I think I’ve talked briefly about Cyrus before on this topic, but imo he really is one of the most well rounded and intriguing characters in all of arc 1.
I mean, the game has some balls to introduce the player to him immediately trying to expel us- like, yea i wonder what out first impressions of him were :P we all disliked him back then and would meme on his rather harsh personality, heck many of us still do.
But then comes dragonspyre. You wanna know something about dragonspyre that I don’t think any other world has done? We’re supervised by an adult. By Cyrus. The guy who seemed to want nothing to do with us, and was thought by some to be even helping Mali.
Which, especially after the five boxes event, made me realize a couple things about Cyrus. The first is that Malistaire and Cyrus (and sylvia ofc) were intensely trained battle mages. Cyrus knew better than anyone about the harms of the militarized education system in DS, as well as how deadly and powerful his brother was.
Sure Cyrus’s cheerful personality was probably hardened by the loss of sylvia and the wrath of his brother, but do you ever think maybe he acted that way towards the wizard because he knew Malistaire would likely kill us, and wanted to save us by scaring is away? Why the hell else would he accompany us to Dragonspyre if not to make sure we don’t get ourselves killed? HECK, even RIGHT before we enter the final battle, Cy gives it ONE last go with Malistaire in the hopes that we don’t even have to fight him.
Imo, Cyrus did everything in his limited power to try and save us from being anything like how they trained them in DS academy. He knows what that pressure has done to his brother within his own family, imagine that, but you’re the savior of the entire spiral. Even when Cyrus saw no turning back for the wizard and the path we’ve been out on, he wanted to be there with us because no one had been until now.
Which reminds meeeee, wonder why arc 2 was so big on Morganthe bringing up the theme of loneliness, both for herself and the wizard. Almost like being a child prodigy has harmful effects…. *coughs* or something
Anyway, Wiz really has an interesting repetitive theme in regards to weaponized power over children. Malistaire was raised to strike fear into the hearts if his enemies, Morganthe was literally shaped into a LITERAL weapon by the arachna, Mellori’s power was used by both her mom and spider in their own games, heck spiders children were made to fight in his name, and of course, the wizard has been just running on goddamn fumes with the shit they’re endured across their lifetime as savior.
Like, that all has such amazing comentary on what it means for children to have great power, and how the adults around them treat them for it- and I believe Cyrus had good intentions to try and combat that, but lost a lot of hope seeing a school that seems to be more holistic produce a super weapon child soldier in the way DS academy would only strive to do.
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