So you're still here, after that whole prison arc. That means I've already been successful at least somewhat, because I did honestly fear how my audience might react. It's not an uncommon worry for authors, I feel. I took bold leaps, it's natural to fear a stumble. But I went for it anyway. I followed my well-laid plans no matter how scary.

The prison arc itself was something I was always going to do. From the very early stages of this novel. It was just such an obvious thematic turn. Haell was a creature of freedom, so how would it be to take that freedom. How would she react?

Boy, we sure found that out.

Likewise… Therick's betrayal was planned from the very start. I planted the seeds from his literal first introduction. That is no joke. No exaggeration. But I did still try my hardest to depict him as sympathetic, to make you understand him, no matter how I knew that he would ultimately betray. Made the writing of some scenes so painful, all the heartfelt moments… they were at best bittersweet from my own perspective.

But that's exactly what I sought out to do. It's something that I found lacking in the betrayals I've read and watched. Because so many stories would ave terrible heart-wrenching betrayal… done by a character we've known for all of 2 chapters. I understand why, it's a bold and risky move to do something like that with such a well-established character, but that's precisely why I did it. I wanted the betrayal to truly mean something. And I wanted to explore how Haell would react to it.

Naturally, I didn't just decide that Therick would betray without any setup. I mentioned how I already had that in mind from his very first introduction, and I never stopped planting the seeds. Only you can tell me how successful I was. But I hope that didn't come from left field. I hope it wasn't completely obvious. I hope I was able to convey a betrayal that truly mattered. A treachery done by a character that we've know for over a hundred chapters. This was just as painful for me as it was for you. For the reasons of being attached to his character after having written him for this long, but also, in part, because I was risking so many chapters of development. I totally understand why stories don't like to kill off characters, much less do something even more drastic like this.

It's why… I actually wrote myself an out that I could've always taken. Therick didn't have to have betrayed Haell there. The same sequence of events could've happened without it. Maybe Zazarian and the rest just knew her quest and setup beforehand. They definitely could do that. The quests they take are not kept secret at all. At least usually. (Although I did add a reason why they needed Haell to take a specific quest, or at least something in a general location. That reason was well mentioned in Therick's PoV I believe!)

I didn't take the out, of course. I was able to be bold and brave, in my own very small way. It was a very bitter goodbye, to what I believe was a complex character, a nuanced individual, that I wrote.

If nothing else, I hope he left an impact.

Now back to the prison arc itself. One of the first things I came up with were some totally badass scenes, and I just had to write them. I'm not sure how good of a job I did there. The death of Duke Astro was alright. That… templar… captain… with the blood magic (You're so forgettable! Fuck you!) also went according to plan. But past that, this arc turned out to be far darker than I thought. Certainly of my first ideas, which consisted of Haell laughing off the torture. But it was still darker than my later ideas which did have her traumatized. It was quite hard to write. A very difficult arc overall. And the badass moments I've been leading to turned out to be more somber than I thought. I don't know why Haell was less affected by Therick's betrayal in my notes. My uh, mental notes, that is. But ofc she would be affected. And she made that abundantly clear to me once I got to writing.

And finally, the final conclusion of this arc. The whole uh, killing an entire manor thing. I already mentioned this, but it was a lot more fucking cathartic in my plans. I guess my brain is really wired to latch on to cool things. But at least i have enough awareness to pivot once the scene is finally being written. Just… a walk through what you have destroyed. A protagonist who takes responsibility!

It's what I've noticed with my own reading. This final section will be dedicated to how I've seen things done in other books, and how I wanted to differentiate myself. The formatting of this retrospective is out of whack, but I'm fucking sleep deprived and I've put it off for too long already.

I mentioned earlier that I was very nervous about this arc. Part of that is honestly the… hate that prison arcs can often receive. I too often have my own criticisms of them. I think it's the space that we're in, and I'm such a massive progfantasy trash myself. I eat up all the LitRPGs. It's nearly all that I fucking read. And through all those things that I read and the prison arcs I've consumed, I've come up with some issues that I have with the genre, and the ways with which I would fix them. You'll have to tell me if I'm correct, but I really do fefel like I made something unique and different with my own take here.

NUMBER ONE! The lack of agency.

That seems to be the biggest problem with prison arcs that everyone has, and I believe I had an answer for it in the very first chapter of mine. Haell turned the tables and killed the duke. It was very "I'm not stuck in here with you. You're stuck in here with me." from the very beginning. I find that so badass! And that gives her agency. She's not a sitting duck. She's not powerless. Oh and she's not just waiting for rescue, but really truly makes her own way out.

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NUMBER ONE… Point FIVE! I just wanted to adress mind control.

This is gonna sound weird, but I actually hate it. Like as a narrative thing. It takes away agency from characters. I HATE the fucking trope where a character turns out to be mind controlled all along. That makes all their prior actions meaningless! It's like the character was never there at all.

Which begs to question… why… THIS. I fucking wrote the shepherds. I wrote mind control into my book! No one forced me to!!! I CHOSE THIS!!!!

So listen, it made so much thematic sense. I uh, didn't think ahead enough. And well, I made Haell highly immune to sidestep those issues. But I will admit, I did have to include those vulnerabilities and weaknesses to it later. (The whole thing about mind magic mking someone more fragile, and it being spottable by someone trained.) It's best used in moderation, and from a young age. It fits the world and is even thematic. And I really did not want Therick's betrayal to fucking stem from MIND CONTROL. Yes, he did have some mental probes later, but the lead up to his betrayal was completely his choice. But mind control seemed like a no-brainer option for the enemy team so far, and it's the logical choice for them, so I did have to come up with a reason why it's not. I was prepared to make them act dumbly and out of character and just not use the obvious mind control if I couldn't write myself out of this hole, because it's better than a MIND CONTROL plot twist. It's the fucking worst. I remember this villain I loved to hate… but was actually just such a poor woo woo guy who was mind controlled all along! And he was looooong fucking dead already after a glorious beatdown when this was revealed! FUCK!

Rant over.

NUMBER TWO! OR THREE! It's not actually about prison arcs, but also another plot point I often encountered and wanted to give my own spin to.

Massacres. You know em. You love em. Or hate em rather! You should. Murder is bad. You heard it here first folks.

Jokes aside, it's a common occurrence, especially in this genre for the main character to do some uhh… outright mass killings. But what I found lacking, or disappointing, or frustrating, in most of these instances, is the lack of responsibility put on the main character. Or too much of it! I've often seen stories where they'll want to have a massacre… but the enemies are all bad guy rapists so it's a-okay to kill all of them. And like, if they really were all like that then yeah, you gotta take them out. But it really just feels like the story is working so hard to give the MC all the excuses in the world to kill. And then be all efgy about it. But without any of the actual blood on all that edge. They wanna have their cake and eat it too. The enemy is made out to be comically evil just so it would be okay to kill. And I wanted to do something different than that. I also wanted to do something different than the perpetually crying protagonist. I mean, it's probably a good thing to cry about, but it's fucking annoying! Fuck off!

Enter Haell. And for the record, I didn't just randomly decide this is how she'll react to things. Things often don't go according to plan. But I wanted to write a protagonist, I built her to be someone who can stand tall and proud and honestly and take responsibility. She acknowledges her actions. The pain that it's caused. She continues onward anyway, but without such an exaggerated caricature for her enemies. Both in her own mind and in reality. These are people. Haell can do some dark questionable things sometimes, but she does not forget that her victims are people. She does it anyway, and that's what I find to be interesting.

I know of course that Haell's circumstances here does give her at least some excuses for what she's done. She won't just kill a whole manor for no reason, after all. But I hope I've at least done a good job of portraying the people that live there as just normal. Powerless. They do have some questionable views, they are a product of their environment, but who isn't? They were still innocent civilians in the end.

I used the language 'dark questionable' earlier btw, bcos I do want to ultimately leave the interpretation of these events to the reader. People have criticized me often for trying to push a message down their throats, and fair enough too. My way of writing is probably too heavy-handed in areas, and I do wish to become better at finding the right balance. I am not perfect. My writing is worthy of a thousand criticisms and more.

But what I do feel can be unfair sometimes, is how Haell's view might be conflated with my own. Or that it's even my own views which I'm trying to push down people's throats. So I just want to make it clear that Haell's views and my own are a venn diagram, but it's definitely not a circle.

Part of that of course, is still my own failures as an author. I too am learning and trying to improve. At the same time, this is a primarily first-person book that focuses on one main character. I tried my best to portray Haell, whether she says and does things I agree with, or not. But the main thing is, that everyone thinks they're fucking right. And ofc Haell does too. So in her own monologue… yeah, she's going to come across like she's saying that everything she believes in is right and just, and everyone else is wrong and stupid. Because of course she thinks that! Everyone thinks that! She'd believe something else if she actually thought she was wrong. Fuck, do I need a disclaimer for this, actually?

And that's it. That's my retrospective. If anyone was interested enough to actually read this, then that is how I feel about the last arc, and some general opinions on the book. Thank you for having read this far, and here's to many more books to come. And also here, have some bonus info for those who reached the end! By my estimation, we are about this far along in the story.

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