In the book I am currently reading Dragonslayer, One of the main characters: Leaf, was dubiously deceived by the village Dragonmancers and his parents. In doing this they told him that a dragon had viciously killed his sister Wren when she was off in the woods. However, unknowingly they set Leaf down a path of vengeance against all dragon kind.
“Gone?” Leaf echoed, puzzled. “She ran away again?” Once she’d disappeared for an entire day, then reappeared the next morning with a grin on her face and twigs in her hair. Saying she just wanted to see what it would be like to live on her own in the forest with no rules. She’d lost all three of her toys for a month because of that, and Leaf had secretly carved her a little wooden snail to replace them. “No, dear,” his mother said, looking more tense than he’d ever seen her, which was saying something. “She wandered off and got eaten by dragons. ”Leaf felt like he was in a story, but the wrong story, one he’d stumbled into by accident, where very dramatic sad things were happening to someone, but of course that couldn’t be him. “She wouldn’t,” he said. “You’re wrong. Dragons wouldn’t dare eat Wren. ”His father let out a shaky laugh. “That is what she would say,” he said. “But as I’m always telling you, death could swoop down at any moment. We should all be more scared. She should have been more scared,” he finished mournfully. “It was really her own fault,” Leaf’s mother pointed out. “You know how disobedient she was. She brought this on herself.” She had her hands wrapped tightly together, as if she was pressing her feelings flat and thin between them. (pg. 18-19)
This quote basically shows the narrowmindedness that most the village people have, Leaf’s parents were not even affected by the loss of their daughter and instead using it to push this ideologies of Leaf. What I made out from this quote is that Leaf doesn’t want to face the fact that her sister is dead and rather uses minor meaning excuses to push away her death. As well as this I gathered that Leaf’s parents were almost glad to be rid of Wren and saw it as a relief.