Woodreads 10
The pacing of this story is, somewhat unusually, slowing down for its climax, so I’m gonna spread my concluding thoughts on Gr’Zl over the next two days. He’s more villain than victim, though it’s fair to say he’s both. There will always be something missing from his life that he can’t quite define, but there will be considerably more missing from the life of his varryn-giver, whoever eventually gets cornered into that role.
But much as I rolled my eyes in college when too-earnest students trotted out this old chestnut, this is one time when the real villain really is society. A conspiracy of omission surrounds any alternate sexuality in B’ial Vezk. Heretical writings like those of Seksp’Rt (“Sexpert”) are the only sources that promote homosexuality, and even those don’t have a word for it. Gr’Zl, who is obviously no reader and tends to crush on the unattainable, will never be given a real chance to understand who and what he really is. That he finds some happiness in life regardless is just a sign that some people’s sex drives are stronger and more punishing than others.
(continued tomorrow)
Never has ‘the one that got away’ been more accurate.
Fair play. He bored her, so she boared him
I just now realized that this story doesn’t have the usual textured backgrounds. It’s a subtle effect, but it makes a difference.
But don’t we already know that the one who eventually gets cornered into that role is Tay’lr? Why the “whoever”?
Sometimes I’m a little coy to avoid feeling like I’m giving spoilers, even though there’s really nothing left to spoil. And sometimes I like to treat what’s happening on the page that I’m annotating as “in the present tense.” Helps pull me, and hopefully you too, more into the work.