is your heart a sponge or a fist?

 so...i finished tbg. and i did indeed not like it. the real question is how to i even begin to parse this book / this series...? for now i will write bulleted list of my qualms in no particular order 

• did anyone else notice rfk occasionally forgetting that rin had an amputated right hand LMFAO
• i still hate rfk's characterization/use of venka. her only character trait is essentially that she was raped, and almost all her Big Character Moments still revolve around that in some way or another. and then when rfk cant milk that anymore, venka is once again shipped offscreen until her and rin can engage in some girlhate again. i know its not necessarily confirmed by the canon but having the last remaining female character be the one that betrays rin is soooo not lost on me LOL
• KITAY WAS THE STAR OF TBG BY A MILE! which i personally enjoyed because he is literally the one of two bitches i ever respected and he's always right. but he was definitely not meant to be the star, in fact it felt a lot like rfk was begging us to hate him
• which brings me to the thing thats the hardest to parse about this book/series: i don't care about rin, at all. people often argue that she's not meant to be sympathetic, but she's not being written as an anti-hero, and we've spent 1500 total pages wallowing in her pain and failure and feelings, so i don't think that argument holds up. rfk is definitely not trying to excuse her genocide, i'll give her that, but...everything about this narrative is telling me i'm meant to like her, just a little bit. but i don't! 
• rin does not grow or change in any way throughout this entire series. in fact she somehow learned the same lesson approximately 20 times.
• i was already at the end of my rope by the time i finished the dragon republic re: rin saying she wont follow random people blindly then doing exactly that. the second she met souji, i went, oh, this again, and i was right.
• people on goodreads are already claiming this ending is meant to be a critique of what war ultimately does to people/places, but considering we've just spent like 1,500 pages following someone who has openly enjoyed and craved violence since she was like 10, it doesn't feel earned in any way shape or form.
• i found a lot of the treatment/description of the mugenese people pretty uncomfortable in tdr, and this book did nothing to solve or discuss it. maybe it wouldnt make me feel so ill if this entire series wasn't such a blatant rip on the sino-japanese war, and the fantasy races weren't such thinly veiled stand ins for real people. but it is, so.
• rin/nezha, wether its love or haterism, being the driving force of this book is so laughable considering how poorly their relationship has been developed prior. they've had like 2 or 3 real personal conversations in this entire series.
• i am biased because i am chaghan_lover3000, but seriously. NOT ENOUGH CHAGHAN. he randomly appears, says something reasonable to rin, and then she goes and fucks everything up, but somehow everything ends up working in her favor and she pretends like she planned it that way all along. and then i'm supposed to believe chaghan RESPECTS her???? girl he will part you like a comb. i really wish chaghan/the hinterlands had a bigger role in this story. 
• was i supposed to be shocked that rin ended up being a power-hungry, delusional, narcissistic, ineffective leader? It Has Always Been This Way
• altan continues to be the dead horse rfk is metaphorically beating. LET THAT BOY GO!!!!!!!
• im trying to remember the point of the trifecta and all the hanelai reveals in this book but im pretty sure they were all ultimately meaningless
• it is a bad sign that by the time rin and co made it to arlong i was low key rooting for nezha
• THIS PACING WAS AWFUL. it was somehow both way too fast and dreadfully slow
• the final arc of this book was soooooo lame. when rin + co made it to the grotto to face the dragon i was literally sitting there like So all of This is coming down to this dragon idgaf about. i keep saying it but every scene in this book is so wildly unearned by rfk's writing/the narrative.
• not even a little bit of romanze...THIS SUCKS! for all the talk of enjoying what you can in this book, nobody seems to be following their own advice
• rfk's writing style is soooo fuxxking bland oh my god. i know these books technically arent YA but they read like the worst of YA
• we should have had rin/venka bisexual trutherism or lesbiana...
• rin creating new shamans felt like such a deus ex machina. and not even in a fun way
• i really hate what rfk did with religion here...for the first half of the book i felt like she might have been going for the grrm approach where everyone is equally right and equally wrong about god, but then she pulled the One True Pantheon, and i just dont find that compelling. the Big Question having only one answer is just boring. it would have been so much more interesting for the hesperian religion to also have legitimacy as well!
• at least i can laugh because rin died a virgin 
• NOT. ENOUGH. CHAGHAN.