i'm almost done rereading Glass Sword by Victoria Aveyard, and I've just realized something about Cal that I didn't notice before.
Growing up, Cal was never my favorite. I favored Maven so much, maybe even a little too much. So, Cal was very annoying to me? I hated his every line and I was very irritated with every word he said and every action he took. But I was 13 at that time.
I am 17 years old now. And I've found a sense of maturity I didn't realize I had once discovering this.
Cal Calore is a burning flame. He is passionate and driven, with a kind heart, but he is indecisive, and this flaw drags him down.
I noticed just how often his trauma is overlooked. Cal lost everything. His mother, at a young age. His father. His brother. His friends. His kingdom. His home. His titles. The list goes on. He was taken from everything he knew and slammed down into an entire new world.
He wasn't even welcomed by the Reds. The first thing they did to Cal was lock him up alone when they reached Tuck.
And then when they met Nix, Nix was immediately taunting Cal for being "seduced by Mare into killing his father", but once Cal reveals the truth of what happened, they all fell silent.
No one. Not a single person, except probably Mare, has asked Cal if he was okay.
Cal lost everything. I mean literally everything. And not once in the whole book did we see him cry, break down, or fall apart.
That is a kind of strength I could never imagine.
