The philosophies of the Trae Mestraes are as follows:
Harun Valik: Harun Valik is the firstborn of the Trae Mestraes and as such viewed himself as a guide to his younger brothers, whether they liked it or not. Due to the fact that he always wanted to keep his brothers safe, he became a firm advocate of keeping things the way they were as to not cause any undue conflict. This philosophy would become the foundation of the Valik House and the Traditionalist Zakrat. However, his writings and sayings drastically change from his younger years to post-Battle of the Bloody Hills. In that battle, he lost nearly his entire immediate family save for his wife and infant daughter. Without his knowledge, almost all of the rest of his seven children had arrived at the battle. He had only permitted two of his adult children, his daughter Reika and his son Ulman, to come with him to the battle. The rest of the children hid their faces, as was the custom, but hid amongst the various other armies, concealing their House identity and forming ranks with the other armies. During the course of the battle, it became a slogging, brutal battle where no quarter was shown to either side and even the Archers of Harun charged down the mountain to bolster the lines. After the battle, Harun discovered that his son Ulman had been shot in the throat almost immediately after they started the charge and his daughter Reika had died mere seconds before the battle was declared over by the last strike of the Reichen forces. He wept for his children, but he was prepared to lose them as he knew they had come with him to battle. However, when they started to gather the dead and reveal their faces, the other Mestraes began to wail in anguish as they started to find the bodies of Harun’s other children in their own ranks. Soon enough, the Seignians started to find the bodies of Harun’s children, and the Faisal himself, who had lost two of his children, began to wail in anguish. Harun though did not show any emotion. Instead, he took his brothers and they immediately set out for the city of Reichen, cutting down any stragglers they found and taking the walls of Reichen with ease. There at the city, he displayed undue and uncharacteristic callousness towards the innocent people within Reichen and was content to slaughter them wholesale. When he returned to Amon Seign, he became far more possessive of his family, especially his wife and daughter, and imposed many restrictions upon them and when he had a son, he raised him to be as possessive and also ingrained within him that he was the only one who could protect the family, seemingly forgetting that his daughter Reika fought with him to the end of the battle. There are factions within the Traditionalist way of thinking which are split along these lines of pre and post-Battle of the Bloody Hills. The pre-battle faction is known as the Authentic faction, while the post-battle faction is known as the Renewal faction. Over time, the Authentic faction has traditionally held the most sway, however, in modern times, the Renewal faction has gained enough power that they now pose a serious threat. However, Harun Valik would still be horrified by the Renewal faction as they took his, albeit misogynistic and possessive writings, and took them to eleven.
