Hey! A question! How would you describe Matthias and Obed characters? Like, their personalities!!
And, if those boys would get a happy ending (aka, they would have lived), what would they decide to do with their lives?
I've been playing coy with these guys because I like people to learn info as the story reveals it, but at the rate I'm going tbh I might as well just go ahead and say stuff! 😩 So!
Matthias definitely has confused kicked puppy energy. He's the first grimwalker. He was brought into a world where no one had heard of Belos or the Golden Guard, and Caleb was still intent on escape. He had an especially rough time of things because he’s the one who was used to teach Caleb the consequences of defiance.
He was also created old enough that he was being handed responsibilities shortly after being born, even though he had no idea what was going on. He has no context for anything. Everyone else is expected to evangelize for a cult people are suspicious of too, right? Nobody else has childhood memories, right? It's normal for your dad to live in a cage, right? Dads are always trying to run away and arguing with uncles, right? Abuse is normal, right?
No? Hmm.
I think this was early enough that if he’d lived and they’d escaped, Caleb would have taken him back home to Evelyn, and Matthias would’ve become part of their family. He would’ve been BOTH the older AND younger brother of Caleb and Evelyn’s kid, heh. As for what Matthias himself would do, I think he’d be most interested in simply learning how regular people live and exploring the world around him? His experiences were really limited and by this point he’d be painfully aware of how not-normal his life was. He wants to know what’s out there. He wants to know what’s true and what was a lie.
Obed, on the other hand, is much more confident. He's tough. He's sure of himself. He’s good at what he does. He's had a long and successful career as the Golden Guard in an era where everyone knows what that is. People looked up to him and Belos approved of him.
He was Golden Guard before Hunter and was one of—if not THE—longest lived grimwalkers. Much like Hunter, he was created a baby and groomed into the perfect Golden Guard, and then he matured into a fully-grown, savvy, competent adult. He’s sort of the ideal that Hunter is expected to emulate. Everything Philip wanted. The shadow Hunter lives under.
BUT, in the end he was too smart for his own good…
If Obed had lived, he would’ve been the leader of the rebels. He had the know-how. He had the leadership skills. He had the connections. And he would’ve been hell-bent on taking Belos down himself.
