Emotions in the Elderling Realm (SPOILERS all books)

[Lord Punctual]

I was always a big fan of Kennit. I guess a little bit of me thought that maybe things might work out for him, and he might be redeemed. That is, until what happened with Althea. I remember thinking "No, Kennit, no, you can't do this!" because it was so utterly inexcusable. In fantasy books at least, although murder is often justifiable or excusable, rape never is. I knew that when it crossed that line, as a character he had passed a point of no return, from possible antihero to plain ol' villain. It made me sad.

I agree with the assessment of Kyle as actually pretty moderate by Chalcedean standards. I especially liked the part at the very beginning of LST after he and Althea disembarked from Vivacia, and he was discussing her change in behaviour with Keffria. He thinks that she has finally begun to "shape up" and assume her proper role in the family by obeying him. He is actually very proud of her for this. He wanted what he thought was the best for the members of his family. Although his iews are radically different from our modern ones, one has to admire him at least a little bit for constantly working for the benefit of his family.

(I should also point out that I think his treatment of Althea, in Ship of Magic, is actually almost reasonable. Althea has never actually worked for her living on a ship. She has contributed to the running of the ship if and when she felt like it, and was mostly allowed to be onboard because Ephron Vestrit did not have a surviving son. Even by Bingtown standards, her mannish behaviour is rather aberrant, as indicated by Malta's opinions of her. I know that if I were the captain of a ship, I would not take kindly to what basically amounted to a passenger constantly questioning my authority in front of my crew.

There are also quite a few things from the Tawny Man trilogy (which I actually read first) that got to me. Like when Fitz found Lord Golden's skin. Poor Fitz.