GET ME OUT OF HERE

hanush's line is about seeing if he "cares as much about him as Divish does about his WIFE and you about your FATHER". the game makes a direct comparison to both divish/stephanie + henry/radzigs relationship to istvan/erik. i dont really think thats coincidence and immediately he's proven right. istvan does care about him that way. ive always seen istvan/eriks relationship as what ive described as a funhouse mirror of hansry mixed with a tiny bit of henry and radzig. it's part of why i hc erik as beginning his life with istvan at the same age as henry meeting hans/radzig- istvan steps into a mentor/fatherly role that morphs more into the strange equal-but-not-equal lord/bodyguard relationship hans and henry have.

i see a lot of talk of istvan manipulating erik from a young age but i really, truly cannot see it that way. despite everything about erik and istvan, their relationship is the most wholesome aspect of the two. textually. one can argue istvan dragged erik down with him to a life of crime and murder (bad), but there's really not a single scene of istvan taking advantage of erik. the opposite is really true- he ruins his own plans for erik. he begs for erik's safety knowing he himself will die. he worries about him in a way that is way too selfless to come from a place of control IMO. i dont even think erik was "dragged" into their way of life either. erik/istvan have always been henry's flipside. they're who you, playing as henry, become if you let the hate and greed fester (with explicit lines from pa saying you've become what destroyed them in the first place in the bad ending). henry's dreams about istvan drive this home pretty hard i think.

after meeting istvan, the people of eriks village become strangers. he's his family, his lord, and his wife. he's everything and erik goes totally mad in the giant, gaping hole of his absence. "i have my lord and that's all i need".