YMMV / The Dark o' the Moon

• Angst? What Angst?: Marion seems surprisingly well adjusted for someone who spent four years in early childhood as the prisoner of murderous outlaws.
• Big-Lipped Alligator Moment: Harry Polwart being randomly struck by lightning and rendered blind comes completely out of nowhere.
• Les Yay: Marion uses her "Dick o' the Isle" disguise as an excuse to flirt outrageously with Grisel... who is in on the secret.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character: It's not that Marion's wasted as such - her story's all there - but it's hard not to feel that she should have been The Hero. Consider: she swashbuckles around Galloway in sundry disguises, leads a rebellion, has an enemies-to-lovers arc with an opposing officer, engineers Joyce's escape while nobly staying behind herself, faces off against Harry's attempted coup, and ultimately gets married on the field of battle... while Maxwell spends half the book a captive and the other half getting other people to solve his relationship problems for him.
• Values Dissonance:
  • There's a lot of casual antiziganism directed at the Romani characters. The revelation that Joyce isn't actually Romani by birth somewhat undermines what sympathy they do receive.
  • Marion ends up happily giving up her independence to be an obedient wife to Austin Tredennis.
  • General FitzGeorge's attempted sexual assault of Marion is treated as bad, but not the Moral Event Horizon it is to the modern reader; Marion herself insists she could have dealt with him and is more upset about Austin patronising her. She later even takes care to ensure that Maxwell gives the General due credit for his (eventual) mercy to the rebels.
• Values Resonance: On the other hand, the fact that Marion calls Austin out for patronising white-knighting behaviour is pretty refreshing in an Edwardian novel.