Don't destroy my picture of Akkarin He won't be interesting to me anymore if he loses all his coolness.

I'm not taking away his coolness :P

I recall this being an sonea and akkarin thread....so lets get back on topic and stop discussing Akkarin's coolness and so on. back to the couple.

The relationship shows his humanity, which makes him likable. Apparently, Alira doesn't see my point, which is that there's a middleground between wimps and cold-hearted monsters that might as well not even be human, and that our character is in the middle. Anything else would be either bad characterization after the first two books, or something way more depressing and dark, which can't be sexy unless it's written as cheap porn or something. Meaning that I couldn't take it seriously, because I don't buy crap like that(cheap, dark porn version), or it wouldn't be the kind of thing I read anyway(dark and depressing, not sexy in any way).

Depends what turns you on.

I like depressing and dark at some times. It doesn't have to do anything with cheap or porns, as long as it's well done.

Dark can be very good, I'll agree there. I mean we all like angst don't we?

Him getting together with Sonea is extremely cool to me and only made me love the books even more - It gave him depth and emotions in stead of just being a dark protector of some sacred Guild and it gave her a break after all the hard times she'd been through. They definetely deserved eachother. I love that ship short as is was.

But in an actual, quality story, without the intent to turn people on, that sort of thing is something that will be taken seriously, and be written realistically. So it would never be written as sexy, because it's not realistic, and even in fantasy there has to be realism in character dynamics in order to make a quality story. The cheap porn version, however, would be written as sexy, because porn doesn't aim to be realistic. It aims to turn someone on.

Remember there are things that aren't realistic but still are no porns. It can be serious, dark, and sexy, if you find dark guys sexy anyway.

To me when done tastefully, good literature may turn you on at any time without it losing any of its quality. Why is turning somebody on necessarily the same as being of a low and poor quality. Why do you make this connection? If it is good then it is good. However, I don't know why we are talking sexiness here but mayby I missed something earlier on :-)

Maybe for you, but I don't necessarily need it to be 100% realistic, that would make it boring, and I surely don't like porns. Anyway, Kas is right, we should discuss the couple here.