This story is such a great example of how abuse victims become abusers. Talia knows who is truly responsible for her misery, but everyone else in her life also participates or contributes to it. She doesn’t see a way to escape the abuse, so she’s at a precipice. She doesn’t really want to kill Ayla, but it’s the only measure of control that she feels she can exert, a more extreme version of her keeping the servants in line through violence. She wants to be free, she wants to be happy, she wants to be with her love, but it just won’t happen. She is simultaneously incredibly jealous of Ayla for her loving family, her lack of abuse, and her betrothal to Varcas, but also completely self loathing. She hates her life, she hates how powerless she is, she hates that her mother only uses her, she hates the way she acts, she hates herself as a person. At the end of the day, she isn’t lashing out at the person she resents the most, the person whose death would actually benefit her, or the primary architects of her misery, she’s trying to attack someone who appears weak enough for her to harm.
This story is such a great example of how abuse victims become abusers. Talia knows who is truly responsible for her misery, but everyone else in her life also participates or contributes to it. She doesn’t see a way to escape the abuse, so she’s at a precipice. She doesn’t really want to kill Ayla, but it’s the only measure of control that she feels she can exert, a more extreme version of her keeping the servants in line through violence. She wants to be free, she wants to be happy, she wants to be with her love, but it just won’t happen.
She is simultaneously incredibly jealous of Ayla for her loving family, her lack of abuse, and her betrothal to Varcas, but also completely self loathing. She hates her life, she hates how powerless she is, she hates that her mother only uses her, she hates the way she acts, she hates herself as a person.
At the end of the day, she isn’t lashing out at the person she resents the most, the person whose death would actually benefit her, or the primary architects of her misery, she’s trying to attack someone who appears weak enough for her to harm.