ok maybe you know. WHAT is going on with ol istys nobleman status? some stuff indicates he was always one and other that sigismund gave him a title after he saved his ass. What Is The Truth?
Oof, I definitely wish I knew that, because I could really use the information for fic-writing purposes, but unfortunately, I don’t. I suppose no one knows the whole truth, except maybe some lorekeeper at Warhorse, assuming they have one.
That said, there are a few in-game hints that could be used if someone wants to form their own headcanons.
Here are some of the tidbits I’ve used while shaping my personal take on Ištván’s background for the fic I’m currently writing, probably in a fairly random order. Just keep in mind that I’m going to veer pretty heavily into headcanon territory here, and I’m not claiming any of this is canon. Just some random thoughts put together.
Thanks for asking, though! 🖤 I just love to yap about Ištván and KCD in general, I’m just usually a bit too shy to share my thoughts unprompted.
(It's going to be a pretty long post, so I'm going to put the whole thing under a cut.)
So, what we do know for certain is that Ištván was born in Banat, his parents were killed by the Turks, and his father had a fortress, which somewhat implies that Ištván was originally highborn.
I think this is where we have a gap we can fill with whatever we want and veer deep into headcanon territory, since he trails off and never finishes the sentence (or, well, he does, but it feels like he was thinking of something else than what he actually ends up saying...). Personally, I still feel like it's quite heavily implied that whatever happened to him after his family was slain and his home destroyed must have been deeply traumatizing for him. I know the devşirme theory is quite popular, though I believe becoming a war captive and ending up in regular slavery is just as plausible an option.
I don’t know if it’s just me, though probably not based on what I’ve seen, but I get the feeling that Ištván is kind of dancing around the issue here, despite usually being all about tough talk. To me, that suggests there's deep trauma behind it, likely connected to sexual abuse.
I also believe that what Henry says to him, "You pretend to be cruel, but you take good care of Erik. Someone must have really hurt you, am I right?" also points in that direction.
Another thing we know for certain is that, at some point, he fought the Turks, as we hear from both Ištván himself and Erik (in KCD1), and that he also fought in the Battle of Nicopolis in 1396. There's still a lot left open to individual interpretation, but I think one possible reading is that the events at Nicopolis led to Ištván, who might’ve been just an ordinary mercenary back then, becoming personally acquainted with Sigismund.
I imagine it's also possible that Sigismund rewarded him for his service by elevating him to the nobility, despite the battle itself ending in disaster. Saving your king’s life has to count for something, right?
I think this bit is also interesting to take into account. More often than not, Ištván seems to look for connections between himself and Henry, but here he draws a rare distinction. The way I see it, this doesn't necessarily contradict the possibility of Ištván being noble by birth. I could see it implying that he simply lost that privilege at some point in his life, likely when his family was slain and his home destroyed.
I imagine noble blood doesn't count for much when you are all alone and have lost everything. With his family gone, and the possibility of him being taken into the Ottoman Empire and kept there for some time, would he even have had any way to prove he was of noble origin? Even if he had surviving relatives, they might not recognize him after so many years and could be inclined to think he was just some impostor trying to get his hands on family wealth or something.
I don't know, just some food for thought.
And then there's this small detail. I just find it interesting how he says "the noblemen," not "we noblemen." Again, we can't be sure whether he's simply trying to influence Henry by highlighting their supposed similarities, or whether he genuinely relates to Henry here, even though he's a nobleman himself. It could just as well be both, I suppose. This doesn't have to mean anything, but I wanted to include it because it supports my personal interpretation that Ištván might personally not relate much to those nobles who have led easier lives than he likely has.
And from there, we come to another aspect I’ve been thinking about lately, one that’ll probably need its own post at some point: taking a sociolinguistic approach to Ištván’s background. I don’t have the screenshots at hand to support my theory yet, but it seems to me that he can switch between appearing as a rough mercenary and an eloquent nobleman, depending on what the situation calls for (and yet, he's often being clocked for this, too.) The clearest example of this, I think, is the way he code-switches during the prison scene in Nebakov while speaking with Sir Jaromier.
This doesn’t have to mean anything in particular, either. We could just draw a parallel between Ištván and, say, the Dry Devil and leave it at that, but as a language nerd, it’s just something that’s caught my attention. If anyone’s interested, I could ramble some more about it.
Maybe there's something to the idea of a talismanic poem, that no one will ever read.
I recently listened to Brian Wilkins on RuneSoup, whose new book (and deck) from Revelore Press, A Wheel of Small Gods, is supposed to be out pretty soon. I face the publication of his collection with a mix of envy and equanimity — envy because I’d hoped my own wheel of small gods, invocation hymns to the Greco-Egyptian deities of the Decans, would get similar attention… and equanimity because it…
5/31/2019. Super Smash Bros. Ultimate invitations made from custom-cut cardstock and seals made from glazed polymer clay, for Anime Expo 2019 artist alley.
anyone else up wondering how things would have gone if erik was killed instead of istvan
First off, I’m so sorry, anon, that this ask has been sitting in my inbox for basically forever. I didn’t have an immediate take on it, so I had to let it sit and really think it through before forming an opinion.
As far as I'm aware, Warhorse intended to portray Ištván as “a brutal and relentless man who will stop at nothing,” and sure, it’d be easy enough to imagine him dropping everything to chase revenge. But honestly, I find the idea of Erik’s possible death pushing him in the opposite direction far more compelling.
I mean, we see Erik go full rampage mode for vengeance, but Ištván already knows that “revenge doesn’t give life meaning, it’s just childish nonsense.” He’s lived long enough to understand that it’s a hollow indulgence, even if sometimes necessary. In his case, chasing revenge would only postpone the inevitable.
So instead of going berserk, I could see him quietly coming apart, until even his old goals and ambitions stop mattering, because without Erik, nothing does.
In this reimagining, I could see him begging Henry not to spare Erik, as we see him doing in canon, but to kill him instead (perhaps after an unsuccessful attempt at Henry's life?), because there's simply nothing left worth fighting for. And from Henry’s perspective, I imagine letting Ištván live with everything he’s done, and everything he’s lost, would be a far more fitting punishment than offering him any kind of release.
First off I read the first chapter of your Isterik fic and I’m already hooked!! I can’t wait for the future chapters!
Bear with me because I haven’t played KCD2 and I’m still playing KCD1 but how old do you think Erik and Istvan are supposed to be? Of course their backstories is left up for speculation but I see Erik is referred to as ‘boy’ but I assume he’s a few years older than Henry like maybe mid-twenties and I presume Istvan is in his forties at best??
Hi anon and thank you, I’m so glad to hear you enjoyed the first chapter! 🖤 I’ll put my thoughts on the age thing under a cut for some very light spoilers for both games.
So, yeah, I think Henry pretty much confirms Ištván’s age in KCD2. When he’s asking around about him, he straight-up describes him as, and I quote: “A stocky fellow, around forty…”
Erik’s age, on the other hand, is a bit trickier to pin down. Personally, I imagine him as a few years older than Henry, somewhere in his mid-twenties. That’s just the vibe I get, even though he’s sometimes called a boy, or even, at one point in KCD1, a “naive young pup.”
I think in those cases, the context matters.
My personal headcanon is that he was orphaned in his early to mid-teens during the Second Margrave War, which would put him in his mid-twenties by 1403, when the KCD games take place.
hi there -- i have an illustration here i made inspired by your fic! It's not much, but i hope you like it. Big fan of your work, of course.
Aaaaaaaaaaaaa 😭😭😭
I saw your message just before leaving for work but wanted to wait until I get back to The Actual Computer™ to reply (that's my millennial toxic trait; I just can't do anything I consider important on my phone) but I just want you to know I've kept looking at this all day and it makes me so happy.
Hello! I really enjoy your fics and I was wondering if Erik is portrayed as neurodivergent in any way? I see that headcanon a lot in other works. Personally, I think some of his behavioral quirks can be explained solely by a difficult childhood — both before and with Istvan — but I'm curious what you think about that.
Hello! And thank you, I’m so very happy to hear that you’ve been enjoying my silly little nonsense.
I definitely agree with you that the way he acts in certain situations could be explained by his childhood experiences. Though I'd still like to think that a difficult childhood and a possible neurodivergence wouldn’t have to rule each other out, and I think that I’ve tried to sprinkle a bit of both in my headcanons about him and the way I write him.
I'll put the rest under a cut because it seems I'm rambling again.
The thing is, when I think about Erik’s past, I usually picture a very small and remote village that is bleak and also boring, with very little to do (aside from daily chores) for a young boy, especially a young boy who might have been a bit different than the other children around him. Actually, I like to think Erik as someone who has always struggled with connecting with others, and I because of that, I could see him ending up in all kinds of trouble with other children, and for that reason, with his parents too.
And because of that, I could easily imagine him as someone who throughout his childhood felt like nobody likes him and nobody wants him around, even though he couldn’t quite understand why it has to be like that.
I also like to think that there could’ve been something about his behaviour that the others around him might’ve found somewhat off putting, even though they might not have been able to pin down why exactly they felt that way. Maybe he always had a knack for violence that Ištván only cultivated further, or maybe he had the tendency to say all the wrong things in wrong times, or maybe he simply had a hard time trying to follow all the rules and expectations set by his peers and parents and the medieval society. Could be anything, really.
Either way, I could see Erik feeling an outsider throughout his childhood, and because of that, I could see his attempts to connect with others become even more drastic and fail even harder over time, which could have been very frustrating to him. Although I also like to think that could’ve helped him later on, because he could then have clung to his worst memories about his past as a coping mechanism of sorts. I like to interpret the interrogation scene in KCD1 this way.
Okay, now I see I’m rambling again, but I think my point would be that Ištván could have been the first person to express genuine interest in him, wanting to hear what he had to say and making him feel like he was actually wanted, which could have had a positive impact on him, despite him losing the life as he knew it, along with everyone he’d ever known. I like to think that might have played a big part in why Erik (in lack of a better word) imprinted on him so hard.
Though I also like to think that Ištván pretty much instantly clocks him as someone who’s not used to any sort of kindness or gentleness and certainly knows how to play around it too.
I also like to think that bandit life might suit Erik better than his life in the village did. Maybe the new people around him would share the experience of being shunned by others in their respective villages, and maybe they wouldn't care that much about all kinds of social rules. Maybe the pecking order in a bandit camp would be based on qualities Erik can actually understand and respect, so it doesn’t feel all that arbitrary to him, like the social rules back in his home village likely did.
Either way, one of the Isterik headcanons I’m maybe most fond of is that we have Ištván, who certainly has his way with words, and then we have Erik, who might not always understand all the social cues or catch all the nuances. I like to think that Ištván wouldn’t hold it against him, but that on the contrary, he actually would take his time to explain what he means by saying one thing while meaning another, and so on.
After all this rambling, I’m not actually sure if I answered your question at all, but uhh, here are some thoughts on the subject, I suppose. :')
Hi, lurker here. Your writing is amazing, I am so envious of your talent. Please ignore the haters.
Thank you so much for reaching out. 🖤 It means a lot to me, especially now. I've always been sensitive about my writing, mostly because I've often felt I don't have many other talents.
It's just that I don't write to become popular or gain clout. If that was what I was after, I'd surely have picked a less niche ship, with far less controversy surrounding it.
I write because I just happen to enjoy trying to get into the headspace of some fictional character, preferably a bit controversial one, and approach them with empathy, while trying to figure out what their core principles are and how those have come to be, how they might act in some very specific situation, how their relationships work, and how to convey all that into words.
So I don't even know anymore what frustrates me the most: the idea that I would, voluntarily, give away the one thing that makes writing enjoyable to me, or the fact that, right at this moment, I'm staring at my current draft and catching myself thinking stupid shit, such as how I probably should remove the word sanctimonious here, or how I probably should simplify my description of the surroundings there, just so my writing would appear "less AI-like," whatever that even means at this point.
Not that I'm oblivious to the irony of purposefully turning my writing into something overly simplistic that no longer resembles my writing, just to avoid being accused of not writing it.
