alright I see everyone going on about julien and his choice to follow after occtis and thimble rather than turn around and help teor and cyd and i understand what a pivotal moment it was
kattigan’s nat 20 insight when tyranny says “do you still think a demon can redeem herself” and them seeing each other at the same moment for fhe first time. like seeing and acknowledging each others past and pain and how they got shaped into who they are by what they experienced. and not just being around each other and tolerating each other on surface level.
“do you still think a demon can redeem herself” and she is crying tears of blood seeing his family being ripped from his hands. there is no greater suffering than what kattigan has endured. and he understands that yes Tyranny Is A Demon because she is. that is her nature. she is fundamentally warped and an archetype and not a person (as she once said to him.) and yet here she is saving him. freeing him with the weapon he had carefully crafted for her. that is her nurture. and he realizes that
There Is NOTHING Wrong With Her.
that she has been an entity longer than this world may have been alive and conscious. and he realizes, too, that she is, in fact, not just an archetype but becoming a fully realized person (unlike her sisters who are what is presented to us as the archetype of demon. she is what defies it. we are to believe they are all one and the same.)
he realizes she is moral. she is here to protect those who need protecting and to save those who need saving and to tyrannize those that need tyrannizing. she is here to punish those that destroy the saving. and she is still learning the difference. she does not want to hurt intentionally if it is not justified.
they are fundamentally two sides of the same coin. the same past and present and future. and they need each other to keep going. because they prove to each other that there is a future after you realize nothing will be how it has been.
and he knows for a fact that not everything born of demon world is wrong. because tyranny is there. and if she is there, there is still good in this world to believe in. and he knows, he knows, a demon can redeem herself. because tyranny exists. because she exists. he knows that just because she is a demon, that does not mean she cannot also be good or redeemed. (and because he knows that true evil is still walking the streets) and there is NOTHING wrong with her. and maybe that means there is nothing wrong with him, too.
