This review was originally written and posted in April of 2014.

In these dungeons the darkness was complete, but Katsa had a map in her mind.

…is it a map that also tells you were uneven floors are?  Do you have a step count all marked out so that you don’t smash into walls?  What about if there’s any stuff down there, and you trip over that?

This is the first line in the whole book and already I’m thinking “jeeze, it’s not like we’d be less impressed if she had a bit of moonlight.”

Well, anyway, this is Katsa.  She’s sneaking around a dungeon in the dark.  There’s two more guys going to come in behind her, but she’s the advance scout, there to take out the guards.

anywhere from two to ten guards should be standing watch

…that’s a really fucking big difference, and you approach two guards a lot differently than you approach ten.  So what gives, is her information just spotty?  Is it guessing?  Is this normal, or is this even so secretive and/or urgent that they had to go in without proper intel?

You know, this opening scene has a badass feel to it, but it’s not very informative.

All her guards are drunk, too.  She does finally say she’s in a hurry, and here there’s (maybe) ten guards on one door, so it’s important…but not important enough to stay sober?  Maybe?  Or are these just shitty guards?

Katsa drops all the shitty guards with knocks to the head, then puts pills in their mouths for keep them unconscious.  Points for realizing that knocked heads don’t keep you out long, but then points taken away for not realizing that getting hit that hard is potentially deadly.

Well, the other two people show up, and they are named Oll and Giddon.  They’re all there to rescue an old man that was in the cell the guards were…guarding.  Leaving the old man to their care, Katsa goes on to run around and take out all of the other guards.

All of them.

Every single last one.

And she does it effortlessly.

…Remember when I said that I define a Mary Sue as “a character with a trait that’s just there for the sake of impressing me”?

This feels like the book is trying too hard to impress me. 

We find out that Katsa is a Graceling, and apparently this is something really obvious and has to do with how awesome her fighting skills are.  Part of their plan is that all the downed guards will tell everyone she was a Graceling boy, instead of a girl, and that she was acting alone.

They won’t suspect her because…she’s…well known for being a magic Graceling fighter?

???

1. Some people have magic that makes them fight uber awesomely.
2. Everyone knows I have this magic.
3. ???
4. No one would ever suspect me!

She also says she’s supposed to be on the road headed in a different direction, which is a better cover story than being a famous fighter who no one would suspect because…reasons.

Katsa flashes back on the planning session for this mission, where she staunchly refused to kill any of the guards even though everyone else thought that would be faster.  Normally I hate this trope, if just because…I don’t know, a lot of times it feels like it’s only there because “oh, it’s for kids” when really just kill the fucking Joker already, but in this case it makes sense.  Katsa is basically a hitwoman for her uncle unwillingly, so she doesn’t want to deal out any more death than she’s forced to, and also these guys are just guards anyway.

But would it kill (har har) anyone to at least admit that headshots are not a 100% guarantee of non-fatalness?

Then Katsa thinks back on the first time she ever killed someone.  A distant cousin came by to visit, and he tried to molest her so she lashed out and smashed his face in.  That’s how she found out her magic was with fighting.

But a girl Graced with killing? This one was not safe.

Wait.

But.

Literally all she did was hit one person one time.  Why do you automatically assume her magic is “killing”?  Why isn’t her magic “hitting people in the nose”?

I’m really confused.  This flashback carries on with everyone being scared of her now, all except her other cousin the Prince (her uncle is the king), and Prince Raffin is the only person who bothers to ask her why she did it.  Everyone else is like “oh, she killed him because he complimented her eyes” and just what the fucking fuck is this shit?

Look, even if you’re dumb enough to jump straight to the assumption that her magic is actually killing instead of hitting, people should be asking her why she did it.  Even if it’s just to make sure, so that they’re not the ones getting killed next.  If a magically-deadly child really does kill people for talking about her eyes, then you’d want to know that so you never talk about her eyes. Or if she does it because of the complimenting part, you’d want to know that so you never compliment her.  Or if it’s for some other reason LIKE MAYBE HE’S A LECHEROUS MOLSTER you’d want to know that too.  Then you just don’t molest the eight year old and she won’t kill you, easy peasy.

This.  This right here is what I mean when I talk about Mary Sues.  Everything about this eschews logic and is instead designed, purely and obviously, to elicit a specific response from me.  It’s twisting the rules of human nature in order to manipulate me into feeling sorry for Katsa.  Her sympathetic backstory is deemed so important that every other consideration gets thrown under the bus for it.

“I don’t know how to control it.”

Raffin considered this. “You could ask Oll. The king’s spies know how to hurt without killing. It’s how they get information.”

Hey, book, you misspelled ‘torture.’

So she goes to the palace torturer to learn how to torture people and torture torture torture torture.

Calling it other things doesn’t change what you’re doing, book.  She even ‘practices’ on prisoners.

Although this does bring up my previous point again.  She right away learns how to torture people without killing them, so why does everyone assume she has a ‘killing’ magic?  One would assume if it was a killing magic, than she would magically kill people regardless of her fighting skills.  Here, clearly, she has a fighting magic.

End flashback.  Katsa thinks she’s done with guards, but one of them pops up out of nowhere to attack her some more.

He spoke. “I’ve heard of a lady with this particular Grace.”

Yeah, your ‘disguise’ is stupid.

Katsa and this new guy banter for a bit, trying to get each other to give up information.  New guy is from the same country (Lienid) as the old guy in the cell.  Katsa wonders if she should kill him, since he knows her identity. 

But he was unlike any thug she’d ever encountered. He didn’t feel brutish or stupid or threatening.

…you…don’t get out much, do you?

It’s…you train with a torturer who apparently runs around in the guise of a friendly old dude named Oll.  You spend time with guards and soldiers as training partners.  How do you not know that smart people can hurt you?

Well, I mean, not you, oh magically-gifted-fighter, but still.

The new guy randomly decides to end the banter and say he trusts her (trusts her to do…what?) and so she knocks him out without killing and runs off to meet her buddies and their rescue-ee.

Alright, so, all in all…I guess not a bad chapter.  I mean, I can already tell not much thought was put into this besides “oh, woe is Katsa, she’s the bestest ever but everyone hates her,” but at least it’s got some action.  I always do like it when books start in medias res.  And given that sort of opening, it’s fine that we don’t have much information yet.  That should come in the next couple of chapters.