#aric lesso

rhian wins the power of the storian and he's willing to resurrect aric to placate japeth, but surely no one could blame him for including a few safeguards? after all, rhian's life is at stake here, and without him japeth would never have had aric back anyway, and japeth should really be grateful, that rhian's giving him a better lover than the original could have been-

cut to japeth who's initially ecstatic at having aric again, but as time goes on he notices more and more incongruities: he's just a bit softer than japeth remembers him, kinder, less prone to violence, more willing to love... does japeth close his eyes and tell himself it's natural and aric's just changed by having a second chance at life? or does there come a point where he can no longer pretend there's nothing wrong with him?

I did not see anyone talking about this :( Would love to hear if there is any disscussion about this already

Okay i am working on a Character Study of Aric and i just kept on noticing little things that my little 12 year old brain back then did not notice.

Firstly, there is this happening in " A world without princes" (Book 2):

"Tedros lifted his eyes to Aric, smirking in the open doorway. “Special occasion”, the captain said, cracking his knuckles. “Think I´ll do the punishing myself.” Tedros turned away, like a dog offering his neck. Arics eyes flipped to Filip. “Get out.” (p. 150)

Not really evidence for anything, could be a whipping. Then later:

"Tedros looked up from his bed, stopping her in her tracks. His eyes were puffy and red, dark bags beneath them. His skin had gone from tan to ghostly pale, the veins showing through them […]. There were no bruises on him. No wounds or welts. And yet, everything in his eyes said hed been tortured beyond what a boy could handle. […] “get away from me,” he whispered. […] (p. 160)

No outside marks but tortured beyond what his mind could handle.

Did Aric just point an tell him "Youre father is dead and your mother left you" over and over or was something more sinister going on.

Plus not wanting cotact with someone male and telling them to get away from them? Not just "get out" but "get away".

And then even later Sophie sees "Tedros clutching his own arms, barely able to walk." (p. 160)

So that refutes the theory of "just" verbal torture.

and another point:

In "One True King" (Book 6) when Tedros sees his innermost secrest in the Mirror:

"Tedros, stiffening as Aric came toward him in a prison cell, a whip on his belt." (p. 186)

The only other time we see Aric torturing Tedros is when Sophie stops Aric. So why would that be the secret? To add to that, I am also 99% sure, that that second part of the scentence was not added by Soman Chainani but by the publishers, sincethe scentence is also noticeably structured differently than the others (eg. two comma-scentences).

I would love to hear what others think about this topic!

Edit: a commentor made me aware of another instance of Aric’s torture methods being described in… weird ways. In Chapter 12 of “The Last Ever After” there is this scene: 

"'Aric send[s] us to the Doom Room to be tortured for rules he completely made up. He's tortured every boy in the school like ten times already.' [...] 'That kid is evil' 'and not in a good way' Vex muttered quietly. Sophie waited for them to elaborate, but all the boys glanced at each other in tortured brotherhood, before swiveling back to her." (p. 91)

Of course, nobody likes being tortured, not even most nevers, but as far as i remember nobody ever called the old torture master “Evil, and not in a good way”. Torture to them clearly is ‘good evil’.