I knew Dorothy Dunnett was a crazy crazy author from page 1 of Game of Kings, like that woman wrote what she wanted to write, cared not at all about hand holding or dumbing down her story to make it more palatable (or even marketable), and was of the "just read the books babes 🫰" approach when asked by fans to confirm or deny stuff that wasn't super clear in the story. Love her for that!

But something that makes it so much clearer to me that she was, very much, a crazy (compliment) author is the way she writes gelis in Scales of Gold. Abrasive female characters have never been popular, but to make the main female character in your series, in the first book where she has a major role, so unpleasant... and specifically unpleasant towards the main male character? I think it's so brave tbh! The ending of this book is so cruel, and it's a stinging slap in the face for both Nicholas and the reader. But Dorothy was still like "yeah well Nicholas is crazy in love with her, he doesn't want anyone else, that's the love of his life" and I don't even think it had anything to do with trusting her readers to see the vision and that they would enjoy the character development and slow burn of Nicholas and Gelis learning to love each other like normal people lol. Like that's the story she wanted to tell and that's how she wanted to tell it. And I'm sure Gelis had a lot of haters back in the day (and now), but I genuinely don't think Dorothy gave a fuck. Would have loved to discuss this over a bottle of scotch though