Azriel and I have a love hate relationship, he’s not my favorite character type. The arrogant sad boy, the Jon Snow who isn’t really a Jon Snow because I don’t know anything about him so I have nothing to go off of.
Azriel has a lot of trauma. Trauma can manifest in a multitude of ways, and some of those ways can be the need for perfection; to have perfect wings, perfect flight, perfect lessons, perfect students, to be perfect and to have the perfect mate. Unfortunately I do think this will be his narrative since Moriel was scrapped; Just as Jon always wanted children and a Lady and to be a Lord but since he was a bastard he knew that could never happen.
“It doesn’t matter what I want.”
To strive for perfection and acceptance in all aspects of your life; this is actually where Jon and Azriel are very similar. Jon is a fair swordsman; at the nights watch.
He’s no…Jamie Lannister, or Arthur Dayne or even Barristan Selmy.
Because although Jon thinks very little of himself; being a bastard and a nobody, he is…arrogant, because he’s “better than those he’s surrounded by.”
This is strikingly similar to Azriel. He doesn’t associate with the Illyrians because of (trauma) and …he thinks he’s better than them, and maybe he is, based on what we know now, who we’ve met he certainly is, but Cassian is Illyrian and embraces it, wants to help change it, but he doesn’t hold Truth Teller.
Enalius’ Knife — an Illyrian.
Azriel being arrogant and thinking he’s better than the Illyrians and he doesn’t need to be apart of their culture is — the point. Him holding the knife, is..the point. He’s going to have to face this, he’s going to have to accept who is he. When Jon becomes the leader of the Nights Watch and attempts to bring the Wildlings into the mix (one could argue this could loosely be the Valkyries if we were making comparisons to Game of Thrones still for shits and giggles), if Azriel does this by brute force, saying “I hold the dagger of our people, the blade of our people, do as I say.” He will suffer for this, as Jon does.
Now is SJM, GRRM? Absolutely not. But do I see Azriel being vulnerable? Maybe…through Gwyn which is two birds, one stone. A mate, and a Valkyrie; kill an uprising and hurt their leader.
So do I dislike Azriel? No. I don’t, but Azriel has the potential to be a very complex character and it’s interesting to see where he could go.
(I don’t dislike any fictional character as they are fictional and not real.)