#sterwards

I was rereading Dark Heir and I thought of a little theory...

When our protagonists manage to communicate with the Elder Steward through that stone in the Hall, it is Grace who interrupts. And when Will is revealed as the Dark King at the end, Grace's reaction to what happened is not given any emphasis, but no particular reaction.

Also, when Cyprian takes Will prisoner and shows him to everyone, there is no mention of Grace, as if she had disappeared...

Many think that this could have been a mistake by Pacat, who forgot to work on the character, but what if it was intentional?

Pacat simply couldn't give her too much prominence, otherwise it would have become obvious... Obvious what? That she knew.

She knows that Will is the Dark King, think about it, she was Elder Sterward's Janissary, she should know many secrets, and assuming that Elder Sterward knew about Will being the Dark King, she should prepare something to help him, after all, she knew that she wouldn't live long, but even if she left a recording on that stone, who can guarantee that the stone wouldn't fall into the wrong hands, or even into the hands of Cyprian who would try to kill Will as soon as he found out the truth?

She couldn't risk it, besides, once she died, there would be no one to help Will and stop him from falling into the path of Darkness, that said, who better to entrust this task to than her own Janissary?

She prevented them from seeing Elder Sterward's entire recording because she knew that from that part of the recording, she would speak directly to Will about him being the Dark King, so she stopped filming and kept the stone with her, waiting to show it to Will when the right time came.

Exactly as Elder Sterward instructed her. That's why she's so absent throughout the book. At the end of the book when she disappears, she may have possibly run away to join Will, after all, it's essential that Will knows the truth about Elder Sterward now.

Then she will join Will and James and possibly be further developed in book 3. That's my theory.

Yes, many of their actions can be interpreted as necessary.

However, they didn't tell the novitiates about the shadows in the chalice before they became Sterwards, you can say that it's necessary to keep a considerable number of Sterwards to fight against the Darkness, but being necessary doesn't make it any less of a jerk. And Jannick, even if he doesn't consider James as his son anymore, was it really necessary to make those comments about James when he was captured, not to mention when Jannick said "That thing is not my son." "Thing", even if James was an enemy, I wouldn't refer to anyone as "thing" possibly, and it wasn't just James that they referred to like that, when they found out Violet was a Lion, she stopped being "Violet" and became "the lioness", Visander also did something similar when he saw her for the first time, but he didn't know her name yet, so maybe it can be overlooked.

"The Dark King" "The Traitor" "Lions". They always objectify their enemies too much, it seems that from the moment you fight for the opposite side, you become some kind of irrational and lying monster, apparently. Because that's how the Stewards see things: They are the heroes in the fight against darkness and all those on the Dark side are monstrous and crazy followers of the crazy King of Darkness.

Even in real-world wars, there are wars in which one side was clearly worse than the other, but does that mean that the worse side is purely made up of bad people and the better side is full of good people? No, even if the leader of a group is horrible, that doesn't mean that everyone who follows him or hangs out with his group agrees with him, after all, some were born there and have no way to escape, others simply have their own agendas, and others don't even have an exact idea of why what they're doing is bad, like Tom, who we discover had little information about everything that was happening. Does that justify it? No.

But it also doesn't justify the way the Sterwards treated Violet, they could have interrogated her and even arrested her if there was any surprise, but they barely let her say anything after they found out about her being a lion and they already tried to attack her and throw her in the dungeon, even though she never attacked them before THEY tried to attack her, did they try to communicate with words instead of immediately thinking about executing the girl? If she didn't attack them first, what used to they try to do things peacefully? I'm not saying that the Dark side is some saint, but the Light side is not what it says it is, the light should be welcoming, kind and merciful, right? Yes, they were at WAR, but when it refers to their enemies, they ignore it, Cyprian claiming that James killed Sterwards, which is true, but what choice did he have? Let himself be killed? It's a war, and James barely had anywhere to run if he didn't sin, besides the way they forget that they tried to kill James first, that may not justify James killing Sterwards in the eyes of some, but that doesn't make him worse than the Sterwards, they're on the same level, after all, what do they fight for so much? Protecting humanity? That they barely have contact with while they're isolated in the Hall? Dirty or disgusting comments about their enemies are allowed, but when they insult them, then they're horrible people, Cyprian got angry whenever someone said something against the Sterwards, but when Jannick spoke badly about James when he was captured or he himself said something mean, then there was no problem, right?