grows best for the sorrowful

Azune Nayar is someone whose childhood and youth were marked by adults who, faced with bad choices, made the less-worse one because they cared about him.

His parents starved themselves to give him and his sister the chance of being recruited as child soldiers by a mercenary group, because that was the only way to protect him from starvation.

Thjazi Fang saw a child abandoned by the roadside, desperately, determinedly, and implausibly claiming he could fight. Thazi Fang was in the middle of waging a rebellion against the powers of Araman. That rebellion wasn’t the best place for a child of twelve. But it was a better place than abandoned by the roadside or picked up by another mercenary group, and Thjazi cared, so Thjazi took him in and assigned him to noncombat work away from the front lines.

By 15 Azune was fighting on the front lines. (In an earlier war, the same was true of Thazi at that age.)

Thjazi’s rebellion failed. He asked his brother Hal to look out for the teenage Azune. Hal did so, treating Azune as part of his family. Hal did the same for other people who needed it. Being like family wasn’t the same as being Hal’s kid.

The tragedy of Azune isn’t that he was failed or abandoned or uncared for or used. The tragedy of Azune is that the best that people who cared about him could give him still wasn’t the same as what he needed, because being an adult doesn’t make you all-powerful. Azune’s problems weren’t created by those who loved him. They were created by the world he lives in.

Azune lived his adult life for the Torn Banner because it was the life he knew; or out of loyalty; or because they were the ones trying to change that world into something different.

He offers understanding and empathy to enemies (Julien) and strangers (Vaelus). He learned that somewhere.

you are not out of paper

you have so much paper

it’s okay to function as intended

you are not out of ink

i just refilled that cartridge last month

you can connect to that computer you’re supposed to connect to

"Wasn't Thjazi called Shadow?"

Tossing the Iron nail to Julien.

Quickly cutting through all the noise to reveal the truth.

While playing Thaisha, Aabria is so conscious of the world and Thaisha's worldview. As a woman whose religious culture has been persecuted nearly to extinction. As a person from a race that every other race of Aramán was happy to leave in subjugation; the suffering of the Runjani was a fair price for their comfort.

You can viscerally feel this in her gentle but clear acknowledgement of Bolaire, her tone when she asked him why he was so angry.

"What exactly do you find to be foolishness, Bolaire?"

The calm, despite the fact that, when it comes down to it, he is angry that the actions Thjazi set in motion blew up his comfortable life. The same actions that liberated the Runjani afterlife. He doesn't think "a couple hundred" Runjani souls are worth it.

"So you're not angry, you're afraid."

It reminded me of when Aranessa was breaking down and overwhelmed because her life was blown up and she has to make hard decisions to move forward. Thaisha used the same gentle, but firm tone then.

"You always had to make a choice and the world was always chaos. It's just touching you now."