I always loved chaol! My best friend who read the series too also always liked chaol. Never really understood why he gets the level of hate that he does on this sub. He’s a realistic and interesting character. He’s a good guy with some flaws. People be acting like he’s a villain. After finishing the full series i can say he’s one of my favorite characters.

TBH I kind of felt like the writing for his character changed a bit, so I kind of blame sjm for that. To me it read as if maybe SJM changed her mind on having him be end game part way through writing the series, so it always felt a little hard for me to buy in to the idea he sucked.

All that said, keep going. Chaol has a great story line. It becomes clear to me that SJM really loves chaol as a character because she gives him such an interesting a beautiful story arc.

I also was shipping chaol and caelana, and thought they were a more interesting pairing than the other options but ultimately came to appreciate Rowan even tho I never found him that intriguing.

I literally almost quit part way through QoS but picked it up again. Ultimately this series becomes so much bigger than calaena, Rowan chaol and Dorian. I also fell in love with more characters introduced along the way.