This whole trilogy has been great, and I enjoyed the crescendo to this finale. There’s a lot of continued character growth for everyone, including the liveships. There are reveals about the liveships and about Kennit in particular that shed new light on all that came before. I appreciate the personality and decidedly different priorities that Tintaglia has. There are a lot of complex relationships and POVs at play, and I appreciate how Hobb lets them be complex.

I enjoyed Kennit as a character a lot, so I was saddened by the turn he took in the end. I wouldn’t say it’s inconsistent with the rest of his characterization, but it’s not what I hoped for him.

There’s rape in this book like there was in the second book. I could really do without it, and I usually avoid books that include it, but I do think Hobb handled it well in terms of the aftermath. Given that she wrote this pre #MeToo, it’s surprisingly nuanced. Characters have to decide what to believe and deal with the fact that a person can do good things and be rapist.

A couple things kind of nag at me:

1. What’s the deal with the wizardwood charm? It doesn’t have a large enough presence to warrant being there to me. It occasionally confronts Kennit about his actions, but I don’t know. It feels random!
2. Serilla ended up feeling like an odd POV to include. I thought after book 2 she’d have a larger role in book 3, but she doesn’t. It’s odd to include her as a POV character at all when it doesn’t seem necessary.

I don’t know if we return to these characters later in the the series, but I’m happy with where they conclude here!