A show about an innocent soul, who is just trying to make a living with their job, when suddenly a mysterious masked figure takes an interest in them and appears only to them. The Being is scared that his true form will scare the poor soul, being very jealous and dramatic on the way. Sounding familiar? :)
I've been reading back over an unfinished post I wrote forever ago, about Ravel, the various iterations of the Roarhaven plot, and why it ultimately failed.
But I couldn't reconcile or explain his killing of Corrival Deuce. The rest of what he does makes sense - at least in the context of his deeply insane plan - but murdering Corrival is inexplicable.
We know Erskine killed Corrival; he taunts Skulduggery with it. We know it was in the aftermath of the remnant attack, but he wasn't possessed; he remembers what he did, in enough detail to mockingly reminisce.
We don't know why he did it, though.
The entire Roarhaven Plot quite literally depends on successfully electing Corrival as Grand Mage, with Ravel and Mist as his Elders. They'll work to undermine him at every turn, push to start a war, assassinate Strom the English Grand Mage, make Corrival the scapegoat for the unrest, and then betray him and claim they want peace. Corrival has difficult opinions, he has enemies. He's a divisive political figure, in his own words, and a former military leader who could easily be accused of warmongering.
Their plan would've worked, probably.
Erskine has literally spent the past century making a list of people who hate Corrival. Murdering him is throwing away a century of groundwork, and removing the person he intends to blame for the war he's about to start.
(And Ghastly is like, the worst possible replacement scapegoat. Ghastly has no interest in politics, is a beloved war hero, only takes the job because nobody else wants it, and spends all his free time worrying about Tanith. Knifing him in the back turns everyone against Ravel immediately - the Roarhaven sorcerers refuse to defend the city, if Ghastly's murderer is giving the order.)
Even the speech he gives, about Ghastly "conspiring" against him, sounds ridiculous and implausible - Ghastly, who has all the subtlety of a brick to the face, and has never kept a secret in his life.
(A speech making the same accusation against Corrival - that he always thought he knew best, for everyone - might have sounded more believable.)
The Roarhaven Plot simply doesn't work, with Ghastly as an Elder.It also doesn't work with Erskine as Grand Mage. He's now personally responsible for every questionable decision, and bears all the blame for starting a war. It's fairly apparent that whatever he intended, it wasn't this.
But I was reading back over the election chapter in Mortal Coil, and I'm like… convinced Corrival knows something is amiss - maybe not the exact details, but something. You don't survive centuries of war against Mevolent without knowing when you're walking into a trap.
First, he hits Erskine with this. Yes, he noticed just how badly you wanted him to attend this meeting, and he clocked it.
He casually counts his would-be allies, in the room - people he knows he can trust. A plan is already forming, here.
He then wrongfoots the Spiderfolk completely - this is clearly scripted, from the back and forth between Erskine and the Torment but they're not expecting him to agree without a fight.
(If I had to guess, I'd imagine this staged disagreement ended with the Torment suggesting that if Erskine was so worried about a coup being staged in Roarhaven, he was welcome to take an Elder role and keep them in check, himself - with Mist as the other Elder.)
By giving in to the initial demand so easily, Corrival cuts off this next request - Mist as an Elder - and immediately proposes his own alternate candidates, before the Torment even has a chance to speak.
I could never figure out why he nominated Skulduggery - who walks into the room and says "I don't like these people, I might start shooting."
It's such a random, chaotic thing to do - nobody reasonable or sane thinks Skulduggery would make a good Elder - and from a military general, someone who doesn't seem impulsive or irrational, otherwise.
But by nominating Skulduggery - someone he trusts unequivocally, and he stresses that several times, how much he trusts him - he seeks out an ally, creates an uproar, and buys himself time, the equivalent of throwing a bomb and then running for cover.
(In this context, reminding Skulduggery that he knows he'll make the right decisions in difficult moments, should it ever be needed, is extremely interesting.)
If the other Dead Men had been there, he might have chosen Shudder or Ghastly, instead - he pointedly asks after both of them - but they aren't there, so he works with what he has. He drags Erskine along as the second Elder, too, because he's not getting out of whatever is happening here that easily.
Then he leaves, before anyone can argue.
This might be the only time Ravel is honest, in the entire book - he definitely wasn't expecting that.
It's so interesting to watch Ravel quietly enter damage control mode, at this point. He's badly shaken enough that he literally follows Skulduggery back to Ghastly's shop, and then laughs it off with a made-up excuse - note the sarcasm; Skulduggery is surprised, and vaguely irritated by his unexpected visit - this is obviously not a regular occurrence.
He tries to convince Skulduggery not to take the job - which makes sense, given that Skulduggery got Ireland's last Grand Mage thrown in magic supermax for corruption like, a month ago. He is the last person on earth you'd want as your co-elder when staging a coup.
He then insists that no, Corrival has to be Grand Mage, because at this point, the whole Roarhaven plan still hinges on Corrival as Grand Mage and scapegoat.
He's so worried and off-balance that he literally walks into the path of Tesseract, the assassin he hired like two hours ago, and almost gets himself killed. Tesseract does not remember that Ravel hired him, and is trying to murder him for real. Getting assassinated by his own assassin was clearly not part of the grand plan.
And look at how both Ravel and Skulduggery react, when Corrival shows up unannounced at the shop, later.
They don't greet him normally at all - the only person having a halfway normal reaction is Ghastly, who has no clue what's going on.
Ravel is immediately on edge, and then wary - "So... there's nothing wrong?" because by now he absolutely believes Corrival has come over suddenly, in the middle of the night, to warn Ghastly and Skulduggery about him.
Skulduggery is equally unsettled - "what's wrong?" - so clearly he picked up on something unspoken, too, during their earlier conversation, to the point that I wonder if they have a version of "the sparrow flies south for the winter" to quietly warn for danger.
I think it's debatable, how much Corrival actually did know - I don't think he was aware of the full extent of Erskine's involvement or the scope of the plan, because if he were, I feel he would've told Skulduggery sooner - but it makes sense that he'd want to confirm his suspicions before accusing Ravel.
Whatever he had intended to do, it was interrupted by the Remnant Crisis.
But Erskine is deeply, violently paranoid - with good reason - and I think his behaviour implies that he believes Corrival at least suspects him - which means the plan to make him Grand Mage is now nonviable, and so his hand is forced. He takes advantage of the remnant chaos to murder him, before he can warn anyone else.
But in doing so, he wrecks his own plan, and he must have known the risk - so Corrival figuring out what was happening and forcing his hand is the only plausible reason for this murder. Nothing less serious than that makes sense, as a motive.
Well, strange is tonight, when black stars rise, but it seems that Arthur Lester and this mysterious specter known only as John Doe have been determined the be able to catch Kira and survive! Though, for a given definition of "survive"... Well, shall we unmask? Unless, of course, you wear no mask. No mask? No mask!
I WAS ABOUT TO GO AND TRY TO FIND THIS AGAIN (I reblogged it on my old acc but then I deleted it) AND I WAS LIKE "ALRIGHT ONE MORE SCROLL" AND LO AND BEHOLD THIS MOTHERFUCKER POPS RIGHT UP
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