Beyond Selidor

Yes, I've seen this play out in real life as well, and it's not a genuine forgiveness. How can it be genuine when there's an element of coercion? That kind of 'forgiveness' is more about preserving the harmony of a group/family, or placating the hurt feelings of an abusive person, than offering healing to the person who has been abused.

also hate when the "sympathetic" party of the love triangle is just as bad, if not worse, unless it's being done deliberately.


Yes, I've seen that happen on more than one occasion. You wonder if the author is even aware of what they're doing, or if they're so in love with their creation that they can't even see how badly the 'sympathetic' love interest is behaving.

Disease as a plot point tends to get thrown into stories once the writers have run out of other ideas for amplifying the sense of drama, and while it's not a dealbreaker for me, I can definitely understand why you'd dislike it.

A huge amount of historical fiction focuses on romance, and it's not always obvious from the book's cover description if this is going to be the case, so I can see why you'd be annoyed by that if it's not to your taste.