This!
When you think about how Val and Tanith first met, their relationship is really fucked up. Back then Val was twelve and had huge bruises all over her body (because of a fucking tree but still!). Instead of being concerned Tanith complimented her for it. Like, how fucked up is that??? Next thing we know, Ghastly and Tanith take Valkyrie along to Serpine´s castle, even though they thought they were gonna get caught or killed.
To make things worse Melissa and Desmond have no idea about any of this. Sure, they think their daughter is kind of an outcast who spends to much time alone in her room but they also think she is safe and happy and stable. It´s a fucking miracle they didn´t literally kill Skulduggery when they found out what he put their daughter through...
So yeah, Tanith definitely should have protected Val from all that shit because no one else could have. Skulduggery didn´t see the problem, her parents didn´t know, China didn´t care, Ghastly was too close to Skulduggery and saw that Val was good for him and Kenspeckle didn´t have the influence. It´s really sad that Tanith sees Val as her little sister and still didn´t protect her. They could have still trained and everything but she shouldn´t have fought criminals at twelve.
y’all know i used to love tanith, but recently my feelings about her have become kind of complicated.
she was deeply traumatised as a kid when she was abandoned by her parents to become an assassin and was forced to kill someone at the ripe old age of 13.
on one hand, maybe this would make her think that valkyrie’s got it pretty good in comparison to what she went through.
but on the other hand, you would think that this might make her feel more protective of valkyrie and realise that skulduggery effectively training her to be an emotionally stunted ex-mass murderer (exactly like him) is more than a little bit fucked up.
it bothers me that she was so completely fine with a twelve year old being endangered by a man who is so clearly insane and dangerous, and has no sense of responsibility for her wellbeing.
ghastly, to his credit, tried a little bit in the beginning to stop skulduggery dragging her into this, but was very easily persuaded. ghastly had known skulduggery for hundreds of years, and knew more than most about all the heinous things he’s done, before, during and after the war. unless ghastly’s also a sociopath, there is no way he’d be okay with this then again, he knows skulduggery and yet still chooses to be friends with him, so idk.
of course china didn’t really care, but the way she’s written, especially in the beginning, makes it clear that she was never going to. frankly, i actually find it a little out of character that young valkyrie gains her respect so quickly, considering how little she had for almost everyone else. that said, valkyrie was trained from very early on that acting exactly like skulduggery was the only way to get his approval so he would keep teaching her magic, and skulduggery is one of the few people china does respect.
idk where i’m going with this but i guess it just makes me really sad that all the adults in her life completely failed her (minus kenspeckle, who tried, but wasn’t in a position where he could do anything about it and then DIED).