Si Vis Pacem, Para Bellum

Arc One

Demetrius only appears in one scene (in-person, anyway) in arc one, which is just after Anya saves the fascist guy from choking on his own airway, in Chapter 13. His introduction is pretty ominous and spooky, and that’s entirely intentional, because perceptions of Demetrius are skewed by how Anya sees him at this point. On this first meeting, Anya sees Demetrius as an extension of Donovan and the NUP; an enemy to Damian, essentially. Considering in her second life, she spied on him in an NUP war meeting, this makes sense. What I do want to call out here is that Demetrius didn’t purposely sneak up on her; she was tired and didn’t notice him, but his ‘creepiness’ in this scene stems entirely from Anya’s perceptions.

The exchange they have regarding the man Anya just saved is very telling:

“Minister Falk is… a hindrance [...] His removal would have been acceptable.”

I was very careful with my word choice here, and where Demetrius cuts himself off. When he says ‘his removal would have been acceptable’ because Falk is a ‘hindrance to some’, it’s easy to interpret this as a pre-cursor to his later statements (below), and hinting that Falk is a hindrance for Damian. However, he doesn’t name-drop his brother here as he does later, meaning Demetrius himself is the person who finds Falk to be a hindrance, and his death would be acceptable to him. Now, at this point, Anya believes Demetrius is an NUP-shill, so she doesn’t pick up on it, but why would Demetrius say this about someone who’s on the same side as him?

The easiest conclusion (which will be confirmed come Arc Three) is that Demetrius does not consider himself to be on the NUP’s side. This was the earliest hint I dropped that he wasn’t completely on-board with the NUP, but this passed by unremarked by Anya, and by extension, the narration, because she incorrectly believed he was speaking about Damian.

However, we know he isn’t, because I purposely had him switch to talking about Damian here to mark a difference in the two statements (though Anya interpreted them as a continuation):

[…]  His eyes flickered to his brother across the room. “Damian would have let him die.” […] “…if it served his longer objectives.”

This is the first hint I gave that Demetrius knows what his brother’s plans are, almost in detail, including the depths Damian’s willing to go to achieve them. This is also a set-up for the truth revealed in Arc Three, where Damian KNEW Demetrius ordered the hit on Winslow, and did nothing… because Damian would let people die if it serves his longer objectives. While this is a rather callous statement – and Anya actually interprets it as an insult against Damian instead of the admiration that it is – I wanted to show that Demetrius REALLY understands his brother better than anybody else… including Anya, so they're actually closer than people think from the get-go.

His last important line is here, but I can’t exactly reveal its true meaning here, but it was intended for people to theorise and go crazy about it. It almost seems to come out of nowhere, too, which really catches Anya off-guard:

Damian,” he spoke suddenly, “resembles you more than he resembles us.”

One of my favourite techniques in SP is playing with pronouns, especially when it comes to Demetrius and Damian (if you’ll recall Damian’s intrusive thought of ‘not until they’re all dead’ that Anya picks up on). While I can’t reveal what this means just now, it’s something to keep in mind. In short, Demetrius knows his brother really well, as established, but now he’s comparing him to Anya. One wonders why, especially considering that overall, Demetrius is dismissive towards Anya, and frequently thinks she’s an idiot with above-average intelligence (as in, he’s aware she has skills she shouldn’t have, but she’s deploying them incorrectly). Remember (as was revealed in chapter 56, Demetrius bugged Anya’s cat phone, so he’s been watching her for a long, long time by the time arc three rolls around).

Arc Two

We’ll take a brief detour to Anya’s second life, where Demetrius is present in one of her scenes in Chapter 21, when Starlight and Twilight were spying on the NUP’s war-planning session. I had to be careful with what Demetrius was contributing to the meeting, and crucially, what he wasn’t talking about. You’ll notice that Demetrius never says anything regarding war; he only mentions the political situation, or makes disparaging statements about Damian. In this meeting, he’s a passive participant, not an active one. If you’ll recall, Demetrius very crabbily tells Anya in arc three that he does not want war, despite what she thinks, and this remains true here. He’s definitively not helping. However, in subtle ways that Anya didn’t pick up on, he’s also… doing the opposite of helping Donovan.

“Our latest modelling indicates the coalition’s approval has peaked. The SDP’s honeymoon period is expiring. Voter fatigue, inflation anxiety and policy overreach present a strategic opportunity.” “The SDP is inexperienced in governance. Their backbench is undisciplined. Their chief vulnerability is their key figurehead. He wants to be liked, which is an exploitable flaw.”

These two statements are straight-up lies with enough truth in them that Donovan – who clearly prefers Demetrius, and even trusts him due to his ability to remain detached and ergo above a situation – believes him without much pushback. Demetrius says here that the SDP’s popularity is waning due to voter fatigue and inflation anxiety, but… we know that isn’t true, because Damian has never lost an election in any of Anya’s lives. In fact, Anya makes several statements in arc one before this that everyone LOVES Damian, where it’s only people who are only just ‘okay’ with him being in charge want to vote him in (and the fans wanting to ride him until he weeps). Demetrius is lying to Donovan here, so I really want people to question why he’s doing that. If Donovan is operating from incorrect assumptions, he’ll make the wrong moves, and lose, so what I wanted readers to draw from this is that Demetrius is purposely sabotaging the NUP to put Damian in charge. This was also to set up his more extreme actions in arc three, where he orders a hit on the SDP chairman to ensure Damian gets ahead. So, you might be thinking he’s on Damian’s side, but that isn’t true either (as I’ll explain later).

An interesting word Demetrius uses here is ‘modelling’. Damian even throws this in his face in Chapter 31 by telling Demetrius to “Go play with your models.” This is meant to have two distinct connotations (and one of my readers did pick up on it, though didn’t pick up on this bit). Who else do we know that uses ‘modelling’ for his plans? That’s right – Damian’s warsim! In that meeting, Demetrius says he’s using a model. Now, I’m not silly and use my words all willy-nilly; I used this word on purpose. The implication here is two-fold:

Demetrius knows, on some level, about Damian’s warsim and even has a copy for his own personal use, which he could only get if Damian GAVE one to him (considering that Damian only gave copies to Ewen and Emile – admittedly, those two built it).

Alternatively, Damian just showed him a screenshot of the model’s predictions for the war that the NUP is planning. If you recall in life two, Ewen says this to PM Desmond when they’re actively discussing the war: “The scenario where we do nothing is worse. If the NUP started this, we’d be looking at… yeah, the numbers I showed you.” It’s possible Damian showed these figures to Demetrius, and as we know, Demetrius allies himself with the person most likely to win, or the person with an optimal result.

Therefore, Demetrius actively sabotages the NUP and Donovan by lying here to prevent their war. He’s not on the villain’s team (which he explicitly calls Anya out on in arc three also).

Now, let’s move onto Arc Two’s present timeline, and the kidnapping arc, which a lot of people derided at  the time for being goofy. However, there’s a LOT happening here which I hope will make more sense now we look back at it. Firstly, let’s review some key-lines I included for him in the car with Anya in Chapter 30, which covers that he isn’t entirely on Damian’s side.

“Don’t misunderstand,” he held up a placating hand. “In many contexts, Damian’s competence is an asset. I anticipated him rising quickly. I didn’t anticipate him doing so on a platform threatening to install socialism in my lifetime.” “Heh,” Anya snorted. “You say socialism like rabies.”

Despite the current political gaps we experience, where one is either left-wing or right-wing, I’d argue that Demetrius is ENTIRELY apolitical. No, he isn’t a centrist. One of Demetrius’ redeeming qualities (of which there are few, entirely by design) is that he genuinely seems to care about his country (as demonstrated by his debate with Damian, where his actual fears are the long-term impacts of Damian’s INCREDIBLY risky plan), hence why he rakes Damian so hard over the coals during that debate, even if their goals are aligned and they are – ostensibly – a team. Being a team doesn’t mean you let your teammate do whatever the hell they want. So, just because Demetrius doesn’t like the NUP, it doesn’t mean he likes the SDP. He actually holds them both in pretty low regard. This also confirms how explicit his lies to his father actually were, because Demetrius confirms here that he knows how popular Damian is in the polls.

Also, I very cheekily shoved in foreshadowing about the red-light district meetings he has with Damian, because I could: “Nobody looks for scandal in the obvious place.”

So, why did Demetrius ‘kidnap’ Anya? On the surface, sure, it was to try and get Damian to pull his winter package. This demonstrates how much he cares about his countries; his fears were great enough to warrant a drastic action that Anya or Damian could RIGHTFULLY report him to the authorities over. Neither do, but it’s a risk Demetrius takes. Hopefully, I’ve demonstrated that he’s very risk-averse, and usually won’t take an action unless he knows the consequences of that action. This was a gamble on his part. Furthermore, I stated here that Demetrius was confirming another of his suspicions re: Damian and Anya. By kidnapping Anya and eliciting an emotional response from Damian, he now knows that Anya is Damian’s weak point, and confirmed the marriage isn’t just for show. He even goads Damian in their meeting by saying he wasn’t “presuming permanence” when it comes to Anya, which Damian responds to with anger (which is fair, considering this can be interpreted as a death threat).

However, we also know in Arc Three that Demetrius has been tracking Anya for quite some time, and is well-aware of her skills (such as climbing up buildings, tracking an evasive Damian across Berlint without getting caught), so he knows there’s a high chance Anya will escape organically anyway. In fact, he was sort of banking on her getting out while he and Damian were talking so they could have a lengthy conversation… he did not bank on her crashing through the ceiling. However, Damian’s surprised reaction to this told him that Damian did not know about Anya’s abilities… so that gives Demetrius a wedge he can use to drive between them if he needs to as leverage over Anya. I wanted to write a smart character, so connecting all of this was a fucking pain in the ass.

His conversation with Damian in Chapter 31 is very illuminating of his character and the first hints I’ve laid about what his independent goals are. However, I’d like to take a quick detour within this conversation, because I didn’t want Demetrius to actually be a robot (despite Anya’s perceptions of him), so I did my best to humanise him through his connection with his baby brother. I wanted to give the sense here that Demetrius took his role as a big brother really seriously:

“I’m just saying,” his brother softened slightly, “we both know what happens when you get it wrong.” “Consider this some friendly, fraternal advice. If you continue pretending you don’t desire the life right in front of you, you’ll destroy it before it begins.” […] “You’re not the first Desmond to fear the future. You’re merely the first one to believe that refusing to step towards it will prevent it from stepping towards you.”

This exposes that his goal in giving him a hard time in Parliament was because he wanted to make sure Damian had thought his plans through and was making the right call. Think of it as the Desmondian way of catching him before he fell to check he really knew what he was doing. I also wanted to show that Demetrius really, really knows Damian; he identifies here that Damian fears the future, which Anya doesn’t really manage to notice until the end of arc three and Damian has to spell it out for her by having a mini-breakdown on her. However, he’s encouraging his brother here! I wanted to show his human side to make him more well-rounded than 'creepy political genius guy'.

This conversation is still doing a SHITLOAD in terms of revealing how much Demetrius knows. Several people clocked it when the chapter released, but it bears repeating. I dropped an absolute clanger of a hint that Demetrius knows MUCH more about Anya than Damian, but we don’t know how much he knows, what he knows, or how he even discovered this information. Now, this could be a reference to the fact Anya has crazy skills she shouldn’t have (again, because he’s monitoring her), but I purposely muddied the water here by having him discuss Anya’s childhood.

“She was a kid. Kids have bad years.” “No, she had inexplicable ones. Periods of the worst underachievement Eden has ever seen, then progress far beyond what her age should have allowed. You were in her cohort. No doubt you saw this yourself.”

Now, there’s a few interpretations to be had here, entirely by design, because you know your good bitch Bee adores a vague statement. Now, the one that most people jumped to was that Demetrius knows Anya is a telepath, and by extension, Apple, and sure, I can see that as one valid interpretation. However, what I also wanted to communicate was that Demetrius is warning Damian here that something’s UP with his fiancée. Damian shuts this down (which speaks to his inability to see Anya as anything but perfect), which Deme picks up on, obviously. He was testing how Damian reacted to ‘bad news’ about Anya, and seeing that he shuts the conversation down, it’s not worth pursuing. That’s why he zeroes in so hard on Anya in arc three, because Damian’s functionally useless in this regard. This also explains why he’s MORE forthcoming with Anya in arc three about things; she’s an independent actor, and he’s clocked her game. Obviously, at this stage, he has no clue how Anya knows what she knows, but that’s not important. What IS important to Demetrius is that Anya knows at all.  

Arc Three

Demetrius gets his largest number of appearances and most active role in arc three, in the present timeline. It’s throughout this arc that I wanted to demonstrate who Demetrius was, his beliefs, his philosophies, etc. etc. His conversation with Anya in the red light district is the perfect place for this. I’ve put the relevant section in full:

“Some people who align with fascist movements are capable of human kindness. Like you, I imagine they want what they believe to be the best for their country […] Fascists are equally capable as you of donating to charities, helping old ladies cross streets. They believe, sincerely, that they’re doing good work.” […] “It’s much more difficult to fight against somebody who can justify any action, any sacrifice, because they think they’re making the world better.”

I wanted to be extremely careful with my word choice here; this scene was actually really difficult to edit since I needed to keep everything purposely balanced. I spent 30 minutes tweaking these small lines alone. Regardless, I had Demetrius nebulously describe himself as someone who “aligns with fascist movements”, and later, he says he works “with” fascists. The preposition ‘with’ is important; if Demetrius was truly a fascist as Anya claims he is, he’d probably use the word ‘for’, which would position him as serving fascist goals, but ‘with’ offers a telling degree of separation. Demetrius is separating himself from the NUP, and saying that sure, he’s in the same room as them, but that doesn’t mean he’s toeing the line or even helping them. This supplements the life two scene where we can see him sabotaging Donovan via lying.

However, I also wanted this scene to demonstrate that for all of his claims that he doesn’t understand people, Demetrius DOES understand how people operate logically. He’s also calling Anya – who, at this point, he’s identified as a VERY helpful tool in his arsenal – out on her incorrect assumptions and black-and-white thinking. This was also my way of politely reminding my readers to not fall into Anya’s way of thinking, since it won’t help in the long run! I had quite a few people in the earlier chapters calling Damian a fascist/authoritarian, or assuming he fell into the right-wing pipeline when he declared his war, and this was blatantly not true. Don’t let Anya fool you! This scene is also Demetrius at his MOST honest. In fact, Demetrius is probably the most honest character around; the only person he’s shown lying to explicitly is Donovan. Do with that what you will.

As we move to the latter events of Arc Three, Demetrius is VERY explicit with his motivations, since I really, really wanted to hammer the point home that he is NOT what he appears. In a way, this was Demetrius way of trying to convince Anya to get onside, but obviously, this didn’t work, because Anya’s stupidly stubborn. However, this is Demetrius’ thesis statement on why he’s supporting Damian:

“[…] He’s the only viable path to ensuring Ostanian stability […] But, if you want my personal opinion, […] he’s an unbeatable enemy.” “I […] exchanged one life for potentially millions saved through competent wartime leadership.”

There’s a much more loaded statement when he calls Demetrius an ‘unbeatable enemy’, but we’ll need to put a pin in this for now. This statement was meant to demonstrate how much Demetrius adores Ostania as a whole, and his mission is to preserve it. We also confirms he’s willing to go pretty far by siding with his ‘enemy’, and even killing someone to ensure the best piece is in place for when war inevitably befalls the country. However, he also makes another statement which confirms what I was hinting at in arc two:

“In any scenario where war occurs, he’s the candidate most likely to minimise casualties while maximising strategic advantage. I want him in power, because I want to survive what’s coming.”

…What does this sound like? Oh, yeah! Damian’s warsim! I wanted to confirm that Demetrius knows about it, and even approves of it. It was likely a keystone in HOW Damian convinced Demetrius to help him.