“Good,” the troll said emphatically. “Good?” I echoed. “Com’on, Chumley.”
“Good in that you aren’t expecting anything. You aren’t going into it with the notion of reforming her, or that she’d give up her throne to hover around you adoringly, or any one of a myriad of other false hopes or assumptions that most grooms have on the way to the altar.”
“I suppose that’s good,” I said. “Good? It’s vital,” the troll insisted. “Too many people marry the person they think their partner will become. They have some sort of idea that a marriage ceremony is somehow magical. That it will eliminate all the dubious traits and habits their partner had when they were single. That’s about as unrealistic as if you had expected Aahz to stop being a money-grubber or to shed his temper just because you signed on as an apprentice. Anyway, when their partner keeps right on being the person he or she has been all along, they feel hurt and betrayed. Since they believe that there should have been a change, the only conclusion they can reach is that their love wasn’t enough to trigger it … or, more likely, that there’s something wrong with their partner. That’s when marriages start getting bloody. At least with Queen Hemlock’s proposal, nobody’s kidding anybody about what’s going to happen.”
I mulled over his words for a few moments.
“So you’re saying that you think I should marry Queen Hemlock,” I said.
“Here now. Hold on,” the troll said, leaning back and holding up his hands. “I said no such thing. That’s the kind of decision that only you can make. I was just commenting on what I see as the more common pitfalls of marriage, is all. If you do decide to marry the Queen, there are certain aspects that would weigh in favor of it working . . . but you’re the one who has to decide what you want out of a marriage and whether or not this is it.”