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You opt out of personhood and claim you are a “thing” and a “story.”

You insist this to someone speaking to you with warmth and care and connection. You can’t be a person. You are a thing.

But you hate the man who did not treat you like a person. You carry seething anger toward the one who took you at your word and used you as an object.

But you also use people as objects. You keep them as puppets and bleed them dry and cast them aside when you don’t need them, sometimes killing them in horrific ways.

You do it not for a grand cause or bettering the world. You do it for yourself. Avoiding icky things like eating. Gathering your artifacts. Watching your plays. Having coffee.

You love your sister. You missed your sister. She’s in a box. She’s right there.

You don’t open the box. You don’t study it, you don’t attempt to connect with her. “Extra wigs: Maybe Lice.” And you don’t have to deal with it anymore. There's no time.

You don't make time.

She gets out of the box. You say you’ve been looking for your other siblings. She doesn’t believe you. She’s been in a theater in a box that you wouldn’t open.

The Pridesires have a happier reunion than you do. You want their reunion to be yours. You think it’s a better story.

But it doesn't fit. Because it's characters who make stories. Stories are built on the actions of characters. Teor crossed the continent for his sibling. Teor fought and bled for his sibling. Teor died in the dark side-by-side with his sibling. That is Teor Pridesire's character.

And your sister has been in a box.

Extra wigs. Maybe lice.

And now you've lost everything. It's Thjazi's fault. (You took the Pariah Blades. You decided to move everything and make a clusterfuck of the Lloy Wing. You employed interns to make this happen and told them all to make a mess. You left your sister in a box extra wigs maybe lice.)

Maybe you aren't a person, but you aren't a story either.

Stories have endings.

You are a character. The story is being told.

OCCTIS TACHONIS x DRAG PATH BY TWENTY ONE PILOTS

First, Brennan uses Hannan as an antagonistic force toward the Seekers; he unifies them by standing against both Occtis and Vaelus. He also provides contrast to the more measured and peaceful Druids we've seen thus far. He provides a counterpoint to Vaelus, the only other Elf we've seen in the campaign, and forces her to reveal more about her position regarding the Shaper's War by defending it.

As his relationship with Vaelus develops, we get more nuanced glimpses of what Elvish life is actually like, the full weight of Sylandri's hold of her creations, and Vaelus admits who she actual has been missing and grieving all these years; not Sylandri, but her family. Admitting this lets us understand the sacrifice she makes when she chooses to put her family aside, to break the Stone of Nightsong and help the Rungjani dead find peace.

And of course, when Hannan learns of Mara's capture he flies to Obrimus Manor to help her. There, he does not barge in to search, instead he starts to counter the Undead. This is extremely important support for Thimble. The magical darkness dissipates, her search difficulty decreases significantly, and the undead threat is lessened greatly. I feel confident in saying that Thimble would not have succeeded without this intervention, but critically, he supports Thimble's success without swooping in to make it his own.

With this support, she is able to finish off the Undead Monstrosity that was Raimond Davinos. Now Teor's death is not in vain because she heroically finished the work he had started. Together, they rid the world of a great evil while freeing Raimond's spirit and recovering his blade.

Thimble is able to recover the Pridesires. Their spirits and bodies cannot be harnessed by the Tachonises. She recovers the Royce Bracers and the Einfassen ax, which could have complicated things had they been discovered in the crypt. She also finds valuable information throughout her search, learning where the Gnomish statues were taken and information on the tenebral ship. Hannan facilitates all of this as he holds the darkness and the dead at bay.

The last important thing Hannan does is to die.

And this is very important, narratively.

Primus Tachonis has been bested by the work of the Magpies. We've seen him threatened by the Einfasen and condescended to by Yanessa Halovar. Why should we be threatened by him? Maybe he's just prideful and sloppy. Maybe he's careless and stupid. Maybe he's actually not that frightening.

And then he kills Hannan without a second thought, and we see the truth that Brennan has been nudging us toward since the beginning.

Primus is not stupid or short-sighted, he is panicking.

He knows things we do not. He knows something is coming, and the full wrath of the Druids that may come in a handful of months doesn't matter, because there are larger forces at play. So yes, the Einfasen and the Cormorays are deeply powerful and the Halovar's have power and influence as well as cunning and poise the others seem to lack.

Even so, Primus Tachonis is the most dangerous threat right now, because he is desperate. In his mind, he has nothing to lose. The murder of Hannan proves this.

Sometimes the cost of a great story is the loss of a great character.

Schemers: will give their adventuring party a name, but it's going to be like, "the Committee of Concerned Citizens"