Sep 12, 2026 · 1 hr 27 min · 11 segments
Nicole and Meghan take on the evidence for Gwyn and Azriel in the Great Azriel Ship War! Digging into a debate that started on social media, follow along in the first episode of Novel Theories…
The first one we got, I'm going to say first.
How do I define first? We got a lot of information on this topic was about the repeated like pairing of Gwen and Az together and then Azriel's expressions around Gwen.
and basically outlined this cumulative pattern where SJM repeatedly puts Gwen and Asriel into one another's narrative space and then repeatedly calls attention to Asriel's reactions to Gwen and arguing that the frequency and the consistency with which these things happen is what matters.
So the argument wasn't that basically Sarah did not need to include these small interactions.
I guess the argument was she didn't need to include these small interactions.
particularly like the dagger training scene is what they called out.
We'll come back there.
And she wanted readers to associate Gwen Asriel with one another.
So the evidence that came through, because I think this stuff is important because a lot of times when we are presented evidence for all the ships, we get a snippet, right? And I think it's always important to look at everything in the context of the story.
The first one was from, um, I guess if page four or five, It's Asriel smiles and greeting at Gwen and Gwen just stares at him was kind of what they said.
But the quote reads, you want to read it or you want me to read it?
Would you like me to read it? Do I need to do like a Elizabeth Evans?
No,
I can
just be more Aussie.
Cassian could only assume she was watching his brother, who had given Gwyn a small smile of greeting upon arrival.
Gwyn hadn't returned it.
Cassian cursed himself for a fool.
He should have asked her if she'd been comfortable with Asriel here.
Perhaps he should have asked all the priestesses about including another male, but especially Gwyn, whom Asriel had found that day in Sangravar.
So I thought this was interesting because they
called out Asriel smiling at Gwyn and Gwyn just staring and not smiling back.
I don't read this quote that way.
When I read this, and I just reread this recently, and I felt like my impression of this scene was her just kind of going...
The first one we got, I'm going to say first.
How do I define first? We got a lot of information on this topic was about the repeated like pairing of Gwen and Az together and then Azriel's expressions around Gwen.
and basically outlined this cumulative pattern where SJM repeatedly puts Gwen and Asriel into one another's narrative space and then repeatedly calls attention to Asriel's reactions to Gwen and arguing that the frequency and the consistency with which these things happen is what matters.
So the argument wasn't that basically Sarah did not need to include these small interactions.
I guess the argument was she didn't need to include these small interactions.
particularly like the dagger training scene is what they called out.
We'll come back there.
And she wanted readers to associate Gwen Asriel with one another.
So the evidence that came through, because I think this stuff is important because a lot of times when we are presented evidence for all the ships, we get a snippet, right? And I think it's always important to look at everything in the context of the story.
The first one was from, um, I guess if page four or five, It's Asriel smiles and greeting at Gwen and Gwen just stares at him was kind of what they said.
But the quote reads, you want to read it or you want me to read it?
Would you like me to read it? Do I need to do like a Elizabeth Evans?
No,
I can
just be more Aussie.
Cassian could only assume she was watching his brother, who had given Gwyn a small smile of greeting upon arrival.
Gwyn hadn't returned it.
Cassian cursed himself for a fool.
He should have asked her if she'd been comfortable with Asriel here.
Perhaps he should have asked all the priestesses about including another male, but especially Gwyn, whom Asriel had found that day in Sangravar.
So I thought this was interesting because they
called out Asriel smiling at Gwyn and Gwyn just staring and not smiling back.
I don't read this quote that way.
When I read this, and I just reread this recently, and I felt like my impression of this scene was her just kind of going...
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