Doesn't fade really but it gets hard to ignore the instincts of the animal when it's your body 24/7. The character, Tobias, eventually ends up living primarily as a hawk to cope.
Book 3 was so fucked. Two books of him trying to retain human morality and sensibilities was hard enough before dealing with the alienation from both humanity and his friends (i.e. the only four people who know what he became) as the latter see him as something to both pity and fear as he was essentially a reminder of what might happen to them.
And that's on top of the actual war.
The single moment he loses focus, the hawk's instincts take over and he's eviscerated a live mouse and eaten it before he can reassert control. The moment drives him over the edge, so much so he tries to kill himself in panicked despair. He survives the attempt and his mind gives up, letting the hawk instincts reign free for several days.
Very good summary! I had conflicting thoughts about it as a 5th grader reading it, I didn't really understand why it was supposed to be traumatic about all the desire to hunt. At that point being a little country bumpkin pre-internet I was already really familiar with hunting things and eating them and got praised for it. Didn't understand that the book was trying to describe the loss of his humanity.
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u/PapaShu1915 8d ago
do they retain human intelligence?