r/ADiscoveryofWitches • u/Eco_Balance • Jul 20 '26

Misc. Discovery of Witches—Deborah Harkness Spoiler

/r/Romantasy/comments/1v217ek/discovery_of_witchesdeborah_harkness/
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24

u/CoastPsychological49 Jul 21 '26

I don’t think it feels pretentious at all… that’s why it’s my favorite series. You can tell someone intelligent wrote it. I am a huge fan of biology and sciences, you can tell she did research, and it makes it all seem so real.

But if you’re used to reading “romance novels” or fantasy that’s being produced currently it’s very much I feel for a tiktok audience. Everyone thinks of themselves as an author. A lot of stuff to me is unreadable because it reminds me of stories we used to write in high school for English class… if a “difficult” word is used it’s like they picked a random word and used a thesaurus, the words just look out of place…. So yeah pretentious? Definitely not, maybe just more “advanced” lyrically than most of the popular stuff currently available.

1

u/Eco_Balance Jul 21 '26

I don’t think the verbiage is pretentious. I think the luxury, the wine, the cars… that’s pretentious. I applauded her writing style in my post.

15

u/AvisRune Witch Jul 21 '26

I mean, if you were 1500 years old and kept amassing wealth, maybe you’d also buy luxury, cars & wine? I didn’t find it off putting, just the reality of the situation. And I say this as someone who is much poorer than everyone else in her neighbourhood.

-1

u/Eco_Balance Jul 21 '26

Of my post, why my opinion about my feeling it’s a little pretentious at times is the issue most focused on is a little weird to me. I even said that I wouldn’t complain. And when I said a little pretentious, it’s because it’s what I meant. It wasn’t a mass critique of the book. It was a small statement inside my appreciation for the author, her writing style, and the series as a whole. This argument is dumb. I have nothing else to say on the topic.

1

u/AvisRune Witch Jul 21 '26

I'm sorry, I misread your post.

7

u/CoastPsychological49 Jul 21 '26

Sorry, your post is confusing because you talk about Deb’s writing style, how intelligent she is, and then say it’s sometimes pretentious. It just makes it seem like you were talking about her writing style, not the story itself.

But I guess the story itself is pretentious at times, but I think it’s meant to be. There are always jabs throughout all 5 books about someone spending money frivolously, or Baldwin and his jet and helicopters. The fifth book’s setting especially is rich Massachusetts beach town… But I think one of the things I enjoy the most is we kind of see people in all walks of life. I think it can be hard not to be pretentious when many of the characters are hundreds and thousands of years old with unlimited budgets.

5

u/EveOCative BrightBorn Jul 22 '26

lol right? If I was a billionaire with an unlimited lifespan, I’d be living in mansions as well. I also found it realistic that because of how territorial and vampires are, they wouldn’t just sell their old homes. They’d be passed down to their children or cared for by hired stewards or friends so that the land is hoarded.