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schnaucl's review
adventurous
mysterious
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.5
I enjoyed it.
Especially in the beginning Arthur seems a lot more like an ideal than a person, and it's never really clear why order is inherently better than chaos. Yes, magic can do terrible things, but as demonstrated in the book, people with non magical power can do some pretty awful things to people without any magic involved at all, and magic can also accomplish good things.
It seems like the great magical beings (for the most part) have decided the time of magic is over for reasons that are never really explained other than "order is better than chaos." It's not that magic is fading so much as that powerful magic users are choosing to fade away.
Low level magic users continue to want to use magic, even if that means they can't be part of Camelot.
It's a little frustrating because aside from sanitation (yay!), the idea of Camelot seems to be the ruler should behave like a decent person and there's also some amount of meritocracy, although that only goes so far since Lancelot is not allowed to become one of Arthur's knights due to her gender. But monarchy is still a thing. The current arrangement isn't going to produce an heir unless things change. There's doesn't seem to be any sort of succession plan even though Arthur lives a dangerous life.
I appreciated that the the book dealt with the fact that Arthur can be a good king and a good person and also a bad husband. I think it would be very difficult to be in a relationship where you felt you could never be the first priority.
Especially in the beginning Arthur seems a lot more like an ideal than a person, and it's never really clear why order is inherently better than chaos. Yes, magic can do terrible things, but as demonstrated in the book, people with non magical power can do some pretty awful things to people without any magic involved at all, and magic can also accomplish good things.
Low level magic users continue to want to use magic, even if that means they can't be part of Camelot.
It's a little frustrating because aside from sanitation (yay!), the idea of Camelot seems to be the ruler should behave like a decent person and there's also some amount of meritocracy, although that only goes so far since Lancelot is not allowed to become one of Arthur's knights due to her gender. But monarchy is still a thing. The current arrangement isn't going to produce an heir unless things change. There's doesn't seem to be any sort of succession plan even though Arthur lives a dangerous life.
I appreciated that the the book dealt with the fact that Arthur can be a good king and a good person and also a bad husband. I think it would be very difficult to be in a relationship where you felt you could never be the first priority.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Panic attacks/disorders and Violence
Minor: Violence, Infidelity, Sexual assault, Alcoholism, Child death, Death of parent, Misogyny, Torture, Alcohol, and Fire/Fire injury
booksthatburn's review against another edition
mysterious
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
1.0
With a narrative that feels like it tossed aside an opportunity for a truly cool trans guy character in exchange for yet another "woman dresses as a man in order to fight" story, THE GUINEVERE DECEPTION presents (cis) female triumph as "doing things (cis) men can't do". It's a well-supported and cohesive story as long as you're fine with the story being that men are bad and women have to pick up all the messes because they're the only ones who can be competent without being evil.
Guinevere (not-Guinevere but there's nothing else to call her) is an artfully crafted protagonist, conscious of her lack of agency even as she makes what choices she can. The thing is that even when she makes decisions, she only makes whatever ones the men didn't take care of first. It's a narrative that tries to frame her as beginning with little agency, and then slowly claiming more. The thing is that her big triumphant moment at the end is doing what she was shaped (by men) to do. Maybe this will get developed later on in the series, but there are bigger issues for me.
I thought at first that maybe Guinevere could be asexual, based on how she and Arthur spoke about their relationship early on. The problem is that since she's young enough that she has her first period during the story and seems to have little to no understanding of what sex is other than that there's some thing more Arthur might want to do with her. Merlin (in Guinevere's backstory) controlled what information she has and gave he what he thought she needed to know, sending her to be a bride without any understanding of what is euphemistically encompassed by a "wedding night". This makes the moments that could be read as ace characterization feel like exploitation of a child instead. Unless I missed something her exact age isn't given, though Arthur is implied to be youthful while also old enough to have a sexual past of his own. This fits the historical context, but I'm more unnerved by it being shown through implications, like I had to piece together just how young and exploited she is.
I mostly enjoyed the story, until I realized it was so committed to the idea that "men are bad, actually", that it does a disservice to one of its characters in a way that was frustrating and makes for a worse story. There's a masked character (knight who always has the helmet on) who is assumed to be male and is treated as such, but as soon as Guinevere finds out this character is female under the helmet, she begins treating the character accordingly. There's even a moment where, when disguised as a woman, this character says they've never felt right in clothes like this. Every bit of characterization screams some variation of trans-masc (I won't fuss over labels but they're definitely not a cis woman), except for how Guinevere thinks about them. It felt like the protagonist was persistently misgendering a character she likes very much, even though the text didn't seem like it was doing it on purpose. The narrative also focuses on how the parts of Arthur that make him a good king make him a bad husband (one cannot be loyal above all else to both a kingdom and a spouse). That, to me, was a very cool and insightful blend of characterization and storytelling, but formed part of this broader picture where by the time I got three-quarters of the way through, Mordred looked like the only good and effective male character (and if you know anything about Arthurian stories, you know it's trouble when Mordred looks like the only good one). It then further conflates "man" (i.e. male people) with "Man" (i.e. humankind) in the bad guy speech about humanity as a curse. By conflating maleness with humanity, and humanity with malice, then having a cis woman save the day in spite of both, it implicitly places womanhood outside of the corruption of humanity in a way that unsettles me.
Guinevere (not-Guinevere but there's nothing else to call her) is an artfully crafted protagonist, conscious of her lack of agency even as she makes what choices she can. The thing is that even when she makes decisions, she only makes whatever ones the men didn't take care of first. It's a narrative that tries to frame her as beginning with little agency, and then slowly claiming more. The thing is that her big triumphant moment at the end is doing what she was shaped (by men) to do. Maybe this will get developed later on in the series, but there are bigger issues for me.
I thought at first that maybe Guinevere could be asexual, based on how she and Arthur spoke about their relationship early on. The problem is that since she's young enough that she has her first period during the story and seems to have little to no understanding of what sex is other than that there's some thing more Arthur might want to do with her. Merlin (in Guinevere's backstory) controlled what information she has and gave he what he thought she needed to know, sending her to be a bride without any understanding of what is euphemistically encompassed by a "wedding night". This makes the moments that could be read as ace characterization feel like exploitation of a child instead. Unless I missed something her exact age isn't given, though Arthur is implied to be youthful while also old enough to have a sexual past of his own. This fits the historical context, but I'm more unnerved by it being shown through implications, like I had to piece together just how young and exploited she is.
I mostly enjoyed the story, until I realized it was so committed to the idea that "men are bad, actually", that it does a disservice to one of its characters in a way that was frustrating and makes for a worse story. There's a masked character (knight who always has the helmet on) who is assumed to be male and is treated as such, but as soon as Guinevere finds out this character is female under the helmet, she begins treating the character accordingly. There's even a moment where, when disguised as a woman, this character says they've never felt right in clothes like this. Every bit of characterization screams some variation of trans-masc (I won't fuss over labels but they're definitely not a cis woman), except for how Guinevere thinks about them. It felt like the protagonist was persistently misgendering a character she likes very much, even though the text didn't seem like it was doing it on purpose. The narrative also focuses on how the parts of Arthur that make him a good king make him a bad husband (one cannot be loyal above all else to both a kingdom and a spouse). That, to me, was a very cool and insightful blend of characterization and storytelling, but formed part of this broader picture where by the time I got three-quarters of the way through, Mordred looked like the only good and effective male character (and if you know anything about Arthurian stories, you know it's trouble when Mordred looks like the only good one). It then further conflates "man" (i.e. male people) with "Man" (i.e. humankind) in the bad guy speech about humanity as a curse. By conflating maleness with humanity, and humanity with malice, then having a cis woman save the day in spite of both, it implicitly places womanhood outside of the corruption of humanity in a way that unsettles me.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Kidnapping
Moderate: Sexism, Misogyny, Blood, Violence, Panic attacks/disorders, Alcohol, Animal death, Death, and Excrement
Minor: Animal cruelty and Homophobia
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