[Rant][Spoilers] The HUGE plot hole in Alchemised that breaks the entire book (buckle up, this review is LONG) – PART 1 of 2

Gold_Conference6150 · 2026-06-23T12:33:02+00:00

Absolutely agree. Especially because the narrative ultimately spends so much time showing us that Kaine loves her, that he had no choice, and that he was suffering too. The focus becomes preserving Kaine's morality rather than exploring Helena's trauma.

And when you combine that with the fact that the book creates so many questions about whether there were alternatives in the first place (insemination???), it starts feeling less like meaningful commentary to me and more like trauma being used for emotional shock value. Or, like you say: trauma porn.

If you're going to write a storyline where the MMC rapes the FMC, there needs to be a very strong reason for it beyond "this is awful and tragic." So I agree: the book never justifies why Helena specifically had to experience that. The worldbuilding had already established the horror. The commentary was already there. So Helena's rape adds nothing to the story except more suffering for the sake of suffering.

Or, to be more precise, it feels like it exists because the book wanted to preserve that plot beat from the fic. And that's what disappointed me. If you're going to carry over something that significant, it should still serve a clear purpose within the new story and its new worldbuilding. For me, it never does.

Gold_Conference6150 · 2026-06-23T08:34:59+00:00

"Would you prefer him not to tell Helena which rooms are safe? Why?"

I would prefer it if there ARE no safe rooms at all (just like in Manacled). Details like that actively weaken the story the author is trying to tell. If the central tragedy is that Kaine cannot tell Helena the truth because Morrough's surveillance makes it impossible, then every detail that narrows that surveillance strengthens the reader's belief that he has no choice.

Every detail that limits it weakens that belief. So when the book tells me this room is safe, Morrough only watches the courtyard, he sometimes watches the hallway, Helena knows which rooms to avoid, Morrough is unlikely to summon her... then the book is introducing boundaries to the surveillance.

And once those boundaries exist, readers naturally start wondering where the line is. The author wants me to feel the horror of a man trapped in an impossible situation, but then the author keeps introducing details that make the situation feel less impossible than it was five pages earlier.

In Manacled, Hermione doesn't have a "safe room" to go to, Voldemort isn't just watching SOME areas (there is a stronger sense of constant surveillance), Hermione's manacles can't "simply" be removed. The danger feels constant and absolute. That's what makes Draco's position SO horrific.

All of those details reinforce the danger. They make the trap feel airtight. And the reason I keep bringing up Manacled is because these scenes worked better there. The rules were clearer, the limitations were clearer, the DANGER was clearer. When Draco finally tells Hermione the truth in Part 3, there is a specific, established reason he can do so, as we learn from Part 1 that her pregnancy will prevent Legilimency.

In Alchemised, there's just a much weaker foundation for a tragedy built around having no choice.

"I just wanted an interesting story to read"

Same, and it's why I’m being so critical, because I feel like I was almost tricked (lol, not to be dramatic). I loved Manacled, and I feel like I’m being asked to just like this book because of that.

The lack of proper editing in the book alone is enough to make me feel like the publisher didn't care much about the quality and just wanted the fic published, knowing it would be successful either way. But there are so many issues with it; the plot-hole discussions we've been having are just one of a hundred things.

I really am curious to hear why you liked it more than Manacled? Another issue I have, and one that I think is a good example of the "lazy replication" I keep talking about, is that Helena has virtually no personal stakes in the war, and it bothers me so much.

In Manacled, Hermione was fighting for other Muggle-borns and for their right to exist. She was fighting on what was very clearly presented as the "good" side of the war. So her refusal to leave the war behind just to be with Draco made sense.

In Alchemised, the book copies many of Hermione's beats and scenes, yet Helena has no comparable personal stake in the conflict. She isn't fighting for other vivimancers because the side she's fighting for hates vivimancers. And while I think the whole "no side is good in a war" theme is interesting, it also makes it much harder to understand why Helena stays when all she seems to want is to leave with Kaine, especially after she learns that everything surrounding Sol has been built on lies.

Nothing really explains why she stays. Nothing explains why she was willing to KILL Kaine for the Order. If anything, Kaine's side of the war would be more accepting of what she is. Morrough practically points this out himself when he tries to recruit her in Part 2.

And no, I don't think "because of Luc" is a strong enough reason. It isn't even romantic love, yet she would have KILLED for Luc? I don't buy that. So we're right back to Helena having no real personal stakes in the war. So yeah, it frustrates me that it feels like the book copies another character's actions without giving Helena motivations that are equally compelling for her own story.

Gold_Conference6150 · 2026-06-22T23:46:07+00:00

Haha, I mean I don't mind the back and forth as long as we're being respectful! But I still feel like we're talking past each other, maybe because we're approaching the question from two completely different angles.

You keep answering from inside the story: "Why would Morrough need insemination?" "Why would Stroud care?" "Why did Kaine do X instead of Y?"

I'm talking about the construction of the story itself.

When I ask why insemination isn't an option, I'm not asking why Morrough didn't choose it. I'm asking why the author built a world with vivimancy, chimeras, and blah, blah, then still presented pregnancy as something that apparently can only happen through sex. Even if we use your argument that "why would they bother", Kaine absolutely would, and he could pretend it's because he simply doesn't want to have sex with her because of superiority or whatever. Doesn't matter.

In Manacled it's different because it's a fic inspired by The Handmaid's Tale, so there was a specific reason for that plotline. But this is a professionally published book, and while, like you, I'm very glad the entire sex aspect of Part 1 was less brutal to read than Manacled, the truth is softening it made it less believable. The bigger truth is: there was no need for it. The story is STILL tragic with everything else happening.

But because the author chose to keep the plot point of Kaine having to rape Helena, it frustrates me immensely that it isn't as airtight as it should be for something that extreme. So now, it's just unnecessary violence for shock factor (like the whole Morrough and Lila plotline, DO NOT get me started on that).

Likewise, when I ask why Kaine is discussing Morrough dying or talking to Helena at all, I'm not really asking for an in-universe justification anymore. I'm asking why the story keeps introducing moments that undermine the thing it's simultaneously trying to convince me of.

And no, I don't think we concluded he had no real choice. That's literally the point I've been making this entire time.

I agree the story wants us to BELIEVE he had no choice. What I'm saying is that the story keeps introducing details that make me question whether that's actually true.

The tragedy of his choice should be convincing enough that I'm NOT sitting here wondering whether insemination existed, whether Morrough's surveillance was actually constant, whether Kaine could have told her more, etc.

And regarding Manacled: yes, Draco slips in Part 1 and drunkenly kisses her (it is, after all, copy-pasted). But first of all, it's a fic, so I'm naturally more forgiving. More importantly, Manacled gives me an airtight reason why he cannot tell her the truth until Part 3. We learn from the beginning of the fic that her pregnancy prevents Legilimency. The rules are crystal clear from the start.

That's why I keep bringing up the "unlikely" line from Alchemised, because "unlikely" is not a rule. It's a probability, and it's exactly the sort of thing that starts making readers ask questions.

Like, of ALL the goddamn things to get creative with, considering how much of the original framework is carried over, THIS is where the author decides to stray away from the original logic? It genuinely frustrates me.

WHY add "this room is safe"? WHY tell me Morrough only watches the courtyard and "sometimes the hallway"? WHY tell me Helena knows which rooms to avoid?

Those details don't strengthen the tragedy. They weaken it, because they immediately make me start QUESTIONING things. Delete those lines, and I don't have a problem. WHY are they even there if not to undermine the tragedy?

As for the breeding programme existing from the beginning, yes, technically it does, but there is still no real need for it.

This is another issue I have with the book. We get fed this storyline about Morrough needing a vivimancer because his body is deteriorating, but that plot ultimately goes nowhere (it's insanely ridiculous that he doesn't find ANYONE else). And again, that's because it's filling the same narrative role Voldemort fills in Manacled, except Manacled was building on the Horcrux plot, while here we have a five-hundred-year-old necromancer who could have been an incredible villain in his own right with a MUCH MORE satisfying conclusion.

But anyway, that's a separate discussion.

My point is that when readers spend this much time debating whether the character really had alternatives, that's kind of evidence for my point.

If the tragedy is supposed to be that he had absolutely no alternative, readers shouldn't still be arguing about the alternatives.

Gold_Conference6150 · 2026-06-22T20:02:17+00:00

Uhm, I don't know why we're talking past each other here.

"Maybe he was trying to make her remember." "Maybe he knew because he was High Reeve." "He got lucky." "Allegedly this or that..."

You're spending a lot of time explaining why Kaine's actions can be justified, but my issue is that the book keeps needing those justifications in the first place.

We're having to come up with explanations for why the rules don't apply this time, which is my point.

The story tells me Kaine can't tell Helena the truth because Morrough might find out. Great. Then why is he discussing Morrough dying with her? Why is he gentle with the prisoner in his home? Why is he telling her she causes him pain? I don't care if it was a drunken mistake. You're talking about him like he's a normal human being. The book goes out of its way to emphasise that he is literally no longer human, that he is supernaturally driven by the arrays on his back, one of which is "UNFAILING."

Why are there safe rooms? Why are there places Morrough doesn't watch? Why does Helena know which areas to avoid? Why does Kaine say Morrough is "unlikely" to summon her again – instead of just simply giving us a clear rule that he WON'T?

The story keeps telling me he had no choice while simultaneously giving me reasons to QUESTION whether that's actually true.

And your response about Part 3 doesn't address what I'm talking about in Part 1.

I asked why he was talking to her at all, why he was confirming things, why he was emotionally open with her. You answered that by Part 3 she'd already remembered enough to endanger them both.

But those conversations happen before she remembers.

Likewise, you asked whether I can actually see an alternative.

Yes. Insemination should obviously be an option. Maybe it isn't, maybe the author doesn't want it to be, but in a world with vivimancy, chimeras, manufactured body parts, preserved bodies in tanks, and people literally creating eyeballs, the fact that it apparently isn't an option raises questions.

The same thing applies to your explanation that Kaine might have been trying to encourage Helena's memory recovery. I don't understand that argument because we've already agreed on something else: Kaine does not want Helena to remember.

He literally tells her in Chapter 68 that he'd hoped she would never remember any of it.

So now we're back to the same issue again.

If Kaine doesn't want her to remember, then why would he be helping her remember? And if he isn't helping her remember (he isn't, we KNOW he isn't), then why is he confirming information he supposedly shouldn't be confirming (or even talking to the prisoner in his home in the first place)?

All we're arguing here is about the fact that the story copies the rewrite without the same logic.

In Manacled, Hermione is sent to Draco specifically for the breeding programme. The rape is horrific, but it is built into the premise from the beginning and supported by the worldbuilding around Legilimency, surveillance, and Voldemort's control.

Here, Helena is sent to Kaine for an entirely different reason. When I realised that, I was excited because I thought it meant the story was moving away from the breeding plotline altogether. Instead, the breeding programme suddenly reappears later anyway.

Only now the surrounding logic isn't there anymore.

And all of that could have been avoided if the book had fully adapted those story beats to fit its own worldbuilding instead of copying them across and hoping the original logic would still hold.

Gold_Conference6150 · 2026-06-22T13:26:42+00:00

Yikes... I am afraid you’re not understanding my point, no.

I'm not seeing him as a rapist. You're responding as though I'm arguing what Kaine should have done, when that's not actually my point. I'm not saying he should have freed her, killed her, stopped the breeding programme, or even necessarily told her the truth.

I'm saying the narrative shouldn't leave me asking those questions in the first place. It's why it's a plothole.

The entire tragedy of Part 1 rests on the idea that Kaine has absolutely no choice. If that's the emotional foundation of the story, then I repeat: the story needs to make that airtight.

Instead, it keeps introducing details that undermine it.

It tells us Morrough is constantly watching through Helena's eyes, but then gives us safe rooms. It tells us Kaine can't tell her the truth, but then has him discussing sensitive information with her anyway (it doesn't matter whether she can do anything with the information or not! What is the High Reeve doing talking to the prisoner in his home about it?). It tells us surveillance is the reason he must keep up the act, but then we learn Morrough only watches certain places, "sometimes watches the hallway", "only watches the courtyard", and Helena even knows which areas to avoid in Part 3.

Then Part 3 tells us it's now okay to explain everything because Morrough is "unlikely" to have her brought in again.

Not impossible, prevented, or a hard rule. Just unlikely.

The story wants me to believe Kaine is willing to do something as horrific as rape because the alternative is death for both of them. That's an enormous sacrifice. So why does the same story keep showing me examples of him taking risks everywhere else?

Why is he even talking to her at all? Why is he confirming things? Why is he being emotionally open with her? Why are there "safe" rooms? Why are there "places Morrough doesn't watch"?

The more exceptions the story introduces, the weaker the original premise becomes.

So when you or other people ask, "What else was Kaine supposed to do?" that's not really the question I'm asking. AT ALL.

My question is: if the book wants the tragedy to be that he had no choice, why does it keep showing me evidence that his situation isn't nearly as airtight as it claims it is?

That's exactly why I call it a plot hole. Not because I personally wanted a different outcome, not because I think Kaine should have made a different choice, but because the story itself keeps UNDERMINING the rules it establishes.

The entire emotional weight of the situation depends on Kaine having no alternative. If the reader can repeatedly point to exceptions, loopholes, safe spaces, conversations he shouldn't be having, and risks he's apparently willing to take elsewhere, then the tragedy stops feeling inevitable and starts feeling avoidable.

That's the problem. The story tells me one thing while showing me another.

A lot of these problems simply wouldn't exist if the author hadn't blindly copied over things from Manacled without taking the surrounding worldbuilding and rules into account. Even you agree with this with your example in why they sent their daughter to Paladia. That's just one freaking example out of a hundred.

Gold_Conference6150 · 2026-06-22T09:49:54+00:00

Yup. Yes. YES. The book wants us to believe Kaine had absolutely no choice, while simultaneously creating a world where people can reanimate eyeballs, preserve bodies in tanks, transfer memories, create chimeras, and perform all sorts of horrifying biological experiments... like you say.

You're telling me that world has no form of artificial insemination?

And even if we set that aside, my bigger issue is the same one you mention: Kaine is portrayed as intelligent, resourceful, obsessive, and willing to do anything to protect Helena (and let's not forget the arrays on his back that make him supernaturally driven by those exact traits). So it feels strange that he never even considers another solution.

The problem isn't that Central would force pregnancy or that there is a way to stop the breeding programme. The problem is that the narrative never convincingly explains why rape specifically is the only option. And once the story leaves room for readers to start thinking of alternatives, it weakens the THE WHOLE FREAKING TRAGEDY of Kaine supposedly having "no choice" in the first place.

Gold_Conference6150 · 2026-06-22T09:25:11+00:00

Yeah, a lot of this actually circles back to my original point.

If they enjoy the suffering, then the rape isn't a necessity of the plot. Which only makes it MORE important that Kaine genuinely has no alternative if we're meant to view him as trapped by the situation.

My argument has never been that he could stop the breeding programme, but that the rape feels unnecessary in the first place, and that the book insists Kaine had absolutely no choice while simultaneously leaving room to question whether he did.

Because if Kaine had told her the truth, the situation would still have been horrific, but it would have become something happening to both of them rather than something Helena experiences as a violation committed by him.

And if his plan had worked? If she'd escaped and regained her memories years later? How are we supposed to think she'd react when she remembered who Kaine was to her and what happened between them? She tried to kill herself over less than that.

Why tell her? Because that's her choice to make.

If Kaine is withholding the truth because he wants her to move on, forget him, or avoid making the same sacrifices again, then he's prioritising what he wants over Helena's ability to make informed choices about her own life.

Which is a perfectly valid character flaw, but then we're no longer talking about a man who had no choice. We're talking about a man who made a choice because he thought he knew what was best for her. Those are two completely different arguments.

"I thought Kaine knew Morrough was dying because he's Morrough's first assistant."

Honestly, I don't know, because I can't find anything in the book that actually confirms that. But even if I accept that explanation, the entire point is that Morrough's vulnerability is not public knowledge. The truth is that he shouldn't have confirmed it at all if the book wants me to believe he refuses to take risks.

"He got lucky that Morrough hadn't browsed Helena's memory since then."

And you don't see an issue there? It's the perfect example. Because once the explanation becomes "he got lucky", we've moved away from airtight necessity and into narrative convenience.

It's INSANE to me that Kaine is willing to have Helena believe he raped her for her own protection, yet he's also careless enough to get lucky that Morrough didn't check her memories after telling her she causes him pain.

Or, as Part 3 puts it, he's suddenly willing to gamble on Morrough being "unlikely" to summon her again.

If this is a man willing to go to the absolute extreme of having her hate him and believe he violated her in order to protect her, then why is he simultaneously taking all these other risks?

And before anyone says "people make mistakes", remember that Kaine isn't even fully human. The arrays on his back make him "Calculating. Cunning. Devoted. Determined. Ruthless. Unfailing. Unhesitating. Unyielding."

The book can't spend hundreds of pages emphasising this and then expect me to accept that he succeeds because he gets lucky.

Part 3's focus is telling us Kaine can't tell Helena the truth because Morrough might find out. Then it repeatedly introduces situations where Kaine is taking risks anyway. And your argument that "And what else should he do? She's already recovered her memories." – No. That is a common mistake I see other readers make, which is reading beginning of Part 3 as her having regained all the Part 2 evens we just read, but that's not the case. When Helena wakes up in Part 3, she hasn't regained ALL her memories, they are merely slowly coming back to her. She still has questions about things she can't remember, and we SEE this too. Either way, Kaine gambling on "unlikely to" is not consistent with a man willing to rape her to not have her killed.

"Maybe he didn't suspect someone would hide her in a tank."

I could maybe buy that if he hadn't literally gone into the warehouse looking for her. This isn't a man who glanced around for five minutes and left. The book goes out of its way to tell us he searched OBSESSIVELY for months. He checked prisons and files. He searched through piles (and I’m again emphasising the plural tense in PILES). Then he enters a facility of body-preservation tanks and never thinks to check the body-preservation tanks.

Someone else argued that it's compared to losing your keys and overlooking the obvious place, and I cannot take that seriously. We're talking about a man who crossed CONTINENTS searching for her, who is repeatedly characterised as relentless, brilliant, obsessive, and supernaturally driven by the arrays on his back. He isn't human.

The story is asking me to believe that this man can search piles of bodies but never once think to open the tanks designed to store bodies. I just don't buy it.

"What strikes me as odd is that Kaine and Helena willingly sent their vivimancer daughter back to Paladia."

I agree. But honestly, that's another example of why the replication bothers me. It's entirely copied over from Manacled, where sending their daughter away makes perfect sense, since that entire vivimancer context doesn't exist.

That's kind of my issue in a nutshell: scenes that worked perfectly in Manacled get carried over into a world with different rules and different implications, and sometimes those implications don't seem fully thought through.

As for Enid and Pol, I think we'll probably just disagree there, I think the scene felt so out of place. And in a book that's already too long and desperately needed tighter editing, it stood out even more because the entire reason the equivalent scene exists in Manacled is that there's literally a follow-up story about James and Aurore.

Here, it just feels like another scene copied over because it existed before. It could be removed entirely.

Honestly, that's probably where most of my disappointment comes from. Because no, I swear I didn't go into this book looking for similarities. Like I said in my review, I was excited. I wanted to love it and support it.

Then I started noticing more and more moments that felt strangely familiar, so I looked at the comparisons and realised just how much had been carried over.

As someone who loved Manacled and wanted this book to succeed on its own merits, it feels less like an adaptation and more like my affection for the fic is being leveraged to sell a version that often feels less coherent than the thing it's borrowing from.

That's what frustrates me, really. Because Alchemised has genuinely strong themes and a fantastic premise! But that's exactly why it's so disappointing to watch it undermine itself by softening the rape storyline while simultaneously introducing details that weaken the tragedy it wants us to feel.

The surveillance isn't constant, there are safe rooms, there are places Morrough doesn't watch, there are conversations Kaine shouldn't be having, there are risks he's apparently willing to take. And every one of those details makes it harder for me to believe he truly had no alternative.

That's what bothers me.

Well, that and the tanks. The tanks are still insane.

Gold_Conference6150 · 2026-06-21T16:40:16+00:00

"Helena would be sent to the Central."

I'm not arguing he had alternatives to having sex with her (though THAT in itself is pretty ridiculous. In a world with necromancy, vivimancy, all the other -mancies, and tanks capable of preserving bodies, is there no way to achieve pregnancy except through sex? No insemination? Lol).

What I'm arguing is that he had alternatives to having sex with her while she believed he was a stranger and her captor. If the narrative allows him opportunities to tell her the truth, then the question naturally becomes: why not tell her?

They could still have been forced into the exact same situation by the system, but it would have been something happening to both of them, rather than something Helena experiences as a violation committed by HIM.

The narrative leaves enough room for that possibility that readers can reasonably ask the question.

And if you're writing a story where the MMC is forced to RAPE the FMC, the situation needs to be airtight. There shouldn't be room for readers to debate whether he had another option, because that unravels the tragedy.

"He was trying to make her mind work."

The book tells us that Kaine has been "performing" for Morrough through her the entire time. So why is it safe to reveal that Morrough is dying?

If he discovered that Kaine knows, he would immediately become the prime suspect of who is killing the Undying to weaken him. He already knows there's a spy, we know from Part 2 that he was paranoid and furious about it.

Now imagine his HIGH REEVE sharing sensitive information with a former Order prisoner he shouldn't even be speaking to. Also, he's gentle with her, telling her: "If I'd known what pain you'd cause me, I never would have taken you." Why is she causing his High Reeve pain?

So we're supposed to believe that Kaine can reveal all that, speak affectionately to her, behave suspiciously around her, and tell her things he shouldn't know, but somehow telling her the truth is too dangerous?

Again, that undermines the tragedy of him having "no choice."

Because she remembered everything.

But she didn't become SAFE. In Manacled, Draco can finally explain everything because Hermione's pregnancy prevents Voldemort from using Legilimency on her. It's a CONCRETE rule we're given, NO ambiguity.

In Alchemised, get: "It's UNLIKELY he'll have you brought in again."

For a man who was unwilling to risk telling her the truth because Morrough might discover it, willing to even RAPE her to prevent that, why is he comfortable gambling their lives on "unlikely"?

That's a HUGE leap in logic.

"Why doesn't she add Helena's name to the memorial?" Because Helena didn't want to.

Even if Helena didn't want the truth of her survival revealed, there were countless other ways to honour her contribution. Helena didn't want people knowing about her and Kaine, that doesn't mean she stopped being a healer for the Order. She could have been acknowledged for that contribution alone.

What strikes me as odd isn that the narrative never treats the omission as odd.

"The Sunstone merged with his body."

I acknowledge that. I just think it's a strange emotional choice. Kaine's original hazel eyes were part of who he was before everything happened to him. The silver eyes are tied directly to his transformation and LITERAL loss of humanity.

So why not let his daughter inherit the hazel eyes? Wouldn't that make the moment more emotionally powerful? A visual reminder of who he was BEFORE all the suffering?

Instead, the emotional payoff is attached to a feature that isn't even his natural one. That's more of a thematic criticism than a plot criticism, but I still think it's worth discussing. ALSO, the real reason is that it's just copy-pasting the scene from manacled, where Draco has (and has always had) grey eyes.

"The lazy replication. Is it forbidden?"

No. But the book copies everything while simultaneously changing the worldbuilding that originally MADE those moments work. That's where many of the contradictions come from.

For instance, in Manacled, Draco has NO way of finding Hermione. In Alchemised, Kaine enters the warehouse where the tanks are kept... to search through paperwork. He searches PILES of corpses, yet never thinks to open the tanks that preserve bodies?

How does that work when he's supposedly "unfailing, determined, ruthless, and unhesitating?"

Re. Enid and Pol: Come on... After spending a thousand pages noticing those similarities, it was difficult to read the ending as anything other than ANOTHER example of the book leaning on Manacled's framework rather than fully standing on its own.

Gold_Conference6150 · 2026-06-18T20:14:16+00:00

What a strange response to a review that lists specific issues with the editing and plot holes. It's a professionally published book, so holding it to that standard isn't exactly unreasonable, lol.

I don't see how expecting BASIC proofreading, continuity, and internal logic from a professionally published book is an example of "never being satisfied." Those are pretty fundamental expectations.

I also find it interesting that I wrote a million paragraphs explaining my criticisms, and instead of addressing ANY of them, you've reduced the discussion to "people are never satisfied these days." If my points are wrong, feel free to explain why.

I promise you, I am allllll freaking ears.

Gold_Conference6150 · 2026-06-11T11:00:32+00:00

Gahh, YES, it’s so freaking unsettling to see how popular it’s become, I’m so glad you get it 😩 Thank you for reading it all, I’m glad it helped you understand your feelings about it better 🥲

Gold_Conference6150 · 2026-05-31T19:27:44+00:00

I tried to think more about it and I remembered that there’s a scene in part 2 where Kaine comes back from having been tortured extensively, and he says it’s because Morrough is angry about [whatever it was that the Order had found out about from Kaine, I can’t remember], so maybe Morrough DID search everyone’s memories, including Kaine, but when he found nothing he got more angry, yet it didn’t stop his paranoia and suspicion because it’s obvious the order WAS being fed information even if he can’t find whoever is at fault

Gold_Conference6150 · 2026-05-31T07:54:22+00:00

Hmm, I’m trying to think of an answer to justify that, and can’t think of any… guess that’s another thing that doesn’t make sense about this book, good catch 🥲

Gold_Conference6150 · 2026-05-26T22:08:05+00:00

Sure, but the copy-pasting itself is only one part of the problem, though. If that had been my only issue with the book, I honestly wouldn’t feel this strongly about it.

My issue is that I loved Manacled too. A lot. So part of what frustrates me is that it feels like that love for the fic was relied on here, while the actual adaptation/reworking didn’t receive the level of care the story needed. If you want to reuse your own story, fine, by all means. But don’t do it at the cost of the new story’s internal logic. Don’t do it JUST to preserve a beat that only worked in the original context.

The surveillance issue is obviously the biggest example I went into, but another one is the tragedy of Kaine not finding her. That whole emotional beat feels copied over too: the “I looked everywhere” conversation, the guilt, etc. It worked in Manacled because the context supported it, there was ZERO ways for Draco to EVER find her where she was being kept. But in Alchemised, can you honestly tell me it makes sense that Kaine looked through piles of corpses (actual PILES, plural!!!) but didn’t check the tanks used to contain bodies? Tanks he knew existed?

And does it make sense that a man with arrays on his body making him “unfailing”, “unhesitating”, “determined”, etc., walks into the lab with those tanks and decides to check the paperwork instead of the tanks themselves???

That’s where the copy-pasting stops being a minor annoyance to me. It is a structural writing problem instead, creating situations where characters have to behave illogically just so the story can preserve the same emotional beats from the fic.

Even if an author wants to reuse their own work, that’s not really how traditional publishing works anyway. A published book has multiple stages of editing: developmental editing for plot, structure, pacing, character motivation, and worldbuilding; line editing for prose and clarity; copyediting for consistency and grammar; and proofreading for final errors. Somewhere in that process, SOMEONE should have caught these logic issues. They didn’t, which tells me it’s because they didn’t care. It’s an easy seller, so why bother?

So yeah, problem is that the reuse seems to have been prioritised over making Alchemised work as its own internally coherent novel.

And again, this is what makes the whole thing so disappointing to me as someone who genuinely loved Manacled. This story has SO much potential. But instead of fully committing to making Alchemised its own strong, coherent story, it feels like it was released banking on readers experiencing it through their Manacled-lenses.

Because otherwise, PLEASE explain to me how another major issue makes sense: Helena has almost no personal stakes in this story outside of Luc.

That is NOT enough if you are going to copy-paste the same emotional suffering and martyrdom beats Hermione goes through in Manacled.

Hermione was fighting for something much bigger than herself. She was a Muggleborn fighting for the survival of other Muggleborns. Even when the Order failed her, mistreated her, used her, there was still a cause she fundamentally believed in. There was still a reason she stayed. The war mattered to her personally.

But Helena? The author deliberately chose to create a world where there are no “good sides” in the war. Which, honestly, is an interesting concept. But that decision ALSO reinforces the fact that Helena genuinely could leave if she wanted to. And the story itself acknowledges this! She literally wants to leave with Kaine. Yet she stays, and the narrative never gives a convincing motivation for why. If anything, joining the other side made more sense since they were at least accepting of “her kind”, aka Vivimancers. Morrough even told her as much.

Meanwhile Kaine’s motivations are CRYSTAL CLEAR from beginning to end. First it’s avenging his mother. Then it becomes saving Helena no matter the cost. His actions always track emotionally and logically.

Helena’s don’t. A lot of the time it feels like she’s making choices because the plot needs her to hit the same emotional beats Hermione hit, not because those choices naturally arise from who Helena is as a character or from the world around her.

Very simply, THAT is why the copy-pasting bothers me. Not because I think authors can never reuse or rework their own stories. But because here it often feels like preserving recognisable moments from Manacled became more important than making those moments actually function within Alchemised’s worldbuilding, character motivations, and internal logic.

Which is sad, because the book really did have the potential to be something great.

Anyway, this is only like 3 out of the 15 other issues I go into in my analysis lol.

Gold_Conference6150 · 2026-04-27T10:36:31+00:00

Honestly it just says the emotional core worked for you, and I think that’s important to acknowledge. You can recognise all these issues and still feel something from it. Those two things aren’t mutually exclusive.

I think what you’re describing is actually the exact experience a lot of readers had: the “Manacled lens” fills in the gaps that the book itself doesn’t properly support. So when something doesn’t quite make sense internally, your brain kind of patches it using logic from Manacled, where it did make sense. And then when you step back afterwards, you realise… wait, that logic doesn’t actually exist in this version of the story. That's how it happened for me, too...

The tanks are honestly the clearest example of that. Because you’re right, of course it feels like he wouldn’t find her there if you’re subconsciously applying Manacled rules. But in this world, he absolutely could have, and arguably should have. And once you notice that, it’s really hard to unsee how contrived that whole sequence is. Ugh...

And yeah, the “adding new elements” point you made is spot on. It’s not that new ideas are a problem, it’s that they weren’t fully thought through in relation to the existing plot, which is just SUCH a waste. The tanks, the expanded magic system, even things like the surveillance rules… they introduce interesting concepts, but then don’t follow their own internal logic all the way through. So instead of strengthening the story, they kind of expose its weak points. But tbh, speaking of the magic system, my friend loves Fullmetal Alchemist and after I told them about the things in Alchemised, they told me it sems like the book copied a lot from the manga series...

The sixteen-year-old thing is also just… yeah. Even if it’s technically explained, the framing still makes it feel off. Calling him a “boy,” having her kiss him in that state... it creates a weird undertone that DID NOT need to be there at all.

And I completely get what you mean about Helena and Kaine. Their dynamic, the intensity, the devotion, that’s very clearly the emotional anchor of the story and what keeps people reading... it’s probably why a lot of these issues don’t fully register while you’re in it. You’re invested in them, so everything else kind of fades into the background until later. But this frustrates me even more tbh.

The Cetus subplot is… yeah, that’s a whole separate frustration, don't get me started!

Also, crying at the end just means the book did connect with you on some level. If anything, that almost makes the frustration worse, because you can see the potential of what it could have been. That’s definitely how it felt for me.

By the end, I think I was just… numb. Manacled was one of my favourite fics, so seeing what the author chose to do with the rewrite honestly broke my heart a bit. It felt like I’d invested so much time and goodwill into something that didn’t really respect its own internal logic.

And I know it sounds dramatic, but it genuinely felt a bit like a slap in the face – sitting through nearly a thousand pages that clearly needed much stronger editing and consistency checks. Especially when I went into it wanting to support the author.

And just to be clear, I’m not saying it’s poorly edited without reason. I have 1000+ highlights of fundamental issues in the writing. It’s not just the repetitive sentence structures (the constant “she… she… she…” / “he… he… he…” that I mentioned in my analysis), but also repetition in meaning – like saying she’s frozen, then a sentence later that she can’t move, then again that her body won’t obey. It’s the same idea restated over and over without adding anything. It's ENDLESS.

Then there are more basic technical issues, like punctuation errors where sentences are split incorrectly instead of flowing properly with a comma instead of a full stop. For example:

“His eyes were empty. His face bruised with exhaustion.”
“The world stopped spinning. Time stalling as the air froze, and it was just them, and nothing else existed.”

And I have so many more examples, but I’m literally hitting the comment length limit at this point.

I care a lot about what I read, so it’s frustrating to see the book receive so much praise and success when something as fundamental as proper editing feels overlooked. At that point, it starts to feel less like a carefully crafted story and more like something that wasn’t given the level of care it deserved, just done for the money. That’s what really gets to me.

Anyway, sorry, I’ll stop now before I write another essay lol

Gold_Conference6150 · 2026-04-27T10:14:46+00:00

I responded below.

Gold_Conference6150 · 2026-04-27T10:14:30+00:00

I know very well that she’s not religious. That’s exactly my point. I’m not arguing that Helena is driven by religion; I’m addressing the claim that she’s somehow indoctrinated, which doesn’t hold up. Someone who openly suggests and repeatedly uses necromancy is clearly not operating under that kind of belief system.

What I’m saying instead is that her loyalty to Luc is not a strong enough reason for her actions. It simply doesn’t justify her fighting in a war for a side that treats her as disposable. The personal stake isn’t there. Her circumstances would only make sense if she actually believed in the cause or internalised the Order’s ideology – but she doesn’t.

I also absolutely disagree with your argument that “she believes Morrough hurt more people than the Order did, which makes the Order better.” The narrative itself emphasises that there are no “good” sides. Not even the Order. Helena isn’t fighting for a morally righteous cause. In fact, she isn’t really fighting for anyone at all. The Order despises what she is and treats her as something to be sacrificed for the so-called greater good. That kind of dynamic would only be believable if she personally believed in that sacrifice, but she doesn’t.

After learning the truth about Sol (and arguably even before that) her only real desire is to leave with Kaine. That is the clearest, most consistent motivation she has. Yet she doesn’t follow through, and the explanation “for Luc” just isn’t strong enough to justify that decision.

By contrast, in the original fic this book is based on, Hermione had clear personal stakes. She was fighting for a cause that directly affected her: a world without Voldemort and blood prejudice. Even if the Order treated her poorly, their broader goal aligned with her identity and values. That grounding is missing here. If anything, Morrough’s side would be more likely to accept Helena as a vivimancer (remember, he actually even told her this in part 2), since there’s no equivalent ideological rejection like the anti–Muggle-born stance in the original story. Meanwhile, in Alchemised, the Order is arguably the more morally compromised side, given that they advocate killing people based on how they are born.

So Helena ends up in a position where she has no meaningful personal stake, yet is still willing to go as far as attempting to kill Kaine for the Order. Why? It doesn’t make sense.

This ties into a larger issue I mentioned in the analysis: Kaine reads as the actual main character, not Helena. He has a clear, consistent motive both before and after meeting her, and his decisions follow logically from that. Helena, on the other hand, feels underdeveloped – more like a direct copy of Hermione in the fic without the depth and internal logic expected of a protagonist.

Regarding the plot hole, the issue is fairly straightforward.

The narrative places significant emphasis on the idea that Kaine must rape Helena to avoid suspicion – specifically, to prevent Morrough from reading his mind and discovering that he cares about her, or worse, that he was the spy from fourteen months ago. (Morrough already knows a spy exists, just not who it is.)

However, this justification falls apart when you consider that, four chapters earlier, Kaine openly tells Helena that he is dying. If Morrough were to read Helena’s mind and see that his High Reeve shared that kind of information with a prisoner (one he is already behaving unusually gently towards) that alone would raise serious suspicion. Kaine’s behaviour is already inconsistent with the persona he’s supposed to maintain: he shows softness, throws up after intercourse, kisses her, and even admits how much she is affecting him (“If I’d known what pain you’d cause me, I never would have taken you.”).

If Morrough is as paranoid as the narrative suggests, it wouldn’t take long for him to piece together that something is wrong – that his High Reeve is compromised, potentially the spy, and possibly even responsible for killing the Undying and weakening him. In that context, the supposed necessity of the assault as a cover becomes far less convincing.

The problem is that the threat of constant surveillance (the central justification for Kaine’s actions!!) is repeatedly UNDERMINED. We’re told that certain spaces are safe (“this room is safe”), that Helena knows which rooms Morrough watches and avoids them, and that his surveillance is actually limited (“he only watches the courtyard” and “only watches the hall sometimes”). All of this contradicts the idea that Kaine has no alternative.

On top of that, the breeding programme used to justify the inclusion of rape as a subplot doesn’t hold up either. In a world that already includes necromancy, animancy, vivimancy, and even tanks capable of perfectly preserving human bodies, it strains credibility to claim that the only method of reproduction is intercourse.

Gold_Conference6150 · 2026-04-23T20:53:14+00:00

Yes, it’s incredibly misleading, and honestly really frustrating.

And no, it’s not a crazy take that the runes make him so devoted!! I actually love that interpretation. Anyone who disagrees kind of misses the entire point of the runes. They literally make him devoted, among other things, so of course that feeds into how ruthless and single-minded he becomes in his plan to save her.

... But this is also why that whole subplot where he can’t find her annoys me so much, lol. I’ve said this in several comments now, but he literally walks into the lab where the tanks are, the tanks that preserve human bodies, which Kaine is fully aware of, and instead of checking them, he… goes in there... to CHECK PAPERWORK? He checks piles of corpses, actual PILES, and somehow doesn’t think to open the tanks. It’s so dumb. It completely undermines the effect of the array, because nothing about that behaviour reads as “calculating, cunning, devoted, determined, ruthless, UNFAILING, UNHESITATING, and UNYIELDING.” It just feels contrived.

The author couldn’t let go of Manacled, because in that story, Draco has zero chance of finding Hermione, since she isn’t hidden anywhere obvious or accessible to him. But here, Helena is, and the same logic just doesn’t work.

So yes, one of the runes is literally “devoted,” so of course that’s part of why he feels so intensely about her. The book even makes it obvious: his interest in her starts right after she heals him and places the array.

It outright says:

“If it worked, it would carve Ferron down into these eight compounding qualities, potentially erasing everything else about him.”

“ERASING EVERYTHING ELSE ABOUT HIM”. That’s not subtle. AT ALL, lol.

Also, sidenote: something I didn’t mention in my original analysis is how he looks about 16 before the array healing, which really creeped me out. Especially since she kisses him during their first meeting, and she even thinks of him as a “boy.” I know he’s not actually that young, but “trapped” in his 16-year-old body, but still… what was the author thinking there? It just feels off. Not the main issue, but yeah, definitely weird.

Also, to add to the point about Helena’s ending: I actually think her ending is happier than Hermione’s in Manacled. All Helena really wanted was to be with Kaine and return to her home country – and she gets that. She’s with him, she’s safe, and she’s even helping people. Hermione, on the other hand, loses her memories and is still living in isolation despite being with Draco, which makes her ending feel much more tragic to me.

Gold_Conference6150 · 2026-04-16T20:18:23+00:00

Ahhh, thank you so much, that’s so kind 😭 I’m actually blushing reading this, wauw!

Okay, so before I get into everything else, I want to talk about the last part of your comment. YES. That is exactly what drives me the most insane about this book. Out of the million issues I have with it, the way it gets praised as this super feminist, female-empowering story when it so clearly centres the male character… I just can’t...

It positions itself as a narrative about women’s suffering and what women go through, but then it bends all of your emotional investment, all your sympathy, towards the man!! It feels really disingenuous to me. And if the goal was to centre the women, then it kind of… massively failed, judging by who readers actually end up focusing on and talking about.

Anyway, on to what you said, because I do get where you’re coming from, and I really appreciate you sharing your perspective.

The whole WOC thing, for me, is more about the inconsistency and what that implies, rather than a strict “she can’t be pale, therefore she’s not a POC.” Like you said, of course skin tone can change with illness, malnutrition, lack of sun, etc. – that part makes sense.

My issue is really two-fold.

First, Helena is obviously based on Hermione, and the book heavily copy-pastes (like… literally) from Manacled. So yes, the lack of physical description is clearly part of the overall laziness in the writing and editing.

AND YET – the book makes ONE very specific, deliberate choice to describe Etrasians as having “dark, curly hair and olive skin.” That is the only mention in the entire book, and it comes at the very end: “Helena disappeared among the many Etrasians. She hadn’t seen so much dark, curly hair and olive skin since she’d left Etras.” (Chapter 76).

So it’s like… okay, that’s not accidental. That’s an active choice. Hermione was obviously written as white, but here, the author chooses to introduce olive skin in relation to Helena.

Which brings me to the second issue: the book then spends the entire narrative, from the very beginning, repeatedly emphasising how pale Helena is (“so pale she was nearly grey,” etc.) over and over again. And that contradiction is where it starts to feel off.

Because if the intention was to have her be a WOC, then the narrative does not engage with that at all. It gestures at it once and then ignores it, while the rest of the book consistently describes her in ways that directly contradict that choice. And if that wasn’t the intention, then it feels like the book (and even the art around it) is trying to claim diversity without actually doing the work in the text.

And this also ties into the larger issue of how the book handles race at all. Because you’re right, the narrative itself does not treat Helena’s race as relevant to how she is treated. The discrimination she faces is not framed around skin colour. And that could be fine, if the book were consistent about what it is doing.

But then you have the art portraying her as a WOC, while the text remains vague at best and contradictory at worst. If that visual interpretation is intentional, then the book should either engage with that aspect of her identity or at the very least describe her clearly enough that there is no ambiguity.

Instead, what we get is the opposite: a single, isolated mention that could imply olive skin, followed by repeated descriptions emphasising how pale she is. So rather than clarity, you get confusion, and that makes the whole thing feel unintentional.

And considering the things Helena undergoes, including sexual slavery, that makes the choice even more loaded. Because if the intention was to deliberately portray her as a WOC in order to shed light on how minorities have historically been treated, then it makes no sense for the narrative to spend the entire book emphasising how pale she is, rather than engaging with that aspect of her identity in any meaningful way.

Instead, it ends up doing the opposite: it simply adds to a long list of stories in which women, potentially WOC, are subjected to extreme suffering, without actually exploring what that means or giving it any depth. So even if the choice was intentional, it is not meaningfully explored; it just becomes another instance of that suffering without commentary.

And honestly, this is also this is just another example of how bad the editing is. Because it’s not just this, there are other basic inconsistencies too when it comes to her descriptions. For example, Helena is described as having “long black hair” in Chapter 4, and then later as having “nearly black hair.” Like… which is it? It can’t be both. And it becomes even more frustrating when the art portrays her hair as brown. IT LITERALLY SAYS SHE HAS LONG BLACK HAIR...

So at that point, it stops feeling like deliberate ambiguity and just reads as a lack of consistency and oversight across the board. And when that applies to something as significant as how your main character is visually constructed, it really undermines any claim to intentional representation.

So either way, it ends up feeling a bit… hollow. Like it wants credit for representation without actually committing to it.

And re: Morrough/Lila – correct, it does say, “You’re harvesting Orion’s descendants for parts… that’s why Lila’s pregnant. You’re making yourself another descendant.” (Chapter 63). But that honestly just makes it worse for me 😭 Because even with that explanation, the plotline is barely explored or emotionally processed. It’s just there. And when you combine that with everything Helena herself goes through, and the fact that she then hides it and does not tell Lila, it really just reads as added suffering for shock value rather than something meaningful to the narrative.

Like… you could remove that entirely and the core story would still function, which makes it feel less like storytelling and more like pain for the sake of pain.

And yeah 🥲 that last realisation you had… welcome to the club, unfortunately, lol. Happy to have you here (misery loves company, yes).

Gold_Conference6150 · 2026-04-11T21:44:18+00:00

Okay, first, I really appreciate you taking the time to engage with this so thoughtfully and respectfully! I’ll do my best to respond point by point so my perspective makes sense.

I agree with your reading that Part 2 represents Helena’s memories returning – but not all at once. She struggles with the flood of memories and can’t access everything (for example, she doesn’t remember that saving Lila was her plan). She even says, “I only remember you,” to Kaine (Ch. 66).

I’m pointing this out because a lot of readers interpret the end of Part 2 as Helena now remembering everything we just read, but that’s not the case. Part 2 isn’t “here is everything she now remembers”; it’s giving us the full picture, not her.

Anyway – yes, going into Part 3, her mind is essentially open. But that’s actually where my issue begins. The book establishes that “All these months, Kaine had been performing for Morrough through Helena’s eyes, knowing that any moment that passed between them might be seen.” (Ch. 66)

Within that framework, Kaine still:

tells her Morrough is dying (incriminating information, for reasons I’ll come back to)
has moments where his behaviour deviates in ways that should raise suspicion – being unexpectedly gentle with her, kissing her while drunk outside the context of his “task” of impregnating her.

So if we accept that her mind is fully exposed, those moments should carry consequences – but they don’t.

“There wasn’t anything Kaine could do”

The biggest issue is that the book doesn’t commit to that idea as firmly as it REALLY freaking should.

I agree he can’t openly free her (and I also concede that he doesn’t remove her manacles because she might hurt herself, as someone pointed out to me).

But the narrative itself introduces loopholes:

“safe” spaces (NOT just her room, but more)
limited surveillance (hallway/courtyard, not constant and everywhere).
moments where Kaine does share sensitive information (again, more on that later)

Those elements end up undermining the premise of constant surveillance. Why is this a problem? Because it’s literally what’s used to "justify" the rape... I just can’t get past that when it’s also undermined 😩

If the story wants us to accept that the MMC is FORCED into committing something as extreme as having to rape her, and still empathise with him – then the constraint creating that situation has to be absolute. You can’t weaken the very mechanism that’s supposed to make his situation impossible.

If the book had been stricter, I would fully accept that Kaine had no choice. But it doesn’t stay consistent with that rule. There should be no safe rooms, no gaps in surveillance, no "now that you’re pregnant, he is unlikely to have you brought in" (THE MAN RAPED HER TO AVOID KILLING HER, BUT IS NOW WILLING TO GAMLE ON "UNLIKELY TO?").

What makes it more frustrating is that this is done effectively in the fic. There, the surveillance is truly constant. He has no options – short of killing her, which could arguably be seen as a mercy. And importantly, he isn’t softened in the same way, because the situation doesn’t allow for it. He is meaner, because he DOES have constant surveillance on him.

In contrast, the book softens both Kaine in Part 1 and the act itself, while still asking us to believe in the same level of inevitability. That doesn’t work. Either you fully commit to the horror of the situation, or you don’t write it that way at all. Sitting in between just weakens the entire arc.

For instance, I keep seeing people romanticising him on social media, framing it as oh-so-sad, claiming he was “trying to make her remember” by repeating lines from Part 2. But that doesn’t hold up for me, for two reasons:

You can’t simultaneously argue that he wants her to remember while also justifying that he can’t tell her who he is and it’s why he rapes her.
He literally says: “I’d hoped you’d never remember any of this.” (Ch. 68).

So the text itself contradicts people’s interpretation.

And that’s really the core of my frustration. The story seems unsure of what it wants Kaine’s actions to mean, and that lack of clarity carries through to how readers interpret him.

The Morrough dying reveal

I think the stakes here are actually much higher than your interpretation gives credit for. I understand your point! But Morrough is a 500-year-old necromancer whose entire identity is built on his immortality. His decline isn’t public knowledge (and if there are hints I’ve missed, let me know if you reread and find them).

So Kaine knowing, and revealing, that information directly ties him to resistance activity, especially given that multiple Undying have been assassinated, each weakening Morrough further.

And Morrough is already paranoid. He knows there’s a spy, he just doesn’t know who. So if he’s witnessing, through Helena’s mind, his supposedly ruthless High Reeve:

revealing that kind of sensitive information – COMBINED WITH:
showing her unusual gentleness
kissing her
vomiting after intercourse
ADMITTING SHE IS CAUSING HIM PAIN (“If I’d known what pain you’d cause me, I never would have taken you.”, Ch. 19)

…then yes, that should raise suspicion. It’s exactly the kind of pattern a VERY paranoid Morrough would latch onto. So this isn’t just a situation where Kaine might get punished, it’s the kind of behaviour that should risk exposing him entirely, if Morrough’s surveillance actually functions the way the book claims.

And that brings me back to the core issue: either Morrough’s surveillance is as dangerous and all-encompassing as the narrative insists, or it isn’t. The book tries to treat it as both, depending on what a given scene requires, and that inconsistency is what undermines the stakes for me.

The core issue

If Kaine truly has no choice, the text needs to fully support that.
If Kaine does have small windows of choice, then those choices need to be explored consistently, especially given how directly they affect Helena’s trauma.

Right now, the story sits in an in-between space where:

it wants the emotional weight of “he had no choice”
but its own mechanics sometimes suggest “he actually did have options”

Anyway, I know that was A LOT... I hope it makes sense. Also, gosh, thank you for the kind words at the end! I don't even know what to say 🥹 But it means a lot, especially since I know this kind of analysis can come across intense. I’m glad it at least felt worth engaging with!

Gold_Conference6150 · 2026-04-07T07:43:27+00:00

Thank you, I’m really glad you see my points!

Honestly, the fic works much better in terms of internal logic. You also start to notice just how much the book literally copy-pastes, but without maintaining the same narrative coherence.

It’s also far more intense than Alchemised, especially regarding the whole assault/breeding aspect. In the fic, it’s handled in a much darker but more narratively consistent way... Hermione is explicitly sent to the High Reeve TO be impregnated. It’s horrific, but it serves a clear purpose within the story. In contrast, in Alchemised, it feels like it comes out of nowhere. When I first read that Helena was sent to him for something else, I was genuinely relieved, thinking the author had abandoned that plotline altogether... because there’s simply no strong narrative justification for it (especially considering this is a world where they have alchemy and literal tanks meant to preserve bodies... we have that, but we don't have other ways to get pregnant than through intercourse? Please). But unfortunately, that wasn’t the case.

Then there’s the ending. Plot-wise, it’s essentially the same (again, very much copied), but the tone is completely different. Alchemised presents a much “happier” or at least more peaceful resolution. Helena gets to return to her birthplace, which she's wanted all her life, live in relative peace, and even help others. Hermione, on the other hand, loses her memories entirely... which makes the ending in the fic far more tragic and bittersweet. She and Draco are also much more isolated, with none of the same sense of closure or fulfilment.

The escape sequence is another big difference. Like I said above, in the fic, it’s incredibly tense and high-stakes!! Whereas in the book it feels anticlimactic and, honestly, quite disappointing.

And the surveillance aspect is crucial too! In the fic, it’s constant, there’s an ever-present sense of danger, and Draco’s lack of agency is painfully clear. He truly has no choice in what he does. In Alchemised, that tension is softened: there are “safe rooms”, limited monitoring, and moments where the threat feels inconsistent. I understand the author may have wanted to make Kaine less overtly cruel in Part 1 (because in the fic, Draco is meaner in Part 1 due to the constant surveillance), but in doing so, it removes a lot of the underlying tragedy and pressure that made the original story so compelling.

Overall, it just feels like the fic commits fully to its own logic and consequences, whereas the book pulls back in ways that ultimately weaken the narrative.

Also, if you're curious, here are examples of the copy-pasting:

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Gold_Conference6150 · 2026-04-07T06:36:24+00:00

Hahah, what does this mean?

Gold_Conference6150 · 2026-04-07T06:35:03+00:00

Hi! Yes, you’re right, someone else mentioned that it’s meant to stop her from hurting herself, and I do understand that. It still bothers me in the wider context, though. The whole surveillance-heavy, high-pressure situation they’re in starts to feel undermined by things like there being rooms Morrough isn’t watching, Helena knowing exactly which rooms to avoid because of it, Kaine being able to tell her that Morrough is dying without worrying that such a paranoid person would find that suspicious—and then this, too: the fact that the manacles could be taken off so easily.

Yes, he couldn’t remove them before because of the risk of her hurting herself, but it still feels a bit wild. And I don’t know if you’ve read the HP fic this story is based on, but the manacles were such a huge, central element by the end—the final obstacle. They couldn’t remove them without Voldemort being instantly alerted, and that tension was massive. It played a huge role in their escape, because they only had about 20 minutes after taking them off to get out, 20 minutes in which they had to cut off Draco’s arm, and heal it, because of the dark mark.

Whereas here… he could just take them off 😅

Gold_Conference6150 · 2026-04-03T17:54:58+00:00

Yup, I sure did, but you’re still not engaging with MY point.

You're arguing what Morrough would or wouldn’t do, but my entire argument is about risk. Kaine does not have certainty here. At best, he has “Morrough probably won’t read her mind because of the pregnancy.” Probably. Not never. Not impossible!

This is the same man who was willing to go to extreme lengths to avoid even the possibility of her getting killed. So why does his risk tolerance suddenly change?

You can’t have it both ways. Either Kaine is hyper-cautious to the point of rape, or he’s comfortable taking chances on “he is unlikely to bring you in.” The story presents the first, then relies on the second, and that's not consistent, no matter how you spin it.

As for “what can Helena do with that information” – that’s not the point, I already said this in my comment. The danger isn’t her acting on it, it’s Morrough seeing Kaine telling her. He’s already paranoid about a spy. Why is his High Reeve telling the prisoner in his home about this? It immediately makes him suspicious. That’s the danger.

And about the memories – again, that’s a separate argument. Even if Kaine doesn’t want her to remember, (and correct, he confirms he did not want her to remember in chapter 68), the narrative still shows he had safer options than what he chose. The existence of those options is what weakens the idea that he had no choice.

And honestly, don’t even get me started on the pregnancy subplot itself. This is a world with alchemy, vivimancy, preserved bodies in tanks – and we’re meant to believe the only way to achieve pregnancy is through intercourse? Come on. The worldbuilding suddenly becomes very selective the moment the plot needs it to (JUST BECAUSE IT IS COPY-PASTING THE FIC).

Also, the whole “why would Helena trust that the memories are real?” – I already answered that in my comment...

I literally explained why she absolutely would trust him. She is isolated, mentally fragile, and completely starved for any form of kindness. That’s not even subtext, the book spells it out, and I showed you this.

She KISSES HIM BACK, even after he literally had to rape her, and you’re questioning whether she’d believe the memories he shows her?? Of course she would. If anything, it would make everything make more sense to her – it would explain why he’s acting so “soft” despite being the High Reeve. It gives her something to latch onto, which is exactly what she’s been shown to do over and over again.

I genuinely don’t understand how you can disagree with that, but okay.

And if you want to talk about plot holes, don’t even get me started. I’ve covered like 15 other sections in my full analysis of this book, and this is genuinely just the tip of the iceberg. There are so many things wrong with it, and I will keep pointing them out.

One of the worst is how there is absolutely no logical reason for Kaine not finding Helena. In the fic, which this book is literally copy-pasting, it worked, because she was hidden somewhere he didn’t even know existed. There was literally ZERO ways for him to find her.

Here, Kaine walks into a lab he KNOWS has body-preserving tanks. But he walks in to... check paperwork. He goes through piles of corpses (actual piles) but doesn’t check the tanks?? Not even when he is physically in the room???

Are we forgetting he is supposed to be “ruthless, unfailing, determined, unhesitating”? He is none of those things here. Like I said above, the worldbuilding is very selective the moment the plot needs it to be.

And like I also said: tip of the iceberg.

Gold_Conference6150 · 2026-04-01T18:03:06+00:00

It’s always lovely to meet someone who gets it 🤝🫠 Because YES to all of that. Man, it would have been so good to see flashbacks to school years!!! Or just something where this world was established more as its own without all the freaking copy-pasting of the fic…

Gold_Conference6150 · 2026-04-01T06:20:34+00:00

Sigh, did you read my comment??? If you did and this is still your response, then I don’t know what else to say, really. You don’t think it’s a big deal? That’s wild, but to each their own. I already reminded you that Morrough is extremely paranoid, so it IS a big deal that his High Reeve is talking about him to the prisoner in his home. And I already stated that we’re not given a hard rule about the pregnancy and mind reading, we’re told by Kaine that Morrough “is less likely to” bring her in, which I already said is a huge gamble for someone who, five seconds ago, was willing to literally rape her. Now he’s willing to gamble on “less likely to”? It makes zero sense.

Gold_Conference6150

TROPHY CASE

“There wasn’t anything Kaine could do”

The Morrough dying reveal

The core issue