This trilogy mirrors how I felt about Disney's Star Wars sequel trilogy.

So....yeah...
This was another mess, but not as bad as the previous mess. This really did feel like it was trying to fix the confusion of the previous book while also trying to finish the series off, and, unfortunately, it just felt out of balance.

So what do I mean by that? Well if you've read my other reviews for books 1 and 2, you'll know that this series has lacked direction and did not focus on making the player understand the politics and dynamics of the different forces and factions of this world. For two whole books, I did not know who the bad guys were, and even in this final book, I still do not know who the real enemies were.
Now, not every book has to make these things clear, as there are stories with a more nuanced approach to politics and factions in wars, but for this trilogy, there was no nuance, there was a clear lack of effort put into establishing these elements.

Take the Red Rising series for example, you have the original trilogy, where the good guys and the bad guys were clearly established and it was not nuanced. Then take the following books of the series where it grows that universe by establishing multiple factions and making them more nuanced, requiring the reader to better understand them and follow along to understand the dynamics of interactions. That one series shows great examples of both ways of making the reader understand factions and politics.

Whereas this trilogy was deeply flawed. I had no idea who to root for, the main character Simon didn't know what was going on most of the time, he rarely asked questions, he didn't progress power-wise despite this being "Progression Fantasy" and he only grew more powerful when he wore a mask that just let him use the powers of his territory to the fullest and when he takes it off and goes limp and unconscious and needs to be healed in the healing pools of Valinhall. Take Wight's Cradle series, all the characters grow as people and their magic grows too, through hard work and determination and some awesome circumstances, Simon in the Traveler's Gate trilogy, however, was barely trained, knows fuck-all about the capabilities of his territory and is only a threat when he wears the mask. The mask was the real hero. 

And somehow he is now the leader of Valinhall and commanding the other Travelers, despite anyone in Valinhall could use the mask and have access to the full powers of their territory. Simon beat the previous leader and won his sword, therefore he's in charge, and yet the sword can choose who to accept, and yet they accept this kid who knows fuck all and is only powerful because of a mask he can use for a few mins before becoming a useless vegetable and fully at the mercy of whatever enemy he was fighting. Ridiculous.

Alin, turns out, really is like Homelander as I said before in my book 1 review, except his Elysian territory powers essentially give him magic schizophrenia and he's got all these different voices representing different aspects of himself, whispering in his mind all the time. He's literally Simon, dumb as a bag of rocks, needs other people to tell him what to do, rarely thinks for himself and when he does it's stupid. Simon relies on the talking dolls and the other travellers to do almost anything, Alin has a combo of his magic whispers and some other travellers telling him what to do. The difference is, the person.
Simon wants to do the right thing, he relies on his gut and what other people say, Alin wants to do what he thinks other people will believe is the right thing but ONLY if he's seen doing it and looks like the hero. Simon wants to help, seen or not, Alin needs to be seen to help because he wants others to like him.

There was a part in this book where Alin suddenly realised he was being the bad guy. Now, how did he come to this extremely difficult conclusion for someone like Alin whose ego was inflated by his limitless power and his self-righteous stubbornness? Did he go through some terrible journey where he was forced to confront the horrors he caused and he goes through an emotional crucible which forces him to ignore the whispers and face the truth of himself? Nope.

Someone made a joke to someone he was fighting that they "always had to play the hero", then his brain went "Oh, if they think they're the hero, then that must mean they think I'm the villain, oh fuck yeah I did do all this bad shit and I was fighting my friends, well, shit". I paraphrase, it was the magic whispers that convinced him. but it was still one of the laziest shit I've read.

Leah was a cool character that was forgotten when it came to character development, she was Finn from the Star Wars sequels in this analogy. Kai was just as useless from the very beginning of the series til the end, zero pay off or progression. Indurial was a cool character that was just discarded.
I'm depressing myself just writing out all that was wrong with this book.

So what did I like? Well, the action was still pretty good and well-written.
There were some emotional scenes, that was nice, love me some emotional scenes.
Ummmmmm......yeah no sorry I'm tapped out.

The story legit was a mess, but the characters were engaging enough to keep me going, same with the magic and action scenes. But I truly felt like these books wasted my time because the story was shite.