#twotm emissa

[abitterberryblog]

TWOTM Emissa Corenius : An Over-Analyzation

Major The Will of the Many spoilers and random theories ahead !!

Okay, so when I first read The Will of the Many, I wasn’t reading properly, and I just kinda assumed that Emissa was just a kinda blandly written character in such a well-written world. That was, of course, until the whole twist thing. What I liked was that it wasn’t a complete 360, and that she didn’t end up as extremely bad, but flawed enough for me not to be annoyed with her existence, and for her to not seem like only a Mary Sue 'love interest' character.

The thing is, I don't think she is at all.

First of all, I’m starting this with an analyzation of her relationship with Vis, and her not-so-role as a ‘love interest’. Was it real? Was it fake? I think she eventually did grow to be fond over him after a while, but I’ve always known she was going to betray him somehow. Something about the vibes.

It all started with the glass of water at the infirmary. I know there’s a chance that maybe she’s just, idk, kind or whatever, but after the ending, I’m not so 100% sure.

Not only that, but Ulciscor  constantly nagging about how suspicious he was of her. (Normally I'd pass it off as Ulciscor  being obsessed and hyper-anxious about the mission thing, but this was Emissa, and that caught my interest.)

There’s a really fat chance that she was, somehow, working with Veridius. This does not mean that she’s evil or whatever, and I'm still trying to figure out of Veridius is good or not, but it does make her a lot more interesting and complex.

Towards the end of the Iudicium, Emissa uses Will. You can’t use Will during academy stuff without some sort of source, or somebody allowing to use it. It's simply not possible?? Veridius? He’s literally the Principalis of the academy, after all, and during the infirminary scene at the end of the book, its implied that the Principalis spoke with Emissa beforehand, when he says to Vis that ‘she’s distraught’ and tries convincing Vis to talk to her.

What I noticed in this book is that the author, James Islington, is very careful in what he keeps in the book. Details. Hints. No matter how small or useless they seem. There are MAJOR spoilers, but : Here's a funny example I found.

See? Everything is littered in little details to be explored upon later. Even something as simple as a background detail of Aequa flipping coins.

ALSO, and something that I don’t see talked about for some reason, is the fact that Emissa knows that Indol was planning to deflect from Military to Religion. Indol never told her this. He’s shocked that she knows. Guess who may know??? Veridius???? That's right!!!

The question is, why would Veridius tell Emissa this? No idea from me here. But something else during the Iudicium arc catches my attention, and it’s the fact that Veridius PRIVATELY tells everybody what prize they would get if they won the whole thing. As implied by Eidhin (after he cancels on the Iudicium thing for Vis’ sake), Veridius often tempts them with something they really, really badly want,  and something that would drive them to want to win. 

I’m surprised not many people talk about that scene where Emissa asks Vis for the Heart of Jovan in the Iudicium, so she could win. She’s upset by this, obviously, since she cries and stuff, but I notice that she says “I can’t let us get separated.”

When I first read, I assumed she was talking about Vis, but that wouldn’t make sense, since she basically stabbed him as he fell off a tower (?) like, five seconds later. And also, her and Vis being separated wouldn't be related to her winning the Iudicium, (unless she's in a scenario where she'll have to leave forever or something if she doesn't win, which isn't really likely), Which makes me wonder, who was she really talking about?

Hopefully, we’re find out in the next book. Someone she really cared about? Relative? Family member? Am I missing something? Will this be important?

After all, we don’t exactly 100% know why Veridius planted Vis near the Callidus-Eidhin punchy debacle. He obviously knew Vis would step in.

At first I wondered if he was trying to kick Vis out and expel him, which is probably more likely, but right now I’m running on four hours of sleep and I am high on theories.

I think I’ve read this theory somewhere on the Hierarchy subreddit, too, but what if Veridius planned this whole thing, not to expel Vis, but to plant Vis near the stables as his punishment, maybe for Emissa to keep an eye on him? Or woo him for secrets or whatever the fuck? 

At the very least, whether Veridius did purposely plant Vis there for that sole reason, or as an afterthought after Vis worms himself out with the Threefold Apology, I do think that Veridius did make Emissa watch over Vis on purpose.

Otherwise, I think it’ll be a little random with Emissa just casually joining Vis to scoop horse dung, and I do not care how cool or attractive or fascinating he may appear, I still think it’s important. Hopefully? And why do I think so, you may ask?

I do not really think Islington deliberately wanted Emissa and Vis to be like, endgame, endgame. Like, The EndgameTM.  Maybe Emissa was trying to get more information on him. I don't know. It’s plausible. Emissa is top of the academy after Indol, and besides Indol being of course the smartest (as told by Vis), Emissa is FAR smarter than most readers deem her to be. I don't think everything as simple as this. Emissa simply cannot be this blind and radiant and carefree. She isn't in a perfume ad. We've established, from the book itself, that twotm is LAYERS upon LAYERS and twist after twist.

First of all, I’m so sorry, but Emissa and Vis have like no chemistry (imo). They do have maybe like a teeny, tiny bit, but the thing is that Vis has more chemistry with LITERALLY every other character his age BESIDES Emissa. I know, I know, every writer isn’t perfect, but there’s something so suspicious about Emissa and Vis’ dynamic.

As mentioned once on a Hierarchy Series subreddit post, Emissa and Vis have a strange dynamic that is unlike the others characters. With literally every single other character/friendship/relationship that Vis is in, there are details of each interaction, each feeling Vis has with them, what they do, bla bla bla, snippets of the scene, dialogue, ect.

But with Emissa, it’s sort of just…speedran? Like, besides the whole Suus island romance debacle and theatrics, their interactions just sort of go…

“Emissa visited me in the stables and we talked. For a long time. She helped me. She's nice. Also, her eyes are really green.” 

“Emissa sometimes studied with Callidus and I in the morning, sometimes not. Blablabla, she’s great and funny.”

“Emissa talked with me during Suus after noticing that I was uncomfortable with the politician people, blabla. ”

“Emissa and I trained together. In Three. Emissa helped me study. In Three. Wow, she makes me smile. Haha.”

Obviously, I'm exaggerating, but I'm definitely NOT wrong. Open the book and reread it. I DARE you to tell me I'm wrong.

See, there’s no real scene with them. Is it just me who noticed this? Just a time jump where Vis summarizes everything he did with her and how awesome and fun it was. There’s no way an author, writing a book with this much description and detail, just fumbles a romance by writing it like this.

NOT ONLY THAT, but even the CONFESSION scene isn’t anything as theatric as the rest of the book. Not even a SMIDGEN. Even the whole kiss can be easily forgotten. It’s not some dramatic confession. It's not romantic. It's not even sweet and heart-warming in that subtle, simple way. It's just a really lukewarm 'maybe i like you' and then boom, and it's over in an instant.

Vis mentions Indol and the secret that Emissa accidentally exposes of Indol, and then Emissa (suspiciously) changes the topic to how much she likes Vis and kisses Vis. And then boom, romance. A quick end scene, as if it wasn't ever important.

Isn’t it like, hella SUSPICIOUS? She changed the topic. Kissed him. Distracted him. And then the scene ended like it wasn't a whole Vis-Developing, Emissa-Developing, HUGE relationship moment.

Which, yeah, maybe she did like him at some point, but it sure as hell is convenient, isn’t it? I’m super invested in her character now, which is ironic because I used to not be able to STAND her because I just thought her character was just a really poorly written love interest.

I’m convinced Islington has the writer ability to write a confession/kiss scene much better, and much less random than that. Which means that I really don’t think he INTENDED to make hearts swoon. Just to distract.

Emissa is very fascinating, and few people acknowledge that, and I am EXTREMELY excited for The Strength of the Few to release.

[abitterberryblog]

twotm emissa in the iudicium doodle : major spoilers

hi hierarchy tumblr i hope you remember me <3

this doodle is me desperately manifesting that emissa gets a well written character in the next book and she keeps up this slightly evil arc she has going on in the ending pleasepleaseplease i better not see her apologize and get back with vis like sorry but absolutely nottt i cannot accept that for such a banger series and i'd rather sue

anyways i mightttt redraw this at some point in the future (with more details ofc) but we'll have to wait and see if i remember to do that

[abitterberryblog]

the will of the many, major major spoilers 

( a really really stupid ramble i have during my twotm reread that i needed to scream into the void for under the cut lmfao )

One thing i can applaud Vis for is his amazing ability to be so inherently, ridiculously bisexual.  Like we have him describing people like “yeah this one’s a scrawny short guy, and this one’s a really buff dude who i, at first, thought was a grown adult just chilling at the school tables” and then he randomly goes along describes some other people like he got assigned to do poetry on them for school. And the funniest part is he ends up having more chemistry with just about everybody BESIDES his love interest (who may not be his love interest anymore due to complicated events that involve attempted murder).

For men we have Vis mentally describing Indol as handsome in almost every scene he appears in. Through Vis we learn how handsome, charming, brilliant, and amazing Indol is. How thoughtful and how genius and how capable and how he's the smartest and makes smart plans and whatever the fuck. Almost every line is some form of admiration. There is quite literally a line where Vis calls Indol “the closest thing Caten has to a prince”, which is quite the compliment considering Vis is. You know. An actual prince. And then there’s a line that goes like “I know I’m not supposed to, but I can’t help myself from liking him.”

(AND THEN YOU MEAN TO TELL ME THAT VIS IS A STRAIGHT MAN??? WITH THAT LINE?? Yeah, no. Not possible. It's so funny to read this, because lmfaooo hello???)

And then for women  we have the sheer amount of stuff Vis mentally says for Aequa, ranging from “dark wisps of her hair catch golden rays of sunlight from behind her” when her first meets her to a whole ass paragraph about how brilliant and “fiercely hardworking” and intelligent and radiant about how she truly deserves her top spot in class four and blablabla. and then a whole other line about how she’s smiling radiantly and “practically glowing” when she’s at the festival and sees a bunch of foundation games or something. And then another line about how Vis "genuinely doesn't get why people dislike her, because she's so greaaat and intelligent" (Lmao though I enthusiastically agree, Vis, she's my favourite) and how he finds it "inexplicably annoying" when those said class four students make throwaway jokes about her.

May be a hot take but i’d probably rather ship Vis with either of them than Emissa (even if she gets a really badass villain/well-written arc that I really badly want for her 🤡🤡🤡). Or literally anybody else. Callidus. Eidhin. Indol and Aequa, for gods sake, since apparently Vis can’t get enough of those fuckers.  It’s hilarious though and I love this book. As a bisexual I can confirm that he’s one of us.) 

I know he likes Emissa for a huge chunk of the book, but I find it funny that compared to the sheer amount of chemistry and compliments that Callidus (“he’s so smart and genius and awesome and I trust him sooo much he's great”), Eidhin (“he’s so smart and quick-witted and a marvel of physical specimen (???)”), and Indol who’s basically both a prince and a model in Vis’ eyes, and then Aequa who basically glows in Vis’ vision, and LITERALLY EVERYBODY BESIDES EMISSA gets this treatment, because the lines Vis has for Emissa sound either forced or bland or both. Like, yeah. We know her eyes are green. Thanks for speedrunning your whole scene with her though. Totally not suspicious.

(here's a link to Emissa Over-Analyzation's post where i excitedly ramble about her and her potential arc for an overly long time.)

Tune in (or not because if then please ignore my antics) for when I analyze each Praeceptor and why I really really like their different personalities and characters, and an uncomfortable close look on their teaching styles (or, in terms of Dultatis, their annoying asses).