DeMyth Turns the Page with Lindsey Byrd

Lauren is joined this episode by Lindsey Byrd to dive into her duology "A Tale of Two Crowns". 

The whole episode is spoilery starting with last years book one The Sun Blessed Prince and finishing up with the recent release The Moon Blessed King

Transcript

SPEAKER_04 0:24

Hi, I'm Lauren, and this is Demith Turns the Page. My special episodes where I lean into my givea powers, delve into family drama, and this episode I discuss a duology with uh Lindsay Byrd. Hi, Lindsay, and thank you so much for joining me.

SPEAKER_02 0:51

Hi, it's so lovely to be here.

SPEAKER_04 0:54

Are you a fantasy girly?

SPEAKER_02 0:56

I probably would say so, yes. If anybody asks me what books I'm reading, they're usually fantasy books.

SPEAKER_04 1:03

Before we get into your duology, which is exciting for me, can you just introduce yourself a little bit for my listeners?

SPEAKER_02 1:11

Sure. Um my name is Lindsay Byrd. I have a duology, the Tale of Two Crowns duology, which is the Sun Blessed Prince and The Moonblessed King, which just came out in April. Um, they're currently out. Um, and in my non-writing life, um, my actual day job is I'm a historian of medicine, and I work in um looking up things regarding tuberculosis and antimicrobial resistance, and a lot of that has really inspired how I go about writing my books.

SPEAKER_04 1:44

What can you tell me about the creative and world-building process across the duology? Because I know you've said in your author's notes that COVID had a really big impact on it. So I'm really interested to it to hear you talk about that.

SPEAKER_02 2:03

Yeah, so I started writing um both books. I wrote them at the same time. So I before I pitched my agent, both books were done. Um, gosh, a certain point was like, this is getting too long, and I ended up with two books instead. Um I wrote them both during COVID, and um the inspiration there is, I think, quite obvious when you're reading the books of like trying to understand what you are dealing with with matters of life, with matters of death, people are dying all the time, what does the healthcare infrastructure mean for who is getting quality access to healthcare, et cetera? So a lot of that is just really built into the books themselves. Um, as for beyond that regarding like the setting, um, at the time that I was really doing a lot of the major edits for the book, I had just moved to Alsace, France, and specifically right on the border between I was on the Rhine, so I was in Strasbourg, um, right between um where it goes from France to Germany. And I was so inspired by um the history of that land where it was constantly being fought over, where now you're German, now you're French, now you're German, now you're French, um, and what that meant for the culture and community spent a lot of time in the museums there and a lot of time just exploring the different chateaus, but also the guard towers, looking at their architecture, um, the landscape, the type of building fortifications, the type of stonework. So a lot of that inspired just the construction of the world itself from a physical perspective. And then I guess more on like just the cultures and communities, a lot of that was very much if you had these types of cultures living in this specific setting, dealing with these specific issues, what would likely grow out of that? And so looking at um the bigotry that would emerge from different people and different class structures and how people perceive the other and what that looks like in this particular community in this particular setting. And so all of that kind of just compiled amongst themselves, which grew into the greater story.

SPEAKER_04 4:10

I've not asked this before, but I've had quite a few authors on the podcast who, in some shape or form, their book has been influenced by COVID. And I know you can't speak specifically, but maybe generally, why do you think that COVID has influenced so many authors?

SPEAKER_02 4:29

I think it's influenced everybody. I mean, um, I don't think there's a person who is alive today who can't have some sort of relation to COVID. Even the babies who were born after the huge mess of the pandemic are influenced by what happened just from like the healthcare infrastructure, the financial impact that's affected so many communities, the education systems that have broken down. Um, particularly, you see a lot of that in the United States, other countries have done much better. Um, but just in general, I think it was such a moment of panic and concern and not quite sure who to trust, where to trust. Um, and I think all of that really heightened emotions really has a traumatizing impact. Um, regardless of whether someone you know specifically died or was deeply medically influenced, just the idea of being told you can't go anywhere or being concerned about you know your livelihood or your financial income, which you might not have had much control over. I think there was so much doubt and uncertainty that it that COVID really amplified a lot of those fears and at the same time highlighted a lot of the um different political and financial infrastructures that may or may not have worked as effectively as they could have. And so I think it really was a triggering point for a lot of different people in a lot of different ways, and I think it served as artistically a great source of inspiration, but I think it also obviously had a lot of impact elsewhere as well.

SPEAKER_04 6:08

Before we get into actual plot and story points, we have to talk about your covers because they are so beautiful and they go together so well. And I feel like for our two main characters, Kat and I hope I'm pronouncing this right, Elisian, it feels like they just match them.

SPEAKER_02 6:26

Yeah. Um, so I don't have an art a graphically artistic bone in my body. I I couldn't tell you what colors looked good against what I I vibe certain things. It's like it's pretty. I have no idea about why it's pretty. I couldn't explain any of that. I had one thing that I told my agent where I was like, I'm really not too keen with covers that have like just like flowers for no reason. So like when I saw the covers in my inbox, I have to admit, I was like, okay, I will allow it just this once. Because I genuinely just adore these covers so much. And I think it just goes to show that I still have no sense of explaining what I like or don't like because they're really just gorgeous. They truly, truly are. Um I really love the bright orange vibrancy of the first book. I think it's really eye-catching, and to me now it's like you'll walk through a storm. It's like the orange one is kind of what I've just kind of put in my head for that. Um, and I think it really goes, as you were saying, to the characters themselves for Elisea. And I think it really shines as like he's outwardly somebody who people look to and get caught up in, and there's so much love and joy just for this particular character and the faith they have in this character. And I think that drawing kind of atmosphere is really in that book where it catches your eye and you kind of focus on it. And I feel like that's very emblematic. Kat is so sweetly introverted, and Elsian is too. At the end of the day, he's he's very introverted, but I think Kat is just like, please let me just not deal with any of you. Um, but at the same time, he's such a sweet, gentle soul, and I feel like there's the colors of that is it comes out, it shines so beautifully, and then put them together, and it's like it's a great blend of both the stories themselves, the characters themselves, and I guess the colors really work. I don't know, like I said, I'm not good at describing colours, but they're very I I really love them, they're so pretty.

SPEAKER_04 8:36

This is just the note for listeners now that we're gonna be discussing book one first, and book one is obviously it's a bit spoiled. Well, it's very spoilery, and hopefully it will serve up as a nice kind of summary of things that I want to talk about from book one. But if you haven't read book two, that's the point you should stop and then come back because we will be discussing the ending, and the ending will be spoiled for you because I've read them both and I need to discuss them. So I'm assuming at the point that we are talking that people have read book one. So I'm not gonna uh uh do summaries, I'm just gonna jump straight into my questions. Kat admits very early on what his mission actually was. And at this point, we don't know if we like Kat or not. He's just rocked up and may or may not on purpose have tried to kill Elysian. So when he sort of says, actually, yeah, I was here, this is my mission, basically, to kill all the royal family, I was a bit like ooh. What do you think made him feel the need to share this? Because he's in a potentially bad situation that could only get worse. It's like, yeah, sorry, I'm kind of here to murder the whole royal family.

SPEAKER_02 9:53

I think for a lot of Kat's interactions with different characters, it's really good to. I mean, you find out more as time goes on, but for him, I don't think he feels like he ever has anything left to lose. Like, they can't kill him. He's very aware of that. Um, there are things that he wouldn't necessarily like, like in that one scene, he's like, I really don't feel like getting drowned for eternity. Please don't toss me in the river. Um, but he's at a point where for so many years of his life, nothing he's ever cared for or wanted for has ever mattered. That for him, it's like, sure, I'll tell you this. It really doesn't matter. You're all gonna die eventually. I'm still gonna be here. Like, I don't think he really conceives of plotting because he doesn't ever think of stuff like that. He's like, yep, this is what I'm here for, this is what I'm doing, this none of this matters. And I think for him, what really was I don't know, piece of death is a little two on the nose. Um his whole purpose for being there was this idea that if he killed this royal family, he could save his reapers and get them a good life. And I think the crushing realization of he will never be able to kill Elissian, and therefore he can never give his family the life that he wants to give them. At that point, he's like, all right, well, it doesn't matter at this point, nothing matters. And I think there's a deep sense of depression actually in that character in those first few chapters that he doesn't really care because the only thing he did care about he knows he'll never get, and it's another sense of, all right, whatever, I can't control this. One more thing is out of my hands.

SPEAKER_04 11:38

I don't think he would have got freedom for him and his Reapers. Say Elyssian hadn't been a giver. I don't think he would have got that freedom. Just saying. I'm not convinced.

SPEAKER_02 11:50

It's fair. Um, I'm not here to speak about reader interpretations. Like, I think every reader can have their own interpretations for him, for what he believed in that moment, for what his mother had told him, I think that's what's more important. Is in the text he believed it. And whether or not his mother would have ever followed through and given him that, that's up for debate. It's not written in the text. But he believed it, or at least he wanted to believe it enough to be willing to go through with all of this. And I think as a character motivation, it's unique in the sense that we only get to see his wants and desires, and we never get to be in his mother's head. We don't know what she actually would have allowed or not allowed, but it she knew him well enough to know he would have gone for that, and it was enough to get him out of the countries, which is what she wanted.

SPEAKER_04 12:41

It's the ultimate motivation for him, really, because from snippets you see as the book goes on, his life was really, really quite dire. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 12:51

And I think his mother is such an interesting character, and I I like exploring her in different ways. And it's one of the things I do enjoy about having multiple points of views throughout the books because Elsean's perspective on Queen LA is very different from Kat's perspective on her, and the forgiveness may or may not ever show up with certain characters is there, but for Kat, I think he would always look at his mother as somebody who was doing the best she could in a horrible situation, which I don't think Elsie would ever buy for a second. But for me, I I think I feel like in the scenario they had, she knew how much he cared for the people around him, and it was the easiest way to manipulate him to get him out of a place she'd been trying to get him out of for a very long time, and it was the only thing and option she had to lever against him in that particular way.

SPEAKER_04 13:51

When we discuss in book two, I want to discuss whether she did do the best she could by him, but I want to save it for now.

SPEAKER_03 13:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 13:59

Your choice to have Fenn as a POV character. So we had we had it's a couple of bits, and especially in book two, that aren't one of the three main characters. And she's not she's not like her main character, she's not one of the two boys, but she's there and really integral to the story. So, what made you choose to have her rather than maybe Leo or like the cousin, or there's various other characters you could have had. What was it about Fenn that made you want to have her voice on page?

SPEAKER_02 14:33

Fenn, and to an extent, Gulage, but they don't see his point of view. But Fenn is a child who becomes an adult throughout the stories, at least legally as far as they're concerned. Um and one of the really important things for me is that Fenn is really a metaphor. She represents a very specific type of black and white thinking that children are renowned for because they struggle with shades of gray. But it is the I have been told this one specific thing my entire life, and that's what I'm gonna believe in because that's what I've been told. And as the story goes on and she starts getting exposed to more things and she starts getting to learn more things, she emerges from pure bigotry to I have a XYZ friend once, and where she has this, like, oh well, I had this one friend, he's the exception because you know that's my friend, or she continues to be a bigot to everybody else, but she has that one friend, and then continues and continues and continues until she actually reads a point of self-reflection where she realizes, oh, wait a second, I've actually been a complete bitch. I don't know if I'm allowed to say that, but like you're allowed to say that. Um, I've been a complete bitch um for a very long time. Um, I'm sorry, and I need to work on myself in order to actually do better because I'm not a good doing well now and I could be doing better. And for me, what was very important about that journey was I have met so many adults with that exact same mindset in my life, adults who keep that black and white thinking of a child, and they never actually advance past childhood, they stay in that black and white, I'm going to stay in this position. And the use of using Fenn's age, the use of showing her as a child who's advancing to maturity through that was very important because I wanted to highlight that if you see that type of behavior in adults, and there are many adults in this world who have that type of mentality, it is the thinking of a child. And so many people have pointed out she's such an annoying child. It's like, yes, she is a child. That is the point. And it isn't until she escapes from that, or at least grows from it, I should say, that she actually gets to be her own person. And it's that, and it's not a quick process. It takes a while. She is not a good person for a very long time. But I don't think that you can just immediately become a good person that quickly. And at the same time, I think she also serves as an example of what's happened in these countries, and that's why I bring up Gulage as well, because he is also very black and white thinking, very specifically trained thought of this is what you have to do in a certain situation. This is the culture of the countries that they've grown up in. This is the product of their environment. And it's through the constant pressure of many people around them saying this is another way, this is another option that helps them grow and change, and hopefully in the future, to do make other choices. And so I'm fully aware she's everyone's least favorite character on the page. Um, she's not intentionally meant to be annoying. I know that being annoying is the worst treat you can give a character, which is why she's so hated. But I think it's a very important way to show that evolution of thinking and to hopefully give perspective on there are people who think like this, and it is possible to see an evolution if you wish to engage in that way.

SPEAKER_04 18:16

I'm glad you said that you don't become a good person overnight because in the notes I made, I wrote that she comes across as quite a brat for for most of it. So, how do you go about developing a character who goes from completely bigoted to, oh, I have that one friend who is the exception, to then actually showing quite a large amount of growth. And it needs to feel authentic to the reader because we're not going to go from maybe disliking her and thinking she's annoying to suddenly like, cool, I love you now. We we have to see it in stages. So, how how do you do that? Because I think it's quite skillful to turn a character that we don't like into maybe someone that actually, I feel like I understand you and I kind of like you now.

SPEAKER_02 19:00

I think her youth actually helps her here. Um, because it gives her the grace. I feel like for some readers, it'll give them the grace of, okay, she was just a child. I feel like if she had been an adult the entire way through, there's so many people say, well, she should have known better ages ago. And I think it would have been like much harder for her to actually come around. I think she people would have always had that feeling. But because she was so young, and you actually see her literally growing both mentally and physically, um it helps give you that sense of okay, we're watching this progress. And it's subtle, it's slow, and she acts like things with our child. Like she decides that Kat's her best friend. Like he doesn't feel that way. And her in his point of view chapters, in the same moment where she's like, Oh, this is my best friend, he's like, I'm stuck with this child. Like it, and even for him, he does accept her as a friend, but it's not at the same moment that she does, because she just decides that he's his for her friend because she's decided that, which again is a very childish point of view. She's made a decision, it's black and white, that's what it is. Um, and so I think it's difficult for that character for me because I always knew where she would end up, but I also at the same time, while I was writing her, was so cognizant of like, okay, when I was 14, I was constantly making mistakes, and not the same mistakes she was making, but like still mistakes, people always make mistakes, kids are not very smart. Um, and so being able to play into what are the huge wells of emotions because you get so caught up in your emotions when you're a kid, and so and she's not a young child, she's a teenager, but teenagers especially get very caught up in their emotions, and so following those emotions, like this major thing happens, what is the emotional reaction? And when she's surrounded by such sensible people, I think it helps both highlight her annoying traits, but also it gives her the grace because when she stops feeling so emotional, you actually then get to see her reflecting on the sensibilities of the people around her. She gets to have the guidance of sensible people, where for Gulage, he doesn't get that. And so it really heightens the differences between those two types of characters in that same type of situation.

SPEAKER_04 21:30

I want to get into Gillage again when we get into book two, but I really want to talk about I don't know how you pronounce it, but it's on page the A-L-E that is very important in the names of the alons. I don't know if I'm he doesn't fit that tradition. His name is so far away from that. So when we first sort of see him on page, and again, he's an absol he's horror, he's at such a brat, he's horrible. Um but we're starting to think before we see find out more later maybe he's not been treated very nicely. Like, why is his name different? So how do has that sort of helped shape him into such an unlikable character? You're right, a good unlikable character, I will say that.

SPEAKER_01 22:23

Oh good.

SPEAKER_02 22:25

Um there's so much that goes into Gauge. Um, I admit I like all my characters for different reasons, even the unlikable ones because I made them that way. Like I feel like I have to have a little bit of pity in my heart for the fact I specifically crafted them in that way. Um for Golage, there's a lot unspoken about him, and there's so much more subtlety with that specific relationship in the second book. Um, because we only ever see Golage through Elissian's point of view in the first book, and he hates him. Just the both of them hate each other, and that's perfectly valid and reasonable because Golage does absolutely nothing to make Elsian like him at all. Um, but from Elissian's perspective in the first book, we see a very angry, hateful, just cruel child, and that's just basically what he is. Um, why he gets that way is really subtext. Um, and I don't think I've ever like completely blunt about it, so I would leave some of it up to reader interpretation, but for stuff that I think have been at least implicit enough, yes, the name thing. Um, all of the heirs of Alun have the Allah in front of their names. Um, that's basically saying this is the next person. Um, he doesn't get that, and so there's a very blunt, obvious dislike for him and sense of you're not my heir, you're never going to be my heir, rejection from his mother. It's very implied in the first book. People around him who he's closest to are um Nurid, who's the guard that eventually who is responsible for the actual physical capture of Leo and Elisian, and also Lynn Carce, who is the person who eventually is responsible for the torture of Elissian. So you imagine those types of adults around the young child, and implicitly, I don't imagine them to be very nice people, but this is a child who's surrounded by very unnice people in a court that already doesn't really care much for him. He knows that he's not female, who is supposed to be the one who ascends the throne. He knows he's not liked by his mother, he knows that everybody's holding somebody else in higher regard. And what I imagine that does to the psyche of a young child to be constantly unwanted is that you try to do whatever you can to either get attention or to attach yourself to the people who will pay attention to you. And the two people who do pay attention to him are not nice people who obviously have their own desires and wants. And so I imagine what would a child who grows up around those types of people be like if you're around people who are mean and cruel, you're going to be mean and cruel to satisfy what you think is what they want. And that's what you see in Gulage is he's acting in the way the people around him are acting, thinking that that is what he has to do in order to gain attention, gain love, gain praise. And he doesn't really get it. That's not possible. He's alienating his own people, he's making everybody hate him. But then the more that they hate him, the more he thinks he needs to act out. And so it's it shows this downward spyle of a very sad child who was abandoned by the people who should have loved him and never did, and he turned into somebody who only knew how to act very inappropriately in an attempt to gain power that he didn't really have.

SPEAKER_04 26:10

I guess at the age that he is in the book, he would have been aware of the name thing.

SPEAKER_02 26:16

Yes, absolutely. And I'm sure considering where he was in court, he would have heard people talk about it. He would have, I'm sure that's a very cutthroat court where they were very clear that they have no problem killing or replacing people if it meant their own advancement. I'm sure he was very aware of his own position.

SPEAKER_04 26:36

I guess it's a feeling of not being good enough.

SPEAKER_02 26:39

Constantly. And it's something, and that's why I was tying it back to Fenn earlier, who also feels constantly that she's not good enough. And so it's these two characters speak in parallel to each other of the surroundings. She was Fenn's given so much grace and forgiveness and the room to grow into a better person. Galaj is not good at that. He is constantly surrounded by people who only consistently tell him how much he will never be better.

SPEAKER_04 27:05

It's almost like holding. I I sort of feel this way with Kat and Elisian as well. It's like a mirror and so many similarities between them as pairs. It's it's almost the books would have been too long, but it's almost a shame we didn't get a few Gillard's chapters. It would have been interesting to maybe.

SPEAKER_02 27:23

I would love to explore the character in the future. Unfortunately, I don't decide that myself alone. Um, but I have had many thoughts of this character.

SPEAKER_04 27:33

With your experience through COVID and your job as well, you have you more knowledge about medicine than probably a lot of people. So, how did that tie in with the development of the magic system? And my pronunciation crossfort? Criter. Cruz. I'm not even gonna try and repeat that. Um, but we go quite in depth with some of the lessons. I ate this up, I loved this so much. I love when authors go in on magic systems, it's why I love fantasy because we get stuff like this that we don't get in normal books. So, did you do research? What was the kind of inspiration? Because I loved seeing Fenn and Kat developing and maybe shaping their powers and just getting a bit more in touch with them. I'm not saying it was perfect, but I ate these chapters up so much. I would never claim my work be perfect either, so it's perfect. Oh, I meant the teaching system there, not your work.

SPEAKER_02 28:38

I appreciate that too. Um, and the same for the teaching, I think every teacher could improve. I'm just gonna say that as a professor of my own. I have a very dear friend who is a neuroscientist. Um, and she her big complaint whenever she reads anything that has anything to do with science or magic that likes to, you know, incorporate science is that nothing ever makes sense. And so there was a voice in the back of my head that was like, if I'm gonna write this and explain this, I need to make sure I make that one person happy.

SPEAKER_00 29:10

And I was delighted actually, because when she finally did read the book, I was waiting and she was like, it makes sense. I was like, thank you. Okay, I I've satisfied my one sale. I kind of go home now.

SPEAKER_02 29:25

Thank you, Tor and Penguin, for assisting me on this project of convincing one friend. Um, it was a mix of things. Some things I had already just been aware of because of my own background, other things um were just my own science lessons that I went through when I was at school, where I remember sitting in front of a microscope and looking at cells and then going, okay, if I was in fantasy land, what would the microscope lesson look like? And trying to understand that. Um, and saying, okay, well, cells themselves aren't going to just not exist in fantasy people, like they must exist. And so when they're looking at those cells, how are they changing? What are they doing? And and I liked playing with the idea of them actually questioning, okay, well, why is it doing that? And then having their teacher go, Well, that's the magic part. They're just slightly a cop out, yes, but also it helps bring in the world of like we're using magic through the science that exists and explaining, okay, well, this is the way that we're doing it, this is how we're inspiring things to happen. And yes, there's a theology associated, there's the myth associated, but the magic itself is tied into the natural sciences, and that made it so much easier for me later on as I'm trying to explain life and death and why the eventual end reveal makes sense. Um, but I felt like I needed to go through all the science lessons to make sure that when that end reveal happened, it was justified.

SPEAKER_04 31:00

I loved it. I loved all the lessons, just the little tasks of them having to like burn the plants and things like that. I was like, Oh, I love this. This is I could just read pages and pages of this.

SPEAKER_03 31:10

Thank you.

SPEAKER_04 31:12

I have uh seen descriptions of uh the the two boys as Starcross lovers and uh enemies to lovers. But book one, there's no romance, and you make the quite bold decision to have them uh apart for so much of the book, and I have some thoughts around this, but I would like you to sort of explain your thought process before I get into my thoughts about this.

SPEAKER_02 31:41

Regarding enemies to lovers, I I think for me they're enemies in the sense that they come from enemy kingdoms and or monarchies to be more politically correct. Um and they're not personal enemies, it's a political entity. Um and so Kat has absolutely no beef with Elliotine. He sees him is like, I'm gonna kill you because my mom told me to end the story. He's like, oh well, that didn't work, all right. Sorry. Like that's really Kat's whole drive at that moment. Um he genuinely does not care about Elisine when they first meet it. He has really no thoughts about him beyond that's what he had to do. Um, so in that respect, I would not call them the traditional enemies to lovers where they they hate each other and they want to kill each other and then they fall in love. That's not quite true, which is more of politically enemies to lovers. Um as for the star cross lovers thing. I don't know. I think I would leave that to reader interpretation. I wouldn't want to like step on that if that's what somebody really believes in. I think for me, when I think of star-cross lovers, there's a sense of tragedy to it, but I don't think it ends in tragedy. And so I wouldn't necessarily give them that either. Um, they do have a bit of daydreaming of like what could have happened in different circumstances if things were changed and stuff like that. Hard to say. I would leave that to fanfiction, which I would love to read if I was ever allowed to. Um but um I'm not sure. I think for me, as far as it being a bold decision to keep them separated for the entire book, I really struggle with people who see each other and um just instantly are like, I'm going to sacrifice all my ideals and morals just for you because you're hot and sexy and I want to be with you.

SPEAKER_04 33:40

Um I mean, I could be convinced if you found me the right person.

SPEAKER_02 33:44

Right. And that's totally valid and fair. For me as an author, I think I lean more towards the asexual spectrum. And so, like when I'm writing, I really struggle with seeing a romantic pair um that wants to be with each other and is willing to sacrifice everything just on that alone. And so that's a personal choice for me. And for me, I knew I wanted these two characters to be together, but I was like, you are in the wrong point in your life to be together, and so they meet each other and then they both separate and then they grow. And I think they never quite leave each other. Um, they think about each other often, mainly because they're constantly reminded of one another. Um, Kat is surrounded by Fenn and everybody who is stressing and fearful and worrying about Elsean every single day. And so we get Elsian physically does not leave his thoughts because everyone around him is constantly going, Ellian, Ellian, Ellian. Meanwhile, Elsean literally is like spending his time in Kat's like least favorite place on earth. And everybody around him is also constantly talking about Kat. And so the two of them learn about each other, their lives, their experiences, their histories, they and they grow with this knowledge of each other. So when they do eventually come back, they're like, I know so much about you that I did not know prior, but we both want the same thing, and there are worse people in the world to try to do this with, and I'm willing to try to make this work with you. And so, yeah, they do separate for a long time, but I think they both needed to grow into different people before they came back together again.

SPEAKER_04 35:26

In my notes, I have learning about each other in their absence, and they got it seemed to go out of their way because Kat goes into Alyssian's bedroom. He had no business to be there. But I felt like you're showing curiosity, you want to know more about this person, this person who should be really bigoted, but showed a maybe unusual kindness when he knew that you were there to kill him. He should be bigoted towards you because of the fact that you are from the opposing side and you're a reaper, and yet was so kind to you. And they had those little not pillow talk, but kind of pillow talky moments at night where they're looking at the stars, and it's all very sweet. It clearly meant enough to him for him to maybe seek out a bit more information, and they are basically spending time around each other's family. I know that it's not Kat's like traditional family, but yeah, the other Reapers, it might as well he cares about them more than he cares about his family, I think. Well, he's like one family member that's left, too, but he can't care about I wasn't really counting Gulage, but like with his mum, he doesn't have a relationship with her, but being around people that actually matter to the other, I think really, really helps.

SPEAKER_02 36:44

Yeah, and I think I loved having those moments. Um, that bedroom scene where he is kind of snooping. Like because I think for him, also, like you hear so much about somebody, you kind of just want to know for yourself. And absence of like LSU popping out of the ground like a daisy, like that's really his only option, is to kind of figure it out for himself. And one of the things I really loved about that scene was also Adelaide finding him. And I adore their those two speaking to each other because they're so sweet with each other. And I think it was just that conversation, them finding a moment of common ground, but also again, it's a moment of him going, all right, I've learned this about this person. I'm feeling more set in the choices that I'm making. This everybody's feeling this certain way, and I think it helps him create that decision so that at the end of the book, he is willing to have a more serious conversation about a future with LSE and purely for political reasons, um, at that point, because he's like, I can trust this person, and so you gain that trust because of all of the external information he had. I don't think the book would have worked as well from my point of view, um, if he hadn't had spent so much time just actively learning about him before it actually happened.

SPEAKER_04 38:04

I think it was a bold move, but I think it really for me, it really worked. Like people can disagree, but I liked it. I liked them learning about each other. And I pride myself on being quite good to predict things. I did not predict the reveal about who cat really was. Damn, maybe I should have I should have seen that coming, but no, that caught me unawares.

SPEAKER_00 38:28

Um I'm glad I've had mixed people.

SPEAKER_02 38:31

Sometimes um folks aren't picking up on it, other people like immediately clock it, and that's fine. I I think I think it gives more reread value. Like when you go back and get to like go through it a second time or third time, you get to pick up little things. So I think that's the fun part about maybe missing something in the first time.

SPEAKER_04 38:49

I had so many notes though on who the traitor was. And like my theories behind it. I was like, oh, it could be Leo. I don't think it's gonna be Leo, especially when bad things are happening to him. I was like, oh, what about I best the uncle? I best the uncle for the cousin. Because there's a comment he made about the fact that he would be the heir and he didn't really seem to want power, and I was like, ah, I'm smart, I've clocked it now. And then it turned out to be none of those things. So I was like, cool, I'm quite happy to be surprised.

SPEAKER_02 39:20

Yeah, I think um I think the uncle is the obvious choice. I think it would have been like obviously it's the evil uncle. But uh I worked with one of my editors quite deeply on that confession scene, and I think it came out very beautifully um from its first draft, and I'm really happy with how it came out, but it was so sad that particular scene of when that reveal was. I've genuinely, especially when I was listening to the audiobook, because Jake Joe Jameson does such a great job with it. Um, it's a really sad scene at the end of the day. Um, and uh the reveal is definitely heart-wrenching. I think it sets up Elise andger pretty well in the second book.

SPEAKER_04 40:05

I think it's kind of justified, especially when you find out that the it's like, oh, the dad the dad's involved too. Like, wow, this is this is getting thick deeper and deeper. And we already kind of know that his dad is maybe not a very nice person because Kat has he be jeebies about him, and it's like I kind of uh trust Kat's opinion uh to a large point because it feels especially when he's when he's taken out of his sort of homeland, it feels like uh it's very without bias because he has no prior opinions about these people, apart from the fact that uh Lyttian's dad threw a party when he died. But he doesn't seem to hold that against him too much. It's based on the face-to-face and just not even what he's saying, how he's saying it, and just vibes. And it's like, no, if you don't trust him, I don't trust him now.

SPEAKER_03 40:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 41:00

And the fact that he could have potentially changed the law and made Elisian keep such a big part of himself inside for legacy that won't even matter when the dad is dead.

SPEAKER_02 41:14

Yeah, I had somebody, I can't remember who somebody was just saying that um, you know, for a queer normative world, Elissian still ends up with religious drama. So yeah, he does. Um, because there is an interpretation there of the fact that he could never be who he was. He was constantly repressing, constantly repressing who he was, how he was, and his father could have made that easier and he didn't. And um we see that in the second book where Elisine is like really like looking at that one moment, going, This could have all been so much easier, and it just was never something my father ever considered. And I think uh it's a difficult parents, I think, is definitely a theme in this series.

SPEAKER_04 42:03

I don't know which parents I would like least because there are problems on on both sides.

SPEAKER_00 42:08

There are, yes.

SPEAKER_04 42:10

But I'm a girl, so if I was born in the right place, I might have been okay.

SPEAKER_02 42:14

You know, it could it's an argument could be made. If Golage had been born a girl, would she have been given a Alla name? I think probably she would have, like, because it would have immediately been assumed, okay, perfect, there's the heir. Honestly, things probably would have been a lot different had he been born a she. Um and his life would have been very different, the the whole story would have been very different. Um, so really people put a lot of pressure on the gender of your children.

SPEAKER_04 42:45

I feel like we're sort of teetering towards it now, so let's let's dive into book two. As I said, there's not much romance, well, there's no romance in book one, but we see it very gradually building towards a climax point in book two. So, how do you develop the romance between them when they're both so sure that it is political? And then there are a few points where I felt like they were like, oh, oh, but maybe oh no, but it's pol they they think it's political, so I'm not gonna cross that boundary, and they're both really emotionally inexperienced, and Alisian has this big, I don't know how Kat feels, but Alisian has this really big fear of loss, and he's like, I'm not gonna fall in love because I'm just gonna lose this person. Obviously, now with Kat, we know that's not gonna happen. But how do you develop a romance between these two people that really don't want it?

SPEAKER_02 43:53

I would say between the two of them, Kat is more willing and pretty open about it. Um, but he's also so Incredibly shy.

SPEAKER_04 44:01

Like, but is he open with us? Because we're reading it and we're seeing his point of view. Is he that open with Elisean? I don't think so.

SPEAKER_02 44:10

And that's where I think I had a lot of fun playing with the culture. Because in Alalunan culture, everything he would be doing is so flirtatious. Like he's sleeping right next to him. He's holding his hand. He's like, like all of that is like, which is fun when you actually get to Elalun and like all of their camp followers are like turning their heads every single time they're holding hands. That's just inappropriate. Like I said, I've gotten used to it. This is what it is. But every all the Elunans around were like freaking out because, like, that's so that that's that's you can't do that in public. And so, like, from his perspective, he's like, I am being so bored. Look at me, I have revealed my wrist. And it's just where Elisean, there's such a physical culture in general. He's just he's aware, he's like, Am I offending you? And he's like, No, it's totally fine. And he does no follow-up. He's like, Oh, he says fine, whatever, moving on. And I think it's it was really fun playing with the culture of that a little. Um, because for Kat, he's like, How do you not know I've got a crush? Like, what are we doing here? We've been sleeping next to each other for months. Um, I think the biggest thing for me in writing these characters is Elysian is truly terrified of loss. Um, he has been told his entire life that everyone around him is gonna die. And he and he's petrified of losing Leo. Like that's the first person I think he ever truly loved. I'm not sure I would leave that to reader interpretation of what that love looks like. I think he's very happy with Leo to be with Adelaide, but like in general, he loves Leo very much. And the idea that he's going to lose him one day is one of his biggest fears, which is why he keeps chronically bringing him back to life. Um and I think he's put up such a barrier to the idea of loving someone else that it's very difficult for him to imagine accepting that. And I think at the same time, he was so deeply traumatized by what happened in book one, where he was so incredibly isolated and he's so desperate for contact, that that was a as a writer, a very fun way to explore two conflicting emotions where he doesn't want to be attached to someone, but at the same time, mentally, he desperately needs contact with somebody. And Kat has literally been in the same place that Elsian has. He hasn't been medically tortured the way that Ellisan has, but literally the same type of isolation, same type of darkness, the same type of fear. And he understands like, I know why you feel this way. I wish I could have touched somebody when I was in your place. I can be here for you. And for Kat, it's a very simple, smooth transition of okay, this is the person I'm going to be with. This is the emotions that I'm going to have. And he's very methodological about it, as he was pretty much for everything in his life, very scientific, actually. He's like, okay, this plus this equals that, this is what I'm going to do. And for him, it was such a very obvious, okay, this is the person I'm going to be with. I don't care what he wants from that, I will be there for him. And it was a delight writing these characters and showing these insecurities and tapping into these fears and concerns. And it does take time for them to get there. Um, because they've had really difficult experiences with emotion, with human contact, with the world. And I think it was I think for me, when they finally do have their moment it for me, it felt so earned. Like for me, like my hope while writing it was the reader would get there and go, These people are in it for forever, they're gonna be locked and loaded for the rest of their life, they've gotten it, they're they're good to go. And that was for me when I got there, I was like, okay, they're ready, and it was time, and that was what I hoped I was able to convey.

SPEAKER_04 48:26

The moment where Kat, uh sorry, where Elisian feels seen by Kat, like really seen, as in a you understand, you get me kind of way, and then he starts to sort of be like, oh, okay, so maybe I was like, Oh, good, thank God. Because you both need this. And in I was gonna bring this up but didn't, but in book one, there's a conversation between Fenn and Kat. And we know that Alyssian is a giver, um, yeah, is a giver, and he has to keep that quiet, and so that could easily affect his relationship with people around him because he doesn't want to maybe accidentally show someone, except Leo knows, and that's fine. But apart from Leo, no one knows. So Fenn doesn't really get it because she's like, but he has loads of friends or people around him, he could have make friends easily, and Kat's just a bit like, well, you can be surrounded by people, but you can still be lonely, and she doesn't get it, but obviously we get it, and Kat gets it. So it's so nice when Elisian finally sees that Kat gets it.

SPEAKER_01 49:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 49:32

Um honestly, there's two scenes in the second book that the second book is my favorite. I love it so much. Um, and I think it's it needs the first book, and I love the first book, but my favorite scenes are in the second. Um, and the two scenes that really stand out, one of them is that I reread just for my own personal enjoyment, is the scene where um Kat and Ellian are talking, and Ellis and the conclusion of that scene was he suddenly feels like every single reversion of the word of love that applies in that moment. And that whole scene where Kat's like, I understand exactly why you're acting this way, and you're not alone. To me, it was like if somebody in my life said that to me, I'd be ride or die for them for the rest of my life. Okay, you're my person from now on. It was like for like it's it's not I love you, but it's the idea that someone could so perfectly understand everything about you and be like, all your fears, I'm there for you. You don't have to talk about it, I get it, I'm still here for you. And I think to me, that's that's that's so powerful, and I love that so much for them.

SPEAKER_04 50:50

And Alyssian knows that there's a plague or there's something we sort of call it a plague going on, but as soon as he knows, okay, so there are some some people that have got it under control, and this is kind of a blueprint for what we're gonna do to make it better. He goes with Kat, despite the fact that people don't want him to. It's like, oh well, you know, you're the king, things are shit, you really should stay. And he's like, Nope, he he was here with me, I'm gonna go with him. I mean, I don't know if you're making a smart decision because you are the king, but I think it's really cute, and you know, it works out for the best, but that is such a significant moment.

SPEAKER_02 51:28

The fact that he goes, it is, and I think Elisian is a really good example of somebody who makes the right decisions because they're right, not necessarily if they're good for his own personal benefits. Sometimes there's definitely things he does that are not for his benefit, like he should probably not have been resurrecting Leo as much. Um but that choice was definitely not a politically good choice. If his cousin would have been there, she would have been like, that's fucking stupid, don't do that. Your parliament is going to be very upset. But she wasn't there, which he's probably grateful for, and he was like, No, this is what we need to do. If we're going to do this, we can't have everybody in the entire continent dying, and this is the best path we have forward. Um, and that wasn't a good choice for him politically, um, but it was a good choice for all the people they managed to save as a result, and so which maybe in the end could be argued was the best choice politically because it led to the ending. Um, and so yeah, he made a choice that was very much for him. He looked at the circumstance, he looked at Kat and what Kat needed, and he was like, This is the best thing that I can do with the information I have. And I feel like it was probably the best choice we could have made at that moment.

SPEAKER_04 52:57

But I also like that. And the book wouldn't have worked if it stayed.

SPEAKER_00 53:01

No, that's why you need plots pesky writer things.

SPEAKER_04 53:06

I found the way that you handled grief in the book really, really fascinating, especially as we have two different cultures who are dealing with it in different ways, and then obviously, looking at Alisian and his own experiences kind of with grief, but I guess more his way to avoid it and the fact he's resurrecting Leo so much. And there was a point I was like, oh my god, did you actually kill Leo? Oh wow, I was like, Leo's actually dead. Like, I I I thought Leo would be in book two, I'm really shocked. And then obviously, somehow miraculously, because of the magic, he does manage to resurrect him and Leo crawls out of his grave, and I was like, I'm so glad you're alive, but that's horrible for you. So, what was your kind of thought with how you had both cultures dealing with grief in their own different ways? Because that was so interesting to read.

SPEAKER_02 54:02

So, when I was in um high school and also in college, um, not to sound a little morbid, um, but I took a lot of classes that talked about um different that ended up talking about different cultures and experiences of grief. And then I had um somebody I knew who took the psychology of death dying class, and I was constantly asking, like, what did you learn in class today? Um and so a lot of that actually filtered through. And so things like people celebrating um death with jazz parties, um, people who um the Greeks who constantly wanted to have the name being remembered for all time is what kept the spirit alive, that type of thing. Like all of these different types of ways of processing grief and processing the idea of death really filtered through. And so, what I was trying to do is really create like if you had a culture that um constantly worshiped life, what would be the most important to you? Well, be constant remembrance and um celebration of those lives, which is why they have the roles of the dead where they're constantly reading out these names to remind people these people once lived, they had lives, and so that's where the culture really pulled in. And then I was looking at all right, well, if you had a culture that respected change, what would that look like? Well, you'd be happy that somebody would be dying because they would now have their next transition to whatever they were supposed to be in the next life, and so then they would have the celebration, and it was especially poignant for reapers because it was literally a relief because you were no longer being tortured in these cells, and so the the relationship they had with the idea of one of their reapers dying was very different. And I think it was one of the scenes that were was really interesting in the second book where Kat is processing his mother's death, and it's the first time I think he really encountered the idea that you could be really upset at the idea that somebody died because there's so many things that you did not have a chance to actually go through, and there's so many things that had been left unsaid between them, and so many things that he wanted. And again, um, like on the second very personal death in the book, um, the want for something different and the want to have been able to provide something that he really wished he could have been able to provide, and felt the sadness of this wasn't the life I wanted. And so it's actually kind of a blending of the two cultures that are he spent so much time in Salado that he's actually feeling those. I wish that life had been different, versus I'm happy that the death came. And so it's a transition for that character, but also at the same time, the people around him are Alan and talking him through that grief and saying, Yeah, but this is that change that this person wanted. And that being the source of comfort for him to go back to his own culture and saying, No, this was something that's probably the best. And it was very fun playing with those different types of cultural expressions of grief that the characters face in their own ways.

SPEAKER_04 57:07

Well, let's talk about the death of Gulage then. Because I wasn't I wasn't planning actually, no, let's let's ask this one question first. I talked earlier about saying that I felt like Gulage felt like he he wasn't good enough. It was a constant fear of not being good enough. He ref uh Kat wants to challenge him for the throne and they have to meet with death, basically. And Gulage is like, no, you're already dead. I'm not doing this. And I was thinking, especially as it went on, I was like, no, is he scared he would lose? Is that why he didn't want to do it? Or is he just that bigoted? But I think he's scared he might lose.

SPEAKER_02 57:51

I think it could be a lot of things, and that's one of those things that I think is up for reader interpretation as to what his motivations are because it's not explicit on the page. I think it's perfectly valid to read it that he's scared he might lose. I think there's a lot to support that. Um, I think it could also be the people around him telling him that it's not a good idea at the same time. Are the people around him leading him astray? Um, it could be that he's so bigoted that he just like, no, it doesn't make any sense, which plays into as well his already feeling of he's dead and he doesn't get to have a say. Um, which could have very well been the only comfort he had with the idea that Kat even was a potential for the throne, and because he knew that Kat was older, and so flat out saying, like, no, he's dead, it doesn't count, is the only comfort he had. Um, so there's a lot of different ways that could be in fair way for sure.

SPEAKER_04 58:47

What is the significance of Kat bringing Gilage back to life? Because we know for Kat he wanted to give Gillage the opportunity to be better and have a better life, because he knows that like him, Gilage had a pretty shit life, but in the first conversation they have afterwards, Gilage is still so angry, he's like, No, but I want to be king, and he doesn't seem particularly grateful. So, do you think, as the person who wrote him, that later down the line things might change for him? Because we don't get to see.

SPEAKER_02 59:21

I think absent of any uh external evidence, I would leave it up to the reader to decide what happens with Gillage. For me, the reason why I had Cat bring him back to life um is I think it's too easy to just kill certain people. Um, I think it lets them off a very big hook. And for Gilage he was never held accountable for any of the things that he did because he always had the safety and security of he's the heir to the throne, quote unquote. Um and he never actually had a chance to feel the consequences of his own actions. And in many ways, that is a far more difficult experience than okay, you get to change and get reincarnated and all that other stuff just doesn't happen, and your new soul will have a beautiful life in the future, um, which is what presumably is what the culture would believe would have happened to him if he died. Um I think not that Kat wanted to torture his brother because that is absolutely not his thought, but I think he was very aware of so many people have been hurt, so many people have lost their lives, and this country has been marked by a deep lack of empathy and compassion for a very long time and how he treated certain things. That in bringing his brother back, it not only gave Golaj a chance to actually see what the horrors actually were and be held accountable, but also to potentially give him the chance that Fenn had to make a different choice in the future. And also it's a sign for the country as well that we're not just gonna keep killing our family members to ascend. We're not just going to keep this cycle of immediate ending going on. Um, we're going to do our best to actually make a more equitable, ethical future. Um, so I think there's a lot of reasons in cat's choice. What that means for Gulage, um, I think it's more fun to let the readers decide.

SPEAKER_04 1:01:45

I thought it was interesting that because obviously he's he sent the Reapers over to kill the people in Atlas, and it's kind of like, well, you can that's your city, you can live there now. And at that point, that wasn't part of their territory, so he's kind of thought, okay, well, they'll get a city and it'll be part of my territory, so it's perfect. But to have Kat then say, Well, actually, it was a city for a city, and you know, we lost one of our own cities, he was so genuinely shocked by that. And it's so easy when it's you know, it's another culture, you know, there've been enemies forever, you can be bigoted towards them, but when he finds out it's his own people, it's like he really didn't twig that there might be consequences. So to actually, even if we never hear from him again, if you don't get to write anything else in this again, I'm glad that we got to see that moment where he's kind of like uh, oh shit.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:42

Yeah, and I think he's even younger than Fenn is. Like he um he's still on his journey, shall we say. Um, and he never really thought about it because again, it's the same black and white thinking that we see with Fenn. They're evil, they're the bad guys, they don't matter. The only thing that matters is what matters to me. And as soon as he realized that his own actions led to the death of his own people, now suddenly it mattered to him. And I think we see that a lot in various points of history. Um, and I think it really is meant to show him coming to terms with you do something bad, it's it things do actually happen. And I think he needs to have a bit of a reality check that wasn't just cast over with, okay, you now get to resurrect as a completely new life form.

SPEAKER_04 1:03:39

Dung beetle, maybe.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:41

Maybe.

SPEAKER_04 1:03:42

I think that's what he deserved. But you know, he is a kid, so maybe we should have Grace. Maybe I should have Grace.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:49

Well, it's different because I mean El S and hates him, he's never gonna forgive him. And so this is definitely Kat's choice. And it was also fun to be able to show that that Kat and Ellian can completely disagree on something, but Ellian's not gonna get in the way of how Kat's gonna rule his own country, and that's still a valid choice that he's gonna let him have. So, I mean, like, I think readers can have different interpretations on that choice um and what that might lead to. Um, but I think for Kat, he had a lot of empathy for his brother and also the world his brother lived in and understanding of how he ended up in that position and the hope that like Fan he could make a different choice in the future.

SPEAKER_04 1:04:27

I mean, never say never, maybe 50 years down the line. If Gillage makes a load of really good choices, maybe Lysia might think, yeah, okay, fine, you had your growth, but we will never know.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:04:40

I want to go back to Fenn, and in book one, she removes Kat's scar, and it's kind of done as a bit of an experiment to see if she could do it. And now we're at a point when we've got all these reapers and Atlas, and Kat's like, I really want you to remove their scars, and she absolutely she's like, No, no, no, I don't want to do it. But she she does decide to do it, and she sees Kat as very different because oh Kat's cat, and it's like you said, Oh, I've got that friend who's I've got that friend who's I've got that friend who's a reaper. But these are in her opinion, murderers, and Kat said, but murderers still have the choice to decide how they're perceived, and all he says that after she does it, but we see that it means so much to Kat. Maybe she doesn't because she's still a blinded hormonal teenager. But why do you think she decides to do it?

SPEAKER_01 1:05:39

I think it's another step of her clashing with her own personal discomfort and then a greater moral good.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:54

The argument the cat is making is it doesn't matter. Matter what this person has done, they have a right to basic human decency. And Fenn is in the position of, yeah, but I just don't like them, which is perfectly fine, but like you cannot like somebody and also not deny them human rights. Like, and I think that's the argument, and that's why she eventually does make the choice. It's that moment of growth of being able to put your own personal feelings aside, and you can not like somebody, but still give them respect as a human. You don't have to, you know, ever want to be friends with this person and hold hands and skip through the forest with them. But basic human rights, I think, is what that conversation was really hinged on. And it was her seeing and accepting them as human, um, beyond cat for the first time, I think. And that really is showing that she's willing to accept that argument and move forward with it.

SPEAKER_04 1:07:02

Except you do kind of have to become friends and hold hands and skip through the forest because she tells the when the when Elyssian goes and it's like, right, this is the blueprint for how you fix the plague, and you need a reaper and a giver. And Fenn says, Well, you're gonna be together all the time, you're gonna learn about each other, you're gonna become best friends, you're gonna learn what each other's favorite flowers are. There you go, flowers on the front cover. Yeah, um so she changed well, she's doing it because she knows that that is something that is more likely to work. Maybe with that they'll become more in tune and their magic will be more in sync.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:41

But she Yeah, but again, to get to that point, the first um thought that she had was that it was only going to be Kritspert Reapers, which she was willing to accept that to some extent. And then slowly and slowly the bar kept moving, so it wasn't just gonna be Kritzbert Reapers, we're also going to ask these Alunan reapers, which she was very frustrated with. And so then when they actually got to the moment of people are actively dying at this exact moment because um we're not working together. And I think that the two scenes are a little bit separate because in the first one, we're talking about giving prisoners human rights, the second one we're talking about you need to work together or we're all gonna die. And those are a little bit different scene-wise and intention-wise. So, in this in the second one, where she's actually saying, okay, no, we have to actually talk to each other. That's when she's realizing that their bigotry is the cause of everybody dying at this moment. Their refusal to work for each other with each other is what's actually making this happen. And so for her, she's like, it doesn't matter anymore how much we hate each other, because our hating each other is what's making everyone around us die. And that's what breaks her completely out of her main source of frustration because it it is a life and death situation at that point. And so I think the two scenes are separate from each other. I think they lead into each other because first off, she's accepted them as human beings that deserve rights, and now we've gotten to the point of okay, and these human beings who deserve rights now that have actually spoken to them, um, like as she talks to Ciel and actually gets to know her and meet her and speak with her and the others, she's really all right, well, why did they attack Altas? Why did they do this? Why did they do that? And actually breaking through this generational conflict and what people actually are desiring and getting to that point of we need to let this go, or both our countries are just gonna suffer. And I think that's the climax for her story is coming to that conclusion that they need to actually work through this.

SPEAKER_04 1:09:54

She's so sure that her people are doing the right thing, it's like, okay, so we can kill their soldiers and that's fine. But the fact I I can understand why the Reapers would have gone to Altas and done what they did. I may not agree with it, but from their perspective, I can understand it. So it's nice to see that maybe she starts to get it.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:18

And I think that's the point, is she's starting to realize it's the same thing, it's tit for tat back and forth over and over and over again. And that's what her brothers realize, that's what cats realize, that's why everyone's exhausted by this war. Even the people in like the pubs are like, we're sick and tired of our kids going out and dying, we're sick and tired of fighting this, but we hate the other person so much because they killed our person. It's this constant blood feud that just keeps getting worse. And for her, seeing the other people as people, and then going, okay, we're all in this together, and then being able to even go back and tell Cieli, I've made mistakes, I did the wrong thing, I need to do better. And I think that's the most important message for her storyline is being able to get to that point.

SPEAKER_04 1:11:13

Do you think that Kat's mom did do the best that she could for him after he became a reaper?

SPEAKER_02 1:11:18

I think it's complicated for her. Um the way that I wanted to write it in the book, and I think readers should be able to take it however they want. Um, for me, what was very important was to highlight the complexity of that choice and how difficult it was for her. I think she loved him very, very much. I think she really loved his father very much. I think that from her perspective, if she didn't do what she did, there would have been a massive civil war that could have led to a lot of people dying. And as the monarch of her country, the idea of potentially thousands of people dying because she was trying to save her son, who was not capable of dying, um was too great a burden for her, and she made the choice she did. I think she tried to get him to willingly leave, and there are subtle hints that she like Partha was doing what he could. Like they were they were trying to get him to like get out of the cells. It's like, oh well, he disappeared. Whatever am I to do? Kill a few guards, how dare they? Like, I think she would have been very happy with that, but it just kept not working. And I think could she have been more active? Maybe. Did she feel like she could have been more active? I don't think so. I think, and that's why there are moments where Kat's reflecting on his mother and how she was always crying when the one day a year he'd get to see her, she was always upset because it was just and I think it's a tragic story between the two of them. Um, and I think I have a lot more empathy for her than I do Al CN's mother, to be honest. Ugh.

SPEAKER_04 1:13:14

Yeah, because we have Kat Kat's version of her, and we have Partha's version of her, and this their version is kind of aligned. I think, well, are they just biased? But then you have Elyssian saying, no, she knows she was terrible, she could have done so much more. And I think, well, obviously you're biased, especially after what you went through with the torture. That how much of that she knew about, we'll never know. She must have known something, but also she's not his mum, so she doesn't really care. And you have these two biased opinions of her, and I think she loved him. She definitely loved his dad, so she would have loved him.

SPEAKER_02 1:13:57

I truly believe that, at least the way that I wrote her, um, and again, readers can take it however they want. Um, for me, I felt that she truly loved him and wanted, no matter what, to just get him out of the situation he was in and did the best she could to do that. Um, whether that was fully successful, whether she could have potentially done more, if it meant risking a lot of other people's lives, whether those lives were more important, I think it was a very complicated situation. Um I think if she had future knowledge of how things would have turned out, she'd be happy.

SPEAKER_04 1:14:36

Like earlier when I said I don't think that he would have got his freedom had he gone and killed them. I think if he'd gone back and said, Yes, I did what you asked for, she'd kind of be stuck. She probably just hoped that he would go off and that would be it, he'd get to live his life.

SPEAKER_02 1:14:56

I don't think I ever make it explicit on the page, but there is a certain part of me that wonders if she knew from the outset because she was talking to because she knew that Elisian was a giver. And so she knew her orders would make it so that he could not ever kill Elisean and he would never be able to actually return. And so to me, I feel like she knew from the outset the promise probably was never gonna be fulfilled, and it was purely an excuse to get him out in the only way she knew how.

SPEAKER_04 1:15:32

I was about to say that's an interesting idea, but you wrote her, so you know what she's thinking.

SPEAKER_02 1:15:37

Again, though, like it's for the reader to interpret, like, if they want to take it another way, I'm perfectly happy with that. Like, I think there's a lot of different ways that you can take it. My poor mom, she read the first book, and I had no idea why she said this, but like I asked her who's your favorite character, and she was like, I really love Elsean's mother, I think she's the best. I was like, of all the characters in the book. And like, I was like, okay. And then she got to the second book and she was like, I don't like his mother anymore. I don't understand.

unknown 1:16:09

She's like, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:16:11

Um, so I feel like every reader can take however they want with whatever character and their motivations and their meanings and desires. I I I wish them the best with that.

SPEAKER_04 1:16:25

I love what that you just show how petty Alyssian's dad is. The fact that he he was rejected and then the whole world went to hell. It's like you you are a petty bitch.

SPEAKER_02 1:16:36

Yeah, but you know what? I've seen so many people in my life who would do the exact same thing. Like it does it, like celebrating that one person you just hates every single supper. Like the idea, like throwing a party just because you know that that person lost their beloved child, like that's sick. Like, and we knew that from the first book. Um, but the more you get into it, like I've seen so many people in the world act in that exact way, and it's just like, yeah, there are people out there, but he hates her because she rejected him, yeah. And it's such a it's such a common thing. Like, obviously, you don't see nation destroying impacts for a lot of those types of things, but like there are some truly bad relationships in the world where the second one person rejects the other, it just goes to hell in a handbasket. And scorched earth, everybody now needs to suffer as a result. And he was perfectly content to just doing whatever he could to make sure that that happened.

SPEAKER_04 1:17:47

I was gonna say the male ego is fragile, but I've I've seen a documentary on Netflix where a woman just creates chaos because she was rejected.

SPEAKER_02 1:17:54

So I've yeah, that's why I'm trying to be a little gender neutral here because I've definitely seen it from the female side as well. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:18:01

I can't remember the name of it, but it was very it was very good. She like burned her house down with her pets inside. It's like damn.

SPEAKER_01 1:18:07

Oh what do the pets do?

SPEAKER_04 1:18:12

There's reasons for it, but it's it was a sho it was it was shocking. It was one of the best documents I've seen, actually. Um, and I just spoiled a big bit of it. Okay, I have two more questions sort of to do with the ending. And so Sunny, why did Sunny snap at Elisian? And do you think she ever warmed to him? Because I would be so sad if my partner had a pet and the pet just didn't want to know me, I would be heartbroken. That would that would hurt me.

SPEAKER_02 1:18:42

Um, as to why Sunny is just like fuck you when she first meets Elisian, um, I think that's just cats. Like they find their person and it's like, you are not my person. I didn't authorize you to pet me. Um, however, those same cats, when that person is no longer trying to pet them, suddenly we'll end up with a lap full of cat. So like I think he, which is in context with the story of the naming conventions, very funny. Um, not intentional. Um Sunny will warm up to Elisean, um, in my view. Like, of course, readers can take it however they want. In my view, she needs to. She needs to in their future lives together. Um, she definitely does. And I think it's more of just like, no, excuse me, don't take me away from my person. I am very comfortable being cuddled by the best person on earth. And um I think she'll warm up to him eventually. It's impossible not to.

SPEAKER_04 1:19:57

Why does Elisian abdicate so much earlier than Kat does? I know I know his plan always was that it would be his cousin. He was preparing for that already, with declaring her to be his heir and giving her a lot of power when he went off with Kat to secure Kat's crown. So he wanted that for her.

SPEAKER_02 1:20:22

I'd had um a vague idea, like if the story became a trilogy, what would the third book be? Um there won't be a third book in this duology, it's set as a duology, but the idea that I would eventually have would be would have been that um his parliament genuinely just tells him that he needs to step down. Um and that would have basically been the main crux of that third book. And I feel like I set it up a lot to like explain why that would have happened in the second book. Um, intentionally or not, it was his fault that the plague started. Like, and like, yeah, a lot of that was not his direct action. He didn't condone his body parts to be, you know, siphoned off to, you know, create this these pendants. He didn't condone a lot of this. He did resurrect an entire city though, and he was consistently bringing Leo back to death from the dead and consistently just flaunting that, which was exactly what death was like. You cannot do this, and everybody was telling him you should not do, and then all of a sudden the plague happens, and whether he wanted it to or not, people did die. And I think there were too many similarities between him and Shawshank, the historical king who caused a lot of the issues before the book started. That his parliament was just like, you can't do this, like you need to just step down gracefully, or it's gonna be a problem. Too many people, and I think it's the same thing if we're looking at a real world representative of just a lot of the blame being put on to um heads of states, um, health administrations of just how poorly COVID was handled. Like things just went wrong. I mean, like, and from a very political perspective, he did find out there was a massive plague affecting his people and ditch. Um, not a good site. Um, so politically, I think the abdication is pretty much written on the wall at that point. And I think at the end of the second book, it's very clear that he won't last long. And it's even applied at the end in the first book where Marina tells him you're not gonna be a king for a long time. Um, so he does have a suitable heir. She did successfully like leave the country in his absence, it was well set up. So I think his abdication um was very much it was going to happen. Why cat stayed so long, I think is a little bit different. Um this is just my point perspective, and I don't know, I wrote the book. I think once Kat actually starts to lead, he's gonna be very good at it. Um, I think he's good at it, and his people because of how he became king, his people are like, we will do anything you say, which means he has a really a lot of potential for reform and fixing the country. And not that it's addicting to fix the country, but I think he sees there's a lot of good he can do, especially with fixing a lot of the issues within the communicating with Celeb, was trying to get things set up. And so a lot of what he did during that term was making sure that when he left, things would be stable and good. And I'm sure there were times where he was like, maybe I can leave sooner, maybe I can do this, maybe I can do that. I think he left when he was absolutely certain that he could leave and everything would be fine. Um I leave a little bit vague in the epilogue of like what the relationship between them looked like as without Elisean being king of the other country. Um, I have a lot of thoughts about. I think a lot of that can end up in fanfiction. I'd be happy to um hear ideas for it. I know what I perceive it to be. I think it's very fun exploring that and the tension with within that. Um but they do make it to the other side. And I've in my happy hope for them, they have a very beautiful life outside of the public gaze, just doing their own thing.

SPEAKER_04 1:24:38

I think they do.

SPEAKER_02 1:24:40

I think they get their moment of peace, which is what I hope to convey at the end of that, that they get to slip out of being in the public eye and actually get to experience their own future and then eventually pass gracefully into whatever comes next.

SPEAKER_04 1:24:54

I will say, in Alyssian's defense, if he hadn't gone, then maybe Kat wouldn't have become king and then they wouldn't have had peace.

SPEAKER_02 1:25:02

Oh, exactly. Like, and that's what I said earlier. Like, in the end, it was the most politically correct decision, but it looks really bad.

SPEAKER_04 1:25:11

That would be my argument. Like, sorry, Parliament, thanks to me, you have peace now. So I know things were not perfect, but you have peace now.

SPEAKER_02 1:25:19

But I think a lot of people died from that plague, so it's it's and he had a very contentious part. There's a lot there, but it I think a lot of people died from the war. There there's a lot to be said on all sides. I think at the end, he was really done with playing politics as well.

SPEAKER_04 1:25:41

I think so. I think he wanted it.

SPEAKER_02 1:25:43

I think he was so exhausted of the expectations of the constant choices, he didn't he didn't want it. Um, and Adelaide was such a sufficient replacement. Like she was so capable of doing it, and they were set up so well to continue that I think he was comfortable with the idea of we can make this different, and I don't need to be at the helm. Um I think there was definitely a lot of grief and frustration and struggle in the thought of I did all this work and for what I'm not even king for five years. Um, but I think at the end of the day, for him, once he finally got to settle through all of it, he did exactly what he wanted. He made sure the countries were at peace, he made sure that his cousin had ascended, he made sure Leo was there to be with her, he made sure his sister was out of Kreuzfurt. Everything he wanted as far as his goals were, he did. And then he got to be with the person who was never going to abandon him for the rest of his life. And I think for him, that's absolutely his happy ending.

SPEAKER_04 1:26:54

Um I'm an Elysian defender though, so I will defend him to his parliament and be like, I get it, but he deserves. Thank you so much for coming and talking to me about your duology. I had such a good time with it. I loved all of the political stuff in book one that made me like seriously take notes on who I suspected. I loved the eventual slogan that we got throughout book two. I loved the way you explained the magic systems. I had such a blast with these two books. So thank you.

SPEAKER_01 1:27:28

I'm so delighted to hear that. Thank you so much.

SPEAKER_04 1:27:33

I know how publishing works. So are you working on something else? And if you are, can you share anything about it?

SPEAKER_02 1:27:41

Um, I have recently submitted something to my agent. So something is potentially in the pipeline, and I am working on something different while I'm waiting to hear back on agent feedback. So we shall see what happens. Um, one is we hope a trilogy. One is a standalone. Um I will say for the standalone, it's much sillier. So we'll see if I can play my hand at doing something a little lighter, even though uh it's not really that much lighter. We shall see.

SPEAKER_04 1:28:18

I hope that things get picked up because I yeah, I really like I said I really enjoyed this. So I would love to read more from you in the future. So fingers crossed.

SPEAKER_00 1:28:27

Thank you so much.

SPEAKER_04 1:28:35

Thanks for hanging out with me today. Find me on DMythPod on Instagram, and stay tuned for some more episodes soon. I've been Lauren, and today I've been turning pages with Lindsay Bird.