I know I've been vague posting about this but Witch King really does mean so much to me as an aroace person.
Even in queer friendly media it is so rare for creators to go out of their way to make world that I actually feel like I could comfortably inhabit. So often even in stories that celebrate queerness the emphasis gets put on the gay relationships and if aro/ace people are acknowledged it's so they can reject someone who has a crush on them and become an object lesson on how their identity is OK. They don't get to just be.
Witch King does not have explicit aro/ace characters (at least in the first book. If I'm wrong about anything in this post no spoilers please) but it does have multiple characters who are just single. It is such a breath of fresh air that these characters are loved, and valued, and have deep personal relationships instead of being an afterthought. Kai is not some hollowed out husk of a man with nothing to live for just because his boyfriend? died. Sure he's sad about that, but he has goals and friends and a full life to lead. Dahin is not some afterthought to the friend group just because he's single. Sure he's a bit of a loner, but that's frankly due more to his tendency to run away screaming while everyone else tries to tackle him and lecture him on the importance of the buddy system than his relationship status.
And I particularly like that the characters are all friends with each other. Kai isn't friends with Ziede and Ziede's wife is also there. Kai is friends with Zeide and Tahren. Ziede doesn't put up with Dahin because she's in a relationship with his sister. She specifically also cares about him as an individual separate from Tahren. And Dahin returns that affection. He's specifically mentioned to still be close to Ziede and Kai even when he's fighting with Tahren.
Kai and Dahin's relationship is specifically so meaningful to me. The amount of love Kai has for Dahin is everything to me. Like I came across some Goodreads review that referenced their relationship as Kai "being patient with neurodivergent Dahin" which made me so irrationally upset for what ultimately comes down to a difference in interpretation, because minor ableism aside, incorrect read. Kai does not put up with Dahin. Kai adores Dahin. When they stumble across Dahin in the Summer Halls Kai describes it as walking into a dream. He immediately wants to trust Dahin and describes how good it is to just be with his friend he hasn't seen in a while. In the past he risks his chance to kill a hierarch during what he firmly believed was a suicide mission for everyone involved for the opportunity to maybe rescue Dahin, who he had known for about 4 hours at that point. Like to be clear, at that point Kai believed that none of them were going to survive the day. The only difference in rescuing Dahin or not is if Dahin dies alone and scared absorbed into the hierarch's well or if he dies in battle with his friends, and he still chose to risk his mission to rescue Dahin anyway. Kai is routinely incredibly empathetic and considerate of Dahin's emotions, and insecurities and traumas, even when they cause Dahin to behave in frustrating ways. Kai loves Dahin. And as an aroace, but also as someone who really identified with Dahin for other reasons, that level of care is so meaningful, especially coming from an allo character.
It's a huge part of why I spent the first half of the book wondering if Kai was aro and/or ace, because I just don't usually see characters exhibit that level of affection for their friends unless it is being used as a substitute for sexual or romantic love. To see Kai consistently display massive amounts of love for both Dahin and Ziede while also crushing on Ramad in the present and Bashasa in the past was just huge for me. Tahren as well although she just gets less page time for obvious reasons.
It really feels like a world (or at least a friend group) that I could just exist in because rather than the narrative insisting that single characters butt up against societal expectations that they don't, or can't, fulfill as a plot device to explain aromanticism to the audience, or for the sole purpose of other giving other charcters an excuse to give a "But we still love you" speech, it lets single characters just live their lives. The world lets define themselves by the things they do care about (people, hobbies, events, ideals) rather than this one thing they lack and may not even want.
Kai and Dahin both (and to a lesser extent Sanja and Tenes, although they're more minor characters) are allowed space to breathe without needing an excuse as to why they're not in a romantic relationship. Kai is even allowed to just not act on attraction that he does feel, because he recognizes that that attraction doesn't mean that a relationship with Ramad would be a good thing. And of course there were extenuating circumstances there, but I appreciate that Kai doesn't try to make excuses for Ramad or justify why maybe that relationship could work actually. Even before their confrontation at the end of the book, Kai recognizes that that relationship wouldn't work because he can't trust Ramad, and that alone is enough of a reason to not enter a relationship regardless of how he otherwise feels about Ramad. (Again, no clue if this holds in Queen Demon, please no spoilers)
I really appreciate that Witch King isn't afraid to have characters that just aren't in relationships. And maybe they will be in the future or maybe they won't but they are still treated as whole, complete characters that are worth caring about right now.
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