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Paalm's story seems to me to be a deconstruction of the trope of the Fridged Woman. In AoL, Lessie is presented as your Standardized Fridged Love Interest, in the same way that Steris is the Sitcom Unsuitable Fiancee and Marisi is obviously going to be the Real Love Interest. Lessie gets through all of one prologue before she dies tragically and her purpose in the story is pretty much to drive Wax in the direction of the plot and give him something to angst over. Then comes Shadows of Self, and we find out she was meta-fridged. Writers are often accused of giving female love interests little characterization beyond "she loves the Hero"; "Lessie" (as opposed to Paalm) literally only exists for Wax. When Lessie refuses to get Wax back to Elendel-- in a sense, when she refuses to further the plot-- God himself kills her off to motivate the hero. Except that while Lessie is dead, Paalm is still there to take back her agency. She still has a voice. And she is pissed. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying she's not really a villain or something-- when your business card says "serial killer", it's time to think hard on your life decisions. I'm not even saying Harmony was wrong in the scheme of things. But as awful as Paalm's actions end up being, her rage is very understandable. I don't know if Brandon did this on purpose, or it just came out that way. But every time I read Era Two, I can't help but see Lessie as standing in for fiction's silenced, disposable women.