#idk just idle thoughts about alternate universes/possibilities as always

[ambrosia-vinca]

Thinking about how interesting it would have been to combine original Crow lore with Lucanis being protective over the slaves and freeing them, resisting Illario's very business, Crow-focused advice during the Wigmaker job.

It would have been interesting to explore why Lucanis acts the way he does in that story beyond “he's a nice person despite being a professional assassin”, especially when put up against established Crow lore.

To be clear, I'm talking about the Crows as their fucked up version established in previous games, books, and comics, and for the purpose of these thoughts I'm ignoring Veilguard's almost squeaky clean portrayal of them.

Lucanis is in his mid-thirties, and his parents were murdered when he was a child. This means that presumably, Caterina has been First Talon for a few decades, before Zevran defected from the Crows, which means that even if perhaps not all Crow Houses dabble in buying children (I'm thinking of Teia in particular, because in Tevinter Nights, she is portrayed as seeing the Crows and Caterina through kind of rose-tinted glasses, so maybe House Cantori doesn't do that anymore once Teia becomes a Talon), Caterina would definitely have known about this practice, and she would have overseen it. Just like she would know perfectly well what goes on in Velabanchel, the place where Crows lock up people "for fun and torture" (!)

Which means that going from this, Lucanis would have also known about everything. Heir to the First Talon as he is, his experience of the Crows is very different from someone like Zevran's, being materially privileged at least, never lacking for money, but also similar in that it was abusive with the fucked up training the Crows go through, on top of Caterina's special brand of smothering expectations. He wasn't bought from a brothel, but he would know that's how the Crows pad their ranks.

Now how would Lucanis reconcile his undying loyalty to his only two remaining family members with the moral principles he has apparently somehow managed to keep protected all these years, the heart that is purely him? Knowing that Caterina tacitly assents, if not outright participates in the practice of buying orphans to raise them into assassins while those who aren't strong enough die? Is that not another form of slavery on part of the Crows? It would mean a high level of cognitive dissonance to close your eyes on something like that, and it would mean smothering his own moral principles for a long, long time. Lucanis has been raised in this environment, brainwashed into being a killer too, with a determination and loyalty to his family that are unfailing because he clings to them as they are the only thing he has in the world, to the point of it almost (if not outright) being unhealthy, unable to ever say no to his grandmother or to risk disappointing her. If he goes against his family, he has nothing, he *is* nothing, because in his mind, the only thing he is good at is being a Crow aka killing people.

And then the golden Dellamorte child gets to Vyrantium, and he risks sparing a witness, because she is a slave and has no choice in being there. And then he takes even more risks to have the Wigmaker's slaves escape with their lives and be freed, and he feels rage at the way the victims have been tortured, and the perfect little Crow says fuck the job.

Could it have been, consciously, or maybe subconsciously, a way to oppose his grandmother? Have the principles he has never actually managed to make known because he has never been able to stand up to Caterina before grown too strong to ignore because of what he witnessed in Tevinter? Would Lucanis be conscious of the fact that perhaps his uncontrolled anger at the treatment of the slaves in Wigmaker might stem from his own repressed horror at Crow practices buying and torturing children, Lucanis going so far as saying “fuck the job” which is a big deal for someone as loyal and in control as he usually is? Could his saying “fuck the job” and causing chaos in Vyrantium or maybe in other jobs involving slavery have eventually made him butt heads with Caterina because of the mess he made for shamefully sentimental reasons despite being the usually perfectly controlled golden child, or would she have turned a blind eye because he's her “favorite”? Could *this* have been the rift that may or may not make Lucanis finally take a step away?

I want to study Lucanis' character under a microscope. His character can fit so much moral conflict.