The non-existent Re-education of Matthew Studley

It's a pity what potential the author has wasted here. Damson is her most interesting protagonist, Matthew is the most interesting male lead. Damson is a dragon slayer, Matthew a pharisaic brute but capable of self-criticism. He is portrayed as a bad person, a total failure of a wannabe dad.

The key scene is where Matthew abuses Damson with the leather strap. The author has Corby explicitly say in Delia's Tale that his canings are illegal, and it is reasonable to assume that the same is true of Matthew's beating of Damson. That means Matthew is just a criminal Damson could put in jail with a report.

He doesn't even torment her out of malice or perversity, but out of a mixture of stupidity, callousness and hubris. Since Damson has already scolded her father for being so thoughtless about his choice of bedroom with Caleb, she should have wielded the big stick for this criminal abuse, asked him if he could at least give one reason, why she shouldn't report him and have to thrash him with words so much that he would have turned crimson with shame.

That Damson put up with this abuse instead of at least threatening to sue Matthew to get him to see reason is just incredible. She's portrayed as being smarter than her parents put together.

Since Matthew was actually acting as a jerk and not a villain, Damson really had the opportunity to re-educate her father, to teach him decency, responsibility and compassion. She could even have made Corby, the sadistic and psychopathic teacher, human again (it's fantasy, after all). The dragon Mrs. Grindtooth as a sadistic teacher in 'Jim Button and Luke the Engine Driver' would be the model.

What a story that could have been.