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No. 33324
Sooo, I just discovered this now, and I have to say I hope it didn't stop because I really like what I've seen. It looks great, really. Danielle's art is lovely, and the interpretation by Anderjak and Eli is really fantastic. Stranger, you did a great job getting this moving and laying down solid work for it. So, having said that, please don't take these comments, criticisms and questions as meaning I dislike it or find terminal flaws in it. These things are not the case. Sooo, onto those points:
Why does the king send the princess to the duke for safety? Wouldn't the capitol theoretically be the safest place for her, since assassins can really be anywhere but the castle would have the best security in the land? Wouldn't putting her on the road be rather risky when he knows there are assassins about?
At one point you guys mentioned the king bringing his armies to the duke's castle, where he talks to him and they come to a decision whereby war is averted. If the king's armies are at the duke's castle, wouldn't they have already had to fight a war to get there? If not, what war would be fought? He has the Duke's castle already.
It was mentioned that you wanted to try to avoid having the squire kill many people, or at all if possible. I think this can be done pretty easily, as it's mentioned the squire is a skilled fighter, only not a knight because of her gender. Before or during fights she could tell those she's fighting/about to fight to surrender and win many smaller conflicts through intimidation bolstered by a show of skill/brief tussle.
Not that the bow doesn't look dynamic, but if we're going for accuracy with flowers, I thought I should mention a crossbow would be more likely. Longbows were more widely used because crossbows were more expensive and a skilled longbowman could fire six shots with a longbow for every shot with a crossbow. In the end, though, crowwbows were still used because they had more force and so better penetration. If you were trying to assassinate an armored taget, then, a crowwbow is what you would use.
By the end, why would the assassin be leading a troop of men? I find it odd the that duke would use a castle's captain as an assassin, or visa-versa.
If the assassin wants to kill the princess too, why does he just shove her aside? Once he's that close, why doesn't he just stab her? Also, the man's running from troops on horseback while on foot. running out of the forest he was already in into the plains would not be a good idea. Perhaps instead the princess was in the forest and he flees into the forest and runs into her on the way to his own horse? (Whom he stashed in a clearing on the other side of the forest.) Perhaps instead of him running into the princess, then, the squire could have been with her, allowing for a small scene with the princess. In this case, the squire is a medium distance from the princess at this point when she hears the assassin rushing through the trees. She sees him coming and notices him see the princess. She then rushes to the princess to save her, knocking the princess to the side to push her back from the assassin whom she just beat to the princess when she gets to her. The assassin, seeing the armed squire standing over the princess while he's on the run from the guards realizes he can't aford the fight and flees. This would give the king an even better reason to assign a squire instead of a knight to protect his daughter. She already did once and proved herself capable. It also gives the princess the opportunity to be a bit huffy over having been knocked down by her protector.
In the "squires horsing around" layout, it appears The Squire looses. I propose she does not loose. She's too good to.
In my mind the trip to the Duke's, because they're being harried, trying to lay low, and probably neither of them has been there before or has a map, could take a couple months, which would give them plenty of time to slowly get to know and fall in love with each other. If it's not what you guys were thinking, that's fine. I just thought I would share.
The duke positing the only way to prevent his sons from going to war is to assassinate the king and his daughter so he could give one of them the throne is highly problematic. First, it assumes he would be able to put one of his sons on the throne in the ensuing battle for succession there would likely be. Lets say he's next in line, though. Let's also say he believes what he says and ignores the fact that, historically, brothers have not always warred with each other to inherit a title. Let's say he's right. What he's doing then does not ensure peace for his sons. It ensures that when his sons have children, they will try to kill each other to have enough land themselves to prevent *their* children from going to war. Either way, I think his reasons are not only unreasonable but unrealistic. The story would be better served, I think, if he were simply next in line for the throne and hoped to make one of his sons king. I also agree with the anons who had problems with the ending. The Duke committed treason by trying to assassinate the royal family. This royal family is composed of a man hardened enough that he fought a war with his own brother for the throne and won and his ONLY child, a daughter who reminds him so of his long dead wife whom he still loves. I do not see this man forgiving the Duke. May I propose the following? The king does adopt one, or maybe both, of the Duke's son. The Duke, though, is executed for treason. The sons are taken from their family in part as an ironic punishment. The king had understood his daughter wanted freedom and had lately begun to wonder about his daughter's absolute lack of interest in boys. He does he his daughter again at the duke's castle and recognizes what there is between his daughter and the squire. He also realizes that, away from him, with the squire, she's grown in ways that made her manner seem different, at first almost unrecognizable from the daughter he knew. Upon consideration, though, he see she's grown in positive way, and that in her changes, she is perhaps more like her mother than ever. Having secured heirs, he then lets the crown pass from her. She and the squire live together, but their family's know where they are, and still keep in contact, even if the couple makes few, if any, appearances in court. Farming is a hard life. Especially then, it was hardly idyllic. Perhaps she can be treated as a minor landholder (which is farmed, perhaps, by the family of the surviving bandit) or an unlanded noble in the end.
All this came to mind only because I'm a writer/editor myself, and not because I dislike what you've all done. I don't. I'm a big fan. Feel free to discard anything I've suggested that you don't like, ask me for help/more opinions, and continue to make it as you think you should. Just don't stop. Please. It really does look lovely, and I'd like to own a hard copy of it some day to put on my shelf.
Also, the idea for this dialogue came to me while I was writing.
- After they're off by themselves in the forests.
Princess: But...I can help! I can look after your horse, help clean your armor...um...well, perhaps not help clean your armor. I-I don't think I could stand to wash blood out of something, but I can still help you. Squire: There's no need, your highness. Princess: I won't leave it all to you. That would be rude. I could be *your* squire. Squire:Ah...no. Your highness, squire's don't have their own squires. Princess: Perhaps not, but you're no ordinary squire, are you? You're as good as any knight. Squire:(Perhaps blushing) Women can't be made knights.
Referenced waaay later when the princess looks at the squire and says simply but firmly, "You are my knight."
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