[Novels] Elaina - Writing and Planning

“You will do this, Dryden if you love us.”

Protect the Prince. Protect our son.

But that meant the Commandant of the Sovereign Guard would be turning his back on protecting them.
His King and his Queen. The loves of his life.

–

Dryden Atrious had loved his Sovereign (King) for half a decade when his adoptive son asks him why he takes Peter off and away at night. Away from his wife, the Queen, who often ends those nights with her pre-pubescent son wrapped in her arms in efforts to ward off the loneliness.

Elaina never showed an ounce of malice or jealousy. Atrious had wished to show his Queen the same love that he felt for his King but he knew politically, it would just cause more problems than offer up any solutions. Graciously has Elaina said time and time again that she does not mind. It has never done anything to lessen his guilt.

To the mind of a child, matters of the heart were simple. If Sir Atrious was Nathanael’s father too, as his father, Peter had decided that Atrious could be considered, then why did not all three of his parents love one-another? Why must his mother be lonely? It just was not right!

–

The three of them being together does not change the central plot points, including the deaths of all three at Drefan’s hands. But it does allow Elaina to be happy. Why did she have to remain alone while Peter loved another?

Elaina is already treated poorly by the Arch-Deacon, and even though she knows being divorced by the King would see her be unable to face the court, she begs for Peter to leave her and take another wife. She cannot have another child, Nathanael a miracle, and Peter must have an heir that is not ill and dying. But Peter is a weak man, and he knows it. He depends on her for gods’ near everything.

Yet, I have come to realize that this was not about her strength of character, but a token tragedy of a woman loving someone who could not love her back the way she loved him. Peter is gay but he is King, and he is easily manipulated. Elaina marries him, her childhood friend, to give him an heir and someone strong to lean upon for support. But screw that trope that a Queen, a powerful woman is stronger alone and that as a woman, she must sacrifice her happiness for the greater good.

That she must graciously hide her bitterness and spend countless nights alone.

Peter, Atrious, and Elaina may only have 2 years together before they meet their end, but let it be two years not of loneliness. 

[novels] Aidna - writing and planning

A ramble… The death of Queen Frigga in Thor Dark World angered me so much I did not watch the movie. Ever.

I loathed the idea that she had been used only as a source of motivation for Loki, a character who lies, hurts, and betrays people.

The idea of, “…the familiar trope of the death of a female providing source of motivation for the hero.”

Welp… shit. I may have done the thing :<

-

Aidna Royale. Drefan’s mother, a woman who has been abused and largely silenced by the King who she is the concubine to, a woman who promised to care for the child of the Queen dying in childbirth.

“She was my friend.”

There wasn’t jealousy between the two, and the Queen had helped the woman her husband loved, to understand and speak better, the language of the foreign land Aidna found herself residing inside. Concubines were normal in Royale, and so were political marriages. Being in Royale meant that Aidna was cut off from her people, from her father by thousands of miles and an arctic mountain range, which all aided Robert in his maltreatment of her.

Drefan finally having the power to do so, murders Robert for the years of abuse. Aidna finds herself free, but even more alone. She misses Robert, and she cannot tell her son, as she knows he will look down on her for it, after all, Robert was a villain. But love does not always make sense.

Thom, the son of the Queen falls ill, begins to waste away and he asks for his death to not be meddled with, abnormal in a land where necromancy was the norm and often royals become undead. But Thom wants to pass on, hoping against all hope that he can find his love again, another boy, Nathanael, in their next life. Nathanael has been dying of illness too. But they were of antagonizing Gods, there would be no way… The afterlife did not work that way for them.

Originally in the novel- Unrepentant Hopes, Aidna kills herself only a month or two before Thom finishes his wasting in bed. Another piece of sanity lost for Drefan. Drefan goes mad, free falling into the Abyss at the end of Unrepentant Hopes. The God who took up space inside his mind, snapping away from its own tenuous sanity too. They go on to butcher millions.

But is it not that I am taking her personal agency and using her for the same plot device?

It is true she is suffering emotionally and mentally, awfully by the near end of the First book. But she made a promise and even if Thom was dying and she felt that she had failed, would she leave him to die alone?? No. She would be a wraith, lifeless but still there, waiting, unable to leave until Thom is gone. Thinking perhaps that she can find the strength to stay after Thom is gone, as Drefan is her son and she should not leave him alone. Drefan was suffering as well, it is easy to see it upon his face as they wait for Thom to pass. She has to stay for her children even if suicide would be the easy way out.

It makes much more sense that she is by Thom’s side as he breathes his last, with Drefan and Nathanael. That she sees at that moment Drefan losing to the madness and the Void rolling off of him, licking at the walls and floors. Aidna raised by a people who worshipped the Void, realizes her son is gone. That the laughter is not Drefan’s alone, multiple voices are inside that madness.

It is Aidna who pushes Nathanael under Thom’s infirmary bed, surging to her feet and shoving the boy Thom had loved safely undercover and away from the fell magic.

Does she still die? Yes. Is it still another death on Drefan’s concious? Yes. Does he blame himself still? Hell yes. But her death is not just another motivation on the path of one of the main male characters. She chooses to protect Nathanael in the same way she has always chosen to protect Thom and Drefan: with her body & her life.