Alright so recently I have almost killed Octavia, scaring everyone. I just wanted to let you know some of the reasons why I thought she might have died, and why I chose that.

1. Sethe’s growth

I think that my series has shown when someone will get involved with something, it generally helps the situation, but in this case I wanted it to be a failure. That even though Sethe knew a lot about sailing, etc, she still needed to let Bardo and the crew do it themselves. So this was actually a part in her character growth, not so much for me to kill Octavia off. She needed to realize that she doesn’t know everything. And it was a relationship growth between Bardo and Sethe. She learned to obey him more, and that he is still older than her, and she needs to respect that.

2. Josiah

Now I think for me at least, Josiah’s reaction almost made me cry. I wanted you guys to see how much Josiah and Octavia had bonded. It is not stated in any of my books, but Josiah is an orphan. Of course, now Octavia is also an orphan. In this sense, they are each other’s only family. Josiah had worked very hard on keeping them both alive, and so when it seemed that Octavia had died, he almost lost his will to live.

3. Testing

I was also testing how you guys would feel about her death, and if you could catch the tiny details I left. I made it hard to realize she might not be dead, but I made sure to leave a few hints. Looking back on it, I’m sure the fact that I was so sad threw you guys off.

4. Realistic

Now the thing I hate in most TV Shows about the Roman times (aka Friends+Heroes and Story Keepers), is that the characters are almost immortal. I didn’t want my book to fall into that. My characters all have a chance to die, so don’t think that I’m going to play favorite with my characters. If I believe one of them should die for realistic reasons, they might die. However, I think the huge slaughter of almost all the characters we learned to love in WTTC is enough for both books lol.

5. Faith

The title of my last book was “When the Time Comes” which was to convey a message. When you die, and you’re trusting in God, that is the right time to die. Even though it’s not going to be easy, it is the right thing to happen. My main message for that book was that even though it’s sad, it’s true. People die. But when they believe in God, and follow His commandments, you can rest assure that God knew what He was doing. Of course, these are book characters and not real people, but still. It wasn’t time for Octavia to die.

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Alright, that’s my long explanation of why I almost killed Octavia. Just to reaffirm, while I can’t make any promises, I doubt that too many of the characters will die in this book.