#hannan

We said 'flower-doll' not because that's how we saw you, but because it's what we knew she saw you as. An eternity, to have all of your complexity, all of your possibility, all of your dreams folded into an idyllic paradise where you would be punished for the most minor infraction?

First, Brennan uses Hannan as an antagonistic force toward the Seekers; he unifies them by standing against both Occtis and Vaelus. He also provides contrast to the more measured and peaceful Druids we've seen thus far. He provides a counterpoint to Vaelus, the only other Elf we've seen in the campaign, and forces her to reveal more about her position regarding the Shaper's War by defending it.

As his relationship with Vaelus develops, we get more nuanced glimpses of what Elvish life is actually like, the full weight of Sylandri's hold of her creations, and Vaelus admits who she actual has been missing and grieving all these years; not Sylandri, but her family. Admitting this lets us understand the sacrifice she makes when she chooses to put her family aside, to break the Stone of Nightsong and help the Rungjani dead find peace.

And of course, when Hannan learns of Mara's capture he flies to Obrimus Manor to help her. There, he does not barge in to search, instead he starts to counter the Undead. This is extremely important support for Thimble. The magical darkness dissipates, her search difficulty decreases significantly, and the undead threat is lessened greatly. I feel confident in saying that Thimble would not have succeeded without this intervention, but critically, he supports Thimble's success without swooping in to make it his own.

With this support, she is able to finish off the Undead Monstrosity that was Raimond Davinos. Now Teor's death is not in vain because she heroically finished the work he had started. Together, they rid the world of a great evil while freeing Raimond's spirit and recovering his blade.

Thimble is able to recover the Pridesires. Their spirits and bodies cannot be harnessed by the Tachonises. She recovers the Royce Bracers and the Einfassen ax, which could have complicated things had they been discovered in the crypt. She also finds valuable information throughout her search, learning where the Gnomish statues were taken and information on the tenebral ship. Hannan facilitates all of this as he holds the darkness and the dead at bay.

The last important thing Hannan does is to die.

And this is very important, narratively.

Primus Tachonis has been bested by the work of the Magpies. We've seen him threatened by the Einfasen and condescended to by Yanessa Halovar. Why should we be threatened by him? Maybe he's just prideful and sloppy. Maybe he's careless and stupid. Maybe he's actually not that frightening.

And then he kills Hannan without a second thought, and we see the truth that Brennan has been nudging us toward since the beginning.

Primus is not stupid or short-sighted, he is panicking.

He knows things we do not. He knows something is coming, and the full wrath of the Druids that may come in a handful of months doesn't matter, because there are larger forces at play. So yes, the Einfasen and the Cormorays are deeply powerful and the Halovar's have power and influence as well as cunning and poise the others seem to lack.

Even so, Primus Tachonis is the most dangerous threat right now, because he is desperate. In his mind, he has nothing to lose. The murder of Hannan proves this.

Sometimes the cost of a great story is the loss of a great character.

it's also interesting in the difference between the elves of the Old Path and the practitioners of other races. if the ability to have children was decided to only be granted to the most faithful then elves like Hannan and his wife were foregoing the possibility of ever passing on their traditions to their biological children as the other races of the Old Path could. of course, biological family isn't the only type of family, but it does mean the elven druids had to put themselves in more danger in order to find others who shared their beliefs. there were no generations of secret worship. they had to intentionally seek each other out just to learn about the Path, let alone find community with each other, and if they were discovered, if they confided in the wrong person, they were persecuted the most harshly by their goddess of life and nature.

He just pulls you in, kisses your cheek, and says...

Cr4 npc sketches accidentally fully rendered portraits part 2 of ???

being very precise with my gif timing here, the captions are exactly where they should be, bc i need to illustrate something i haven't stopped thinking about

which is that alex/occtis (and only him) clocked the exact word that was gonna kill hannan before brennan switched characters to primus

There’s something beautiful about two disparate elves who fought on opposite sides of a long-ended war bridging the distance between them and literally creating pathways to closed and lost realms.