I finished Empire of the Damned yesterday (holy shit) (pun intended I guess). Some thoughts and considerations
SPOILER AHEAD!!
I love Gabriel so much, he was almost killed many times and still came back bitchier than ever. He lives out of everyone else spite. At this point he has like three friends and everyone else is his enemy
Anyway Gabriel should be fucked. He deserves to be the bottom and have his problems get fucked out of him.
(He should be the Straight White Dude TM but between Lachlan and Jean-François... The man is hungry for men, trust me)
I am not sure if I hate Celene or not. I know that the parts where she narrated were good as plot but not my cup of tea (sorry but Gabriel is way funnier than her and Jean will agree with me) (the only moment I liked from her chapters was that bit of Nikita and Aaron)
Talking about Aaron (and Baptise)... Everyone is devastated but I am not. Baptise is alive. Aaron is a vampire, dead but not enough, AND he's not under Nikita's influence anymore. Love wins, they can go back living together as a (almost) happy family
(The bit of Baptise seeing Gabriel and hugging him after being freed from Lilidh blood magic made me cry)
Dior deserves better and I am curious to know if she came back alright or wrong (broken)
Gabriel going from almost dying by Nikita's hand to kill one of the Terrors with bare hands was badass as fuck
Every interaction between Gabriel and Fabien Voss is exilarating to me. Gabriel loathes him from the bottom of his heart and Fabien just "old friend"s him WHAT DOES IT EVEN MEAN he is terrifying but also fucking funny
(If he wasn't so terrified of dying I am sure than Fabien would actually save Gabriel from death just to be able to fight him in person later. Would be a weird twist but idc)
Anyway Gabriel goes on his knees in front of women in 0 seconds, it is a shame that I didn't see him kneeling in front of a vampire as an act of submission. It would be delicious
Beside fantasies, I am curious about the third one. My theory at this point is that the only way to end the Sine Die is to kill the five anciens. The ancient Dyvok is already dead. Fabien gets killed by Gabriel at some point. Margot (that's her name I hope) will be killed soon, I am sure of it: I don't know if Celene and Gabriel got captured accidentally or not, but if Joaquin is there, there is a plan and it's probably to kill her. There are two missing ancients: the one freed by Celene and another I don't remember. They all must die I guess
I have zero capacities with prophecies but I also thought of Celene with all of their souls that gets killed in the end by Dior or someone else. If it wasn't for the fact that out of three dead anciens, two are killed by Gabriel and one by Lachlan and Baptise
I just know that Nikita is fuming in hell btw. Being immortal and getting killed not by immortals like him but your half bother and a complete human fueled by love and rage must be embarassing
Is Dior actually alive during the narration? Probably. Maybe broken, as they said. But Jean doesn't know yet that Dior opened her eyes in her coffin so who knows. If Gabriel is not aware of it, Celene will die very soon
Dior calling Gabriel "Dad" was unnecessary imo, Kristoff did that just to show Gabriel losing two daughters. Dior never called him like that, why would she after almost dying? And like, he already considered her a daughter and he didn't react to "dad" so what was the point 😭
(I loved the way Gabriel promised her to reach her anywhere and did exactly that tho)
I add that the fact that the Dyvoks thought Gabriel dead and then he came back with TWO armies is so funny 😭 he doesn't die, he is more immortal than them
Kiara deserved better. Nikita, you are a bitch. Lilidh deserved worse instead. DIE BITCH.
Phoebe also deserved better. She almost died. Her broom disappeared and died when she found out he was still alive. I like her a lot and I am happy she managed to survive that hell
A moment of appreciations for the first two chapters. Jean really liked to be choked by Gabriel :') and in the meanwhile Gabriel got tortured. Beautiful.
So yeah, I am very curious about the third book. I hope to see Gabriel and Jean kissing (Jean will probably die in the third book, I have this feeling) but it's not really what I want to see.
I also add that Gabriel should receive a pass to say blasphemous things about his god the Italian way. He deserves to say his god is a pig or a dog or shit or what he wants. After all of that he can starts using blasphemous idioms. His god deserves it.
To end this post: Shadow Moses by Bring Me The Horizon is THE song for this series, but I found out that Dig Down by Muse is THE song for Gabriel De Leon. And The Death Of Peace Of Mind by Bad Omens is Gabriel and Astrid's song.
