a little ramble about olruggio and the impact the nauz incident had on his life.
so the story tells us apprentices are typically taken on from ages like 7-10 i think it was? i know shirahama has said before she doesn't really consider exact ages for the characters but i don't think olruggio can be more than like 7/8 here. he doesn't have a master yet. regardless he looks very young when this happens.
he's a prodigy who has masters coming from the great hall to watch his progress. he's called a marvel. that being said, maybe it was reckless for witches to take him on jobs before he was actually an apprentice? he wouldn't be allowed to cast in front of people at that point because he hadn't taken the second test right? i wonder if that impacted anything in the moment.
and obviously what happened in nauz wasn't expected, but for this young kid who hasn't even taken the first test to be the one asked to take a monster down with fire is pretty grim. also speaks to how talented he was from such a young age that he was expected to be able to take the monster down with his fire magic that young.
and he couldn't do it. he hates to see a living thing burn, even a monster.
and then we see it happen again with the giant leach. even a giant monster leach doesn't deserve to burn to death in his eyes. it took coco and agott being in danger for him to finally be like fuck it, no more messing around.
so going back to nauz, this huge horrific thing happens where many witches and villagers die and this 8-year-old feels responsible for it. he doesn't blame the adult witches who were there. he blames himself.
he feels the impact of what happened in nauz even into adulthood. he says the same thing. he's supposed to do better.
and what happens right after nauz?
they sent him away. sent him away from the only home he's known. presumably away from family and friends. when we see baby-ruggio before the nauz incident, he seems well taken care of by the village, happy even, safe. then he messes up and things change.
he was the shining star of ghodrey. then ghodrey decided he wasn't needed anymore and they use him as a bargaining chip. olly feels like he failed and i'm sure being sent away felt like a punishment even if he understood why it was happening. it's pretty messed up how the village used him like that.
you can see how despondent olly is when he arrives at the great hall. he doesn't want to be there.
also it's kind of crazy that he's so talented he's worth the weight of multiple adult witches before he even has a master.
so they send him away to live at the bottom of the ocean. i wouldn't be surprised if olly hates the great hall too, like qifrey. they took the sky away from him. he's traumatized by what happened and now he's dumped into a world full of complete strangers.
and the village chief thinks he's scared of monsters...
when he's really afraid of death. of not being able to stop people from dying. then what's the first thing that happens to him in the great hall? qifrey almost dies right in front of him. his worst fear happens immediately in this brand new place he doesn't even want to be in.
in fact qifrey keeps making rash decisions that put him in danger. like sneaking out into the wild without knowing what's out there.
i wonder how much olly's attachment to qifrey is rooted (sorry) in the fact that he witnessed so much death in nauz and he felt responsible. he's witnessing qifrey make reckless choices that could lead to his death. he can't stand to see someone die again, not when he has the power to prevent that.
so he takes qifrey under his wing.
teaching him spells to keep in his back pocket so he can defend himself. and it's olly who teaches qifrey about the outside world and what's out there since qifrey's memory had been wiped.
and i feel like this must have impacted olruggio's perspective when it comes to adults and how he trusts them. was it not reckless to bring a young kid who isn't apprenticed yet on a mission like that? we don't have the full picture yet, but on the surface i think you can assume that olly was let down by the adults around him if he was put into a position where it was all on him to take down the monster at such a young age.
there are a few moments with him in the story that seemed like a response to being let down by the adults around him. in nauz and then after nauz. he criticizes the adults reaction to what happens in serpentback cave, saying they should have done better. he really cares about being an adult that the girls actually trust.
and nauz reverberates through other ways too. he panics when he realizes he hasn't helped the nearby villages prepare for snow.
and of course when fighting the leach, the ptsd catches up with him.
on a brighter note, i'm glad his traumatic experiences haven't hardened him to the world. he still values his own empathy. him reassuring tetia that her empathy is a strength is one of my favorite moments.
but yeah, curious to see if we ever get the full story on what happened in nauz, but i appreciate how it informs a lot of olly's decisions even into adulthood. it helps shape his sense of responsibility as a witch. he wants to save everyone. just like coco.
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