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My heart goes out to Paschal or whichever physician took care of Damen’s wounds after KR and had to witness these dorks being in love the whole time

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I'm sorry but people who de-contextualize events of Captive Prince in order to bash one character make no sense.

I've heard a few times some very heavy criticisms about Laurent's actions towards Damen in tome 1, with some even calling him ireedemeable, that make absolutely no sense BECAUSE they're decontextualized. It makes Laurent absolutely psychopathic, which he definitely is not.

The heinous acts he did towards Damen (because they were heinous) can only be understood in their context. We're talking about a very young man who has been horrifically abused for years since he was 13 years old, humiliated on a daily basis, stripped of all protection and resources, and kept in abject solitude, otrasized and sexually harassed by even his own soldiers and his own Court.

The trigger for all this was, in his eyes, the killing of his brother. He logically built up the murderer to be the sole reason for all his suffering and decided to inflict all he went through onto that person, once he had him in his power. Is it good ? Ofc not. Does that make sense for a troubled traumatized boy ? Yes it does. Does that make him a monster ? Definitely not. Is it still horrific ? Yes it is.

Some nuance is necessary here. Laurent would never have done all this to any Akielon soldier - as Damen himself said, he would have freed anyone else. Everything he tried to inflict upon Damen (Govart's rape in particular) was things he himself went through, and Damen was the real guilty responsible one in his eyes.

If you rob characters of their contexts, nothing makes sense and they all become just awul persons period. Damen himself, if you don't take into account the way he was raised, his environment and his culture, is a rapist and a killer : he owned slaves and spared not a single thought on whether they were consenting or not ; he chose to go kill Auguste when nobody asked him to. However, just like Laurent, he was the product of a society : his actions cannot be judged as if they were occuring in our society in the 21st century.

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Doing a Captive Prince re-reading and I'm struck by how the Regent, while no longer sexually abusing Laurent as a young adult, still keeps him terrorised by the very same threat and is particularly obsessed by it.

It goes from spreading all these rumors about Laurent, sexualizing him so much in the eyes of the Court and the soldiers that even Damen at the start is shocked by how they talk about him ; to making plans of having him raped before being killed (very much not needed for his overall plan to work) ; to send Govart, who talks at length about what he wants to do to Laurent and apparently "behind the door" as his Captain ; to making him kneel before him several times, making him relive his worst trauma again and again ; and, ofc, asking Damen to bed him.

He never ceased his predatory attitude towards Laurent, and Laurent was stuck enduring that for years, even beyond the age threshold of 15. Once again, I'm in awe and so proud that he managed to retain so many qualities, sound judgement and mental health in that context. He really is a fighter.

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Laurent saying “He would’ve beat you” about Auguste after fighting Damen. Laurent saying “he would’ve won” because Auguste is his big brother and he’s someone he believes in. He’s someone who beats the monster and Laurent believes that even then even there even in that moment where Auguste is gone and Damen is the one who took him away. And Damen is also the person who most closely resembles everything Laurent had loved in Auguste. Damen is good and wonderful and Damen killed Auguste. Auguste didn’t beat the monster except that monster is Damen and he’s also just a man who won a fight.

That part is so hard and violent as the lines Laurent drew between the Damen he knew and the Damen who killed his brother falls apart.