 What even is The Realm of the Elderlings? Who is this series about? So I'm glad you asked. You'll be made to feel quite uncomfortable. The books are long and they just kind of keep getting longer. We magic our way out of that. ["The Realm of the Elderlings"] Should you read The Realm of the Elderlings by Robin Hobb? What even is The Realm of the Elderlings by Robin Hobb? So I'm glad you asked. The Realm of the Elderlings is a series of series that all take place in a universe known as The Realm of the Elderlings. We have The Farsier Trilogy, The Liveship Traders Trilogy, The Tonyman Trilogy, The Rainwild Chronicles, and The Fits and the Fool Trilogy. There's also a novella called The Princess and the Piebald Prince that you need to read in the middle there somewhere. Where do all these books take place? Well, as I said, they take place in The Realm of the Elderlings. But The Realm of the Elderlings is a very traditional fantasy world. Kings, castles, swords, this sort of thing. It's a very expansive world. The Farsier Trilogy and The Liveship Traders Trilogy kind of set up the two different parts of the map that the series of series will be showing you and will be taking place in. And they are two very different parts of the map that they do have crossover and they are interconnected but they take place again quite far away from each other and they seem like quite different places while still being in the same world and therefore subject to the same rules in terms of magic and other things that are possible in this universe. But so it does feel quite big and distant and diverse. There's a lot of history and lore that spans all of these books and you learn more and more and more as you unpick and unravel the mysteries of the history and the lore of this world. Who is this series about? There is a huge cast of characters, frankly. The Farsier books and books that take place in that part of the map are predominantly single POV books from the perspective of a character named Fitzchivalry Farsier. But nevertheless Fitz encounters and interacts with a huge number of characters. So even when it's just him and his story, he's the only POV, even so you have a lot of characters to keep track of. And then when you get to the live ship traders in that part of the map, there it's multiple POVs and each of those POVs is meeting and encountering and interacting with a great number of characters. So there's even more characters to keep track of when you hit that part of the map. There are also a lot of non-human characters. So in this universe, there is a form of magic called the wit and the wit enables certain individuals to be able to communicate with and bond with animals in a way that goes beyond like what you or I could do. So they're able to communicate with animals, which means those animals then are able to participate in the story more significantly. That is to say they have thoughts and opinions and even dialogue, even if they don't physically speak. So the animals aren't just like fun companions to have around. Like they become characters in the story. The live ship traders trilogy is true to its name. It is about live ships that is ships that have thoughts and opinions and feelings. They are alive. And then lastly, dragons exist in this universe. And unlike in series like a song of ice and fire, the dragons in this universe think and speak. So that we'd run through a list of some pros and some cons to help you figure out if this is a series for you. The first on my list of pros is the characters. If you are a character driven reader, this is the series for you. There is a huge focus on characters, their arcs, their emotional journeys, their traumas, their desires, their foibles, their darkness and light. There are many layers of emotion and there are really dynamic complex relationships between the characters that defy labels or assumptions. There's also a pretty huge variety of character types. So in the far seer books, obviously we have Fitz as our main point of view. So we see everyone through Fitz's eyes. But nonetheless, the people that he's encountering, again, there's a huge diversity in the types of personalities he's encountering. And then in the live ship traders, we have multiple perspectives and each of those perspectives is very unique, very different type of personality. So it's a little bit more samey with Fitz since again, he's your one POV. But in general, the book series doesn't just kind of have one kind of character because the character work is brilliant in the series. So it feels like a diverse cast of really distinct personalities and a huge variety of types of personalities which makes it very rich and complex. The good guys do bad things. The bad guys do things that you find troublingly sympathetic. You'll be made to feel quite uncomfortable with how much you're able to relate to the villainous characters and also by how much you'll despise some of the choices made by the good guys. Basically you'll be led to question every assumption that you have made or could make about a character or a relationship. My next pro is The Lore. If you like a book that feels like it has deep lore, then I think you'll enjoy the realm of the Elderlings. There's a very complex history to this world and the magic and all that gets very kind of slowly revealed over the course of all of these series. It is intricate, it is multifaceted, it is layered, it is complex and it has a lot of troubling implications. So magic is not an easy thing in this universe and the events of the books are constantly being recontextualized by what you learn in subsequent books. So as you begin to learn more about the history, about the magic, about the lore, about the politics, about everything, the more you learn, the more when you reflect on what happened in previous books, the more the tone of those events, the tone of those exchanges, the meanings of what occurred, the reasons for certain things become sometimes clearer but also sometimes just more complicated when you realize how much more perhaps baggage there is to what has been going on or what you previously saw occur. So we just keep built, it's already begins as a pretty complex world and we just add more and more complexity to it as we go, which constantly makes you reevaluate and reassess what you think you know and how you think you feel about what you saw happen. And my last pro is the politics. So obviously like magic is kind of interlinked with this so I've already alluded to it a bit but it's not just in terms of like individual personal character journeys and character relationships individually with each other and their individual relationships with magic and history. That's obviously layered, complex, messy. But the politics of this world is also really layered, complex and messy. So it's not just individual people's problems. There's a huge exploration of widespread institutional prejudice of cultural prejudices, of cultural practices, of culture clashes, of just the politics of economy and just resources dictating who is your ally and who is your enemy. There are no easy answers in this series once again. Everything is extremely complicated and interconnected and the situations really have no black and white. It's all extremely gray. Now some cons. Some of these are cons that are cons for me and some are just things that could be cons for someone. So first is the length. The length partly is a problem for me but mostly not for the most part I would say these books do justify their length but some things hinge on that. I don't really mind wallowing with characters and I kind of prefer to kind of like marinate in a character's emotional situation and what's going on with them internally but a very long book that has a lot of that going on and it could feel like a slog to some people. The books are long and they just kind of keep getting longer and it's a lot of introspection. My next con, which somewhat I guess I would say is a con for me, it's more just a necessary evil I guess in my opinion is suffering and animal cruelty. So I lumped them together because like the humans also suffer a great deal. It's not just animals. Hobb likes to make her characters suffer and it does sometimes verge a little bit on torture porn. I wouldn't say it fully goes there but it's a lot sometimes with how much and how repetitive that can be with how much the characters are forced to endure. There's quite a lot of animal cruelty and again because of the wit magic in the series then not only is it painful to see animals just being hurt because that's awful to have happen because of the more intimate connection with the animals through some of the character's connections with them then it is even more harrowing to read about because of how much more intimately acquainted you are with these animals as characters not just as like living creatures. This next con is obviously not for me but it is again heavily character focused. So if you're not a character driven reader if you're more of a plot driven reader these books could be a real slog for you because it is extremely character driven and character focused. Kind of a con connected to that is Belman frustrating characters or character decisions. So there are times in these books where the characters do things that are really frustratingly dumb just like terrible decisions. So it can be very frustrating and your ability to believe that a character would actually choose to do this or be dumb enough to believe this or whatever it is your mileage may vary in terms of how much you were willing to go with that. For the most part I was like, this is frustrating but I buy it, I buy it that this character would really do that or really think that or be that dumb. Occasionally I was like, oh, that's just too dumb. But if you would find that frustrating and you have a very small tolerance for characters behaving kind of stupidly dumb sometimes naively I guess I would say then I think you would find these extremely frustrating reads. And my last con is that the magic is a bit nebulous. So if you really need a hard magic system with hard rules that really like stick with those rules and make those rules clear you will probably find the series frustrating. I think for a soft magic system for the most part it's handled really well and the advantages of a soft magic system are seen like why can be really great to have a soft magic system what opportunities that presents in a narrative in a really excellent way. But there are times when the magic is used to kind of like inexplicably solve problems or create problems it wasn't clear before that the magic could or should or would do that. So the kind of undefined nebulous nature of the magic is used to kind of like serve the plot at times that feels it feels like the magic kind of like bent to serve the plot at times which it can be frustrating and it can feel a little bit deosex machina. But again, for the most part I think it's just pretty disciplined with how she uses the magic and it's not like overly relied upon. There are times when it's like we magic our way out of that. For the most part I wish we would magic our way out of some things because these characters So in conclusion, you'll enjoy the realm of the elderlings if you are into lengthy, complex and emotional reading experiences if you don't mind just kind of spending time with characters, spending time in a world just spending time unpacking the emotions of a situation if you like to be emotionally challenged by what you're reading if you don't mind slow burn books and stories that kind of take a while to get to where they're going and if you can tolerate pretty dark things both in terms of physical violence and emotional trauma but I would say steer clear if you are definitely more into plot than characters if you don't have patience for long sometimes meandering stories if you cannot tolerate reading about animal cruelty or trauma if you really need a hard magic system and have no patience or tolerance for soft magic systems and if you don't enjoy politically and emotionally complex narratives then yeah, I would say don't read the realm of the elderlings but I personally strongly endorse these books if your taste is similar to mine then I would say go for it but let me know your thoughts in the comments down below have you read the realm of the elderlings? Do you plan to read the realm of the elderlings? Have you started? Have you quit? Are you halfway? Whatever you wanna let me know I post videos on Saturdays other random times as well but only Saturdays so like and subscribe, join my Patreon if you feel so inclined and I'll see you when I see you. Bye.