Dain Aetos never needed a redemption

Ever since I started looking more into Fourth Wing, the more I realized that this man never really needed a redemption arc. Am I saying that all of his actions were perfect? No, obviously not. But were many of his actions understandable? Yes.

He was manipulated by his father into hating the marked ones. To make matters worse, the marked ones didn’t like him back. From the outside, he only saw their bad side. They targeted him simply for being Colonel Aetos’ son, which is understandable—but imagine what he was thinking when he saw Violet. Imogen quite literally broke her arm within her first days at Basgiath. Dain was probably thinking that the marked ones would target her because of her mother. And not to mention, they actually considered it, but Garrick and Xaden stopped them.

People love to bring up that Dain always saw Violet as weak while Xaden saw her as strong—but have we forgotten that Dain knew her since childhood? For the majority of their lives, he had seen her as physically weak, which even Violet admitted she was. Xaden, on the other hand, got to know her when she was already a cadet—when she had built herself up. Dain watched Violet dream of becoming a scribe her entire life, and then, out of nowhere, she chose to be a rider. I don’t know about y’all, but if I were in Dain’s shoes, I would have wanted to get her out too.

Obviously, he violated her privacy—but so did Xaden. And while Violet was right about being overprotective of Sloane, let’s not forget that Sloane repeatedly asked Violet to leave her alone, and she didn’t. Yet, of course, it’s only bad when Dain does it.

At the end of the day, Dain is a fictional character—you can dislike him as much as you want. But I’m tired of seeing the same arguments repeated over and over.