#i had a whole tangent in here about silas but it was cut for time. i should post it separately tho

[theriverbeyond]

it is soooooo interesting to compare the way the Fifth and Sixth engage with the necrocav dynamic because like, on first look (and especially compared to Everyone Else) they both seen so devoid of Issues and Problems and Violence. Contrast them with, like, the Third and Eighth houses, which are two of the most explicitly exploitative but also (IMO) the most honest necrocav relationships in the entire series -- they're (literally) exploitative, (literally) consumptive, (literally) violent, built on unquestioning devotion that demands blood. Pal and Cam and Abigail and Magnus seem almost idyllic in comparison, and YET!! their relationships are no less shaped by the Empire's cult of violent and required devotion, they are just less honest about it.

Like, the micro-level dynamic between Abigail and Magnus is as sweet and simple as they come, but there's no extricating their intimate relationship from the setting of violence in which that relationship is trapped in i.e. the cavalier as meat, the cavalier as a battery and the human body as something to be consumed and exploited.

And both Houses KNOW their relationships are built on violence. Both the Fifth (and Palamedes) seem visibly uncomfortable with the power dynamic inherent to the necrocav existance! Abigail and Magnus address this by attempting to perceive their dynamic as a marriage first and necrocav second, but their rejection of the necrocav framework is almost wholly aesthetic. They exist within and directly benefit from the bloody gears of the Empire without complaint, and even Abigail's critiques of the God/Empire seem to be purely academic in nature, more curious intrigue than any kind of genuine dissatisfaction with the status quo. And Magnus is by his own admission not a duelist nor any kind of fighter, but as a cavalier he takes up the sword, follows Abigail to Canaan House, and they both die together in the laboratory.

Compare this to the Sixth house, where instead of rejecting the paradigm at all Pal and Cam seem to have taken the stance of "through the power of love we can make necrocav healthy, actually", but again this is dishonest -- no amount of romanticization of necrocav consumption allows their relationship to actually BE non-exploitative, and the lie of equality haunts them to its natural end point i.e. their ultimate surrender to the Lyctoral process via their mutual death in flame.

And their relationship is especially interesting because of how Cam has thrown herself into the position of "cavalier" with complete abandon, leaving Pal unwilling to truly extricate himself from the role he has been assigned despite his clear discomfort with that level of devotion. See: "I can't bear this, I'm eating your life", "I never had rights to [your soul]" -- but, you know, he didn't HAVE to become the Master Warden, he didn't HAVE to accept Cam's devotion, he didn't HAVE to choose her as his cavalier. He chose to bear this, and he chooses to accept her ceding rights to her soul. I mean he does explode himself to prevent her from throwing herself on a spike to force his ascension but like, that didn't really stick, did it? Pal wants to escape the societal hierarchy he was born into, Cam says "no", and he accepts that answer, again and again and again.

"There was no alternative" / "We had the choice to stop"