#character meta

Don’t mind me, just throwing around screenshots that are a decade or so apart from one another

ohhh that makes sense, tbh I read the books but it was a while ago. I'm so non religious that my parents forgot to teach me that Jesus wasn't just a swear word for the first few years of my life (fun day at church...) so unless a character mentions their religion frequently it's not usually something I think about. Russian orthodox culture is definitely something that would be interesting to explore though- I think fandom has a tendency towards exploring religion through a North American lens so getting different perspectives on that could add a lot of depth to Ilya's upbringing (especially his relationship with his mother, if presumably she was the more religious one of his parents).

i was also raised non-religious (in the bible belt no less 🫠)!! in college one time i had to ask who joseph was and when the girl next to me said jesus’s dad i was like ?? is that not god??

anyways

the ussr was not religious at all and russia didn’t start utilizing the orthodox church as a propaganda tool until later on in the 90s/early 00s, though they use it more for upholding tradition vs. actual theistic belief. which i think makes irina being religious and marrying a high ranking soviet military man fascinating. like where did her belief stem from? and for ilya, how does his belief manifest? does he believe in jesus or just in god? did he go to church often as a kid? did he go when he was homesick for russia at 20 and alone on a whole different continent? does he ever pray when he’s scared?

the plane crash scene doesn’t have him praying to god (from what i remember) which i also think is worth noting.

So, I was planning on writing a whole post on the little hints that led me to believe that Na*bito was not a good parent to Na*ya, touching on various facts, such as: the fact that he never talked about him or mentioned him in any of his appearances, the fact he's an alcoholic, the fact he never bothered to fix Na*ya's toxic behavior and increasingly violent conduct as he grew up, he apparently did not care that his whole family seemed to hate his son (which yeah, completely justified, except for O*i and J*nichi. They're not justified in disliking Na*ya when they're as bad as him if not worse, and they are, in all likelihood, two people/models that Na*ya picked up his behavior from). But as a supposedly 'good parent' Na*bito would be expected to care about these tense relationships between his son and the rest of his family, and then do smth about it as clan head, yet he didn't. The normal thing to do as a parent if you notice various family members not getting along with your son is to inquire and try and suggest a solution (especially as the highest ranked person with utter authority in the clan). But Na*bito simply never did any of that cause he likely didn't care that his son was a pos and almost everyone else unanimously hated him. Neglect in its purest form.

Moving to the fact that he never bothered to tell Na*ya about his plans to potentially buy off Megs to potentially replace him, and he must've known how that would shatter Na*ya. Finally, the fact that Na*ya never showed any sadness for his dads' death, which I heavily attribute to him having gone through some kinda effed up emotional training growing up, just to kill his empathy and ability to feel for others. Empathy is not something that you lose like that. For a person to lose their empathy, their brains must've been heavily conditioned and brainwashed to reach such a stage of human depravity. Na*bito must've definitely put Na*ya through some sketchy training to ensure he could be cruel with no flinching or hesitation.

From this source:

But then, I realized that there's actually no need for any of that because Na*bito is canonically an alcoholic and that fact alone would impaire any kind of bond between him and Na*ya:

There's plenty of negative effects to growing up with an alcoholic parent that we can't deny. You can read about them here:

Like, it has both immediate and long-term effects, and Na*ya does show some of them:

Mainly, the anger issues and emotional reactions part. Now, Na*ya's self-esteem isn't low, but his ego is certainly very frail because he grew up knowing that as the heir, he was always one misstep away from being replaced by someone better than him. That's why he was so dramatic with all his posturing and constantly putting down others because he knew that if he didn't act all confident and uncaring, then the words of others could get to him, and if he let that happen, then it could lead to him failing to meet the clan's standards and getting the boot. He has seen the effects of failure in T*ji and in his own brothers who were all born insufficient to meet these standards, and as such, were treated as less, due to their lack of 'power' in the eyes of the clan, the main indicative of a humans' worth in the eyes of the Z*n'in. So, he'd always have it present at the back of his mind that he has value as long as he keeps being powerful enough to meet the clan's standards and prove he's worthy enough of the position of heir, the main reason he was birthed to begin with.

His high self-esteem is but a facade. Also born from constant praise, but if we think about it, from that one flashback we have of him going to see T*ji. Na*ya was told that he was a genius at like 6-7 years old, and that's absolute bullocks cause there's no way he really was a genius at such a young age. Furthermore, he follows that statement by saying: "they say I'm a genius and I'm going to be next clan head." Already tying his worth and any skill he showed at that age to his position in the clan hierarchy. They lied to him and told him that he'd become clan head cause he was supposedly a 'genius'. So, if he ever stopped being one or showed any less promise, he'd be quickly discarded. The only reason Na*ya was even chosen was because all his brothers were weak and not fit for the role. He just got lucky to inherit his dad's technique, which put him higher on the pyramid. All due to his power and how that power could benefit the clan, thus treating him like a tool. And we know his power was not enough and could never be, because while projection sorcery is cool and all, it's not the deal breaker ability that the clan wanted. What Na*bito and the other Z*n'in wanted was the 10 shadows technique, cause as far as I know, that's the only one capable of standing on equal footing with the G*Jo's 6 eyes and limitless abilities (I think that's what they were called). Ultimately, the Z*n'in wanted someone who could let them compete with G*jo S*toru and Na*ya simply was not it. So yeah, he was the best they had, but still insufficient by their standards.

Leaving all that rant aside, the long-term effects of alcoholic parents:

The last sentence there states: 'controlling behavior all of which can strain friendships and romantic relationships.' Na*ya is certainly impulsive (which is why I have a hard time believing he was ever a genius. That was definitely just Na*bito grooming him into a loyal dog via filling his head with bs). And he is controlling. I imagine that difficulty interpreting social cues would also be more than likely, given his upbringing and environment he grew up in. He grew up in a place where healthy human relations were a rarity, and all his interactions with those beneath him were inherently shaped by fear, distaste, and resentment. Na*ya would naturally struggle interacting normally with others because he just wasn't allowed to experience what that is supposed to feel like.

Lastly, if we move to coping mechanisms:

Yeah, the first point about perfectionism is literally a descriptor of Na*ya. He strives for perfection and a need to be validated just to ensure his position in the clan. To reassure himself that he hasn't dropped down to the point of being discarded and replaced cause he's aware that his position in the rankings is wholly reliant on his strength and skill with his technique. Deep down, he knows, and they all know that he's nowhere near strong enough to compete or compare with the likes of T*ji and S*t*ru, so as I've said, he is insufficient. Ultimately, being better than his brothers doesn't mean good enough. That all would lead him to overcompensate through cruelty, detachment, and putting others down.

Emotional guarding and secrecy are a little bit harder to discern. Of course, as heir of Z*n'in, he would be expected to keep most clan matters a secret, so these secrets can't be used by other clans against them. But I can imagine that he'd find it difficult to open up and trust others since that is..... something he could never do. Let's think about it: his dad was an alcoholic, his mom was in all likelihood dead, he didn't have friends, his uncle didn't like him, and his subordinates mostly thought he was trash. He literally never had anyone he could trust, so it makes sense he'd be kinda socially impaired.

I figured out that piroette-ing does specific things based on the turn. It seems random, but its not- there are nine effects that can happen and they always happen in the same order.

Then there is the fact that Jevil tells you what attack he is about to do before he does it with different catchphrases.... is that why everyone likes this guy? Like, his deal is that he's all "oh im so chaotic i loveeee chaos everything is unpredictable" but his bossfight has no randomness to it- he is entirely predictable.

Hm, it doesn't appear to have been a very long relationship. Maybe a few nights together, I'm thinking, before Garling headed off. Maybe longer, but it doesn't have to be long to get someone pregnant. Just the once, really.

He was probably charming, at the very least. Women like a man with charm. Would come off as well-off, or a noble at the very least. Celestial Nobles are not interested in hiding their wealth, even apparent undercover ones like the God Knights act as every once in a while.

Magnolia comes across as quite the romantic with how interested she was in rekindling the relationship with Garling when he returned AND her desire for the twins to be raised up into good hearted men.

I would say that the birth of the twins is probably the bigger part of what pushed Magnolia's offer of family to Garling. Like it's possible she would have be content with more casual dating, on his return, if not for the presence of children that she clearly wanted support in raising.

In my interpretation of Magnolia, I think she was inspired by Eris's quite clearly happy relationship with her far off husband (being a pirate and all) and sought similar for herself. Because Garling leaving for a year clearly wasn't a turn-off for her.

As easy as it is to judge in hindsight, it is rather difficult to say Magnolia was in the wrong to act as she did. Like maybe she was a little hasty in inviting Garling to join her and the twins as a family, but that's not any more hasty than many women who would suffer from raising children on their own in today's society wanting to have a partner to support them.

the first association has to do with the themes of change that surround dhavi. inquisition has a lot of change involved in the story, both for the inquisitor and as a result of the inquisitor, in the people around them and the world as a whole. dhavi herself brings a lot of change to the world and to the people around her. she goes through a lot of changes in inquisition, as well. she's extremely accepting of change. bull is kicked out of the qun, dorian resolves to abolish slavery in tevinter, the circles and templar order are both dissolved—big changes surround dhavi, as well as her own changes (yes the removal of her vallaslin and questioning her faith as a result of meeting mythal, but also the amputation of her arm). all of which is just so that when i say "dhavi is associated with butterflies because butterflies are associated with change," you understand the transitive property of butterflies=change and dhavi=change, therefore butterflies=dhavi. this involves both butterflies own transformations from caterpillars into butterflies and butterflies as pollinators, bringing change and growth and life to the world around them.

the second and third associations are solas-heavy, so bear with me.

because the butterfly association for dhavi actually started when i described her as "something tiny, flitting in and out of his life, charming or maybe even beautiful, but ultimately fragile, easily crushed even if [she is] mourned." which my brain then ran with, forming dhavi into the butterfly effect in solas' story. the small, inconsequential thing that "changes everything." she's a mortal, the amount of time he spends with her is the same as if in the real world we spent an afternoon with someone, she should have been a drop in the ocean to him, but by his own admission, "the whole world changed" because of her. which is just the "change" reason from the first association but solas-centric, but i'm keeping it.

and finally, also on the solas side of things, i'm going to point to the story of psyche and eros, and i'm going to cast dhavi in the role of psyche and solas in the role of eros. for anyone who doesn't know the story of psyche and eros, here's a quick and dirty summary for you: aphrodite, eros' mother, heard that some mortals were saying that this mortal girl, psyche, was really pretty. which was fine, except someone had the audacity to compare psyche's beauty to aphrodite's, obviously unacceptable. so aphrodite sent her son, eros, to kill psyche. except eros fell in love with psyche. psyche then goes through apotheosis so that she can be made immortal and she and eros can be wed, with psyche becoming associated with the mortal soul. psyche is often depicted as a beautiful woman with butterfly wings.

so we have a god, whose mission is to kill a mortal woman, but instead he falls in love with her. it's not a 1:1 but there are parallels, and that's all i need. psyche's association with the mortal soul, for me, parallels dhavi becoming something of a representative of mortals for solas, at least well enough for me to look at those butterfly wings of hers and go "dhavi's now"

but

He didn’t become “Spooky Mulder” at twelve years old. He was a teenager whose sister disappeared, and later an adolescent at high school and college who, to the best of our knowledge, never bothered much with the unexplained. I wonder about adult Mulder: already brilliant, already wounded, already inclined toward extreme pattern-recognition, undergoing hypnosis and suddenly “recovering” a memory that gives shape to the central loss of his life.

Before that, what did he believe had happened?

We know his family never recovered. We know he went on to Oxford, became a psychologist, entered the FBI, and was considered exceptional before he became marginal. But the psychological path between those points is almost entirely negative space.

Later, was he trying to become respectable? Was criminal profiling a way of mastering the incomprehensible through intellect? Was holding onto the X-Files a way of pushing back against a father whom he, possibly, subconsciously, already suspected — secretive, compromised, dealing in darkness — while Fox had made up his mind to drag everything into the light?