Reviewed Week 356: Black Blood - Feedback

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swaswj

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Her entire existence, her entire life...had been set up. She never had a choice in anything.

I'm sorry to say but... just like that, you've lost me. If I complained about the trope where a character inexplicably doesn't kill their target when they have the chance, that's nothing compared to how much I hate the trope of someone not only holding all the cards, but guess what, they made the printing press that made the cards.

A protagonist must have agency, otherwise it brings into question the purpose of any gain or loss they've gone through. It opens up innumerable plot holes when the powers-that-be wanted her dead from infancy and clearly don't have an actual problem with child-murder, but not only let her live, they trained her how to kill. Why would Micali even want to kill the rest of the Seven Devils when the one man she wants to kill is right in front of her?

It's also disconcerting that she holds off on trying to kill them out of curiosity. The very same trick she used on Gemma's guards: they let Micali's curiosity get the better of her senses.

The two antagonists showing no concern for Micali at all is also grating. Foss may be a replicari, but he admitted that Valgora was as well. Presumably, Micali did kill Valgora because they haven't indicated otherwise. If Foss was going to be unkillable, I want to see Micali do everything within her power to kill him, and if there's even a chance he can be killed, I want to see Foss take action to defend himself. You made a point of describing the fireplace, Micali killed Valgora with fire, why did she not even attempt that?

I have a lot of faith in your writing ability but for me, it's going to be hard to come back from that story beat. There's now this cynical part of me expecting that whatever happens next will only build up to, "Actually I built the factory that built the printing press that made the cards that I have all of."
 

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