#mircea basarab

[moliathh]

Mircea II, Vlad III and Radu III

Sons of Dragon

[coffeewithcutcaffeine]

— Blood on your hands, they say. As though it stops there; at your wrist, like a glove. As though you could do this, and there could be any part of you that wasn’t stained or dripping.

𝗯𝗮𝘀𝗶𝗰 𝗶𝗻𝗳𝗼𝗿𝗺𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻

date of birth: November 8, 1431

place of birth: Sighișoara, Transylvania

family affiliation: the House of Drăculești (the House of Basarab)

𝗳𝗮𝗺𝗶𝗹𝘆

father: Vlad Dracul

mother: Doamna Vasilisa of Moldavia (the House of Mușat)

siblings:

Mircea Drăculea (brother)

Alexandra (sister)

Radu Drăculea (brother)

Mircea (half-brother)

Vlad Călugărul (half-brother)

mistress: Cătălina, daughter of Costea

wives:

Ilona Hunyadi (m. 1462-1472)

Jusztina Szilágyi de Horogszeg (m. 1475)

issue:

Mircea (* 1455)

Mihnea (* 1460)

Vlad (* 1464)

𝗽𝗵𝘆𝘀𝗶𝗰𝗮𝗹 𝗮𝗽𝗽𝗲𝗮𝗿𝗮𝗻𝗰𝗲

height: shorter (the shortest of the three Drăculești brothers)

body type: muscular, stocky

complexion: slightly fair in winter, becomes tanned and darker in summer; tans very easily and quickly in the sun and his skin freckles lightly

hair: black and curly, worn long in adulthood (the exact length tends to vary depending on practicality)

eyes: oval, large, moss green; framed by dark eyelashes and thicker eyebrows

features: aquiline nose, full lips, high cheekbones, occasionally slightly hollow cheeks, black moustache worn in adulthood, strong and prominent square-shaped jawline, wide and calloused hands, noticeable scars on several body parts (the largest scars on back)

𝗽𝗲𝗿𝘀𝗼𝗻𝗮𝗹𝗶𝘁𝘆

positive traits: courageous, direct, ambitious, independent, passionate, determined, protective, focused, loyal

negative traits: secretive, stubborn, vindictive, controlling, distrustful, aggressive, dominating, resentful

strengths: strategic intelligence, efficient management, determination and tenacity, willingness to take bold actions, ability to maintain control and command respect, strong sense of justice and loyalty, fierce dedication, resourcefulness, resilience

weaknesses: lack of moral ambiguity, diplomatic talents, manipulation

likes: family time, nature, horse riding, hunting, manual craft (blacksmithing and tailoring), good food, effectiveness

dislikes: treachery and betrayal, idleness, weakness, disorder, indecisiveness, cowardice, disrespect, condescending behaviour

intellect: training in leadership, military tactics, rhetorics, philosophy, and governance; extensive exposure to Ottoman culture, military practices, and education; education in Christian doctrine and the principles of etiquette (the dual exposure to both Christian and Islamic influences provides him with a broad and diverse perspective on the world); fluency in multiple languages (Romanian, Hungarian, German — basics, Latin, Greek — basics, Old Church Slavonic — written form, Turkish, Arabic — basics)

[autumnmobile12]

This is an interesting and really vague line, and it’s unfortunate Zamfir’s arc is probably the most rushed subplot in the series.  (I mean, I didn’t really care for what Sumi and Taka had going on, but at least they got a brief flashback explaining their motives.)

So let’s dive into the historical context here:

Since it’s founding in 1310, Wallachia was ruled by the House of Basarab, a family that some historians believe may have migrated from Asia.  Wallachia’s first ruler on record was Basarab the Great.

After the death of Mircea the Old in 1418, a direct descendant of Basarab the Great, the ruling family split into two factions:  Mircea’s descendants through his sons known as the Drăculești and the descendants of his brother, Dan I, known as the Dănești.  This split would become the defining feature of Wallachian politics for this time period.  During the last years of Mircea’s reign, he named his only legitimate son Mihail as co-ruler to ease the transition of power after his death.  Within three years of ruling on his own though, Mihail was overpowered by the Ottoman Empire and the boyar lords under him defected to his cousin Dan II and Wallachia broke into a civil war.  Mihail was killed in the spring of 1420, after which several of his illegitimate half-brothers took up the Drăculești line’s bid for power, fighting the each other as much as Dănești faction.  It’s like Game of Thrones but even more chaos and the bastards are 100% valid players in the eyes of the law and society.

Castlevania takes place in 1476, so in between this year and the year of Mihail I’s death, rule of Wallachia (the Voivodate) would change hands 24 times and see a total of 10 separate rulers, only one of whom would die of natural causes.  (In comparison, England’s throne saw three different occupants in the same amount of time.  Although, one of those three was a usurper and one died under mysterious circumstances of the ‘probably murder’ variety.) So Sypha coming out and guessing that Zamfir is the last of the nobles is thought-provoking in that the royal court was already a hostile place even without Dracula bearing down on the capital.

Zamfir’s psychosis may have deeper roots than what happened when Dracula attacked, and I really want to explore that further.  ‘Last person of noble birth’ can have a few meanings.  The Wallachian nobility were the boyar lords, whose power and influence was dependent on wealth and/or land.  At court, there was the princely council who advised (or schemed against) the ruling prince, and there were also a few court positions that weren’t part of the council.  More to the point, Wallachia’s society behaved the same way as most European nations did at the time: ‘You have no power for you are but a woman.’

As for the mummified corpses in the Underground Court, in the interest of loose historical accuracy, the dead prince could only be Vlad III Dracula of House Drăculești.  In November of 1476, Vlad III usurped the throne from Basarab III, who had held it since 1474 after killing his predecessor Radu III (Vlad III’s younger brother, actually.)  In December of that year, Basarab III returned to Wallachia and took back the throne, killing Vlad III in the process.  Basarab III would live another four years.  In addition, the capital of Wallachia was moved from Târgovişte to Bucharest this same year.  So intentional or not on the creators’ part, the show roughly matches up with the historical timeline.  There’s also the fact that it’s not entirely clear exactly how Vlad III died and there is some speculation by historians that Bram Stoker’s Dracula and the historical Dracula only share the same name and the latter was not the actual inspiration for the former.

It’s a bit of a stretch to say Vlad III Dracula and the vampire Vlad Dracula Ţepeş were intended to be two separate people in the series, so I won’t go out there and make that claim.  The mummified royals are probably just nameless artifacts for the plot and we are definitely in speculation, headcanon, string and thumbtacks territory now.

Still, the ‘last person of noble birth’ line does have me wondering what Zamfir’s connection to the court is aside from ‘leader of the Târgovişte resistance.’  Daughter of a courtier, daughter of a council lord, or daughter of the ruling prince himself?

[bat-revival]

So, it's late and I'm knee-deep in research for my master's thesis and I have so many feelings about Mircea, Vlad Draculas eldest brother?

Like, we know so little about him besides his unwavering loyalty to his father and his courage on the battlefield. But we know how he died. When Vlad Draculs own Boyars murdered him to place another on the Wallachian throne, they also killed Mircea. They blinded him with a hot iron and then they buried him alive.

I wish we knew more about him and I wish we knew more about Vlad Dracula and the youngest, Radu, in general - something that's not based on propaganda pamphlets. But time is unforgiving and nearly 550 years is a long time for primary sources to be destroyed or get lost. If these kind of sources ever existed at all.

So for now I'm just sitting at my desk, staring at my computer screen, rubbing my eyes, not being normal about Mircea II. Basarab. Being a history bitch is hard.

[skeysesil]

I studied Alexander the Great's life to a stupid extent, to the point where I would spit out random trivia about him to my friends, wrote my master's thesis on him, and presented a project on him during a course in Uni, he was actually my first historical crush, and still love him. Homeboy set the foundation for a lot of military strategies BUT most of them were taken from his father, and even from King Darius III. These strategies, later on, would be used in battles by other warriors, and this is mentioned in a couple of episodes in season 2, which I highly appreciate.

Now, back to the main point.

They did in fact try to force the idea that Vlad hated his father for "abandoning" him and Radu, and not that his anger was motivated by the way the Ottoman Empire and the Hungarian empire treated him. He was, unfortunately, a pawn, who got tired of being played around so he decided to strike back. Just like any other animal, wounded once or cornered, strikes back. Vlad and Mehmed had different political points of view, and military, they were brothers in arms as children, but when you try to attack and invade my lands, I will do everything I can to destroy you. Vlad was indeed a proud man and he came from a line of actual warriors, the throne, Wallachia, were rightfully his.

He was never a monster, he was only correct, more so, actually, he offered honorable execution methods to those who wronged him, but to match their social status.

Of course, the series puts Mehmed in a "glamourous" light because he is the hero, and Vlad is portrayed as a savage, but what a lot of people don't understand is that this is a child who was taken from the safety of his home, TAKEN, not given away, as episode 1 shows, with which I have an immense issue for the way Vlad Dracul is portrayed, entirely out of character, had to stand up for himself every day and also protect his younger brother, they both were among strangers, among the enemy, his father was decapitated, and Mircea, his older brother, was tortured, his eyes pecked out, and buried alive the same night. A child should never suffer such terrors, regardless of age or background. Mehmed had everything and more, Vlad was suddenly no one's.

In 1979 a movie was made, Romanian production, focusing on Vlad's second reign, of course, it is political and made during the communist era so you are not given what you see today, but still, an impeccable performance by Ștefan Sileanu. In 2015, if I am not mistaken, Bogdan Jianu, for 3-4 years, portrayed Vlad during medieval summer festivals held at Târgoviște, and Bogdan was, without a doubt, the closest portrayal of Vlad, as a voivode and military strategist, there ever was. Now, with Rise of Empires: Ottoman season 2, Daniel managed to give us a more human Vlad, a prince of Wallachia who was sarcastic, proud, tired of hearing about Mehmed being introduced as the sultan of sultans, etc, a Vlad who was betrayed, a Vlad who was frustrated, a Vlad who was not shown as a man of steel frowning 24/7.

All these three men helped paint the portrait of Vlad Basarab III, Vlad Drăculea, Vlad Țepeș, or as how the majority knows him, Vlad Dracula.

It takes a Romanian to bring back to life a Romanian, not Hollywood, not a foreigner.

Also, before I end, all three of them are water signs, Vlad himself was a Scorpio.

the reason why Daniel even played Vlad was because there were some people at Netflix who insisted on having a Romanian do the job

they messed up a lot in the series with the given information, those foreign historians are wrong, but the series is told from the turkish perspective, I am bitter but I am also thankful for giving a Romanian the chance to portray one of the heaviest names in history, as he should've been from day 1.

Daniel was a monster, in the best way possible, on screen

Loooool, so it wasn't even because the guys making the show were trying to be accurate this time around?

Yes, I am totally expecting to see a lot of propaganda in s2 too, how Vlad was a monster who had a pathological hate against the Ottomans, but nothing about how that monster was created and why he hated them.

I am rolling my eyes everytime I see someone calling the series unbiased, when it's crystal clear to me that they only care, as you said, for the Turkish POV.

Anyway, the only thing we can hope, is that one day, other countries (especially under-represented countries) will be given the chance to show their history on such large platforms as well. Casting a Romanian to play Romania's most well-known historical personality was a good move.

[lechugapagana]

Mircea fell along with his father, betrayed by the boyars of his region, who blinded him and buried him alive. Radu became the sultan's favorite and went down in history as "Radu, the Fair". And Vlad lived long enough to rule his country and fill the history books with his terrible and bloodthirsty reputation as an impaler.  

No happy ending for the walachian princes...

I am weak for tragic stories of siblings, bonus points if they are children of nobility. 

I've made up a headcanon that has nothing to do with the historical reality of this family, ops. I can't help it, Mircea intrigues me. 

I needed to see the 3 of them in a drawn version. Now I can die in peace.

Commissioned by @bishos.art

[imaginethosedragons]

Love the Dorina Basarab series, can anyone tell me how the Cassandra Palmer series matches up?

Also, is it weird to read Mircea as Dory’s dad in Dory’s series, but the love interest in Cassie’s?

[annalane]

Touch the Dark (Audiobook) Reread

Fave Moments:

Ch 5. Karen Chance mentions Marlowe dropping in to visit Mircea at Tony’s in chapter five!!! WHAT.

Ch 8. “You are not human.” It wasn’t a question. 💯 (fave quote)

Ch 9. The men all waiting for Cassie to come out of the bath really makes me laugh. Just imagining all those powerful men like, she wants to clean herself so we have to wait. *Elevator music plays.

Ch. 12. Mircea’s ooc sex scene: So I’ve thought about this a lot. More than is healthy, probably. But maybe...from his POV...he has just learned his little Pythian candidate has paid off! And is sexually attracted to him?!? Well, I guess he figures it’s now time make his gambit and whore himself out in order to save his brother and wife in the future. It was probably even a little bit of a let down that this part of history was repeating itself. Him + sexing up a Pythia hasn’t worked before but at least this one is embedded in his family. It can’t hurt to try again. He has been using his body and seduction in his pursuit and has been acting way more like an incubus than our favorite half demon most of the time. He says “had I known...I would have arranged something more appropriate” meaning her robe outfit but also I think, the entire affair/seduction. He’s acting strange because - it’s an act. This has been something he’s put on for hundreds of years (smh still hurting over that). I think he eventually realizes that Cassie doesn’t want an act or simply orgasms. He has to actually become invested (explaining his more genuine/ttc sex scenes later) before she gives in (and the geis does a lot of that work for them). Plus, I mean, speaking as a completely objective third-party observer with absolutely no personal interest in the matter, I think it’s just a sexy scene. Sex sells, baby.

Also - According to Mircea, Marlowe thinks she might have as devious a mind as him and can’t wait to meet Cassie. Just a fun line from this chapter.

MVP: Tomas for being sexy as hell in his mesh top. And for being touched that Cassie still cares that his face was burned. And for being naive enough to think he could keep Cassie safe if he aligned with Rasp and Tony. [I’m surprised you guys didn’t say ‘Billy’ for finally stopping that Mircass sex sesh]

Unanswered Questions: Was Mircea upset with the idea of LC and Cassie because he planned him to be his daughter’s boyfriend?

Why did we stop calling the mages dark and white knights? I kinda liked that.

Unpopular Opinion: I don’t hate Mircea (at least not in this book). I think he’s hot. I think them discovering their sexual attraction in book one is compelling. It’s so bold and unexpected for them both. They’re in this room with all these other powerful beings who are probably thinking ‘wtf there’s more important stuff going on.’ Rafe is uncomfortable, Pritkin is disgusted, Tomas is jealous, LC is um, there. I know what Mircea is doing is problematic, but in this book he’s honestly the one who treats her best. LC is a goof who acts like she’s a complete wimp. Rafe is probably in a weaker position than she is and sees her as his little Mia Stella anyway. Tomas has been feeding on her without permission making him very possessive and has been in cahoots with the enemy. Pritkin is trying to kill her, calls her and her mother a ho, etc. Mircea is the only one who comes close to seeing her as an equal and is the only one who actually gives her information about her past and the Pythian position (granted it is difficult for her to get it out of him). It makes sense that she finds herself drawn to him, childhood crush or no.

I do think he was grooming her to be a servant like any vampire would to any potential asset in order to create a loyal servant, but not as a sex partner. He says something like, “you were mine since you were 11” and he carries her around like a swaddled baby for almost an entire chapter so I can definitely see the ick factor although I do tend to think he sees her as a trinket/service/a surprise tool that will help him later. I think the interest he was socked with was genuine, despite being geised and despite his ulterior motives. All that being said, I’m still super mad at him and disillusioned with his character (as much as I was rooting for Pritkin, what Mircea did to Cassie - I took that shit personally).

[solembum7]

"Is there anyone in this apartment who hasn't seen me naked?"

"I genuinely hope so Cassandra."

Hunt the moon, Karen Chance

[redorblue]

Mircea and family loyalty

(spoilers for Shadow’s Bane)

I already mentioned in my general review of Shadow’s Bane that this book contains my least favourite Mircea scene in both the Cassie and the Dory books. It’s the one after the fight at the Consul’s palace, where he tries to talk Dory into banishing Dorina again, permanently this time. For Dory, this scene serves as a catalyst on her way to understanding how Dorina must have felt all these years, finally making her see that Dorina has never, in fact, hated her or been the bloodthirsty monster that Dory made her out to be. Looking at it from the perspective of someone who’d love to see Dory and Dorina bonding, this sudden burst of protectiveness from Dory for her twin is heartwarming. For someone who loves Mircea and wants to see him on the right side of an argument (as defined by the story, and also ethics), this scene made me cringe more than any other so far. He has been shitty towards other characters before, but all his questionable actions came from his deep sense of loyalty for a specific group of people - his blood family, his vamp family, maybe the Senate - and were sometimes fueled by incomplete information. In this case, however, it seems to me that he has all the facts (maybe even more so than Dory because he has more experience with vamp nature and knows how bad the situation was before he put up the wall) and he still wants to take action against Dorina, who is his daughter just as much as Dory is, and who therefore belongs to his innermost circle of people for whom he feels responsible and whom he owes loyalty. Why?

As I see it, there are two reasons. First of all, Mircea harbours a deep hatred for his vampire nature. It’s pretty obvious in his little speech during his and Dory’s discussion in chapter 49:

“We vampires have no choice but to blend our two natures, to come to equilibrium or to go mad - and some do. Unable to reconcile the monstrous part of themselves that every human has, but that every human does not have to feed. We cannot hide from what we are; we have to prey on others to survive. But we cannot give in to it utterly, or we risk becoming the monsters we are so often thought to be. It is a constant balancing act and there are times - oh, yes, there are times - when we would love to banish one part or the other.”

Horatiu even calls him out on it directly in chapter 27, accusing Mircea of not being able to accept what he is because his turning into a vampire indirectly lead to Elena’s death and Dory/Dorina’s abandonment (as a side not, I’ll be using the name Doryna when talking about the two of them because this whole backslash thing is too awkward). This self-blaming is, of course, a natural reaction after going through a traumatic incident which he really couldn’t have influenced at the time, but just because it comes from the emotional side of the brain rather than the rational one doesn’t mean that it feels less true.

Mircea’s attitude towards vampirism is radically different from that of other vamps: instead of seeing it as a blessing, a higher state of being, a superior race, he treats it as a sickness, a curse that is threatening to corrupt his positive character traits by forcing him to satisfy his negative ones. Which, again, makes sense considering how he came to be a vampire in the first place, but it leads him to automatically associate being human with moral (if not physical) superiority. So when confronted with Doryna’s life-threatening fits, which are clearly the results of Dorina straining against the constraints of sharing a body with Dory, he automatically sides with Dory, whom he pictures as what Doryna should have been were it not for his “illness”. Dorina, however, is the direct result of said illness, which not only violently upended his entire life, but is now threatening to take away the “better” part of his daughter, too.

I don’t think that he doesn’t love Dorina - there are a few scenes where he’s quite affectionate with her, and anyways it’s hard to compare this to how he behaves with Dory because all the memories that we have as evidence come from Dorina - but when he’s faced with the choice of saving one of them at the expense of the other or risking both of them dying, his instinct tells him to choose Dory. The fact that it’s the only pragmatic choice, the only one with any chance of helping Doryna, may have influenced his decision, too, but I’m pretty sure that his own issues with his condition played a big part in his decision to separate his daughter’s two natures.

Skip forward 500 years, and he’s faced with a very similar problem: putting Dorina back in her cell, or risking her taking over their body entirely, which would lead to Dory not being imprisoned, but killed. His old biases against Dorina, fueled by his resentment towards vampirism, are still very much there, as evidenced by the speech I quoted above where he calls it his monstrous side. Add to that that he had 500 years to get to know Dory (however fraught their relationship might be) and hear accounts of what Dorina is capable of when she slips her leash, and it’s not surprising that he sides with the more human version of his daughter yet again. He doesn’t want to kill Dorina any more than he did back then - fortunately, although I guess that would have been an option now, too - but if he has to pick one of them, it’s sure as hell going to be Dory. His loyalties are clearly split here, but for the above-mentioned reasons Dory ranks higher on his list of priorities than Dorina does, and one of them dying is a lot worse than one of them being imprisoned, so he’s going to throw his full weight into protecting Dory, even though doing so comes at the expense of significantly reducing Dorina’s quality of life (on a sidenote, this is an explanation for a good part of the incidents when he’s a prick towards Cassie. It’s not that she’s not important to him; only that other people rank higher among his personal priorities than she does).

Second, Mircea really isn’t the type to just fly by the seat of his pants. At some point in Shadow’s Bane, Dory points out that he always has plans A through E in place before he attempts to do anything, and he hates not being in control of events. This is probably as much due to personality as to life experiences: He was brought up to be a leader, the one in charge who’s responsible for the people around him, and the one time he wasn’t in control, everything went to hell around him - something he’s been trying to turn around ever since, as evidenced by his obsession with bringing Elena back to life and basically turning back the clock as much as is reasonably possible.

So it’s understandable, if not exactly commendable, that he’s become a bit of a control freak over the years, which sometimes leads him to rush into things prematurely as soon as an opportunity takes shape instead of waiting how things play out and collecting more information. This is exactly what happens here: he’s painfully aware of a problem - the possibility of Dory dying - and as soon as a possible solution presents itself, he pounces on it, because he’s the one who is supposed to fix things. Especially to keep people from dying, and especially to keep his daughter from dying, whom he has forsaken before (not really, but in his mind) and who is his last living connection to Elena. It may be a risk, but no one has ever accused Mircea of not being decisive enough, and judging from the information he’s got, it would be a much bigger risk to wait and see if Dorina - monstrous Dorina, mad Dorina - might take pity on Dory, the daughter he should have had. Which is too much of a gamble for someone like him, especially when the stakes are this high and the drawbacks at least bearable, and a lot less final than the alternative. Just as 500 years earlier, he picks what he thinks is the least bad option.

Unlike 500 years earlier, however, his daughter gets a say in the decision. It’s this confrontation that makes it clear to Dory that Dorina is, in fact, not the monster everyone (including herself) made her out to be, but someone worth protecting. And as much as I love Mircea and understand his reasoning regarding this dilemma, in this case I’m very glad that he didn’t get his way and that he got proven wrong by the narrative. It doesn’t mean that his actions were necessarily a mistake when Doryna was a child; but it does mean that you can’t always fall back on previous decisions when faced with new situations. It does mean that you have to learn from past experiences. And in this scene, Dory rises up to do just that.

[eninkahootz]

Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: The Originals (TV), The Vampire Diaries (TV), Cassandra Palmer Series - Karen Chance Rating: Explicit Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Klaus Mikaelson/Mircea Basarab Characters: Klaus Mikaelson, Mircea Basarab Additional Tags: Crossover, Anal Sex, Blood Drinking, Vampires, Sculpture, Art, Anal Fingering, Porn, Romance Summary:

Mircea, a powerful vampire in an Alternate Universe, enthusiastically enjoys watching Klaus make one of his wood carvings.

[urbanfantasies]

“I tried to find help,” he told me. “But there was no one to help. No one who knew enough about dhampirs to tell me anything. Everywhere I went, the message was the same: she will not live. They never live. Do her a kindness and end her life, before the process drives her mad—and she ends the lives of everyone around her!”

His eyes flashed amber bright, as they usually did only when his power was surging, and his face stuck on a snarl. He looked angry, suddenly, furious, as I’d rarely seen him. I didn’t envy whoever it was who had told him that.

I didn’t say anything, but he turned on me anyway. “But you were Mine. My child. And I would not give you up.”

[emberfaye]

I updated!

Set immediately after Ride the Storm. Cassie attempts to settle things with the men in her life.

[pritkinsprettydick]

A Mircass Breakup Playlist

(via https://open.spotify.com/user/sunnydaleslut/playlist/3EoqOGIx7o6VfLiGKvxEKr) 

Sorry by Beyonce - Middle fingers up, put them hands high / Wave it in his face, tell him boy, bye

The Chain by Fleetwood Mac - Listen to the wind blow, down comes the night / Running in the shadows, damn your love, damn your lies

The Last Song by Sleater-Kinney - I don’t owe you anything / I’m not part of you

Oh Bondage, Up Yours! by X-ray Spex - Bind me, tie me, chain me to a wall / I wanna be a slave to you all / Oh bondage, up yours / Oh bondage, no more

Flawless*** by Beyonce - I took some time to live my life / But don’t think I’m just his little wife / Don’t get it twisted, get it twisted / This my shit, bow down bitches

Womanizer by Britney Spears - You can play brand new to / All the other chicks out here / But I know what you are / What you are, baby

Shitlist by L7 - You’ve made my shitlist

You Don’t Own me by Lesley Gore - You don’t own me / I’m not just one of your many toys / You don’t own me / Don’t say I can’t go with other boys

Run the World (Girls) by Beyonce - See, you better not play me / Don’t come here, baby / Hope you still like me / F U Pay Me

[freespeechfandom-blog]

On Mircea’s RtS note and threat

Just a highlight from my earlier longer post, because ain’t nobody got time fo’ dat, but I think this is an important consideration in assessing Mircea’s implied blackmail in his gift to Cassie at the end of RtS, and as usual see bold for the tl;dr version, lol.

The claim:

I already argued in my other posts that his actions aren’t villainous, but as for the actual threat, I’d argue that not much of a threat at all.  Why? Isn’t it obviously blackmail? Isn’t it a direct threat on somebody that he knows Cassie loves? Isn’t that evil? Well, see below, this is why:

The argument:

1) He isn’t threatening Pritkin. He could, but he isn’t. As a 600 yo Senator, first-level vampire, master of many vamps and the owner of the hotel where Pritkin is passed out. So what’s the big threat, this oh-so-evil blackmail attempt? He tells Cassie that he will let others know who Pritkin is. Wait what? Yeah that’s it. He’s not threatening to inflict harm on him, he’s not threatening to impale him until he squirms to death over three days so Cassie can know the fate that Elena had to go through. (And lol, I know, that’s extreme, just making a point; plus that’s more like the threat I’d expect from an allegedly vicious vampire with ‘Basarab ruthlessness’ as Marlowe puts it).

2) So it isn’t about doing something extraordinary; it’s about offering to refuse to do something regular. Wait what? Yeah it sounds weird but that’s it. Mircea isn’t threatening to do something extraordinary to Pritkin unless Cassie complies, he is offering to not tell the Senate about Pritkin as he normally would if Cassie helps him. The identity of Merlin? A potential game-changing figure in the magical community, in the middle of a war no less? A valuable strategic info that the vampires now are aware of? Hell yes they would pounce on that, you can almost hear Kit salivating at the thought, lol. And Mircea is offering to go against what he would normally would do, what everybody expects him to do, and instead keep it quiet.

3) So is he using somebody Cassie loves against her to get what he wants? Yes, but not like that. If Cassie wasn’t in the picture at all, you can bet that Pritkin’s identity would become a pawn in the Senate’s strategy calculations at the first opportunity. But Mircea knows Cassie cares about Pritkin, therefore his telling or not telling the Senate holds value for her. He didn’t single out Pritkin as the pressure point to inflict the most damage on Cassie, his knowledge of Pritkin just happens to be an asset that he would normally pass on, but is now holding onto.

The conclusion:

So it’s not ‘Do that thing or I will do this thing!’ more like ‘I’d normally do this thing, but since it matters to you, how about a trade?’ Therefore, the whole note situation is far closer to being a ‘favor for a favor’ rather than an evil blackmail or threat.

Appendix:

So the above is the gist of why I suggest that the terrible mean blackmail isn’t all that mean or terrible. In my other post I also addressed a few more things of note that I won’t go go into too much here, because I think the above is enough. But I’m inlcuding them in a short from as it might be also useful to note that:

4) Cassie already agreed to save Elena in exchange for Tears, so she showed that she’s do it, they are just negotiating the price now, and Mircea is offering the next thing of value that he has. 5) Not to mention Mircea has no allegiance to Pritkin and owes no loyalty to keeping his secrets, nor should be expected to put Cassie’s love for Pritkin above his own feelings and his family’s and organization’s interests. 6) And as for why he wouldn’t try to talk it out instead of making a deal for it, Cassie wasn’t interested in talking and bailed on him even when he was telling her things as she asked for so long. 7) The fact that his connection to Cassie put a target on his back and that he is now made to lead the charge into hostile territory also limits his time to look for alternatives, he needs a yes before he passes the point of no return. 8) Even besides the war, Mircea also expressed that Cassie is his last chance, so if even she says no then he would be hopeless to ever get a yes, so it’s an all or nothing last shot at accomplishing his obsessive quest of saving Elena.

So considering all that, a last-ditch attempt from an allegedly ruthless vampire on the verge of a suicide mission, offering secrecy in exchange for Elena is really not that bad at all is it. 

[grimmwatson]

Spoilers

Guys help me out!! I was just reading some Q and A in Karen's website in regards to RtS and she says there was subtle clue in there that gave the information Mircea needed to figure out who Pritkin was. I've done a reread and I'm still missing it! What page is it on????