Emotions in the Elderling Realm (SPOILERS all books)

[Chrischa]

That's a very interesting post, Nuytsia, with so many point I want to address that I'm not going to start quoting them all.

Let's see; concerning the way dragons and humans regard extending their lives. It's actually very interesting because in real life, humans are believed to be the only species on Earth that are aware of their own death. More then that, psychologists believe that all our other fears are derived from that one, basic fear.
Animals, on the other hand, are believed to live in unawareness that their existence will end, also because they live only in the now, just like Nighteyes does.

So it makes perfect sense for Fitz to not only try and artificially extent Nigheyes his life, but also for him to fret over his partner's old age. And it also makes perfect sense for Nighteyes to not only be highly offended by Fitz his thoughts and actions, but for him to suffer greatly because of this. His sharing of thoughts with a human has taken away his animals' carefree way of living, it has given him a sense of and also a fear of the future, and it has taken him outside his animal vision of death as a simple part of life. As Fitz himself points out at one point, nature is a constant circle of small deaths and births, so I suppose animals would be aware of death but only as a distant part of life, not something to worry about at all, maybe not even as something that relates to themselves.

Actually, I wonder why any animal would ever be so stupid as to bond with a human. But that aside.

Concerning Kyle Haven; yes, I agree that misogyny is far from his only fault, but his other faults in my eyes tie very much in with the other thing I said about him; that he doesn't see free-thinking family members, only roles, and for him it's unthinkable that anyone would not shape their life to fit the role their family has destined for them. So he's constantly trying to force that Chalcedean way of thinking onto a Bingtown, rebellious family. Not a good match.

And I do think that Kyle has somewhat altered his way of thinking to fit Bingtown's way of doing things, hence the way he (in his own warped way) takes great pains to try and explain to his family members why they should comply with the roles he has set out for them. I fully believe that that alone is a huge step for him, and that in Chalced such explanation is never even given. Just one day; son, come in, you're going to be a monk from now in, see you in ten years, bye.

And about Althea; it's actually her own realisation during her time on the Reaper that Kyle was right about her being a spoiled captain's child, coupled with a subtle hint here and there, that makes me think of her as such. Like when she thinks about taking a little nap on the sun-soaked deck next. (I've forgotten when exactly that happens.) But can you imagine any other sailor taking a little nap during his shift?
I don't think it has anything to do with her being female, quite the opposite, I think that because of her sex she constantly feels she has to perform better then the others to prove herself as a sailor. But I also think that during her father's time, she has been mislead about life aboard a ship.

If anything, I haven't got a very high opinion of Ronica and Ephron as parents. Not only did they first raise Althea as a boy to then, as she comes of age, tell her that she's a girl after all so she'd better start behaving as one, they also didn't notice any of Kyle's shortcomings until it was too late. You can't tell me that they never noticed anything about his Chalcedean way of thinking. I can very well imagine the evenings at the Vestrit home before Ephron fell ill, when Kyle constantly tried to talk to Ephron alone about the family business, cold-shouldering Ronica completely when she gave her opinion. And that would have just been one of the signs. Then, after Ephron dies and Ronica finally sees Kyle's true colours, she puts the blame at Keffria's feet. They haven't acted fairly with either of their daughters.