#and also by showing me chalothorn crying/breaking down/panicking over Tharn dying in his arms in the Naga caves

[spicyvampire]

Okay so after the whole Sakuna/Wansarut and Phaya/Tharn "characters description" fighter (protector)/healer+protector(mediator) post, now imma talk about about our resident Snake (PhD), Doctor Chalothorn being a fighter and well how do you convince a fighter to not fight?

I've already made a whole gifset about this but I needed to put the stuff into words cuz u just can't say everything in a gifset so this post is gonna be about a few things, first of all, the way Charlothorn's goals shifted in the last 2 episodes, from wanting to kill Phaya so he can have Tharn, to wanting to save Tharn and Phaya's end not really mattering anymore, and second of all Tharn's role in this shift and where have we saw something similar to this shift before aka Wansarut and Sakuna and how Wansarut even did that

Same disclaimer as the last one applies : pulling this out of my ass from watching the show, these are raw out-of-order thoughts, ill try my best to separate but like the last post because I'm going to have to go back and forth between Wansarut (love of my life, talking about Wansarut has to be my favorite activity rn), Sakuna, Tharn (smooching him smooching him), Phaya and Chalothorn this might get hard to follow but hey that's what it's like inside my brain so welcome to the mess

Putting it under keep reading

So like I said in the last post, Chalothorn is a fighter, like you can't get more fighter than this, the man is literally the prince/ruler of Nagas and he is right in the middle of the battle field anytime there is a fight to be had, and like I said in Sakuna's part of the post he is a level that can probably can only be rivaled by Sakuna's brother, you can't be a higher level of Naga fighter from what I understand, so like how do you fight this man if you are Wansarut and Sakuna? (ep. 8)

Keep in mind that : the answer is that they never were supposed to fight Chalothorn

SCENARIO 1 : Chalothorn wins

This is what we've seen in the show, Sakuna/Wansarut/Phaya/Tharn would never win against him in a fight because they just aren't strong enough to began with, Sakuna and his Garuda were not Chalothorn's level when he was alive, Wansarut is a healer/protector not a fighter, Phaya can only do ✨Sparkles✨ of Garuda powers as of rn and while Tharn can do some powerful protecting he is of the gang the person who is the less in contact with his past and magical self (other than for protecting Phaya magic, we have not even seen his Naga in this lifetime) and also his past self wasn't even a fighter, so it makes sense that Chalothorn just keep killing them and every single one of their reincarnations, he kills them so much that it was destroying his own soul (ep. 8) because surprise he is getting affected by the little cyclic karma thingy they got going on too, this isn't just about Wansarut/Sakuna and PhayaTharn, Chalothorn is trapped in this shit too

Clearly fighting is not the answer, because even if you win, which Chalothorn has been doing a lot of, you still lose, Chalothorn is losing control of his Naga form, not only does it destroy his soul (ep. 8) but he might just not be able to turn into his human form anymore aka would be forced to be a Naga forever (ep. 9)

Another lost of this is that he keeps losing Wansarut and having to wait for the cycle to start again so he would get another chance, like the level of psychological damage getting done to him because he kills the one he loves and he is always left behind alone to wait is enough to drive anybody insane (ep. 11)

And I think that's one of the reasons why it took him so long to understand that he should let Wansarut/Tharn go, because when you do something so despicable and keep doing it over and over again you have to justifies your bad actions to yourself so you don't break and the more you justifies them the harder it becomes to see clearly through them, so you just keep doing it, like Chalothorn probably hates himself more than he even hates Phaya or love Tharn at this point because he keeps killing reincarnations of Wansarut, like this is his reaction to killing Wansarut the first time, falling to his knees screaming and everything (ep. 8), the cognitive dissonance in that man's brain must be insane

SCENARIO 2 : Phaya wins

Now let's imagine for a second there that they did win, Phaya succeeded in killing Charlothorn, and then what? Isn't Charlothorn just gonna reincarnate and come back for them again? Like yes it might take some times but it will happen, and then Phaya and Tharn would be the one destroying their souls and making their karma worst, that's just not a solution

Also we saw with Narong's case part of the show that "victim turned attacker" is not the answer (anyways that's what the show says), when Tharn and Phaya are talking to the abbot at the end of episode 5 the abbot keep repeating that over and over again killing is not the answer

When Phaya Says "Those victims are left with no choice but to fight back in order to survive. They have to kill." The abbot answers "The basic code of moral conducts for human beings like us is the 5 precepts. One should be abstained from killing other living beings. These precepts can bring peace and happiness to your family and the society. Undertaking the 5 precepts will benefit not only yourself but also the people around you." Basically straight up telling them that [not killing] is the only answer that will bring peace to everyone

Also so many parallels can be made between Narong and Chalothorn (which is probably why it was easy for Chalothorn to possess Narong to attack Phaya but let's not get into that), because like isn't this Chalothorn? (ep. 5)

His mind is so clouded by anger and wanting to kill Phaya and getting Tharn that he is obsessed with it, he literally do not see anything else, specially if Phaya is in the room and/or mentioned, like I said a bit higher in this post, he hates Phaya, but he probably hates himself too, and so much hate and anger just blinds people

Also sidenote that I'm not really gonna dive into : How do you think Tharn would feel about Phaya killing Chalothorn, knowing what u know about him? like Tharn loves Chalothorn as a friend, and that's even if Chalothorn is responsible for all the bad things in his life (ep. 12)

Tharn may be looking at Chalothorn saying this but he said "Please stop killing each other." he could not be more clearly talking to both of them, he doesn't want Chalothorn to kill Phaya but he also doesn't want Phaya to kill Chalothorn

SCENARIO 3 : Tharn Wins

Now lemme say this, you can literally never convince a fighter by fighting him, like if you've ever had a fight/argument with someone you know that you cannot reach a compromise in the heat of the fight when everyone is angry and losing the control of their emotions, it just doesn't work, but what does work in the context of the show?

Wansarut and Sakuna

And now I'm back to Wansarut (<3<3<3<3<3<3) and Sakuna because well Wansarut did change a fighter's mind before already, this is part of Wansarut's power that's why I also describe Wansarut as a mediator, and what did Wansarut do exactly?

Well Wansarut healed Sakuna, even if he is from the enemy side, and took care of him and acted in a way that was protective of him, even if again Sakuna is an enemy of Wansarut's people (literally brother of the Garuda king) because that Wansarut's character, Wansarut is a healer/a protect/a mediator that's how Wansarut fights (ep. 8)

Then Wansarut tough Sakuna about Naga culture (Naga offering and breathing fire to pay respect to Buddha, on the 15th nigh of the 11th waxing moon)

And while being in love with each other did facilitate this change of view in Sakuna (which would later turn him a bit into a protector of Wansarut), you really do not need to be for this to work, like the best way to change people views on some things truly is just to expose them to the thing from the POV of the people living it, when nobody is in any immediate danger

And that is exactly how Tharn succeeded in convincing Chalothorn that the love between Phaya and him is good, by being there for Chalothorn and taking care of him, and being patient, until Chalothorn was ready to let him go on his own, not in the heat of of fight when everyone is angry and putting the blame on each other, which was again so healer/ protector/mediator of him like I talked about in my other post

Tharn and Chalothorn : the final

So with Wansarut and Sakuna we saw how Tharn could change Chalothorn's mind and what really does work, now imma dive into the last 2 episodes of this show aka the shift in Chalothorn

So in episode 6, Chalothorn says this

And at that time I think those words were true cuz that's literally what he has been doing isn't it? Like everytime he lost, both Wansarut and Sakuna's reincarnations died, so he was "okay" with killing Wansarut, as long as it meant that Sakuna was also dead and they weren't together (crazy way to fight cognitive dissonance if you ask me) but then something changed around episode 11 because Chalothorn started saving Tharn even if Phaya was still alive? (Ep. 11) (ep.12)

The importance of Chalothorn saving Tharn those 2 times, is that 1) now Tharn knows what the fuck is going on and 2) (like I said in the other post) Tharn end up understanding that Chalothorn can be talked too and reasoned with (the abbot would call it enlightenment), because in that 2nd saving he told Chalothorn to not kill Montee, and Chalothorn listened

Sidenote : Wansarut also did tell Chalothorn to not kill Sakuna and Chalothorn did listen that time too, like Wansarut has a BIG influence on this man (wish we saw their relationship before the mess), the only reason why the fight did continue was because Sakuna did not let Wansarut go

Why did he listen then? because he loves Wansarut, it really is as simple as that, and that's why he also listened to Tharn with Montee, because our chronically involuntary celibate man is head over dick for Tharn (valid and relatable)

So remember when I was talking about cognitive dissonance and stuff, well by ep 12, Chalothorn cannot justifies killing Tharn anymore, he is tired, he is turning into a Naga, and he cannot stand seeing another reincarnation of Wansarut die again, but most importantly he cannot stand to see Tharn die by his own hands

It's easy to concentrate on Phaya's distress in this scene but Chalothorn is in as much distress as Phaya, you can hear Chalothorn's voice break when Tharn is dying in both Phaya and his arms after asking them to stop killing each other, they are both screaming Tharn's name, and this time Chalothorn just listen because this is too much, his hatred for Phaya is just not important anymore, killing Phaya is just not as important anymore because anyways Tharn did choose him didn't he? isn't that what he wanted? even if Tharn clearly is in love with Phaya, Tharn did choose to come with him, so in a way none of this shit even fucking matters anymore

So for the 3rd time, he saves Tharn, this time by literally giving Tharn his soul so he would live (wish we saw him breaking down over Tharn dying in his arms in the Naga caves until he ended up giving Tharn his soul tbh), Chalothorn chooses to save a life instead of ending one and thus ending the curse on his part