This concludes my reviews of arc one of Bravelands! I hope you enjoyed them. Let's dive into the final book, spoilers ahead.
The final battle has begun. Fearless Fearlesspride, Great Father Thorn and Sky Strider now must device a plan to take down the seemingly all-powerful Titan.
Overall I consider this to be a very minor redemption for the arc, at least in comparison to the last two books. The first trio of books in this arc was great and honestly felt like a mini-arc itself, but like said in my previous two reviews, things felt like they were going downhill in books four and five. Book six is finally returning a bit of the former glory of the arc.
It's still not perfect. There's some pacing issues, I still don't find all the characters to be that compelling and of course I've already gone on and on at length of how I don't think Titan as a main villain works. That statement is taken to the extreme in this book, with Titan now not only being mad, but also being almost all-powerful and indestructible due to his spirit-eating antics in books four and five.
But Oathkeeper does also have some redeeming qualities that save it from being dull like the previous two. Thorn still faces a lot of trouble, I love the relationship between Keen, Ruthless and Fearless and the book is at least very epic, with multiple plans being orchestrated against Titan.
And of course the final battle between Fearless and Titan takes place here, the one that's been built up ever since book one. And it's...kinda satisfying, but also bittersweet. With some elaborate planning, Fearless does manage to defeat Titan, but it comes at a cost: Fearless dies as well. Which is honestly quite sad because he's a very young lion (I believe only like two years old at this point). He had very meaningful relationships to his friends, he could've found love and had cubs.
But he didn't even get to have a normal life in those two years. He spent all of it being focused on revenge. He did get his revenge, but no longer has any chance at a normal life beyond it. He does have a happy place in the afterlife with his passed-on love ones (plus the spirits Titan had eaten are released into the afterlife with his death). But it's just bittersweet that Fearless never got to live as a normal lion. Driven from his pride as a cub, raised by baboons, spending a lot of time as either a revenge-driven hothead leading a pride or a loner with one or two friends, and now having his life taken from him. Fearless wasn't an amazingly well-written character or anything, but I don't think he deserved this and it still hurt to see him pay this price.
The epilogue after the climax was also much-needed. Thorn is now an aged but respected Great Father, and Sky has returned to a normal life for an elephant and now has a calf with Rock. Shows that despite the dark ending for one of our main characters, life goes on. Keen and Ruthless are clearly still close in the epilogue, too, so it shows that their friendship didn't drift apart after Fearless' death, either.
Overall this was a pretty good last book. Honestly it's such as shame that it has two very dull books preceding it and that the main villain kinda sucks. But it does feel like a good last hurrah for this arc.
I don't know when I'll start tackling arc two yet. I still have to buy the books that are currently out. But I will eventually review it, don't worry! I just also have a lot of other books to review, plus I want to get to Bamboo Kingdom and maybe some more Seekers books as well. Ah well, see you on the flip side, I hope!
Rating: 3.5/5
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