Well, my take on Lymond -- having read only Game of Kings -- is that the author wanted so much for me to love him, without ever giving me a good reason why I should love him, that I ended up hating him. That's not quite the same as his having violet eyes, a wonderful singing voice, and an ability to talk to cats, but it's pretty close.

In fact, I might have been content to relegate Lymond into that sitcom category of "Oh that wacky wildcard character", that guy who confirms the normal characters' reality by being unselfconsciously outside it, but then the suffering started on page 350 and I realized it was all about the Secret Pain and the Secret Good Deeds and the Unfortunate Misunderstanding.