So I just finished part VII of From Eden and Bravo’s chapters always hurt so much to read for so many different reasons, it’s painful to read about how Atlas gets into his head, how he blatantly lies about Tango and Bravo believes him. But it also hurts because I feel like the Bravo we met at the start, the one that first entered Hels, was on the fence about a lot of things. That Bravo was in a position where he could be equally swayed either way to being a better or worse person, more specifically, on his opinion of hybrids, he definitely had prejudices against them from the start but it wasn’t nearly as bad as what we see in the latest chapter, straight up denying Tango’s personhood because he’s a hybrid.
It’s tragic because if that portal had actually led to Hermitcraft, or just hadn’t been there at all, I feel like Bravo could have been a very different person. I mean, if Hermitcraft was a positive influence on Tango, someone who’d grown up in Hels and was prone to lash out both from his trauma and because of the general environment he came from, I genuinely think that it could have been a really good influence on Bravo as well. I mean, he definitely would have had to get over that prejudice if he wanted to stay in Hermitcraft, considering how many non-humans live there.
I still have some hope for Bravo, despite everything. There’s definitely some issues he has to work through and things he needs to reevaluate once he’s safe and out of Hels, but I don’t think that Bravo is a bad person. He’s never came across to me as acting out of malice, the closest he’s come is when his actions are driven by anger, but even then, it’s usually short lived.
I mean, a lot of the things Bravo’s assumed about Tango can be disproven by just talking to the guy. He’s working off the assumption that Tango knew about the doppelgänger thing and that he opened the portal on purpose but if he can prove that he didn’t, Atlas’s entire argument for why Bravo should help him recapture Tango falls apart. And between the fact that he’s not trapped in Hels anymore, and that Atlas’s and Al’s people are gonna be too busy fighting for their lives against the Lifers, I can totally see Bravo, if not switching sides, then at least just leaving and deciding to not help Atlas.
I keep asking myself, why did that portal lead to Hels? I understand Tango ending up in Hermitcraft, that makes sense. But why did Bravo get sent to Hels? Why did the Universe do that? Were they both meant to go to Hermitcraft and something went wrong? What happened there?
