Let’s just start at the beginning. Karna, despite being on the wrong side of the war, has always been portrayed as virtuous, a man whose life was marred by unfortunate and unfair circumstances, but whose moral character was never in question. He’s called Daanveer Karna, for god’s sake, to the point that he gave away promises to Kunti and Indra that he would have been well within his rights to deny. So to take a character like that and, in the opening scene, have him destroy a port and murder hundreds of innocent craftsmen, is just downright unconscionable. That was the first point that pissed me off. And it doesn’t end there: the author constantly shows Karna and other folklore heroes displaying very poor moral character, all in the name of “humanizing” them.

Then there’s the pacing. The book is unnecessarily long and drags on for a loooong time when it really just shows a single battle between Karna and Jarasandha. There are unnecessary plot twists, some of which don’t even make sense. Jarasandha is winning, and then just decides to conclude the battle by surrendering for a wrestling match with Karna? And Karna has panic attacks, what, why?

To stay true to the conceit that every character is a mortal human, the author had to invent equivalents for the abilities these characters possessed. The nagastra becomes an arrow dipped in venom 🤦. Parshuram is no longer immortal, but a group of students who keep passing the knowledge along. And the most frustrating of them all: the Brahmastra is just self-belief 🤮. I cannot emphasize how stupid that is. The Brahmastra is a secret known to very few, entrusted to those with the responsibility of only passing it on to other worthy individuals, with the power to destroy entire armies, and it turns out to be… self-belief. I was speechless when I read it, and even more dumbfounded when Karna actually wins the duel with Jarasandha through “self-belief.” Skill can go to hell, he’s got self-belief, and that’s how, kids, you defeat someone well-versed in wrestling with decades of experience, who has fought lions before, by, you know, not giving up and believing in yourself 😂.

And don’t get me started on the Greek king Archimedes. What? Where did that come from? For one, it should have been Alexander, and even then, Alexander reached India around Chandragupta Maurya’s time, nowhere near to when the Mahabharata is supposed to have taken place. That is just poor research, and it feels like the author slapped on whatever he wanted from wherever he wanted.

This is one of the most frustrating books I’ve read, because, like I said, it has desecrated the image of my beloved character all in the name of creative liberty. From a magnanimous, virtuous, kind-hearted warrior and statesman, to a scheming, spineless, lying, sniveling bastard of a person. This book was nothing short of sacrilege for me.