuff we have today, it was some scientist's misinterpretation of the hierarchy within wolf packs. idk if youve ever seen or heard of the "alpha & omega" animated movies from 2010, but that's kind of the gist of it. the author was probably trying to use that to denote "wolf hierarchy" within the org it then got turned into The Omegaverse, a fanfiction genre which i Don't think Meyer is intentionally referencing, but it would be funny edit: after that alpha female exchange... it might be the omegaverse.
MM was a huge fangirl and wrote sailor moon fanfiction before writing the lunar chronicles. She definitely had the chance to be exposed to the omegaverse even if she wasn't in any fandom trenches afaik
@@boohooter23that explains so much. with each new thing about the lunars i was thinking "what in the sailor moon is this" but also had flashbacks to aldnoah zero
honestly the whole alpha stuff upsets me because it’s just scientifically wrong. i could not care less about how cringe it is. but as a bio major, it actively hurts me how widespread the minsinfo is and how the omegaverse stuff perpetuates it
Felt pretty insensitive tbh given that speech was in response to the Pulse massacre Like, there's plenty to say on LMM, but I don't know about him crying over 50 queer people being murdered being used as a meme 🤷♀️
My friend got me into reading these when i was like 14, i loved them so much 😭😭 cant wait to see the potentially problematic things my unperceptive teen brain didnt pick up on
FR though I love love love Marissa Meyer's books, as a big Alice in Wonderland girlie Heartless has always been a favourite, and the Renegades series is so fun, and I say this as a 20 year old woman
@@nikki.ragnvindr the renegades ending was really disappointing tbh..none of the issues with the renegades organization were ever addressed...basically the people in power who abused said power are still in power at the end of the book but somehow everyone is ok with it for reasons i don't even understand
1. cinder being the lunar princess is giving barbie princess charm school omg 2. don't apologize for thinking critically !! by far my fav part of your summaries are when you break down the problematic nature of these series' ! this one was especially good- an article and everything LOL i love your channel sm girlie
It's similar, but probably it's a reference of Usagi Tsukino being Princess Serenity. That makes sense when you remember that Meyer wrote fanfiction about Sailor Moon once.
If anyone wants to do more research on real life connections to better learn about where the "testing plague on cyborgs rather than humans" came from, the tuskegee syphilis study is a really great starting point to learn about racism in the medical industry. This is one of the studies I and probably many others had to study when it comes to medical research ethics^
ages from the wiki cinder: 16 kai: 18 scarlet: 18 wolf: 23 cress: 16 thorne: 20 winter: 17 jacin: 19 i mean the age gap between cinder and kai is the same as jacin and winter but its also especially worse with cress and thorne since cress has been isolated for most of her life. scarlet is at least pretty independent and living in an actual community
@@kinrateia How? I might be misremembering, but weren't their ancestors a bunch of rich people who shot themselves into space during a world war and left the rest of Earth behind? Or maybe that's just what I've accidentally made up over the years
I remember that my favourite book was scarlet (former wolf number one fan here) and I LOVED how everything falls into place in the books and how everything was connected. My 13 year old brain was amazed
omg yes! it blew my mind, honestly this series is like the origin story for my love of interconnected plots with characters on seemingly different paths that start to intersect until the inevitable collision, and it rly did all fall into place so well. and i stand by the fact that this series did it well, and even though by now i've read more books w this that may be better, for a long time it was like the only time i read this and lowkey i'd still cite it as a satisfying example. tbh scarlet was my least fav of the three i read, im sorry dont remember why besides maybe my attention span and untreated adhd lmao, but eventually once i got into it and everything started coming together, oh i was so sat. (also was more of a kai girl myself, with thorne as a close second)
@@gracesull78756 Because you mentioned that you've read better books with these interconnected plots by now, do you mind giving a few recommendations? :)
Ya know, even though this does have some controversial aspects and things that probably should have had more details, this series is still one of the best plotted and foreshadowing YA series to date
Disclaimer that this is not me defending Meyer in any way shape or form for her worldbuilding choices (she definitely could have benefitted researching Japan's history, ESPECIALLY their war crimes which is what makes having a Japanese Emperor rule all of Asia super icky and got someone who actually knew how Chinese honorifics worked to help her out): I think some of the worldbuilding makes more sense if you realise that the series borrows heavily from Sailor Moon as well. We've got Cinder, who is the long lost moon princess (the first arc of the manga and anime are about the Sailor Senshi trying to find said long lost moon princess) and iirc Meyer stated fancasted her as Mew Azama who played Sailor Jupiter in the live action series. Scarlet is essentially a more impulsive Sailor Jupiter/Makoto Kino with a gun. Cress has Sailor Mercury/Ami Mizuno's tech knowledge and Anime!Sailor Venus/Minako Aino's obsession with love. And Winter is closer to Sailor Moon/Usagi Tsukino in personality than Cinder herself (who I'm struggling to make a comparison to an SM character personality-wise). Queen Levana is a Queen Beryl expy, and Kai is a Tuxedo Mask/Mamoru Chiba expy. Also important to note that these books were published around the time anime as a medium was starting to become more mainstream in the West than it had been previously, so I think a good chunk of the series' audience wouldn't be as aware of Sailor Moon going into these books.
Yeah Marissa Meyer was also a BNF in the Sailor Moon fandom for years and a lot of her early fans were following her from her fandom work- myself included. I literally sold the lunar chronicles to friends in high school by going “so basically it’s sailor moon”. I’m not saying no thought was put into it but I will say that when I first read Cinder the sailor moon parallels were mostly what got me through and filled in any blanks.
@@AttackOnAlchemist Oh yeah there's definitely more to it than just "this is basically Sailor Moon" because there's also the fact these are mainly marketed as fairy tale retellings which was and still is quite a popular trend in YA literature (side note: I'd also argue Carson Thorne is a Han Solo expy and the Rampion is his Millennium Falcon, and Kai's android with the Lunar chip in it is an R2D2 expy so there's a dash of Star Wars in there too). After finding out that Meyer was a Sailor Moon BNF a lot of the characterisation and worldbuilding choices began to make sense for me. There's nothing wrong with being influenced by what you enjoy and putting it in your works. I think the issue is Meyer transplanting the Tokyo Is The Center Of The Universe trope that works for something like Sailor Moon, but when you put it into a work like The Lunar Chronicles which spans multiple real world countries, homogenising Asia as one country ruled by a Japanese monarch (or at least a monarch with a Japanese name) is when things veer into unfortunate implications territory. I don't think she was entirely aware of these implications (I think she just wanted a marketable diverse cast of girls that could kick ass and still fall in love which is fair), but it's still something worth discussing.
@@screamingbegins4688 what does that have anything to do with anything? Cinderella is typically a noblewoman whose family treats her like servant, not a secret orphaned princess.
reread this series recently for the first time since i was like 14 and god... the casual racism, the pandemic/plague, the casual misogyny.. but omg the ships IMPRINTED themselves on me like cinder and kai still have me kicking my feet and omg thanks for article recommendations!!
i only read the first two books and i only really remembered that cinder was a cyborg with a metal leg (my disabled queen) so imagine my surprise when you said there was a country on the MOON????? HOW DID I FORGET THAT PART 😭😭😭
I am right there with you, I only read Cinder though. The only thing I remembered was that there was something messed up with her foot at the endish… so the moon thing was a surprise for sure, I don’t even think I remembered her being the lost princess
She has a whole lot more than just a metal leg. One of her hands is also robotic and a majority of her interior. It's a miracle she lived through the "accident" that destroyed most of her body.
I’m surprised there was no real mention of Cress and Thorne's age gap. Cress is 16 during most of the books, while Thorne is in his 20’s. I was hardly cognizant of the fandom during its prime, but it seemed there was some discourse surrounding it seeing as Throne and Cress were also a really popular ship. Scarlet and Wolf's age gap is technically one year larger since Wolf is 23, but at the very least Scarlet is a consenting adult at 18 and not a minor. I truly don’t think Meyer had any ill intent, but such a big deal is made out of how “inexperienced” Cress is and Throne's whole status as this flirty and sort of womanizing rogue just _feels_ icky, especially considering how they get one of the raunchiest kisses in the series. They could’ve had them like maturely discussed her feelings for him? Have it be an innocent crush where he’s flattered by Cress but ultimately declines, have Cress first real rejection from a boy be like a growing moment ,,,or have him hold off until she has more experience or have her not be 16 or…something? 😭 anything? Addendum: will never forget the tumblr post I once read defending the Thress ship where one of the main points was faulting people and saying they were complaining from a “Western mindset” and that the age of majority/consent everywhere isn’t 18. Like Throne isn’t…… _LITERALLY_ from a _in universe America_ and from a story written by whom I assume to be an _American_ where the age of majority is, _infact_ , still 18. 😭 Sure, we don’t know Lunar law and it could’ve universally lowered sometime between all those world wars, so maybe it’s technically okay but if we have to get ‘technical’ about it then I fear were missing the crux of the issue.
I know Thorne isn’t all that bad of a guy, and like I understand his character enough to know he and Cress really do have like,,, a connection that is more than this perceived power imbalance but like man,,, is that going to hold up in a court of law.
I remember I reread the series and when we first meet Thorne i noticed he was 19 and thinking “wow I thought he was older” but that would’ve been worse lol. It’s weird too remembering the Disney version of rapunzel also has a big age gap of 18 vs 26
Even if cress could technically be seen as able to give consent it’s still so icky that he starts out viewing her as basically a kid and she views him as some sort of celebrity crush so there’s always a noticeable power imbalance there. You would think Thorne wouldn’t develop feelings for her but then he up and kisses her in the middle of a battle??? And then later on says he loves her???? Where did this come from??? Also even if cress was a “consenting adult” scarlet is still older by two years and dating an 18 year old in your twenties is a lot less problematic then dating a freaking 16 year old in your twenties. (Also scarlet and wolf don’t have a power imbalance.) Cress is still very much a kid who’s been stuck never interacting with anyone her whole life while Thorne is definitely a player and womanizer character who’s dating a literal child. Just…. No. (Also lowkey scarlet and wolf were the best ship in the whole series).
Hold up. You’re telling me this is a story about a moon princess who doesn’t know she’s a moon princess at first & she needs to save the world from an evil queen? And her love interest is sort of a villain & manipulated by the evil queen for a bit? Does he also wear a tuxedo, or perhaps a mask? 🤔
Marissa Meyer started writing Sailor Moon fan fiction (and I think Star Wars and Harry Potter as well if I’m not mistaken) so the similarities weren’t subtle, and I’m pretty she even said they were on purpose because of how much she loved Sailor Moon growing up and wanted to incorporate it in the series
@@ainsleesbookclubit’s actually really uplifting to hear about people that haven’t been cursed with the knowledge of omegaverse (you’re so lucky for that)
@@luckyyy26 I'm now imagining the mental anguish Ainslee would go through if she were to read any werewolf/supernatural/vampire mate stories. From wattpad or published. Look, I'm a major fan of the fated mates trope, but there was some truly horrific stuff that even my teenage self noped the heck out of.
I had to pause and reflect for awhile after they started mentioning “alphas” and “omegas” in scarlet. Genuinely made me shed a tear from memories long past.
i didnt read these books until last year when i was an adult, and scarlet is a million percent my favorite one. something about the way scarlet just kept throwing herself at this red flag of a man filled me with glee. and when wolf says "no, lunar special operative" i literally put down the book and laughed hard for five minutes. because of course it is. of course his tattoo doesn't stand for "loyal soldier of the order of the pack" that's the STUPIDEST possible thing that could stand for!!! why would scarlet believe that, i'm laughing again just thinking about it, they were my favorite couple. second favorite part of the books was in winter when the lunars are effectively like "you should surrender so wolf doesn't die" and cinder is like "this revolution is bigger than any of us" and then like a chapter later levana is like "i'll kill thorne" and cinder is like "nooooo not my best friend, don't hurt him". the blatant favoritism sent me
I also read this as an adult but this was after a gap of not reading for a while and kinda just taking these at face value. Safe to say I have higher bars set now
Yeah Cinder could've just left Wolf with their friends and handed herself over, but she decided to bring Wolf too and get them both captured? Like what could he do by himself against the thaumaturge and all the guards? I like her, but that's the one decision I didn't understand
excellent points made, but it's important to remember that currently the Democratic Republic of Congo has an abundance of cobalt (a material used to power most of our technology in the West) but does not reap any of the benefits of that mineral. one of the few things meyer got correct (in reference to the quote at 1:13:13)
So, so glad someone finally pointed out the subtle racism in these books! I felt icky about all the characters with Vietnamese surnames living in "New Beijing", which is now the capital of all of the continent of Asia. It seems like she was attempting to create a modern version of imperialism
It's still so funny to me that Cinder decided to dissolve the monarchy on Luna just to get with a king on Earth. Like sis you literally JUST got rid of your royal status, what's the rush?
Gotta be the one to point out the Beijing is a huge global center of business, so someone not Chinese living there is NOT inherently racist. (The other stuff sure whatever)
I don't think it's inherently racist on its own but I think in the context of her merging all of Africa into one country as well, it kind of gives the vibe like she wasn't considering any of the nuances of the nationalities of primarily POC countries. Especially since she did explicitly name France and England as well, and how French people seemed like they were distinguished as their own nationality within the country of Europe still as opposed to being part of a larger European nationality. So I think considering those things, it is kind of feels like she wasn't really thinking about how there are different kinds of east Asian people.
I picked up and read Renegades before Heartless, which left me disappointed. This comment makes me feel better, because I had been considering not reading Heartless.
Just gonna drop a random, mildly interesting fact: it's cool that the Lunar princess was called Selene, because in Greek mythology, the original goodness of the moon (who developed more into a human personification of the moon as the myths developed) was called Selene.
i read this book series during the height of the pandemic for the first time, imagine my reaction when the plague got brought up for the first time and then my reaction to how it kept being brought up genuinely one of my favourite takes on fairy tale retellings, it's so cool to me to see a sci-fi one when most of the stuff tends to be modern-day america leaning even if not without fault i do like that meyer went out of her way to make the protags and their love interests come from several different places, instead of making them all be from the usa
oop definitely an interesting time to read it seriously as a lowkey retellings hater, i loved this one even more for those elements. it felt so fresh being sci-fi, esp when it came out in like peak YA dystopian era, and so many retellings were of the generic fantasy variety (nothing wrong w that though they just weren't my taste and were hard to distinguish). also while it clearly had flaws and it doesn't excuse those, yeah same, it stood out to me even when younger how among so many white protagonists and america-centered stories that this had other nationalities and ethnicities
These books, and specifically Winter, directly led to me howling in the middle of a silent writing period during my junior high English class. I enjoyed them a lot but I’m sure they don’t hold up because I remember even as a howling dumbass child I raised my eyebrow at some parts
as someone with chronic illness, i always took the cyborg narrative to reference other disabled people. I did try to reread it and had to stop bc of the ableism being so similar to real life’s
The way I was screaming "IT'S A BOAR!" at 1:33:59 was crazy lol anyways this video has inspired me to touch up some worldbuilding of some old characters AND was just good retelling like one would a soap opera so thank you as always for the AWESOME video!!💛💛💛Much love!!!
things i need to share with the people (as someone who had a hyperfixation on this series in middle school) : 1. the book on queen levana is FUCKED UP. she had this whole like weirdly non-consensual thing with winter's dad. she also fell in love with a palace guard (just like winter). oh and the reason winter stopped using her powers is also rlly dark. like 10 year old me was not prepared. 2. the fanart for this series in the old days was. so. weird. like looking back on it now especially the wolf stuff must have been taken over by a few very talented furries because... phew. and honestly the rest of the fanart (the non werewolf fanfiction fanart) was suuuuper white-washed. 3. the epilogue book with a bunch of silly little tales (which i believe started as a BLOG post, get that bag miss melissa) ends with wolf and scarlet getting married. and scarlet's "something blue" is an embroidered, cursive "alpha" on her wedding dress.
Oh my god the embroidered alpha is killing me (also the whole of Levana's book was waaay too dark compared to the rest of the series, like the many ways Levana abuses her step family is crazy, I did not remeber it being that dark)
@@screamingbegins4688it's in the book "stars above" , which is just full of bonus short stories. The short story where they get married is (I think) called "something old, something new"
Seems like it would've made more sense to have Winter be princess Selene. Within the logic of the story, sure, Winter hasn't been taught how to rule, but neither had Cinder, and Winter at least has lived there her whole life. Theoretically she'd understand the needs of the people better. While Cinder could've also been a lunar princess, by left the moon to rule beside Kai. It just feels like Winter has very little agency or stakes in the story beyond "I don't want to die." At the end, it sounds like she'll end up in exactly the same place she was previously, so not much has changed for her. Beyond having a boyfriend, I suppose.
Actually im pretty sure cinder gives up the crown for a democratic vote, and winter becomes the lunar ambassador or something to earth in the graphic novels
Vietnamese bookworm here. Yes Linh is a first name. It is also a surname. It does mean spirit or soul. 2:27 thank you so much. The “Vietnamese people are just Chinese” belief is distasteful and racist. The “all Asians are the same” is just ew in general
“The craziest twist” that was possibly one of the most obvious twists I’ve ever encountered. There’s a long lost princess that got sent to earth where she is and this girl is seemingly from this other planet with no memory of it and things just seem to work out for her? I truly wonder 🥴😂😂 I was literally sitting there waiting like okay when are they telling me
"There seems to be no effort being made [to stop this plague]. It's been fifteen years!" Yeah, and governments (plus most people) have been letting COVID-19 run rampant for basically the last five.
i recently reread these books and they're SO MUCH funnier with the knowledge of omegaverse like when wolf and scarlet are flirting i was just dying laughing
Wouldnt be mad if you went back and also covered Fairest and Stars Above 👀❤️ The way this series had a CHOKEHOLD on me in middle school, i think i started reading RIGHT when Cress came out so i remember the anticipation waiting for Winter, Fairest, and Stars Above to come out. I have the whole series, except for SA which I think I lost 😭 I'm so glad we can talk about these nostalgic series both critically and lovingly ❤
The thing that consistently irked me the most about YA novels (and still bothers me to this day) is that EVERY main character ALWAYS has to have a love interest inserted into the story. As a child who read way too many books, I very quickly caught onto this pattern and got supremely sick of it. I read Cinder, and I picked up the sequel, but once I saw the new protagonist got a love interest of her own, I immediately put it down. So now, hearing the entire series recap, it's kind of vindicating to see that this trend of "every important female in the story needs a boyfriend!" continued. Makes me feel like I was right to put the book down, because now I KNOW I wouldn't have (personally) had fun with it. Your video was far more entertaining than the book could have been. 👍
yeah something about how often the cast of characters in these series perfectly paired off into relationships, whether within to other members or in general all found the "love of their life", always makes me roll my eyes a little lol. i will say, not to defend lunar chronicles, but bc it's twists on fairy tales it's slightly more acceptable to me for some reason (?) that each book introduces two major characters in line w the retelling that fit the "princess"/"prince roles". maybe i'm biased bc ngl young me did like the series and 2/3 couples in the ones i got to, and i had fun picking out nods to the OG and the who's who, then how knowing that could foreshadow. (also wasn't rly with it enough to notice or be bothered like i now would lol) and maybe i'm jaded and think it'd be too much to expect a YA series from that time to subvert the fairy tales enough to have "princesses" that don't need their respective prince, esp when it's still so common for every protagonist to have a happening love life lmao. but there def were ways to either just not lol, or even make character appear to be the "prince" but in a twist, that role in the story is filled differently than expected, or something where they don't have to all end coupled up in their happily ever after anyway sorry that was long, just thought you made an interesting point! didn't think of when reading, but now i def see it
@@gracesull78756 I suppose it's a far easier trope to pick up on if you are alienated by it like I was. Good point about the fairy tale aspect, but I wouldn't even give it a 100% pass for that either. The original red riding hood story doesn't have a prince! Maybe there's a huntsman in certain tellings, but I never remember him being anything near a love interest (correct me if I'm wrong about that). Which made the whole Scarlet and Wolf thing stick out past that fairytale excuse.
@@espighty yeah definitely, i think it's much easier to see clearly from afar, hence why i also see it better now i'm more removed from it. and ohhhh so true, that's a fair point actually, i must've kinda forgotten he's the wolf and therefore there was no need for them to be together (and that dynamic just had issues iirc and i did not like them together bc even then it was kinda weird). ik he definitely would've been defending her against other mutants/whatever-they-were-called but even if he was more of a huntsman type doesn't mean he's necessarily the LI. i can't remember what story it is where i vaguely remember a huntsman type character that is a love interest for a red riding hood, but idk you're right it's not common. alright nvm w the fairy tales lol, i agree it doesn't get a full pass even still, but i overlooked that haha my bad. the others follow it, but i think book 2 going rouge does kinda show it wasn't for posterity or getting to use elements of the fairy tale, it was flat out just a creative decision by the author. in which case, i stand corrected, and yeah looking back having 8 main characters who all match into a relationship is ... unnecessary
I remember feeling so alienated by romance being in every sinngle book because I’m on the asexual aromantic spectrum. seemed like books were saying it was an essential human experience, which made me feel… inhuman.
Ok but these books were really my bridgerton as a kid like yes their politics are rough but omg the romance and the tension it was so bad but little me thought it was the best thing I had ever read. These books will always have a special place in my heart lmao. I think if they recalled some of the less great politics in the books and fixed the different countries layout, they could make a really good series or movie saga especially with the modern effects they could use for glamor and luna
The video came out last night and I was listening to it on the way home and then all of the sudden it was unavailable, very happy it back, it’s like 3 times longer now so I assume that’s why it wasn’t available, and I’m sat
lol sorry about that my computer and I were having a fight because it straight up wasn’t uploading 75% of the video? and during pride month no less honesty it’s just rude
I wonder how this held up bc these books were the SHIT in my middle school yrs edit: finished this video and my god yes!! i loved this recap so much!! glad u talked abt some of the more unsavory parts (which definitely slipped my mind as a preteen) but im genuinely shocked how well this held up? had it up there w/ some of my other faves (six of crows, hunger games, etc) and to hear it coming from someone around the same age/same mindset felt so validating for my younger self LOL. thanks again for the video!!
ngl i always saw these books in every library, and every bookstore. And now I'm SO happy that I never was possessed enough to pick these up. My sister read these and she was like, 'yeah... no'
if jumping into a lake destroyed cinder's cyborg brain and all her electronic/robotic parts, how has she been bathing for the last five years. when is the last time she washed her hair
i never finished either bc while ik i was excitedly anticipating the release of the last one, somehow never got around to it- now 21 and in the years since i often remember how much they had me by the throat yet i never finished 😭 every so often i consider going back to finally get closure this time lol
also hey kai. empathy for cyborgs everywhere but I'd like some self reflection on how you let a woman get functionally the death penalty because you didn't feel like she was being very honest with you djfksj like it's just hard to find the romance in a situation where she was in prison and then on the run because he was MAD at her.
i read this when i was 17. i dont care what people say. my 24 year old ass can still re-read this shit and ill eat it up. these books give me nostalgic feeling. i love them.
Read these in late high school/early college and I revisit them on audio book at least once a year - they're my chicken noodle soup books, and I'll always have a soft spot for them 🥰
Im so excited for another chronicles video!! I watch your twilight and 50 shades videos so often I can quote them word for word lmao. Wonderful job as always 💕💕
I’m so happy to see you posted, I have 3 videos to catch up on now :)) I know it’s a trauma dump but in December my bedroom caught fire and I literally lost everything (no one was hurt thankfully) and I was absolutely devastated obviously, I can’t remember much from the weeks after but I think of your selection videos often and feel weirdly nostalgic. I felt really empty and just so sad, I literally only had the clothes from my washing machine and the big T-shirt and thong I was wearing when the hot firemen came to save the day lol. I watched your videos on my mums bedroom floor whilst I sorted through bags of clothes people had given me, I didn’t want to talk to anyone about anything so you kept me company , you really helped me so thank you :))
I’m all good now though, probably should’ve said that, lots of people donated money and my people were supportive, I have clothes and trinkets again, woooo
@@ainsleesbookclub thank you :)) it’s ok, I’m happy again and everything is working out so don’t feel sorry for me, I just wanted you to know that you’ve had a really positive impact on at least one persons life with your videos :)) I hope you’re having a lovely day!! 🫶🏻
I honestly really loved this video! I came across these books when I was in middle school (I’m now a senior in college) and I just never picked them up bc I wasn’t into the space, sci-fi themes (even though I LOVED fairy tale retellings). Listening to you recap the series made me feel like I actually DID read these books in middle school, and I feel oddly nostalgic for this series even though I have never read any of the books before! I might actually start reading this series to see if it would have been something I liked in middle school!
omg i'm now a senior in college and came across them in middle school too, but i was the EXACT opposite of you bc i typically stayed far away from retellings but loved sci-fi and that was what drew me in 😭that's so funny to me, honestly they make me so nostalgic bc even though i was obsessed i never read the last one and every few years i consider rereading them to finally finish and get the closure my middle school self never did (also honestly if you like retellings, that was a rly high point of these imo, seeing pieces of the og with a unique twist and how the parts of the fairy tales are fulfilled in sometimes unexpected ways was so cool and satisfying. also side note, but the way the diff character plotlines start to interconnect was mind blowing, and from what i remember i think it still holds up bc it was genuinely so satisfying as well seeing it all come together. don't get me wrong, it has problems for sure, but the story could still be enjoyable for what it is)
i was obsessed with these books in elementary 😭😭 i’ve continued to keep up with marissa meyer honestly and i still like her recent stuff. crazy to refresh this series though and realize its flaws that completely missed me when i was younger
I never finished Cress and I never even started Winter I just couldn't get behind the age gap and power imbalance in Thorne and Cress's dynamic (not so much the actual gap as the fact that Cress is 16 and Thorne is 20)... it gave me the ick. So it's been sitting on my shelf for a few years. It's really nice to watch this video and see what I missed without having to endure anything I'm not comfortable with.
Never even HEARD of these books but somehow before you even revealed it I just knew "she's gonna be the lost princess isn't she." It's just SUCH a YA novel trope of the average girl main character having super magical powers and an unknown/hidden ancestry that's related to something important. Like of course she's the lost moon princess. Of course her super special moon powers are different and better than everyone else's moon powers. It's all pretty formulaic
Was anyone really under the impression that the plague starting in Africa was slightly implied because it was "dirty?" I thought it was because there were a bunch of lunar immigrants made that their new home, and they carried it with them... Idk its been a while since i read the series
I steamrolled my way through this entire series in one week and it just so happened to be the week before COVID shutdowns in my state! Which was an experience for sure
i don’t know why, i feel like cinder should’ve been a lesbian or just had NO love interest at all. the romance between kai & her just kinda felt … like it had to happen bc it’s a “ya book.” Still enjoyed nonetheless but i didn’t get their romance
God this series had a chokehold on me in highschool !! I loved it soooo much I reread it like 5 times, even bought the spin off comics on iko lmao it has a special place in my heart lol I'm sooo glad you decided to cover ittt 💖
Cinder did not have enough Episode diamonds to get a dress for the ball so the only other option was garbage
this comment made me laugj so fucking hard thank you
HELP 😭😭
best comment
LMAOOOO
@@2smallbirdsI READ LAUGH AS LUIGI 😭😭😭
England and Europe being different “countries”……girl predicted brexit
the tories read the lunar chronicles confirmed
Lmaooooo, she was ahead of her time 😌
england is still part of europe. europe is a continent, the eu is NOT europe
@@psaikik I don't see any difference
Neither Europe nor the EU are one country and England was before the Brexit already an Independent country.
I’m shocked to learn maybe the Lunar Chronicles isn’t as high quality writing as I had assumed all these years after reading and loving them as a kid…
me eating this series up in high school and barely being able to stomach them in college
I mean, they *are* YA books so they were made for our younger selves, before our tastes shifted
I noticed that too during re-reading, it seemed more exciting when I was in middle school but now in college it feels to basic, simple or even nonsensical
I think you need a bit of unhinged to really get people talking about your books. I mean, we are sitting through an hour plus long video talking about them so the author did something right.
@@anapaulagonzalezduran8170facts
You skipped over Winter's backstory of why she doesn't use her powers!? That's what stuck with me the most, it goes so hard!
A servant tried to off herself because she was being r**ed over and over so Winter mind controls her to be happy for years, while she's still being r**ed, until the servant finally actually offs herself and winter realized she had tortured this girl, and she vowed to never do it again!
oh my god i forgot about this… these books get dark lowkey wtf
as someone who has never read this series, respectfully (?), WHATTTTTTT
If I saw her on the street it would have been ON SIGHT
It’s in the book of side stories
@@bgreer3067 is it? I did not remember that
As a black woman, I just want to say thank you for pointing out how subtle racism can sneak its way into literature. 1. Taking countries largely holding POC and reducing them to one country (“Asia” and “Africa”) while not doing that for Europe is wild. And 2. Most plagues and pandemics throughout history started in Europe but for some reason the author decided to have her plague come from Africa. I know they’re just books but when this stuff happens constantly, it’s so hard to ignore.
Not meant to offend, just trying to learn. Most Americans for example doesn’t know all the countries in Asia and Africa, hell not also Europe but they probably heard of some. How would you write in an African character from example Rawanda or Namibia or Angola without directly stating from the character own mount where they are from?
I’m in no way a author, but I like to write, and that’s always a thing I wonder on when it comes to characters when the main may not be the best when it comes to countries or like other than - oh they probably from Scandinavia they say they from the north - type of stuff.
I have a character from myanmar, not at all a big character, very much a side character and I have no idea how to show he’s from there without having him say it. He has a traditional name from myanmar or Burma as it was once called, and I looked up facial features to see how people from myanmar looks. But readers that doesn’t know myanmar, will probably just think - oh he’s Asian - and leave it at that. How would be the best way to show he’s from there? I have a character from Rawanda who also have a common name who directly state in a dialogue his nationality due to referring to something that happened to him while he lived there ( doesn’t anymore ) but my character from myanmar, I have no away how to naturally show it as he’s such a minor character but still think he deserves it.
@@happyweek11 hey I'm just a random white guy so maybe I'll be super off base, but maybe talk to a Burmese person if you're researching how to portray a character from Myanmar?
LITERALLY
@@happyweek11 bestie, maybe don't ask a random black woman a question about writing an African character if she never offered advice on the topic??????? there are tons of creators and platforms that you can find that offer advice, including youtube videos if you don't want to leave the website for whatever reason.
@@happyweek11 Just do your research lol. You need to know abt political tensions in the region, how patriotism is seen, what divides the people, what are some cultural perspectives that impact their worldview etc. Yes, it's that easy.
Nooo, the way I collapsed to the floor at the "Don't worry, he's just an omega", I did NOT expect that 😭😭😭
i lost it at the "alpha female. i like that" part 💀💀
I was so blissfully not connecting the dots when I read these years ago 💀
Hearing about "Jacin" immediately shot me back to mt first time playing Sims4 and I had a preloaded sim named Jayceon in one of the fancy houses and I tried to make him electrocute himself so he would die and I could give the house to someone else who didn't have a stupidass name, but then he aged up into an old man and I realized his life's ambition was to find true love and he had NO FRIENDS so I felt bad and made it my life's mission to get him a girlfriend before he died. Which I did, and he and his gf died on the same day and I was so emotional that I turned off aging forever. This has absolutely nothing to do with anything but I felt the need to share it. Anyways thanks for the trip down memory lane, love your videos xo
This bittersweet plot twist story about your Sim was more enjoyable than some YA/Fantasy novels I've read lol
This made me emotional
When Pokémon have a tragic backstory
Oh my goodness, not the only explicitly African character being named JAMAL and existing to human traffic one of the women characters. YIIIKKKESSS.
i totally agree with bringing up the mistreatment of black people by the medical industry but i thought that the "cyborg draft" was supposed to be some allegory for disabled people? the reason cinder is a cyborg is because of an accident that occurred, meaning the cyborg-ifcation process is some type of medical procedure similar to our prosthesis work. i also think it makes sense to compare because they're seen as less "important" than humans and they're "owned", maybe similar to a conservatorship or medical power of attorney? i don't know, just rambling here. i'm not disabled so i'm very happy to hear others' thoughts on this. great video!
Reading them as a kid I always felt the same, and interpreted all the cyborgs as their perceived "second class citizens" who had disabilities and were being shunned from society. But I guess I had grown up with disabled siblings and family members, so I was kinda set up for that interpretation I guess lol
Disabled people and black people have both been abused by the medical industry, and there are nuances to each kind of medical abuse, but I think the cyborg situation in the book could be an allegory for either. Idk if the author was really thinking it through that much lol, so the allegory is so vague that I think it's just about like general medical abuse of people considered second class citizens.
@@lunafowler5736it’s fine for something to represent multiple things and it doesn’t make the messaging less impactful. What does make it less impactful is the secret “actually we had a reasonable and justifiable reason for doing these things.” It undercuts the messaging a little bit to be like “we needed to do this awful thing to save the world” unless the author is trying to make a point of “the ends don’t justify the means.”
SAME THOUGHT
Same... but these people just like to see racism everywhere lol
What Im learning from the racist worldbuilding is that somehow Brexit exist in this universe
Brexit wasn't just racism, the very idea of boiling down all brexit voters to being racist and demonising them for that false sterotype is hypocrisy.
@@zellalaing5439 I think you need to go back and re-read the comment, as you're responding to something that wasn't even said.
@@zellalaing5439 i don't think we read the same comment
they have to got to Paris while the other meet up in "Africa" . JUST Africa ??? 😭
i think its cus its a rlly small village but they could like at least name what country its innn, like we know its off the saharah destert but thats it
Meyer making Cress 16 and Thorne 20 was certainly a choice🧍🏽♀️
Forever wishing i was a half-cyborg lunar princess that has a questionable prince wrapped around my finger.
The way I was obsessed with Scarlet and Wolf’s relationship as a child and was so absolutely crushed and devastated with the way they ended. I immediately learned I wasn’t a furry lol
Thats omregaverse, not furry. omegaverse is the erotica that is with mpreg and disproven wolf misconceptions.
@@marocat4749no it was his transformation at the end that I couldn’t handle. That’s furry.
tell me more about the disproven misconceptions. I'm guessing it's not the fun stuff like 'wolves communicate via telepathic image sharing'. (I have no idea who came up with that, but some documentary claimed this. It always sounded f🎉ar-fetched to me.
@@astrocytes it’s the alpha, beta, and omega hierarchy. It was based on studies of captive wolves and isn’t seen in wild packs.
wait what happened to wolf at the end? I forgot.
as someone who is a little entrenched in internet culture... the alpha/omega thing originally didn't come from the manosphere alpha male stuff we have today, it was some scientist's misinterpretation of the hierarchy within wolf packs. idk if youve ever seen or heard of the "alpha & omega" animated movies from 2010, but that's kind of the gist of it. the author was probably trying to use that to denote "wolf hierarchy" within the org
it then got turned into The Omegaverse, a fanfiction genre which i Don't think Meyer is intentionally referencing, but it would be funny
edit: after that alpha female exchange... it might be the omegaverse.
MM was a huge fangirl and wrote sailor moon fanfiction before writing the lunar chronicles. She definitely had the chance to be exposed to the omegaverse even if she wasn't in any fandom trenches afaik
The Supernatural fandom kind of built up the omegaverse we know today, iirc.
@@boohooter23that explains so much. with each new thing about the lunars i was thinking "what in the sailor moon is this" but also had flashbacks to aldnoah zero
honestly the whole alpha stuff upsets me because it’s just scientifically wrong. i could not care less about how cringe it is. but as a bio major, it actively hurts me how widespread the minsinfo is and how the omegaverse stuff perpetuates it
NOT THE LIN MANUEL MIRANDA LOVE IS LOVE IS LOVE IS LOVE IS-
-LOVE IS LOVE IS LOVE
Felt pretty insensitive tbh given that speech was in response to the Pulse massacre
Like, there's plenty to say on LMM, but I don't know about him crying over 50 queer people being murdered being used as a meme 🤷♀️
My friend got me into reading these when i was like 14, i loved them so much 😭😭 cant wait to see the potentially problematic things my unperceptive teen brain didnt pick up on
FR though I love love love Marissa Meyer's books, as a big Alice in Wonderland girlie Heartless has always been a favourite, and the Renegades series is so fun, and I say this as a 20 year old woman
Same lmao I'm kinda scared. I loved Heartless so much, too. I dropped Renegades, though, because it got boring and predictable and corny imo.
@@nikki.ragnvindr the renegades ending was really disappointing tbh..none of the issues with the renegades organization were ever addressed...basically the people in power who abused said power are still in power at the end of the book but somehow everyone is ok with it for reasons i don't even understand
Sounds like real life except there are some people who aren't okay with it
@@jojoa939 Exaactly, the ending made no sense
1. cinder being the lunar princess is giving barbie princess charm school omg
2. don't apologize for thinking critically !! by far my fav part of your summaries are when you break down the problematic nature of these series' ! this one was especially good- an article and everything LOL
i love your channel sm girlie
so I'm not the only one who thought that! when I was reading this book I predicted it fully because of princess charm school
It's similar, but probably it's a reference of Usagi Tsukino being Princess Serenity. That makes sense when you remember that Meyer wrote fanfiction about Sailor Moon once.
WHEN WE NEEDED HER MOST SHE RETURNED🫡🫡🫡
the awful "asian" names and the incorrect honorifics killed me like GIRL WHAT WERE YOU THINKING??????
If anyone wants to do more research on real life connections to better learn about where the "testing plague on cyborgs rather than humans" came from, the tuskegee syphilis study is a really great starting point to learn about racism in the medical industry. This is one of the studies I and probably many others had to study when it comes to medical research ethics^
why is every relationship in these books except for winter and jacin between a teenage girl and a grown man😭😭😭
I swearrrr, Cress is like 16 and Thorne is in his mid twenties, and the power dinamic between them is kinda gross too
ages from the wiki
cinder: 16
kai: 18
scarlet: 18
wolf: 23
cress: 16
thorne: 20
winter: 17
jacin: 19
i mean the age gap between cinder and kai is the same as jacin and winter
but its also especially worse with cress and thorne since cress has been isolated for most of her life. scarlet is at least pretty independent and living in an actual community
@@owo4983 thank you for this😭 it’s nice to know the cinder and kai age gap isn’t what i thought it was… childhood still ruined tho
Umm Kai is not a fukin grown man he and cinder are 2 goddamn years apart
OMGWolf is 23😱😱😱😱😱
i assumed that the plague was a reference to colonizers bringing a bunch diseases to america and infecting native americans but i can see your point
wow I totally didn’t read it that way, but that’s a super interesting take
@@kinrateia How? I might be misremembering, but weren't their ancestors a bunch of rich people who shot themselves into space during a world war and left the rest of Earth behind? Or maybe that's just what I've accidentally made up over the years
@@GracefullyClumsyI remember at least some were just genuinely refugees trying to escape their tyrant and there horrible conditions they're in
@@herz5159 ooooohhhh you mean after? Yeah that’s definitely true
I remember that my favourite book was scarlet (former wolf number one fan here) and I LOVED how everything falls into place in the books and how everything was connected. My 13 year old brain was amazed
omg yes! it blew my mind, honestly this series is like the origin story for my love of interconnected plots with characters on seemingly different paths that start to intersect until the inevitable collision, and it rly did all fall into place so well. and i stand by the fact that this series did it well, and even though by now i've read more books w this that may be better, for a long time it was like the only time i read this and lowkey i'd still cite it as a satisfying example.
tbh scarlet was my least fav of the three i read, im sorry dont remember why besides maybe my attention span and untreated adhd lmao, but eventually once i got into it and everything started coming together, oh i was so sat. (also was more of a kai girl myself, with thorne as a close second)
Same
@@gracesull78756 Because you mentioned that you've read better books with these interconnected plots by now, do you mind giving a few recommendations? :)
Honestly that was also something I loved
Ya know, even though this does have some controversial aspects and things that probably should have had more details, this series is still one of the best plotted and foreshadowing YA series to date
That’s what I feel too!
Disclaimer that this is not me defending Meyer in any way shape or form for her worldbuilding choices (she definitely could have benefitted researching Japan's history, ESPECIALLY their war crimes which is what makes having a Japanese Emperor rule all of Asia super icky and got someone who actually knew how Chinese honorifics worked to help her out):
I think some of the worldbuilding makes more sense if you realise that the series borrows heavily from Sailor Moon as well. We've got Cinder, who is the long lost moon princess (the first arc of the manga and anime are about the Sailor Senshi trying to find said long lost moon princess) and iirc Meyer stated fancasted her as Mew Azama who played Sailor Jupiter in the live action series. Scarlet is essentially a more impulsive Sailor Jupiter/Makoto Kino with a gun. Cress has Sailor Mercury/Ami Mizuno's tech knowledge and Anime!Sailor Venus/Minako Aino's obsession with love. And Winter is closer to Sailor Moon/Usagi Tsukino in personality than Cinder herself (who I'm struggling to make a comparison to an SM character personality-wise). Queen Levana is a Queen Beryl expy, and Kai is a Tuxedo Mask/Mamoru Chiba expy.
Also important to note that these books were published around the time anime as a medium was starting to become more mainstream in the West than it had been previously, so I think a good chunk of the series' audience wouldn't be as aware of Sailor Moon going into these books.
This is super interesting!
Yeah Marissa Meyer was also a BNF in the Sailor Moon fandom for years and a lot of her early fans were following her from her fandom work- myself included. I literally sold the lunar chronicles to friends in high school by going “so basically it’s sailor moon”. I’m not saying no thought was put into it but I will say that when I first read Cinder the sailor moon parallels were mostly what got me through and filled in any blanks.
@@AttackOnAlchemist Oh yeah there's definitely more to it than just "this is basically Sailor Moon" because there's also the fact these are mainly marketed as fairy tale retellings which was and still is quite a popular trend in YA literature (side note: I'd also argue Carson Thorne is a Han Solo expy and the Rampion is his Millennium Falcon, and Kai's android with the Lunar chip in it is an R2D2 expy so there's a dash of Star Wars in there too). After finding out that Meyer was a Sailor Moon BNF a lot of the characterisation and worldbuilding choices began to make sense for me.
There's nothing wrong with being influenced by what you enjoy and putting it in your works. I think the issue is Meyer transplanting the Tokyo Is The Center Of The Universe trope that works for something like Sailor Moon, but when you put it into a work like The Lunar Chronicles which spans multiple real world countries, homogenising Asia as one country ruled by a Japanese monarch (or at least a monarch with a Japanese name) is when things veer into unfortunate implications territory. I don't think she was entirely aware of these implications (I think she just wanted a marketable diverse cast of girls that could kick ass and still fall in love which is fair), but it's still something worth discussing.
I totally called the “mc with a mysterious past IS the princess with a mysterious fate” twist. Classic
Me too!!!! It's such an overused trope in YA novels that the second they mentioned a 'lost princess' I knew it that it would be the protagonist
well she is cinderella....
@@screamingbegins4688 what does that have anything to do with anything? Cinderella is typically a noblewoman whose family treats her like servant, not a secret orphaned princess.
reread this series recently for the first time since i was like 14 and god... the casual racism, the pandemic/plague, the casual misogyny.. but omg the ships IMPRINTED themselves on me like cinder and kai still have me kicking my feet
and omg thanks for article recommendations!!
this!!! except the only ship i cared about was kai/cinder (and a little bit of winter/jacin-but no where near the amount i loved cinderkai !!)
i only read the first two books and i only really remembered that cinder was a cyborg with a metal leg (my disabled queen) so imagine my surprise when you said there was a country on the MOON????? HOW DID I FORGET THAT PART 😭😭😭
Moon country irrelevant! She's got a cool robot leg and is disabled!
I am right there with you, I only read Cinder though. The only thing I remembered was that there was something messed up with her foot at the endish… so the moon thing was a surprise for sure, I don’t even think I remembered her being the lost princess
She has a whole lot more than just a metal leg. One of her hands is also robotic and a majority of her interior.
It's a miracle she lived through the "accident" that destroyed most of her body.
I appreciate how you research & challenge harmful stereotypes about africa and provide links to helpful resources
I’m surprised there was no real mention of Cress and Thorne's age gap. Cress is 16 during most of the books, while Thorne is in his 20’s. I was hardly cognizant of the fandom during its prime, but it seemed there was some discourse surrounding it seeing as Throne and Cress were also a really popular ship.
Scarlet and Wolf's age gap is technically one year larger since Wolf is 23, but at the very least Scarlet is a consenting adult at 18 and not a minor. I truly don’t think Meyer had any ill intent, but such a big deal is made out of how “inexperienced” Cress is and Throne's whole status as this flirty and sort of womanizing rogue just _feels_ icky, especially considering how they get one of the raunchiest kisses in the series.
They could’ve had them like maturely discussed her feelings for him? Have it be an innocent crush where he’s flattered by Cress but ultimately declines, have Cress first real rejection from a boy be like a growing moment ,,,or have him hold off until she has more experience or have her not be 16 or…something? 😭 anything?
Addendum: will never forget the tumblr post I once read defending the Thress ship where one of the main points was faulting people and saying they were complaining from a “Western mindset” and that the age of majority/consent everywhere isn’t 18.
Like Throne isn’t…… _LITERALLY_ from a _in universe America_ and from a story written by whom I assume to be an _American_ where the age of majority is, _infact_ , still 18. 😭
Sure, we don’t know Lunar law and it could’ve universally lowered sometime between all those world wars, so maybe it’s technically okay but if we have to get ‘technical’ about it then I fear were missing the crux of the issue.
I know Thorne isn’t all that bad of a guy, and like I understand his character enough to know he and Cress really do have like,,, a connection that is more than this perceived power imbalance but like man,,, is that going to hold up in a court of law.
God I forgot about that age gap. I'm just going to pretend cress is 18 when I reread these
@@ConfettiDragonI honestly thought she was 20
I remember I reread the series and when we first meet Thorne i noticed he was 19 and thinking “wow I thought he was older” but that would’ve been worse lol. It’s weird too remembering the Disney version of rapunzel also has a big age gap of 18 vs 26
Even if cress could technically be seen as able to give consent it’s still so icky that he starts out viewing her as basically a kid and she views him as some sort of celebrity crush so there’s always a noticeable power imbalance there. You would think Thorne wouldn’t develop feelings for her but then he up and kisses her in the middle of a battle??? And then later on says he loves her???? Where did this come from??? Also even if cress was a “consenting adult” scarlet is still older by two years and dating an 18 year old in your twenties is a lot less problematic then dating a freaking 16 year old in your twenties. (Also scarlet and wolf don’t have a power imbalance.) Cress is still very much a kid who’s been stuck never interacting with anyone her whole life while Thorne is definitely a player and womanizer character who’s dating a literal child. Just…. No. (Also lowkey scarlet and wolf were the best ship in the whole series).
Hold up. You’re telling me this is a story about a moon princess who doesn’t know she’s a moon princess at first & she needs to save the world from an evil queen? And her love interest is sort of a villain & manipulated by the evil queen for a bit? Does he also wear a tuxedo, or perhaps a mask? 🤔
Marissa Meyer started writing Sailor Moon fan fiction (and I think Star Wars and Harry Potter as well if I’m not mistaken) so the similarities weren’t subtle, and I’m pretty she even said they were on purpose because of how much she loved Sailor Moon growing up and wanted to incorporate it in the series
the series is based on a sailor moon au she wrote in college (I believe) :) she linked to it on her blog years and years ago now
so is levanna perhaps queen beryl
@@call_rickeydo you know what the au was?
Edit: I meant specifically, like what was it about
I didn't know this.
second comment, but the wolf/scarlet romance is not furry stuff, its omegaverse stuff.
I will not ask you to do elaborate because I don’t want to know ✊😔
@@ainsleesbookclub you really do not
@@ainsleesbookclubit’s actually really uplifting to hear about people that haven’t been cursed with the knowledge of omegaverse (you’re so lucky for that)
@@luckyyy26 I'm now imagining the mental anguish Ainslee would go through if she were to read any werewolf/supernatural/vampire mate stories. From wattpad or published.
Look, I'm a major fan of the fated mates trope, but there was some truly horrific stuff that even my teenage self noped the heck out of.
I had to pause and reflect for awhile after they started mentioning “alphas” and “omegas” in scarlet. Genuinely made me shed a tear from memories long past.
"Hey Amelia ☺" sounded so sincere I felt like an amelia
I *am* an amelia. I was *scared*
@PieNumber4 if I were you I would definitely be
@@PieNumber4lmaooo so am I, it was a little startling
i didnt read these books until last year when i was an adult, and scarlet is a million percent my favorite one. something about the way scarlet just kept throwing herself at this red flag of a man filled me with glee. and when wolf says "no, lunar special operative" i literally put down the book and laughed hard for five minutes. because of course it is. of course his tattoo doesn't stand for "loyal soldier of the order of the pack" that's the STUPIDEST possible thing that could stand for!!! why would scarlet believe that, i'm laughing again just thinking about it, they were my favorite couple. second favorite part of the books was in winter when the lunars are effectively like "you should surrender so wolf doesn't die" and cinder is like "this revolution is bigger than any of us" and then like a chapter later levana is like "i'll kill thorne" and cinder is like "nooooo not my best friend, don't hurt him". the blatant favoritism sent me
I also read this as an adult but this was after a gap of not reading for a while and kinda just taking these at face value. Safe to say I have higher bars set now
Yeah Cinder could've just left Wolf with their friends and handed herself over, but she decided to bring Wolf too and get them both captured? Like what could he do by himself against the thaumaturge and all the guards? I like her, but that's the one decision I didn't understand
Tbh I didn’t like cinder while reading but scarlet and wolf are just on 🔝
excellent points made, but it's important to remember that currently the Democratic Republic of Congo has an abundance of cobalt (a material used to power most of our technology in the West) but does not reap any of the benefits of that mineral. one of the few things meyer got correct (in reference to the quote at 1:13:13)
So, so glad someone finally pointed out the subtle racism in these books! I felt icky about all the characters with Vietnamese surnames living in "New Beijing", which is now the capital of all of the continent of Asia. It seems like she was attempting to create a modern version of imperialism
It's still so funny to me that Cinder decided to dissolve the monarchy on Luna just to get with a king on Earth. Like sis you literally JUST got rid of your royal status, what's the rush?
Gotta be the one to point out the Beijing is a huge global center of business, so someone not Chinese living there is NOT inherently racist. (The other stuff sure whatever)
I don't think it's inherently racist on its own but I think in the context of her merging all of Africa into one country as well, it kind of gives the vibe like she wasn't considering any of the nuances of the nationalities of primarily POC countries. Especially since she did explicitly name France and England as well, and how French people seemed like they were distinguished as their own nationality within the country of Europe still as opposed to being part of a larger European nationality. So I think considering those things, it is kind of feels like she wasn't really thinking about how there are different kinds of east Asian people.
17:56 the careful avoidance of saying among us, love it
marissa meyer slayed heartless so hard i love that woman
that book was amazing. i'm biased because i love anything alice in wonderland related and anything tragic, but she ate with that book.
AAAUGH I loved that book so much! The ending broke my heart.
that was her!!? I loved that book haha
OH I need her to cover heartless actually it's one of my favorite books EVER
I picked up and read Renegades before Heartless, which left me disappointed. This comment makes me feel better, because I had been considering not reading Heartless.
I remember being 15 and reading Winter before a final exam while listening to “Havana” on repeat, these books were the shit!
the way i RAN i loved these books sm
pls do red queen next !! the book of my middle school life
The ultimate shitty book for shitty book club!!! War Storm was awful :)
FINALLY SOMEONE WHO AGREES RED QUEEN WENT S O DOWNHILL all my friends still love it and i just couldn't. it ruined the whole series for me lmao😭😭
@CHiCguitar omg yes I stopped reading after Maven died and hearing about it instead of having to finish the books would be great lol
I remember when I read that and I loved it and then realised how terrible the books were. Ultimate YA problematic book.
middle school life and curse...
lmao i forgot how many times wolf got shot (also i've always thought that his actual name is just a sci-fi version of steve which cracks me up)
no but the way these books shaped my middle school experience? unparalleled. thank you for this video my middle school self is truly living
Just gonna drop a random, mildly interesting fact: it's cool that the Lunar princess was called Selene, because in Greek mythology, the original goodness of the moon (who developed more into a human personification of the moon as the myths developed) was called Selene.
the one cultural thing she got right 😭
The Sahara has never been solved. We fly over it, but mostly around, and yep camels are still better.
i read this book series during the height of the pandemic for the first time, imagine my reaction when the plague got brought up for the first time and then my reaction to how it kept being brought up
genuinely one of my favourite takes on fairy tale retellings, it's so cool to me to see a sci-fi one when most of the stuff tends to be modern-day america leaning
even if not without fault i do like that meyer went out of her way to make the protags and their love interests come from several different places, instead of making them all be from the usa
oop definitely an interesting time to read it
seriously as a lowkey retellings hater, i loved this one even more for those elements. it felt so fresh being sci-fi, esp when it came out in like peak YA dystopian era, and so many retellings were of the generic fantasy variety (nothing wrong w that though they just weren't my taste and were hard to distinguish). also while it clearly had flaws and it doesn't excuse those, yeah same, it stood out to me even when younger how among so many white protagonists and america-centered stories that this had other nationalities and ethnicities
These books, and specifically Winter, directly led to me howling in the middle of a silent writing period during my junior high English class. I enjoyed them a lot but I’m sure they don’t hold up because I remember even as a howling dumbass child I raised my eyebrow at some parts
The Selection Series, Modelland, and now the Lunar Chronicles?? How do you know all of my favourite terrible books, I love you 😭
as someone with chronic illness, i always took the cyborg narrative to reference other disabled people. I did try to reread it and had to stop bc of the ableism being so similar to real life’s
The way I was screaming "IT'S A BOAR!" at 1:33:59 was crazy lol anyways this video has inspired me to touch up some worldbuilding of some old characters AND was just good retelling like one would a soap opera so thank you as always for the AWESOME video!!💛💛💛Much love!!!
YESS I LOVE THE LUNAR CHRONICLES
Samee
things i need to share with the people (as someone who had a hyperfixation on this series in middle school) :
1. the book on queen levana is FUCKED UP. she had this whole like weirdly non-consensual thing with winter's dad. she also fell in love with a palace guard (just like winter). oh and the reason winter stopped using her powers is also rlly dark. like 10 year old me was not prepared.
2. the fanart for this series in the old days was. so. weird. like looking back on it now especially the wolf stuff must have been taken over by a few very talented furries because... phew. and honestly the rest of the fanart (the non werewolf fanfiction fanart) was suuuuper white-washed.
3. the epilogue book with a bunch of silly little tales (which i believe started as a BLOG post, get that bag miss melissa) ends with wolf and scarlet getting married. and scarlet's "something blue" is an embroidered, cursive "alpha" on her wedding dress.
embroidered “alpha” is CRAZY oh my god
Oh my god the embroidered alpha is killing me (also the whole of Levana's book was waaay too dark compared to the rest of the series, like the many ways Levana abuses her step family is crazy, I did not remeber it being that dark)
i do NOT remember the alpha thing, which story??
@@screamingbegins4688it's in the book "stars above" , which is just full of bonus short stories. The short story where they get married is (I think) called "something old, something new"
I was lowkey traumatized reading Levanas book as a kid 😭
Seems like it would've made more sense to have Winter be princess Selene. Within the logic of the story, sure, Winter hasn't been taught how to rule, but neither had Cinder, and Winter at least has lived there her whole life. Theoretically she'd understand the needs of the people better. While Cinder could've also been a lunar princess, by left the moon to rule beside Kai. It just feels like Winter has very little agency or stakes in the story beyond "I don't want to die." At the end, it sounds like she'll end up in exactly the same place she was previously, so not much has changed for her. Beyond having a boyfriend, I suppose.
She was also like literally crazy and that may have impaired her ability to rule........... just a thought
Actually im pretty sure cinder gives up the crown for a democratic vote, and winter becomes the lunar ambassador or something to earth in the graphic novels
i have never even heard of this series before but i sat my ass down and LISTENED
1:49 I’m literally an international affairs major with a focus on Asian politics and history. I verbally went “Oh!” hearing this.
Vietnamese bookworm here. Yes Linh is a first name. It is also a surname. It does mean spirit or soul.
2:27 thank you so much. The “Vietnamese people are just Chinese” belief is distasteful and racist.
The “all Asians are the same” is just ew in general
“The craziest twist” that was possibly one of the most obvious twists I’ve ever encountered. There’s a long lost princess that got sent to earth where she is and this girl is seemingly from this other planet with no memory of it and things just seem to work out for her? I truly wonder 🥴😂😂 I was literally sitting there waiting like okay when are they telling me
"There seems to be no effort being made [to stop this plague]. It's been fifteen years!" Yeah, and governments (plus most people) have been letting COVID-19 run rampant for basically the last five.
Yup. We are still in a pandemic and no one cares.
There are vaccines though 😅
so far it seems like covid is going to be like the flu where you have to get a vaccine every year
It’s not the same thought. In the books, almost everyone who catches the virus dies. Which is not the case with COVID.
i recently reread these books and they're SO MUCH funnier with the knowledge of omegaverse like when wolf and scarlet are flirting i was just dying laughing
like i couldn't stop thinking about those fucking tiktok werewolf shows it was so funny
I have been anticipating your return in a way that should be studied by psychologists
I looooove your videos. I think you would hate Fourth Wing. I'm reading it right now and despise it.
That book inspires me so much as a writer. Not because it's good but because if that can be traditionally publishes, my writing can.
Same, only Tairn and Andarna keep me there
Wouldnt be mad if you went back and also covered Fairest and Stars Above 👀❤️
The way this series had a CHOKEHOLD on me in middle school, i think i started reading RIGHT when Cress came out so i remember the anticipation waiting for Winter, Fairest, and Stars Above to come out. I have the whole series, except for SA which I think I lost 😭
I'm so glad we can talk about these nostalgic series both critically and lovingly ❤
The thing that consistently irked me the most about YA novels (and still bothers me to this day) is that EVERY main character ALWAYS has to have a love interest inserted into the story. As a child who read way too many books, I very quickly caught onto this pattern and got supremely sick of it. I read Cinder, and I picked up the sequel, but once I saw the new protagonist got a love interest of her own, I immediately put it down. So now, hearing the entire series recap, it's kind of vindicating to see that this trend of "every important female in the story needs a boyfriend!" continued. Makes me feel like I was right to put the book down, because now I KNOW I wouldn't have (personally) had fun with it. Your video was far more entertaining than the book could have been. 👍
yeah something about how often the cast of characters in these series perfectly paired off into relationships, whether within to other members or in general all found the "love of their life", always makes me roll my eyes a little lol. i will say, not to defend lunar chronicles, but bc it's twists on fairy tales it's slightly more acceptable to me for some reason (?) that each book introduces two major characters in line w the retelling that fit the "princess"/"prince roles". maybe i'm biased bc ngl young me did like the series and 2/3 couples in the ones i got to, and i had fun picking out nods to the OG and the who's who, then how knowing that could foreshadow. (also wasn't rly with it enough to notice or be bothered like i now would lol)
and maybe i'm jaded and think it'd be too much to expect a YA series from that time to subvert the fairy tales enough to have "princesses" that don't need their respective prince, esp when it's still so common for every protagonist to have a happening love life lmao. but there def were ways to either just not lol, or even make character appear to be the "prince" but in a twist, that role in the story is filled differently than expected, or something where they don't have to all end coupled up in their happily ever after
anyway sorry that was long, just thought you made an interesting point! didn't think of when reading, but now i def see it
@@gracesull78756 I suppose it's a far easier trope to pick up on if you are alienated by it like I was.
Good point about the fairy tale aspect, but I wouldn't even give it a 100% pass for that either. The original red riding hood story doesn't have a prince! Maybe there's a huntsman in certain tellings, but I never remember him being anything near a love interest (correct me if I'm wrong about that). Which made the whole Scarlet and Wolf thing stick out past that fairytale excuse.
@@espighty yeah definitely, i think it's much easier to see clearly from afar, hence why i also see it better now i'm more removed from it. and ohhhh so true, that's a fair point actually, i must've kinda forgotten he's the wolf and therefore there was no need for them to be together (and that dynamic just had issues iirc and i did not like them together bc even then it was kinda weird). ik he definitely would've been defending her against other mutants/whatever-they-were-called but even if he was more of a huntsman type doesn't mean he's necessarily the LI. i can't remember what story it is where i vaguely remember a huntsman type character that is a love interest for a red riding hood, but idk you're right it's not common.
alright nvm w the fairy tales lol, i agree it doesn't get a full pass even still, but i overlooked that haha my bad. the others follow it, but i think book 2 going rouge does kinda show it wasn't for posterity or getting to use elements of the fairy tale, it was flat out just a creative decision by the author. in which case, i stand corrected, and yeah looking back having 8 main characters who all match into a relationship is ... unnecessary
it’s giving winx 😩
I remember feeling so alienated by romance being in every sinngle book because I’m on the asexual aromantic spectrum. seemed like books were saying it was an essential human experience, which made me feel… inhuman.
ah my favorite background noise: people reviewing books for two hours
Ok but these books were really my bridgerton as a kid like yes their politics are rough but omg the romance and the tension it was so bad but little me thought it was the best thing I had ever read. These books will always have a special place in my heart lmao. I think if they recalled some of the less great politics in the books and fixed the different countries layout, they could make a really good series or movie saga especially with the modern effects they could use for glamor and luna
YAY, I'm so happy for a new video!! And two hours?! You have spoiled us all 💖
The video came out last night and I was listening to it on the way home and then all of the sudden it was unavailable, very happy it back, it’s like 3 times longer now so I assume that’s why it wasn’t available, and I’m sat
lol sorry about that my computer and I were having a fight because it straight up wasn’t uploading 75% of the video? and during pride month no less honesty it’s just rude
Lol😂.
Really rude
@@ainsleesbookclub I was so sad lol but I’m glad you won your battle and I can listen to cinder making really dumb decisions again 🥰
@@ainsleesbookclub the video was too powerful UA-cam decided it must be contained
THE WAY I WAS GONNA REREAD THE SERIES AND THIS DROPS
Real
literally have read one book series in my life because i cannot commit to series yet i love to hear you talk about a series for 2 hours
I really love your videos, really just barely controlled chaos
I GASPED WHEN I SAW THE VIDEO TITLE!!! YES!!! I LOVED THAT SERIES
I like that the love confessions happened in reverse order in the last book. I just love the symmetry of it.
I wonder how this held up bc these books were the SHIT in my middle school yrs
edit: finished this video and my god yes!! i loved this recap so much!! glad u talked abt some of the more unsavory parts (which definitely slipped my mind as a preteen) but im genuinely shocked how well this held up? had it up there w/ some of my other faves (six of crows, hunger games, etc) and to hear it coming from someone around the same age/same mindset felt so validating for my younger self LOL. thanks again for the video!!
ngl i always saw these books in every library, and every bookstore. And now I'm SO happy that I never was possessed enough to pick these up. My sister read these and she was like, 'yeah... no'
i needed this so bad rn, and MY FAVORITE YA SERIES???
if jumping into a lake destroyed cinder's cyborg brain and all her electronic/robotic parts, how has she been bathing for the last five years. when is the last time she washed her hair
Omg bless you lol I ate these books UP as a 20-something but I never finished the series 💀This is everything I didn't know I needed
i never finished either bc while ik i was excitedly anticipating the release of the last one, somehow never got around to it- now 21 and in the years since i often remember how much they had me by the throat yet i never finished 😭 every so often i consider going back to finally get closure this time lol
also hey kai. empathy for cyborgs everywhere but I'd like some self reflection on how you let a woman get functionally the death penalty because you didn't feel like she was being very honest with you djfksj like it's just hard to find the romance in a situation where she was in prison and then on the run because he was MAD at her.
I mean, I get everything you’re saying, but Cinder will forever have a special place in my heart
This plot is SO FUN!! I will be rereading this series for sure, with a more critical eye this time
HELL YEAH I LOVE THIS SERIES
i read this when i was 17. i dont care what people say. my 24 year old ass can still re-read this shit and ill eat it up. these books give me nostalgic feeling. i love them.
Same girl, same.
Read these in late high school/early college and I revisit them on audio book at least once a year - they're my chicken noodle soup books, and I'll always have a soft spot for them 🥰
I know it was like not a good time, but I just remember SCREAMING when Thorne finally kissed Cress in Winter… l was WAITING for that
Im so excited for another chronicles video!! I watch your twilight and 50 shades videos so often I can quote them word for word lmao. Wonderful job as always 💕💕
I’m so happy to see you posted, I have 3 videos to catch up on now :)) I know it’s a trauma dump but in December my bedroom caught fire and I literally lost everything (no one was hurt thankfully) and I was absolutely devastated obviously, I can’t remember much from the weeks after but I think of your selection videos often and feel weirdly nostalgic. I felt really empty and just so sad, I literally only had the clothes from my washing machine and the big T-shirt and thong I was wearing when the hot firemen came to save the day lol. I watched your videos on my mums bedroom floor whilst I sorted through bags of clothes people had given me, I didn’t want to talk to anyone about anything so you kept me company , you really helped me so thank you :))
I’m all good now though, probably should’ve said that, lots of people donated money and my people were supportive, I have clothes and trinkets again, woooo
im so sorry you’re going through that, but im glad my videos were able to bring some levity ❤️❤️
@@ainsleesbookclub thank you :)) it’s ok, I’m happy again and everything is working out so don’t feel sorry for me, I just wanted you to know that you’ve had a really positive impact on at least one persons life with your videos :)) I hope you’re having a lovely day!! 🫶🏻
You’re with me while I’m at work so thank you for helping me ignore my coworkers
pls i’m doing the same
I love this book club. We read the best books. ❤
only the best for the shitty book club besties 🫶🫶
I honestly really loved this video! I came across these books when I was in middle school (I’m now a senior in college) and I just never picked them up bc I wasn’t into the space, sci-fi themes (even though I LOVED fairy tale retellings). Listening to you recap the series made me feel like I actually DID read these books in middle school, and I feel oddly nostalgic for this series even though I have never read any of the books before! I might actually start reading this series to see if it would have been something I liked in middle school!
omg i'm now a senior in college and came across them in middle school too, but i was the EXACT opposite of you bc i typically stayed far away from retellings but loved sci-fi and that was what drew me in 😭that's so funny to me, honestly they make me so nostalgic bc even though i was obsessed i never read the last one and every few years i consider rereading them to finally finish and get the closure my middle school self never did
(also honestly if you like retellings, that was a rly high point of these imo, seeing pieces of the og with a unique twist and how the parts of the fairy tales are fulfilled in sometimes unexpected ways was so cool and satisfying. also side note, but the way the diff character plotlines start to interconnect was mind blowing, and from what i remember i think it still holds up bc it was genuinely so satisfying as well seeing it all come together. don't get me wrong, it has problems for sure, but the story could still be enjoyable for what it is)
i was obsessed with these books in elementary 😭😭 i’ve continued to keep up with marissa meyer honestly and i still like her recent stuff. crazy to refresh this series though and realize its flaws that completely missed me when i was younger
I never finished Cress and I never even started Winter I just couldn't get behind the age gap and power imbalance in Thorne and Cress's dynamic (not so much the actual gap as the fact that Cress is 16 and Thorne is 20)... it gave me the ick. So it's been sitting on my shelf for a few years. It's really nice to watch this video and see what I missed without having to endure anything I'm not comfortable with.
oh this was the series that got me into my middle school reading addiction im so exited,,,,,,, its been like 7 year oh shit
god this series is such a throwback 😭😭
Never even HEARD of these books but somehow before you even revealed it I just knew "she's gonna be the lost princess isn't she." It's just SUCH a YA novel trope of the average girl main character having super magical powers and an unknown/hidden ancestry that's related to something important. Like of course she's the lost moon princess. Of course her super special moon powers are different and better than everyone else's moon powers. It's all pretty formulaic
“she’s a 16 year old girl. no one is gonna hand her a country” not a country, THE MOON. 1:01:45
Was anyone really under the impression that the plague starting in Africa was slightly implied because it was "dirty?" I thought it was because there were a bunch of lunar immigrants made that their new home, and they carried it with them... Idk its been a while since i read the series
I steamrolled my way through this entire series in one week and it just so happened to be the week before COVID shutdowns in my state! Which was an experience for sure
i don’t know why, i feel like cinder should’ve been a lesbian or just had NO love interest at all. the romance between kai & her just kinda felt … like it had to happen bc it’s a “ya book.” Still enjoyed nonetheless but i didn’t get their romance
God this series had a chokehold on me in highschool !! I loved it soooo much I reread it like 5 times, even bought the spin off comics on iko lmao it has a special place in my heart lol I'm sooo glad you decided to cover ittt 💖