The thing I love to chew on most about Lucanis as a character is his contradictions, the places where he breaks expectation both in-universe and as a certain character type. Thereās a lot of both/and in the nuances of his character and the surrounding circumstances that draw them out are interesting! A lot of the time, Iāll see a post that will take off proclaiming he is x but not y and never z and itās usually facets of his character that I would actually argue are all present in him at different times, drawn out by different circumstances, not unlike most people.
To me, he is both confident in areas he has experience with and shy and a little awkward in areas he doesnāt. He doesnāt believe himself to be as socially agile as someone like Illario and, while we see him navigate social situations competently, he is never really shown to be intentionally artificially charming. His lines during the coffee date, for instance, are as earnest as they are flirtatious. Heās revealing something of himself there and itās being received well. Rookās into it, Rookās interested in him, despite silver-tongued Illario being right there.
His flirting with them in the pantry before the almost kiss is specific to Rook, specific to the circumstances theyāre in, as well as the conversation theyāre having in that moment. It isnāt a line to drop on just anyone, for all it is flirtatious, and you can easily see how similar qualities in Neve would draw him to her, too. That isnāt the mark of a smooth operator, but someone whoās expressing interest and telling them heās been paying attention to them by calling back to these things.
But when it comes to speaking on his actual feelings, he loses the swagger with which he initially approached, he doesnāt (by his own estimation) really know what heās doing and can only offer up a very genuine and earnest attempt at expressing them the only way he knows how to openly care for people while also expressing his doubt about meeting expectations at the same time. Any suaveness he has is present only when the confidence is which is sweet to watch build, but not at all a factory default built in for all situations. Itās fine to let him fumble romantically, actually, to be out of his depthābecause he is when it comes to Rook or Neveāand to end up with his foot in his mouth.
Which is present in banters, especially with Neve, if you would listen. Heās not navigating all of those conversations adeptly and itās as fun to listen to him be put on the back foot as it is to hear some of the wilder things that come out of his mouth.
It goes beyond just the romances and companion relationships too, of course. He does do a degree of preparation and planning for his contracts. Heās clearly someone who takes a lot of pride in his work, the way he operates outside of his job (the lists, the logging of his activities, even meal planning), the degree with which he is concerned about his performance, all feed into that belief for me. It raises the stakes for the circumstances that push him to throw all of it out in the moment, when he cares about something more than just finishing the job, and it's what those things are that speak to his character.
He never expresses an intention to free Effe and the other slaves from the system as a whole, for instance, but he frees them from Forfex only after realizing the degree of cruelty to which they're being treated. He didnāt help the servant escape their abusive employer, but he let them go because he believed it was justified. He refused to kill the fourteen year old because he thought it too young to receive permanent consequences, but he was almost certainly robbed of that kind of choice himself. Heās very concerned with making sure his targets are the right ones.
Any enjoyment he derives from killing people seems inextricably linked with his own code of ethics. A code that is both different from most other peopleās, even including his own colleagues among the Crows, and is at odds with being in it for the money. In itself, a contradiction, when we know him to be expensive to hire. I do often wonder how much that cost helped vet contracts that would have pressed on those same ethics even harder.
