Fwiw, karina did also reject her physically, by shoving her away to get some distance, but Reshutoka ignored that and pounced on her again, almost as if she wasnt gonna let karina have a choice in the first place
I don't think that really registered with Reshutoka, though - her physical strength is on a totally different level, and while she clearly knows that I get the feeling that the implications didn't really register in that moment, because she was totally caught up in the whole "marriage ceremonies" thing. Though it /did/ register at least somewhat - she was aware that she had to be fairly gentle because of it . . . but the question is whether she was able to think anything along the lines of "for all her pride and courage, she can't just punch my lights out if I do something she doesn't like", and adjust her behaviour accordingly.
But the thing I keep coming back to in my head is the way Reshutoka seems so very taken by the idea that this is some kind of fateful encounter - sure, that's not such a weird thing in a kind of generic sense, but in the context of the world-building we've seen so far it feels childish and naive. That makes me seriously question how old she is - it's almost like she's got a bit of a chuunibyou thing going on, underneath the strong cool responsible older sister type of persona she presents most of the time.
If my reading of that is at least roughly correct it may be best to think of her more as a teenager than an adult, with all that implies about her judgement and self control. And it definitely supports the idea that she's been totally carried away by her fantasies, from that first night right up to the hints that she's building a magical log cabin for her love . . .
That also makes me wonder about how old
Karina is - from the backstory I'm tempted to say she can't be more than very early twenties, and possibly younger, but there's no useful hints to her age aside from the broader context. She's definitely being presented as someone who had to grow up very early, though how much that translates to actual emotional maturity as opposed to just being hardened and deadened by trauma we'll need to wait and see. In fact, this contrast between Karina and Reshutoka is probably where most of their character development will come from.
We pity Karina more because we have her pov, but at the end of the day she wants to use an entire tribe for revenge. She's still got changing to do too.
This is also a key point, I think. And there's a nice juxtaposition between my assessment of Aurora's chances with the wolves (bugger all) and my assessment of Karina's (probably not much better when it comes to getting revenge) - Aurora's persona is one that goes against most of the values of the wolf tribe culture, whereas Karina's hits most of them on the head without even trying. But I think Karina will find that they're not the kind of people that can be used for petty personal vengeance - they value strength, both of body
and mind, and they see independence and personal courage as signs of that strength. Karina would need to somehow convince
all of them, separately, of the need to fight for her cause, and there's really no way that's happening without some seriously large upheaval. The process of understanding that (and learning from it?) is probably going to be at the heart of the
rest of Karina's character development.
