I have lots of random thoughts and questions about this but in my defense – it’s a thousand page novel that is based on a Dramione fanfic.
I’m not a fanfic reader – I respect the concept and idea but I think my head just doesn’t want to mix canon and non-canon, even if I want to spend more time in a universe. I especially have not read any Dramione fanfic because I just want to stay from all things JKR and HP, and also while I can appreciate a good enemies to lovers story (for example, you’d be more likely to see my reading Zuko and Kitara fanfic, or Hermione and the quidditch player), I have just never seen the appeal of that particular ship.
As a result, I haven’t read Manacled, the fanfic that eventually resulted in Alchemised. I likely wouldn’t have picked this up, either, but one of my friends in my book club had read Manacled and was curious about this one so we agreed to read it. Our meeting isn’t for another week and I can’t wait to ask her about some of the differences – like, for example, were there quite so many instances of the Death Eaters (Undying) literally cannibalising and eating their victims? Or making their victims eat each other?
It’s likely not going to be a surprise to anyone that the relationship between Helena and Kaine Ferron are the most developed portions of the novel, and really the main focus. Once we get into the flashback (technically the book is divided into 3 parts, but Part 2, the flashback) takes up almost 2/3s of the novel), we see how two lonely and hurt people bond as they see things in the other no one else does, and also help them make realizations about themselves.
While I haven’t read Manacled, I have read Harry Potter, watched the movies and generally been part of the internet and pop culture for the last 20 years. Even with Alchemised being the stand alone novel adapted from a fanfic, it’s easy to see how some of main characters map – Helena is Hermione, Kaine Draco, Luc Harry, Lila Ginny, the Bayards the Weasleys etc. I’m not sure if I was doing the novel a disservice by drawing the comparisons or if the novel simply isn’t quite at the point where it works as a standalone (and in fact muddled some motivation and characterization by simply changing the setting without changing more of the story).
I suspect that Manacled might work better than Alchemised because while the novel does a decent job on developing the romantic relationship, we don’t get the background that would help us understand Helena’s loyalty to Luc and the Eternal Flame, or the explanations come too late, at page 600 or more. Nothing in the interactions between Luc, Lila, Soren and Helena screams best friends. You could easily forget that Lila and Helena are roommates since they barely interact, one being in the hospital, the other in combat.
While the Undying and Morrough, the head necromancer, are over-the-top-evil (did I mention all the people eating), the Eternal Flame treat Helena like shit. While in school, she was mistreated and looked down on because she was a foreigner, then Helena discovered that her true power was vivimancy which let her be a healer but since it’s a different side of necromancy, it’s also an ability that is mistrusted and looked down on. Helena seems oddly passive for so much of the novel, justifying her lower status and rank, protecting her friends, and just generally feeling more like a whipped dog desperate for approval or a kind word. It doesn’t feel like Hermione so this another instance where I am curious about the comparison between novel and fanfic – if nothing else, awareness of the friendships from the HP books would explain the loyalty but we don’t have that background/context. I also wonder if Hermione was quite so downtrodden in the Manacled flashbacks because it doesn’t quite reflect her book/cannon version (and I could be wrong and be too influenced by the movie version; plus from what I understand Manacled as a fanfic starts diverging from cannon shortly after Order of the Phoenix).
As far as the original world building, I am a bit mixed. I think some of the concepts were interesting but I am also not entirely sure they are explained well. It’s a mix of info dumps and yet missing information or having it laid out in a way that doesn’t quite connect. Most people’s powers in this world are based on their ability to manipulate metals which is determined by their resonance. It seems like it’s less that people can only manipulate one metal but some might have an easier time or more natural affinity with certain ones, and gold is actually super rare. There are also pyromancers but it didn’t seem like the other elements like water or air came into play. Finally, there are the people that can manipulate organic material, vivimancers, necromancers and animancers and I think every vivimancer can be a necromancer but an animancer might be an extra special and rare version? Or maybe just another term for it? And there’s a big religious aspect to it, and it’s a very judgmental and conservative religion. Helena’s abilities are viewed as impure and she is sterilized to prevent her from passing them on, even if the Resistance is happy to use her abilities (and sell her to Kaine when she is one of his terms to spy for them). Premarital sex is deeply frowned upon; naturally, it’s a sexist society – while we see women in positions of power, like Lila as first paladin (guard) to Luc, it’s because of her exceptional capabilities. When things go wrong, people are quick to point their fingers and say it’s because they went against tradition and allowed a woman in that role. Oh while, I am on the topic of world building, this is nitpicky but it was something that annoyed me early on. The author makes a reference to the eight planets and then lists them: over half have the same names as ours (Neptune, Venus etc) and it made me irrationally irritated. But you are either setting your novel in this world and then using the same names for planets or your world is different and you had to invent names for your planets because there is no reason to believe this world had Roman gods – also, the planets aren’t brought up again so there wasn’t even really a reason to mention them.
With necromancy being such a big component of the world building and what the war was about, there are quite a few things with this one that are kind of gross with decaying corpses all around. Since HP had the Unforgivable curses, including one that allowed mind control, I wonder if SenLinYu used necromancy as a major plot point because it was an easy way to show the bad guys controlling the bodies of the good guys to make them do horrific things. If the mind control was a major component of Manacled, it would certainly make sense, and would have been one way to more or less use the same storyline with very few changes.
The novel begins about a year and a half after the Eternal Flame lost the war. Helena was erroneously put away in a storage facility, mislabeled, and now has been found. It becomes clear fairly quickly that her memories have been tampered with, likely by herself, and now, Morrough and his people would like to know what secret she is hiding. He hands the job to his second in command to fix her and recover her memories, Kaine Ferron, know as the High Reeve. Helena is lost, in despair over the loss of the war, her friends and everything but forced to live on in her enemy’s house.
It’s a hard novel to get into – it definitely took the greater portion of the first part to really get pulled in (not sure if that was entirely a me issue with my need to map this to HP while reading or if it was due to the way the information was shared), and there are parts of the middle that drag and get a bit circular/repetitive. Overall, it pulled together into an interesting story but it could have been 300-400 pages shorter, and I think there was a bit more work needed to make it truly work as a stand alone as well as some refinement in the world building and magic system, even it was simply an index at the beginning explains the power sets or a slightly less convoluted intro to them. It also touches on quite a few interesting and complex themes but drops most of them or only treats them superficially when it could have added so much depth instead of adding yet another scene of Helena and/or Kaine being almost mortally wounded.