Why Locke’s death was off-page
I know a lot of people were annoyed that Locke’s death was off-page and I can’t blame them. We all wanted to see that turd get stabbed in the neck. But I get such a keen sense of satisfaction thinking about how much Locke would have HATED finding out his death wasn’t important enough to make it on the page. That he wasn’t the master of stories like he thought he was. That Taryn was the main character and he was just a footnote.
Having his death off-page undermines what he would want as a character. And frankly, I love that
I was thinking about something similar the other day, and it occurred to me that despite the number of stories and subplots Locke himself has caused in the lives of others, he’s almost never the main focus in any of them. Take the scene in TCP where Jude and Taryn fight after Jude finds out that she was never the one Locke was ‘interested in’, their fight is all about the two sisters and Locke’s almost an after thought.
In TWK when Locke ask’s to become master of revels, you get the feeling that there’s more going on between Carden and Jude in that scene than there is between either of them and him.
And when Jude plays the queen of mirth its Carden she’s focused on and Locke gets pushed out of the picture, again.
The only two times I can think of when he’s in the spot light Jude almost kills someone in his hunting party, and when she threatens him. And you could argue that we didn’t even know it was Locke in that scene, so it might not even count.
Maybe that’s why he takes so many of the named characters we know as lovers, too. bc for a brief while he’s the center of attention, and the reason he loves stories and attention is bc he never grew up with enough. He’s mother died when he was not much older than Jude when she came to Fairy, and he lives in an abandoned mansion. There’s more going on at Balekin’s estate in terms of inhabitants compared to Locke’s. And the fact that his mother could make provisions for his unborn brother but leaves nothing but a big lonely house is honestly…kinda depressing.
Maybe Locke was just really lonely the whole time, and combined with the fact that he’s a fairy makes for a pretty awful end result.