#of the empire i don’t get how people don’t see it
A friend of a friend on social media read a plot summary of The Traitor Baru Cormorant and for REALLY REALLY angry about what happened with Tain Hu at the end and I can’t help but find it funny. I’m sorry the story about a woman sacrificing everything she holds dear, including her ethics and loved ones, on her quest to destroy a eugenicist empire from the inside out isn’t a happy queernorm romance where the sword lesbians fight together. Might I recommend uuuuuhhhh some twee YA?
It’s called THE TRAITOR Baru Cormorant not The Happily Married Baru Cormorant
Yes, the ending crushed me and twisted my guts like spaghetti around a fork. That’s a good thing! I’m as wary of “bury your gays” as any lesbian but it was the logical culmination of the extremely well-crafted plot that spans the entire novel, and Baru’s refusal to let Tain Hu be used as a pawn, not a lesbian suddenly dying for no reason but the author’s refusal to let her live. I think female characters should get to be haunted by romantic betrayal too, and I don’t think writers should have to make illogical plot decisions just to avoid looking like they’re doing a bad trope. Not when fantasy books with f/f relationships that don’t end in tragedy are actually pretty easy to find now (google it and you’ll get a whole lot of listicles). We deserve the full range of fictional lesbians and that includes traitorous ethically fucked up accountants
