The implications of Harley's powers on the wider philosophy of the world fuck me uppp.
If Harley hadn't known Cass was going to kill them, the two would have still clashed personality-wise, but they wouldn't have hated him the same. Therefore, he might not have returned that feeling so strongly. Would he still have killed them? Was it inevitable that their life led up to being a step in Cass' plan for escape?
Or might it have turned out differently, and it was the fact of their knowledge and resultant hatred which caused their own death?
It's impossible to know and I love it.
What's Harley's view of the future they predict?
How about Cass'?
I love this ask so much, thank you for sending it! ah!
You're absolutely right. Without the precognition, Harley wouldn't have hated Cass the same. But they still would've hated him, if only for the fact that they are constantly second place to him. They can be as perfect as anything while the golden boy is nothing but snark and attitude and Christopher will still prefer Cassius.
Cass never hated Harley. In fact, he quite liked them. But it deeply hurt that they wanted nothing to do with him, no matter what he did. And by the end, he just resented the way they treated him, and they resented the ways that Christopher pitted them against each other.
Cass doesn't 100% know what Harley has predicted until the moment that it happens. He only knows that he's going to do something bad to them, and he believes them when they say it's hating him for. At the time that he kills them, Cass actually thinks he's already done the worst thing. Killing them isn't exactly an accident, but it isn't premeditated either.
In a world where Harvey didn't die, and they had gotten out with Cass, they and Cass probably could've grown to be really good friends, or at least two people who were incredibly important to each other in a rivalrous, ride or die sort of way. They would have ridden out the storm together until they both founf solid ground and eventually gone their separate ways, staying in touch the way old school friends might.
But Harley, of course, does not survive. Harley will always die because Harley was written to die. They will always hate Cass because they see the end coming before he does, and so do we.
If their roles had been reversed and Cass had a premonition of Harley killing him, he may have been contrarian enough or stubborn enough to stop it. But Harley is not Cass. Harley is obedient and naive and compliant. They believe what they are told. They follow the path of fate. Their hatred of Cass is the closest they ever get to trying to resist it.
