He was a marvelous opponent. She couldn’t get to him. She couldn’t hit him where she meant to, or as hard as she wanted. He was so quick to block or to twist, so quick to react. She couldn’t knock him from his feet, she couldn’t trap him when their fight had devolved into a wrestling match on the floor.

So, this raises an interesting question.  Is Katsa purely offense-driven?

Nothing about this here explains why Po would be able to hit her when every other opponent, even multiple opponents, can’t ever land a single punch.  His magic is entirely defensive, so it doesn’t explain why he can hit her.  Is the answer just that Katsa has always been able to put people down before they have the chance, so she never learned good defense?  She’s never had to block a punch, so she doesn’t know how?

These questions and more will never be answered.  Because Fiji you.

Apparently Katsa’s grace involves her taking less damage from injuries, because in spite of all the fighting and hits she takes, she doesn’t end up as sore/hurt as Po.

while I limp away and spend the day icing my bruises.“

This is the second time you’ve mentioned putting ice on bruises.  Do you have someone Graced in ice-making?  Because that shit ain’t something you fling around in the summer as if you have a limitless supply of it.

He didn’t wear his rings while they fought. He’d come without them the first day. When she’d protested that it was an unnecessary precaution, his face had assumed a mask of innocence.

“I promised Giddon, didn’t I?”

Book, do you not realize that taking jewelry off during sparing is standard practice?  Like, why would he even need an excuse for this in the first place?  He should be used to it.  It hasn’t been something Katsa has to learn because she hates accessories anyway, but Po should know it.  Rings can cut up faces, yes, and that isn’t a good thing regardless of whether or not Katsa is tough enough to take it, but also they can get caught in hair, rip clothing, or cause other problems.  They can hurt Po’s fingers if he punches wrong, or his hands could swell up (as hands are wont to do when you put them through hard work) and cut off circulation to his fingers.

Why is Po making jokes about a misogynist line – one which he started I’m not going to forget that – instead of just pointing out the obvious and reasonable?

They didn’t wear their boots, either, not after Katsa accidentally clipped him on the forehead.

Seriously, how can two accomplished fighters, magic or not, constantly fail to understand the basics of safety while sparing?  Even if they don’t need it themselves, they both fight against nonmagic people all the time.

Oll [watched], whenever he could, for the fights gave him so much pleasure.

…that’s just so creepy when you remember that he’s the one who taught her how to torture people.

Time passes, Katsa and Po get closer, and much smalltalk is made.

Perhaps it was easier, then, to be a fighter if one was a boy or in a kingdom that revered hand fighting; or perhaps Po’s Grace had announced itself less drastically than Katsa’s had.

You know what the most annoying part of this is?  Women are so ignored in this book that we don’t know if being a male magic fighter is easier than a female magic fighter.  We get no word on even the idea of other female fighters, either to confirm this theory to say that Katsa is the first.  Are there other girls graced with physical magics?  If so, what happens to them?  It’s fucking magic, so it’s not like the old bullshit about girls being weaker would even apply.  Do they hide it?  Katsa couldn’t help it in her case, do other female fighters come into it slow enough that they can pretend it’s something else, or pretend that they just haven’t figured it out yet?  Are there honestly no others?  Why not?  It’s fucking magic, after all.

But this book doesn’t care.  This book takes it as granted that girls don’t fight, even in a world where fighting is magic.  It takes it so for granted that the mere thought of mentioning even the lack of other female fighters doesn’t occur.  Instead, women just…aren’t there.

“My father’s city sits at the top of this enormous, tall rock, tall as a mountain, that rises straight up from the plains below.

Why.

I’ll grant you that’s a pretty image, and you can pad the book out for a whole page by talking about how hard it is to get up there, but you haven’t actually told me anything.  WHY did you build a city up there?  For security?  You’re not at war with anyone, but have you been in the past?  Hard to tell, since this book apparently exists in a time vacuum.  Perhaps for the sake of conserving faming land?  You are an island with no trade agreements.  Or did you do it just for shits and giggles?

Random details do not a world make.  If that’s all you’re flinging at me, then shut up and go home.  I could scroll tumblr for an hour and get the same effect.  Tell me why, because the reasons are what make the culture.

“But why would they build a city in such a place?”

Po shrugged. “I suppose because it’s beautiful.”

Either Po is really bad at history, or you actually went the “shits and giggles” rout. 

But she’d never seen the sea. She couldn’t imagine that much water.

Not that there’s anything wrong with this, but just once, for a change of pace, I’d like to see a character who says “yup, that’s a lot of water” and walks away.

“You can see two of my brothers’ castles from the city,” Po said. “In the foothills of the mountains. The other castles are beyond the mountains, or too far to see.”

“How many castles are there?”

“Seven,” Po said, “just as there are seven sons.”

You know, I was kind of joking when I said the book operates in a time vacuum, but it actually makes a lot of sense.  The only way a lot of this can even operate is if it sprang into being just in time for this book, and there’s absolutely no history.  Otherwise, what, did you just build a new castle for each kid?  If you have more kids than castles, do you kick nobles out of theirs in order to give them to your kids?  What about when they grow up?  Are there oodles of castles on this island, with the families of Po’s great-great-grandfather’s brothers?  Or do only the princes get the castles, and once they die their families have to clear out for the next batch of princes?

See how this only works if you completely ignore both past and future?

She’d never heard of a man, not even her cousin, who didn’t want as large a holding as he could have. Giddon was always comparing his estate to that of his neighbors; and when Raffin listed his complaints about Thigpen, he never neglected to mention a certain disagreement over the precise location of the Middluns’ eastern border. She’d thought all men were like that. She’d thought she wasn’t like that because she wasn’t a man.

Yes, truly you are so fucking special, Katsa.  No one else in the world has ever looked at the job of king and said “fuck that shit.”

Not that it ever occurred to you, but given the time period, maybe the reason they want to secure their power is because they aren’t untouchable punching machines.  More land means more growing ability means more food means being able to feed your people and dealing with riots or going into debt.  Steady borders means your neighbor doesn’t start encroaching/start a war, and you’ve already told us that skirmishes are common in this land, so that’s actually a very real concern.  You have the luxury of fucking off because 1) you’re fucking magic and 2) you’re a fucking free agent with no dependents.

But sure, go on, keep pretending like you’re some special fucking snowflake.

“My castle doesn’t have a city,” he said. “It’s not far from a town, but the town governs itself. It doesn’t have a court, either. Really it’s just a great house that’ll be my home for the times when I’m not traveling.”

Then it’s not a fucking castle.

Words.  They mean things.

And also, Po is being pretty fucking selfish, too.  Even if it’s not a castle, it’s a big house, which means it requires upkeep and maintenance and servants and MONEY, but it doesn’t have any lands to support it, so that’s tax dollars at work.  All so that Po can have a pretty house THAT HE’S NOT EVEN GOING TO LIVE IN MOST OF THE TIME.  That’s money and resources sunk into a house that’s just standing there, waiting, so that he can have something pretty when he deigns to come home.

Because only the nobility are real people in this book, everyone else is given the same amount of consideration as the dinosaur appliances from Flinstones.  You know they’re able to think and feel, but you don’t have to be concerned, because in the end they’re still just a vacuum cleaner and can be treated like one.