#the consular story didn't grip me like some others so for the moment i'm just like 'eh yeah it's roughly canon for him'

[kemendin]

Now that I’ve finished the Consular story, some Vanirr ramblings as I try to get a proper handle on his character….

He and Caspian were on Tython together as Padawans, though Vanirr was a couple of years older. Where Cas was stubborn and struggled with some aspects of being a Jedi, Vanirr was a natural, taking easily to the Order’s philosophies of tranquility and detachment. And it wasn’t just that it worked for him - even as a Padawan he had a deep-thinking mind, and he understood what was being taught on levels that usually took many more years of study.

Consequently, he and Cas did not get along well - not exactly rivals or adversaries, but Vanirr tends to be very preachy and ready with Jedi aphorisms, which didn’t mesh well at all with Cas’ logical mind and inability to remain calm or passive. You know that episode of DS9 with Sisko and his Vulcan rival at the academy? Take out the deliberate heckling/antagonism, and that’s Cas and Vanirr.

On the surface, Vanirr is a paragon of the Order - tempered and calm, skilfully using words to negotiate and mediate, steeped in wisdom from endless hours in the Jedi archives, always seeking to help and to learn. He is a veritable beacon of the light side. While trained as a ‘Shadow’, when he moves unseen and undetected, it’s actually because he’s melded with the light - he can either radiate or become a part of the whole, depending on the situation.

Unfortunately, this is where the expression ‘blinded by the light’ becomes painfully apt. Vanirr develops a sort of unknowing arrogance, fuelled by both the Jedi’s affirmations of his virtues and his own successes through the class story, shielding and sanctifying those corrupted by the dark side. He comes to believe that this is his calling - to purge the darkness from whatever place or person he can. And if he has to kill someone to do it - well, all things have their time, don’t they? He’s just causing that time to arrive a little sooner.

His weakness is for knowledge, for relics and holocrons. In his blind devotion to the light, he believes that even the darkest of Sith secrets can find no hold on him, if he stands true to the Jedi ways. Ultimately, this is what does him in, and causes him to fall prey to Darth Syphon, Head of Ancient Knowledge on the Dark Council. Syphon lures him with the promise of such secrets, captures him, corrupts him, and the fabled Barsen’thor falls. Cas encounters him at some point thereafter, and there’s such irony there - that this Master of the light side should be so deeply tainted, should succumb to the dark, when the Knight who faced the Emperor himself, who still feels that shadow inside him, did not fall. I’m not sure yet what the outcome of that encounter is - if Cas kills Vanirr, or tries to save him and brings him back to the Jedi to see if they can help.

Buuuut that’s a ways off in my brain. Meanwhile, I’m trying to figure out Vanirr’s personal life. He’s told me that he ends up with two partners, in one sense or another - Nadia and Felix. It’s hard to define his relationship with Nadia - he’s her mentor of course, but there’s also a deeper bond that veers almost into romance, yet not quite. It’s not a sexual relationship at all, and barely even physical, aside from some fond kisses here and there. Felix, on the other hand, is a much more casual relationship, less attachment, more ‘comradery with a side of occasionally sleeping together’. I’ve actually never had a poly OC before, so this is interesting to mull over.

Anyway. That's what I've got for this lad right now!