I think you're right about Zelazny forgetting about the shapeshifting -- or at least it being another thing that he introduced and didn't really know what to do with. The Merlin books are full of stuff that Zelazny seemed to be making up and/or dropping as he went along :P
You have a point about pronouns possibly shifting with Merlin's intended audience (but then it should probably be clear what Merlin's audience is in your story). It occurs to me that you could use "she" for Dara and just lampshade it as an intentional rather than default choice by having Merlin reflect on it or talk to someone about it? He did spend a while living among humans and doesn't seem to be *that* in touch with his Chaosite side, at least until fairly late in his pentalogy.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2016-04-07 04:41 pm (UTC)You have a point about pronouns possibly shifting with Merlin's intended audience (but then it should probably be clear what Merlin's audience is in your story). It occurs to me that you could use "she" for Dara and just lampshade it as an intentional rather than default choice by having Merlin reflect on it or talk to someone about it? He did spend a while living among humans and doesn't seem to be *that* in touch with his Chaosite side, at least until fairly late in his pentalogy.