*spoilers all books* Dragon Haven, Enjoy it? Hate it?

['thul]

These beings (the ones known as 'thul) believe that the way he noticed it was the same way it is obvious how some human sexual leanings are. You cant put it down to one thing, but you can easily see it. As for why? Who knows? Maybe a challenge to teach him such?

Sedric had essentially led a very sheltered life. With no exposure to the world, he had no such strength and as you said, relied fully on Hest.

As for why RH has not included such characters before, perhaps it was considered still too much of a Taboo? things were much different back in '95-'97... Even expressing hints of homosexuality could be considered too dangerous back then... especially for a fairly new author... (as robin hobb, she was new, even if she'd written as Megan Lindholm before)

As for the attachment, it was similar here, but more focused on Thymara. These beings find that character quite fascinating.

These books did demand much more character development, having essentially got a complete set of new characters (that short appearance of malta at the beginning doesnt count), where previous books had at least one previous character, if not many.