I absolutely love love love love love the at first gradual then pretty quick shift in Vis’ morals and lines throughout the series. The through line of all of these examples is, to me, authority and responsibility, specifically the responsibility borne by a leader (as he himself would have been as Prince of Suus).
I find it important to note that this isn’t necessarily a “decline” in his morals or ethics, necessarily, as much of his early-on views and standpoints are rather naive. For instance (if I recall correctly), he for a long time looks down upon anyone, even eighths (octavi) who really have no choice but to submit to the Hierarchy and go to the Aurora Columnae. This eventually changes as he realizes how predatory the system of the hierarchy is; although on the other hand, he also comes to see the other side, which is the complacency of the masses and their complicity in the crimes of the Hierarchy through their unwillingness to even try to eke out change.
Perhaps the most important line to him that gets crossed is that he had sworn never to cede will and thus to never willingly submit to the Aurora Columnae. This line is, to him, this difference between him and the evil of the Republic, the sullying stain that mars each member of the Hierarchy, lowest to highest. But this, too, is a naive and even privileged position to take for him. Now you may ask how he could possibly have any privilege whatsoever, and I would tell you- quite easily! He may have lost everything—his family, his home, even his name—but he still had the privilege of growing up somewhere outside the Hierarchy, and the chance to be educated about it and about will and ceding and was raised without the deeply ingrained social pressures to undergo the ceremony at the appropriate age. Even when in hiding, he is able to live on the outskirts of society, never truly escaping it but neither is he fully subjected to its pressures and norms. He has no responsibility to anyone but himself anymore, not really. His refusal to cede is the ultimate act of defiance to him, yet it doesn’t actually accomplish anything in the end, besides giving him the moral high ground. He hates the Hierarchy and Caten but in the beginning has no desire to try and effect actual change.
This, of course, all changes eventually. He is forced to reckon with the fact that he does still bear a responsibility to more than just himself, and that it isn’t possible to be both a perfect moral paragon and a good leader. He wants so badly to just win Domitor and get his posting to Jatierre and never have to cede or truly be a part of the Hierarchy for the rest of his life, and probably die that way. But in a way, he eventually must realize that that dream is just complacency and complicitness under a different name, choosing his own personal and moral comfort over an attempt to truly do good for the world at large- whether or not they deserve it. What makes him really start to understand this is his friends he makes in the Academy- Callidus, Aequa, Eidhin, Emissa. He tries so hard to not care about them, to view them as the enemy, but he can’t- he comes to love them so truly and deeply that it forces him to change his perspective.
Vis learns that, in order to save and protect his loved ones, he has to make sacrifices that before were unthinkable- he can’t just fuck off to Jatierre and never cede, he has to wield will in order to be a strong enough leader. He is constantly surrounded by the extremes of each side—the Hierarchy and the Anguis—and so it understandably takes him some time to understand what lessons he must take from them both and what he must reject.
These growths are reflected by his memories of his father’s lessons about Kingship and responsibility, which remind him that a good leader can’t always be perfect and must sometimes—often, even—make difficult and painful choices. If taking a life is what is necessary for the good of the people who rely on him, then sometimes that is what must be done.
Even at the end of Book 2 he’s still struggling with where to put those lines, and how to prevent others from taking advantage of them and of him. He must do what he must do, but at what point does he stop doing things out of necessity of being that leader and start doing things because someone else is manipulating him? He may have started to learn and really take in these lessons about responsibility and leadership and authority, but in many ways is still naive, which leads to e.g. Baine manipulating him.
I am very excited to see how these trends continue in the third book!!
Anyways if you read this far- THANK YOU! I kinda lost my original train of thought partway through so my argument mayve gotten a bit weak toward the end but I tried <3
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