#Also wild of Kade to assume that he had an accurate sense of time while being tortured in a windowless dungeon

[bedtimegiraffe]

Kade is Surprisingly Wrong in Book 2

I love Kade. He is an amazing brother. But the game made him explicitly wrong on a few crucial things and I find that fascinating. Especially considering that Kade is our default research guy.

First up, why MC experienced less time than Kade between books. This is the only time I can think of where the choice that gets you XP is provably less correct.

MC was unconscious for most of their time in the Shadow Realm because of Valax, some combination of Shadow magic/ experimentation to keep them unconscious until they figured out using blood for portals. So that accounts for 'missing' days.

BUT I would argue that the time difference of 2 weeks vs a year is the more significant one. And this does match up with a Book 1 Lore Tablet.

So Kade has MC pretty convinced (incorrectly) that they were in the Shadow Realm for about a whole year, leaving a lot of time unaccounted for. And that contributes to the next thing Kade and MC are concerningly wrong about: MC being tortured.

Kade was tortured in the Shadow Realm, we absolutely know that. But he was tortured by the Shadow Court after they randomly found him, for information, then just for sport.

But MC was taken by the Ash Empire in a targeted kidnapping with a stated purpose. It doesn't make sense to me to assume their situations were identical given that they were held by different groups under different circumstances.

This assumption that MC was tortured always came out of nowhere for me. Especially given that MC comes back with exactly one injury- a cut/burn on their arm they remember getting. If Shadow can't heal (which I'm 95% sure it can't), where are all of MC's injuries? I don't know if Kade or MC assumed the torture first because as far as I can remember, Valax correcting MC is the first time it comes up.

Either way, all of this feels to me like a way to artificially build tension, in a way that hurts Kade and benefits Valax. I know I've seen other people discuss that yes, it's a relief that Valax didn't torture MC, but she hurt them in plenty of other significant ways. And those real traumas kind of get swept aside because an imagined one didn't happen.

Would the book really have played differently if Kade had instead sadly said, "Time doesn't move consistently between the Realms. You could have been there for a day or two. Or... it could have been longer. Especially with Valax's experiments... we don't know." You could have the classic terror of the unknown. How long was MC there? What did Valax do to them? Was Valax just draining their blood, or were their memories tamped with? Did MC give Valax important or personal information they don't remember? What is Valax capable of?