Title: The Final Strife Series: Ending Fire #1
Author: Saara El-Arifi
Published: June 23, 2022
Genre(s): Fantasy
Page Count: 640
Rating:
Summary from Goodreads:Sylah dreams of days growing up in the resistance, being told she would spark a revolution that would free the empire from the red-blooded ruling classes’ tyranny. That spark was extinguished the day she watched her family murdered before her eyes.
Anoor has been told she’s nothing, no one, a disappointment, by the only person who matters: her mother, the most powerful ruler in the empire. But when Sylah and Anoor meet, a fire burns between them that could consume the kingdom—and their hearts.
Hassa moves through the world unseen by upper classes, so she knows what it means to be invisible. But invisibility has its uses: It can hide the most dangerous of secrets, secrets that can reignite a revolution. And when she joins forces with Sylah and Anoor, together these grains of sand will become a storm.
What if the Chosen One can no longer fulfill their role? What if the Rebellion serves a nefarious agenda beyond liberating the oppressed? What if there’s more to the privileged princess than meets the eye? What if the most fundamental, foundational truths of your society are all lies?
Saara El-Arifi’s debut fantasy, The Final Strife, contemplates these questions and more over the course of its 600+ pages. This is an intelligent, politically-savvy novel that grapples with complicated situations where there are no easy or clear answers. It’s also a book that takes familiar themes and tropes, but twists them to create something wholly new. On the tin, this may look like your standard “oppressed peoples rebel against tyranny” fantasy plot (nothing wrong with that!), and that is indeed how the book begins. But any plan must be shaped by the individual participants, and El-Arifi’s mastery over her characters is made very clear by how the protagonists’ choices and personalities shape the story and subvert readers’ expectations.
People are messy and inconsistent and flawed, and so portraying fully human heroes requires acknowledgement of that fact. Honestly, at several points, it seemed as if the author was going down a road that undermined the entire premise of the book. Yet my fears were overcome in time, and on the whole, The Final Strife consistently explores and reinforces its main theme: thwarting tyranny both by engaging directly with oppressive political structures and through the efforts of small, on-the-ground grassroots organizations.
Because the three protagonists are so important to the text and the theme described above, it is worth discussing them each in turn.
Sylah was born to the ruling class (red blood) but stolen away by lower class activists and secretly trained as a weapon. Yet the rebels were discovered and snuffed out, her purpose was never fulfilled, and now Sylah spends her days wracked with guilt, existing just to score her next dose of mind-numbing drugs. She is the Chosen One, defeated. Yet notwithstanding her poverty and her intimate understanding of the lives of the oppressed, Sylah herself is able to assume the mantle of privilege just by showing the color of her blood. Although she does not identify with the elites, technically she is one. Doors are open to her that are forever closed to her “mother” and friends, and she has the ability to use her heritage for good.
In direct contrast to Sylah is Anoor. Anoor was born a slave (blue blood) but was swapped with Sylah as an infant. As a result, she has received all the advantages Sylah was denied: wealth, education, freedom from hard labor and/or torture. She’s an imposter, and she has suffered greatly at the hands of the “mother” who raised her—yet simultaneously, Anoor is blind to the plight of others. Until, that is, Sylah breaks into her room, with a grudge the size of an ocean and a lifetime of trauma stored up.
The reader’s first impression of Anoor, regardless of her secret blue blood, is one of the stereotypical “poor little rich girl.” Although she has certainly endured emotional and physical abuse from her caregiver, Anoor’s life isn’t that bad. At the time The Final Strife begins, she has moved out from her mother’s home, has ample wealth and resources, unlimited food and clothing, has access to education, entertainment, stable shelter, and servants. Disappointingly, however, Anoor appears to have bought the empire’s racist propaganda about blue bloods hook, line, and sinker. This (apparent) willful ignorance is frustrating, since Anoor should know better than anyone that blue bloods aren’t any less human than red bloods, just by taking herself as an example.
Thus, the first one-half of The Final Strife is framed, as far as Anoor is concerned, as a story about a spoiled princess who is confronted with her privilege and learns for the first time that oppression is wrong, actually. There’s a memorable chapter where Sylah brings Anoor to the slums, and Anoor complains theatrically about having to dress plainly and walk on foot. Once there, Anoor wanders off (in spite of Sylah’s warnings of danger) and comes across a brutal public execution where no trial is afforded to the accused. This scene is filtered entirely through the lens of Anoor’s shock and discomfort, and it’s typical of many passages narrated from her perspective. No matter how many times Sylah shows her how brutal the empire’s methods are, Anoor clings to the idea that it’s all an exaggeration manufactured by malcontented slaves, far past the time when she reasonably has any evidence to support that belief.
It’s certainly a narrative choice to construct your depiction of violent oppression in a way that prioritizes a privileged bystander’s discomfort and disillusionment.
Certainly, I think it’s relevant to the above analysis that Anoor is blue-blooded and not red-blooded, by genetic heritage if not by socialization. There is much to be said about one’s need to address internalized, self-directed bigotry—although I would argue that this is one theme which the author does not explore meaningfully. Regardless, El-Arifi played up Anoor’s naïveté too frequently, and for far too long. It is not a crime or sin to be ignorant of injustice or to be distraught when it is brought to your attention. But hundreds upon hundreds of pages of Anoor “whining” (this is the word the text uses) about foregoing fried food and silk dresses, using derogatory slurs, parroting bigoted ideals, then weeping when she is forced to admit her worldview is warped… it’s too many pages.
However, by the end of The Final Strife, it is Anoor rather than Sylah who steps into her potential and emerges with a clear-eyed vision for the future. Both Anoor and Sylah are messy, complex women who show a great deal of personal growth over the course of the novel, but Anoor’s transformation is far more drastic, and the text ultimately positions her as the “main” character with Sylah as an important ally. I simply wish that El-Arifi hadn’t committed to such extremes for Anoor: birdbrained damsel to capable revolutionary is a big shift.
Finally, the third narrator in this book is Hassa. Her blood is clear, and her people are the lowest of the low in the empire’s power structure. By law, clear-bloods’ hands and tongues are cut off at birth, rendering them incapable of most forms of communication and limiting their ability to physically resist oppression. For most of the text, Hassa serves as a mysterious third-party observer to Sylah and Anoor’s struggles and to the political situation in the empire as a whole. However, her role is integral to the plot, and it is through Hassa and her companions that El-Arifi is able to insert nuance to the “oppression is bad” theme, particularly by introducing the subject of colonialism and cultural appropriation as a tool of domination.
Overall, The Final Strife is a fantasy novel that manages to avoid oversimplifying multifaceted concepts such as racially motivated tyranny. There are a few rough spots, mostly when it comes to Anoor’s character (I did not even touch on the text’s handling of her weight/fatness in this review). It seems that Saara El-Arifi approached this book with thoughtful consideration and a willingness to engage in moral ambiguity. The world-building is fascinating, and the plot is equally balanced between exciting action and explorations of the three protagonists’ inner worlds. I appreciated the way so many of my expectations about how the plot would unfold were undermined. And I’m hopeful that the rough patches in this debut novel won’t be a recurring issue.
The Final Strife is a provocative fantasy novel with a big agenda, and in my estimate, it successfully accomplishes most of its aims, and does so in a thoroughly enjoyable way.
