statesOfSevly

Definitely agree. I actually like Wayne as a character, but for the first half of Bands of Mourning I felt that his scenes didn't really add anything to the narrative while Wax and Steris were the ones carrying the story (Marasi was also rather dull in the first half IMO). He had an entire chapter in which we got to see how clever he was with the boatman, how we was finally moving on from Ranette, etc. whatever, but nothing there added to the story as a whole. As Plastic Misting mentioned it definitely could and should have been shorter, but I'd take it even further: you could remove that entire chapter and not only would you not really lose much, but the pacing and momentum of the first half would actually be improved. Both Wayne and Marasi improved hugely in the second half, though. The Wayne and Wax feels at the end! So good! I would say that I liked Wayne overall, but that he was a slow starter here. Yep yep, I'm with you on this one. Wayne's behaviour here is pretty similar that many of us either would or have cheered for in romcoms - he's doing everything he can to stop his friend from making the biggest mistake of his life. Sure, we know from the end of Shadows of Self that Steris is deeper than Wayne thinks, but even at the beginning of Bands, Wax is still marrying her more out of duty than anything else. Indeed, the marriages at the end and beginning are foils—one is all about public spectacle so that everyone knows that Lord Ladrian and Lady Harms have fulfilled their familial obligations, while the other is quite and intimate and all about Wax and Steris themselves. It's a darn good thing that Wayne stopped the nonsense in the first one.