Unambiguous Robin 🐦

Making good headway on Sapphic Book Bingo 2023. Today we'll be covering the thoughts on writing and emotions that were inspired in me by reading Treasured. I originally said that the book didn't encourage much deep thinking, so I'm kinda surprised at how much I had to say in this analysis? I guess it speaks to how much the book resonated with me emotionally, even if it didn't put as many words to it as I do here.

Anyway, this post will involve SPOILERS for Treasured by Poppy Woods, but if you prefer it I have also written a spoiler-free review of Treasured. But also, I want to point out to those who haven't read the book, you don't need to have read the book to understand this post! And I have a lot of thoughts in here on romance and stuff that I'm proud of and want to share!!

---

Romance Stuff

Illustrating romance

As I did with my analysis of Remember Me, I'd like to start off by listing the various ways that this book illustrates how characters love or care for another character, so I can focus on that kind of thing better in my own work.

• Taryn and Niressa get playful with each other fairly early on. They're both independent people, which means there's a little bit of a competitive nature between them, but they handle it in a cute way. That kind of playfulness in a relationship is one way of showing that characters feel comfortable with each other.
• Characters who care about each other are thinking about each other even when they're not around each other. This is important! If you love someone, you're taking them into consideration even when they're not there! It's influencing your decisions! At least that's what happens when I love someone!
• Sort of branching off the above point, when Niressa in particular started falling for Taryn, she just kinda put "protect Taryn" into her existing list of priorities without questioning it too much, without specifically analyzing it as love. When a character works off of unquestioned instinct like this, it shows a kind of unconscious or subconscious love that is arguably more easily believable as sincere than a more deliberate kind of love.
• As another branch off of the second point in this list, characters who love each other can suddenly be reminded of each other from seemingly unrelated things. It stood out to me in one of the later chapters that, by eating soup, Taryn is reminded of Niressa just from the warmth of the meal. That bit hit me kinda hard.
• Characters are open with each other about what they're feeling for each other. I will cover this in more detail in a separate section.
• Characters are protective of each other, or more specifically, Niressa is protective of Taryn. I will cover this in more detail in a separate section.
• Love introduces an aspect of vulnerability into someone's life, particularly a potential for loneliness in certain situations. I will cover this in more detail in a separate section.

By the way, although I'm keeping track of these things primarily for the purposes of romance, something that occurred to me while reading this book specifically is that I also like it when similar signs of affection are shown in non-romantic relationships. More specifically, Taryn loves her BFFs Mira and Dary. It's in a different way from how she loves Niressa, but she's still playful with them and still keeps them in her thoughts, and it's still nice to see that level of affection even if it's not the primary focus of the story. It still shows that love is a normal part of this character and the world that she lives in, and that's important, too.

And before I end this section, I want to note that there was one aspect of the book that fell a bit short for me in the area of romance. The book provides a physiological basis for Niressa's love of Taryn; because it's not healthy for dragons to be parted from their treasure, Niressa literally becomes physically ill when she's eventually separated from Taryn. I get that this could be seen as providing sort of a concrete proof of her love, but... that kinda just takes away from the romance of it for me? I think having faith in your own feelings is an important part of love. (See also: the tension between me and the scientific view of the soul.)

Okay, now here's those more detailed sections I promised.

Openness of feelings

I knew this book was going to be an improvement over the last one I read as soon as Taryn started advising Mira to tell Dary how she feels about him. Direct quotes from chapter seven:

• "Starting a new life with secrets weighing down your heart is something I don't want for you."
• "He's one of your closest friends and he deserves to know."
• Mira: "I think he'll always prefer you, Taryn." Taryn: "Let Dary make that decision for himself."
• "I would want to know if someone were in love with me. If only to ease their curiosity with a gentle truth. I would want to know."

These aren't idle declarations, either. They're backed up by how Taryn approaches her relationship with Niressa, and vice versa. When Taryn feels a desire to get to know Niressa better, she says so. When she gets horny for Niressa, she makes that clear. When her feelings go deeper than that, she makes that clear, too. Imagine! A protgaonist who is not only open about her emotions, but aware enough of the importance of it that she advises other people to be open, too!

The "let Dary make that decision" part stood out to me especially in terms of why this kind of thing is important to me personally. When you're pining after someone, it's easy to get caught up in your own emotions, and that can lead to any number of assumptions or doubts that make it unclear whether telling the other person is a good idea or not. But in the end, by keeping it all bottled up, you are taking control over the decision yourself, when there should be two people involved in the decision on what direction your relationship should go. Show respect for the person you love! Let them be part of the decision too!

On a similar note, there are a few moments where Niressa isn't 100% sure on whether a relationship with her is something Taryn would really want, compared to the alternatives. This doesn't stop Niressa from making moves on Taryn; instead, it just means that, while she's making moves, she makes it clear that Taryn has other options. "If you want to escape, now's a good time to do it," she mentions during an idle conversation between them. "It's a bad idea for us to get too close and you should probably stop me," she says while getting handsy in the shower.

Speaking of sexy times, I think it's easy to tie this all in with the concept of consent. Consent is emphasized when it comes to sex because sex carries a lot of potential for harm if two people aren't on the same page as each other in regards to what's going on. However, just because sex carries heavier risks than other forms of interaction, that doesn't mean that consent is less valuable in other forms of interactions. Again, it's about respecting the other person's role and agency in a relationship between the two of you--any kind of relationship--and providing care and support for them. So communicate your thoughts and feelings! Make sure everyone's on the same page and there's no confusion!

Protectiveness and possessiveness

Near the end of the book, Niressa gets increasingly protective of Taryn as she views Taryn more and more as one of her treasures, and this does not go unnoticed by other characters. Somewhere along the line, this prompted me to write in my notes, "Is possessiveness... sexy?"

This isn't the first time I've encountered this line of thought. I already knew it was an element in other romances, whether in books or real life. I assume the immediate appeal of it for most people is that it is a clear indication of being valued--by a certain limited definition of "valued". And that can feel good if it means being treated with great care, lots of attention, and a sense that you're unique compared to anything else.

But hopefully I don't have to say that it carries some danger with it, too. People aren't material objects. People have feelings and agency, and treating them like they don't leads to huge problems. Possessiveness can lead to taking control of others, preventing them from doing things they want to do, sometimes to the point of isolating them from other people--which I'm going to be blunt and say I see as being one of the clearest, most direct examples of abuse.

...But it's not even so clear-cut as this, and although the book doesn't explore these more dangerous cases of possessiveness, it does provide an example of how a sense of possessiveness can be used for good.

Niressa doesn't want to let go of Taryn, doesn't want her to go back to her people. But she has her own reasons for feeling that way. She knows she can protect Taryn. She knows she can take care of Taryn. And she's been given at least a few reasons to believe that Taryn's people wouldn't take care of her: They were willing to risk Taryn's life in an attempt to hold onto the crown, and at one point Taryn was self-deprecating to the point where Niressa wondered who taught her to be that way.

But even with these thoughts, Niressa never prevents Taryn from making her own decisions. Niressa will snap and snarl at others only up to the point where Taryn gives an indication that she wants to go to those others, then Niressa will step back and let her go. She's not a jailor, she's a guardian.

I think exploring the idea of possessiveness could end up going into a lot of genuinely gray areas. What if Taryn's people were mistreating her? Would Niressa be justified in doing more to prevent Taryn from returning to them? That topic isn't explored in this book, but I think it could certainly be explored in a book.

Personally, I don't think I find possessiveness sexy, so much as I resonate with any character who feels a particularly desperate desire to care for someone else. That can take the form of possessiveness; it can also take the form of other things. But my heart went out to Niressa as I watched her become increasingly broken down from a fear that she was in a position that prevented her from protecting the woman she loved.

(And as a related side note, I loved the nickname of "Tiny Treasure". I also liked how Taryn started off hating the name but then came to accept it more over time, because it gradually stopped meaning "possession" and more came to mean "someone special", for both Taryn and Niressa.)

Love, loneliness, and vulnerability

I've already written long articles about how I associate love with loneliness and vulnerability, but this book reinforced how closely those concepts are all tied together for me.

In the last few chapters of the book, Taryn is returned to the protection of the castle and Niressa is left alone in her cavern once again. Both characters are aware they may never be able to be together again, and that this may be what's best for both of them. Both characters feel this separation intensely, and it hurts.

Or at least, it hurt me, because loneliness hits me harder than it probably hits most. Which is why I noticed that it wasn't the first time I felt a sense of loneliness from the relationship.

Nearer to the middle of the book, Niressa is injured badly enough that she falls unconscious, and Taryn worries she might be dying. Taryn does her best to cauterize the wound, but it occurs to her that dragon anatomy may work differently from a human's. "I have no idea how to care for you," she thinks to herself, and that line hit me pretty hard.

I think love means caring for another person as an extension of yourself. Feeling happiness when the other person feels happiness, feeling pain when the other person feels pain. That's a contributing factor to why some people go overboard and try to prevent the other person from having their own agency; they're afraid of losing control of this extension of themselves that they don't want to let get hurt.

But there's never full control, no matter what you do. And control isn't the way to prevent harm and ensure happiness. That can only come from continuing to let the other person be their own person. And that's why love is both so wondrous and so scary.

Another person will never handle themselves the way you handle yourself. And you will never know exactly how best to care for them; only they can know that for sure, and they may not know entirely, themselves. Being with someone means being open to accepting that risk, accepting that ache. It's a form of distance in itself, a distance you have to accept as being an inherent part of the relationship. And that's how I think relationships carry an inherent sense of loneliness to them.

Similarly, relationships carry a sense of vulnerability with them. Not just due to the aspect of loneliness above, but because of what it means to be on the receiving end of love. You're still responsible for yourself, but you are also opening up to give the other person the opportunity to care for you in ways that are unfamiliar to you. And you're revealing to them that you're willing to experience these lonelinesses and vulnerabilities for their sake, because you love them and care for them. You're showing a weakness to them, as a sign of trust.

Though the book itself contests this idea; in the last chapter, when Niressa says "my weakness is yours," Taryn replies, "A heart is no weakness, Niressa." And this is true, too. Love shows strength, because it shows courage in being this vulnerable. Love shows security, because it shows trust, and it allows someone else to support you. Love cures loneliness by letting someone else be with you as you go through life's trials together.

Like a lot of the most important things in life, love is paradoxical. It makes you weak and strong. It makes you vulnerable and secure. It makes you feel lonely and loved. Maintaining love means maintaining that paradox, learning how to navigate it, accepting its sometimes confusing nature for what it is.

I'm very familiar with the sadness, I'm still learning about the happiness. But I see the union of those two feelings as its own kind of romantic relationship, and I'd very much like to explore that aspect of love in my own work. So I'd like to explore characters who are lonely and vulnerable, too.

Some of the things I say about romance, I hope others incorporate into their own work. This is not necessarily one of those things; I don't expect everyone else to focus on this more melancholy and bittersweet side of relationships. I'd rather people focus on the happiness. I'm simply making an observation on how I celebrate the happiness, and how it comes from acknowledging its relationship to the sadness.

My style of love is a style of loneliness, and... I think I like that part of myself, actually.

Other Stuff

Oh no now I'm bringing politics into it

I felt a weird sense of pro-monarchy sentiment from the book.

I don't read a lot of fantasy. I'm told this is a common element of it. I can certainly believe that. And I don't think it's necessarily intentional; I assume it's more a case of "people read these things for escapism, so the world is a nice place to be in, and it just happens to use a monarchical system of government, so the monarchy just happens to be good."

But this ends up getting a little weird when it starts getting into how the kingdom functions as a whole, and how different cultures interact with each other!!

The king of Vanir, Taryn's own father, wants to go to war with the dragons, and the other human nations are on his side. This is not because they want power, ostensibly; and though dragons have been attacking and stealing from them for a while, it's not really even out of self-defense. The initiating event is discovering that Vanir's queen was killed by dragons, and so the impending declaration of war against dragonkind is more out of a sense of vengeance. And this is happening during an event where the human nations are celebrating the peace that exists amongst themselves.

Dragons are not mindless beasts in this world, they have their own culture and political systems, but for some reason the peace-loving humans are not aware of this fact. Dragons also would rather not be attacking and pilfering random caravans the way that they are, but they're doing it anyway because they happen to be led by a bad leader at the current point in time. And they revolt and kill this leader at the end of the book.

Vanir's king is very understanding of his daughter's sapphic nature, and he thinks it would be acceptable for her to continue their line by adopting an heir rather than producing one herself. However, there are implications that the rest of human society is not so accepting of gay people in general, even though they supposedly respect their king and princess and their values highly enough that they would accept a non-biological heir as leader.

I dunno! It just feels like it's giving a weirdly large amount of credit to the heads of state for how the culture operates, and it implies that leaders are more successful if they're kind and sentimental than if they're power-hungry. And in fact the only characters in this book who actively care about power, only care about power, and there's only two of them, and both of them are clearcut villains for it. Which, like... I'm glad, it'd be nice if people were like that in the real world, but they're not, and it makes me feel like there's weird political messaging here as a result.

It isn't helped by what we're told about Niressa's parents. Niressa's parents were ostensibly on opposite sides of the political spectrum, but it's never explained what that actually means, but it's implied that it's a good thing when they join together and rule all of dragonkind. How do they do that if they disagree with each other politically?? Did they find the fabled common ground between leftism and fascism that centrists so desire??

I get that liberal queer people exist, and that description probably fits the majority of queer authors who successfully publish books. It's just weird to me because I had to break away from liberalism in order to truly accept myself as a queer person, and it still feels to me like liberal values just fundamentally clash with what it means to be a queer person, so I have a hard time really understanding queer people who try to follow it.

I mean, I do understand, it's queer people who want to attain relevant cultural power in a peaceful way while maintaining the current system that makes instinctual sense to them, and aren't willing to face the fact that such power is sustained in this system through the use of violence. But I don't understand why they don't understand that.

Anyway. Fortunately it's not something that gets a lot of focus in this book. Most of the focus is on the romance. But weird political stuff like this will always set me on edge no matter where I see it.

Mystery and intrigue

Though my focus is romance, I'm also still hoping to pick up some ideas regarding mystery and intrigue. Even though this isn't a mystery story, I still try to take notice of when I'm reminded of the kind of stuff I like in mysteries.

There are moments in the book where the reader is privvy to something a character is doing, but not the reasons why. Generally I think of mysteries in terms of stuff that the characters themselves don't understand, but intrigue can be still be achieved in situations where the reader is the only one who's out of the loop.

On sort of the opposite side of things, the book eventually gets to a point where the reader understands Niressa's actions, but Taryn doesn't, and so we get several paragraphs of Taryn's guesses about what Niressa is up to, and that was a little tedious to get through. Not a big deal, since there wasn't much of it, but I don't remember it even influencing the direction of the plot in any particular way.

...There's something else I want to note, but I'm not sure how to start talking about it. Let's try this:

In the beginning of the book, Taryn is already contending with the issue of the kingdom of Izvora appearing out of nowhere, but before any real developments can happen on that front, Niressa comes in and interrupts everything. Now, obviously this establishes Izvora as being its own plot element that will get resolved at some point, just not right away. But there were a couple different directions it could've gone from there.

By the end of the book, we learn that Niressa has her own personal history with the kingdom of Izvora. It's still coincidence that she runs into them, but in the end, all of the different sides and characters are shown to have plot-relevant connections to each other. Everything eventually ties together.

But in all honesty, I feel like I might've liked it more if it went in another direction--if Niressa had zero connections to either kingdom (other than having taken the crown for herself) and literally just interrupted the plot on her own terms.

I don't know, I just find something fun and exciting about the idea of powerful characters with powerful secrets setting machinations in motion to get the things they want, and then some random uninvolved asshole just happens to step in and ruin everything. It reveals some secrets that weren't supposed to be revealed, it pushes everyone on all sides to think harder and faster to try to get everything back under control, and of course it brings in an entirely new party to the issue with its own motivations to further complicate matters.

I don't think that Treasured is a lesser book for not having gone this route, or anything like that. Showing how everything was connected from the start has its own, tidier kind of appeal. I'm just thinking through what I think would make for more exciting plots on my own side of things.

Miscellaneous shorter thoughts about the book

• I liked how openly horny Taryn and her friends are, chatting with each other about who they want to hit on during the jubilee. It's sex-positive in general, and it normalizes the idea that people of different sexualities can still talk to each other about these things.
• Similarly, I liked how Mira was able to rely on her own horniness to realize something was off about the kingdom of Izvora, since she's so horny for knights that she can tell when they're not acting normally. This also ties my thoughts about how people experience empathy in different ways.
• I loved the attempted hostage exchange scene in chapter 15. The humans were in the wrong, but it is understandable why absolutely everyone involved did what they did, considering that they don't have any real reason to believe that the crown would have just as much sentimental value to Niressa as it does to the kingdom. The exchange broke down so quickly, and the reasons for it were so varied and nuanced, involving so many different sides.
• I'm the kind of furry who genuinely would've preferred it if Niressa's dragon form was her only form, so I was finding myself sucking it up and preparing for Taryn to fall in love with Human Niressa before falling in love with Dragon Niressa. I was pleasantly surprised to see it doesn't really play out that way! She mistrusts Human Niressa for associating with Dragon Niressa, until she gets to know Dragon Niressa better and starts feeling softer towards her. So she kinda falls for the dragon before the human. (Still only ever has sex with the human, though.)
• In chapter 24, the narration states "Niressa tastes like a dream, like liquid fire melting snow that reveals the first wildflowers of spring." I wrote in my notes, "Oh she tastes like Yankee scented candles"
• Since there was a running theme about how it was generally a good thing to unite different kingdoms together under peace, I was assuming the book was going to end with Taryn marrying Niressa and bringing together the human and dragon kingdoms in an alliance that way. That did not happen, and I was a little disappointed for that. Oh well, maybe there will be sequels.
• Though I praised the story in advising its own characters to be open with each other about their feelings, it's not perfect about it. Near the end of the book, Taryn pushes Dary to make a move even though she had earlier promised herself that she wouldn't. And then the book ends on a kiss between Dary and Mira? Not our half-dragon lesbian power couple? What the heck??

Miscellaneous shorter thoughts regarding what I learned about myself from the book

• I love cuddling!! It feels like it should be a small thing, but it's important to me. And I the fact that characters like Niressa were portrayed as also enjoying cuddling in such a way that it didn't make them seem less cool or powerful. Sometimes cool and powerful people like cuddling too.
• On a not-unrelated note, I love it when plot contrivances put people into sexy situations with each other.
• Regardless of the anti-romantic aspects of it I mentioned earlier, I found myself actually kinda jealous of dragons for being able to bond with treasure? I dunno, I guess back when I didn't really have any people in my life, I tried to form connections with hobbies and games like a lot of people do, but I just couldn't make myself do it. Maybe that's worth reflecting on in more detail at some point.
• Near the end of the book, Taryn makes an observation that Mira and Dary are important parts of who she is as a person, and yet she knows they're inevitably going to be separated from each other due to expectations associated with growing up. And that is a really sad thing, isn't it? An especially sad thing to normalize. I might want to do an examination of that kind of thing, as well.

How would I have written it differently?

As before, this is a thought experiment I want to repeat with each book in the Bingo.

So... I like dragons a whole lot! So it would not be out of the question for me to write a book about a girl getting captured by, and then falling in love with, a dragon. I can't help but think it's something that for sure would've improved my life growing up!!

On that note: Though Treasured did away with most of the problematic aspects of the hostage situation simply by making it clear that Niressa never intended to hurt Taryn or even hold onto her for longer than a few days, I'd probably be more inclined to make it so the princess getting captured is an actively good thing, based on the idea that her home life is bad. Just something I'm a bit more emotionally familiar with!

...Well, that, and I just can't help but want to explore emotions that are harder, darker, and more complex than the ones in this book. A drastic situation like this really lends itself to being able to explore things like that, this particular book just didn't really go there. Well, even when it's an escapist fantasy, I think it's the kind of thing worth exploring. Why would it be an escapist fantasy for me to be captured and taken away by a large and potentially dangerous creature? What do I hope will happen from that? Is it impossible to reconcile it with what would actually happen? Are there healthier fantasies that fulfill similar needs?

These kinds of things can be scary to explore, but there's also a certain deep kind of security that can come from understanding and embracing those harder, darker parts of yourself. I want people to feel safe and accepted while exploring these things.

...Alternately, if I wanted a "safer" version of this story, I could probably just write up something about medieval dragon call girls and forego the whole "capturing" thing.

A Final Thought

"Live your life in a way that makes your enemies quake with fear and your loved ones cry with happiness. You deserve that. We all do." - Niressa