#well. kind of. the direction they took with illario just confuses me to no end

[mohntilyet]

i read the wigmaker job recently and there’s an idea that really stuck with me, which may well have been discussed before, but it’s really been itching at me. it came from this exchange near the end –

“i don't want to quit.” / illario sat back. the distance between them suddenly felt much wider than a table. / “even if it kills you,” illario whispered. / “death is my calling,” lucanis stated, matter-of-fact. “just as yours is to become first talon.”

(the bits before and after this give important context, too, but these specific lines are what gnaw at me)

i. really wonder if this conversation – and the long-standing beliefs held by both of them that it’s indicative of – contributed to giving lucanis to zara.

like, illario coming to terms with the fact that lucanis really just will. not. stop. for ANYTHING. his cousin WILL get himself killed doing this and lucanis won’t have any regrets. he’ll leave illario to go this alone. (no one to follow after anymore.) combined with the envy of knowing that lucanis is and always will be caterina’s favorite, and she will likely pick lucanis to be first talon even tho lucanis does not want this At All…

i wonder if he thought that, well, if lucanis is going to die anyway… maybe it’s better to have it happen sooner, rather than later. why put off the inevitable? especially if this is the one thing that could shift caterina’s gaze to illario and give him what he’s wanted – what he’s earned.

lucanis wouldn’t be happy as first talon anyway (honestly, illario seems to see that what lucanis is NOW isn’t so much ‘happy’ as it is ‘obedient and content to accept the scraps that gives him’), and he’s GOING to get himself killed doing this, anyway… and sure, they COULD wait it out. wait for lucanis to do something foolish enough that he can't just walk away from it. maybe he’ll even last long enough to be made first talon (if caterina can ever bear to loosen her grip from the title) and be miserable for a while. years even, maybe. before he, again, does something he can’t walk away from.

OR. or. or illario could cut through all the pointless waiting and get right to the point. go straight to where this was always going to end up.

(and maybe part of it is an extension of anticipated grief, too – the loss will be agony. if illario controls when and how it happens, he can control his grief. …except he hasn’t accepted the inevitability of lucanis’ death quite as well as he’d thought and when he gets sloshed at the wake, real grief seeps through the cracks)

i dunno. something about both of them viewing lucanis’ death as a foregone conclusion and how illario Might have had that shape his decisions.

YEAH . YEAHHHHH. i do also think the “to reason” exchange is what solidifies it in illario’s mind. lucanis is like 'this has been a productive if tense talk with my cousin. surely he sees sense now.' and illario is like ‘what the fuck. i think he wants to die’ <- okay im exaggerating a bit but i do absolutely see the end of wigmaker’s job as the start of lucanis-illario’s downward spiral. there’s a reason that it’s something lucanis is stuck on during inner demons, and the exchange that you have very nicely broken down is what he hears echoes of, this is where he knows it started to go wrong

probably the worst part is lucanis WOULD have worked himself to death and it takes the series of events in veilguard for lucanis to see other options for his life, and still he ends up being shoehorned into first talon by the end of the quest. i thought his quest would parallel iron bull’s, in that rook shows them that living outside and away from crow influence is possible, and that he is much more than the weapon they turned him into, but it ofc doesn’t go through like that. it’s genuinely a bit heartbreaking that lucanis finally has support and like. FRIENDS. but with the way the game ends he’s pulled back into the crows and to a life that will be about protecting a cousin that the organisation he runs hates, and for as long as caterina lives, unable to say no to her. and meanwhile after lucanis has made connections outside of the crows, illario has absolutely nothing left (prison of his own making i get it but i still want to get his ass out of there. 😭) so the codependency that they used to share is gone as well. maybe lucanis has a foot out the door but i genuinely have no idea how illario goes on after this