Is general, overall, etc..has magic truly enriched his life? Or is it some corrupting force, taking over his soul and making a duplicate all too different. Or, it can be both. His relationship with magic, is it complicated then? Does he fault his mistakes to magic, or does he still like it?
bruh—
it’s the way i gasped when i read this ask. what a FASCINATING question. let’s deep dive into alan’s psyche and the influence of magic on his mind and identity, shall we?
day one of tcw christmas asks—alan and the corruption of magic [tov, sai, and cos spoilers ahead]
what a question…. it’s funny because this is a question alan asks himself quite a bit in narration, but especially in sai. i’ll try to answer this the best i can, but tldr: it depends on who you ask.
if you ask alan himself, “do you think magic corrupted you and made you who you are today? do you think it was worth the cost?” he would never blame the magic himself. alan only ever faults himself for what magic did to him. at the end of the day, he believes his own nativity and lack of willpower is what allowed him to be corrupted by magic, and not the magic itself. magic has and will forever be otherworldly and beautiful in alan’s eyes. he can’t blame it for his own downfall because, at the end of the day, magic is like nature, in soilaila—a force without judgement.
HOWEVERRRRRR…
let’s do a couple of considerations, shall we? if you asked ME as the author if magic was what corrupted alan, i would say no, it wasn’t. having the wrong teacher was.
there’s an excerpt in cos that supports my point, but first i’ll touch on caramel and the way she first describes magic in ToV chapter 5:
“Just be careful, Paaya. Magic can be a dangerous thing. Especially if the source is corrupt. If you have a good teacher—a kind, benevolent, moral mentor—they can guide you to channel the magic within you into great, incredible things.”
- Throne of Vengeance, Volume One (purchase here or read here)
let’s be SO FR with ourselves… hilbert is not that guy. hilbert and von doro both corrupt alan by teaching him magic as a vector for their own agendas. alan’s sanity was just collateral damage in their eyes.
BUT THENNNNN....! THERE COMES EVAN’s SERIES AND THE FURTHER CONTEXT THAT CoS PROVIDES
this is not an evan ask so ill limit those spoilers, but in cos, there’s a scene where evan is asking about the “magic is corruption” thing and if he would also inevitably be corrupted by those powerful forces. he wanted to know if the corruption itself was a limit to gaining infinite power or if there was a way to learn as much magic as the gods without being corrupted. and he gets two answers that day:
“who said that gods aren’t corrupted?”
and
“learn from the sources, evan, and we won’t punish you for your betrayal.”
which suggests two things:
there is no such thing as an uncorrupted mentor of magic (and therefore all magic is corruption. the more you learn, the more corrupt you become). and…
the gods wish to gain followers by offering them magic, and when they seek other sources, they become vengeful and increase the level of corruption the person experiences
all things considered, alan’s corruption was as inevitable as his downfall, because in seeking to become a limious, he sought a glorious amount of power that was equal to his level of corruption. and by learning from hilbert, it solidified his arc.
he will never see it that way though. he will always blame himself instead. because to blame fate is to remove his agency, and to be powerless is worse than being corrupt.
hi hello welcome to the bonus day of christmas asks. bonus day because i miscalculated oops.
okay! dad alan! i actually have quite a bit to say about this. and since this is spoiler edition, buckle in…
day one of TCW 12 days of christmas—alan as a dad [CoS Spoilers]
okay so this should be fun to answer, mainly because i’m actively writing this part of the story right now. alan as a dad is interesting, mainly because you can see how hard he’s trying to be a good one despite their circumstances.
you have to remember (i don’t think you’re acc at this part yet, bun bun, but you’ll get there soon enough): alan’s dream in life is to have a family. a nice, small, intimate family that he can spend time with and love wholeheartedly. he wants that so bad because there were certain aspects of his own childhood that were so isolating. in a way, he’s almost seeking to rectify those mistakes and be a better father than his own father was. to lose the formality and to just have a family that he feels loved by and that he can love.
AND THEN THE ENDING OF SAI HAPPENS AND ALL THAT GOES DOWN THE DRAIN.
i’m gonna tag @wyked-rebellion in this response because now that i’m actually writing cos, i realize i was describing and having alan act out of character. i already described this to pae pae , but there was a big plot hole in cos that needed resolving, and now that ive actually fixed it, alan and caramel are both acting in character and have appropriate responses to the event that as occurred.
pre-that event, alan is slightly distant with his children, but never cold. he avoids them at times, but for a very deliberate and specific reason—he doesn’t want them to see/meet his alter ego. he’s scared of scaring them, or worse, his alter ego hurting/traumatizing them in any way. so whenever he loses the mental battle against his silver eyes, he avoids his entire family and self isolates. but his children don’t understand that, so all they see if “dad doesn’t like me, that’s why he doesn’t spend time with me.”
it’s quite pitiful, really.
anyway… it causes a bit of a hot and cold relationship as a result. when he’s around his children, all his attention is theirs. he’s doting, he’s kind, he’s caring, he’s attentive, he dedicates himself to them. but then, of nowhere, he’ll disappear and refuse to answer them or any of their requests to spend time with him. because if he answers, it won’t really be HIM answering.
AFTER the incident with evan happens, the way alan tries to help evan through it is well meaning, and he has good intentions, but it’s just not what evan needed. alan is trying to empathize with evan’s situation, but he ends up projecting instead and mishandling it altogether. he tells evan to open up to him and to talk to him about it so that he’s not bottling it up inside, but then he refuses to let evan talk to anyone else about it because “people meddling with your mind is how we got in this situation.” in his eyes, he’s protecting evan from more harm. but he’s only restricting him in all the ways that alan’s father had restricted HIM growing up.
regardless, alan as a dad is sweet when he’s able to be present. but he’s also a bit of a sad case. because you can tell, as much as he tries to be a good father to his children, the ending of sai ruined any opportunity for that to ever be the case.
What is one thing Alan wished he would've done differently in his life time?
in his ENTIRE LIFETIME????????
we're getting so many spoilers here oop. this is the last ask for the night before i pass out so if this is more jumbly than usual, you know why.
day one of tcw christmas asks—alan's life regrets [tov, sai, and lotf series spoilers]
to keep this brief because i'm so sleepy and i have an exam tomorrow (lol), let's make this a list. some thing i will expand on. other things are for another ask on another day. cheers!
ever helping hilbert -- meeting hilbert and choosing to not only save his life, but not take him straight to the jervees that day will forever wreck my boi's sanity because that one decision is what propelled his entire life towards the spiral
making his blood oath to hilbert -- i mean... he was already gone at that point but he further solidified his downfall by tying his BLOOD to it. L decision bro
never asking caramel why she didn't like hilbert
DRINKING THE GREEN BLOOD??? HELP???? bro becomes an addict oh my god
dropping the spear in sai
hesitating to kill von doro in sai
lifting the magic ban in sai
not stopping the red beacon and claiming it for himself
not killing markum in the 60 years in between
not going to therapy post-sai
the entire battle of ividor (YIKES FOREVER FOREVER OH MY DAYS)
taking elenfa on that one hunt in cos (yikes forever bro)
traumatizing noctem to the point of leaving his job (the DOMINO EFFECT OF THIS DECISION IS WILD)
why did alan send noctem away (mild cos spoilers ahead)
first of all bun bun, never apologize for not knowing lore. not only am i occasionally stingy with it, but i also deleted my entire blog so you couldn’t even look into the archives and check.
anyways, answering your questions would require mild cos spoilers, so if you choose to engage with spoilers, tread carefully. otherwise, click away. i’ll tuck it under read more to ward off accidentally reading. cheers! let’s get into it!
why did alan send noctem away?
for the sake of reducing the amount of spoilers i give, ill be abridging the story and redacting information.
essentially, the day evan found out he had fire magic, noctem sends a message to alan to come visit them, and alan supposedly blows it off. this has happened one too many times for noctem to exercise any patience about it anymore, so he ends up acting irrationally and barging into alan’s court meeting, where he not only disrespected the court’s time (unlawful trespassing, which is a felony), but he also disrespected the guests of the court who were highly pivotal political parties that alan was negotiating with. in his interruption, noctem nearly fumbled their political relations and potentially screwed up a LOT of things. so naturally, alan has to punish him.
listen… i’ll admit—he is slightly harsh with it. it’s arguable, but in my personal opinion, punishing noctem is valid. placing him in a holding cell would be valid. however, placing him in THAT cell was unnecessary. so so SO unnecessary. it didn’t have to be that intense. even alan recognized noctem was acting out of fierce care and indignation on evan’s behalf. so why the HECK did he send him to NOT an isolation cell, but a cell where he has company????
anyways, needless to say, that’s why noctem is taken away. morreial’s role in this all is realizing evan is heartache sick and basically telling alan, “alright this is overkill. one day would’ve been enough it’s been three release him already” and convincing alan to knock it off.
and while he does listen, it doesn’t exactly mean the situation is resolved. this is one of the first times in evan’s life where he fears his father. because the condition that noctem comes back in haunts him forever.
anyways, thanks for the ask, bun bun!
@bunnymermaidsblog
P.S. there are other reasons why alan doesn’t like noctem, but those are too spoilery. anyways cheers!
