Please don’t read further if you haven’t read the Valdemar The Last Herald Mage trilogy or any after Talia’s trilogy.
Vanyel was the first openly Gay character I read about in fantasy novels. This puts the author ahead of what is now the norm to have different diverse characters both is the gender, sexual preference and status.
He is a spoiled brat in the first book which makes you want to strangle him but it hides a lot of what has hurt him.
Withen is his father who refuses to accept his son for who he is. You don’t really see a change until book 3. Most of the books he shows himself to not understand his son and thinks he is unclean for the gender he prefers to love.
His mother Treesa is an airhead who can only think of her son as a pawn to be used. She has no problems with using her flirting nature to get what she wants. She is the master of manipulation which is no good. However she does have a good heart she just makes sure that she is getting something from whatever she does.
Of course with this type of love he saw it was no doubt the reason he felt that he had to hide what and who he was and to not understand what love really was until much later.
Vanyel is the main character but there are so many amazing side characters that build Vanyel up making him who he will become.
Three of those were his aunt Savil, and her proteges and lifebonded partners Donni and Mardic. Savil shows up in all the books but Donni and Mardic are only mentioned in the second and were pretty well brought out in the first.
Mardic and Donni I do miss in the other books since it was a power couple. However what happened to them was a catalyst for what Vanyel becomes.
His personality can be abrasive and very much that of a noble which he was. He felt like he was entitled much of the first book and did a 180 and changed to a person who would sacrifice himself for anyone.
He is a Herald of Valdemar which is a hugely important calling and they are for the most part the justice and those who run the kingdom. They are pure in heart and spirit and are seldom the type of person who will do something evil. Though it has happened but it’s very rare.
That case also made Vanyel what he became and made him know what a lifebonded pair was and to actually open up his heart to another
Crazy Canadian Writing 