#because people seem to put judith and marta in opposition to cam and pal pretty often

[dve]

my main thoughts about judith is like she's been in the military for most of her life. ive had two drinks so i might be misremembering but like she was like six??? or something to do with that when she joined the cohort. her dad is high up so she wasn't sent out at that age but it does suggest something about child soldiers outside of the fourth. also like the drainage part of her necromancy like how do you teach that to someone?? she's very interesting anyways

really good points anon!!!! i think that the houses' normalization of children being introduced to warring for the empire at such a young age is so interesting, especially given how fourth and second seem to function in tandem with each other even though typically fourth is more closely associated with fifth fandom-wide. in turn it's intriguing to see how people in the fandom respond to that association and the military structure of second, how judith functions within it, etc.,

the drainage part of her necromancy seems to be second house standard fare (although i think being a generalist is also fairly common if i recall correctly) and i wish we'd gotten to see at least a little bit of it in action through judith in gtn since it's used to empower the necromancer and not the cavalier, separate from any of the trails which i think are at the ultimate extreme of what necromancy means / does / the theorems of it all. for me it brings to mind the blood of eden memorandum at the end of htn before AYS when blood of eden points out that one should not engage with the enemy unless absolutely certain that there is not a necromancer present in the unit, and even then, maybe still don't, because if there's a necromancer among the enemy and that necro can essentially embolden and strengthen the non-necromantic parties, then it makes combat even more frightening than it already is.

as for judith being in the military all her life, yeah! yeah. yeah... i find some people's hostility towards judith as a character interesting when it makes sense to me that judith, who is still so young by the time she's been dubbed the captain in ntn and possessed by varun, is obviously clinging to the beliefs and ideals of the empire taught to her from childhood, seems to need that belief in the empire to survive in the conditions she ends up in. she serves as a fun narrative contrast to characters like corona or camilla, obviously, in that they've got doubts of their own, but judith's dogmatism in AYS especially is also a response (to me) to her own doubts, fears, and further goes to show how deeply-ingrained her beliefs are and how deeply-ingrained those beliefs may be in second house and the cohort altogether.