... how fucked up would it be, if Bolaire was 'managing' Julien and keeping him out of the way, at Thjazi's direction.
what if some of the fucked up things Bolaire said that Thjazi made him do related to Julien.
we know there's a narrative about Thjazi's capture in the Falconer's Rebellion that Julien is supposed to be touting, that Azune knows isn't true, that Raimond believed but knew Julien wasn't happy about, and that Teor refers to their encounter in the Rebellion as a 'spat', and that Thimble calls Julien a liar.
it might even have been well-intentioned - we know that Julien and Aranessa were extremely close, so Thjazi would care about him for her sake, and Thjazi may even have had some affection for Julien himself seeing as Julien was a kid when Thjazi became involved with the Davinos family at the end of the War of Axe and Vine.
Maybe supplying Julien with drink, drugs and distractions was his way of keeping Julien alive and out of the violent kind of trouble while also not contradicting the narrative.
EDIT: MAD SPIRALING CONSPIRACY REALISATION: suddenly I'm remembering that at the execution, that random noble came up to Julien and said it was such a pity that Julien wasn't doing the execution. Maybe when Thjazi looked at Azune and said, "Not you," it was because Thjazi also thought that Julien would hate him enough to insist on being part of the execution process. Maybe the theory that the Shadow attached to Julien is Thjazi's soul is correct, and that Thjazi had planned to do the jump at the execution, but he couldn't do that to Azune, so he stayed attached to his own corpse, and Julien's attending the funeral and spitting on Thjazi's corpse gave Thjazi's soul enough of a connection to jump to Julien's shadow. Maybe bonds of hatred and love are strong enough for a determined soul to get a grip on you from the afterlife and hide away in your shadow.
