#Dark Heir spoilers

[etuwubrutus]

dark heir was a gay comedy

[ninicaise]

what's so refreshing about will as a character is that he doesn't throw a denial tantrum about it at any point like most characters with Darkness Within Them do. he's not a moral paragon, his angst and secretkeeping don't get annoying at any point. and i think it's because there's no contrast between who will Really Is, which is Good and True, and the dark king as his shadow or his dark self.

will is the dark king. he behaves like the dark king. he lies and he manipulates and he's a "sneak" and he's scaringly charming and he's possessive over james and a ton of other messed up shit and he tells himself it's for a good reason, and maybe it is!! and will is clearly you know. a Good Person. while his methods are sneaky, he does not actually do anything wrong. but those are his methods still, and they are cool moments and badass and also kind of eerie.

with the way he's written, i would argue will doesn't have or even need a corruption arc, he's just like that from the get-go and he's not gonna change. and i don't mean he was born evil or whatever other bullshit i mean that he was born a full person, including the dark king and will both, and there's complexity, but no clear line separates them.

[trinityprocessing]

Anyone else thinking about how during Dark Heir everyone was having literally the worst time of their life? Like Will desperately trying to hide his identity and deal with his visions, Cyprian having an identity crisis, Violet got kidnapped, Sarah fucking died, the entire white death thing.

And meanwhile James was just having his teen drama hot girl summer in Italy, trying to figure out how to get Will to kiss him the entire time.

[laur-the-cat-prince]

[picturebird]

“James lay like a sleeping Ganymede, his enervated beauty belying the cruelty and destruction he rained down on the Stewards” —CS Pacat, Dark Heir

[purplehairedwonder]

Can we talk about how, when Anharion and the Lady arrest Sarcean in Will's vision, Sarcean says to them:

And then, when James arrives in the palace and stands alongside Visander in Katherine's body, Will says:

Punch me in the throat, why don't you, Pacat.

[marzipanthots]

DARK HEIR CH 51

Fan comic (⚠️mega spoilers) PART 2/2

READ THE REST BELOW 👇

PART 1

https://www.tumblr.com/marzipanthots/749335459448176640/dark-heir-ch-51?source=share

PART 2

https://www.tumblr.com/marzipanthots/749335720149286912/dark-heir-ch-51?source=share

Creative notes - I’m still upset about the collar. It’s so devastating😭😭😭😭, Will is a little scatch up from his fight with cyprian and visander . I gave will a white shirt to represent his vulnerability and innocence to contrast James wearing all cover up in his fancy coat.. then edventually they both end up with less layers as they are being vulnerable with another in a intimate way🫣🤭

Then the grand reveal of the DAMN COLLAR

In the text will has flashback of the lady calling him out and I though it be interesting to see all of sarcean former lovers together 🫣😳

And then will had a flashback seeing anharion bloody neck in the book/text

it was so violent visceral I wanted to capture that moment too.

[edjenko]

Visander stuck in Katherine’s body be like

[fourscoreandfivewivesago]

[domokunrainbowkinz]

Will in the shinji chair (dark heir edition)

[witsserviceablesubstitute]

More Dark Rise and Dark Heir thoughts:

My prediction is that Will isn't a reliable narrator about his past self and the text is deliberately misleading about the relationship between Sarcean and the Light. Bait and switch foils are some of Pacat's favourite narrative tools and i'd be surprised (and honestly a bit angry) if it was as simple as the Dark King (with all his queer symbolism) equates to evil and the Lady (with all her Christian iconography) equates to good.

The biggest example of 'unreliable narrator Will' is how he already believes he's evil and that people are right to abuse and want to kill him. As we see with how all his thoughts about his mother in Dark Rise are loving, magnanimous, and illustrating a desire to avenge her death. Then in Dark Heir the reader discovered how abusive she was because of her belief in his 'innate evil'.

The point is, though, that Will isn't innately evil. No one is. Eleanor never had the right to treat baby Will as she did. Just as the Stewards never had the right to treat James as appallingly as they did. No one had the right to abuse and try to kill them. The Stewards created their own villain by treating James like a villain and that same principle applies to how everyone is treating Will.

Sarcean in his pov isn't good, but neither is he evil. He is Will. He's observant, artful, sneaky, scheming, smart, and uncommunicative. He's heartbreakingly loyal to those he loves. He rewards loyalty to him even if they turn on him later. He's ruthless and overly aware of how others perceive him. He craves control. He's obsessively and irrevocably in love with Anharion. I don't think Sarcean is some evil self separate from Will, Will keeps making all Sarcean's mistakes because they are, fundamentally, the same. I do think Will coming into himself and making better decisions will be in his accepting that Sarcean is not a separate person at all.

[definechaotic]

Rip will kempen you would have loved elsa from frozen

[zombie-bait]

trying to explain why Dark Rise and Dark Heir are so good without immediately giving huge spoilers is so hard. Like yes the characters are good, the worldbuilding is cool but the last like 30 pages of Dark Rise just flipped my whole world upside down in a way I haven’t experienced in a long time. It’s such a brilliant subversion of the chosen one story. It utilizes reincarnation in such a fascinating way to tackle fate and question whether the history of every character is doomed to repeat.

Will’s inner turmoil is expanded beautifully in book 2. He is terrified of the person he might become yet simultaneously drawn to it. He is constantly plagued by power and knowledge he knows he can never share. He falls easily into ancient patterns, lying and sneaking and bending the world to protect those close to him. He tries his best to be kind. He is somewhere between monster and man and must hope he comes out as the latter.

[youarentreadingthis]

ok wait but anharion/james wasn't being fully controlled by the collar, right?? like will was like "holy shit he's just mirroring my desires" but james says "i will conquer everything with you" and that ISN'T mirroring his desires, so it's clear james wasn't repeating everything will wanted him to say, AND james/anharion clearly had other shit fueling his loyalty cuz there's the obvious thing of "i remember everything from my past life" SOOO???

tbh i think people have the history of the sun king and the queen slightly twisted, i think the sun king was worse and sarcean was better than people think they were. somethingggg is going on in the background, very sus! but obviously sarcean is an ass going from will's memories

[tackletofset]

Anharion x Sarcean x Visander - in that legendary pose...

Thanks to @yv-sketches for this pretty art! Having those three posed together like this is among my art wishlist!

(i added the colored bits)

[picturebird]

You gotta be a team player, James