karaddin

@Maia I don't think you're missing anything, pretty sure everything you had a question about is still a mystery

@Xray the Enforcer adding to your summary list as of the end of Ht9

Additional information from As Yet Unsent, the bonus material added to the Ht9 ebook / paperback. I consider this part of Ht9 now but you might not

Well my trend of loving this series continues even as each book is radically different to the previous ones. Finished Nona and my only frustration is that I can't read the final book immediately.

It's not quite the head fuck that Harrow was, but I suspect there's still a lot of layered depth that will need multiple reads to fully tease out, helpfully the audio book will add bonus interest to the second read.

One nice detail I've already seen pointed out

Another detail I saw about some of the chapter titles

On 8/30/2022 at 10:09 PM, Crixus said:

Also, I personally did not get any romantic vibes between Alicent and Rhaenyra - they seemed like close friends and confidantes. It's almost as if 2 friends can't have a moment of affection without people labelling it as romance or queer-baiting. I wouldn't be surprised if some viewers think Rhaenyra is jealous of Viserys/Alicent because she's in love with Alicent.... sigh. 

Haven't caught up to the thread past here, but I wanted to chime in and say I absolutely parsed Rhaenyra as having a teen crush on Alicent, but didn't think there was any indication it was reciprocated. I don't think its jealousy however, rather the betrayal of doing this with the one friend she had without even giving her a heads up first - that seems entirely reasonable as something to drive a wedge there.

And Viserys absolutely was cowardly but in a way that's very real and relatable, I don't damn him for it but it was a mistake.

Ashford was coming from a much lower starting point, so more room to improve. Drummer was made up of multiple book characters but none of them were "bad", book Ashford was just a bad character.

Vingegaard certainly won me over waiting for Pogacar like that. Best climber this year and well and truly worthy. Must feel fantastic to win the last mountain stage in yellow 

I really liked the moral choice given to Hughie along with the justification for it when viewing it alongside the others in that way. Turning into their fathers alongside projecting strength that's actually just a hollow shell covering up how empty and miserable they are is contrasted against the father that didn't give two shits about what other people thought but showed strength of character in prioritising his son during a painful period.

That was pay off that's been coming since the first episode of season 1 - he blew up at his dad about the pizza rolls after Robin's death.

They're also in Homelander's home. Between not wanting to actually kill Maeve and not wanting to destroy Vought tower I think his restraint makes sense. The criticism seems more fair with SB, but it didn't bother me

Yeah I don't think he's had the experience of cracking like this before. He's still only 23 ffs lol

1 minute ago, BigFatCoward said:

I don't think he could have lived with Vingegaard today either. 

I hope it was just a hunger knock or an altitude problem and he can come back and attack relentlessly over next 10 stages. Still lots of racing. 

I always forget that messing up your eating for a day can do that this to you as well. They're operating at such extremes there's not much margin for error.

I went to check how far the sprinters still have to go and the race tracking doesn't even have a group for them lol. Wonder how they'll looking for getting in ahead of elimination.

Still can't get over how fast JV crossed to Quintana when he went, he must have been at almost 50% faster than everyone for a few minutes.

4 minutes ago, BigFatCoward said:

This didn't age well. He's completely blown up. VINGEGAARD SMASHED HIM.

Lol came in to say exactly the same. Got me half expecting a positive covid test for him in the next day or two to blow up that spectacularly. That or he's just finally been introduced to his limits.

Pog just looking calm and comfortable powering up 7% after 15km of climbing and dropping everyone except JV already

11 hours ago, Corvinus85 said:

The woman who escaped Stormfront's lab has the power to implode/crush things, while Neumann seems to explode them. Also Neumann requires direct line of sight.

Yeah, the end result of her using her powers looked similar but the mechanism was the opposite - crushing or imploding. Relevant in that it could simply be generalised telekinesis and that's just the only thing she's done with it so far.

On the changes from this season we've lost Maeve from the good side which is actually pretty significant, Starlight out of the 7 which is mixed, A Train repowered which could be anything from irrelevant to very important, Ashley and Annika holding a secret from HL which he frequently kills over, Ryan joining HL and I think most importantly - HL now knowing he's able to openly murder without alienating his... Homechasers? Homemakers?

Low key favourite part of the episode was Noir acting all stoic then dipping the second Homelander walked out of the room lol

5 hours ago, briantw said:

Episode four spoilers:

  Hide contents

So it had to have been Stan Edgar who is behind the boys getting the V24 and the info on the lab where Soldier Boy was on ice, right?  Homelander is losing it and suddenly a hero that can apparently steal someone's powers (or at least make others powerless) is released into the wild...seems like a mighty big coincidence.  

Also, this episode had multiple deaths by dildo and one death by Sonic the Hedgehog.

 

Given that in this episode we have him

There were technical problems with release of ep4 in some countries. In Aus it's meant to be up around midday and wasn't there till about 11pm, I think India was having the same problem.

Yeah it's the blend of it feeling real, having an actual point to make and being hilarious that makes the gore work. And that so much of what makes Homelander scary isn't his powers, it's that he's a petty vindictive asshole that just happens to have the power to carry out what many of them would want to do.

And the mundane awful things that don't need his powers as much as the big ones that do

28 minutes ago, Nictarion said:

Poor Timothy. 

He really screwed up

I know it's hard to separate the actor from the character, but Stan Edgar is a great character on top of GE. The little we got of him last season was already good, but just in the first 3 episodes he's jumped up even more. Terrible person of course but excellent character.

Every time Kimiko is happy on screen I just can't get past how pretty and "sunny" Karen Fukuhara is, she just lights up everything.

The whole cast is phenomenal.

That's certainly opening with a bang

I was also unaware of the whole 3 stories playing out at the same time angle of the trilogy, and agree that quite a few things make more sense with that in mind. I suspect it also means that this first book is going to suffer from the lack of the connections to the other two stories and will improve on a reread after they are out. That said I still enjoyed it immensely. 

In addition to the two characters already mentioned above, the original theft of the dagger is still completely unexplained - no one in this book had even a clue who had done it, so I expect we'll get a POV in one of the other books that at least gives us confirmation of the faction/players behind that.

Wert - on the moral ambiguity, or lack thereof, I think it worked well due to

Looks like we get to continue Petit Hughie's pattern of getting covered in blood, guts and other body fluids!

On 1/29/2022 at 6:40 AM, felice said:

Why are publishers such total assholes? "It might be helpful to read the extra story As Yet Unsent" which is bonus content from the paperback not included in the hardback.

I think that one wasn't actually written at the time of the hardback publishing, at least I've assumed as such because the kindle version didnt initially have it but was updated with it. It needs to be made available somehow for hardback owners though

I am so ridiculously impatient for this

It never bothered me, but I think there's a very good chance they would make some changes in the adaptation that addressed these things. Especially with Alex gone in the show, they can bring in a new pilot and maybe a partner for Bobbie, a couple of other things like that.

Drummers polyam belter fam will probably have grown again and she might not even still be the President of the TU. Hell, maybe they'll have Michio in the role by then, I actually think the personality they gave her in the show could very easily grow into that sort of role.