Okay, forgive me for not putting this in the notes or doing a cut because: MAJOR BOOK SPOILERS: but I need to talk about this because one of the BIG things about the books is that they set Diana up to be and have always been Philippe’s bloodsworn daughter. And this moment…
Diana has been fatherless for most of her life, and she’s headstrong and brilliant and you see her father’s influence and his love for her through the protection of Ashmole 782 and spellbinding and the page and the house, but I can bet she was feeling her parents’ absence on her wedding day. She already talks about describing everything to Ysabeau, but I’ll bet she knows enough of the custom of Christian marriage ceremonies (and most conventional secular ceremonies) to know that her father won’t be walking her down an aisle or escorting her. She’s probably hoping that someway, somehow, her parents can see her in this time (and her father does later) but she is isn’t betting on it. It’s just her and Matthew to carry this day and this moment in their relationship back to the present.
So, when this vampire, who made her his daughter (more on that in a second), walks in and looks at her with fatherly adoration and through the eyes and love of his son, she’s floored.
She’s awestruck and taken aback at his benevolence for her, then, as a daughter. Because, like she said in ADOW, witches don’t have a long time to fall in love, vampires don’t have nine months to become parents (well, not usually), and do so upon siring in a matter of moments. Diana is Philippe’s daughter, moreso even than Matthew is his son by vampire law (though not in his heart), and this is his first duty as a father: to love and care for her. Give her a soft place to land. He does that so beautifully in this part of the story, his strategy already in motion to care for her not only on 7th December 1590, but in her own time.
Philippe, through being a great, timeless man, has given her the gift of his family and name and all that it entails; he leaves nothing out, giving her as much as he does for all of his children. And that’s his love and benevolence and everything that he is, which is passed down as a great legacy nearly even a century after his death. This moment is his “carpe diem” for her because he knows their time together, face-to-face, is brief, and he gives her his all right here, father to daughter.
germansingergirl
romaincrisis
origamiaround
turnnoffyourmind
jbbartram-illu
