Sunny getting his true name back is good character development
Heres my take on the shadow bond situation. Buckle in.
i keep seeing takes that its bad writing, or sunny is stupid, or its not like him to get his true name back for a reason that basically boils down to that quote “nothing is more pathetic than a slave who begins to trust his slaver.” Banger quote btw.
The problem with these arguments is that they assume sunny is basically the same as pre-fateless. it acts like he didnt spend those 1600 chapters talking about it to his friends, experiencing the suffering of being alone, growing as a person, thinking long and hard over years, and at the end of it all an older and more mature version of him than the one that said that quote decided to actively choose to change his own values and pick trust and bonds over independence.
This is consistent with sunny’s overall character arc, which starts as him being nothing more than an intelligent animal trying to survive, and driven almost exclusively by fear. He starts off paranoid about everyone and everything. In chapter one he outright states he doesnt really feel like a human and doesnt relate to anyone. Eventually he has friends and a community and his sense of humanity grows stronger. The entire Antarctica arc and supreme war arc are literally about him choosing to engage and try to save people even if it means responsibilities. Hell, as early as the forgotten shore he decides to risk his life to save cassie, which up until that point would have been way out of character. No one complains about those because it’s not as personally violating as the shadow bond and he gets to be badass while doing it, but his character has always been moving in the same direction. Its exactly because the shadow bond is so violating that it’s the ultimate test of how much sunny has changed. Its meant to be distasteful and hard.
I think the real reason people dont like it is simply because many people feeling like they wouldn’t make the same choice. maybe thats a failure in g3’s part for not convincing everyone along the way even if sunny himself changing his mind makes sense. I personally think thats fine though, not everyone has to agree with it since it’s a very difficult moral decision. It’s just the decision sunny thinks will make him happy and the one HE thinks is right. I also think, as dumb as it is, part of the reason people complain is that its simply not cool. saving millions of people is cool. being a slave is lame and degrading. but the reason he does both is the same.
Ultimately, the version of sunny that wanted to free himself and the sunny who chose to come back are not the same person, in a good way. people can change for better or worse, and you can decide which one this was, but thats not really the point. It boils down to sunny having a choice in what type of person he wants to be and choosing to be more human over his base instincts and fears. If he hadn’t made this choice he would still be that kid who would have abandoned Cassie on the forgotten shore, but he’s not. He was always going to choose bonds.
note:
i saw a criticism that merits its own response that basically comes down to power imbalance. Yes, there is a power imbalance now, but he made this choice when they were equal. sunny chooses to trust nephis ofter he broke the bond and she has no power over him. Thats why he said he had to leave in order to come back. He could have never have made that decision under the constant pressure of her power over him. He could only decide to trust her once he had complete freedom. To sunny, the power over him is now meaningless because he trusts that it will never matter.