I have so many feelings about Theresa and how, no matter how many centuries go by, she's wrapped up in her own trauma. She spends five hundred years seeking a way to expand her foresight to render it all-encompassing so that she can see every possibility. Why? To avert another threat like Jack from ever threatening Albion again. And when she finds her solution in the Spire, she sets the wheels of trauma in motion for lives beyond counting.
She manipulates Lucien into constructing the Spire and seeking out Heroes. She manipulates Rose into buying the music box. Rose is killed and Sparrow falls from the tower, a broken little bird with only revenge left to them, just like her own brother was so very long ago. Except her brother had a support network that wasn't focused solely on helping him get revenge for Oakvale. They gave him the tools for it and didn't discourage him, but the revenge wasn't the point of training him: it was to make him a Hero.
Sparrow's training with Theresa was entirely focused on reaching and killing Lucien. Its what she raised them for. Its what she needs them to be. She wasn't training them so they could be a Hero, she was training them to be the Hero that would dispose of Lucien once his purpose was fulfilled. She broke this little bird and reforged it to possess a killer's intent, and it's not even for outright malicious purposes. She's not doing it to be cruel to Sparrow or to nefarious ends; she's doing it because she believes that it's necessary for the good of Albion. That if she can be more powerful, she can protect Albion and prevent another Oakvale, another Jack, another needless tragedy. The final fate of Oakvale probably just further solidified her belief that she needed that power, that it was the only way to combat the forces responsible for so much destruction. After all, what are a few lives to the future of their very world?
It's the same justifications that Logan uses when he has people executed for opposing him - it's callous and cruel, but it all serves a greater purpose and to that end, they will both soak their hands in the blood of Albion if that means they can save it, and isn't that fucked given that Theresa set him on that path in the first place.
Theresa genuinely believes that what she has done is entirely for Albion's benefit, but in the end, it all comes back down to a little girl who was powerless as her mother was tortured, her father was murdered, and her eyes were cut out of her head. She didn't want to be powerless again. She didn't want to see Oakvale burn again. And because she never got past her own trauma, she perpetuates the cycle and calls it necessity.
Just. Theresa man. There's so much to say about her and the complexity of her character.
baratheonpilled
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jacobvanloon
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