#pope duretti

[trupicamasncai]

IT'S COMING!!!!!!!!!

[juodojimirtis]

Warrior Nun characters as latin quotes

Ava: Aut viam inveniam aut faciam (I shall either find a way, or make one)

Lilith: Veni, Vidi, Vici (I came, I saw, I conquered)

Adriel: Flectere si nequeo Superos, Acheronta movebo (If I cannot bend Heaven, I will raise Hell)

Beatrice: Amor omnia vincit (love conquers all)

Mother Superion: Si vis pacem, para bellum (if you desire peace, prepare for war)

Camila: In omnia paratus (ready for everything)

Yasmine: Fores fortuna adiuvat (Fortune favors the brave)

Jillian: Sapere aude (dare to know)

Michael: Non est ad astra mollis e terris via (there is no easy way from the earth to the stars)

Mary: Familia ante omnia (family over all)

Areala: Non desistas non exieris (never give up, never surrender)

Vincent: Igne natura renovatur integra (through fire, nature is reborn whole)

Duretti: Et tu, Brute? (You also, Brutus?)

Reya: Fiat lux! (let there be light!)

Kristian: Tantum religio potuit saudere malorum (To such heights of evil has religion been able to drive men)

Shannon: Ubi amor, ibi dolor (where there is love, there is pain)

[beastsovrevelation]

I made another one of these

[autistickhunsam]

Duretti breaking the sixth commandment.

[foryourmajesty]

Day 8 : Church I'll worship like a dog at the shrine of your lies

[theseventeenstairs]

Turns out I still have a lot more thoughts on an Innocent XIV papacy in the world of Warrior Nuns beyond the sister warriors debating the political climate of the papal election as if it was US presidential election (or that I just want to see Camilla having violent, murderous thoughts against Tedesco)

But let’s backtrack a bit first to the Pope before this Conclave, especially for those not familiar with the Warrior Nun universe. First just for clarity’s sake, the late pope here refers to the movie’s dead pope and Duretti refers to the character in Warrior Nun that I will put as the supreme pontiff after him and before Vincent Benitez (neither of them has their papal name stated and it’s driving me up the wall). I find out it is also impossible to first talk about the POV of Lawrence as the events unfold in WN s2. (...this is part 1, I have abandoned the idea of writing everything out in one post and even this is long)

Imagine Thomas Lawrence, still recovering from his treatment and surgery prostate cancer, has to hear from the nurses that the Pope has passed away peacefully in his sleep. The man, who refused his resignation and told him that he was not done as the manager, didn’t even give him enough time to get well enough before shuffling off this mortal coil. Lawrence is angry at himself for being so weak and disappointing, then angry at the late pope for saddling him with this responsibility that he couldn’t even perform, then angry at himself again for being angry at a dead man. He prayed, and nothing answered back. The head nurse tutted at him the next morning when she saw the enormous dark circles under his eyes and informed him he has a visitor.

Cardinal Francesco Duretti. His smile was condescending and his words of asking after his health empty, almost talking too fast as if he wanted to get to the point and be done with it, which was Lawrence was still too weak for the arduous proceeding that would be the Conclave. He knew that of course and maintaining the stiff upper lip the English was renowned for, suggested that Aldo Bellini would be a good person to take charge of organising the Conclave. Duretti didn’t say anything and Lawrence only realised then that he was being excluded from the entire election. By the time he had recovered from the shock, Duretti was already gone, leaving behind the ghost of his hand on Lawrence’s shoulders and that vague promise that ‘we will take care of everything, don’t worry Thomas’. Insufferable, the man and the situation.

A month and a day later, they have a new Pope. By then, Lawrence had already been discharged and can walk around unassisted so he chose to slum in his apartment in Rome, at the edge of the Vatican — so close to the action yet so far away— watching the TV in horror as Duretti walked out the Apostolic Palace in papal vestments. Look what happened when you are not there, he muttered to himself. He turned off the TV in a fit of spite and the whole room suddenly shook. Earthquake? Or God’s punishment for his self-centred thoughts. He turned the TV back on hastily and it was an explosion, right next to the St Peter's Basilica. The live TV stream cut off then.

He heard from Ray later, explained in hushed tone and hurried words, that the explosion was from beneath the Vatican and that a being, Adriel, emerged to declare himself an angel to save mankind. Before Ray hung up, he urged Lawrence to stay away from the Vatican until the situation clears up. Lawrence wondered if it was an order from Duretti.

He found out the next day Ray was transferred to Poland.

Still, an angel? He was a religious man but everything had to have a limit.

Prayers had been difficult ever since his diagnosis but two months later, being alone with little human interaction, it had been even more of a labour. He might as well been yelling at the sky like the old man he was and yielded approximately the same result. Which was none whatsoever. He dared not call anyone least they followed Ray’s footstep in exile. The news provided no insight except for the manifesto of the so-called Firstborn Children, claiming to be the bearers of Adriel’s miracles and coverting any living soul that would hear them. He stopped wearing his clerical collar when he went out for groceries, he will not be identified as the likes of them. He also didn’t know how much longer he could take this…limbo. No dismissal, but also no call for action.

(He really hoped his actual retirement would not be this way.)

He didn’t pray on it but it was answered anyway, in the most violent way possible. Aldo, appearing in his doorway, covered head to toe with blood, the rusty scent knocked Lawrence sideways. A heavily-sugared tea later and Lawrence carefully wiping away the crusting fluid from his friend’s face, he heard how Duretti has called for a meeting among the Cardinal Bishops and explained to them the danger Adriel posed to the whole world, how it immediately went to hell: brothers turning on each other, a blood bath which saw the loss of ten of their brothers and betrayal of more. Duretti escaped by the skin of his teeth (saved by a…nun with a sword as a cane? Aldo’s mind must be addled by the shock) and Wozniak pulled Bellini out of the room before someone noticed one of the side doors were never locked. He has gone back to his homeland of Poland to shake off anyone who might be coming after them.

Aldo was now officially in hiding and Lawrence, realised way too late, that he was too, had been in this state since Duretti’s election. He went out less, bought more supplies every time, and tried his very best to care for his oldest friend while he was turning into a shadow of himself in fear and self-hatred. Lawrence had no time for prayer.

Duretti died. They didn’t hear it from an acquaintance or on the news. They watched it happen, on a livestream available to the entire world. The Pope stood bravely against the heretic and was struck down by an actual bolt of lightning. Lawrence gasped out loud and Aldo squeezed his hand so hard that he didn’t feel like it belong to him anymore. He might not like Duretti but no one deserved a gruesome and public death like that. Part of him was still thinking about procedures, about the next conclave [no seriously, how does one announce sede vacante when the body is doing a great impression of the bottom of a charcoal grill?] and he was disgusted with himself.

After that night, the sky turned golden and the light outside burns. Neither of them can go out (not that Aldo had even stepped out of his room after that night) and Lawrence feared that this was going to be the end but something in him told him to try anyway, to stretch his hand out towards the window, even if it felt like he was plunging his hand into scalding water every morning he tried. Hope and despair all mixed into one, alive, but in so much pain.

Then a week later, the sky cleared up and he could go out without every synapse in him light up in agony. His phone rang for the first time in months. Adriel had disappeared, the Dean of the College of Cardinals and the Secretary of State were needed. If they weren’t already in those position during the late Pope’s tenure, the massacre that Aldo escaped had ensured that they were now the two most senior cardinals in the world.

They went to the Vatican City (no one mentioned it took Lawrence almost a day to convinced Aldo it's safe to be out) and the hostility was thick in the air, no one can be trusted and everyone was suspicious of everyone else but themselves. Lawrence had never been so happy and relieved to see Ray and Wozniak waiting for them in the foyer of Casa Santa Marta. So relieved that his first reaction was to hug Ray but he was hugged back just as fiercely so no one said anything. He had to thank Janusz for saving Aldo when he had the chance, he reminded himself.

They retreated to the Late Pope’s room to discuss. No one had bothered to unseal the room after Duretti was elected (he lived at the Apostolic Palace so he didn’t need the room, big surprise) and with everything that followed, it’s not like anyone was staying at the Vatican. Turned out Ray and Janusz had found each other in Warsaw and they tried to gather as many information they could under the circumstances. Actual demon possession was a thing now and there was no way of knowing who was possessed until they showed their true colour and by then it’d too late.

The public and gruesome of Duretti had caused the global crisis of faith, all dioceses were haemorrhaging believers and priests alike, some churches were abandoned outright. The UK was in complete disarray, no least because the Archbishop of Cantebury had ‘vanished’ after a meeting that Duretti called. One look at Aldo’s shudder and the knowing look shared between Aldo and Janusz at the mention of his name and everyone knew of his fate. There were faint noise of the IRA planning a come back and Lawrence already had the first few lines of the press release drafted in his head because shaking them off.

There were a power vacuum in the Universal Church, not just the Vatican and they need a new leader like, yesterday.

So Thomas Lawrence, Dean of the College of Cardinals, had a Conclave to organise.

[thegroundhogdidit]

yeah yeah warrior nun s2 is a little catholic propaganda-y but also they did deep fry the pope live and on camera sooo

[wnincorrect]

Pope Duretti: Ava Silva, how do you plead?

Ava: In my defense, your honor, I simply do not vibe with the law. Unfortunately for everyone, I will keep doing whatever the fuck I want.

Camila: Yeah!

Mother Superion: Camila!

[sisterdivinium]

[this was originally posted at femslashfete for the "beg" prompt]

All hell is breaking loose around them: the pope is a pile of cooling ash, fried to death during a global broadcast; an already weakened OCS risks losing even more of its elite warriors as it continues to fight a false angel who is always one step ahead; and even sunlight becomes a curse upon the flesh of those brave few who have not bowed down to Adriel's cult. In the midst of it all, Lilith pauses her battle against Ava and asks her to join her cause.

Why?

If momentarily, Lilith has the upper hand. Ava is skewered to the side, with a sword stuck all the way through her middle, and the battleground was one Lilith chose, her own ancestral home with which she is deeply acquainted. Up until this point, Lilith has not demonstrated a great inclination to ask — she obeys, such as when Duretti has her track Ava down regardless of costs or morals; she demands, whether by “requesting silence” of Camila or teleporting her way into Jillian’s estate without patience; and she even whimpers and cries in Mary’s arms when they are by the tomb, but how often do we see Lilith beg? Even as Adriel drives his fingers into her eyes, she does not plead for mercy.

Perhaps begging seems too strong a word to describe her last attempt at winning Ava over. Perhaps Lilith is only trying to use a language which, foreign to her, could resonate with Ava’s disposition, stubborn as she is, uninclined to obey just because someone stronger and meaner said so. Fighting costs stamina and time, precious time, and the sooner Adriel can get ahead in the “holy war”, the better, so if words can more easily and more quickly attract the halo and its bearer to his camp, well, it’s worth a shot, right?

Except Lilith had already eschewed diplomacy and opted for aggression first of all. The time to talk would have been atop Adriel’s cathedral, before Duretti is killed, when first Ava looks upon Lilith after her defection and the more radical changes in her body are visible.

Instead, they fight. Instead, Lilith makes use of the halo’s malfunctioning to get a few good blows in, whether physical or emotional, what with her little spiel on breaking free from her frustrated goals when Ava took her place as the warrior nun. Now, unlike Ava, she is free of expectations and responsibilities.

But is she? Has Lilith shed her past self as she has been shedding skin for her multiplying scales? Can she — or anyone?

If rejecting her mother, the plans that had been made by the same woman, and even the OCS, which was arguably the thing that had given Lilith’s life all its meaning, if rejecting all of this is a way to reject who she was, why return to her family home for her showdown with Ava? Why choose a place central to the past she is renouncing? Strange would be the prisoner who, shortly after a successful jailbreak, decided to rush back into that same jail, now with a friend in tow.

When Lilith crumbles in Mary’s arms, she is vulnerable. She opens up, if only a little (“you said I was heartless”). Amid the mess and the violence, Lilith chooses to open up to Ava, too. It’s not Superion or Beatrice or Camila or Mary or even Adriel himself, who has helped her “see reality”, whom she takes home, to the centre of her wounded intimacy. It’s Ava.

Ava gets to witness the trinkets of medieval times, symbols of the burden Lilith must carry as a member of her family, so profuse in warrior nuns along the centuries — a burden they share, as Ava must bear the halo and correspond to others’ ideas of her without a real say in the matter. They are equivalent, they are the same even despite all their differences, the same value but inverted. Both have fates tied to the halo, terrible and overbearing, only now Ava has that circle on her back and Lilith boasts of that strange but also “open” pattern upon her chest, as some sort of negative halo.

Back in season one, when Lilith tries to cut Ava open to retrieve the object that defines the OCS perhaps more than the cruciform sword itself, she has Ava pinned down, face on the ground. She doesn’t hesitate as she plunges the divinium blade into the reticent halobearer’s back, her inferior, unworthy even of actual direct confrontation.

But now, under the sickly glow of Adriel’s cursed light, after Lilith has opened her eyes, Ava is impaled on the sword right where Lilith wanted and they are facing one another, eye in the eye. They are, blood notwithstanding, on the same level.

This isn’t the first time Lilith hurts her. At the Cat’s Cradle, in 1x03, Lilith uses the cruciform sword to slice at Ava’s arm; later, it’s the same weapon she intends to wield against Ava at the orphanage exit; as mentioned, she stabs Ava with a divinium knife before being herself pierced by a tarask. As her body changes, Lilith uses her claws on Ava, drawing blood, and finally pushes her into that sword in her home, leaving her hanging in the air — much like Lilith hung in the air at the end of the tarask’s claw in 1x05. So there is a recurrent theme by which Lilith not only seeks to hurt Ava, but to perforate, penetrate, enter her in what is some pretty sexually aggressive symbolism.

And, as they look upon one another while Ava is traversed by a weapon just as Lilith had been, a twisted mirror image of herself, as if Lilith could recreate her own experience in Ava so as to change her mind by making her feel what she felt, the rogue nun asks her to join her. Lilith has not only shown Ava her past, but replicated it on her — she should be ready to “see reality” too, she should be ready to choose. For, if the halo chose Ava when they were both marked for it, then Ava might just as well choose her, as no one else had ever done, not even Adriel since it was Lilith who approached him.

She has been burnt and passed over enough. Lilith has been made to fight Mary, she has been stabbed by a demon, her body has started to change without her control or her consent… “No more talking” indeed. Lilith wants something new. From the look in her eyes and the intonation Lorena Andrea gives her, Lilith isn’t just playing Ava. She means it. She wants Ava on her side. Adriel is an excuse. She can see they’re on the same level and surely Ava can, too. She’s the agent of change after all, Lilith recognises this — so can’t Ava recognise her?

Hers is the name Lilith calls out when she returns from the dead before she passes out inside ArqTech. Hers are the eyes that look inside Lilith, at her decadent household and past. Hers is the flesh that experiences the pain, the demonic stockade Lilith suffered. It’s not just the halo, it’s Ava or else Lilith wouldn’t waste time asking and she’d just rip the halo out the way she threatens to do at a refusal. Ava must see her, as Adriel supposedly does.

It’s not about him in the end. She barely bats an eyelash when he is defeated. After all, when she opens her eyes, Lilith’s diagnosis is that “this is how Ava sees”. Ava is the parameter, Ava is the prize.

This enemy Lilith has been trying to slice, stab, maim, kill, who conquers her one ally in the world, is the same person she helps to save as she aids Beatrice in taking a mortally injured Ava to the ark, to the portal “to the other side”, the only way to save her. Even after Ava denies her and hurts her further, Lilith ultimately helps her.

Ava and Beatrice might be the canon couple, but this ambiguous and potent connection between Lilith and Ava, as they skirt around one another in a dance that has them alternating between foes and friends at the erratic beat of the drum, was likely to electrify coming seasons of the show, had it not been cancelled. It’s indeed surprising to realise Ava/Lilith isn’t as popular a ship as one might assume it would be given the dynamics contained within. There are certainly many elements to explore between them.

Perhaps, had their relationship been graced with a few more episodes to keep developing in its intriguing spiral pattern of attraction and repulsion, it would be one more of the myriad reasons why so many fans have not gotten over Netflix’s decision and so continue, themselves, to beg for more.

[daisychainsandbowties]

Soooo... what are your thoughts on a split in the OCS after the events of Season 1? I mean, Ava wasn't super popular in the OCS/those in-the-know since she was "the one who ran away", and Beatrice and Cam essentially went rogue when they helped her escape Crimson at the Cat's Cradle. So why would anyone believe her telling them that Adriel and his story were all a lie, when he himself is there claiming to be an Angel, returned to save humanity? (it's not like they can see the wraith demons at his command)

Duretti (if he doesn't bury his head in the ground) and Superion can support Ava's claims, but it's still the word of a non-believer against the guy centuries worth of their teachings claim is an angel.

It would also make the massacre of the OCS members even more devastating if their numbers had already been whittled down due to divided loyalties, only to have those who remained loyal to the Warrior Nun be slaughtered by double agents who truly believed in Adriel.

(also, felt it was kinda weird when pretty much all the uniformed FBC people were dudes)

(furthermore thinking on how much would've been added if Lilith's family sided with Adriel, and how much that would have influenced her decisions)

god this is so intriguing. when you think about it… the whole Lore of the ocs is based on the angel Adriel giving up his halo to save a dying human woman. if he wants it back… well, who are they to deny him? and thinking on the temptation to have it be over. most of the ocs have watched their friends die, their sisters thrown at the problem of evil until they’re no longer useful cannon-fodder.

god’s angel appears and tells you to put down your sword… damn, maybe that’s what you do.

on the other hand i feel like… probably out of everyone on the planet it’s the ocs sisters who’d have reason to side-eye adriel the hardest. sure, ava’s an unknown, but mother superion? mary? beatrice the golden child of the ocs? of course looking at it a different way what you have is a disgraced ex-halo-bearer, a usurping non-believer, and beatrice who was sent away by duretti & refused to go. sure, duretti is the pope, but individual orders obey the vatican in theory, but in practice things are more complex. and for the ocs, who have always acted as a shadow organisation, the ability to… well… disregard vatican oversight is probably a baked-in thing.

i feel like the split would be extreme. those who want to believe in adriel vs those who are dedicated to the mission: to keep hell the fuck off of earth, keep people safe from the influence of demons.

there’s good reason to be skeptical of adriel’s claims. he was buried under the vatican, the latin on the wall said ‘please don’t touch this ever. let what’s dead rest’ etc etc. seemed like just a thing you might put on a tomb, but the whole 'live specimen inside' thing might give pause. either we believe that st peter gives what the vatican decides legitimacy or we trust an angel as the unilateral word of god. the bible says maybe don’t do that.

ESPECIALLY if they saw footage of Adriel infecting a whole courtyard of bystanders with demons, i think most of the ocs would trust in what duretti & superion told them. god can speak from the mouth of a heretic (ava), and there’s plenty of ammunition in catholic theology for fallen angels/ agents of the devil/ the devil usually comes in disguise.

they know that Bad Shit is leaking in from some hellscape (most of them likely assume it’s captial-letter Hell) and now the long-lost author of their order appears and attacks (apparently kills) mary in broad daylight? they might be devout but they’re also in the know in a way that few people are, and i think the ocs by its nature is insular. i think mostly these girls come for the service to god & stay for each other, die for each other.

a schism is certainly possible (ahem, not unprecedented in christianity) but i think the ocs sisters trust each other. i think the way that mary died might move them. vincent’s betrayal too. does that look like the work of god? again, immense skepticism over any person claiming to be a mouthpiece for god.

BUT i see you about the idea that literally a handful of traitors would be enough. and that feels so plausible as to be almost guaranteed. sisters tired of fighting a battle of attrition with their bodies, ppl like crimson, the ones who just want it to be over. we really only learn that the ocs was compromised (and i’m inclined to think not by vincent because damn guys u would have done the smart thing & called bust on every safe-house vincent knew about, right??)

the idea that the way the ocs tosses spent sisters aside leads to its near-annihilation is… compelling.

& 🫠 lilith’s family turning on the ocs. i mean, they’d be hand-in-hand with lilith there, no? she sides with adriel. really & truly she IS our example of a girl who is all but tossed aside when she’s not useful. lost, alone, feeling monstrous, she turns to adriel because he can bear to look at her.

you’re so right that there’s so much to be said for the ocs as an organisation that literally chews up & spits out its soldiers. it’s a war machine & so despite superion & shannon & mary trying so hard to make it human and caring and good - i mean, the institution is… well… an Institution. it doesn’t have a heart.

& i think that’s what ava brings to it, what she shows them. that

1. you have to try to stop the cycle of violence. you have to at least try.

and 2. making an army out of lost girls is dangerous. like bea, they’ll throw themselves at danger; like lilith, they’ll throw themselves at death.

just… thinking of shannon & her ghost. how angry she is at the whole circus. of mary & her quiet sadness, so long in the making that her sorrow feels worn even when it’s new.

thinking of ava as a thesis in how you really fight back the darkness

by being the light

[trupicamasncai]

hiiii halo bearers, how y'all doing? it's been a while since i posted something about warrior nun and tbh i made this account just for that :(

I miss those days

[juodojimirtis]

Most breathtaking scenes in "Warrior Nun" 》》》 Destruction of Duretti (Isaiah 40:31)

[beastsovrevelation]

Because the writing is going slowly again

[cursedextrovert]

TW: torture 

A little writing based on @shy-forceghost’s prompt: Tortured!Bea dreams of Ava whenever she passes out.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

People fantasise about the past when life gets heavy. Life is perceived as more straightforward in nostalgia because you did not remember the precision of what has happened. Beatrice does too, in her days of being captive. She fantasises about her childhood when life was watching sunset on the balcony while her father was having his afternoon tea. When she was still Bethany the prodigy child, having her life drawn out for her. 

However, darkness is a tricky thing and good memories can only work so far when water is pumping through your nose to replace the oxygen you so desperately needed and your captor’s voice booming:

“Foolish little girl. You’re sacrificing yourself to a faceless god represented by a shadow organisation that only cares about power and reputation. You must be more naive than I thought If you truly believe that If you died here today, or worse, getting permanently disabled, that they would even remember your name. You are worth nothing to them outside the information you could have given to us.” 

Darkness is the absence of light. And in the cell where they tore her fingers apart, there’s no light. 

The nostalgic narrative switches with every wheezing breath she is trying to catch, to the day her parents found out she is no longer the child they wanted, that she has dared to imagine a future holding a gentle woman's hand, meeting a woman’s lips with her own. They have called her names, everything but her own given name, repeated with precision by her captors. 

“An abomination” 

“A plague”

The emotional pain takes over, and her torture seems almost deserving. 

A blowing pain on the cheekbone knocks her out and the area where the pipe is in contact with her skin, as she seeps into unconsciousness, transitions to Ava’s warm hand chasing her constellations. 

Warm brown eyes captivated her senses.

“Beatrice. What you are is beautiful” 

“Ava Silva” 

Cold water brings her back to a colder world. 

“Who is Ava Silva?” 

Beatrice has said Ava’s name out loud. She has betrayed Ava. The physical pain feels good. 

“Look up everything about Ava Silva.” 

“There is one person name Ava Silva. 19. She died at St. Michael’s orphanage, there is a Church near there that used to be under the direct order of Pope Duretti.” 

No! That’s her Ava! She’s only 19. She has too much to live for. Now she’s going to die because of her.

The captor whispers in her ears, his breath hot like her inevitable damnation - “Thank you for the information, dearest Beatrice. I think the Church will definitely rescue a traitor like you maybe sometime soon. Oh, If only you have worshipped the right God.” 

She is, Beatrice thinks as her nerves become apathetic and mercury guilt seeps into her vein. 

Her God’s punishment is always fair.  

[wordsmith30]

Warrior Nun Rewatch 1×09-1×10

Our rebel Sister Warriors infiltrate the Vatican to steal the bones from Adriel’s tomb. This is Ava’s first big mission and everything has come down to this. She is already fumbling along while Beatrice tries to keep her in line.

“Trust your team.”

While casting their votes for the new Pope, Duretti’s Divinium ring lights up. He alerts the other nuns that Ava is here.

Mother Superion joins their fight and Ava learns that she was previously a Warrior Nun. Ava’s shocked as, to her knowledge, no Warrior Nun lives to see their successor. But the Halo rejected Mother Superion.

There’s so much pain in Superion’s face at the memory. So much shame.

I couldn’t help but think of how honour was/is valued in ancient civilizations and other institutions. In Ancient Greece specifically, a soldier’s worth was determined by their accolades: how many kills they had on the battlefield, how many war prizes they took, how many cities they plundered. Honour was represented by material things that could be taken away at any time. Their ultimate goal was to die on the battlefield in a blaze of glory so that bards would sing their names and stories forever. That was immortality.

To return home empty-handed or to fail in the line of duty was a fate worse than death. You lived the rest of your days in shame. No title. No riches. No recognition.

Unless you got the chance to prove yourself again. In defecting from Duretti and the institution for Ava and her team, Mother Superion takes the first step towards redemption. Her failure propels her towards a different choice: putting the welfare of her girls before a man’s consolidation of power.

She tells Ava that she should’ve listened to Vincent. Ava is worthy. And the tenderness Ava shows her by readjusting her habit is a beautiful moment of respect, one that says the same thing Mary says to Lilith: “I see you.”

Ava is not happy to learn that Beatrice brought backup explosives just in case Ava can’t do the job.

“You don’t think I can do this.”

Given that Beatrice has been the one training her, it feels like a very singular “You” here. The two of them have already developed quite a bond in their short time together, so Ava cares about Beatrice’s opinion. To find this out on the “homestretch” of their journey is quite a slap in the face.

“I know you can do this. We all do,” Beatrice says. “We’re just not certain you will do this. Being a team player isn’t exactly your forte. You do what’s best for Ava: flight, not fight. That’s where your instincts lie.”

It’s accurate, if not difficult to hear. And it’s eerily similar to the argument they have in 2×02 where Beatrice says that Ava just does whatever she wants.

But Ava is determined to prove her wrong this time. 

“But things change when you realize not everything’s about you.”

This brings a smile to Beatrice’s face. Ava is putting the mission first.

And we even get the same cross imagery on the wall behind Ava when Beatrice uses the projector to measure the tomb.

Lilith, meanwhile, is back at the lab with Jillian and keeping close to herself. Jillian realizes that Lilith can teleport and has regenerative healing abilities, but before she can confront her, she sees her heading to Michael’s room.

Michael is drawing pictures of Adriel. He tells Lilith that she’s too late. Ava’s already at the door.

Lilith races to the Vatican to stop them. She’s the only one who knows the truth: that they’re about to release the devil.

After taking out Crimson once and for all, she engages Ava and Beatrice in the crypt. Mary shows up and restrains her, talking her down.

If only they had known. They were sending Ava into a death trap.

They learn as well while she’s moving through the wall that the Tarasks are the original source of Divinium, not Adriel’s armour. Beatrice surmises that they were coming for the bones, too, but it’s actually a step further. They were after Adriel himself for his crimes against Reya.

Ava is terrified when she gets there. Her comms have cut out and her flashlight goes dark. She’s trapped and alone, and there are no bones waiting for her. Instead, it’s the real villain of our story: Adriel.

Feels a lot like the ambush in season two, doesn’t it? 😭

The thing that makes Adriel such a compelling villain in 1×10 is that he tells us things that sound very believable. Especially in an institution like the Catholic church, we’re very familiar with corruption. We know all too well how men vie for power. It’s not hard to imagine the church imprisoning Adriel for their own gain or making Areala their pawn. And Adriel tells Ava that he doesn’t even blame Areala.

But the part that got me the most was him explaining that he was never blind to the human world. All the pieces of his armour are connected to him; through them, he can see and hear what’s going on in the outside world. And because all the Divinium in the OCS’ possession came from his armour, all their information goes back to the same person.

It’s not Divinium in general that allows people to connect to Adriel. It’s the pieces of his armour. That finally explains why Adriel was always a step ahead of them in season two! He didn’t need to possess Camila to infiltrate their base of operations. Ava had his Divinium sword strapped to her back! He would’ve heard everything.

Michael’s body is seeded with Divinium. He was the perfect conduit, the perfect pawn.

While looking for Jillian, Kristian walks into her office with Michael’s pictures all over the walls. He sees the full picture now, the full vision – that the Ark is proof of the beyond, that Adriel is real and is coming, and that this moment is just at hand. I think he finally gets the miracle he was seeking for so long. That’s why he joins Adriel.

Standing before Adriel, Ava is faced with that impossible choice: to help the church or help her family. She wants to end the cycle of pain, end the deaths of Warrior Nuns. She thinks in this moment that Adriel can help her, that they can take down the church together. But that means giving up the Halo. After all, she’s told that it was stolen from him.

And because Ava is the self-sacrificing person that she is, she agrees. As long as it means the safety of her friends, she doesn’t care what happens to her.

But then Adriel touches her back and she sees it: Areala screaming in pain while Adriel raises the Halo above her. Ava draws back.

Danger.

Outside the tomb, the others are prepping to blow the wall. Ava’s been in there too long and they’re worried.

Mother Superion says she has to find Camila.

Adriel shows Ava the vision of how Areala first met Adriel. She was in the midst of a war, cutting through men left, right, and center. Then, finally, she went down. All of her men rallied around her.

And then Adriel appeared out of a void, the Halo in hand. He used it to close the door behind him, but a minute later, a Tarask followed. It chased him through the fortress and he used the Halo to fight it off. Only when it was dead did he go to Areala.

The men, awed by what they had just seen – this supernatural (but humanoid) being fighting off a demon – could never have known who or what Adriel truly was. They wouldn’t have known he was being chased for a reason.

But this works in Adriel’s favour. Now he has people to follow him. They see another Tarask about to emerge and Adriel drives the Halo into Areala’s/Ava’s back. The orange light flickers and vanishes. They don’t come through.

The Halo was never a gift. He was just trying to get the Tarasks off his back. For the next thousand years, they would chase down the Warrior Nun while he got off scot-free.

Areala confronts him the next morning and we’re reminded that she’s an atheist. She sees through Adriel at once. She’s like, “You lie like a man. You’re no angel. That’s just what you want us to think.”

And he admits the truth. He says that men see what they want to see and promises her that if she exposes him, he will take back the Halo and leave her for dead.

Now armed with the truth, Ava tells Adriel to suck it.

He asks why she thinks she was sent here, revealing that she was just a pawn all along. Then he shoves his hand into her chest.

As the power of the Halo flares, the Ark fires up. Michael says that he’s coming and races towards it. “Come with me, Mummy!” he cries, and then he’s gone.

Ava screams, blasting Adriel away from her, and the ceiling comes down on their heads.

Jillian stands at the empty Ark and sobs.

As the rumbling starts in the crypt, Lilith looks at Beatrice. “I tried to warn you.”

Beatrice arms the charges and blows the crypt just as Duretti is about to give his speech.

One thing Ava has been excellent at doing from day one: screaming. Beatrice is the first one to her side.

Vincent carries her out of the tomb and through his torn sleeve, we can see his Divinium tattoos light up. Then they’re all racing back upstairs.

Mother Superion confronts Duretti and says she knows he killed Shannon.

The rest of them meet up with Camila and Ava says to let her down. She’s regaining feeling in her legs again. She tells them that Adriel’s alive and not an angel.

And then the devil himself appears.

Mother Superion quickly realizes that Duretti doesn’t know what she’s talking about: not Shannon, not the bones, any of it. As the realization hits her, she staggers. Vincent walks up to Adriel and attempts to talk him down, saying that he will get the Halo in time. For now, he’s won.

The girls realize with horror that Vincent has been playing them all for fools. He killed Shannon. Mary is ready to rip his head off, but Lilith intercedes. “I’ll handle this.”

I love that she’s the one who steps up here because it puts all her previous baggage behind her. Long past the girl who went to war with her sisters, now she’s the avenger coming to right all the wrongs: to stand up for Shannon, unjustly taken; to stand up for Ava, used and deceived; to stand up for Mary, who trusted this man when he murdered her love in cold blood.

Lilith walks right up to Adriel and tells him he’s a thief.

The fight that ensues is one of the best choreographed sequences I’ve ever seen. Our girls converge on Adriel like a pack of wolves. It is the crown jewel of season one. 

Camila’s double headshot still takes the cake and the look they give Vincent as they pass says one thing: You’re next.

They all turn when Adriel gets up, but it’s no matter to them. As Beatrice says, “We only needed seven minutes.”

And there’s our girl Ava, Divinium sword in hand. 

(I still wish we got to see this fight! 😤😫)

Before she can rain down hellfire, however, Adriel summons his army of wraith demons. All the assembled people in the courtyard are possessed and move in towards them.

Mary breaks rank and throws herself into the fire. “In this life!”

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again now: no body, no death!

[kkglinka]

I'm responding to @sisterdivinium but their posts about Mother Superion are already really long, so I'll just do this separate. I too noticed that her habit resembled the Orthodox Patriarch, and her cane functioned as the crosier. But she's also still trapped in combat, still grieving, hence the black. Here's what I think is going on:

First, Suzanne's name is likely a reference to "Suzanne Take Me Down" by Leonard Cohen, which was adapted into a song. Just make sure you find the right "Suzanne" lyrics, else you'll be pretty confused. It's about a older famous performer past her heyday, who now shepherds the lost and forgotten, and how her actions parallel those of jesus, etc.

Second Jillian Salvius is the Young Bishop, which is another reason we always see her in white and blue. The first name is simply young or youthful, though also an indirect reference to julius ceaser. The surname, on the other hand, likely references a line of very early bishops, in particular Albi Salvius. He was a humble scholar who just wanted to hang out in his cell and do work. Instead, he was saddled with the responsibility of establishing a diocese and building the first church for new converts. Think of that scene where she's up on a pulpit, beseeching new believers, earnestly spreading what she believes is the truth. Then there's that church she accidentally built via the Christian Shepherd.

Hold those two factoids in the back of your mind.

Whether Jesus was real or a conglomerate of popular messiah stories of the time, and even though he was merely trying to reform his own religion away from increasing political corruption under Roman rule, his actions resulted in a new religion. His apostles were the first traveling priests, except for the Apostle of Apostles herself, Mary, who was denied that formal authority despite being the de facto head after her husband's Jesus's death. We see this usurpation of a woman's authority repeated with Areala when man speaks in her place, vowing fealty to Adriel, condemning the early OCS to his influence. Theoe early holy orders were often pretty in dependant actors, but we see that the OCS was fully enfolded and constrained over time. This usurpation is symbolized by the fact that Mother Superion, who heads a world-wide sect devoted to the worship protection of the Halo, must take orders from a lowly priest.

It is unjust. Moreover, it was foolishly careless on the Vatican's part to deem such a crucial sect, protecting a sensitive relic, so low on their totem pole of authority. It left it vulnerable to infiltration, to being manipulated by the lowest members of their clergy with no recourse to challenge a suspected traitor. Mother Superion was correct to admonish Duretti for his inattention. It's why Shannon kept vital information a secret, because she knew her superior would be powerless to act independently on that information, even though that lack of data put the surviving OCS at a huge tactical disadvantage.

Then we have the Conclave. It was not a meeting of the Holy Roman Pope and his subordinate Cardinals. It was a meeting of equals, various heads of various christian sects, who nominally bow to the pope in order to maintain peace. And Mother Superion was at the table with them, because that is her actual status. We are meant to see that Orthodox Patriarch beside her and realize, she is the OCS Matriarch; she is the head of an independant christian sect being held hostage by tradition. We are shown that Duretti is tacitly aware of the authority actually due her, when he temporarily endorses her right to speak.

Except, Jesus broke with tradition. He was an unruly construction worker turned prophet, who gathered a close group of devotees who chose his teachings over that of their original belief systems. One might argue that contention is the tradition, and we see that play out with Ava. All those obedient zealots before her, yet she's the one who communicated with a deity and thereby became a prophet. There's Beatrice playing Mary Magdalene, the one who witnesses the most amongst the other apostles. This endless cycle of Halo Bearer being martyred according to the official script.

This script can be symbolized by Michael, the pure, untarnished man-child, unfailingly offering himself as a lamb for slaughter in the temple. For naught. An empty sacrifice. It can be symbolized by Michelangelo's Pieta, in which the Church insists that the woman is Mary the Virgin holding her son, but Michelangelo was a scamp and there's a well-established school that believes it is Mary Magdalene, his lover and/or wife. The latter theory tarnishes the image. It reminds the audience that he was a 33 year old man, from a culture that expected marriage amongst adults with established careers, for its people's very survival. He was rebellious, argued and railed against his fate. He was executed as a political dissident, no different than so many others struggling against Rome.

If the show were to continue, then Ava's return would cause a public schism between the OCS and its congregation, and the Vatican. Because, as Ava pointed out, Jesus in-'verse was likely an alien like Adriel, or even Adriel himself on his first round, before he discovered Reya's betrayal and intention to have him killed. In which case, there is no ground for christianity. One must look further into the past, if searching for god. One must also have the Holy Matriarch, and her Young Bishop, to create a new "modernized" church, as the OCS inevitably goes public.