Why did he suddenly think of jonak in a childish form? And why did he stop sleeping in the...

same question, i'm worried he might be weighing his actions the same to that priest. but it just doesn't add up. it's not even near the same, why would he think that. is it about freedom? control or something else more complicated?

I wonder - I kept thinking the age difference maybe, or he might be afraid doing the same forcing himself onto him as he was taken as offering for saving his village. Body for village (dragon) equals body for food (priest) and the child was just as metaphorical picture.

frrrrr

i think it was something like this. the flashback he had was to another time when humans would use him and his brother - God - to justify murder, sacrifice, misery, and cruelty. he himself could stay “uninvolved” by ignoring their requests for violence but he still felt responsible bc they were doing it in honor of/offering to him. now flash forward to Jonàk’s childhood. he is in devout town that ‘honors God’, but it was actually a system used to abuse, ostracize, and control. Adain wasnt involved but by him NOT being involved with humans, they’ve yet again used him as a means to cause suffering. so i think he sees himself as the root cause for the abuse happening in the church and recognizes that the trauma Jonàk and the other children suffered was due in some part to him.

and for a guy like Jonàk - who wasnt devout BECAUSE of how he saw pious believers act - to sacrifice his life to reach the God of all these abusers and assholes he grew up seeing, and the first thing (and second and third) this god does is fuck him and claim him as a mate in exchange for saving his village of shitty people… i think Adain saw the young boy in Jonak who experienced very little freedom or agency throughout his young life ‘because’ of him (albeit indirectly) and feels guilty about sleeping with him, like he realized it was dubious consent loaded with religious trauma from the jump and took a step back. i like this detour tbh bc i rarely see books address how weird it is in practice for an immortal to be with a human without time to grow up/process/converse fr fr. like thats a 6000 year age gap lmao let him cook a lil im looking forward to seeing their romance bloom from this place.

I was looking for this discussion. I think this makes a lot of sense and I hope they can get past it.

I LOOOVEE this comment sm

Wow...agree let him cook lolol. It does feel like they are in a partner relationship skipping the blooming state of romance. It must be to Adain's long life and Jonak's hardship. Hopefully we will able to see it (≧∀≦)