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erastesI've just finished these books and am staring at the title of Blade, and really don't get why the book was called this. I vaguely remember a brotherhood being mentioned but it certainly didn't stick in my mind, and I have little clue as to why it's relevant.
All in all, this was definitely the best of the Lord John books, but still I find myself reading them just because they are gay historicals, rather than being over-excited about the arrival of the next volume. They certainly don't blow me away.
I think the blurb to Brotherhood of the Blade sums it up for me, it's such a crap blurb. The enigmatic Lord John Grey, a nobleman and high-ranking officer in His Majesty's Army, pursues a clandestine love affair and a deadly family secret. Grey's father, the Duke of Pardloe, shot himself just days before he was to be accused of being a Jacobite traitor. Now, seventeen years on, the family name has been redeemed; but an impending marriage revives the scandal. Lord John knows that as Whitehall whispers, rumours all too often lead their victims to the wails of Newgate prison - and to the gallows.From barracks and parade-grounds to the bloody battlefields of Prussia, Grey faces danger and forbidden passions in his search for the truth. But it is in the stony fells of the Lake District that he finds the man who may hold the key to his quest: the enigmatic Jacobite prisoner Jamie Fraser.
The blurb is wrong in a couple of points for a start. I wish I could put my finger on why these books just don't do it for me. There's a certain amount of repetition which always annoys me (just like I'd get annoyed with JKR when she felt she had to remind us of stuff that had happened a chapter or so ago) and some of the continuity drives me bonkers. Gabaldon obviously knows her stuff, she's researched this period very thoroughly, but then she throws an entire spanner into the works by having John's mother get married in "Blade" and there is attendance by John, his brother Hal and his new half brother and lover, Percy but then in Haunted there's SUDDENLY two more brothers from his mother's first marriage. And I'm all. BWUH? Why didn't they come to the wedding?
And she doesn't follow through enough, for me. There's this whole "Armory Ghost" thing in Haunted Soldier but this isn't resolved. Why should the Armoury Ghost be Philip's ghost, and if so why was he wearing a uniform of a different age? It's like she starts with an idea but loses her grip of it as she goes through the novel.
And don't get me started on Jamie Fraser. OK. Let's get started. For me, this is another case of Author adores her character no matter what, in a similar vein to JKR being absolutely devoted to Harry and not being AT ALL able to see that she's actually writing him like a complete git. OK, so I haven't read the Outlander series, so my exposure to Fraser is limited to these books, but gah - he's the most unlikeable man in the books. He's revolted by John's attentions, instead of looking past that and treating John like a human being, he recoils with his homophobia. Not unlikely, I suppose, but there's a dichotomy between the fact that he's only staying there for honour's sake. But, as the only reason he's there is for John's "unnatural lusts" (his words) you'd think that he could give his honour a miss. I know love is blind, and all that - but I've loved on a one-sided basis and that was when the other party had no idea I loved him. He treated me no differently to anyone else. Fraser is so revolting to Lord John I can't help but think less of LJ for continuing to love him - and in fact can't understand how his love remains under such revulsion. For me, it's completely unrealistic, but please tell me if you think otherwise.
Also, his behaviour to Percy is pretty appalling. He can't decide if he loves him. Then he realises he DOES love him. Then he tells him that he doesn't. Then he helps him out and doesn't give him any hope. Then in Haunted Soldier... he doesn't bloody think of him at all other than once hidden under an ellipse. Sheesh. He's a cold fish, Lord John and he drives me bonkers.
I like the way that she's addressed the homophobia and the way that a man could have been hanged on word alone - this was nicely done - but even this was almost glossed over, there's really no sense of the impact that Newgate would have had on a gentleman, he hardly seems disturbed by the place. So it's all dissapointing.
It's a shame, because these are mainstream, hardback, accurate gay historicals and I should be shouting to the rooftops about them but every time I read them with hope and anticipation and come away feeling empty. There are other authors doing so much better work in this genre and it's a damned shame they aren't all selling nice thick hardbacks.
All in all, this was definitely the best of the Lord John books, but still I find myself reading them just because they are gay historicals, rather than being over-excited about the arrival of the next volume. They certainly don't blow me away.
I think the blurb to Brotherhood of the Blade sums it up for me, it's such a crap blurb. The enigmatic Lord John Grey, a nobleman and high-ranking officer in His Majesty's Army, pursues a clandestine love affair and a deadly family secret. Grey's father, the Duke of Pardloe, shot himself just days before he was to be accused of being a Jacobite traitor. Now, seventeen years on, the family name has been redeemed; but an impending marriage revives the scandal. Lord John knows that as Whitehall whispers, rumours all too often lead their victims to the wails of Newgate prison - and to the gallows.From barracks and parade-grounds to the bloody battlefields of Prussia, Grey faces danger and forbidden passions in his search for the truth. But it is in the stony fells of the Lake District that he finds the man who may hold the key to his quest: the enigmatic Jacobite prisoner Jamie Fraser.
The blurb is wrong in a couple of points for a start. I wish I could put my finger on why these books just don't do it for me. There's a certain amount of repetition which always annoys me (just like I'd get annoyed with JKR when she felt she had to remind us of stuff that had happened a chapter or so ago) and some of the continuity drives me bonkers. Gabaldon obviously knows her stuff, she's researched this period very thoroughly, but then she throws an entire spanner into the works by having John's mother get married in "Blade" and there is attendance by John, his brother Hal and his new half brother and lover, Percy but then in Haunted there's SUDDENLY two more brothers from his mother's first marriage. And I'm all. BWUH? Why didn't they come to the wedding?
And she doesn't follow through enough, for me. There's this whole "Armory Ghost" thing in Haunted Soldier but this isn't resolved. Why should the Armoury Ghost be Philip's ghost, and if so why was he wearing a uniform of a different age? It's like she starts with an idea but loses her grip of it as she goes through the novel.
And don't get me started on Jamie Fraser. OK. Let's get started. For me, this is another case of Author adores her character no matter what, in a similar vein to JKR being absolutely devoted to Harry and not being AT ALL able to see that she's actually writing him like a complete git. OK, so I haven't read the Outlander series, so my exposure to Fraser is limited to these books, but gah - he's the most unlikeable man in the books. He's revolted by John's attentions, instead of looking past that and treating John like a human being, he recoils with his homophobia. Not unlikely, I suppose, but there's a dichotomy between the fact that he's only staying there for honour's sake. But, as the only reason he's there is for John's "unnatural lusts" (his words) you'd think that he could give his honour a miss. I know love is blind, and all that - but I've loved on a one-sided basis and that was when the other party had no idea I loved him. He treated me no differently to anyone else. Fraser is so revolting to Lord John I can't help but think less of LJ for continuing to love him - and in fact can't understand how his love remains under such revulsion. For me, it's completely unrealistic, but please tell me if you think otherwise.
Also, his behaviour to Percy is pretty appalling. He can't decide if he loves him. Then he realises he DOES love him. Then he tells him that he doesn't. Then he helps him out and doesn't give him any hope. Then in Haunted Soldier... he doesn't bloody think of him at all other than once hidden under an ellipse. Sheesh. He's a cold fish, Lord John and he drives me bonkers.
I like the way that she's addressed the homophobia and the way that a man could have been hanged on word alone - this was nicely done - but even this was almost glossed over, there's really no sense of the impact that Newgate would have had on a gentleman, he hardly seems disturbed by the place. So it's all dissapointing.
It's a shame, because these are mainstream, hardback, accurate gay historicals and I should be shouting to the rooftops about them but every time I read them with hope and anticipation and come away feeling empty. There are other authors doing so much better work in this genre and it's a damned shame they aren't all selling nice thick hardbacks.
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Date: 2008-03-12 11:53 am (UTC)You know? He started, with Percy, to get less of a cold fish, and to seem to come to terms with what he was - only to have Percy's whole backstory of promiscuity literally shoved in his face and to send him running back to homophobic Fraser for validation.
I have read large parts of the Outlander series, and Fraser is even more obviously the author's Mary Sue there. *Everyone* falls in love with him, even the male villains. Part of his homophobia might be down to the fact that he was raped by an English Lord, who was hopelessly in love with him. But to be honest he's so *very* straight that I didn't get the impression that changed anything. The relationship between him and his wife, Clare is very 'me Tarzan you Jane,' whereby he overwhelms her with his manliness or whatever. I get the feeling that that's what she thinks a man ought to be like. Which is a shame, because I find John so much more likeable.
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Date: 2008-03-12 12:04 pm (UTC)Then he just froze over again. And JEEZ would it have KILLED him to kiss Stephan?
I had to cheer when he said to JF "And YES, I could make you scream" I was happily punching the air. Yes, he could, Jamie, you don't know what you are missing. I don't blame Jamie for being homophobic, it's a correct mind set in those times, and if he's a Tarzan type and has been raped that makes even more sense. What drives me mad is John's enduring love, because it simply makes little sense.
And don't get me started on the relative ease in which he keeps "nipping" up from London to the Lake District in some undertermined timespan but seems only to be a day...
The whole "thou shalt not find love" is a little like Toshiko in Torchwood - you just know that when she finds someone they are immediately marked as a Red Shirt. As soon as he starts making eyes at Percy I thought "oh ho... he'll be dead soon.."
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Date: 2008-03-12 05:18 pm (UTC)When Fraser was in prison, and John was the prison governor, they talked and played chess. John fell in love, Fraser was glad to get the occasional break from being chained up in a cell. I personally never read it as friendship on Fraser's side.
God knows why John never bore a grudge over being tricked by Clare! I would have done - and 18th Century gents are supposed to be more touchy about being made a fool of than 21st century women. But it's the same story all along, Fraser uses John and looks down on him, John carries on loving Fraser, and yes, I don't understand why, and it does make me think less of John. He is surely otherwise intelligent enough to know that this is very bad for him.
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Date: 2008-03-12 06:42 pm (UTC)Ah but the Lord John books are written after LJ's stint at the prison and before they become friends.
Which confuses me, completely. They become friends after the "Blade" book?
Yes - that was what annoyed me. John could have forced himself on him, but he bloody didn't. I just wanted to smack Fraser. Sorry about that to everyone who loves him.
Another thing that I didn't mention in the review and I meant to is her annoying habit of telling not showing. Several times she started a piece of dialogue e.g. "We looked all over Southwark for her but couldn't find her." He had paid a private investigator to.... [several paragraphs explain why the man is actually saying but in description] I'd always been told this was not Done.
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Date: 2008-03-12 07:32 pm (UTC)Could be. I certainly haven't read the whole series, as I decided I didn't like them enough to carry on just for the bits with LJ in. They struck me as being in a very romance tradition with the alpha male (Jamie) who is also a bit of a noble savage - sexually overwhelming, stubborn, hyper-masculine, never actually bothers to communicate, and the spunky heroine who is his match except when he sweeps her off her feet for the aforesaid overwhelming sex. Which is a very popular dynamic, I know, but it hits my squicks in a big way.
Add into that the fact that everyone falls for Jamie - he is the centre of everyone's world, in a way every Mary Sue would be proud of - and that Clare dazzles people with her modern medical acumen (and only avoids being a big perfect Mary Sue because Jamie got there first) and they have OMG the only true love in the history of the world!!11! It all got to the stage where her excellent writing and research could not make up for all the stuff I didn't like.
(For example, in the first book Clare gets captured by Highlanders, who discuss whether to rape her or not and decide not to because they don't have enough time. She spends her entire time among these people under sexual threat, and yet for some reason these turn out to be the people you're supposed to be rooting for.
In the mean time teenage John gets trapped while chivalrously trying to help Clare, and we're apparently meant to think how clever it was of Clare to play on his sympathies and lead him into a trap that results in him being beaten up and humiliated... I found myself continually in the position of thinking that the 'heroes' of the piece were being despicable. Which really didn't help :)
So yes, it may be that they become friends later. I don't know! I'd given up by that point.
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Date: 2008-03-13 03:45 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-03-13 08:55 am (UTC)Random commenter
Date: 2008-04-09 05:02 am (UTC)I recently read a review of LJ and the BotB where the reviewer wrote that they nearly hurled the book across the room at the end of the story, and was very annoyed that Lord John perservered with his love for Jamie at the expense of Percy. I thought it was your review at "Speaks It's Name" here (http://speakitsname.wordpress.com/2007/09/16/review-lord-john-and-the-brotherhood-of-the-blade-by-diana-gabaldon/) but I see that you didn't write that. I can't find the original review now, but I'm inclined to agree with that person, as well as agreeing with what you wrote. (You didn't change your review, did you? ;D)
I read the Outlander books quite a few years ago; started off liking them, but went off them for some reason, possibly because of what you've mentioned here. I honestly can't remember much about them - certainly don't remember Lord John at all.
I enjoyed reading your review, and your comments here, along with Erastes' post and the comments below.
Re: Random commenter
Date: 2008-04-09 07:33 am (UTC)Re: Random commenter
Date: 2008-04-09 09:22 am (UTC)I'll keep looking!
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Date: 2008-03-12 01:48 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-03-12 02:28 pm (UTC)It does annoy me that John thinks that Fraser can answer all his problems, too. LJ has damned good instincts (with the exception of Fraser) and doesn't need this input. Perhaps it's a lack of a father, or something, but Hal is twice the man Fraser is imho.
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Date: 2008-03-12 05:32 pm (UTC)That was my impression too. And it's fine if you as a reader *do* fall in love with him - because then you're in the correct mind-set towards everything. But if for some reason you resist the lure (the only thing I liked about him was his hair) then there's this total disconnect at the heart of every single book. If you don't like Fraser, you just aren't seeing the whole world properly.
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Date: 2008-03-12 01:50 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-03-12 02:33 pm (UTC)I'm glad he does have other lovers. I just wish it wasn't always such a doomed relationship. I really thought he had it made with Perserverance.
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Date: 2008-03-12 02:58 pm (UTC)If you read the Outlander books - and I hope you do - you will find that Jamie is and educated man with an excellent sense of humour, a strong sense of honour and a willingness to accept things he doesn't understand. Clare is a strong woman and more than a good match for him.
I thought that LJ would have a long and happy relationship with Percy too but, having read the other books, I knew it wasn't to be...
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Date: 2008-03-12 03:14 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-03-12 02:04 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-03-12 02:31 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-03-12 02:40 pm (UTC)LJ is first brought into the series in Outlander, where Jamie does tie him to a tree and his arm is broken. You have to read it to understand it. LJ plays a part in A Dragonfly in Amber the second book, though he isn't in it. Voyager the third book details the prison stay and in the books there after you really see the trust/friendship.
They are both men of honor. And the problem with a spin off series is that you get blurbs about sections of story and if you haven't read it you don't get the whole story. There has to be a reason why Jamie slept with the boss' daughter, a reason he feels LJ only saved him because of his 'lust'ect. And a reason why they got past that and became friends.
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Date: 2008-03-12 03:12 pm (UTC)It's Jamie himself that puts me off from getting the other series - I'd like to see more of LJ, however small, but not at the expense of seeing more of Fraser.
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Date: 2008-03-12 03:34 pm (UTC)Stand alones really need to be just that.
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Date: 2008-03-12 02:18 pm (UTC)The balance of power between Jamie and LJ was always unequal and as such I can understand a certain amount of phobia where dealing with LJ who has Jamie's future in his hands and professes to be in love with him. Especially in those times.
I'm not sure I agree with your assessment of Jamie, either. The author doesn't portray him as perfect, and reading the other books would bring that more to light. And he's not Tarzan and Clare is not Jane. Clare runs rings around him, I think.
These Lord John books are a spin off of the Outlander series and I think they suffer from that, if anything. They may get the bonus of being mainstream, due to the link to the other novels, and they may be as historically accurate (or not) as them, but unfortunately readers who do make the time to read them alongside or after the main series have already preconceived opinions on the characters. And those are often hard to overcome. Be that as it may, I don't think she's done these LJ books justice. I find him a bit of a cold fish, same as you, and I think she could have invested the same amount of care on LJ's story as she did on Jamie and Clare. I think it would have made such a difference.
Actually its been too long since I read those books, I need to go back and read them again, lol.
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Date: 2008-03-12 02:43 pm (UTC)I agree, I don't think she's done them justice, they feel a little rushed (possibly because she's more used to plotting in the realms of 350,000 words or so) and she introduces themes and plot points that are just dropped half way through.
I found John bland in the first one I read (The Private Matter) - he struck me as bland rather than cold or repressed but after his behaviour to his half-brother in Blade I got really cross with him, as you can tell.
Won't stop me reading any more of them - .... even though the next one is going to be called... Lord John and the Scottish Prisoner.
Oh Joy.
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Date: 2008-03-12 04:12 pm (UTC)Fraser's rape hasn't been told in the LJ series because nobody in the series knows about it. Certainly not Lord John. In fact, by the time this story takes place, most of the people who knew are dead. And only Claire and Jamie himself know the extent of the damage Captain Jack inflicted on him and why. (And I don't mean the buggering. :-P) Jack literally broke Jamie, and it never really stops haunting him.
Correction from above (from Andrea's comment) is that Lord John doesn't appear in Outlander/Crossstitch, but rather Dragonfly in Amber. Voyager is where we really get to know him as a supporting character in the series, when he's Governor at the prison, and we meet him again in Drums of Autumn where we learn he really does have a sense of humour. I liked him before, but Drums is where I really fell in love with him as a character.
See, like you, I didn't have any interest in reading Outlander. My sister is big into historical romance (and has been working on a novel for years which she had to put aside when she had children but is now getting back to now that the children are both in school) and she gave me Outlander and told me I had to read it. "It has time travel and it's British!" Um, yes, but it's romance. (I'm not a particular fan of romance novels of any ilk.) Needless to say, it sat on my shelf collecting dust for months.
Then one day when I had nothing else new to read and wasn't in the mood to re-read any of my favourites, I picked it up and started reading. The beginning was a bit slow, and I was just about to give up on it as "just another romance novel" when it realised that I was actually enjoying it. And then the story really picked up, and I've been hooked ever since.
Part of the reason is that I really like her descriptive writing style. She has (very nicely, I might add, unlike some other authors *cough) asked her fans not to write fanfic, though some still do and have not had the power of C&Ds thrust upon them, but the reason I have never had any interest in writing my own fic for her world is that I find I don't have to. Which is odd. I've read some Jamie/Lord John slash, but it doesn't really spark with me, maybe because I feel like I already know him so well and it doesn't fit. I don't know.
But I digress. Like you, I really had no interest at all, but I really love how she writes characters, describes scenes, and I even like how she uses shifting points of view. Claire is always first person, which I will admit doesn't always work for some authors and I've put down a lot of books because it didn't work for me as a reader, but it does work here. Her books are long because she is a descriptive writer, but also because she spends a lot of time with character development. Even minor characters who you never know if you'll see again.
She posts over on a Books and Writers community at Compuserve (scroll down to the bottom of the page), and she answers questions people have, engages in discussion and occasionally posts excerpts of her W'sIP - anyone can post over there, too.
Like everyone else has said, at this point in the Jamie/John 'relationship', Jamie and John are not friends, and I'd go so far to say that Jamie even fears him a little, because John pretty much holds Jamie's life in his hands, and at this point in time, he doesn't understand John. And he's prejudiced, because of his own experiences and because of the sensibilities of the times. (And he's a Catholic. Heh.)
So um, I'll stop rambling. Outlander is much more "romance" in nature (though not formulaic), but the sequel volumes are much better.
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Date: 2008-03-12 07:03 pm (UTC)And that's my point, elsewhere on the thread. I was completely confused as to why Fraser reacted so badly to it - and so was LJ - and spin off books shouldn't do that. Hell's bells, even a book in a series shouldn't do that. It's like that only the people who have read all the books know what the hell's going on and the rest of us are scratching our heads and going bwuh?
GRRM does it well, in my opinion - when he writes a spin-off short to a Song of Ice and Fire he makes it completely self sufficient. Your knowledge might be/is enhanced by then going off and reading the saga itself - but you aren't lost in the Hedge Knight just because you haven't read the History of the Five Kingdoms.
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Date: 2008-03-12 08:27 pm (UTC)And it was understandable that Jamie thinks he was only saved for LJ's 'unnatural lusts' because he expected to be treated the same as the other prisoners and LJ singled him out and kept him where he could see him all the time.
I really need to read the other two. I'd like to like LJ...I keep wanting to through the Outlander series, but never quite made it.
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Date: 2008-03-12 06:03 pm (UTC)I wish Lord John would find himself another redhead. He's the only member of the whole enigmatic Gabaldon parade that I'm still interested in reading about.
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Date: 2008-03-12 06:18 pm (UTC)See, the one reason why the whole Claire/penicillin thing didn't bother me as much as it probably should have is because she does come from the future so she knew about their experiments, knew what to look for, etc. and I could imagine that she probably spent a lot of time theorizing to herself about how she would have gone about it if she'd had the knowledge while she'd been in the past. Even on a subconscious level. We all do things like that in the "if I'd known then what I know now" sense.
And even though she has some success, she also ends up killing someone with it, too, and that latter was what appeased me. She knows it's risky, but to her the alternative is dying a slower, painful death.
I love Jamie, but he's definitely not my 'perfect man' by any stretch, and I argue with him and scoff at him plenty in my head when I read. (And Claire, too!) But I like that. I don't want any of the characters to be me when I read anything.
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Date: 2008-03-13 04:20 am (UTC)But it's just a matter of taste. I have a friend who has never been able to finish Lord of the Rings. This astonishes me--it's one of my lifetime top ten stories. She doesn't try to tell me it's awful, I don't try to convince her--that's life. And I've tried many times to get interested in Jane Austen's stories, but my only reaction is gratitude that I didn't have to live, as a woman, in that era. My liking or not liking a book is not necessarily going to reflect anyone else's taste.
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Date: 2008-03-12 06:31 pm (UTC)I had to comment on someone's Amazon review, something I think I've only ever done once before, when they said "Pull your socks up, Gabaldon thousands of women are drooling over Jamie" in regards to the Lord John series. I had to point out to the reviewer that thousands of women liked gay romance too!
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Date: 2008-03-12 09:59 pm (UTC)Personally, I love the LJ/Jamie interaction. Like others have said, Jamie is very hostile to LJ at this point. LJ just has ALL the wrong things going for him as far as Jamie is concerned. And being in love with this guy who hates his English, sodomite guts is LJ's life's big tragedy right now. That's why Jamie keeps popping up so much, undoubtedly to the bewilderment of people who haven't come to LJ through Outlander.
While reading BotB I actually thought that Gabaldon took a very bold step to show his beloved brawny highlander in such a negative light. It's a dark time in Jamie's life and what Gabaldon did with him in this book, feels true to me. This guy is not ready to feel happy warm feelings toward anyone...
Surprisingly, no one has spoiled you yet on what is to come. No, no happy buggery at the hayloft, I'm afraid. It wouldn't fit Jamie's character either. But still, there's something to come, the relationship between these two DOES change a lot and I'm actually waiting to get to read more about it.
Of course it's possible that Gabaldon will botch it, that LJ will stay a cold fish and whatnot. But I'm hoping she has more interesting long-time plans for his character development than that.
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Date: 2008-03-13 04:21 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-03-13 08:28 am (UTC)It's probably true that the first book was not so dependant on knowing Outlander. But for me, it was a weaker book in other respects.
It's hard to understand why Jamie seems so universally unliked by m/m romance writers... But I can understand that for people who don't like him, his presence may seem superfluous and irritating.
This is pure speculation but I've been wondering if part of the cool m/m fan receptation for these books is that Gabaldon might be challenging herself to write LJ's character, instead of doing it because she's into m/m. If she lacks the attraction so to speak, it could explain why LJ looks like such a cold and passinless character to us.
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Date: 2008-03-13 09:29 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-03-13 10:58 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-03-13 11:44 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-03-13 12:58 pm (UTC)As to why m/m writers don't care for him -- I can only speak for myself, but it's because he's such a ... I don't want to say 'formulaic,' but that's basically it. He is everything a kilt-romance fan wants in a hero. However: he turned me off when he beat Claire up--and bugger his rationalization and damn her acquiescence--and he never redeemed himself for that. My own opinion, ymmv
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Date: 2008-03-13 01:03 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-03-13 02:35 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-03-13 07:49 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-03-13 10:50 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-03-13 12:51 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-03-12 10:07 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-03-13 11:47 pm (UTC)I did wonder why LJ didn't just hire some actor and keep him, since he's got the cash for it.
But regular sex would eliminate LJ's sorrowful angst, I guess, and since that's sort of his defining character feature it would probably be a bad editorial suggestion (as dissolving the internal conflict of the main character usually turns out to be.) ;)
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Date: 2008-03-14 10:07 am (UTC)