I’m rather fond of Simona and not just for the fanservice factor she provides. Her basic concept was inspired heavily by Pirotess from Record of Lodoss War (and you can draw parallels between Simona’s relationship with Rowland and Pirotess’ with Ashram). She was originally a comfort woman brought over to service the upper echelons of King Zanil’s forces during the Chaos Dominion’s invasion of Notos. When the Darklander advance was turned back by the Zephyrian legions, she was captured by Clovin the Knight Champion of Notos, who led the Notian remnant. It’s hard to say why he spared her, but she agreed to serving Clovin’s bloodline in exchange for her life. As mentioned in the story proper, the generations to come varied in quality, but Rowland was the first to truly earn a full measure of her devotion.

It’s rather obvious that Simona is madly in love with Rowland. She had shades of infatuation with a few of her prior masters, but it never amounted to anything. Of course, even if she had lived, the best she could’ve hoped for was to be some sort of mistress on the side. Maybe that would’ve been enough for her. Maybe not. It wasn’t until after she died that Rowland was willing to admit any mutual feeling, so it’s not certain if he would’ve stopped holding her at arm’s length. Ah, tragic romance…

If you compare and contrast the human-nonhuman pairings in the series, Simona doesn’t have the same leverage over her partner as you see with Solon and Xanthe or Ionathas and Corona. Maybe it has something to do with her being raised as a servant and spending her entire life in that capacity. It certainly doesn’t look good for her own will to be subjugated to that of her master, but she’s never known anything else and she’s too strictly bound to her own code of honor to go back on her oath no matter how bad things get.

It might have been fun to tell the story of Rowland’s trade negotiations with Daphne from her perspective. Needless to say, his flirting with a half-Alari Zephyrian hits just about every sore spot she has. Hard to say who was more jealous, Simona or Uriel. ^o^

I guess that’ll do for now. In seven weeks I’ll be back to cover Carpos. What a piece of work that guy is. Stay tuned.

Well, for those of you who don’t know, the mascot likes to think she’s the boss of me and at times she likes to assert when my bedtime is. However, she can be prone to distraction and I thought I could get away with something. I wrote a little on Mab’s Chapter 2, then promptly conked out, so she got her way all the same. Dagnabbit. Earlier in the day, I’d spent a fair bit of time working down my review backlog and I’ve been working in the peripheral materials to sort out the noble houses of Erdi for the CeleKing series. That makes my lack of progress seem slightly less bad, but not by much. I’ll switch over to JJ and hopefully get that done. Stay tuned.

I did some tweaking to Mab’s prologue and Chapter 1 as I was reviewing them to get into character and made a little progress on her Chapter 2. However, I let myself get distracted by some work in the peripheral materials. If I focus, I should be able to complete two or three chapters this weekend. Let’s see what I manage. Stay tuned.

I managed to finish Urgill’s Chapter 5 of TTWC3 and in so doing, finished her section. That just leaves Mab and Akasame. I have five chapters to write for each of them, but I have more partial work on Mab’s chapters, maybe enough that I can get through her section this week. Stay tuned.

I made far less progress than what I was hoping to make. I wrote a little bit on Chapter 4 of CeleKing1 and did a little work in the peripheral materials, but that’s well short of the mark. I really need to dedicate more time to brainstorm my way forward and things should come together more. I was having some Internet issues last night as well, but that’s only a small part of the problem. It’s time to switch back to TTWC3. Hopefully I can actually start making progress there and get it finished up in the next couple cycles. I just have one chapter of Urgill’s section to finish, then I have to do Mab and Akasame’s sections and I’ll be done. If I can make decent headway, two cycles should be enough. We’ll see. Stay tuned.

After going the whole week without making any progress, I started in on the new version of Urgill’s Chapter 5 of TTWC3 and rewrote the start of her epilogue to match the changes. I really need to buckle down if I’m going to finish the dang book. Well, I’ll be moving on to JJ, but I may try to spend a little time on TTWC3 as well. I’m going to try to make more of an active effort to dedicate a specific time for writing to ensure I can at least maintain the minimum progress. Stay tuned.

We’ve wrapped things up with our first lead of TTWC3 and now it’s time to take a deeper look. While Rowland is placed in the “king” role opposite to Solon and the Monarch Lich, he actually has greater affinity to the “knight” characters Ionathas and Caligo. Whereas Solon is the idealistic wise old king and the Monarch Lich is an archetypical evil overlord, Rowland is a very different sort of leader, bold and brash yet not without a good share of cunning. He takes a force of a few hundred and and manages to defeat one of the greatest strategists of that time backed by a military superpower. Now, admittedly, if the full strength of either the Zephyrian army or the Army of Light had been brought to bear against him, he probably would’ve been defeated. Similarly, he wouldn’t have been able to emerge victorious if the Dominion dispatched the sort of forces the Zephyrians contended with in the Darklands. However, success is as much a matter of skill as it is luck.

Rowland was a more interesting character to write than either Solon or the Monarch Lich because he was morally grey. Both Solon and the Monarch Lich have complexity to them, but they’re situated close to poles of the white-black spectrum. Rowland, however, is listed as a chaotic neutral in that he does whatever he pleases to benefit himself (and to the degree that he thinks outside of himself, his cause). You might be forgiven for doubting his sincerity when he speaks of working for Notos’ benefit. I do believe he’s a patriot, but not to the point that he’d serve the motherland to his own disadvantage. He refused the crown, but he still rules as a king in all but name. That being said, he didn’t go for hereditary rule because he cares enough about the country to not entrust it to anything so unreliable as his own progeny. If this all sounds somewhat contradictory, this blend of the selfish and the selfless, it’s because Rowland himself is riddled by such contradictions. It might be a problem for him if he stopped to fret about it rather than just charging on ahead.

I’ll save a discussion of his relationship with Simona for her section. I will say, though, that he uses people so cynically that he has little notion of true affection for anyone else. You could blame losing his mother at a young age, having a father obsessed with the cause above all else, and being raised primarily by a fanatically loyal and deeply infatuated servant. That’s not to say he lacks any redeeming qualities in his interpersonal relationships. He generally gives as much loyalty as he gets and while he may have his share of unsavory deeds, he’s far removed from the list of my greatest monsters.

Loss is a common theme throughout the Trident War series. Victory comes at a price and that’s for the lucky ones. However, of the entire cast, Rowland is perhaps the lead who gains the most and loses the least. That might make him something of a Karma Houdini in the eyes of some, but it’s something interesting to note.

Well, that should do it for Rowland for now. We’ll be back in seven weeks to discuss Simona. Stay tuned.

I pretty well finished Urgill’s epilogue of TTWC3. That just leaves her Chapter 5, but I’m thinking of changing my original plan for it, so that may require a little extra time. It’s business for next cycle at any rate. Now it’s time to return to JJ. Stay tuned.

I finished Urgill’s Chapter 4 of TTWC3 and made some more progress on her epilogue. I should be able to at least finish the epilogue before the switch, maybe even finish her Chapter 5 as well if I really focus on it. We’ll see. Stay tuned.

I wrote a little on Urgill’s Chapters 4 and 5 as well as her epilogue of TTWC3. Finishing her section this cycle seems feasible, but we’ll see. Stay tuned.