Last time, Katsa can’t handle dresses or looking pretty or people not hating her. Also, absolutely everyone knows about her secret council.

This time, Katsa goes to shoot targets because she’s emotionally broken so she’s only good at violence.

she drove arrow after arrow into the knees of her targets. Then the thighs, then the elbows, then the shoulders, until she’d emptied her quiver. She could disarm or disable any man with this bow at night

Katsa, when you’re sending arrows through any limb, it’s just disabling. Also, cruel. Those injuries are just going to fester and kill the person, you’ve just ensured their death is slower and more painful. Even if graceling doctors could fix people up without the inevitable infection, and in the case of joints somehow repairing it, there aren’t any right now! The only graced doctor her king has is a horse doctor, and they only send him horses.

(This also raises a question about how much their society can rely on graced people. Human society usually functions on the assumption that once something’s figured out, that can be taught to new people so the capability remains even after the first person dies. That’s not true for a society relying on the graced, and I think it would even discourage that attitude because even if someone manages to learn a new subject because of a graceling’s innovation, they’ll be inferior at it and to actually have similar skill, you can just wait for another graceling to be born. Imagine a society that arranged its building periods around when an architect appeared?)

Katsa thinks she was unreasonable to get upset.

Randa hadn’t spoken to her, hadn’t even looked at her, had only said her name. He loved to brag of her, as if her great ability were his doing. As if she were the arrow, and he the archer whose skill drove her home. No, not an arrow-that didn’t quite capture it. A dog. To Randa she was a savage dog he’d broken and trained. He set her on his enemies and allowed her out of her cage to be groomed and kept pretty, to sit among his friends and make them nervous.

Yeah, he’s a king. They do that. Also, you know what would be more effective? Us actually seeing this. We know he’s an asshole because of how he talks to baby Katsa, but we’ve seen no sign he views her as a dumb animal. It’s plausible, but let’s face it, we just got done with chapters of Katsa Doesn’t Understand People, why would her understanding of the king be any better? I’m not going to believe anything she says unless I see it myself.

To make it even more confusing, even if it’s true he acts like this around her, it seemed like Pandaman knew she’s not actually vicious and was just acting that way toward her because he wants to control her, so at least part of this must be wrong. After all, if Pandaman really does think she’s a bloodthirsty little monster, suddenly his behavior ceases to be assholish. If someone murders a relative for shits and giggles, you are completely in your rights to treat them with a degree of distaste, and while it’s wrong to make an innocent kid kill people, it’s not wrong to send a sociopath to do what she already wants to do.

Anyway, time for Metaleyes to show up.

Not until she sensed the presence behind her shoulder did she stir from her preoccupation and realize how she must look.
She was savage. Look at her speed, look at her accuracy, and with a poor bow, curved badly, strung badly. No wonder Randa treated her so.

See? Katsa does, in fact, care a great deal about what she looks like, she’s just cripplingly self-conscious. She then goes on about how she’s barefoot and her hair isn’t pretty and then that her shoes and hairpins are stupid and god Katsa make up your mind, will you? No one ever claimed you had to find being pretty comfortable. Decide if you think it’s worth it or not and then move on with life.

Also, gracelings can apparently bend reality if she’s just as accurate with a terrible bow as a good one.

“Can you kill with an arrow? Or do you only ever wound?”

“Can you hit a target on purpose, or can you only hit a different target on purpose?”

The reason for this nonsense question is just so Katsa can show off her doubleshot feat to hit the head and heart simultaneously. That’s called overkill, Katsa, hitting two different targets is more productive.

Metaleyes says that she’s way more awesome at archery and we find out his grace isn’t all-around fighting, just hand to hand and swordfighting. What about spears? Or daggers? Unarmed and sword are very different things, and Katsa told us that you don’t get one grace. Does he mean melee combat? Why doesn’t he just say that, then?

“Then, you need to be able to grapple with your opponent, to have an advantage,” she said.
He nodded. “I may be quicker to dodge arrows than someone Ungraced. But in my own attack, my skill is only as good as my aim.”
“Hmm.” Katsa believed him. The Graces were odd like that; they didn’t touch any two people in quite the same way.
“Can you throw

Do you mean literally that no one ever gets the same skill? Because you also said that there are multiple swordfighters in the castle alone, and I don’t think “good at swordfighting” divides up that well unless it’s also possible for graces to differ in how good they make you at it, and that seems like it defeats the purpose of giving people supernatural competence. Unless she means that they have subcompetencies with which sword they can use, in which case sucks to be the guy with the fencing proficiency. Most societies don’t maintain many different types of sword.

Also, why does melee combat come with arrow dodging? Sure, a person good at fighting is generally better at dodging things, but a person good at fighting is generally strong, and Katsa said she wasn’t stronger than normal. And it can’t be that he’s just athletic, because swordfighting is a very different skillset.

The most reasonable would be some athletic grace + fighting training, but in that case he would just say that, wouldn’t he?

He sought his grandfather, and Katsa had what he sought. But he didn’t feel safe to her, this one. He didn’t feel quite trustworthy.

So he’s that kind of love interest, I guess.

Then she asks if he has night vision because apparently that’s possible since his eyes look like kitty eyes? Can people have multiple graces? Humans don’t have the reflective backing thing, your eyes can’t look like cat eyes. If that’s a possible grace, then can humans breath underwater or fly or digest grass?

Anyway he says he can’t see in the dark, so I guess his reflective kitty eyes are solely decorative.

He starts asking about what she was stealing, and Katsa’s at once ridiculously cagey and ridiculously not so, going on about how she stole a thing but the other guy stole it first, and she maybe stole it to help out a friend, but she’s not going to say what friend, or if the friend knows she was helping the friend out, and she’s sure she has no idea why he’s here because PANDAMAN wouldn’t kidnap anybody or be involved…

Murgon didn’t believe I was involved because I was Graced. He believed I was involved because I’m Lienid. Can you explain that?”

No, I can’t. Why the hell would anyone hire Murgon if he’s this stupid? I bet he’s just making that up because it’s a more polite way of hinting he knows what was in the dungeon for other reasons and wants her to admit it already.

She noticed that the neck of his shirt was now fastened. “I see you close your shirt for state dinners,” she heard herself saying, though she didn’t know where such a senseless comment came from.

Ah, there’s the raised-by-wolves social skills the book promised! Continue staring fixedly at his chest, he’ll pick up on your crush eventually.

Metaleyes says he had no idea she found his shirt so interesting, and Katsa is all OMG HE’S MAKING FUN OF ME MY LIFE IS OVER. Jesus Katsa, it’s called flirting.

So, enraged he found it silly when she said a silly thing, she says fuck you I’m going to sulk in my room forever. Nopenope, says Metaleyes, I wanna see Granddad.

Katsa doesn’t even argue with that! She just insists that nopenopenope, roomsulk time.

Nopenopenopenope, says Metaleyes. I will STAND IN YOUR WAY because that’ll totally work.

Nopeinfinity I will beat you up! shouts Katsa. And then go to my room!

Nope…INFINITY PLUS ONE bring it!

And they start fighting.

And it’s the most fun they’ve ever had.

They were playing. It was a game. When he pinned her arms behind her back, grabbed her hair, and pushed her face into the dirt, she found that she was laughing as well.
“Surrender,” he said.
“Never.” She kicked her feet up at him and squirmed her arms out of his grasp. She elbowed him in the face, and when he jumped to avoid the blow, she flew at him and flattened him to the ground. She pinned his arms as he had just done, and pushed his face into the dirt. She dug one knee into the small of his back.
“You surrender,” she said, “for you’re beaten.”
“I’m not beaten, and you know it. You’ll have to break my arms and legs to beat me.”
“And I will,” she said, “if you don’t surrender.” But there was a smile in her voice, and he laughed.
“Katsa,” he said, “Lady Katsa. I’ll surrender, on one condition.”

Not-Peeta’s condition is not making out with her! Thank you, not-Peeta. He just asks if he can see Grandpa now.

Katsa goes back into WHAT IS EMOTION mode. She doesn’t have a grandfather! Are they a thing people care about???????? Maybe they are! Oh no what do?

Metaleyes says that he trusted her, so trust him?

Katsa points out she smashed his head in when he did that. Metaleyes, proving he’s the perfect love interest for her, says oh yeah, that no big deal, I mean you could have killed me and you didn’t so obviously you’re super trustworthy!

Katsa is befuddled by this and decides to bring him to the damn guy before he does any more of the foul friendliness.

“Come with me, Prince Greening.”
He heaved himself to his feet. “It’s Po.”
“Po?”
“My name. It’s Po.”

why you do this book

why

what did we do to you