Thread:Backyard Windchimes/@comment-38480398-20191024010230/@comment-38498656-20191024012752

Omg, this was brilliant

I agree, I didn't mind Sophie, maybe even liked her, in the first and maybe second books. I could understand how she kept getting beaten by an invisible threat, and she was in a completely new world with the emotional baggage of her family. And in Exile, ok, she's trying to fix Alden, that's really awesome of her, to realize and accept that she was made to do things and choosing to do them instead of rejecting the, because they're not "her".

But then she kept getting power after power, and I started to get a little annoyed. I don't like overpowered characters as a rule, ESPECIALLY main characters. And one of the main reasons that people are okay with Sophie having so many powers, at least that I've talked to, is that she doesn't really want them. Well that's kinda what bugs me. She shouldn't be power hungry or anything, but at least want the special abilities that you've been given, and then actually MAKE PROGRESS!!! She is barely ahead of where she was in the early books, but now she knows her enemies, and yet her friends still do most of the work. She's supposed to be the Moonlark, but the thing that really struck me was how Tam would rather go to the Neverseen than leave his sister's safety in Sophie's hands. She isn't useless, but honestly, it feels like if she wasn't the Moonlark, she should be a minor character.

Also, can we talk about the end of flashback please? So like I said, Tam goes to the Neverseen, because he refuses to endanger his sister, despite Sophie's promises to protect her. She hears this, and listens to Tam's reluctance to join the Black Swan in the first place, and it goes completely over her head. Not only that, but right after, she goes to get her freaking matchmaking scroll. Um, EXCUSE ME?? One of the people YOU dragged into this was just coerced into joining the Neverseen, AGAIN, his twin sister is grieving, and you don't even check if she's okay. No. You go to the matchmakers, because what could possibly be more important than your boy drama when your friends' lives and the world is at stake? She really has no sense of priorities. Surely someone as smart as Sophie, who "always has a plan", knows that getting your list isn't going to magically make the Neverseen go poof. She needs to pick her head up, realize she's at war and that her distraction is costing her friends their freedom and happiness, and start acting like the leader everyone thinks she is. And like you pointed out beautifully, be upset! You are allowed to feel emotions, Sophie! But she lets them swallow her, and even when they don't, she just sits there and waits for someone else to come up with the plan and do the work. For all her powers, Sophie is still as fragile and non-threatening as the twelve year old girl from the Forbidden Cities.

I'm tired of her boy drama taking over everything, so much so that Marella, who just officially joined the group, had to tell her not to get all angsty about it. I'm waiting for her distraction to cost someone their life, and then she still won't learn. She'll just rely on Fitz and Keefe even more. She really needs to grow up, before Tam realizes that the Black Swan will never win with Sophie like this and joins the Neverseen, or before Dex or Biana gets fatally injured because her eyes were on Fitz or Keefe's Papercut.