beta
there is a distinct difference between worrying about your wife because you love her so much and want more than anything for her to live versus controlling your wife because you look down on her and doesn’t see her to be capable of taking care of herself or knowing her limits. it is infantilising and not the first nor the second not even the third time riftan has completely disregarded what maxi had to say or disrespected her abilities in front of other people when she has a long and arduous history of being traumatised and sold off at the hands of an abusive father who acted exactly like that. and yes i am aware that he doesn’t know her history because they have literally never talked about a single thing worth an ounce salt about themselves to each other the way normal people do let alone married but it doesn’t make how he talks down to her any less belittling. a lot of her “independent queen” era is just her constantly having to prove herself to him with no space to grow as a person nor as a healer. riftan is more of a roadblock than he is a supporter. “he loves her so much” “he killed the dragon for her” blah blah blah ok and? she didn’t ask him to do it. in fact knowing maxi she would have explicitly told him not to do it. if his love is a chokehold then perhaps she should love literally anyone else.