I'm sure some of you have heard me railing against the endless stream of love triangles in books these days. The truth is, I don't mind a love triangle every once in a while, as long as it's tasteful and well-written. But these days, there seems to be no end to them. Every main character needs one... Ugh.
Which brings me to Prince Asherad of Miamur.*
Both Asherad and Dejuday are in love with Zuryzel, so doesn't that count as a love triangle? Personally, I don't really think so, for two reasons. The first is that Zuryzel isn't ever particularly drawn to him at all - he's just a friend. She doesn't ever really face a decision between him and Dejuday, because she never really considered Asherad.
However, the second, more relevant one, has to do with the history of writing Darkwoods: originally, I meant for Zuryzel to end up with Asherad, not Dejuday. I was actually pretty determined on that for a while, I think until after the first few rounds of edits. I don't really remember when I changed my mind to Dejuday, but I remember pretty clearly that it just crossed my mind that Zuryzel could be with Dejuday instead, and I found the idea so good and, frankly, irresistible that I changed it for the future. However, during Darkwoods and Pasadagavra, there really wasn't much else for Asherad to do. He has some cool things to do in Arashna, and I like him too much to just get rid of the character completely, so I had to keep him in; but, I admit, I couldn't think of any other way to keep Asherad in the previous books.
So, that's the story behind Asherad. I like him very much, and I plan for him to have an exciting story arc in the future, but I never intended for him to be part of a love triangle, and, incidentally, I don't ever plan to have any in future books unless it sounds really, really good. Like I said, there are some good ones, but I don't think it's something that is necessary in my stories.
*I didn't post a **spoilers** tag because this doesn't really count as spoilers.
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