Throne of Glass (TOG #1) Book Review and Analysis

Throne of Glass by Sarah J. Maas 

2012

Young Adult Fantasy 

Warning: Spoilers and a hot-take on the TOG series. If you love the books, awesome! I’m happy you have found a series that you connect with. My review is an exploration of an issue I see as prevalent in Throne of Glass, and is not meant to disvalue any thoughts you may have on the series.

I first read Throne of Glass when I was in high school and hated it, but after being active on Bookstagram for close to five months, I decided to give the book a second chance. At the time I am writing this review, I have finished the series and feel divided between loving some elements while really disliking others. Even though I know how the series develops, my issues with Throne of Glass are still relevant to discussions about the series as a whole. Rather than talk about all the issues of the book, I want to talk about gender and opportunity in Throne of Glass.

Throne of Glass follows Celaena, the most famous assassin in Erilea. After spending a year in Endovier prison doing forced labour, she is offered a deal by the crown prince of Adarlan, Dorian. If Celaena fights in a competition among 23 other assassins and outlasts them all, she wins the position of King’s assassin and can eventually gain her freedom. As Caelena fights against the other competitors, she must not only hide her true identity as a famous assassin, but she must try and uncover the trouble she senses brewing in her world and beyond.

My issue with Throne of Glass begins with Maas’s worldbuilding, as I wasn’t quite sure what type of fantasy world Maas is trying to set the novel in. While I thought that the book was aimed to be set in a sixteenth or seventeenth century Europe with magic, similar to other fantasy books, certain details made it difficult for me to understand what is and isn’t within the realm of possibility. While I can say the issue gets better as the series goes on, the unclear world makes my main issue of gender stand out.

The discussions of masculinity and femininity not only create an extremely heteronormative story, but do nothing to explore the intricacies of gender that a genre like fantasy is capable of compared to literary fiction. Rather than push the boundaries of what we understand about gender now, Dorian, the prince, and Chaol, the head of Adarlan’s guard and Dorian’s best friend, repeatedly refer to having to do things to remain “masculine.” If this happened once or twice, I’d let it slide, but the characters constantly discuss masculinity in the most basic sense, as having to fight and be aggressive in order to be a “man”. Considering that both are portrayed as love interests for Caelena, I wish that Dorian and Chaol challenged what is expected of a YA novel and didn’t perpetuate outdated and toxic stereotypes. 

While the discussions of masculinity perpetuate toxic masculinity, the discussions of femininity are even worse. At a couple points in Throne of Glass, Dorian and Chaol talk about not liking women of the court of Adarlan for being shallow and obsessed with “artificial” things. Caelena, of course, is nothing like these other women, hence why the two men are so entranced by her.  Throne of Glass was published in 2012, an era that I consider the height of heroines who were defined as “not being like other girls.” While Caelena likes dresses and doesn’t pretend she’s not beautiful, something many other characters of cliché wouldn’t do, Celaena still engages in behaviour that brings down other women. The trend of female protagonists only being valued by their love interests because they “aren’t like other girls” is harmful and perpetuates the idea that girls can’t be loved for their own personality. Why do other Adarlanian women have to be hated for Celaena to be amazing? 

In the world of Adarlan, the patriarchy and male power rule. In a world where men are in power, women have few opportunities for themselves. In Throne of Glass, Celaena is a trained assassin able to support herself because she has a trade, something that other women in the books are not as lucky to have. In creating a world where women had to rely on men for money and other necessities of life, Dorian’s, Chaol’s, and Caelena’s judgement of women being “shallow” for focusing on love and other riches is completely unfair. In the world Maas created, Celaena and the men are privileged because they don’t have to worry about love and flirting as a means of surviving.

Rating: 3/5: While Throne of Glass is far from the worst YA novel I have read, its mediocrity and other issues within the plot make it unenjoyable to read for me.