I'm glad you stopped. Valdemar is my trashy comfort series, and sometimes I really hate that I love reading those books so much. Lackey has her favorite tropes, and sometimes they drive me nuts. The Last Herald-Mage Trilogy begins with a giant soap opera, and then in the last book he ends up with the reincarnation of his first love except without all the complex loyalties and then he dies and they go to live forever as lover trees until the Mage Winds books, which I don't recommend much because I think Lackey ruined Skif in them.

Yes! I liked that I could really see the differences, and that you emphasized that he's not canon Ziggy, and that he needs to be careful because he isn't. But he's still not completely unlike canon Ziggy, I think. Poor Dillon. How can you ever feel comfortable being around someone like that? It's not like amnesia or something, because he hasn't just forgotten things.