The moment absolutely none of you were waiting for: I finally post what I thought about Ember's End. I know, it's been out for a long time (I had to take time to think, okay? No judging) So, here we go: First off, my expectations for this last book were way off. I loved Ember Rising and I thought the set up for Ember's End was really great. Also, I spent a lot of time talking about it and thinking about it so my anticipation was too great to be fulfilled. Ok, with that out of the way, now to go into the actual review:
The beginning was awesome. All my favorite characters were all together! I loved the dialogue between Picket, Helmer, Jo, Cole, and Emma. If I could've had a book of just them the entire time, I would've been completely happy because I love those characters. I was really sad to see them separate so early. But then again, any time they separated would've been too early for me.
Picket’s apprentice was one of my favorite parts of the entire series! It had a lot of nostalgia with the references to my Helmer and Picket (my favorite part) but with Picket’s version of Helmer’s teaching. It was great.
The Terralain stuff was great. All of it was expected, none of it was a surprise to me but I loved it anyway. The verbal irony in Naylen's speech was so well done and I thought it was awesome. I wanted Kyle to be good and even though I knew he would be in the end, sometimes I had my doubts.
The Akolan scenes were well done. There weren't many of them but I thought that was fine. It let you know they were still there but it also left room for a bit of a surprise later. The scenes in the dragon cave were good, nothing stood out for me to mention except I liked seeing Small and Heather together at last.
Okay, the battle. The battle had it's good parts and it's bad parts. I liked the various defenses that they went through, there were some creative strategies and it was great to watch the rabbits refuse to go down with a fight. The various ways of fighting were really great, the actual combat was okay, not the best but definitely not the worst either. A multi-faceted battle is really really hard to write. S. D. Smith did a good job but I think that it's almost impossible to write an exceptional multi-faceted battle.
Helmer. Helmer's death hit me hard. I was hoping he would live through it but I knew he probably wouldn't. It's sad to think that he died because that rope didn't work. I think that S. D. Smith was in a tough spot with that one. On the one hand, Helmer really needed to sacrifice him for the cause. For him to be complete and for his story to be complete, he needed to bravely give his life to save those he loved. But on the other hand, he was (in my opinion) the best character. To me, what really gave the series life was Helmer and Picket. Their dialogue was really the heart of the series so when one was gone, a bit of the brightness and a huge part of the story was gone.
All right, Morbin. The entire four book series was leading to this point, the final conflict, the last prey lord versus the son of King Jupiter. Everything had lead to that exact moment. Then they kill him in one chapter. I think that since the whole battle was leading to that one point, it should've been a bit more... awe-inspiring. How do you write an awe-inspiring battle? I have no idea. So I guess I can't judge too much since I couldn't do any better.
Next, The Mended Wood. I think The Mended Wood was my main disappointment. I was expecting heaven, similar to The Last Battle, but it wasn't what I was expecting. There are a lot of reasons why The Mended Wood doesn't work as heaven, a few include: Eternity without God is not heaven, those who died didn't come back, and there's no sin in heaven (The whole "treason" thing was funny, but disobedience is still sin so it shows that there is still sin, and an eternity of brokenness is not what I look for in heaven).
Flint's sword. Flint's sword breaking was powerful and at first I loved it, but then when I thought about it, it was a bit confusing. No more conflict? What about any wolves or birds that weren't there? There had to have been some eggs somewhere, right? There had to be some wild wolves not in the attack, right? So those not there are just never going to attack? Or are we assuming that every wolf and every bird in the entire world are all there in that one attack and there are no eggs anywhere?
I think there are few major changes I would've liked:
First, grief was not dealt with. Helmer dies, the rest of the battle happens, then we skip the entire grieving process to when everyone is happy? Grief is sad, and hard. It's hard to live through and hard to write. But the grieving process can be beautiful. I wanted to be able to grieve Helmer's death with Picket, not to just ignore the grief.
Second, The Mended Wood would be a golden age, not heaven. I wish Flint Sword and True Blue was left out. I think trying to have heaven in a world without a God resulted in a twisted form of heaven and seemed humanistic.
Third, I think everything after the banquet would've been better left out. To me it just seemed to strange. The tone shift was a good attempt and I see he was trying to show peace, but all I got was a sense of sadness and solemnness, I didn't see joy. I wanted to see the joy worthy if the longing.
Fourth, I think there needed to be a God figure. That would've had to happen way back in the first book but I wish it had. We have humans (Rabbits) vs evil (Wolves and Birds and Dragons). That just seems humanistic and there's no hope! With no God and no afterlife, then death wins. I know that there are plenty of books without a God, but I don't like the humans vs evil and I'm sad to think about how much better the books would've been with a loving God.
Final remarks. Overall, I still enjoyed Ember's End, but not as much I enjoyed the other books. There are other things I would've preferred too (#Pemma) but that's a whole other debate and one based even MORE on opinion. I've also seen in many other stories that separating the main characters then reuniting them can be really hard to do. I think once Heather and Picket were separated, Picket and Helmer really became the heart of the story, and once Helmer was gone, there was nothing left of the story.
One last thing, I wanted a song. I wanted a song in The Mended Wood. We had songs of longing for The Mended Wood, I wanted a song of joy and peace. The fight was over, the villains destroyed, And I wanted a song of celebration. That's it! You might agree with me, you might not. That's fine. The thing I most enjoy about Green Ember and the thing I will always remember is the many discussions about it I had with many of you. Books can bring people together, and I think Green Ember did a pretty good job of that! I hope you've enjoyed talking about the books as much as I have.
Overall, I enjoyed EE, it's going to be tough to write a finale, with so much build up, and I think Smith did well. :) I agree with most of what you said, @Artham, although, I agree that The Mended Wood was supposed to be more of an "echo" of heaven, just like TGE has drops of truth mixed into an exciting tale. I also am disappointed that we don't see Picket's reunion with his family. In the first book, Picket feels guilty that he wasn't there to protect his family, feeling like he should have jumped in to save them even though he couldn't do anything. He spends the first book training, he wants to fight and save his family. He promised he would be there for Jacks. Throughout the book series we watch Picket grow from being a timid, selfish smol buck, to being Picket Packslayer, the hero of rabbit kind, and one of the best soldiers in the army. But his parents didn't see that. Whittle had been trying to inspire courage and bravery in in his son, telling him tales of past heros. He sees none of the development between the frightened buck who fainted when he fell out of a burning tree, and scampered back home, to the buck who flew out of the sky, and unfazed by the hight, went on to blind Morbin Blackhawk, and only paused, reeling when his arm got cut off. And then gets back up, and lunges. Also, he didn't know Heather was alive. I don't think he would have seen her in the battle. He saw Smalls, yes, but not Heather. The first time Heather goes near Picket since they last separated, was when he was unconscious in the flood. I wanted to be there when he wakes up and finds his whole family there in front of him, when he sees that he did protect Jacks and Heather, he saved his family and they're all here. I wanted to see Whittle reunited with his Son. But all we got was Smalls' third person account of the fact that it happened. I also wanted to see Picket's reunion with Smalls. He spends books 2,3 and 4 feeling guilty that he betrayed Smalls, and now he's dead because of him. At the end of EE, he finds that he's apparently not dead, and he fights beside him. So I wanted to see him meeting Smalls again when he wakes up, and they can talk. I wanted to see the boys both confess to each other guilt about what happened with Smalls, and for then they make amends, and, forgiven, they can freely move on. In book I when Picket sails through the sky, and slays Garlackson, Smalls is moved, and amazed. Picket is suddenly moved in his status to no longer 'Lad' but 'My Brother'. So I want to see what he'll say to Picket after the gave his arm, and his all, just barely surviving, to help Smalls. But we didn't get that either. We don't even see anything with Smalls and Picket after Picket falls into the flood. I also feel like Helmer's backstory should have been given earlier, like book 3 maybe? But, I think it would have been great to see Picket now knowing his pain, to subtly try to keep on mending it. When GHH falls, Helmer is reminded that oh yeah, he can't save everyone. I want Picket to help him work through that. Not be told mid-battle, and then rush back out, fight for a while, and then watch Helmer die. :( But still, I enjoyed it and it was really good! ^^
Very well put @Kilmarnock228.
I agree with what you said about Picket. But I wish we could've seen the hardship and the beauty in the grieving process (One of my favorite parts of Mistmantle).
In regards to the disobedience, Picket said, "She seems to be leading my Jo away from the rest, abandoning his grandmother's generous attentions, in contrast with your specific instructions." So it sounds like disobedience to me but that leads to another question, How can there be right and wrong in a world without someone to define it? With no God, how can there be right and wrong? Regardless, IF the mended wood isn't heaven, then there would still be sin so that really doesn't matter.
Yeah, everything with the wolves and birds all being there would make sense except, weren't there a lot of wild wolves? I guess ALL of them decided to follow Farlock. Seems like plot convenience but I guess it could work.
I think there are hints of a God figure but not enough for me. Considering our God sent prophets that he spoke through, laws, stories, constant reminders to stay true to Him, and His son, I don't see just giving a few hints that He is there as very true to His character.
Oh, I think seeing Maggie and Edward reunite would've been amazing!
Apart from the #Heals aspect, the whole dragon plotline honestly seemed a little detached from the rest of the story to me. We came to the end and it was like “So...why did Lander not want to destroy the eggs?” About the only reason I could see is the argument that, not having hatched yet, the dragons inside the eggs weren’t technically guilty of anything that would justify their slaughter. Still, I feel like perhaps it might have meant more if the dragons had broken out and ended up fighting the wolves or something before getting killed by the flood.
As I expressed in my forum post “The Fate of the Six”, I was somewhat let down by the way the Six as a whole were handled in the book. They built them up for a number of books, only for them all to get taken out fairly quickly. Aside from the first and last to die, none of them were even mentioned by name. I think it goes back to something S.D. Smith has stated about how he regards his villains: he doesn’t want them to be interesting, because he doesn’t regard evil in the real world as interesting.
That’s probably also why none of the dragons were given names, or why-at least in the main series-all the named wolves die the exact same way by the exact same hand. Of course, there’s the fact that S.D. Smith basically made the Six-and Farlock too, for that matter-impossible for the rabbits to fight with. They basically had to get the “black arrow to Smaug’s bare patch” treatment, because a pitched battle would result in almost certain death for the rabbit. To be honest, the battle scenes from Ember’s End make me wonder how on Earth Jupiter and his armies ever managed to win against the Lords of Prey.
Personally, I don’t think the Mended Wood was ever meant as a heaven equivalent; it’s an elevated state of mortality, nothing more. I’ve expressed some similar thoughts with regards to this in my post “My Problem with True Blue”. I will say, I don’t believe Hanna’s disobedience can be called sin-it’s the naivete of a child who is still learning her place in the world. For her, a dandelion puff is a pretty amusement; she has no idea it will grow weeds to plague Uncle Picket’s fields. Which, now that we’re talking about it, seems further evidence that the Mending is not a true paradisiacal transformation into some kind of divine afterlife: pretty sure weeds won’t be a thing there.
In a reply to my aforementioned post, @Ian G. suggested that perhaps the Mending is more akin to the Millennium: a period of peace that will precede a greater divine event to come. I could totally see such a thing happening in the universe of the Green Ember, especially with the need for a reunion with the faithful fallen. I think there are definite hints of a God figure in the series, such as the seer’s gift held by various characters. And, of course, the sword that FELL OUT OF THE SKY and didn’t break until the last foe of rabbitkind was struck down. However, as S.D. Smith himself pointed out in the author’s note, the Green Ember series was never meant to be an allegory, and I think he preferred to keep such references subtle-”echoes” he said, of the things that he himself believes.
The implication of the series certainly seems to be that ALL the wolves and ALL the raptors took part in the final battle, even the females (though of course only one of these was even alluded to). I did some research, and there actually is some basis for no eggs or wolf cubs being around when all was over. Aside from the obvious fact that they’d die without anyone to care for them, raptors lay eggs in the spring or early summer depending on their region. In Ember Falls Natalia was in the midst of winter, and given the short period of time that seems to be covered by it and the remaining books I see no reason why the series couldn’t have played out before the birds’ nesting season-and of course, the summons to battle disrupted things.
As for the wolves, if they follow natural wolf biology there wouldn’t be that many mating couples among them. You typically only get one mating couple in a pack, and they’ll only produce young if there’s a plentiful food source. Given that many rabbits were kept as slaves or went into hiding, it wouldn’t surprise me if the wolves didn’t have many young after Jupiter’s fall. Of course, these possible biological arguments may not be the soundest in a world where komodo dragon eggs can apparently stay fresh for over a hundred years and where rabbits can walk upright and wield swords.
While there could certainly have been more shown with it, I think it’s fairly evident that Picket is still grieving by the end of the book. You’ll recall that he repeats part of the Citadel of Dreams song to Captain Moonlight as they part. The line just before what he quoted runs “Come come and rest, forget your pains, or remember them among friends.” Picket, for the present, seems to be trying to forget: losing Helmer is still a wound too great for him to talk about, though his wife and children seem to be helping him.
I will say, I think the sense of joy might have been enhanced by a few things...actually seeing Maggie and Edward reunite, for instance.
I agree with you. (On most things). Grief was left out. Grief was ignored. I never really thought about it, but I wanted a grieving chapter. Also agree with you about Flint’s Stone Sword. How could there be no eggs or wild wolves? But in all, EE was my favorite book of all books.
😬 Not sure what to say here... I liked EE, and yet I feel like a lot of this is right (except for the obvious divisive subject that I shall here leave unnamed).