Essun's last chapter is wild. The activation of the Obelisk Gate is awesome, in the true sense of the word, but I'm actually not sure how I feel about Essun's part in the whole thing 🤔

Why go to Castrima-over? Why even attempt parley with the army threatening her home? Then, when parley fails and she's forced to fight (slaughter) the army, why kill all of Rennanis after? It was a city of millions (before the Season, anyway, said someone from Castrima in Chapter 14). I'm not sure Essun put much thought into it—she was channeling the Gate—so maybe we can argue that it was a horrific act of instinct, but that still leaves her with genocide on her hands. I don't remember thinking much about it the first time I read this book, but now all I can think about is Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and the gnawing dread in my stomach when I read things like "Pentagon Drafting New Nuclear Strategy To Expand Options for Tactical Nuclear Weapons Use"…

And then Nassun's last chapter 💔 Poor girl has to kill her father to keep him from murdering her, and then Steel steps in to manipulate the traumatized girl into going along with his plan to kill everything on the surface of the Earth 😳

Those two final chapters fucked me up. The Broken Earth is such a heavy story 😢

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(comment on The Obelisk Gate)