Achievement Unlocked: You Listened To The Narrator Explain A Joke. You barely scraped by with that one, given how obvious the point is. Jeff Hays, the voice of the audiobooks, told a reporter that Princess Donut is more than a joke. He is correct. We have been saying this since Book One, but apparently the rest of the internet just caught up. This is not a revelation. This is a narrator stating the obvious because a mainstream outlet finally asked him a question that was not about his sound effects. You can read our thoughts on exactly how good that performance is in our Book Six Review: The Eye of the Bedlam Bride Barely Worth Your Time, which is a review that actually understood the character. The Yahoo piece gives Hays a platform to say that Donut is not just a gimmick, and we agree. But let us be clear: this is a problem the fandom created by treating her like a punchline for three books.
Here is what this means for you, the reader who has spent money on these books. The mainstream press has finally discovered that the talking cat has emotional depth. Congratulations. You now have to endure weeks of thinkpieces from people who just learned the cat is not a joke. The practical consequence is that the show, which has already cast Jeff Hays to voice Princess Donut in the show after fan demand, now has a marketing angle. The show can sell Donut as a complex character instead of a one-liner machine. That is good for the show. It is bad for the people who already knew this and now have to hear about it from every entertainment blog for the next month. The Casting Announcement: Donut Actor Chosen, Sound Mixer Still Sore About It already proved that the production team understands she is the lead, not the comic relief. Hays confirming it in a Yahoo interview is just the public relations seal.
The single takeaway here is that you should stop waiting for the mainstream to get it. They have gotten it now, and the result will be a thousand articles saying the same thing Hays said in one sentence. The real question is whether the show will treat Donut with the same respect Hays gives her in the audiobooks, or whether the network will decide she needs more jokes. Watch the first trailer. That is the moment you will know if they actually listened to the narrator or if they just quoted him for the headline.