vienna

Maven said that what truly took his bond away from Cal was mare not his mother. Sure his mother physically alternated his mind when it came to Cal and fed him wrong and toxic stuff about him, probably telling him that Cal stole all the things that should’ve rightfully been his, including his father’s love. I think deep down maven knew that this isn’t true. And that strong believe finally broke down the minute he saw Cal kissing Mare.

You see that situation wasn’t about Mare, but about Cal. In that moment, Cal proved to him what his mother always said and believed was true, that Cal will always steal everything from him. That Cal doesn’t care about him and would hurt him this way. Maven felt betrayed. He didn’t even fully believe in his own mother’s words, but believed that his brother would never. But now he understands that his mother was correct.

I feel that’s why Elara showed him that footage in the first place. She knew that her abilities weren’t fully taking away that love and so she later tried with basic manipulation, but that didn’t fully take that love away either. Elara probably feared that since maven, to a degree, felt love towards Cal, that he wouldn’t go with the plan because he doesn’t wanna hurt his brother.

After Maven saw that footage and realized that his mother was right and that he was “tricked” by Cal, he didn’t just wanna betray him, he wanted to hurt him just like Cal hurt and betrayed him. (The fact that Cal was the only alive person that hurted/made maven bleed as much as Thomas did says a lot).

The number one most common was that Cal thought Maven was far too critical. Both are realists, because that's how they were raised, but Cal's approach to everything was to approach it with the hopes of improvement. Maven as a teen would see it how it was. Not what it could be.

Especially in the times when Cal was overwhelmingly stressed about something (more often than not dealings in the war or political decision making, or any sort of standard he was being held to) he found Mavens negativity to be inches away from him boiling over. In his mind Maven could have easily been helpful by offering hope (like he was used to with Julian) but instead just made his anxiety worse.