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In this book some mysterious foreigners give Mags a drug that makes him remember his birth family and a bunch of information about their culture. This is Bad, because theyâre weird foreigners, but it was Good when Dallen did the exact same thing while feeding him a powerful emotional sedative, because Dallen is a horse
it's like kinda hard to underestimate the extent to which Mercedes Lackey does seem to consider horses some kind of moral signifier. I can't tell you how many times she's used "not good at horseback riding" as a distinguishing feature of a corrupt villain.
#villains 1) stay in bed late 2) can't ride horses#this is extremely consistent across her work#and it's gotten way more overt and unnuanced as she's gotten older.#I cracked open one of her recent novels out of nostalgia#and it literally just started with a like 5 page monologue establishing the main character as morally unimpeachable via horses and bedtime
