Ingrid Einfasen is a fascinating NPC given the context of the relationships between the Sundered Houses as of episode 26.
Otto Einfasen is the head of House Einfasen. Ingrid is (apparently) his oldest child. Harondus is his nephew. Although Harondus is married, Ingrid is not. I don’t think we’ve gotten explicit confirmation, but as far as I can tell, Ingrid is the heir—but she hasn’t married or had children.
Ingrid stated that she has been encouraged to get to know Ethrand Tachonis as a potential match for marriage. Ethrand is one of the younger Tachonis siblings, which isn’t unexpected. We don’t have reason to think the houses planned to merge, so it tracks that it isn’t an heir marrying an heir. An elder sibling/heir marrying a younger sibling/unlikely heir is an appropriate match between noble houses of equal rank.
But Ingrid shirked all that and apparently followed the Seekers to Castle Torch specifically to proposition Julien Davinos for marriage. Rather, when Thaisha asked what Ingrid was doing there, Ingrid responded by asking if Julien was there, then also asked if Occtis was there.
Ingrid never saw Occtis at Castle Klippenblicke; none of her family did. He had been in disguise the whole time. Occtis left a desecrated room with a note claiming his family had killed him and thanking the Einfasen for offering him hospitality. That is the only thing that suggests Occtis was at the Castle, and it specifically gives a solid reason that Occtis would flee his sisters’ arrival: they helped kill him. The only way those facts could be separated is if, for some reason, someone were to tell her that Occtis had been with the other Seekers, but omitted all details from the note. Theoretically, the Druids of the Schongarten may have confided in Ingrid (and perhaps they would, if she’s really training with them in the Old Path), but that is a lot of faith to extend to a lady of the house that the Seekers had fled before the twins ever arrived.
Ingrid isn’t stupid. She’s young (close to Occtis’s age, 20) and has shown that she gets anxious, but man has she been calculating. Early in the Seekers’ arc, Ingrid’s handmaiden, Greta, had sent a message of some kind without consent when the Seekers arrived to Castle Klippenblicke (presumably to the Tachonis). When Greta was exposed for this, Otto killed her with no further questioning. Upon receiving that information, Ingrid apologized that she had not realized Greta couldn’t be trusted. However, Thaisha caught sight of Ingrid crying alone after that exchange. Ingrid knows what consequences await if she defies her father; she’s not too dissimilar to Ethrand in this regard. She plays her role as expected, and her emotions only come out after she has fulfilled her duties.
In episode 26, Ingrid noted to Julien that her father didn’t instruct her to stay home—so she’s not breaking any rules in seeking him out herself. She skirted sensitive topics, such as why he and the others left Castle Klippenblicke, which suggests that she knows she cannot discuss anything that could come back to bite her. However, when speaking to Thaisha and Vaelus, Ingrid claimed that she doesn’t know whether Occtis’s older sisters (Petra and Ryah) showing up were related to the sudden exit. She said twice that she believes that House Royce wasn’t invited to the meeting in Dol-Makjar, but doesn’t say how she knows that. She claims that the detained Royce soldiers were now released. She told Julien that the Tachonis are killing their own family, which is curious in light of the fact that she told Thaisha and Vaelus that her own mother encouraged her to get to know Ethrand in Dol-Makjar during the meeting he was helping to organize.
Throughout these conversations, Ingrid repeatedly stops herself short after starting a sentence, then shifts to a different one. She’s exceedingly cautious in her speech. She tells Julien, when her father and she spoke about sending a message to the Golden Orchard, “he said that it was ‘handled,’ a word that I took to be not an outright lie, but disingenuous, or rather, in the manner in which my father tends to lie, he said the truth in a way that obfuscated the real meaning.” This lines up perfectly with Aranessa’s commentary to Thaisha about the Einfasen in episode 13 that “I don't think they play a different game than us. I just don't think that they varnish it, which means that there can be elements of what they're trying to do that are moving beyond sight. But rather than lie, they just tend to omit.” Judging from Ingrid’s handling of these conversations, she’s leaned into those lessons from Otto.
Nothing Ingrid said suggests that she would envision a strategic benefit of any kind to seek marriage with House Royce, let alone House Davinos, one of their vassals. For all her speech about safety and wanting to choose her own life, that seemed more like a description of Julien’s circumstances rather than her own. After all, if the Tachonis killed their own son, she likely doesn’t have to worry about Ethrand at all, and she has some leeway to choosing a father for her heirs. Julien has no prospects and no home, House Royce has one member left who may be too old to bear a child, and Julien clearly wants revenge against the Tachonis. Ingrid’s speech was perfectly constructed to appeal to Julien’s needs while framing it as her own vulnerabilities instead of his.
So it feels like there’s a handful of possibilities here:
Ingrid sincerely and solely has romantic interest in Julien and will pursue him to the furthest extent possible without getting killed over it. She’s secure enough in her position as heir that she does not care (or simply doesn’t believe it is possible) to improve her position through marriage. Perhaps she even wants to branch out to seek power through the Druid Circles rather than politics. If that is the case, she intends to marry who she wants, especially given the opportunity that the Tachonis are falling out of her father’s favor.
Ingrid is acting at her father’s instruction to ingratiate herself with the fallen House Royce and House Davinos in light of the deception by House Tachonis, or perhaps even to confirm that Occtis was with their party at Castle Klippenblicke. Enough time has passed that Otto may have gotten word about the investigation of the massacre at Palazzo Davinos by the Tachonis before Ingrid left, and absorbing the remnants of Davinos as a vassal house motivated by revenge would be a good tactical move to increase their forces for further action against the Tachonis. Ingrid doesn’t mind because Julien is hot and Ethrand is not.
Ingrid is in league with the Tachonis and has been for a while. Greta may have sent the message to the Tachonis at Ingrid’s request (and maybe has done it previously) and was instructed to take the fall if she was ever caught. There’s a variety of reasons that Ingrid might turn against her own house, ranging from ambition to take over once Otto falls to simply wanting freedom from his rules. Perhaps her parents are going to their deaths in Dol-Makjar and she knew not to attend the meeting. She may or may not be engaged to Ethrand or one of the other Tachonis siblings; we only know of the potential match from Ingrid anyway. It could be a total fabrication. Her trip to Castle Torch may have been to locate Occtis, and the interest in Julien and distaste for Ethrand are just cover.
This could be a really interesting arc, especially for Julien. If either #1 or #2 are true, that could improve Julien’s chances of completely wiping out House Tachonis and their vassals in the long term. If #3 is true, Julien may have yet another Sundered House to take down, and it would be so juicy if Julien ends up systematically destroying the same Houses that Thjazi fought to bring down in the Falconers’ Rebellion. Hell, maybe this could circle back to the curse Julien brought on himself.
Regardless of which is true, Ingrid is a fantastic NPC. She connects so many dots for the Seekers and could end up as either a strong ally or a sinister villain. It’s delicious.
