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Mark was a bad man. I don't still find any good reason why he had to cheat on JoAnn. He was better exterminated with the Ikshas.

Mark was a bad man. I don't still find any good reason why he had to cheat on JoAnn. He was better exterminated with the Ikshas.

Marks character had both good things as well as some shortcomings and it looked like a real character. The sad thing is that he could not draw his son Adam towards him despite doing some many efforts.

I just felt sympathy for him. Trapped in a marriage that he was not really welcome in, with a wife and son who clearly preferred each other to him. I don't blame him for cheating either. What else was he to do? He could have asked Jo for a divorce but was probably holding out until Adam graduated so he didn't "break up" the family. While the reasoning is flawed, and the cheating unacceptable, if he were a real person I would say that he had no other choice but to seek love and acceptance elsewhere. He clearly still loved his wife and son, but what can a person do when their love is wholly unrequited?

Mark's character did not appeal to me. He does not add much to the storyline and could be deleted. Adam’s mother is a strong parental presence in Adam’s life. She could easily be a single mom. Mark would not be missed.

I completely agree. While he did make some terrible choices, he probably felt very out of place in the family with Adam and his mother's bond and the fact that Jo still looked young.

I don’t really think we got to see enough of Mark in the book to know what his character was like. He seemed like a pretty good father and a lousy husband. I just don’t think we saw enough of him to know much.

I feel that Mark did not get enough detail in the story to draw a good conclusion. He seemed like he had good intentions towards his son. However, his other relationships counteract any good you try to give the guy credit for.

tanner87cbs wrote: ↑09 Mar 2020, 22:09 I feel that Mark did not get enough detail in the story to draw a good conclusion. He seemed like he had good intentions towards his son. However, his other relationships counteract any good you try to give the guy credit for.

I agree. It's hard to feel anything toward him because he was shut down so much and he never really had a chance for his voice to be heard.

I cannot necessarily blame him for finding other women based on how JoAnn was noticing how things tended to move without being touched around the house and thought she was losing her mind.

He should have left her though. His decisions did cause a lot of problems and pain for so many others, so I can see why she killed him off. It was just a little bad writing to have it happen the way it did.

I did feel sorry for Mark, especially when Carly came to visit and she saw him looking miserable and left out so she tried to talk to him and he perked up

I think Mark was actually a good person. He really did love his family but situation pushed him to the edge and he made a mistake.
I'm just justifying what he did though, I just feel if he got a little love back, he wouldn't have made that mistake.

Good people can do bad things, and bad people can do good things. There is no black and white when it comes to morality.

Mark was definitely not the perfect husband or father and did Jo a lot of wrong by cheating, but he also was not a bad person. He didn't deserve to die at the very least (in the battle between Dauma, Adam, Carly, and friends versus the Iksha).

No, I don't think he was a bad person.

I don't think Mark is a bad person. As others have said, good people can do bad things.

I wouldn't justify the cheating especially if it was with multiple women. If you're unhappy in a relationship, leave or work towards making it stronger with your partner. Maybe Jo would've backed off with being too close to Adam if Mark spoke to her. Either way, to physically get involved with someone is a choice, and he could've chosen better.

Mark was a good father, an alright tyoe of dude, and didn't deserve to die like that at all.

There was definitely an effort from his side to become a better father. This does not excuse what he did to his wife. Also, I feel his character was unexplored and got a vague feeling that he was merely used as per convenience without any significant contribution to the storyline.