Mhm pretty much indifferent to him, but as many, deserved so much better?
I mean later on he was horrible, but he wasn’t himself anymore following Gevherhan’s death and his disastrous marriage to Atike.
When we meet him we know he’s Murad’s best friend and has a reputation as ladies man, seems like a guy seriously devoted to his work, but having a messy private life lol.
The person he seems most attached to was Murad, we see he is very much concerned about his well-being and happiness, for example he is very glad seeing Murad being happy after a ride with Farya (later changes his attitude towards her after the pig incident). He also has a soft spot for Ayşe (in platonic sense), which mirrors Ibrahim’s fondness for Mahi due to being treated as part of their family (and this relationship stays strong until the end, even in her last episode, he pleads on her behalf with Murad).
It’s clear he and Kösem aren’t great friends, but they both have learned how to co-operate with each other for Murad’s sake, he also seems to have similar relations with the rest of family – there doesn’t seem to be exceptional closeness between him and the rest of the family other than Murad, but everybody manages to get along.
The show starts when Mu/rat loses his previous main male favourite (and I don’t intend here any romantic undertons either ahaha) aka Musa, and Silahtar is given his position. In later flashback scene we see what Mu/rat expects of him – absolute loyalty. Obviously Musa has left big shoes to fill in and Silahtar is undoubtedly aware of this.
Suddenly Silahtar’s professional life and his messy private life intersect because he gets caught between two sultanas – one which he begins to have feelings for and the other who begins chasing after him for a change.
He was well aware Gevherhan might be too far above him and perhaps got scared about having for the first time real feelings for a woman, so he entered into what he thought a casual relationship with Ester. However, he could have sensed that Ester wanted something more, she was pretty vocal about bearing her loneliness aka widowhood badly and wanting to have someone by her side long-term. Then he actually did decide to pursue Gev and like he said start a new chapter with his life, close the previous messy private life and start anew with the woman he truly loved. He also intended to immediately come clean to Mu/rat and ask for Gev’s hand, even at the risk of being executed.
Ironically, what proved to be an obstacle was not where he actually was at fault (Ester), but where he was innocent (Atike).
As I said, Ester serves here as foil to Atike – she has much better reasons to be bitter and want revenge, but ultimately she draws a line and leaves the matter. And LBR nobody would have cared so much about her as about a sultana… but this sultana is lying, even if she herself believes in her delusions.
The whole situation truly gives me Atonement vibes, and as in Atonement it has a bad ending, but here it gets a bit more complicated because of Silahtar’s love and loyalty being connected also with another person – Murad.
I said it multiple times – in the end the real love triangle is Silahtar-Gevherhan-Murad.
As I mentioned in the beginning, from beginning Silahtar is very protective of his friend and sultan and also wants to do as best as he can in his job. He is also a bit naïve about Murad – during the Kasim matter, he scolds Kemankeş for having helped Kösem hide the truth, but he himself has no bad intentions and does not want Kasim hurt – he believes Murad will not pursue the matter as far as he ultimately does.
Similarly, he makes digs at Kemankes to not switch sides for Kösem’s.
When he asks Murad for Gev’s hand, he is sure his friend will treat him at least justly. But boy he was disappointed. Murad doesn’t even ask him about the whole matter and trusts Atike blindly. Then puts him in that praying cell to make Silahtar understand that the most important thing in his life is his padişah and absolute loyalty to him.
To make matters worse, once Silahtar is released from prison, his “friend” decides to complete the “lesson” with “absolute loyalty test” – marry Atike.
Murad is well aware Silahtar does not love Atike and does not want to marry her. He actually uses his beloved (?) little sis and traps her in marriage that has no chances of being ever happy to test Silahtar’s loyalty.
And Silahtar, traumatised and brainwashed by everything – chooses loyalty to Murad. Of course if he had said no, he would have been executed (though Gev would have more strength to live seeing he didn’t abandon her), but he still chooses a sad life trapped in his private life with a woman he now despises… what is left is truly only Murad and his service to him.
In a way, it’s strange that following Gev’s demise Silahtar becomes obsessed with the person who caused him this misery – but at the same he lost everything, all he has left is Murad, he made his choice, chose Murad, so now all he can do is stick to his choice and save what he still has.
When Murad comes to Silahtar when the latter is mourning Gevherhan we see he has learned his lessons by now – Murad is distraught because his mother told him he was guilty of his sister’s suicide, so Murad (as always) makes his friend’s pain be about him and asks whether it’s true. Silahtar now knows what answer Murad expects and states that “all our lives and our paths, life and death, belong to you” and remarks that if Gev had accepted Murad’s will as we all should, she would have been alive. It’s deeply sad to state, but Silahtar knows Murad truly wants no other answer than this. However, before Murad’s appearance, Silahtar recalled telling Gev that only she made him feel alive and now he tells Murad he is practically dead and trapped in his life, and that he needs to live with his pain and regret forever. He actually says similar thing to Atike - yes, he chose loyalty to Murad over the woman he loved and now has to bear the consequences for the rest of his life. Atike, of course, does not get it and still belives they might have a happy ending.
It’s a very dark reality for him now, no wonder he pretty much loses his mind out of this grief, and it only gets worse because he realises Atike will never divorce him and will not even rest until he tries to be a husband to her.
When he comes to her and they “kiss” he taunts her to divorce him and sees that even when he mocks her she’s so obsessed with him, she won’t go let go no matter what. Kösem actually would be happy to see Atike divorcing Silahtar because we know she never liked him, the only obstacle is Atike’s obsession. So later he tries to play the husband part even though it’s clear he continues to despise her.
Ironically, he develops sort of his own obsession, but with Murad. Pretty much tries to remove everyone around Murad and most sadly tries to turn Murad against his mother and brothers. He suggests both changing the law and putting Murad’s brothers to kafes, which is an action very uncharacteristic of his old self. Still, it’s clearly not a vendetta against Murad because we see he still clearly cares about him, e.g. when he hides from him the fact that Farya (whom he strongly dislikes) had connection with Murad’s children death. He does confide it in Kösem though because he knows that while she will scold Farya, she will also keep quiet not to cause Murad any more pain. It again proves that while these two never liked each other much, they were able to set their differences aside for Murad’s sake.
This is not just restricted to his family, but also to Murad’s other men – Abaza, Kemankeş – because he shows Murad the letter from Kösem to Kemankes not only to strike at her, but to make Murad doubt Kemankeş too and he taunts Kemankeş with being Kösem’s spy (which is true because now Kemankeş is reporting Kösem Murad’s tyrannical behaviour, the opposite of what he was sent to Kösem, I love this irony sm ngl)
Kemankeş however is not interested in becoming Murad’s male favourite, but a new serious rival pops up – Yusuf. And a new triangle emerges 😊 Silahtar cannot hide his jealousy at all, even Atike notices it, though as always she mistakes it as him being jealous of her, same with Kemankeş who taunts Silahtar that Yusuf’s relationship with Murad curiously resembles his relationship with “someone else”.
I really despair we didn’t get more of Silahtar/Yusuf/Murad thing NGL, but I’m sure it would have gone this way if Caner had not left the show, I doubt Silahtar would have ever abandoned Murad at that stage, especially since historically he was his most loyal man until the end (“the person who was always loyal and genuinely attached to him since his youth” as Du Loir suggests) and was even in terrible despair upon Murad’s death, sooo.
In short again, he’s not among my fave characters, but he truly deserved so much better because he was living in actual hell and dark place later on, and ironically Murad was well aware of this as he remarked over his body that “for some people living is so painful, they feel trapped and in chains, death is actually relief for them, and only those who remain suffer” (aka exact repetition of what Sil told Murad about Gev following her death).
