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Loving Memory: A Retelling of East of the Sun, West of the Moon

The woman striding across the ballroom floor takes my breath away. She is perfection in human form--regal and statuesque, with hair like a raven's wing, skin like a fresh fall of snow, and ice-blue eyes that can captivate a man's heart.

And the gown! It makes her beauty seem almost divine. It shimmers and swirls like rivers of gold, making the icy-white marble of the floor and walls glow with the light of the sun that has not shone here for a month of days. I nearly fall to my knees, but I am a prince--soon to be a king--so I merely bow over her hand, lead her into the dance, and thank heaven for our impending marriage. Jorunn knows I do not love her, but at moments like these, I have no doubt that I shall.

We whirl through the dancers, the lords and ladies assembled for our upcoming wedding, all of them flawless in form, wearing suits and gowns of impossible beauty--a rainbow of velvets and silks, gold and jewels. My betrothed outshines them all. I feel clumsy and common in comparison, and marvel yet again that I am deemed worthy to join--and soon rule--this court.

When the dance ends, I bring Jorunn to the refreshment table, where we take glasses of sweet blue punch.

"You should drink your tonic, darling," Jorunn says, removing a small silver flask from a pocket in her skirt.

"Must I?" I ask, glancing to the watching crowd. I usually take the tonic before bed, in private. I don't relish my future subjects knowing that their king is an invalid.

"You must have your strength tonight," she says, pouring what looks like a double dose into my punch. The icy blue liquid turns a murky amber.

I down the drink in one gulp, cringing as the bitter aroma fills my head. I swear I can feel it coursing through my limbs. They feel heavier than they had a moment before. My head feels murkier.

It passes in a moment, and once again I'm overjoyed to be here, with her, in this impossibly beautiful realm.

I kiss Jorunn's cheek and thank her for her watchfulness. I feel as if I could dance all night.

The music starts up--an enticing melody of flutes and strings--but just as I pull Jorunn into the dance, a commotion starts at the other edge of the crowd. The music stops, and the crowd parts to reveal...something...crossing the floor. Some kind of animal has entered the ballroom--smaller than a bear, larger than a dog, with patches of fur in every shade of white and black and brown.

As it comes nearer, I see that it walks upright on two legs--two human legs, with two small, white human hands poking out from the folds of the fur.

"What is it?" I ask Jorunn. "Who let it into the ballroom?"

"I did," Jorunn says. "She is my invited guest."

I bow my head in embarrassment. "I'm...certain she's quite charming."

Jorunn pushes my shoulder, gently urging me toward the girl. "Dance with her, Eirik."

"I?" I yelp. How could a prince--a future king--demean himself by dancing with such a creature before all his subjects. "Why?"

Jorunn tilts her head toward me and murmurs, "Because I keep my promises. This girl is the one who gifted me this dress, and in return all she asked was a dance with you."

"A strange boon to demand from a woman about to be married," I say. Stranger still that Jorunn granted it.

"We aren't wed yet," Jorunn says playfully. "I can't keep you all to myself, no matter how much I may wish to." She urges me toward the girl. "Go on, my love. It's not too much to ask."

Despite myself, I feel a pang of pity for the creature. She gave away a dress fit for a queen and had to appear in this ballroom in a bundle of furs. Such unselfishness merits a few minutes of kindness. "For your sake, my dear," I say, bowing over Jorunn's hand. "And for hers. I assure you I'll take no joy in it."

Jorunn smiles. "I've no worries on that account."

Fighting a feeling of revulsion, I approach the girl, bow, and offer my hand. "Might I have this dance?"

The girl--she barely reaches my shoulder--looks up at me. A white face appears from within the furry hood--a pointed chin, high cheekbones, a determined mouth, and defiant green eyes.

The woman faintly smiles, and my heart stops. In this palace of perfection, she seems so real. Not ice and gold and glamour, but sun and earth and, oh, a million ordinary, beautiful things I haven't thought about since I came to this place.

"Who are you?" I gasp, the words slipping out before I can think.

Her eyes go wide--confused and dismayed. She throws back her hood, revealing yellow hair. Not golden or raven or mahogany or any of the awe-inspiring shades that make the people of this realm so beautiful. Just yellow. But it is braided into a crown about her head that suits her better than any jewels.

Those green eyes meet mine. "You know me," she says.

I stare into those eyes, which seem to hold something I haven't known I've lost. If I know this girl, I can't remember her. My past before this palace is a murky haze--standing in such brightness makes everything else seem dim.

I shake away the threads of memory before I go mad from trying to grasp them. "Forgive me," I say, "but if we've met, I can't recall."

I signal to the musicians to start the music, and I sweep the fur-clad maiden into a waltz. She is silent as we dance, gazing up at my face as if trying to memorize me.

I say, trying to be kind, "That's a wondrous cloak you wear. I've never seen its like."

It's not a lie. It seems to be made of the skin of every beast there ever was. I see white fur, black fur, brown fur, some solid, some speckled, some striped, all stitched together in a haphazard pattern, as though someone was desperate to make use of every scrap.

The woman looks down. "It is all I had left to me, after..."

I kindly wait for her to speak.

"I've had a great loss," she finally says. "I have searched ever since to find you."

"If there is anything I can do for you," I say, "you need only ask. You have done a great service for my bride."

The girl stumbles.

I catch her and help her upright. "I am sorry. Did I trip you?"

"No," she gasps, grasping her side. As we slide into the dance again, she looks up into my face. "Do you truly not know me?"

"I wish I could say otherwise," I say, and I mean it with all my heart. There is something about this girl that makes the world seem larger than I realized. "Perhaps if you told me your name?"

She shakes her head. "I can't. Even if I could, what good would my name do if you've already forgotten my face?" She bows her head with a strangled noise, and I see tears streaming from her eyes. "I spent so many months imagining this moment. I hoped you'd be overjoyed to see me. I was afraid you'd hate me. But I never imagined...this. That I meant so little to you that you've already forgotten me."

"There is much I have forgotten," I say, before I can remember that none are supposed to know of my affliction. "This place, it...dazzles the mind. There are many things I wish I could recall about the world beyond this realm. If I knew you there, I am certain you were well worth remembering, and it pains me to say that I do not. But whatever we had before, I am glad to know you now."

She wipes her face against the fur on her sleeve. When she looks up at me, her eyes hold something like hope. "Do you think--"

The music slows to a stop, and before we can finish the step, Jorunn steps between me and the girl. She places one hand on the girl's chest and pushes her away. "You've had your dance," she says. "Now trouble us no more."

The girl steps away, but she takes a hesitant glance back at me.

I smile gently. "Thank you for the dance. I will remember your face next time."

Those words put a determination into her gaze that seems instantly to dry her tears. "I will see you again," she says and disappears into the crowd.

For the rest of the night, I dance with the queen of the realm at the top of the world, a peerless beauty with the radiance of the sun who lays a kingdom at my feet. But my thoughts are on a girl with green eyes, wearing a coat made of all kinds of fur.

At the next night's ball, Jorunn wears a sleek gown that gleams with the silver radiance of the moon. It makes her seem ethereal, a woman of wondrous mystery. But she is not the mystery I find myself pondering.

"You seem distracted tonight, Eirik," she says. "Have you taken your tonic?"

Upon my denial, she pours a dose into my punch glass. After one swallow, my racing thoughts begin to slow. What does that strange girl matter? I can be happy here, with this incomparable queen at my side.

A commotion begins on the other side of the ballroom, and the many-furred girl appears among the crowd. I take a hasty swallow of the tonic, but set down the punch glass while it's still half-full.

I look to Jorunn, whose eyes are narrowed toward the girl. "Another dance in exchange for tonight's dress?" I ask.

"Two," Jorunn says. "She drives a hard bargain."

I squeeze her hand. I know my duty with this marriage. She has no need to be jealous. "I will do what I must," I say. "We must keep our promises."

I smile as I approach the girl. She smiles in response, and it makes her more radiant than Jorunn's dress. Again, I am struck by how real she is, practical and solid in a world of wisps and dreams.

"You returned," I say, as I whisk her into a waltz.

"I said I would," she replies.

"I'm glad to know you keep your promises."

She winces, and tears spring to her eyes.

"Forgive me," I say. "I don't wish to cause pain."

"No," she says, shaking her head and wiping her tears into a furred sleeve. "It is no more than I deserve."

"You have broken promises?" It seems cruel to ask, but I think she might welcome the question. It could shed some light on the past that she wants me to remember.

"Only one," she says. "But it destroyed everything."

I remember what she said about her cloak last night. It was all that was left to me. I have suffered a great loss.

"We all break promises sometimes," I say, trying to soothe her.

"Not like mine," she insists. "I did the one thing I was asked not to do. I betrayed the man I loved, and now he is lost to me."

"And he is why you have sought me out? You think I can convince him to forgive you?"

She looks into my face for a long, long moment, step after step, turn after turn. "I don't think," she says at last, "that he knows there is anything to forgive. And that's the worst thing of all."

How can this man be lost to her if he doesn't know she betrayed him? Has she run from her failure, rather than face disgrace?

I know well the temptation to hide from dishonor. Don't I hide my own affliction? This girl has no kingdom to run, but she still has pride to protect.

"Tell him," I say.

Tears flow freely down her cheeks. "I can't."

"I can help you."

"You can't!" she says, dropping my hand. She buries her face in her sleeve. "I don't know why I came."

I place a hand on her shoulder, and fight the strangest urge to turn it into an embrace. "Forgive me," I say. "You come to me for help, and I only cause you pain."

She wipes her face and swallows down a sob. "It's not your fault," she says. "Here I am, wasting our dance by crying."

The song fades to a close. "I still owe you another." I find myself panicked at the thought she won't take it.

"You do," she says, with a wet little laugh. My heart leaps at the sound of it. "Will you give me a chance to compose myself?"

"Take all the time you need," I say, leading her to a seat by a towering window that looks out upon the vast snow plains and a gorgeous spectacle of northern lights. She sits in the soft wing-backed chair and looks out the window, while I stand behind her leaning over the headrest. Despite knowing Jorunn for months, I have yet to have a moment with her that feels this...comfortable.

In the blue-black night, ribbons of violet, blue and green dance and flicker across the sky. The girl snuggles into her robe and gazes upon them with wonder.

"Have you ever seen such lights?" I ask. No matter how many times I see them, they never lose their appeal.

"Many times," she says. "Perhaps not quite this beautiful. Though they are lovely when seen from outside." She lays her head contentedly on her arm rest, using her furs as a pillow.

Her phrasing surprises me. "Do you often travel at night?"

"Night after night after night," she says. "Day after day after day. I never stopped. I climbed mountains, crossed rivers, rode the backs of all four winds."

"To find me," I say. "To find the man you love."

She startled and sits up, looking me straight in the eye. "Yes," she breathes, quivering with excitement.

"I wish I knew how to help you," I say. "You must love him very much."

Her shoulders sink. She sighs. "More than you may ever know."

"I only pray my wife and I can know such love."

She examines me closely. "You mean the princess. Do you mean to say you don't love her?"

It seems improper to speak of such things, and yet I find myself able to tell this girl things I couldn't tell anyone else. Why should I speak less than the truth? "Ours is a political match," I say. "I find her beautiful. I respect her strength. I appreciate her care for me. Love can come with time."

"What would she need to do to make you love her? What would you want in a wife?"

Someone who can come into a ballroom clad in furs and not feel shame. Someone who knows how to laugh and cry. Someone who loves to watch the northern lights. Someone who travels night and day to apologize to a man she betrayed.

In the end, I choose the diplomatic answer. "I don't know that I can ask for more than what I already have."

The girl is quieter during our second dance, carefully content. Her tears are stored away and she will not risk letting them out again.

Now that I'm not distracted by the mystery of her identity, or my lack of memory, or her sorrow over her lost love, I am able to focus on the dance itself, and I find that she is a marvelous dancer. Not so supernaturally graceful as Jorunn, but surprisingly easy to dance with, especially considering that she is wrapped in furs. The woman follows at my every touch, stepping smoothly through turns, patiently waiting if I stumble. I don't stumble often. My limbs feel lighter tonight, my head clearer--strange, given that I've had only half a dose of tonic.

"How did you come to have such wondrous dresses," I ask, "when you have only furs to wear yourself?" The question that had been easy to dismiss last night now seems impossible to ignore.

"You meet lots of strange people when you travel the world," she says with a smile. "They were gifts from some of the most marvelous old women I've ever met. Of course, I've had no occasion to wear them."

"A royal ball is not reason enough?"

"Not if I can't get inside. I'd rather have the dance than the dress."

A dance with me, worth more than a gown of celestial wonders? All for the chance I could help her reconcile with her lost love?

"I am sorry to have been such a disappointment."

"You're not that," she insists. "It's been wonderful just to see you."

"Worth a trip around the world and two wondrous dresses?"

"Not quite," she admits with a smile. "But enough for now. There's still time."

The music slows and falls silent. I bow her out of the dance. "Not for us, I'm afraid. I can give you no more dances."

"Tomorrow, then," she says, smiling over her shoulder as she disappears into the crowd.

Something about her glance--the twist of her hair, the angle of her head--sparks what might be a memory in my mind. Those green eyes flashing. That mouth open in a laugh. White flakes flashing around her as she runs through the snow, while I follow her--strangely--on all fours.

I cannot explain the memory or remember her name. But I do know, whatever her name is, or whatever she was to me, that somewhere in the past, in some way, I have loved her.

The next evening, the last night before our wedding, Jorunn wears a deep blue dress that shimmers with the light of the stars themselves. It is breathtakingly beautiful, but coldly, distantly so--like the woman who wears it. She doesn't smile like the girl with the furs. She doesn't converse while we dance--we can't think of anything to speak of. I can think of no part of my heart I could share with her as I did with the girl last night. I wonder how I thought I could ever grow to love her.

Tonight, Jorunn's offer of the tonic seems, not considerate, but overbearing. Last night I had only half a dose, and I felt better than ever. After Jorunn pours a dose into my punch, I barely sip at it, and when her back is turned, I dump the rest into a potted plant. There will be no more dances after our wedding tomorrow. If I'm to help the girl find her lost love, I want my mind to be as clear as possible.

The glance Jorunn gives the strange girl as she enters the dining room is cold enough to freeze. The girl doesn't seem to feel it through her furs. When Jorunn hands me off, her behavior toward the girl is sullen and hostile.

The girl smiles and curtsies. "The dress is stunning on you, majesty."

"It ought to be, for what it cost me." Jorunn starts to stride away, but then turns around and levels a fierce finger toward the girl. "Not a moment past the stroke of midnight."

The girl bows her head. "I know the bargain."

"Until midnight?" I ask, as I lead the girl into a dance.

The girl smiles. "For tonight, at least, I have you all to myself."

We dance a few dances, while the girl asks me on occasion if I remember anything about my life before. I have flashes of images that might be memories, but nothing that will help the girl in her search. After a while, the girl grows warm in her furs, and we leave the ballroom for the cold quiet of the balcony.

Together, we gaze at the stars and across the vast plains of snow. I remember seeing her like this, on a sunlit balcony in a faraway palace. I wanted to kiss her then, but I couldn't. Probably because she loved another. Just as I am promised to another now.

"Please," I ask in a low whisper. "Can't you tell me your name?"

She shakes her head with tears in her eyes. "Please stop asking. If you don't know it on your own, I can't tell you."

"Why not?"

"It is part of the bargain."

Does Jorunn know who this girl is? "The queen isn't here."

The girl squeezes her eyes shut against some memory. "I have seen the consequences of breaking promises to her. I will not risk it again."

It destroyed everything.

"Your lost love?" I ask.

She nods.

How could that great queen separate this woman from the man she so faithfully loves? What role could Jorunn possibly have in this spat between lovers?

We start down a staircase that leads to a stone path through the snow around the palace. The light from the ballroom windows pours out over us, shining on the girl's furs. The cloak I wear is mostly decorative, and I find myself wishing for furs of my own.

I wore a coat of white fur, thicker than thick.

The flash of memory has no bearing on the mystery I'm trying to solve.

I ask the girl, "If Jorunn knows of your lost love, why do you come to me for help? Why do you not ask her?"

"Allowing me to speak to you is all the help she is willing to give."

I do not begin to understand the complicated politics of this realm. When I am king, I will have to learn, but I will rely on Jorunn for a long while.

"After our wedding, perhaps, I can ask her to help..."

"After the wedding, it will be too late!" She storms down the path. "You'll be married to a woman you don't love! She'll have trapped you forever!"

I try to soothe her. "She won't be able to stop me from speaking to you."

She throws her hands in the air. "You don't understand! You'll never understand!" She is sobbing now. "It was hopeless from the beginning! You can't see the truth about her, or me, and I've no way to tell you! I've doomed us all! I don't deserve redemption, or mercy, or even compassion! I'm the faithless wife who threw away love!"

As she speaks the last words, something flies off her hand, flashing golden as it spirals into the snow. The girl flees down the path, silently sobbing.

I dive for the divot in the snow where the item fell. I pull out a small golden ring set with amethysts and emeralds and ice blue diamonds--the northern lights captured in stone. The ring glitters on my palm, round and flawless. I remember its every facet.

By the One who made the sky and stone, I pledge my heart and soul to you.

Clutching the ring, I race after her and call out, "Karina!"

I stood outside a cottage, trapped in the form of a white bear. The girl with a crown of yellow hair faced me fearlessly and agreed to be my bride, sliding the golden ring upon her left hand.

Short sunlit days on a beautiful tundra. She would ride on my back for hours, laughing for sheer joy as we raced across the snowy fields.

For nearly a year, she shared my bed. I was man by night and bear by day. She was forbidden to see my face and did not mind.

A year and a day, and the curse would be broken. Eleven months after our wedding, I woke to hot wax dripping on my shirt, from a candle she held over my face.

The palace dissolved into dust, and the troll queen arrived to claim her lawful prize. My wife screamed my name as I disappeared into a whirlwind of magic and snow.

In the shadows and snowbanks far from the palace, I grip Karina's shoulders and gaze deep into her familiar, beloved face. "Karina," I breathe. "I remember."

"Everything?" she asks, as tears stream down her face.

"Everything," I say, and kiss her senseless.

Karina and I sit huddled together beneath her coat of furs. I have told her of my months of imprisonment, of the magical tonic the troll queen forced upon me until I thought myself a willing captive. Karina has told me of the harrowing journey she has taken--the three dresses she received from three magical women, the way she rode the backs of all four winds to find me. If there was ever anything to forgive her for, the devotion she has shown in finding me more than absolves her.

I kiss her again as she finishes her tale, finding joy in finding her so real, in knowing my own mind and knowing her.

My own.

My beloved.

My wife.

It is like falling in love all over again.

"I'm so sorry," Karina says again. "I should never have listened to mother. If I hadn't burned that hateful candle--"

I silence her with another kiss. "If you hadn't betrayed me, I wouldn't have this moment. Meeting my wife all over again." I press her to my heart. "I could have no greater joy."

"But you're getting married tomorrow," Karina says. "By the terms of the curse, you must wed Jorunn."

"Trust me," I say, "and all will be well. So long as you will let me borrow your wedding ring."

In the bright light of midday, the ballroom has become a wedding chapel, filled nearly to bursting with lords and ladies and lesser subjects. I now know them for what they are--trolls whose perfect human appearances are nothing but glamours over huge, thick, ugly faces. My would-be wife is ugliest of all, her cruelty coming out upon her in black boils upon her snow-white face and long, pointed nose. The glamour hides her face for now, but it cannot hide the malicious triumph as she gazes upon me--her pet and prize. Her wedding to me will give her dominion over a human realm, and allow her kind to wreak havoc across the world of ordinary men.

She wears the golden sunlight gown, but in daylight, it seems dim and colorless. Even her flawless glamoured face is ugly when I compare her to my ordinary, beloved Karina. My wife is somewhere in the crowd, I know. She has promised to be here, and I trust her to keep her promises.

I do my best to play the magic-addled prince as the highest-ranking of the lords reads aloud their marriage ceremony--endless lists of the glories this alliance will bring to our two realms.

At last, the high lord cries out, merely for form's sake, "Is there any impediment to the marriage between this man and woman?"

"Only one," I shout, stepping away from Jorunn.

Jorunn's expression is black. I can almost see the troll's face beneath the glamour. "Eirik, what is this?"

"Under the laws of troll-kind," I tell the crowd, "Queen Jorunn can wed me if she keeps me here for a year and a day. But there is another law--as would-be husband to the queen, I have a right to set a standard for my bride. If she fails to meet it, all bond between us comes to an end." I stride across the dais to stare into Jorunn's black eyes. "All bonds," I say. "Matrimonial, moral, and magical. Isn't that right?"

Jorunn seems a heartbeat away from tearing out and eating my eyeballs, so I turn to the lord performing the marriage rite. "Isn't that right?"

The troll lord blinks at me. His human form looks like a jittery old man. "That is... technically correct," he says. "But I don't believe this is the right time."

"There is no better time!" I say. "The very last moment when I can see if she is worthy to be my bride."

Jorunn is proud, regal, icy. She steps toward me. "What is your challenge?" she demands. "Make it anything, and I will meet it."

No doubt she thinks she can. I have seen what her magic can do. If I set an enormous challenge--moving a mountain, emptying a sea--she will accomplish it easily. Fortunately, the challenge I plan is impossibly small.

"In the human realm," I say, "we marry under another law--older and more sacred. This marriage rite is bound by the words of a man and woman, and symbolized in the exchange of a pair of rings." I brandish the Karina's ring and hold it high. "By that law, my lawful wife is the one who fits this ring, and I can wed no other."

I search the room for Karina, but I can see her nowhere in the teeming, agitated crowd.

Jorunn stride toward me and snatches the ring from my hand. "Is that all?" she sneers. "Any woman can do that."

Her glamour has fooled even herself. She has forgotten that her hands only appear slender. Trolls can change the forms of others--into a white bear, for instance--even addle the minds of others into believing in changes that aren't real, but their own bodies are impervious to magic. Any alterations to themselves are mere glamours. Beneath her glamoured image, Jorunn's hands are as thick and blocky as any troll's.

Jorunn is unable to slip the ring onto so much as a fingertip.

In rage, she throws the ring onto the floor. It bounces down the stairs and lays flat at their base. "A trick!" she cries. "He has set an unfair challenge! Find me a woman who can fit that ring, or else the challenge is void!"

In the snowy plains outside, I hear the wind building in strength--a whistle, a howl, and at last a roar that bursts open the wide doors of the ballroom. The wind blows the crowd of trolls toward the walls and down to the floor, leaving an open path down which a tiny, yellow-haired girl, clad in a cloak made of every kind of fur, strides fearlessly toward the dais.

I climb down the stairs, pick up the ring, and go down on one knee to offer it to Karina. This time, I can do it with human hands.

"My lady," I say, gazing up into her smiling eyes. "Will you take this ring?"

I slide it upon the fourth finger of her left hand. It fits perfectly.

I kiss her in triumph as Jorunn roars with rage.

Her roar is soon drowned out by the roar of a wind that surrounds me and Karina, lifts us into the air, and carries out the ballroom doors. Soon, we are soaring over snow-covered plains, and before I can fully understand that I am free, the pointed towers of the troll's icy palace have disappeared from sight.

Karina lays on her stomach, the pale blue currents of wind keeping her aloft. She helps me to do the same. While I marvel at this miraculous wind, she is perfectly at ease, and I realize she has done this. My ordinary, unmagical, entirely human wife has saved me.

"Eirik," Karina says, "I would like to introduce you to an old friend of mine."

The North Wind takes us far beyond the tundra where I lived with Karina as a white bear, beyond even the cottage where she lived with her parents, and to a castle in a rocky mountain range that I remember from my boyhood. As the wind sets us upright on the ground before the main doors, I laugh for joy.

"Am I...?" I ask, barely able to believe that I'm standing in this place, where I can recognize every rock and flower that emerges from the melting snow of the springtime ground.

The North Wind now looks like a man--huge and old, with an impossibly large beard. "Prince Eirik," he says, "I have brought you and your bride to the lands of your family."

The full understanding of my freedom comes upon me. Not only am reunited with my bride, not only am I free of enchantment, but I am home, able to move about in the ordinary world like any ordinary man. After so many years of magic, I can think of nothing more wondrous.

I sweep Karina up in my arms and point her gaze toward the door. "Come, my love," I say. "I've waited a very long time to take you home."

#the bookshelf progresses #fairy tale retellings #east of the sun west of the moon #i wanted very desperately to write another fairy tale retelling for new year's eve and i barely made it #forgive the inevitable horrendous mistakes for i've no time to edit #for those who've been following along this is *not* the version of east of the sun west of the moon #that would live up to my idea of the traditional fairy tale #that's an entirely different story #this is a mashup i came up with yesterday and wrote in a frenzy today #and i came up with a title in like ten seconds so please forgive the cringe

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navree · 5 months

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me @ you calling Lucerys boring! 😆 come on, he's just a kid! cutting out aemond's eye was bad, i agree, but i don't think he was as bland as everyone says. his imposter syndrome in 8 and 10 was interesting to watch at least. he was a brave little boy.

I mean I don't really see anything brave about bringing a knife to a fight he not only had fuck all to do with but where he was clearly at fault (Aemond did nothing wrong, he tamed a free dragon, Baela and Rhaena get a pass because they're grieving but Jace and Luke had no business being involved and certainly no business escalating into 4 v 1 violence against the clear cut victim), trying to literally murder someone because I don't know what the fuck you're trying to do when you stab a knife at someone's face but it's certainly not a warning shot, showing zero remorse for it at all, and at worse acting like a little snot when in the same room with your victim. The fact that Luke got away with this scot free (didn't he literally say "I didn't do anything" you boring little asshole you stabbed out someone's eye that is the opposite of not doing anything!) is an absolute travesty of justice that stains everyone involved (mostly Viserys and Luke but I'm not letting Rhaenyra "pls torture the ten year old stabbing victim until he tells me how he figured out that these white dark haired children aren't the sons of my black platinum blond husband" Targaryen off the hook either). Aemond could have died, not only from the initial wound, but from the myriad of infections or other issues that could have plagued him during the healing process. For God's sake, Viserys nicks himself on the Iron Throne and they have to lop off his arm, his infected injuries and their treatment have already made him pretty firmly decrepit by Driftmark, the fact that Aemond healed without any serious and lifelong and further damaging complication is a goddamn miracle. And even kids know that murder is bad, I'm pretty sure that if I were Lucerys's age and I tried to commit homicide I'd have to deal with some consequences.

And I'm sorry, but I call him boring because he is! They wrote a boring character! That's not on me for picking up on it, that's on the writers and the myriad choices they made that led to them severely underdeveloping several characters, most prominently Lucerys (Jace and Baela and Rhaena at least get another season of life to develop further, Luke gets four episodes and they knew that going in). This is a song I've been singing literally since the show was airing and it's not gonna change, cuz he's dead and therefore stuck with his boring character and complete lack of characterization.

Him being a kid is not a character trait, and it certainly doesn't make him more interesting anymore than, say, his eye color would. The impostor syndrome thing they kinda tried didn't really work because 1) it's not impostor syndrome if it's true, he's not a Velaryon and Vaemond was 99% in the right in that entire thing (I don't like him throwing out misogynistic slurs, you can point out that these aren't Velaryons but Strong bastards without stooping to calling Rhaenyra a whore, I hate men sometimes) 2) in episode 8 it exists for one single line and is not a driving force for him at all for the remainder of the episode to the point that it could be cut out and mean nothing, especially since that scene was only there to introduce adult Aemond and 3) it doesn't even make sense because the person who was set up as having issues with his lack of Velaryon heritage and Harwin being his father was Jace. Jace is the one who hears the rumors and clocks it early on in childhood, Jace is the one who is deeply affected by it to the point of bitterness towards his own mother, Jace is the one who grieves Harwin but also feels angry that he can't express it. All of that was set up as part of Jace's arc, not at all Luke's, who is literally set dressing up until he decides to commit criminal offenses in the middle of the night. And then time skip, and suddenly Jace is A-OK and Luke, who has shown no issue before now (or any personality at all) is slightly concerned about it for one line in episode 8 before going back to being a piece of cardboard until episode 10.

And I'll be honest, the second that scene came out in episode 10, I immediately saw it for what it was, which was a very obvious patch job. The writers were clearly aware that they had not given the viewers any reason at all to care about Luke one way or another, so we weren't going to feel a lot when Vhagar (deservedly, imo) munches on him. So they hastily added in this really heavy-handed scene of poor uwu soft boy Lukey who is so concerned with doing right and needs to blink up tearfully at Mommy and be her sweet boy and get little kisses to assuage his worries, so that we'd feel some emotion and then be said when he becomes the Jonah to Vhagar's whale. It just doesn't work because there was nothing for him before then and therefore I don't care, I just feel bad Rhaenyra.

Luke is a bland and boring character. That's not an attack, that's just what the writers did. They tried to cram too much into a ten episode season, literally twenty years of history, and it caused a lot of characterization problems for a lot of characters, particularly for the Team Black ones. And a consequence of that is that the character with the least amount of time for development got not development and no personality. He's a plank of wood, he's a platonic version of the sexy lamp trope; there's nothing there and he exists only for us to feel bad when the lamp is smashed. Seriously, name me five individual character traits that Lucerys has. He's a momma's boy, even though I'm not really sure that's a character trait but I'll give it to him, and I guess he's devoid of empathy, considering that he doesn't appear to feel literally any remorse for mutilating Aemond (seriously, is it like the Dothraki and "thank you"? does the word "sorry" not exist in Valyrian languages? you can't even send an apology gift basket or a note?). But he's not brave, as there is no scene that shows any bravery or courage, and he's not noble or kind or thoughtful because there's nothing that shows any of that, or anything that shows him being the opposite, cruel or cowardly or weak, because he's a basically a character who could be played by sticking a wig on a mop and waving it around. And any characterization of insecurity exists as something hamfistedly crowbarred in at the last minute in his final episode to try to manipulate the audience's emotions with less sensitivity than D&D trying to tug at our heartstrings by having Drogon try to nudge Dany awake after she's killed.

But there is a character that I do consider to be a brave little boy, though I regret to inform y'all that it is Not a fourteen year old with no depth or personality or written characterization whose main claim to fame is maiming a person without apology and then dying. Nah, the brave little boy title goes to post-Driftmark Aemond. Aemond, at ten, is delivered a life altering injury whose recovery was likely very slow and very painful, involved a lot of worry about whether he'd have to deal with infection or further risk of death, and had to relearn how to do literally everything now that he was half blind, and he did all of it. He survived, and he thrived. He relearned how to walk, how to balance, his spatial awareness. He learned how to fought and even became incredibly good at it, and maintained his bond with Vhagar, as well as trying to keep himself mentally sharp as well. He did all of that, despite the huge setback he was dealt with at age ten. That's brave, go Aemond.

#personal #answered #anonymous #anti lucerys velaryon #the only thing about luke that even gets me remotely passionate is what he did to aemond #but that's because i like aemond and i feel things about aemond #who is a fully realized character #lucery is Not that #and yeah it's a writing issue and a massive writing issue #do baela and rhaena even have ANY character traits at all?#do their adult versions even have more then a dozen lines?#like at least they live through the dance so we can see more characterization develop in upcoming seasons #but honestly the only character more atrociously handled in terms of being made boring than luke are baela and rhaena #who could honestly be completely cut from the story of season 1 entirely and not have it make a lick of difference #like me calling luke boring isn't an attack on the character of luke (because it basically doesn't exist)#it's me taking the WRITERS to task #since it's impossible to set luke's lack of characterization apart from the out of universe creative decisions that led to it #and i've always thought he's boring and that's really not gonna change #there's four episodes of the boy and i've seen all four of them and they're the only four we're ever gonna get #they knew that they knew luke was gonna be set in unchanging stone once he died and they elected to do nothing with him anyway #so he's boring and bland #sucks but it's true

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