#bug words

Lucanis seems to me like someone who is introverted but used to masking it. He's a homebody, he keeps to himself, he's charming (because it's what's expected of him, and because he can form good rapport cos he is quick/witty in conversation) but he isn't gregarious. He doesn't like to be the centre of attention. He seems to me like he is a pretty normal, sensitive guy who likes to help people but who was not born into a lifestyle suited to it, and he never got proper socialization with kids his age/got to have a real childhood. So he's a bit quiet and has a hard time expressing or fully grasping his emotions when they are complex. He loves and values his family, will always put them first, and will find actions to show it because Dellamortes don't say their positive/vulnerable feelings out loud, they're expected to be implied. So he cooks for them and is afraid to be told he's loved. etc.

He shows he loves his grandmother, the only role model he has, by always doing what she asks of him, always striving to meet her expectations, always trying to be deserving of her love by not disappointing her; his love is unconditional, hers is not. He shows he loves Illario, his brother (close enough), the only remaining family member who he can really speak to (even if they don't make a habit of it), by looking out for him, being there for him, keeping him safe.

(But Illario doesn't need him to. I don't think he gets himself into MORE bad situations than Lucanis does, they're just different ones that carry a more negative connotation with the Crows. I think Lucanis inherits Caterina's habit of underestimating Illario's capabilities because they are different from his own--not that there are other crows who do the exact same as Illario who are disliked across the board or anything. I think it's that Lucanis and Caterina are already biased against Illario because of his personality (that is: how he responded to the trauma of their upbringing) and that manifests itself through lacking respect for him as an assassin. Is it any wonder Illario ended up turning on them if they were all he has, but they still could not manage to see him as equal?)

Lucanis already had spite inside him, because he had the determination to survive under the duress of Caterina's guardianship, where it was beaten into him that family comes first, even when family is the one killing him. I get the (maybe unfounded) impression that Lucanis has been spiteful his whole adult life. He's in his mid-to-late thirties, and what does he have to show for it except that he has spent his entire life doing what Caterina told him to? Once Caterina is gone, what does he have? There will be no one to tell him what to do. He will get the First Talon title, which as of TN he ALREADY doesn't want (and knows he will get anyway, and seems both in denial and a bit meek about the certainty of it being given to him).

I like to think (and idk this is prob not a groundbreaking interpretation) that Spite didn't make Lucanis very different; Spite was attracted to what was already inside him, and embodied those same survival mechanisms he developed in his youth and used in the Ossuary, and Spite is giving voice to all those repressed thoughts and feelings that have been simmering for decades. Before the Ossuary, I think Lucanis stood a chance of spending his life repressing those feelings still, and just carrying on doing whatever Caterina told him to do until he died. But after VG, and after Spite, he just can't do that anymore.

In planning out a possible post-VG ending for Lucanis, I was thinking that he would still accept the seat of First Talon because he still doesn't have it in himself not to. He knows he doesn't want it, knows that while Caterina is alive, saying no to it would mean failing her (and losing her approval (despite knowing it sits on a frail foundation to begin with), her love, her support, as the only guardian he has, the person he's clinging to to patch over the wound left by the loss of his parents, which he still hasn't processed, because DELLAMORTES DON'T DO THAT).