YMMV / Annals of the Western Shore

• The Woobie:
  • Irad and Melle from the third book. Irad goes from being an abused slave with her owners to being an abused slave with the Barnavites, run down and abducted by them in an open field. She's pawed over and then beaten by Barna and generally acts deadened to the abuse, although she's fiercely protective of her sister and openly terrified when Barna thinks that Gav wants to "take" her. After the Heart of the Forest is destroyed, she's missing, but whether she lived or died Gav says she's a person who luck never favored. Melle, meanwhile, is terrified and reduced to a Shrinking Violet after this, particularly around men, so that Gav can't help but take her with him.
  • Gavir, too, is quite pitable. He's a good, trusting person in a world that is full of cruelty and seems to delight in shattering trust wherever he goes—be it in the only home he's ever known, a would-be utopia of escaped slaves, or his long-lost homeland. He's also Non-Action Guy who only wants to learn things and tell stories and is helpless to protect the few true people he does manage to meet.