Alright, so straight up....
I have been thinking about (SPOILERS) the disturbing death scene for Meldrene that I have written out, and I must say, while I'm sorta satisfied with the prose and how well it seems to conjure emotion in the reader (From those who have read it, at least), I am convinced that it would be more thematically impactful and less meaningless if it was Myren who dies in the same position.
Why do I say this? Because Meldrene dies a tad bit too many times already. She half-dies in her first life, then dies a proper death before being reset alongside Myren to an earlier time. With yet ANOTHER death of hers added on top of that, a death that she comes back from nontheless, that is 3 times she dies, as opposed to once for Myren.
The other reason is, Meldrene's plotline is overloaded as it is. So, (MAJOR SPOILERS BEWARE) the resurrection from that death is not meant to be consequence-free; it comes with an extremely hefty, hidden price that only reveals itself with extremely story-influencing implications later on. To be more precise, while there are two beings that can actually bring a person back from the fold of death, the good Goddess of Life they worship is not in a state to do it, unbeknowest to them. Thus, their resurrection by the daemonic equivalent comes with a tragic, malevolent price. That is, they unknowingly become one of the most powerful existing beacons in the world for daemons; wherever they walk, the world shifts closer to the daemonic realm and progressively stronger daemons can force their way into the world. Furthermore, it reveals much of the lay of the land around them to the top daemons of the other realm, where most of the human world lies in total darkness and mystery to those in there.
There are some reasons I believe it would be better to give this dubious honor to Myren.
Firstly, Meldrene is someone who already carries guilt from being forced to bear the powers and magicks of daemons, even unwillingly. Going further with that does have it's own thematic merit, but there is another argument for Myren, the pure, stalwart knight who never surrendered to daemonkind getting that kind of twisted curse snuck on him. It creates a parallel between them, a common point they can relate to, bond and comfort each other over. Myren is no longer a pure goody two shoes and Meldrene is no longer someone who gets commandeered by daemons over and over again...
Secondly, as previously mentioned, Meldrene's plotline is just so damn overloaded with so many things she needs to do, while Myren's is... largely retracing the same steps he took in his last life. Doing the same training, fighting the same battles and wars again, learning things he has already learnt, essentially very little actual progress, because he has already been doing as much as he could in his first life, while Meldrene largely daudled as the sheltered daughter of a High Lord, which means there is room for her to be far more active next time around. So, bringing a twist to Myren's storyline, by having far more unusual daemon encounters, as well as possibly a full daemonic invasion into his kingdom's territory previously thought impervious to such a thing, would be a better balance in my opinion.
And thirdly, I think it's just perhaps bad taste to kill off Meldrene to create trauma for Myren, only for her to get resurrected barely moments later. Instead, I think perhaps a scene that creates mutual trauma, with Myren powerlessly fighting back and seeing Meldrene's frantic, mad concern and attempts to stop Tesaris from killing him, while Meldrene obviously witnesses a persons she cares about getting killed with no way to stop it, would be more intriguing.
Also, the reason resurrecting Myren would feel less contrived than resurrecting Meldrene in this case, is that Meldrene would have to make the active choice to take the treasured, valuable amulet her late grandfather left her, literally a fragment of his soul, and use it to claim Myren back from the dead before it is too late. In the reverse case, Myren would obviously do this without hesitancy, since it was Meldrene who gifted it to him in the first place and he does not hate her, but in the case where it's Myren who dies, Meldrene has all these conflicting feelings over him, both positive and negative, that would satisfyingly culminate in deciding to use that last memory of her grandfather to bring him back.
Fourthly, I just didn't want to mindlessly copy a really harrowing scene I recently read in a book.... Yes, that scene came about first after I read a certain chapter in The Strength of the Few towards the end, and it was the first time in months a book consumed me so emotionally I wrote a scene loosely based off of that. Now, that was great writing practice and I don't regret writing under that kind of emotional influence since I don't normally write those kinds of scenes, but it's better to come up with stuff that makes sense for my story, even if I'm inspired.
Fifthly, killing Meldrene off for the third time just to temporarily fridge her feels really shitty.
@cervus-scribe @sarnai4 @meekhayl-reblog Tagging you guys since you read that particular scene. Let me know your thoughts!
