I actually find the Swift/Seel thing more disturbing than a lot of Thiede's other interferences. Swift is such an innocent - he's only 10 years old, despite being technically an adult, and Seel has been bribed and blackmailed into going along with Thiede's plan, and then emotionally and psychologically manipulated into being "in love" with Swift, even though he is dead against such things, in the best Gelaming tradition.

The result, after the starry-eyed honeymoon period, is that two people who really have nothing in common with each other end up "married". Seel has to go and live in Galhea with the mother-in-law-from-hell (aka Cobweb ;-) and Swift has to spend the rest of his life actually getting to know the object of his obsession. I think it's very telling that they never actually have another child.