Honestly if we would be Delusional for a bit & make ourselves an elias lives au, I'm on the team that believes that he Wouldn't help simoun w/ his whole schtick during el fili (that is, if we consider him going through the same "reincarnation" process as ibarra wherein the other thinks he's dead, but nooope he just has a diff name now & is actively running away from the authorities). Because to me, the convo they have in ch61 is saying a lot (quoting elias here: "(…) I would not follow you myself: I would never resort to these extreme measures while I could see some hope in men.") & to me, it strikes me as odd that in mcai's rendition of el noli following this au, he Does help simoun🤔 Tho admittedly I only read the gma article saying so & have no other context to discern his reason for Still devoting his life to ibarra/simoun even if like. Simoun Actively is perpetuating the peoples' suffering for the sake of forcing them to their lowest state in order to "wake up" to phrase it.
Sure, elias is practically indebted to simoun in a sense, but the man who saved him was *ibarra* & not his weirdass of a persona. Knowing elias, he would probably use that loophole to go "I'm not bound to you" @ simoun once he pulls the callback card on him. I don't see elias as simoun's ally, per se, but I Do see him as being simoun's… adversary?? The thorn by his side, in a way because elias doesn't want collatoral damage & he most def Isn't a fan of simoun's true motives for why he's doing All That (vengeance, which is an inherently selfish reason, considering all the war crimes he ALREADY committed against the population to get to that pivotal moment of revolution.)
In spite of all that, I Still Do see elias crumbling a bit whenever simoun takes off his glasses to talk to him (bcs he knows damn well the psychological effect of said axn. & Also! Who wouldn't forget the face of the man who sacrificed his life??? Recognition in the other & what grief has done to them🫵) because no matter how much elias LOATHES this man, he can't change the fact that he Has the same eyes of the man who he was indebted to, save for the fact that they're a bit Lifeless now
