A moving mind is always fed; a mind at rest eats itself.

Whereas Book 4 was largely villain-less insofar as we weren't really show the Ash lord or given any reason to fear, loathe, empathize with him, his successor Atalantia is kind of a beast. This is the first book where the characters actually make important decisions that aren't contrived as a result of their own idiocy. They carry nuance, given the themselves and those around them depth; their tribulations are legitimate and/or even sympathetic.

Seeing both sides of the combat from Lysander's and Darrow's PoV is awesome.

Not sure if there's some narrative or rhetorical device being employed here, but Chapter 18 starts with the exact same speech that Virginia opens the prologue of the book with.

After the day of red dust, Darrow abdicates control of the army to his commanding officers, which he makes out to see like a noble and democratic bow, but he also bears responsibility for getting them out of the mess he's dragged them into. If there was ever a time for a leader, ...

You eat lion? Isn't it a bit stringy?

Yes, but it's more about the aesthetic and political innuendo

Sure, literal deus ex machina via supply obelisk to bail Darrow out of the first compelling scenario in the whole series: minus minus,

Every father makes a mess of things, it's just a matter of if he cared when he did

The crucifixion of Ulysses is one of the most evil things in this series, or any other for that matter

Parallels between Eo and Lyria, who believe it would be better to die on their feet than live on their knees

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