Brand New Zodiac

A Witch of Dreams and Theater ✨🎭

Amaryllis believes every second of her life is on a stage and subconsciously manifests illusions that fit the 'scene.' These illusions are real because she believes they're real.

happy new year -------------_--------------------

Yanessa Halovar: Do you discount the utility of commoners, Primus?

Primus Tachonis: Obviously, Yanessa. They are dretch, and I do not conceive of a world in which we need listen to them for much longer.

Yanessa Halovar: Then again, I suppose to the Shapers we were all commoners.

--- Episode 30: Here in the Dark

What was that little moment about? That last little shot by Yanessa. What was that about?

Now, there’s the obvious context that Primus has just straight-up dismissed the Candescent Creed as an effective force for finding answers to anything important because it has too many commoners in it. So. This could just be a gentle retaliatory shot across his bows. But what an interesting choice of shot.

"Then again, to the Shapers, we were all commoners."

Why the Shapers? Why that?

Is Primus actually religious? Still, I mean. We all know Yanessa most decidedly is not. And this conversation has been all about class so far. The Sundered Houses needing to hold on to their alliance as nobles, lest they be overwhelmed by the masses who would dare call them equals outside. Threats on the board. Nobles vs commoners. Why did she choose to make it religious here? To appeal to that particular power. Like, she says it to needle him. Is there a reason why his status beneath the Shapers would be a particular needle?

There is the obvious gentle warning. The commoners are to us as we were to the Shapers. And the Shapers died to commoners. Be careful dismissing the power and/or utility of commoners too readily, old friend.

Yanessa, whatever else you say about her, is very conscious of optics and soft power and ‘hearts and minds’. There’s a reason she’s doing the political part of the plan, taking Dol Makjar by soft force, destroying the Revolutionary Council the particular way she’s been doing it. There’s a reason Yanessa was the one to realise the potential danger of Hal’s play, even if she was probably too heavy-handed in trying to deal with it. Yanessa uses commoners. The Luxes in Timmony agitating for revolt against King Gus, a similar operation stirring up Dol Makjar against the Council. She is very conscious of their … utility. And she does not appreciate her modus operandi being dismissed here.

Also, Primus was literally just telling her that he thinks there’s another player on the board. The Cloak, yes, and whoever left Occtis’ ring. And he … He talks about another force sitting down at their table, playing their game, one that is not one of their noble number, and then in the next breath dismisses all possible utility of ‘commoners’. Like. If this player is not one of your noble number, then chances are that they are common. And yet they’re playing this game. Careful, ducky. Don’t dismiss your enemy before you’ve even seen them.

But there is also …

To the Shapers, we were all commoners. There is a consciousness there that Primus, and to an extent the other Sundered Houses, don’t appear to have. That noble blood is no more protection than godhood was. That when the difference in power and outlook is on that scale, money and power and title do you no more good than anything else.

Yanessa, I almost get the impression, thought that Primus’ speech about nobles sticking together was a con? Of course it was a con, he was just drawing on our one commonality to string us along a little longer. And then here she’s realising … that he actually believes it? That he actually thinks blood alone will make him special enough to survive whatever’s coming. Meanwhile Yanessa’s over here all … ducky, the gods died. The Empire died. The royal houses died. And even when they were alive, their power was a con. An illusion the gods let them have, until the gods got themselves killed and it all came tumbling down.

I’m getting a weird inkling that the fracture point here between them might weirdly be one of faith? Not necessarily in the sense that Primus is actually still holding onto faith in the Shapers. For all that Tachonis was a priestly house, I doubt the hold-over is that strong, not in the face of their new reality. But more that … that Primus genuinely does believe certain things, believe in his own inherent power and superiority, simply for being who and what he is, the power of his blood, his lineage, his nobility, and Yanessa …

Yanessa does not. Believe. At all. In anything.

There’s actually a fundamental ideological fracture under there. It’s not just methods. Halovar and Tachonis, despite being the longest and most clearly allied of all the Sundered Houses, have a deep and underlying difference in belief.

And they … Shots across the bow. They’re aware of it? Nobody’s saying anything overtly, because for the moment they need this alliance. But.

Why are they so weirdly honest with each other? They’ve dismissed the other Sundered Houses as true allies completely. They’re cheerfully and bald-facedly lying to them. It’s all … false humility and false piety, putting on pretty faces. But with each other they’re weirdly honest enough to show genuine claws, if only gently. And to …

Possibly, to genuinely hurt each other? Like, he backhanded her there, dismissed everything she’s done, and she pipped him straight back. Under the Shapers, you were nothing. No more than anyone else. She caught that grenade and hopped it right back.

I feel like she sort of … has the same opinion of him that she does of Iris? She hates him. Politely, but she hates him. Because he’s fallen for his own lies. He’s committing what to her is the true cardinal sin, falling for his own con.

And he … He needs her. But just from this here. From that opinion of the Creed. He thinks she’s lowered herself. Sullied herself. Lain down in the dirt with the dogs until it’s whittled away her usefulness.

Is he religious? A bit? Still? Does he view her false faith as an actual affront to the Old Obridimia? To their duties as priestly houses back then? I mean, he obviously cannot throw stones in the blasphemy department, given … you know. Everything. But still.

She chose the Shapers. To fire a shot back across his bows after that backhand. She chose the Shapers because she knew that, of all things, would actually hurt him. That to the Shapers, he was nothing. No better than a commoner.

I have seen the theories that Yanessa herself, given her code-switching, may not have originally been noble. That, in the chaos of the aftermath of the Shapers War, maybe she saw an opportunity to do an Anastasia on it, to pretend to be a member of a lost and fallen dynasty. The child who escaped the slaughter. Which. You’d think she’d have gone for the actual royal house if that was the case? But she’s canny. Maybe she realised that would be a con too far. Or maybe Halovar was just more useful to her. Priests, a current, living faith, was more useful than the lure of lost royalty. Especially once she found Aetheon. And …

I could see it. She’s a con woman before anything else. I could see it.

But I also … I feel like the cynicism runs too deep. That’s not the cynicism of someone who never had faith. That’s the cynicism of someone who’s had faith betrayed. I feel like she was noble. I feel like she was of a priestly house. I feel like she did believe, at one point, was raised to believe, that gods and power and blood and nobility would protect her.

And then the Shapers War happened. And that faith was gutted out from under her.

It’s the viciousness, I think. The way she talked about Iris. Snapped at Wick for trying to hold onto the Creed after the reveal that it was fake. Quoting her own damn bullshit back at her like it was supposed to mean something. And here, verbally slapping Primus the minute he starts talking like he believes his own bullshit. There’s an anger there. At the thought of people who should know better believing the lies. Believing their own lies. If you start out from the position of con, from the knowledge that everything is a lie, you don’t get angry at it. Anger doesn’t come from lying, it comes from having been lied to.

It just says something, I think, that the one thing that seems to make her angry is … belief. People believing things they really should know to be false. Nobility, blood purity, godhood, faith, decency. It’s all a con. Like, use it all you like, but don’t fall for it!

This whole conversation she and Primus have had has been so weird. This weird combination of almost honesty, and strange reliance, and then underneath it a thinly veiled contempt and possibly even hatred, that at the same time is still almost a compliment in its way, because it’s more respect and consideration than either of them would give any of the other Sundered Houses, let alone anyone else.

Yanessa Halovar: Lovey. I’m not afraid of Primus Tachonis.