Some odd thoughts on Termina, Bolaire and the Panto.
Termina … Termina’s personality is odd for her role? I’m just thinking it through a little bit.
Termina was apparently designed with little to no personality of her own, and as a consequence appears to get very attached to the personalities of the people she wears. She’s very vulnerable to influence. And, yes, some of this may be as a result of her broken state, but to judge from Talesin’s external remarks, and Bolaire’s lack of surprise as the problem starts to show up, she was always like this, at least to some extent. It was an original feature of her personality. It’s not supposed to override other things, the ‘primary programming’, loving her family and killing the god. That’s where the brokenness is. It wasn’t supposed to be able to override those. But it was always a part of her personality.
And that’s … that’s odd, and more than a little dangerous, in the person who’s supposed to wear the goddess herself. The goddess of trickery, no less. You’re putting the part of you most vulnerable to influence into direct and fatal contact with one of the most powerful and subtle influencers in existence?
Just looking at how she bends to Amariya. Now imagine Amariya is Rauwyn. One of the Shapers themselves. Imagine a goddess whispering in Termina’s ear.
It doesn’t really make sense. Or. Or it doesn’t if Termina herself is the weapon.
Termina’s title is ‘The Vessel of No Thing’/’The Vessel of Nothing’.
Is the weapon not the masks of the Panto themselves, but the void inside them? Bolaire’s ‘box’. The one he didn’t think anyone else could get into, but that Termina is not only all up inside, but seems to be oddly more conversant with in some ways. Termina is ‘the vessel of nothing’. The vessel of emptiness. The vessel of void.
Her personality makes no sense whatsoever as a weapon against an enemy, especially when she is so extremely vulnerable to that enemy’s exact favoured weapons. But she makes perfect sense … as a lure.
She’s a mask. A thing. An empty artefact. She has only rudimentary personality, or seems to have been intended to have only rudimentary personality. As empty as possible. Ready to wear. A lure. A lure for a goddess. A pathetic little thing, clawing and grasping, yearning. A weapon against her, clearly, but so vulnerable. So easily turned. Crawl inside! Whisper in her ear! Turn them against themselves! Step inside this pathetic little play of theirs and turn it against them! Look at her! She’s so small, so weak, a child clamouring emptily! How easy it would be to turn her. Just step inside.
I wonder if Termina was made as hollow as possible to be the perfect empty space for the goddess to step inside. The perfect vulnerability for the trickster to exploit. The feigned injured lamb limping around the edges of the flock. How do you con a conwoman? By letting her think she’s conning you.
It wasn’t a single mask that was made. It was a whole play. The play. The play is the thing. The theatre. The void. The empty space where all is possible. Termina wasn’t intended to be the weapon that killed Rauwyn individually, she was intended as the lure, the bait, the trap, that would lock Rauwyn into the true weapon. The play itself.
Termina didn’t kill Rauwyn personally. They killed her. Working together.
But Termina, as the one in closest proximity to her, as the one … the one sacrificed to her, was the one to pay for it most dearly. The one physically shattered, killed. Sacrificed.
And maybe also … the one given least to start with, as well. Made empty on purpose. Given nothing on purpose. An empty vessel, the vessel of nothing. Meant to die with nothing of her own. Meant to die as nothing.
It’s … It’s a more than a little tragic that Bolaire … The instant she comes back, he’s terrified of her. He loves her, he’s amazed at her continued existence, but he’s also terrified. Start to finish. One of the first questions he asks her is is the goddess dead. Because he wasn’t sure. The second she takes Amariya, he’s planning for her to be swayed by her. Because Bolaire … When he looks at her, even now, most of what he sees, if not quite all, is the same vulnerability. The same emptiness. The same weakness. The same open door waiting for someone to walk through. Only now there’s no play. No siblings. No together. There’s just him. All alone. Termina is back. Termina is taken again. And he’s alone this time. There’s no one to help him kill the goddess before his sister is lost to her once more.
Termina makes perfect sense as a lure, as a trap, as a component of a weapon. But as a person … all she’s been left is an emptiness waiting for someone to use. And all Bolaire sees … is an emptiness waiting to be used. Because he doesn’t know how much is left of his sister, and he doesn’t know how much of her was ever there to start with.
Their purpose is gone. Their mission is gone. Their family is gone. They won the first time because they stood together, siblings, family. They killed a god. But now that’s gone.
And the first true time they spoke together, him and his powerful, broken, terrifyingly empty sister, she thought he’d abandoned her, he drew a spell on her, and in response she tried to kill him. Kneejerk. Breaking every remaining code of their bond. Amariya’s instinct, maybe. If someone pulls on you, shoot them dead. Maybe Termina herself didn’t actually mean to do it, in the sense of having actually thought it through. Maybe she only went with the strongest instinct going while confused and in some distress. But she tried to kill him. And now …
He doesn’t see her. Not as …
He sees her as a threat first. A vulnerability. The instant she appeared, he wasn’t greeting her, he was managing her. Or trying to. It wasn’t just Termina’s insecurities that splintered that meeting. Bolaire’s were doing hero’s work as well. He didn’t react to her as a sister. He reacted to her as a threat.
And Termina … Termina responds to what she’s given. That’s her role. She’s empty. And she reacts to what she’s given.
And I think the reason … the reason Bolaire is so guilty afterwards. So desperate to have done something different, to have played it out better. Some of it is that he wishes he had found her, had looked for her, all of them. He wishes he’d been able to search better. That part isn’t entirely his fault. But I wonder if, deeper down, a part of him does know …
He never looked for her. Not just in the sense that she was dead. When she was standing in front of him. He still … He still never looked for her.
He looked at her, instead. And saw a threat.
Not without justification, mind you. But … Still.
