It’s been another year where fiction has felt uncomfortably like prophecy. Every day the headlines read more like pages torn from my manuscripts – an ugly muddle of conflicts, crises, and suffering that should have remained safely bound within the borders of the Great Kingdom. I was supposed to be writing fantasy, not contemporary fiction.
I got asked in interviews a lot what inspired Noble: Betrayed and what message I hoped to convey with the book. For a long time I thought there were too many characters undertaking journeys of their own to give those questions good answers. I have since learned where the answers are found. They lie in how my characters – from Simon Pargion to Styve Woodgairrd – grapple with fundamental human needs: community, story, meaning-making. Even after everything falls away, these persist. Some structures crumble, others transform, but the core of who we are endures. And as long as there is endurance, there is a path to a brighter light.
On New Year’s, following tradition, my family all eat twelve grapes at midnight – one for each month of good fortune we hope to receive. I find it beautiful how even if we were to suffer a Noble-esque reset, even if we were suddenly without memories or history, humans would still create rituals like these. Still mark time’s passing. Still hope.
The coming year stands before you like a crossroads. You are not a Woodgairrd, a Slait, or a Pargion. You don’t need a memory wipe to choose a better path. Each dawn offers a chance to rebuild, to carry forward what serves you and leave behind what doesn’t. Perhaps that’s what gives New Year’s its magic: for one moment, we all stand together, in one great shared moment of possibility, at the crossroads of what was and what could be.
Happy New Year, everyone. May 2025 be a year where reality surpasses fantasy, in all the best ways.
Dylan Brennan 
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