The KOTLC Club

[kajsa ㅇㅅㅇ she/her]

1 minute ago, Through The Living Glass said:

KEEPHIE YEAHHHHHH.

Hey guys, hi.

I have mixed feelings on the books.

ooh do share

[Part Of The Narrative she/her]

2 minutes ago, Through The Living Glass said:

KEEPHIE YEAHHHHHH.

Hey guys, hi.

I have mixed feelings on the books.

yesss do tell

[Mags she/they]

5 minutes ago, Through The Living Glass said:

KEEPHIE YEAHHHHHH.

Hey guys, hi.

I have mixed feelings on the books.

ooooo spill the tea

[Through The Living Glass She/They]

11 minutes ago, Kajsa said:

ooh do share

 

10 minutes ago, Part Of The Narrative said:

yesss do tell

 

6 minutes ago, J. Magi said:

ooooo spill the tea

Okay, so it's been a hot minute since I've read any of the books (I have read up to Stellarlune, don't worry), but just... the plot annoys me sometimes. If feels very repetitive throughout the books, and I think there are lots of unnecessary plot points (e.g. most recently keefe running away only to come back without much conflict or convincing from his friends).

That being said, I'm totally there for anything having to do with Keefe and Sophie. The little relationship they have is so cute to read. 

Fitz... honestly I didn't like him for a long time. He got a little better towards the end... I still don't like him much though.

Dex is fun...

Tam's a cool character...

Linh is chill...

The Mr. Forkle(s) thing was weird. 

And can I just say that GISELA SUCKS.

That's all that I can think of off the top of my head.

Oh and Calla. 

Ye.

Edited May 14, 2024 by Through The Living Glass
I hate typos ugh

[Part Of The Narrative she/her]

12 minutes ago, Through The Living Glass said:

 

 

Okay, so it's been a hot minute since I've read any of the books (I have read up to Stellarlune, don't worry), but just... the plot annoys me sometimes. If feels very repetitive throughout the books, and I think there are lots of unnecessary plot points (e.g. most recently keefe running away only to come back without much conflict or convincing from his friends).

That being said, I'm totally there for anything having to do with Keefe and Sophie. The little relationship they have is so cute to read. 

Fitz... honestly I didn't like him for a long time. He got a little better towards the end... I still don't like him much though.

Dex is fun...

Tam's a cool character...

Linh is chill...

The Mr. Forkle(s) thing was weird. 

And can I just say that GISELA SUCKS.

That's all that I can think of off the top of my head.

Oh and Calla. 

Ye.

I agree about the plot, and I do wish we had more conflict when Keefe came back

[YarnSpren]

I think that one of the reasons that most people agree it goes downhill after Neverseen is that it feels like everything that was hinted in the first book has been resolved and now Shannon is just adding more things. It feels like every time the plot got boring she decided to make Keefe run away. The books just have less plot, more pages now. 

Often they make a big deal about something and then never talk about it again. Like saving Prentice and in Nightfall they make a big deal about Lady Gisela's Archetype and then it didn't matter when it got burned.

[Through The Living Glass She/They]

12 hours ago, YarnSpren said:

Often they make a big deal about something and then never talk about it again. Like saving Prentice and in Nightfall they make a big deal about Lady Gisela's Archetype and then it didn't matter when it got burned.

Yes! I was so mad about that!

[Part Of The Narrative she/her]

12 hours ago, YarnSpren said:

I think that one of the reasons that most people agree it goes downhill after Neverseen is that it feels like everything that was hinted in the first book has been resolved and now Shannon is just adding more things. It feels like every time the plot got boring she decided to make Keefe run away. The books just have less plot, more pages now. 

Often they make a big deal about something and then never talk about it again. Like saving Prentice and in Nightfall they make a big deal about Lady Gisela's Archetype and then it didn't matter when it got burned.

This is exactly one of my biggest problems with the books

[Thaidakar the Ghostblood he/him]

Lodestar is the best book in the series. Here is why: it killed mr Forkle, it helped to wipe clean the slate, it introduced what, at the time, looked like good and interesting plot elements, it showed us cool world building, it introduced more of the never seen, it had the characters start to mature. The only flaws are that Keefe came back too soon. Nightfall is flawed because it tried to keep the tone form the rest of the series, it brought Forkle back, it reduced a lot of things to a joke and it focused on things we don't care about.

As for the rest of the series, the books after Lodestar could've been far more condensed. Take books 6, 7, 8, 8.5 and 9, condense them down into two books. Remove team valiant. Make Keefe not return until it's been a whole two or so books. Make him go down a darker path. Make Fitz less of an a-hole and more in line with his character in the rest of the series,. Give Glimmer an earlier introduction. Give Sophie far more autonomy. Show genuine casualties, INCLUDING KILLING OFF ALDEN. Have the Black Swan be more proactive and genuinely doing things to make Sophie question them, thus making Glimer a bigger part of the story whenever she's introduced. Have the Black Swan seize control of the government in the name of doing the best for the elves against the Neverseen. Kill Vespera as fast as possible and have her place taken by Gisela. Show Gisela going more off the rails and actually be a scary villain with some sort of backstory. Show more members of the never seen so that they actually seem like a threat instead of a poor joke. 

The keeper series went into a more teenage romance drama puke territory instead of the more balanced half blood prince approach. Also, we needed to have the whole guilt thing to be either heavily tweaked or just removed entirely. 

Also, Sophie needs to, at some point, just burn down both the black swan and the never seen, starting her own group at the end of the series called...

The Keepers of the Lost Cities. *theme music plays*

[Through The Living Glass She/They]

2 hours ago, Thaidakar the Ghostblood said:

Lodestar is the best book in the series. Here is why: it killed mr Forkle, it helped to wipe clean the slate, it introduced what, at the time, looked like good and interesting plot elements, it showed us cool world building, it introduced more of the never seen, it had the characters start to mature. The only flaws are that Keefe came back too soon. Nightfall is flawed because it tried to keep the tone form the rest of the series, it brought Forkle back, it reduced a lot of things to a joke and it focused on things we don't care about.

As for the rest of the series, the books after Lodestar could've been far more condensed. Take books 6, 7, 8, 8.5 and 9, condense them down into two books. Remove team valiant. Make Keefe not return until it's been a whole two or so books. Make him go down a darker path. Make Fitz less of an a-hole and more in line with his character in the rest of the series,. Give Glimmer an earlier introduction. Give Sophie far more autonomy. Show genuine casualties, INCLUDING KILLING OFF ALDEN. Have the Black Swan be more proactive and genuinely doing things to make Sophie question them, thus making Glimer a bigger part of the story whenever she's introduced. Have the Black Swan seize control of the government in the name of doing the best for the elves against the Neverseen. Kill Vespera as fast as possible and have her place taken by Gisela. Show Gisela going more off the rails and actually be a scary villain with some sort of backstory. Show more members of the never seen so that they actually seem like a threat instead of a poor joke. 

The keeper series went into a more teenage romance drama puke territory instead of the more balanced half blood prince approach. Also, we needed to have the whole guilt thing to be either heavily tweaked or just removed entirely. 

Also, Sophie needs to, at some point, just burn down both the black swan and the never seen, starting her own group at the end of the series called...

The Keepers of the Lost Cities. *theme music plays*

Beautiful.

[lydi]

On 9/25/2022 at 7:08 PM, FlowerGirl said:

Forkle specifically says that he only based Sophie's DNA off the alicorns and didn't actually use alicorn DNA. Personally I think it's Elwin 

agreed

[The Honorable Musician he/him]

My sister and I have always thought that her dad is Gethen.

[strmblsd he/him]

I used to but it got too long and repetitive so I gave up

[zlhapollo]

On 10/29/2022 at 10:51 AM, Rabbit Unmade said:

Yeah, but you have to admit, that doesn't leave much room for a character arc.

It also annoys me how elves are supposed to be so much smarter than humans, but I can still see plot twist before they can.

Spoilers for book 3, I believe. (Is it four? I can't remember.)

  Reveal hidden contents

Keefe's Mom. That was VERY obvious.

And how their medicine is supposed to be so much better than ours, but they still have scars. And their prosthetic limbs aren't much better than ours. And why do the gates at Everglen glow? They're supposed to suck in all of the light so no one can light leap in, but then they should be like black holes. Shouldn't it be really dark? Can't people light leap using the glow from the gates? Also, I'm still a little confused by the "you're super rich when you're born" thing. I feel like there would be a lot more elves who just decided they didn't need a job because they already had more than enough money. But NO. Their economy is JUST FINE! There are no shortages of ANYTHING! And why, if they haven't interacted with humans for so long, do they use such modern language? Another question, why aren't there billions and billions of elves? Sure, they don't have a ton of kids, but death is SUPER rare, so the population should just keep growing and growing. Also, the recurring "Tolkien came to the Lost Cities" thing REALLY annoys me. For one thing, if he did, WHERE ARE THE NOLDOR? THE SINGING? Plus, orcs. Orcs are mutant elves, right? SO WHERE ARE THE ORCS! (Basically, elves from LotR and the Silmarillion are WAY different than elves from KotLC) And where do their powers come from? Technology: Something that makes life better. So therefore, magic is technology, so they DO probably use magic. (It's the only logical explanation for the Talents.) 

Sorry. I like the series in some places, it's fun, Keefe is great, gnomes are AdddddOORORORORRaBleOFOFOFO, goblins are cool, there are probably jackalopes, but others are... lacking. I'm probably just spoiled by Brandon. If you can answer any of my questions, I would be very thankful. 

I do agree that elves definitely are not smarter than humans, but it might be because they don't understand much about human culture (in the first book I think they said they thought humans still have monarchs). But yeah I could tell Brant was a Neverseen from the moment he was introduced.

Also I think the Lost Cities are a more socialist/communist society (like with some aspects), since it doesn't specifically mention elves getting paid. And elves work because of a combination of the gnomes doing harder work, and elves not being able to handle guilt (so they would want to do work). So elves' birth fund come from the work that they do. Also a cool idea would be like elves would have to work off their birth fund, but that's a different idea. 

Plus about the population thing remember that elves usually only have 1-2 children (because they think genes get weaker the more births someone has, another example elves aren't that smart), so the population doesn't really grow that fast even though there are infinite life spans

If there were, say, 10000 elves when the council was created 5000 years ago (around the time ancient egypt was unified), every elf had 2 children, and no one died, then there would be 1,500,000 elves today.

The text below is a spoiler.

Spoiler

The council was created 5000 years ago, so that would mean around 300 generations. A generation is 15 years, and most people give birth at 30 years old, so we count births every 2 generations. So there are 2 births every 2 generations. So we can count births 150 times. The first 2 generations the population adds itself, because two elves have two children, making four elves. But the elves of the last generation don't give birth, so there are only 10,000 elves giving birth. So the cycle starts over again. This would mean there would be 1,500,000 elves today. We're just assuming before the council was founded some elves married humans so it would be more like 1 elf + 1 human = 2 elves, making 3 elves from 1 elf. So that means the new generation was double the last one, if every elf married humans (which they didn't). And then the council brought the elves together and the humans went to war with the elves (which was not many years after the council was founded), so elves married elves. 

Of course, there are only children in kotlc and some elves died, so the population probably is less.

Also please don't see this reply as rude (I know this is way later and you probably won't ever see it), I'm just answering these questions bc I want to.

Edited August 1, 2025 by zlhapollo

[momadrac they/them]

I've read the series, I liked it, but it is sorta repetitive and I think it needs to stop reviving characters

At least Kenric stayed dead, unlike Forkle and Fintan

Oh, and Tam, Linh and Dex need more time on page

And Linh + Marella needs to become a thing

 

[Keke They/he]

Haven’t read it yet but i have heard it is really insanley good and i need to read it 

[momadrac they/them]

You really should 

[Keke They/he]

Just now, momadrac said:

You really should 

I shall put in on my list after cosmere books

[CoderDrag0n8 He/Him]

Hi I’m here

great gulon incident 4ever!!

(it’s been so long I’ve forgotten almost everything)