#viren

This man has the window wide open, speaks so loudly and clearly, says the word assassin like a thousand times in this scene, but when Soren basically repeats the information being told to him, Viren freaks out and acts like Soren's gonna cause a panic.

I'm not gonna dig for it now, but I wrote a post once about how the connotations of "my most eager student" in the context of that scene reflect Viren's power/class insecurity in that it implies the gap between Kpp'Ar's power and Viren's was so vast—before Kpp'Ar deigned to help him close it—that it was somehow noteworthy relative to others, meaning Viren had less and wanted more than anyone else. Normally, a student who stands out as eager to learn would be well-regarded or even the favorite of a teacher, but the Kpp'Ar of Viren's nightmare says it with snide condescension, emphasizing that Viren (as he has always suspected) is even now not considered his equal.

Meanwhile, back in s1, we have Viren himself using the same derogatory "eager" with the sunray monarch as it blithely flutters into the grasp of a being whose power will drain it dry and leave its discarded corpse on the floor. It is again an expression of condescension over a vast, unclosable gap in power and understanding—the sunray monarch is not aware of what it's "volunteering" for (in that Viren is, somewhat ironically for a dark mage, personifying something we otherwise have no indication is sapient), nor is it even capable of perceiving Viren as someone who has cultivated and nurtured it or as a predator. (See also: Viren and Aaravos.)

But there is still so much we can do. So much we can set right.