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Wooden Rose

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  • Alternative Character Interpretation: Aidan Thorne's character is positively ripe for this after his true nature is revealed. Did he feel anything genuine for Nessa at all during their courtship, or did he only ever see her as just another victim to use to keep himself alive? The story heavily indicates the latter, especially after the revelation that Aidan's previous victim was Eric's wife Helena, but his possessive behavior, which includes him calling Nessa "my love" and telling her they'll be joined forever before taking her to his realm, might imply he did feel at least a little attracted to her. His rage and despair at her escape in the end could be seen as both a reaction to his impending death without her to feed on, and sorrow at losing her for good.
  • Jerkass Woobie: Aidan could be seen as this. He tells Nessa that humanity used to worship him and his kind, but eventually forgot the tree spirits ever existed and began destroying their forests. Because of this, most of his species has died and left him as one of the few survivors. While the method he uses to stay alive is obviously horrible (he preys on women and drains them of their life through the tree babies he plants in them, and Nessa is his latest victim), he’s also acting first and foremost out of desperation to survive.
  • The Woobie: Both Nessa and Lillian. Eric Dawson, too, once his backstory is revealed.
    • Nessa is already emotionally vulnerable from her worrying over her ill father when she meets Aidan Thorne, a seemingly charming gentleman who helps her one day in the woods. He sweeps her off her feet immediately, leading her into an idyllic romance, but it’s naturally too good to be true. He turns out to be a cranshee, a parasitic tree spirit who drains the life from women to sustain his own. Because of him, she ends up growing weak and ill with a tree infant in her womb that nearly kills her, and she’s brainwashed into walking to a nearly fatal absorption in his arms. Although she ultimately survives and escapes him, it’s clear in the epilogue that she’s still affected by what she went through. The poor girl nearly loses her life all because she just wanted to fall in love.
    • Lillian works constantly to take care of her father while he’s dying, and goes through even more of a wringer after his death. She’s forced to watch her sister slowly waste away out of what seems like nowhere, and is frantic when she has to go to Eric for help because she’s terrified of also losing her only other family member. It’s very lucky that her spontaneous choice to sing her mother’s lullaby to soothe Nessa’s tree baby is what saves Nessa’s life in the end.
    • Eric’s backstory is nothing short of tragic. He was once happily married to a woman he loved named Helena, until she became pregnant and suddenly fell ill. On her deathbed before giving birth, she confessed to him that her child wasn’t his and he needed to destroy it when it was born, leaving him with a stillborn tree baby and a mess of conflicting emotions—grief, anger, betrayal—over her demise. It’s only in the present that he finds out it was Aidan, a cranshee, who was responsible for what happened to her.

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