(no subject)

[feotakahari]

This is a difficult complaint to phrase properly, but I hate books where the author doesn’t seem to get that patterns can change. Like, I read this one book where the protagonist remembered all his past lives, and he would constantly reference the patterns he’d seen before to determine what would happen if he did something. As far as I could tell, the author seemed to intend his predictions to be reliable.

At the point where I dropped the book, a likable character wanted to have sex with him. According to him, if they had sex, they would start a relationship, and if they started a relationship, she would make him give up his culture, and then they would have an emotionally unhealthy relationship that would ruin both their lives across multiple incarnations. And I’m thinking, ”What if you talk to her? Establish your boundaries, and let her establish her boundaries, because she seems perfectly capable of understanding your decisions and treating you as an independent human being? You haven’t learned from your experiences; you’ve learned to run away from experiences you’re afraid will always play out exactly the same way!”

Comments

[wingedcatgirl]

In the hands of a better author, that scenario would be a perfect setup for the protagonist to realize the patterns aren't immutable.