As for Varda… maybe “despise” is too strong a word, but I get more than a “doesn’t respect him” vibe out of Varda. She really does seem to hold him in contempt because he’s not man enough for her. You may be evoking more than you realize, though, Verity. I resemble Varda quite a lot. (See first paragraph of this comment.)

If her husband didn’t even realize that he needed to comfort her, though, then I agree he’s a bit of a dimwit. I still think he’s too scared of her to approach her with that sort of gentleness. Or perhaps she’s put up such a cold front of strength and independence that he can’t imagine she can feel any weakness like sorrow. Varda needs to realize that it’s a lonely life when one is an island.

Good job for writing such controversial characters, Verity.

Keep Simming.

See ya.

And Speystar… I’m not sure Hepsie would be to impressed with him either… she would be nicer to him but she likes her men manly and dynamic too. I think actually he would do better with someone like Gena who he would be forced to protect and who is so sweet and soft and willing to love. Or Mella if she hadn’t been a nun and all crazy, both those women could have brought out the protective instinct in him and Gena would have protected him right back (not sure about Mella due to the crazy).

So… Radomir wasn’t exactly putting on a caring facade… he does care for Valeriya. In fact he loves her. He just doesn’t know how to show her without crushing her into tiny pieces. Lothere is right… noone has ever been gentle with him. He wasn’t meaning to shake her like he did… he was just desperate she wasn’t waking up and he wasn’t thinking.

But then also in Varda’s defense, she doesn’t despise her husband. In fact she does care about him, but it is not in a romantic way, more in a child-parent sort of way. I mentioned her feelings towards him in their introduction post, but I really need to get more into it… I feel like we don’t know those two at all yet. I guess we haven’t seen a lot of their relationship yet and the bits we have, haven’t been that happy. Varda is a strong woman who respects strong wilful men. Thus Sigurd is the worst husband for her because she just can’t respect him. And she has lost two babies now, each time Sigurd hasn’t thought about comforting her. The first time she ended up comforting him but we didn’t see that. The second time she just couldn’t bring herself to do it again. He doesn’t even really realise he needs to because she would never say. I think there is badness coming from both sides here.

So there you go… that is my opinion on those characters at present… it will probably change… they tend to develop along their own path anyway, writing the stories for themselves. And everyone’s comments help develop the characters too because sometimes I hadn’t thought about an aspect that seems very clear to someone else.

Hilda… I have to say she was probably the main character I least liked throughout the whole history of Lothere… or at least out of those I can think of right now. But I still felt sorry for her on the odd occasion, especially that time when she was upset about the baby she was carrying and she actually let Sigefrith comfort her.

And it’s easier to be a jerk and have people hate you for it than to attempt to be kind and find that they don’t like you anyway. Ask Hilda. And it hurts most of all when the “people” is your wife.

Anyway, I’m not too thrilled with Varda overall. Great, she can stand up to a jerk like Radomir (I keep saying jerk when I mean various synonyms for parts of the male anatomy located below the belt), but although that takes some courage given the size difference and his known brutality, she is also something of a mini-jerk with her own husband. She rather despises him.

Whereas Radomir looooooves his wife!! He’s being a jerk because he’s so scared!

What they need to do is keep him away from poor Valeriya. Honestly… who the heck shakes a sick, weakened little woman? Idiot. I knew his whole ‘caring’ facade was a load of crap.