Tbh? I don’t like Paul. I don’t want Paul. I understand that Paul serves an important narrative function and that Paul is the best possible ending for Camilla and Palamedes given their situation, personalities, and relationship. However what I really want is for Camilla and Palamedes to attend the ATN wedding as two individual humans and for Pal to be a lightweight who loses his tie in the garden fountain after three drinks and for Camilla to do exactly one shot with the group, keep Gideon from ripping the sleeves off her dress shirt, and absolutely kill it at lawn games during cocktail hour. Since this scenario is a wild tonal mismatch for the series and also Palamedes was already dead, this was unlikely to ever happen. However Paul is the final nail in the coffin for the theoretical existence of this scene and I can’t help but resent them for that
ok actually i’m putting this back in my queue with my original tags:
#I don’t think we as readers are supposed to welcome Paul. at least not without grieving Pal and Cam #Paul’s existence is both a horror and a triumph #however my concerns are much more petty and involve Camilla winning at cornhole #I can’t yet properly characterize Paul. would Paul lose their tie in the fountain??? would Paul win at cornhole?? #or does everything that made Pal and Cam individually delightful cancel out into a person who is mostly competent and boring. #they balanced each other out you see!!! so what happens now that they’re combined into one person!!!! #the locked tomb #nonasbirthday #nona the ninth spoilers #the locked tomb spoilers