Guest Blog with L.J. McDonald

The Story of Claw

    Claw first appeared in the pages of The Battle Sylph as one of the battlers sent to destroy Solie and Heyou, along with the community they’d found sanctuary in. Fortunately for the main characters involved, things didn’t turn out that way.
    I created the battle sylphs to be absolutely masculine and powerful, very much the alpha male for all they accede to the women in their lives. Claw was made to take that idea and turn it right back over on its head.
    Claw is a battle sylph. Actually, he’s one of the oldest and therefore the most powerful in the Valley, but his emotional and mental states are very different from his brothers.
    Claw was already troubled when he came through the gate. As with Mace, who came from the same hive, he was old enough to gain the attentions of the queen and hadn’t, but where Mace chanced the gate for the opportunity it offered, Claw did it to escape from his feelings of failure. In essence, he was really trying to escape from himself, which never works.
    It especially doesn’t work when you end up bound to a sadist instead of the girl you intended, and get to see her murdered as well. Most battle sylph masters are cruel, but Claw’s was one of the worst. He set Claw up with a vicious name and a horribly frightening form, and then proceeded to do whatever he could to break him down.
    Claw is my exploration of the idea that immense powers don’t necessarily make one strong inside and that there are injuries which aren’t visible to the eye. I physically hurt the battler Ril in the first book. Claw I crippled in his mind, because mental illnesses do exist and a great many people are frightened by them and feel they make the victim less of a person. In Claw’s case, yes, he does suffer from traumas and doubts that he can’t just shake off and get over, but his brothers don’t care. To them, he’s still a battler and that’s all that matters.
    Claw has suffered more than any of the other sylphs,  and I get even meaner to him in the third book, but I do have the strong belief that mental illness isn’t irreparable. It can’t be shaken off, no, but it can be healed with the right care and attention, and that’s what I’d like to see for Claw.
    Whether it gets the opportunity to happen or not is another matter.

Slyph series:

The Battle of Slyph

The Shattered Sylph
A Midwinter Fantasy

Queen of the Sylphs

***Make sure to stop back later day for my Slyph Series Spotlight and giveaway.

L.J. McDonald's

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