Talia Moodley

That's so interesting.

It's really interesting that you picked that up.

Because it's exactly that, right?

Because Siona is, if you...

had kind of a male character be like she is I feel like you wouldn't be as struck by her ambition and her like thoughtlessness in some ways but it is just showing that you know there's such a full spectrum of men and women and any other kind of you know thing that falls under the umbrella um that that's yeah you can flip those that's really interesting that she that was actually intentional yeah not to confront our own biases or anything but would we have questioned so much his ambition if it were her ambition if she were a male character that's what I mean I don't think so yeah yeah I think it would have just been like oh yes of course that's the kind of

The way that he pushed back, I think, was so just satisfying as a reader because, yeah, exactly that, like his silence would speak volumes.

But then when he had something to say, it was very much putting Siona in her place in just such a fantastic way because it really did make her then have to confront her own biases and her own prejudices.

But again, she's a flawed character.

So it's not like she has her eyes opened and immediately changes the way she moves around in the world.

She repeatedly kind of has that one step forward, two steps back situation.

Yeah.

Yeah, no, that was... Kara was a brilliant character.

Like, so she...

is obviously the baby that we see, Tomil, his niece that he rescues in the very first chapter.

And their whole family is wiped out as they're trying to get into Tiryn.

But then Kara is the baby that survives.

And Tomil has to lie and say that she's his daughter, because otherwise they would have been separated.

So she grows up in this system.

But Tomil has, in his way, really kept their culture alive as much as he can for her.

So she just has this rage