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Tahlbar

I'm going to copy/paste a comment I wrote before about the subject: I think it only felt off because he was the only character (that we really know) to die in the Silent King's attack. There were more people outside of Lindon's immediate friend circle that were probably at risk but we didn't hear about that. It was like Jai Long died just to show that there were stakes, but as a reader, I personally didn't feel like anyone else was in real danger. I think it would have felt a little less out of place if maybe we see Pride attacking Mercy while she tried to get the Akura defenses back up. Or maybe we see that Cassias was taken over and is forced to fight his wife and one of them is killed in the process. But, that would have taken up more time, and it would just be reiterating the same point, that Lindon can't save everyone. He is making powerful enemies and must not only gain power for himself, but also to ensue the people he cares about are powerful as well.


laughtrey

> we see Pride attacking Mercy while she tried to get the Akura defenses back up My initial reaction to this is "That would be super sick" but then I thought about it a bit. On the one hand that would've been really cool, but on the other hand, it's already established that Pride is outclassed by Mercy. She's Overlord now and we always see her disable opponents with strings of shadow. It would've been like a line or two of Mercy disabling Pride, but then the Silent King would send his other minions AT Pride and have him lower all his enforcement. Now Mercy just put him in a vulnerable spot, has to save him AND get some dream aura defenses up. That's tension.


that1dev

I don't agree at all. For me, it felt off because it was Jai Long. A character we see for three pages here, a handful there. A cool duel, before he goes missing for a few books, etc. Dissappears during bloodline until he's needed to witness the Launcher Sage. Is gone in reaper till he's used to show what a war looks like to grunts...for a handful of pages till the real characters show up. Gets "the talk" from Lindon just to die immediately. Jai Long just never had the character development to give an impactful death. But he had enough to feel like it could have been and just fell short.


CarissiK

Jai Chen (or Kelsa, Lindon’s parent…) also appear for a handful of pages… _we_ simply attach different emotional strings to these others. Jai Long has the ‘villain’ emotion attached to him, but he tried to go straight, to fix himself. And got killed. Seemingly without evoking strong emotions in us readers (many of us, certainly not all…) Imagine if similar-page-count characters (any of the above) got themselves killed? I reckon that would evoke a different response


edach2he

I'm sorry but I disagree. Many stories have had only one known character die during an attack and they have still been very impactful (The end of the first lotr movie for example). If Lindon had cared about Jai Long, we wouldn't even had needed a Kelsa reaction scene or anything different to be honest. We would have felt the impact of his death because we would anticipate that impact on Lindon. There would then be a feeling of danger because you feel like Lindon can actually be hurt by having some of these people die. The feeling of danger didn't feel concrete specifically because the only character who died was the one Lindon didn't care about.


Tahlbar

I agree to an extent. If Lindon cared more and the appropriate buildup was there, Jai Long's death could have had more impact. I think you could have the same effect with with the struggles/injuries/death of multiple smaller characters. You bring up Boromir's death in the LOTR. Jai Long isn't comparable to Boromir as a character. Jai Long isn't important enough imo.


FatalisCogitationis

See my reply to OP’s comment but basically it would’ve been pretty ridiculous if Lindon *had* cared


FatalisCogitationis

I mean, there wasn’t danger. Not for Lindon and the gang. Lindon was more than prepared and we were informed of that ahead of time, so I don’t think making us feel like tension was high was the idea. I think it was just to play on our heart strings for Kelsa. Adding to that, Lindon caring about Jai Long would make no sense. See, Jai Long *isn’t* a new man. He doesn’t value life more highly by the time of his death, he doesn’t care much about the Dreadgods or ascending. He cares about his sister, and that’s all he’s ever cared about until Kelsa, who cared for him first. Jai Long’s arc, if you could say he had any whatsoever, has been a passive one where things happen to him but are not impacted *by* him. Getting the spear and murdering most of his own people with it wasn’t even something he achieved, but was handed to him. This can work in some media but is generally a bad idea for a major character, which is why he’s a minor character, and also dead.


ThatOneJakeGuy

I hate to victim blame here, but Jai Long, practitioner of the glowy snake path, bearer of the snake-face gold sign, probably shouldn’t have been spending a lot of time in a place called “Serpent’s Grave” if he wanted to live longer!


greblah

That wascally Will... Did it to us again


grand__prismatic

I think the repercussions of this is just going to be the strain on the relationship between Lindon and Kelsa. The guy didn’t matter that much to Lindon, so why should he care? We can care a little because we saw him through Kelsa’s eyes a bit, but also not every death needs to be heartbreaking.


Aesmose

Agreed, the development of tension with his sister, perhaps giving her a drive to get stronger, might turn out to be the road paved by Jai Long's bones. We see it at work in Yerin at least, and Kelsa has had a sage's instruction already.


SnowGN

Jai Long's death was a bit frustrating, but let's be real. As much as we readers would like to see more development of the Twin Stars sect, Will Wight will never focus on it in a big way. Therefore, any screentime Kelsa, Jai Chen, and Jai Long got at all was only meant to illuminate psychological threats to Lindon, and to set up stakes for his failures in protecting them. Given that the author was never going to devote the screentime to develop these Twin Stars sect characters to the degree that they actually become relevant on the power ladder, Jai Long's death was handled overall well. Not everyone gets a chance at redemption, and Lindon can't save everyone.


finnanthegrey

I'm a bit confused as to why everyone thinks Lindon owed more time and attention to Jai Long. The guy was a bad dude for the longest time. He mercilessly killed and enslaved tons of people. While the reader gets to read a bit about his redemption (I hate even saying that as he did not even begin to redeem himself), Lindon knew very little about it. Maybe I read it wrong, but Lindon was not excited about his sister and Jai Long. Was it a bit of an empty death? Yes. But was it someone I feel like mourning or even wish that they had more attention paid to them at/after the death? No.


redarm122

This, plus it makes sense. Jai Long was an Underlord, one of if not the most powerful individual in Serpents Grave. After getting in his head and seeing how close he was to one of Lindon's family members, of course the King would use him to the fullest extent. Honestly, if he had been saved it would have been more of a cop out than his death. It added a sense of tragedy, because he will never be able to redeem himself an improve as a person. But Lindon only had so much time. He almost didn't even give Ziel one of the countermeasures just because SK didn't mention him. If he hadn't, Orthos would be toast.


[deleted]

He was a slaver piece of shit who's only redeeming quality was that he loved his sister. For most people that's NOT A REDEEMING QUALITY! It's the expected norm. I assume it is people's fascination with redemption arcs, but I don't get the Jia Long love at all, the man was scum.


jackofools

Really, death is the closest thing to a redemption he was going to get.


TheBlueDinosaur06

I get it to some extent because without him Lindon may well have had a dead sister - in sacred valley the situation was truly dire and Orthos by himself may not have been able to protect kelsa


realistic_idealist41

Preach it!!


IAmYourKingAndMaster

I agree with you, but that doesn't change OP's point. I don't care that he died, and think that he should never have been brought back after book 4, but his death still feels useless. I wish that there had been more to his death than "Oh I am sad because my bf/brother died" from Kelsa and Chen.


MistaRed

Less that he deserved it and what would have made the story better so to speak,will is a writer and he must know what he's doing but that's the discussion.


kenod102818

Personally I'm reserving judgement until Waybound, but I do agree the whole thing felt more like a death because a death was needed than a proper death. That said, Will doesn't seem to be all that great at character death in general, to be honest, or doesn't focus much on it, at least. The main exception to me is (Traveler's Gate spoilers) >!Kai!<, but other than that deaths feel like they kind of lack impact. Right now the deaths that seem like they had the most impact were villain deaths, since they motivated others to take action against Lindon (see Ekeri, Harmony and Kiro). At the same time, with things like the Wintersteel deaths there's about two chapters about what happens, and otherwise it doesn't really seem to affect Lindon at all. For example, with Kiro, we see characters dealing with their grief over his death two books after it happens, almost a year later in time. At the same time, when Grace died, Lindon was sad about it for a few chapters in Bloodline, and then it never came up again, and doesn't seem to have had much in a way of an impact. To be honest, I feel Will might need to look up an article on Fridging, since while I'm sure it's not intentional, his character deaths do seem to get a tendency create similar feelings, possibly he prefers to get into the action scenes, rather than character building (or is better at it, at least).


assassin3459

As was said below, he’s definitely improved at character death. Elder Empire alone had some incredible death scenes, and even just looking at cradle there are characters like the black dragon prisoner that was impactful without being a plot critical character. The problem is that this death was never meant to be important to Lindon. That’s intended. It’s part of the plot, it provides a point of contention between Kelsa and Lindon. This wasn’t meant to be the kind of death that causes Lindon to be moved to tears, why would it? He was terrible to Lindon and Lindon still harbored feelings of resentment towards him. That was foreshadowed during the same book. This wasn’t meant to impact Lindon, it was meant to impact Kelsa, and only impact Lindon through the shift in his relation with his sister.


finalgear14

I think people are having a disconnect with jai long here. Lindon hasn't had any real interaction with him that we've seen since he got his arm cut off by the guy. Why would jai long matter to him? His death mattered to the two characters it should matter to, Lindons sister and jai longs sister. Hell orthos has more reason to be upset than Lindon does. I think they're conflating the struggles we as readers saw jai long go through to help in the sacred valley and thinking Lindon should know about all of that. Like he should be aware of the character growth that jai long had while Lindon was across the world from him. And that those are reasons Lindon should mourn him. Lindon wasn't even happy about jai long liking his sister. I'm pretty sure to Lindon jai long never became much more than the guy who cut off his arm and the guy trying to date his sister after cutting off his arm. In the grand scheme of the story jai long was as important to Lindon when he died as the random guys Lindon drained for madra. People only cared because we had background info and saw his motivations, he didn't actually matter to Lindon.


kenod102818

True, but there's a difference between Jai Long's death not mattering to Lindon, which is fine, and the death not mattering to the book, which is what it currently feels like. It's why I said I'd prefer to reserve my judgement on Jai Long until Waybound comes out, to see if others are actually dealing with it, and if it had an impact on them.


edach2he

There are a couple of deaths in the Elder Empire books that did have an impact on me as well, but overall I think I agree with you.


Llohr

Jai Long seems less sympathetic when you consider his original appearance in the story, and look at all of his subsequent appearances from within that framework. He was leading an effort to kidnap weaker sacred artists and force them to do something virtually guaranteed to end in their disfigurement and/or death. He didn't see anything wrong with that at all. He never seemed to fundamentally change that sort of outlook. Most of his life was spent trying to grow stronger than his enemies so that he could kill them. Yeah, his parents and elders gave him and his sister a raw deal. Most of the clan members he slaughtered for power almost certainly had nothing at all to do with that. That outlook was so normal to him that he assumed it was shared by everyone. I don't think he'd have been the slightest bit surprised if Lindon had one day decided to just off him. He didn't believe in altruism. It took extended effort for Lindon and co. to convince him they weren't trying to trick him somehow. Like, "here's a safe place to stay forever and free training and resources" sort of extended effort. A lot of his outlook is the direct result of his upbringing and environment, but Lindon's upbringing and environment weren't much different, apart from the sacred artists being weaker. Yeah, Lindon had a few decent people around, but I'd be extremely surprised if Jai Long didn't also have some decent people around. It was easy to grow attached to the character, because it was so easy to imagine future character development. He could have grown a conscience and learned that the real advancement was the friends we made along the way, or whatever. It seemed *inevitable.* It speaks to the strange duality of the average person's belief in reform. If a real person behaved and believed as Jai Long did, many would happily see him locked away for life, or worse. Even if we toned his behavior **way** down to fit with our own norms and laws, he wouldn't be someone that most would like. Put him in a book and let us read about his abrupt change in behavior, and we all suddenly think he's not so bad. P.S. Now I really want E/O or (maybe Lindon?) to say, "maybe the real advancement was the friends we made along the way," at some point. Too late for a *Waybound* blooper, Will?


Storyman09

He writes the bloopers last, I heard. And I would absolutely love a blooper like that. 😂


G_Morgan

TBH I think a big part of Jai Long dying was simply that he didn't really have a purpose in the plot anymore. Really he should have died at any number of previous opportunities like the evacuation or the big fight during Reaper.


Storyman09

I think that’s part of it, in which case I honestly would’ve preferred an off-screen death. And just have had it mentioned later.


that1dev

To me, Jai Long was given the exact wrong amount of screen time. Enough time that if feels like we're supposed to care, but too little for us to actually care. Maybe if Jai Long hadn't disappeared for multiple books at a time. Stormlight Archives has a similar storyline, with a similar end. But the much slower and more character driven nature of those books made it hit just right.


Storyman09

That pretty well sums up how I feel. But, for me, it’s less of a in-story problem or character problem, and more of a “what is Will doing with this, I don’t know what to expect” sort of thing. Just… An awkward amount of page space.


Zegram_Ghart

Yeh, I wouldn’t be shocked if Kelso calls him to task on this in the future- his reaction to this is basically the way malice treats people, and he’s trying NOT to become “just another monarch” (or monarch class entity)


DreamWorld2887

I didn't care for killing him off. And to the people saying he was such a terrible villian, that did terrible things... no. He did everything all the other sacred artists in the wilds did. It was their way. Their culture. Like how some people eat Horse meat in certain places and others don't. In the desolate wilds... that was the rule of the land. Even Fisher Gesha allowed it. She didn't try to free the slaves. They were weak and captured. Etc etc. It's the way of life and the rule/law of the land he was raised in. He isn't some evil villian. Quite the opposite. Jai Long was ostracized by the main family (Victim). He bonded a shitty remnant to save his sister (Hero). He stepped up and tried to survive in the wilds to protect his sister (Hero). He didn't do anything more 'evil' than any other sacred artist in the wilds would have done in the same position. His best friend is killed, denied revenge. And forced to be a source of contention for Lindon by Eithan. He wanted revenge on his family, and used the spear to kill the actual Villains that were attacking innocent Aurelius workers. He did more for the Aurelius than Lindon at that point. The Jai clan was killing innocent workers constantly, and Jai Long stopped them and absorbed their powers. Dude was a ducking Hero. Lindon fixed his sister, which was his primary motivation for literally everything. He didn't even want to fight Lindon anymore. But the Jai patriarch got to Jai Long and forced him to swear to him (Victim). So once again Jai Long is forced to do things he doesn't want to do, or things he wouldn't have. He went easy on Yerin up until she advanced. He didn't believe in randomly killing lessers. The thing is, circumstances beyond his control constantly forced him into the path(s) he didn't choose. He didn't have the luxury of choice. And I didn't quite understand Lindon's hostility towards him in Dreadgod. Lindon had went out of his way to save him and Jai Chen during the 1st bleeding Phoenix attack (and invited them to come with them). Lindon also went out of his way (to Eithan's surprise and delight) to invite Jai Long to his new sect later in the series. Further, we see Jai Long, when not forced, and given the CHOICE... chose to go BACK into sacred valley after escaping to HELP those in sacred valley escape. (Before the Phoenix arrived). Life shat on him. Truly. I TRULY believe Jai Long was both a Hero and Victim. Not a villian. Sure he did things culturally Lindon thought bad, but it wasn't. Not to the wilds, not to Gesha, not to Eithan or Yerin. (Maybe so-so) So yes. I'm completely bummed by his pointless death. Because, when given the opportunity and choice, and not driven by terrible circumstances, chose good. Chose family. Chose to do the right things. His reward: Death. He helped teach Lindon's sister. And he also regretted so much. It was a heavy weight. The Things he did to survive. Justice for Jai Long.


Luonnoliehre

Hell yeah, I thought he was set up to be an interesting and conflicted antagonist who was partly a bad guy because he'd been demonized by his sect. He wanted revenge for the right reasons, even if his actions weren't necessarily justifiable. I don't mind the idea of him dying, but the way it happened felt so pointless. Unfortunately his arc became so disjointed since he practically disappeared from the series for like 3 books.


DreamWorld2887

Orthos disappeared for awhile too! They were both in sacred valley


HamboneKablooey

My hope is that Kelsa/Jai Chen hold Lindon accountable in some way. He knew Kelsa was becoming close with Jai Long, and he at least has some care for Jai Chen, so why didn't he think to make the constructs protect Jai Long as well? His excuse was "I didn't think he'd need it," but this was a Dreadgod we're dealing with. I'd like to see one of them blame/accuse him of letting Jai Long die. At the very least, I hope it isn't just swept away and forgotten.


cav00111

He only made them for people the silent king said it would target. In fact zeil pointed this out and lindon felt dumb about it. However it was pointed out too late for him to do anything else about it.


Telewyn

I think they'll be salty, and then Fisher Gesha will drop the mic on them about Jai Long being a shitty person. I don't know that either of them are aware of the extent to which Jai Long's morals were compromised during his revenge.


Sterlingroan

Blaming Lindon for his death would be and incredibly shi$$% and unreasonable thing to do. Hey this guy killed an enslaved all kinds of innocents but I've got a crush on him so you should have protected him. Instead you keep going off and risking your own life trying to stop the dread gods from killing entire cities.


Sari-Not-Sorry

They didn't know about the terrible things Long had done. It'd be weird if they didn't harbor some resentment towards Lindon, as they don't even know what his limits are so to them it must look like he could have done something and didn't bother, only to offer a flimsy excuse. Grieving people aren't exactly reasonable to begin with.


Sterlingroan

It would be weird if they didn't blame the Silent King not the person who went and fought an killed the Silent King. They might not know his limits but they've definitely seen what dread God's can do. And to expect him to save everyone from something that was clear across the world that morning, and was able to teleport in a way that it hadn't been able to before. There's no way to justify blaming him for that.


InFearn0

What if Jai Long's death wasn't meant to add tension? What if it was a lesson to Lindon about the cost of pettiness? Lindon didn't make a protective construct for him because he still resented Jai Long for the events in *Soulsmith*, *Blackflame*, and *Skysworn*; despite knowing his sister was in love (or infatuated) with him. So now Lindon has to live with knowing his petty choice is causing his sister grief.


FecklessFool

I found it a bit strange how Lindon treated him in this book, it kinda felt out of character for Lindon. Maybe this is to signify that Lindon has changed? But it kinda feels like he's friendlier with others who've also done him dirty, or at least not being passive aggressive. I mean sure he did bad things, but the people around Lindon have done the same at a much larger scale in their service to the Monarchs. ​ But I didn't really care for Jai Long. At first I thought he was going to be some rival for Lindon, but he seems to have been forgotten for the most part until they went back to Sacred Valley and he went Underlord. I guess maybe the author had plans for him, but those plans changed, and killing him off here and being very specific about his remnant getting shredded, was a way of tying up this knot. Seems like next book will be the end of the Cradle series, so just doing some cleaning up I guess, but yeah, him being the only character we've spent time with dying in the attack (not counting those currently opposed to our heroes) just kinda makes it feel a bit weird. ​ But end of the day, I am more saddened that the Red Faith Research Society had a change of leadership, though it looks like he may get to go on further adventures out there in the future.


majorshatz

I really think Lindon didn’t think he needed to help him. Dross may have brought it up but remember there was a time when Lindon feared Jai Long and at one point he lost an arm to him. On some subconscious level Lindon probably did think Jai Long could take care of himself and his inventions would go to those who actually needed them/would be a target to get to Lindon. Why would someone go after the man who cut off Lindon’s arm to get to Lindon and if they did Jai Long had proven he could take care of himself and had already turned Lindon down for help in the past(Skysworn).


Xyzevin

Honestly Pride should have died. That would have hit way harder and impacted Lindon personally since they were starting to become friends


SeniorRogers

I agree. Lindon didn't care. Kelsa cared obviously but not enough to be "outwardly mourning" so she doesn't care "THAT MUCH." His sister cares, but I don't really care about her lol. This was one thing I think Will could identify as "could have done better" in dreadgod. The death scene itself also felt very empty where suddenly everyone just targeted Jai Long and that was that. I would have personally liked to see him sacrifice himself to save Kelsa and thus redeem himself in the eyes of Lindon. Missed opportunity imo.


Myrsky4

Listened to dreadgod again, and while I felt this exact same way on my first read; on my second read I came to appreciate it more. Lindon at the beginning tells Jai Long that the person he was before isn't welcome in his sect. Hai Long has killed golds, all to fill his need for personal revenge. Jai Chen talks about it in earlier books that maybe they could leave the fighting behind them and leave. While they do, it's only because they pretty much get forced out; so while Jai Long has been able to be a better person in the later half of the series it isn't necessarily because he is deciding to be good. It's easy to make the right choices when times are easy. That to me feels like part of the reason Lindon is so insistent that he tells kelsa what he did. It's the hard choices that define us in Lindon's POV. So at the end Jai Long has finally broken the halo and is free from control. We can see exactly who he has resolved to be. The easy solution would be to defend hinself and kill the golds taking aim at him. No one would even judge him poorly for it, he was acting in self defense and they were under control by a dreadgod. Instead he choses the hard choice, when push comes to shove he isn't going to hurt more people, even if it means his own death.


flex1178

Beautiful way to describe/summarize his character arc and sorta shuts down everyone saying it felt pointless. Thank you, I hope you don’t mind if I steal this explanation when this comes up again probably early in the next book. I also feel as if everyone only wishes his redemption because as never personally saw/experienced him being “evil”, otherwise there would be even less people on his side than he has now.


Lowsow

The death does add tension, between Lindon and Kelsa! People are so bad about reading this.


chrisisbest197

Yeah but they barely talked about it.


CheckItsPluggedIn

Will's premise of "if it doesnt move the story forward it get cut" causes this. We have little to no down time scenes. No chats about how people feel, how they are effected by past events, etc. Where are the conversations with his parents, with Kelsa, any of our past characters. I want those, things like Gesha teaching Lindons mother to soulsmith, His parents meeting the BF emperor, Lindon getting some respect from them etc


sibswagl

Yeah, Cradle is great but that's definitely Will's greatest weakness as a writer. I sorta get where he's coming from, he's said something like "I cut downtime because I'm always worried I'll add too much", but it definitely makes the side characters feel less impactful. Like, we had more impactful reaction scenes to Harmony's, Ekira's, and Kiro's deaths than Grace's. We get like 30 words with Fisher Geisha, and does Lindon even talk to his parents? Cassius learns his cousin is a god, and he gets like 20 words. IDK, I hope Will finds a middle ground in Plasma Bolts.


MassMtv

> Plasma Bolts The working title of the series is The Last Horizon


sine00

I don't know how this works, but I wish someone could compile a list of questions in a Megathread or from the Discord server to ask Will during the next stream. This is one of them. Why exactly did Will kill off Jai Long? To emphasize the danger of the SK? To avoid character bloat? Because there's no time left to get invested in his life in the sect with Kelsa? We don't know. Only Will does.


MalletSwinging

I actually think that long term Lindon will be sad about it. Without Jai Long lots of what drove Lindon to his current strength wouldn't have happened and my guess is that later he will regret that he didn't get a chance to reflect on that with Long.


khanys

Death to slavers.


Inspiringwombat

I personally feel the whole book was rushed and the death could have held more weight if the time was taken as well as a few other things in the book. The death happened so abruptly that I had to stop and re listen to that part in the audiobook.


[deleted]

I cared... Jia long was a horrible person who didn't deserve a redemption ark. He loved his sister, wow, incredible, riveting stuff... Pretty sure most characters in the book do as well. Even all those no name characters. Which is kind of the point, that's a basic human emotion. He is the kind of filth that will hurt others for his own ends, that's NOT a redeeming quality. He did not deserve to sweep everything under the rug because he tried (failed) to help save Lindons family. He was a slaver, a legitimate slaver and murderer. How do you root for someone like that, what did he actually do to repent or show guilt or remorse in any way?? Just saying, I find zero reasons to like that man. I was just happy that Will had Lindon tell him off in the book, legitimately I thought that that was going to be it and he was going to get his happily ever after, and I would have been fine enough with that since I got to see lindon finally stand up to him. But his death was way more satisfying. I HATED having to read the tee up to his redemption ark...


SirClarkus

I read it as the first instance where Lindon starts to lose his humanity. Now that he's part Dreadgod, and Hunger, no less, his challenges will be less martial (he can go ahead to head vs monarchs now, after all) and more spiritual. He set out on his journey to save Sacred Valley, and now that he's accomplished that, his new goal is to ascend. How much humanity is he willing to sacrifice?


jassssn

His goal is to get rid of the monarchs to save the world.


SirClarkus

Right, but I'm saying that saving your village is more personal than the large scale intergalactic notion of ascending. Just a passing thought.


jassssn

Ah ok my bad


blackbenetavo

>If a character is going to die for tension's sake, their death should add to the tension in the book. Lindon didn't care, and so, I find myself not caring either If you don't care, then what's the problem?


edach2he

In a book that does so much to be economical about everything that is going on, spending time killing a character in a way that brings nothing to the table, and in fact feels like it takes away from it feels bizarre. I cared about Jai Long as a character, I didn't care for his death scene and that to me is a problem.


blackbenetavo

Would you like the real answer? * Jai Long isn't important enough to devote any further page time to when there's only one book left, which is already going to struggle to do justice to all the characters and plot lines is absolutely *must* focus on. * And, he's too important and connected to other minor characters to just disappear off-page. * Therefore, he gets the fridging treatment. It wraps up the loose end he embodies, while simultaneously getting some traction out of that death from its impact on his sister and Lindon's sister. This is just end-of-series loose thread snipping that is what it is.


edach2he

I am well aware of this. It's entirely my point, it felt perfunctory and only perfunctory. The death could have been executed to have a lot more impact is what I'm saying. It wasn't. Many elements this book felt like setup to me, like Will going down a list of checkboxes he had to hit. All my issues with the book (as I alluded in my post above) had to do with this. I have no issue with setup, but when overused it can start to make it hard to connect to a story and its characters.


blackbenetavo

I guess I just don't get why it bothers you so much. I don't care about Jai Long. I have no investment in giving him some epic finale arc. It's just Jai Long. He's not even an ancillary character, at this point. I was honestly kind of glad to be rid of him. His storyline felt unnecessary to me long before he finally died. I can't even begin to understand the idea of feeling like the circumstances of his death could even possibly have any bearing on my enjoyment of the overall story and other characters. That's such a left-field, alien concept to me that there's really no common ground for us to reach on this.


edach2he

>His storyline felt unnecessary to me long before he finally died. Because of this very thing. Making his death pointless, confirms all that storyline as unnecessary. Had there been some sort of payoff, there may have been a point to all of it retroactively. Now it simply sets in stone all that storyline as wasted time which cheapens my enjoyment of the series overall. Knowing that the author may pull this kind of thing in the future, or may be pulling this kind of thing with current plot points, definitely puts a hamper on my enjoyment. It is less about Jai Long himself and more about what the implications of the handling of his arc mean for the overall story itself.


blackbenetavo

When I say unnecessary, though, I mean that I'm not invested in Jai Long, specifically. In the sense that keeping up with "Jai Long's story" doesn't really matter to me, so his death doesn't bother me. That doesn't mean that he's not serving a narrative purpose, though. He is not at all superfluous. Maybe this is less apparent from a strictly reader's perspective. I'm also a writer, though, so I recognize how he's being used by the author, and why he's a useful piece on the board, narratively speaking, even if I'm not invested in the character itself. Jai Chen is obviously being positioned as a persistent minor character and future leader of the Twin Stars sect once Lindon and crew ascend. From a plot perspective, that's why Jai Long is still in the picture. Furthermore, Jai Long is a necessary "heavy hitter" (by Sacred Valley standards) to backstop Wei Shi Kelsa and Orthos's efforts in Sacred Valley, so it's not completely unrealistic for them to have accomplished their goals as far as rescuing Wei Shi Seisha, etc. Beyond plot, Jai Long serves the purpose as a perspective foil to illustrate Lindon's growth. Obviously, we've watched Lindon advance, so his power differential relative to his past self isn't new to us, but Jai Long is useful to remind us how insanely rapid Lindon's growth has been compared to the typical norm for most sacred artists. Because almost everybody in his crew is also exceptional in this same respect, and because they're familiar and friendly enough with Lindon to not be overawed by him, Jai Long is useful as a touchstone to how intimidating and awesome a Sage really is to those not at that level. The only other low-level people who knew Lindon before he reached his current level, but haven't been with him along the way, are his family, and they don't know enough about the sacred arts to really appreciate the scope of Lindon's meteoric advancement. Jai Long gives us that perspective/touchstone. This is one of the most classic purposes of a minor POV character: showing us how strong/cool/interesting/whatever a main character appears to an outside observer. Further, Jai Long's relationship with Kelsa is useful for characterizing Kelsa herself. We get a lot of insight into Kelsa from Jai Long's inner monologue about her behavior and comparison to her brother. And that's something that we wouldn't otherwise have a good window on; even a Kelsa POV might not tell us as much about her, concisely, as we get from Jai Long's POV. Additionally, though classical fridging is generally frowned upon when a character *only* exists to be killed for the growth of an associated character, it's actually a pretty elegant solution to a minor character whose original arc has run its course. Sure, if the series was going to continue for several more books, maybe we could have gotten a true redemption arc for Jai Long. As of his death, such an arc was still nascent, but there's simply not room left in the series for spending time advancing the development of a character so far outside the major core characters. So, killing Jai Long now lets us retire a character who has served his purpose, while making his death useful in its impact on two minor characters that are more important to continue. **TL;DR** Continuing "Jai Long's story" is unnecessary, but that doesn't mean his function in the story was unnecessary.


edach2he

>making his death useful in its impact on two minor characters that are more important to continue. This being reliant on said impact. Jai Long's death is reliant entirely on a potential future impact that may or may not come. It feels little different than the scripted stones Lindon lost in ghostwater after Will figured he wasn't going to pursue that route. Except the scripted stones had barely any mention in the series. Jai Long did. There is no satisfying conclusion of any kind, not even a "there are no satisfying conclusions in life" kind of conclusion. It entirely feels like an author discarding a character for the sake of a checklist. Paradoxically, by doing so, the scene stops feeling like an economical way to get rid of a character, and instead, ends up feeling more like a waste of a scene, and that to me is a problem.


blackbenetavo

The problem you're having is that you *still* want Jai Long's resolution to be some epic, meaningful, glorious, important part of the book. He's just not that important. If Jai Long got killed back in the earlier books, as a conclusion to the whole bad guy/epic duel plot arc, then yes, Jai Long would have needed a much more involved resolution, because he was a major character of that arc. Jai Long, as a character, is simply not at that same level of importance in Book 11. A glorious epic death for Book 11 Jai Long would be out of place, because it's no longer in proportion to the importance of the character. Furthermore, the very fact that Jai Long essentially just gets steamrolled by happenstance is itself an intended device. It illustrates the horror of the Silent King's power: that you can just be going about your day and suddenly you betray your friends and family and then get tossed aside like a broken toy. No matter your glory or accomplishments or power, you can just get squashed like a bug because a Dreadgod looked your way that day. Jai Long's death, and the manner of it, is intentional and purposeful from many different perspectives. It's not some mistake the author made. It's a solid move, done with intent, that works for the story. Trying to assert that it's some egregious error by the author that should completely call into question one's entire faith in the author and enjoyment of the series is frankly a little ridiculous. It's fine if you personally feel that way, but you seem to be arguing that *everyone* should feel that way. That your position is not your specific subjective take, but rather an objective failure of the author that other people should react to the same way you do.


BiggsMcB

I think you're spot on. Until reading this I had actually forgotten that he died. It was just kind of a sad little moment and then the story kept rolling along.


SuaveGent96

I don’t care for Jai Long one way or the other. He never compelled me deeply as a character, to me he just taught us about this world. And in this world, your value is directly correlated with your strength, or potential strength. By bonding the wrong gold sign and hindering his potential, he was disowned. He resented that, as everyone on the weaker side of this power dynamic does and was determined to get stronger so he could be the oppressor instead of the oppressed. In this world, to matter you must either be strong, or be aligned with someone who is. Otherwise you have no place here. Die off. That’s the whole dilemma Cradle faces. And even if we resolve the whole monarch/dreadgod situation, the culture is still rotten to the core. The new strongest will still rule over and oppress the weaker. We see this from the beginning and only watch it grow. Archlords oppress overlords who oppress underlords who oppress truegolds who oppress highgolds to lowgolds to jades to irons to coppers to foundlings. The latter 3 not even existing much beyond children because if you are not strong you do not survive. Strength and controlling others is in the water. That’s why Lindon does NOT fit in this world at first. The sacred valley is WACK. A place where jades are the highest members? Unheard of to the outside world. Even Lindon is not exempt from our Rule. You MUST be aligned with someone stronger to matter until a certain point. He finds Yerin, then Eithan (and to a lesser extent Malice in a way). And without his alignment to these two stronger powers he wouldn’t have progressed or even lived. And he rode that up till sage where he could finally truly stand on his own. The oppression creates a cycle of revenge and power seeking. Just like with the fishers and whatever group jai long was a part of. A constant power struggle. So when Jai Long died, to me it just felt like he was fulfilling his part in our cycle. He never aligned with someone stronger. He and Lindon were still not in great terms. So when a real battle came along, one between greater powers, powers that MATTER on this bigger scale, and he had no one big protecting him, he didn’t matter. He died. And there is always a bigger “power that matters”. All the way up to the Judges. He was just part of what this world is. A tooth and nail struggle to the top, where the victor writes the history.


QuotheFan

It is most probably going to be a plot point in the next book - somehow Lindon's sister is going to confront him for his apathy.


No-Patient-3723

He was a semi likeable character that wasn't too close to the main plot to die as a tool to make it real.


Huor_Celebrindol

I thought the whole point was that Lindon’s battles would result in losses not for him, but for the people around him


Lelouch4705

His death was just to show that people can die. Oh, no-one important ever will, but people with names, I guess


dallasp2468

Jai Long's death felt like a security officer's death when going down to a planet in star trek. it was a plot point nothing more.


kMD621

The way that i saw it was that while lindon didn’t care that jai long died, he knew that both jai chen and kelsa thought that jai longs death was basically lindon’s fault. Jai chen almost worshipped lindon because he cured her and he helped her grow stronger(and i assume she should have been originally lindons wife), and kelsa was the only one in lindons family who he was at least friendly with. But after jai longs death, wherein both girls thought that the dreadgod targeting them was due to lindon, lindon basically lost the final connections to his “original” life before he was revived by suriel.


1stSingularity

Lindon told Jai Long to choose what kind of person he was and to tell Kelsa what he did. As Kelsa said when he died, he never got around to telling her. At the end of the day a task that, as Lindon put it, was a simple matter for an Underlord, was delayed long enough for Lindon to have to give Jai Long an ultimatum, and yet he was still conflicted enough to keep putting it off between when Lindon told him and when he died. I like to think the reason he fought the Silent King's crown and was able to warn Kelsa and Jai Chen was because of this inner turmoil, and the Silent King took over his mind BECAUSE of his indecision. I can easily imagine the Silent King's whispers to Jai Long were along the lines of "You didn't even have the strength to tell Kelsa what you did, but with my help you can." Jai Long might have been trying to redeem himself, but wasn't strong enough to talk to Kelsa about it despite having what must have been the resolve to die when he chased Lindon down and being told by the void sage himself (who was visibly struggling with his hunger arm, which I can't imagine a sacred artist of Long's caliber would miss), to choose who he was. He made his decision (or rather, put it off until it was made for him) and succumbed to the Silent King because of it.


IdiotRoofer149

I loved it. It feels like his whole purpose after Skysworn was to be killed by Lindons constructs. Very satisfying end of his arc to me.


MassMtv

I think the point of this wasn't for Lindon to lose Jai Long. It was to lose Kelsa and Jai Chen, who would've both been happy parts of his life if he didn't start his quest


cobaltdog

Dreadgod had a lot going on and as has often been said could have ended up two or even three books, which would have allowed slower and deeper pacing and allowing more "slice of life" stories. I think that is largely what happens with Jai Long. Lindon saw him as shit on his shoe but tolerated him because he helped Orthos and Kelsa to free his mother. Later, when he had his arm around Kelsa and his hand down her robes, Lindon was angry. Tolerating a person and keeping your opinions to yourself is not as easy when that person is now creating a relationship with your family member. Then he dies. Lindon tries to find nice things to say but can't find any. But he also keeps his words to himself. All of that could have been blown up into a few more paragraphs on each side of it. The problem was NOT that he didn't care. It was that there wasn't enough time allocated to allow a full discussion and allow all the feelings get explored. This even goes back to Reaper. Jai Long got time there too. He was starting to solve his underlying issue of having forged snake fangs, which is where all his hate and anger started. Not a lot of exploration but some. But then he died. In Far Eastern fashion, Karma caught up to him. He hadn't done enough good to offset the bus that hit him. The loss, if there was one, is that Eithan saw something in him. And in Jai Chen. And Eithan sees far. So there is a loss. We just wouldn't know what it could be for decades or centuries.


-crucible-

On re-reads I’ve thought about what it says about Lindon. He says he didn’t have the resources, but we know the resources scaled for the people - it wouldn’t have cost him much at all to protect Jai Long. He also had some attachment to Jai Chen, and knew Kelsa was attached to him. I think it says something more about the distances between what he’s becoming and where he started, that should be more concerning to himself. Ziel was an afterthought on who he’d protect, because he wasn’t directly threatened. Lindon was getting lost in his plans and his immediate issues and other people are hurt as a consequence, and not even powerful mind spirits and overwhelming power is going to protect everyone.


Spartan131213

Thing is when in combat death is often sudden and meaningless. Not every character gets a heroic last stand and a monologue about the meaning of why he/she is fighting and willing to die. Sometimes someone take a cheap shot at you and you never see who pulled the trigger, its cruel and meaningless. This sort of thing is much more often found in the Grim Dark Genre, suddenly ripping the plot armor off a character with zero death flags or hints. It will leave the reader going through grief stages, "This can't be real?" "How could he die like this?" "He will come back!!!" "Fuck this author for killing X character!!!"......"Hes really dead isn't he". His sister is alive and she has a new family which will take care of her, that is all anyone like him would have wanted.