srry meant to downvote
I had a whole damn essay written and it had a bunch of great points and I did a deep dive on breaking generational trauma and then I accidentally hit the back button and it's gone >((((( And I'm not rewriting all that ish.
But anyway, the tldr: the convo between Khalid and the Dad King is just the two of them because Dad-King is trying to smooth things over politically at first. He has a hard time unlearning his prejudices, which is why he is so distant with Ilya. But Khalid, who is the one pushing the two of them together to resolve their relationship, is the one who finally helps him break his generational trauma by showing him that Ilya isn't some weak, fragile person at all. Dad-King was just trying to avoid war, Khalid is there for a therapy session and to help pops unlearn his toxicity.
Dad has always wanted to love Ilya, but honestly doesn't know how to since he was raised to hate Ilya based on his gender. And his bits of affection ended up manifesting in a non traditional way: making sure he had a solid education in a trade (where he didn't need to be physically strong but it'd help him take care of himself) and by sending him away to Hanu once the opportunity arose, where he knew Ilya would eventually be loved and adored and taken care of better than Dad-King or his people would.
Noooo （/TДT)/ that has happened to me to and it’s heartbreaking. Mangago should have a feature to save comments or smt :’( even though it was erased, thank you for trying again and for sharing your insight on this! You do bring some great points ヾ(☆▽☆) while I still hate him, you do bring some structure to his character that I think makes sense~
I think where I found the dissonance is that I would have liked to see at least a bit of hesitation in previous interactions between Ilya with the king. It would have been a very nice setup for reconciliation :’(
hmm... I dont know guys. Dad's 'redemption' did nothing for me. He revealed all of this to his son's ALPHA husband and only told him he "loved him" after Ilya REACHED OUT TO HIM (the man who neglected him and promoted his abuse, tech skills aside -which is kinda meh? you had someone teach him a skill to survive, great, but as a parent you kinda had to do that anyways? you dont get brownie points for doing what you had to do). Like it was something he could have said to both of them, there was no reason to push them all outside to talk to Khalid only. Hell, he could have added douchebag brother to the conversation even to instill the idea of change.
It felt half-assed to me. Like he had the 'revelationg' conversation, but actions didnt translate. That man did not apologize enough for me, nor did he show any kind of affection before. If the story was that Ilya was isolated in a tower to make people believe he was exiled or something but the king went to visit him occasionally and had awkward but genuine interactions, then maybe? but here I dont see it with how the story went before this sudden reconciliation. dont get me wrong, the scene was very pretty but had 0 built up from what I can remember?
And the brother deserved to die. No explanation needed. Foul man