Note: This post is for a Spoilery Discussion of the events of The Discord of Gods, the fifth book in Jenn Lyons' A Chorus of Dragons. For a review of that book, which does not spoil this book (but does contain spoilers for books 1-4), see HERE.
My discussion of this book with spoilers will begin after the jump:
The Discord of Gods really makes use of our character relationships and knowledge, as well as the new events, to really make everything come together tremendously. So of course the final resolution is put together by the early resurrection of Terindel, which Kihrin keeps in reserve, the "big mistake" of Relos Var letting Kihrin take the Stone of Shackles, the fact that Vol Korath dies for only 8 seconds at a time and Kihrin planning of course to pull a con as he brings up in the beginning by making his enemy think he has the advantage - all things the reader has seen come up, but put together in a way that isn't completely obvious and yet works so well.
But there's a lot more than that of course; you have Senera and Thurvishar's relationship, with us learning a lot more about Senera's backstory between her and Fayrin (who is a surprisingly fun and great addition), as the two of them attempt to act as the bookkeepers and managers of their whole plan; you have Xivan meeting her "Eshi", who of course is nowhere near as helpful because well...Khaemezra; you have Galen punching Therin for abandoning them (totally deserved); you have Anlyr turning out to be a mimic, and well. Pretty much all of this stuff is setup ahead of time (or for another example, Grizzst's survival, which was hinted at at the end of book 3) which makes it fit perfectly here.
Even the first half of Tyentso's plot, where she uses a poor innocent kid as bait for Gadrith is perfect - usually these plots have a newly discovered kid that the protagonists pick up wind up as someone important, only here the point is that he is exactly what he seems....some random kid tossed around until Tyentso, in her crotchety assholishness, uses him as bait for Gadrith (and that fight is just great). The dragons (Gorokai) and cornerstones (Warmonger, Skyfire) we haven't seen before but have heard about get shown here, and are exactly as we could have expected (more so in Gorokai's case, he's a hilarious troll). And the final battle between the "immortals" and the Dragons, though irrelevant in the grand scheme of things, is just a ton of fun.
There are a few weird things that seem like errors which I mentioned in the non-spoiler review. Some are minor continuity errors, like Therin being surprised Raveri is the Emperor despite him finding out and having that same reaction in book 3. One is oddly major though: Why would Janel be affected by the Demon killing ritual when that ritual was only targetting demons who came from the other universe (and thus wouldn't affect Xaltorath)? It makes sense it would hit Jarith, whose soul probably came from the other universe as a demon - but Janel's soul is that of a founder - C'indrol's - so she should be the same as Xaltorath no? I guess they could've made the ritual just affect current demons and not relate to what universe their souls came from, but that seems like it would've been something Relos Var would've figured out to do since it would affect Xaltorath. Still I can get past it, since well it doesn't really matter that much if Janel dies and comes back or just survives the ritual. More annoying is Tyentso's whole plot against Nemesan, which I guess only matters to serve as a distraction for Relos Var pulling off the ritual really in that place, but otherwise always feels kind of irrelevant compared to Var's plan to kill 99% of the world and anoint himself as a real immortal.
I'll end here with my personal bit of fanon - that Janel knows about the epilogue because she turned herself back into a demon to check the afterlife, and made sure that Xivan hung around to wait for Talea, and Talea and Xivan got together in happiness once Talea died after a natural life. That's my hope at least to make this already great ending utterly perfect.
What a damn series.
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