Star Trek: Yeah, like I said, Cordelia herself seems pretty straight in that sense. But her culture of origin doesn't hold up the analogy as well as Aral's does.

Romance: ah! I was taking too narrow a view. I was speaking about Cordelia's perspective and extrapolating that to being "the book's" perspective. Which is dumb, seeing as it takes at least two and all that. I'm not sure how much I can say about Aral's perspective without spoilers, though. However, most of those spoilers are elaborated in the second part of the book, so what weaknesses/inconsistencies you're detecting are happening in a self-contained unit.

I find Aral's side somewhat explainable since we... just don't know it, being in Cordelia's head instead. I had always taken the suddenness and degree of his feelings for/towards Cordelia as a statement about his character and psyche, rather than about the romance. Less that the romance was that sweeping and more that he was that deeply in need of something. Though again, I'm not sure how much further I can speak on the subject fffff