#sterwards

[noahaiden2008]

Dark Heir theory: She knows

I was rereading Dark Heir and I thought of a little theory...

When our protagonists manage to communicate with the Elder Steward through that stone in the Hall, it is Grace who interrupts. And when Will is revealed as the Dark King at the end, Grace's reaction to what happened is not given any emphasis, but no particular reaction.

Also, when Cyprian takes Will prisoner and shows him to everyone, there is no mention of Grace, as if she had disappeared...

Many think that this could have been a mistake by Pacat, who forgot to work on the character, but what if it was intentional?

Pacat simply couldn't give her too much prominence, otherwise it would have become obvious... Obvious what? That she knew.

She knows that Will is the Dark King, think about it, she was Elder Sterward's Janissary, she should know many secrets, and assuming that Elder Sterward knew about Will being the Dark King, she should prepare something to help him, after all, she knew that she wouldn't live long, but even if she left a recording on that stone, who can guarantee that the stone wouldn't fall into the wrong hands, or even into the hands of Cyprian who would try to kill Will as soon as he found out the truth?

She couldn't risk it, besides, once she died, there would be no one to help Will and stop him from falling into the path of Darkness, that said, who better to entrust this task to than her own Janissary?

She prevented them from seeing Elder Sterward's entire recording because she knew that from that part of the recording, she would speak directly to Will about him being the Dark King, so she stopped filming and kept the stone with her, waiting to show it to Will when the right time came.

Exactly as Elder Sterward instructed her. That's why she's so absent throughout the book. At the end of the book when she disappears, she may have possibly run away to join Will, after all, it's essential that Will knows the truth about Elder Sterward now.

Then she will join Will and James and possibly be further developed in book 3. That's my theory.

(Note: Yes, the title is a reference to the song "She knows". Lol.)

[noahaiden2008]

I'm pretty sure if Cyprian wasn't a Sterward, he'd probably be swearing at someone every other sentence. If James is sarcastic and calm in his comments, Cyprian is easily irritated, he may deny it, but they are clearly brothers XD

(We don't know much about Marcus, but I believe he was the calmest of the 3 as far as we know, apparently his patience was decreasing with each generation of the family lol)

[noahaiden2008]

Okay I'm glad to know I'm not the only one who noticed that Grace sort of disappeared at the end of book 2. And I absolutely agree with you that Grace is somehow in the know about Will and I've even wondered if she's a reborn herself but hasn't announced it yet after she saw what happened to Cyprian... something about her just resonates ancient knowledge; more than just your average Janissary.

Yes, after Cyprian brought Will to the others, she simply stops being mentioned. Furthermore, she is the only one of the main characters who doesn't have a chapter narrating her POV. Furthermore, she is strangely quiet and we know almost nothing about her. I don't know if I agree about her being a reborn, after all, there is no mention of any strange look or recognition on her part with Will, and assuming that her strange behaviors during were because she was a reborn, then she would have to have her memories. A personal theory, I think that Violet could be a reincarnation of Rassalon, but beyond that, I theorize that instead of Grace, Cyprian could be a reincarnation of someone from the old world, just imagine, he simply discovers that in his past life, like James, he served the Dark King? It would be quite impactful for his development. The feeling I have from Grace is that Elder Sterward knew about Will being the dark rwi and told Grace, and asked her to help Will and prevent him from going to the side of evil. It is possible that the stone that contains Elder Sterward's illusion still has some message for Will, in which Grace was told to show Will when the time was right, which is why she closed the box with the stone and stopped Will from telling Elder Sterward that he was not the one who lit the tree.

[noahaiden2008]

The Stewards/current light side were not that good.

Yes, many of their actions can be interpreted as necessary.

However, they didn't tell the novitiates about the shadows in the chalice before they became Sterwards, you can say that it's necessary to keep a considerable number of Sterwards to fight against the Darkness, but being necessary doesn't make it any less of a jerk. And Jannick, even if he doesn't consider James as his son anymore, was it really necessary to make those comments about James when he was captured, not to mention when Jannick said "That thing is not my son." "Thing", even if James was an enemy, I wouldn't refer to anyone as "thing" possibly, and it wasn't just James that they referred to like that, when they found out Violet was a Lion, she stopped being "Violet" and became "the lioness", Visander also did something similar when he saw her for the first time, but he didn't know her name yet, so maybe it can be overlooked.

"The Dark King" "The Traitor" "Lions". They always objectify their enemies too much, it seems that from the moment you fight for the opposite side, you become some kind of irrational and lying monster, apparently. Because that's how the Stewards see things: They are the heroes in the fight against darkness and all those on the Dark side are monstrous and crazy followers of the crazy King of Darkness.

Even in real-world wars, there are wars in which one side was clearly worse than the other, but does that mean that the worse side is purely made up of bad people and the better side is full of good people? No, even if the leader of a group is horrible, that doesn't mean that everyone who follows him or hangs out with his group agrees with him, after all, some were born there and have no way to escape, others simply have their own agendas, and others don't even have an exact idea of why what they're doing is bad, like Tom, who we discover had little information about everything that was happening. Does that justify it? No.

But it also doesn't justify the way the Sterwards treated Violet, they could have interrogated her and even arrested her if there was any surprise, but they barely let her say anything after they found out about her being a lion and they already tried to attack her and throw her in the dungeon, even though she never attacked them before THEY tried to attack her, did they try to communicate with words instead of immediately thinking about executing the girl? If she didn't attack them first, what used to they try to do things peacefully? I'm not saying that the Dark side is some saint, but the Light side is not what it says it is, the light should be welcoming, kind and merciful, right? Yes, they were at WAR, but when it refers to their enemies, they ignore it, Cyprian claiming that James killed Sterwards, which is true, but what choice did he have? Let himself be killed? It's a war, and James barely had anywhere to run if he didn't sin, besides the way they forget that they tried to kill James first, that may not justify James killing Sterwards in the eyes of some, but that doesn't make him worse than the Sterwards, they're on the same level, after all, what do they fight for so much? Protecting humanity? That they barely have contact with while they're isolated in the Hall? Dirty or disgusting comments about their enemies are allowed, but when they insult them, then they're horrible people, Cyprian got angry whenever someone said something against the Sterwards, but when Jannick spoke badly about James when he was captured or he himself said something mean, then there was no problem, right?

They may even be the side that is fighting for good in this story (the heroes), but their methods and words are still bad. They are hypocrites, obviously that doesn't make the death that they all had fair, but still, they are hypocrites.And let's also remember Mrs. Durval, her brother didn't hesitate to tell Violet information in exchange for her sparing his sister, isn't that the kind of behavior you should expect from the Light side? (Note: When I refer to the Light side, I'm mainly talking about them in the current moments of history, we don't have much information about them in the old world and they may have been different, even if just a little.)