Review: The Ragpicker King

The Ragpicker King by Cassandra Clare
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Lately, I've seen a number of Jewish readers criticizing this book's publisher, Del Rey, for having also published another fantasy novel whose storyline is heavily reliant on antisemitic tropes and stereotypes: Homegrown Magic by Jamie Pacton and Becca Podos. It's heavily ironic because Podos is herself Jewish, but also staunchly anti-Zionist, and has accused her critics of only coming after her personally because of her stance on Israel and Palestine - which isn't really off base, as I've seen several Jewish readers criticize her for precisely this reason, but also because they perceive her as being ashamed of her Jewish identity and trafficking in "Jews control the money and the world" canards in an effort to appeal to fellow leftists who play up their own brand of antisemitism.

Not being Jewish, I can only be an observer of this debate. But having read Cassandra Clare's latest novel, I feel that she has captured the nature of this kind of internecine conflict best. Of course it's far from a perfect match to the debate over Homegrown Magic, but that sort of debate might very well exist among the Ashkari people in these Chronicles of Castellane.

In the last few years, Clare has become very good at reflecting the state of the world as it falls further and further into alt-right dumpster fires. The Dark Artifices depicted an even more ultra-bigoted faction of Shadowhunters who were all too willing to commit acts of terror against their increasingly progressive brethren. This series, since it began in October 2023 (by sheer coincidence, the same month as the Hamas attacks that perpetrated the current Gaza war, while also igniting a wave of renewed antisemitism from the anti-Israel left, and allowing Netanyahu to retain his corrupt power when he would otherwise likely have been deposed due to increasing nationwide protests), has also run heavily on denouncing bigotry, among other aspects of its multilayered political dramas.

Though Clare insists that the cultures in Dannemore aren't meant to be one-to-one matches to real-world equivalents, they do still read very similarly to the cultures that most prominently inspired them, although this book really starts to make them more syncretic compared to its predecessor. Castellane is still a unique blend of Spanish/Catalan royal coloration and Occitan language, although in this book it definitely starts leaning closer to French. The Ashkari are clearly Jewish in terms of ethnicity and religion, but their language is shown more in this book, and it's not nearly as Hebrew-esque as you might think. As for the Malgasi, they are still heavily Hungarian-coded, no doubt as a reference to the notorious current fascist Viktor Orbán, but they also start making power plays in this book that wouldn't be out of place in the strategy books of Hitler or Trump or Putin.

In the first book, I was much more invested in Kel and Conor's epic bromance than anything else, and while I couldn't help but sympathize with Lin due to her oppressed circumstances, she herself wasn't a particularly likable character. In this book, however, it's the opposite - Lin has surged to the fore as my favorite character, while Kel and Conor...I mean, I still love Kel, but Conor makes bad choice after bad choice in this book, and it's his last one that really makes me lose a lot of sympathy for him. Meanwhile, there's the bloody Ragpicker King as the title character of this book, but he somehow manages to have even fewer actual appearances in this book than its predecessor. I still couldn't care less about him - he's a boring, underwritten character at best, and his associates like Ji-An are far more interesting than he will ever be.

Lin, however...it's her story arc that's got me most invested now. Her story arc of simulating her status as the Goddess Reborn, which means the Sanhedrin and Exilarch are now in town to see how truthful she really is. No spoilers for how this proceeds, but I'll say that it's some of the best religious commentary I've ever seen, and it makes a lot of sense amidst Ashkari culture's contrast between worshipping a Goddess and upholding Old Testament-style patriarchy.

At first, Clare had announced this series with only Sword Catcher and The Ragpicker King, so it was easy to suspect that this would be yet another duology in the world. But it's very clear based on the ending of this book that the story isn't over yet, and in fact Clare has announced at least a total of four books being planned. It's hard to say which I'm looking forward to more: The Bone Conjurors in this series, or The Last King of Faerie as the beginning of the end of the epic Shadowhunters saga.

Or, as Ms. Casey might say, "please try to enjoy these wait times equally."

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