The Murder of Occtis and the Slaughter of Davinos/Royce - What Brennan was trying to lead the party to realize in Ep.13
(Spoilers and a wild speculative theory for C4:E13 below)
During episode 13, there were several times that Brennan, as Aranessa, tried to lead the group into thinking about what happened at the Palazzo Davinos. Things weren't making sense. If Royce/Davinos were the target, why was Aranessa not focused on to make sure she was eliminated? If Tachonis came to target the House specifically, why did they have everything they needed to do whatever it was they wanted to do to Occtis?
If Occtis was the intended target, why did Primus say aloud, "Tonight Davinos, Royce, and all their vassal houses end" ? Why did they bring enough forces to take on an entire house as they ended up doing if their intended target was only one relatively weak wizard?
When the party grouped up in Julien's room, Aranessa was trying to guide the party's thinking to get them to consider what the angle was on House Tachonis's plan. They seemed stuck thinking that one part or the other must have been the wrong part. They think it can't be true that both halves of the attack were always intentional.
But the party failed to remember a specific detail that I remembered right away (to be fair to them, only Julien and Aranessa aka Brennan would have known this in-character, so I'm not too mad that they didn't put two and two together):
Raimond Davinos knew about the plan to rescue Thjazi. In Episode 2, at 3:10:37, he states to Julien: "It has come to our attention that there may have been a plot to rescue Thjazi Fang."
Aranessa, who is present, shakes her head at Julien to communicate We know what we heard at that funeral. Because she doesn't say this aloud, I have been taking this to mean that Aranessa did not tell Raimond about what they overheard at the funeral, meaning she isn't the one who told him about the plan.
This is further evidenced by what Raimond says to Julien when he picks Julien up from the brothel, on the carriage ride over to the Palazzo:
Raimond: "Is there anything you heard at the Farramh of Thjazi Fang yesterday when you attended in escort of the Lady Aranessa?" 3:05:20
Julien does not say anything about the rescue plot here, so we know that he is not the source of Raimond having that information. Raimond wouldn't ask about what was heard at the funeral if Aranessa had told him about the plot already. Him asking the question at all sounds innocent, but if he already knew about the rescue plot, he may have been intentionally probing to see if there was more information to be had that had come out of the funeral.
So I think Raimond already knew about it from an outside source.
Raimond is likewise the one to give Julien the order to secure Occtis and bring him to Palazzo Davinos for safety. He is explicitly the one trying to get Occtis onto the Palazzo grounds.
We know that Casimir spilled the beans on the plot in order to sell out Thjazi to House Tachonis. So, Tachonis were aware of the plot going into the execution. Thus, for Raimond to have this information without being told by Julien or Aranessa, one of two things must have happened. Either:
Someone from House Tachonis told Raimond about the plot as a means of manipulating him into catching Occtis for them, intentionally grouping their targets together at one location for the purpose of elimination.
Raimond was secretly in contact with the Tachonis and had reason to intentionally betray Occtis and give him to his family, possibly in exchange for some favor or alliance that was meant to be favorable to Royce.
(In this case, this would be why Primus targeted Raimond first in the attack and killed him instantly - he wanted to clean up the loose end of anything that would tie the attack back to House Tachonis, and that includes a secret ally within House Davinos.)
So, what I believe Brennan was trying to get the party to realize was: Raimond Davinos is the reason Occtis was at the Palazzo, and is thus the single overlapping detail of both halves of the attack.
Now, the real question is: was it intentional? Did Raimond betray House Royce intentionally and get killed for it? Or was he a victim of the manipulations of Tachonis just like the rest of them?
As a final note: I think it's very interesting that in the same episode that Brennan was trying to lead the party to this detail, he also had a flashback where he showed Raimond teaching Julien to fight dirty. "A man who is booed, but alive." Did Raimond try to go behind Aranessa's back and offer up Occtis in some way that was meant to protect Royce/Davinos from Tachonis's wrath, only to be killed anyway? Something that would've been dishonorable, but might have protected them? "Booed, but alive?" Something to think about.
(Thank you for coming to my rambling TEDTalk.)
