Leofric asks a favor of his daughter

I don't know that it was "often" fatal for the babies, although obviously there was a higher chance of death since twins are usually born early. I read that the (modern) average single baby is born at around 39 weeks, and the average twin around 36 weeks. 36 weeks is not considered "too" early. I think that 36 weeks is the point at which modern doctors will no longer attempt to delay the birth (of single babies) and allow them to be born if the mother goes into labor. So I concluded that they consider 36 weeks old enough to survive without special measures. Of course this is in modern hospitals...

I could not find any statistics on medieval survival rates for twins, but there are enough examples of medieval twins known that I don't find it unrealistic to allow twins in the story. Twins are fun.

I always forgave Leopric his Moorish wife, after all, she was the reason that he became free after he had been a slave. The rest though, I hold against him, no matter his “my baby“ing and “my little girl“ing.

He is icky

Much better, at his wake, to remember the old snake and think about how he wasn’t so bad after all, now that he’s dead.

At least that’s how it seems to me.

Hes far from perfect, but Leof really does love his children and grandchildren. Papa Leo is really his best side.

I think it’s harder to see that because she is reading a storyline as opposed to the entire story.

I think it’s because it’s just not the point in the story where Leofric’s good qualities really start to show.

Even then, Leofric is always a mixed bag. Some readers never have liked him.

That could be the reason too. But I’m sure at this point there were some chapters where characters thought about Leofric in a more favorable light.

If he hates him this much now, I’d hate for him to see the part that really had readers on the hate wagon…

I hear you, and I appreciate your perspectives. I am sorta coming in somewhere in the middle. I had thought that Leofric surviving and escaping with Leila explained that situation, not his cruelty to the shrewish Eadgith, but why he’d rather be with his Moor.

BUT, that doesn’t explain this of Matilda. My low opinion is reinforced. Not only is he disloyal to his wife, second wife, but to a friend. How can you excuse that?

I’ll be interested to see just how my opinion of him gets worse before it gets better. I won’t be surprised with the worse. The only mystery Leof has for me, so far, is why so many nice people hold him in high regard despite the tawdry bits they know. I wonder if all those folk got together and shared their nasty bits if I might not get my way and see him impaled.

But again, thanks for helping me on my way here. I appreciate it and am enjoying it.

Llw

OH! But I meant to say that there really are people like Leofric, they certainly ARE interesting and help make heroes suffer deliciously.

I LIKE to hate Leopric.

Good going Lothere!

Llw

I wonder if all those folk got together and shared their nasty bits if I might not get my way and see him impaled.

That question essentially describes one of the upcoming storylines with respect to Leof. It does intersect Eadie’s storyline, if that’s the one you’re still reading, but there is very little in Eadie’s storyline that will help you see Leofric’s better side (namely his heart). Eadie is on the outside looking in, and so she only sees the tawdriness of it all.

Leof’s two good qualities as a character are his big heart and his tremendous balls. There is nothing he doesn’t dare, and when he puts his ballsy-​ness to the service of his heart, then he becomes sublime.

I do mean his heart, however; when his balls are in the service of his lust or his fury, then we see just the sort of catastrophes that we’ve seen from him so far.

Leof’s wife beating is too much for me… but I like Leof. He has such a strong personality, real annoying flaws to make him more likeable and so much energy. And I love him when he makes me disgusted and amused at the same time.

He’s a good character, but I really can’t ever like Leofric. Still in modern times, everything he touches goes to hell in a handbasket – even when he’s at his “best”. His ickiness with young female relations is subjective, and his bigamy/​adultery is one thing – even his spousal abuse could be a bad part of a grey character since we haven’t seen it regularly repeated – but I can never forgive him for so brutally, intentionally raping his wife. There are just somethings that are too far. You don’t f*ing do that and still get to be a decent person. I don’t care how big your heart is.

***

Oh, and I love Emma’s little go-​around to the pact, “Mama Eadie!”

Personally I see an extra shade-​of-​gray around the fact that in Leof’s time, it was impossible to rape one’s wife. It was her duty to lie back and submit, and maybe she “failed in her duty,” so he figured it was OK to hit her. You can’t expect Leof to have modern-​day notions of morality and female sexual agency and so forth.

Of course, Leof falls pretty far short even of medieval notions of morality much of the time, but I try to let that be the yardstick by which he is judged.

True, it was indeed impossible to “rape” one’s wife in such times (and in some places it still is). But that doesn’t mean he didn’t hold Eadgith down and force her to have sex with him as the vindictive final act of a night of premeditated stalking, breaking & entering, verbal abuse, and battery done purely to punish and assert dominance & control over his long-​abandoned wife.

The other characters did make it clear that it was still something they did not approve of or would tolerate in the future, after all.

It’s really the brutality that it takes to do something like that to another person rather than the label, the ideals of women’s rights, or the consequences, that I dislike him for. Perhaps that still is too reliant on modern values, but hey, I’m a modern woman reacting to a character from the seat in front of my modern computer screen. I’m really am sorry if it seemed like I was forcing my view on anyone or starting a crusade or being overly pushy or – heavenforbid! – disparaging the writing(!) or anything like that (pure text is so tricky to get tone from), I only meant to share my impression, as we so often do.

Nooooo, I know Leof is controversial. And we can even debate whether a modern writer of historical fiction is wise to stick so tightly to the historical worldview, since (a) we don’t truly know exactly what it was to be a medieval woman/​man, and (b) our readers are modern too, and it’s important when reading fiction to be able to identify with the characters. Too alien, and sympathy is lost.

In Leof’s case I tried to stick to the middle ground. What he did was brutal, but legal. Sigefrith and others expressed some of our horror, but the extent of their reactions (i.e. the fact that they didn’t lock him up in prison or shun him) reminded us that it was a different time.

And Leof is a little special (unlike Leofwine, say) because he has grown and bettered himself as he has gotten older and taken on the role of patriarch. (I am talking about the 1080s here, not from the perspective of this chapter we are commenting on.) He would not do now what he did then, and he has tried to make it up to Eadgith. (And to Leila too.)

I do believe a person can redeem himself. Nobody is required to forgive anyone else – no one is “owed” forgiveness, whether from his battered wife or from my readers – but with Leof I think that option is there.

And feel free to rant about my characters or my story, truly. There’s no one way to interpret most of these characters. I do have my own interpretations, and I will share them if you press the right button but they aren’t the “right” ones. They’re just the interpretations I bring based on my own life experience, like any other reader.

Ugh, I’m with Dominiquex, I don’t like Leofric. I suppose it’s because he reminds me a little too much of my own father, but in chapters like these, I can almost sympathize with him. Almost.