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Rereading Skulduggery Pleasant is sometimes painful.
Stefanie (first book) : I suppose this is a big deal for you, huh? Finding out that your gods really existed?
Skulduggery : Ah, but we don't know that. ...
Told by the men who gets tortured a few books later by these gods ...
Most heart breaking moment for me picking up Skulduggery Pleasant again, weeks after reading the last book two times… now book 8 and first read sentence this morning…
Ghastly Bespoke returned to Roarhaven.
Instant cry.
Wanna know which notorious TV duo skulduggery and valkyrie remind me of? The winchesters. Yes, you heard me. Especially in phase two, where valkyrie almost retires due to trauma but than her peaceful time in America gets disrupted by the next big bad and suddenly the team's back together.
But that's not the only parallel there are also the countless times they try to sacrifice themselves for the other, risk the apocalypse for each other and are just plain insane over the other.
What does zachariah say about Sam and Dean again: "Sam and Dean Winchester are psychotically, irrationally, erotically codependent on each other."
Well who else does that remind us of?
So I have seen many different takes on Skulduggery and Valkyrie's relationship over the years and I don't agree with any of them. Mind you this is just my opinion and everyone is entitled to their own. It's just to me no interpretation of their relationship really fits for me. I think their relationship is neither father-daughter, mentor-student or romantic. To me it's something else entirely.
Let's get down to why I disagree with the relationship takes I listed above. First during the talk with Melissa and Desmond in DotL Skulduggery makes it clear that he does not see Valkyrie as his daughter. He states that while he understands their concerns because he has been a father himself he does not see Valkyrie this way. He also stresses that she is his partner, his equal and not his student when Melissa refers to Valkyrie as such.
Additionally the way Skulduggery treated Valkyrie like his equal in all cases was a major conflict point with Kenspeckle to whom Val was like a granddaughter. While Kenspeckle wanted to take care of her, Skulduggery always let Valkyrie make her own desicions no matter how that'd turn out.
We also know from Valkyrie's side that she did not see Skulduggery as an authority figure which is stated many times throughout the books. Much like Skulduggery sees her as an equal she in turn also views him the same way. So if father-daughter and mentor-student is not it, than what is their relationship? I would argue against romantic for the sole reason that they are not attracted to each other (yes, I know a lot of you have an icky feeling about valduggery but this is not what this post is about anyways). Their relationship transcends all reason and can at best be seen as a bond of soulmates which is backed up by the observation of many other characters in the SP universe. But this does not really explain how they see each other.
In my opinion Skulduggery and Valkyrie are each others hero. Yes, this may not come as a surprise in case of Valkyrie but Skulduggery is a different matter mainly due to the way of how he is portrayed as a character. So how is Valkyrie his savior?
Well, in ther beginning of the series all the other characters treat Skul like they expect him to snap at any moment. They don't know that he already did, but he does and he is trying to atone for that. But when everyone close to you treats you like a ticking time bomb you might lose faith in yourself after a while. Skulduggery at that point in time is slowly loosing faith in his ability to be one of the good guys. He hates himself and knows what he is capable at his worst. He won once but who says he can win again? Standing in front of the abyss believing with everyone else that it is only a matter of time before he steps over the edge again. Enter Valkyrie, she does not know him, but believes in him. Sure she is twelve and believes in Skulduggery for all the wrong reasons but she believes in him where no one else does, not even Skul himself, she restores his faith in himself. She beats the enemy that Skul had never any hope of beating on his own, himself. She is his hero as much as he is hers and he is willing to kill for her, die for her and most importantly live for her.
On the other side, Skulduggery is Valkyries hero, because he saved her from a life of mediocricy. A life of yearning for something greater. He opened the door for Valkyrie and showed her that there was so much more to life than she could ever have imagined by herself. He is her hero and she would do anything for him.
So, this is my view on their relationship, while yes we can sum them up as soulmates it goes so much deeper. Sorry for the long rant. I'm always open for discussing my views. Just please don't take this as gosple or anything this is just my opinion nothing more nothing less.