Janland. For What That’s Worth.

I think Erra’s guiding force through his life has been his desire to make his family, mainly his father, proud. I think in the beginning, shortly after Natah’s birth, they really did have a more positive family dynamic. Hunhow’s focus has probably always been fixated on crushing the Orokin and all that pertains to them but it becomes clear from his dialogue that he really does love his family and is disappointed in himself as a father.

That sentiment though has never actually reached Erra. Throughout Erra’s life, everything has hinged around his sister. She is the favorite child. She is the one who will bring victory to the Sentients. She is the one they’re counting on. Meanwhile Erra is desperately trying to contribute. He’s creating archons, he’s made Caliban, he establishes himself as a cruel warlord in hopes of impressing Hunhow, but it’s still all about her.

And then she betrays them. I think that’s when Erra realizes it’s over. He’s never going to be as important as she is to his father, to the rest of the Sentients. Hunhow will never be able to let go of Natah and his plans to destroy the Tenno. (Except he does, just far far too late.)

And then the New War comes along. Erra tries desperately to bring Natah back just like his father wanted, unaware that he’s made peace with her as the Lotus and then unwilling to hear him out when he tries to convince him this isn’t the path he should go down.

Then Erra gets what he thinks he wants— he’s at the very top, he has (almost) absolute control and his sister is out of the picture. And what happens? Ballas is not satisfied because he is obsessed with her. He is willing to destroy the entire solar system and everything living in it including Erra’s kind because he’s having an absolute shitfit over her.

From Erra’s perspective, the entire fucking world orbits around Natah, around the Lotus and he is just a pawn in it all. And it has led him so far astray. In the end he realizes that it doesn’t have to be this way, albeit too late. So he helps the Drifter in hopes that they can save Natah and stop Ballas because the survival of his species is more important than everything else. And he ends up losing his life in the process.

Except then his carcass is dragged from the rubble and Pazuul possesses him to continue as the leader of Narmer. Now Erra’s mind is trapped as his body is puppeted by a raving lunatic.

Like I personally hc that Erra’s life has been one huge identity crisis and that he’s desperate for approval. People like to write him off as a typical villain who’s only being driven by ambition but I really think there’s much more to him than that. I think he still has potential to realize his fixation on eradicating everything Orokin is an empty goal that wouldn’t benefit him or his people. I think he still has potential to turn his life around and become someone who does make his father and sister proud (even though Hunhow can no longer acknowledge it).

I think he is capable of coming to the same realization Natah and Hunhow did: that the Tenno are also creations and victims of the Orokin just like the Sentients are and that they’ll all be better off trying to clean up the mess they left behind in the Origin System together.

It’s not her fault, of course, and depending on our perspective Natah being Daddy’s Favorite was a REALLY bad thing for her, but I like seeing how someone who’s generally percieved as Good can be perceived in a negative light.

Also, if Erra had THIS much resentment over Natah, then that partly explains why he didn’t notice or care about her OOC-ness during TNW Prologue.

Wait, no, she’d actually try to murder us-

Operator: Remember the time I became a midwife for your wife and children?

Stalker: I-

My brain for 6 hours straight: