I realise I’m late to the party, but I still want to sit for a minute with Hal and Bolaire and what happened at the end of Episode 22: The Point of No Return. Because that. That was a lot.
That was so … so calculating of Bolaire. So … So cruel and hopeful and twisted. I don’t think it was intended, necessarily, as a cruelty. But I think it was intended as an opportunity.
Bolaire’s actions towards Hal have been so. Desperate. And manipulative. And hopeful. And scared.
And I don’t mean manipulative in the sense of … uncaringly trying to steer Hal towards a goal. I mean manipulative in the sense of desperately trying to steer this new chapter of their relationship in a way that ends with Bolaire both still free and also still friends with this man who means so much to him.
I just. I really think that he never wanted Hal to know. At least on a practical level. That was the threat that Thjazi held over him, the idea of Hal knowing what a monster he is, because the realistic end result of that is Hal never having anything to do with him again. Bolaire never wanted Hal to know.
He also did want Hal to know, as a fantasy, as a hope, as the idea that maybe, maybe this person, this one person, might eventually know him for who and what he truly is, and still care for him. Even though he is an object and a monster and a parasite who literally cannot live except by possessing and killing people. He hoped, hopes, so desperately, that there is some fantasy ending where Hal knows him truly for who he is and does not despise him for what he is.
But that hope was a … a fantasy, a story to tell himself, and realistically he knew, was terrified, that if Hal ever truly knew, he would rightly hate Bolaire and at minimum cut him from his life.
And then Thjazi died, and left a letter, supposedly for Murray, and suddenly it’s not hypothetical anymore, in either direction, it’s neither fantasy or nightmare, it’s real, Hal does know, and now …
Now he has to steer this, guide this, so that everything he fears does not come to pass.
And this moment, this thing here. It was …
Hal is so vulnerable. Hal is not a fighter, Hal is not an adventurer. Not anymore. And this episode has made such a point of that. Hal’s hesitance. Shell-shock. He is losing his life, his normal life, his family, the safety of his family and his theatre, and the dreams he has spent so long fighting for. It’s all slipping away, he can feel it slipping away. Every step he takes deeper into this sewer, into this fight, is a step away from safety and further into war. The war he has spent so long trying to leave behind him. Hal is trying so desperately to wrap himself in cushioning shock and disbelief, trying to walk the steps without actually letting them touch him, without letting himself really realise that this is it, that this is something he cannot come back from. He focuses on rescuing the kid while the others fight, and likely for that reason. This, protecting a young person, is something he can do, would do anyway, that doesn’t make it a war. But killing …
I just want us to look at the moment Bolaire chose.
Hal, in deep shock, saying numbly that he hasn’t taken a man’s life in almost thirty years.
Bolaire, two minutes later: I’m going to need to die. Do you want to do the honours?
Like. He knew he needed a new body. He saw an opportunity as a result of the fight. He knew … He knew he had to do it at least somewhat openly. Trust is so fragile right now. If he tried to keep it secret, it would only damage that. But he saw … He saw Hal so vulnerable.
I think … I think he saw an opportunity. While Hal is still so vulnerable. While Hal is still wrapped in that comforting numb cushion of shock. While Hal might not feel, at least not acutely, not yet, the true horror of what Bolaire is and what Bolaire is asking him to do, to be part of, whether actively or not. But he will still know. Still see. Still …
Maybe, hopefully, get used to it? The idea of it?
Especially, as vicious and cruel a thought as it is, if he’s now complicit in it.
And I don’t mean that … It’s not cruelty. It’s not malice. It’s not driven by a desire to manipulate Hal, not in the sense of the emotionless use of a tool. It just.
He went to Hal. And Hal, despite all the mistrust of the last few days, was so badly in shock, so badly shaken, that he just leaned on Bolaire. Let himself. Slumped on Bolaire’s shoulder. And Bolaire did try to comfort him. Genuinely. He offered what comfort he could for Hal’s loss of safety, comfort, soul. That was genuinely meant. He was honest about it, about how he’s not there, was never there, has always lived this darker life, but he is, really and truly, sorry for Hal’s loss of safety. His descent into this darkness where they, he and Azune and Murray, already lived, or at least ventured regularly. He is sorry.
But then he immediately, deliberately, somewhat cruelly, also moved to pull Hal deeper. To ask him to commit another horror, immediately on top of the one he just bore. To be part of Bolaire’s horror.
Because, I think, the desperate hope is, if Hal is part of Bolaire’s horror, at least a little bit, then maybe he won’t flinch from it.
But he is … It’s not done cruelly. It’s not cold or callous. He does still try to soften it. To offer Hal ways out of it, make it so it doesn’t have to be him. But just … the immediacy of it. ‘I haven’t taken a man’s life in almost thirty years’. And then five minutes later: ‘Would you like to do the honours?’
And it also … He’s not lying. It is terrifying for Bolaire too. He is, quite literally, putting his life in Hal’s hands, in Hal’s keeping, in Hal’s judgement. Not in the sense that he will die if Hal doesn’t put him on the new body, but in the sense that he will not live. Cannot live. He has no life if Hal does not let him kill someone. He is taking what must be one of the most terrifying risks of his life. He is not just telling Hal but showing Hal what he is. What he must do to survive. He is asking Hal to be complicit in it. And Hal could say no.
He's also … asking Hal to kill him. Directly. Only his body, yes, not himself, but still. And it is … I wonder is it meant as a partial apology? Hurt for hurt?
Because Hal takes it. Hal … Hal takes the sword, and Hal hesitates, and then Hal fucking butchers Bolaire. Making the wound as vicious and as messy as possible. Kicking Bolaire away from him.
Which. Yeah. That, ah. That’s.
Some of that could have been that Bolaire deliberately requested that the body had to look like it died in a battle. But some of that could also have been Hal. Being so angry. So angry at Bolaire. Possibly because … because Hal realises he’s being manipulated. He knows. He’s good at people. He knows. He knows what this is. He came to Bolaire with his vulnerability, his shock, let himself trust and take comfort for just a moment, and Bolaire immediately took advantage. Immediately requested this horror of him. Hal
Bolaire asked that the body die hard. And Hal decisively obliges.
Because. For all Bolaire (and Murray, and Azune) talk a good game about how sorry they are that they’re dragging Hal further into this, that they always thought Thjazi was right to try and shield him, that they’re sorry he has to see this, they’re still doing it. Still asking. Still expecting. Still leaving him to feel all his hopes and dreams and safety trickling away between his clutching hands. They all lied to him, for years, for the sake of protecting him, and they fucking failed. They failed. He’s not protected. He’s not safe. His children are not safe. All those lies, and they didn’t even fucking work, and now he’s here, down in the horror, and he has to do it anyway.
Which is, naturally, not a fair thing to think, to feel, but feelings are like that? They’re not fair. They never are. They’re just what we feel.
I think there was just a bit, in that moment, of Hal taking that anger out on Bolaire. Because Bolaire asked for it, and there’s a bit of Hal, an angry, broken, knowing bit, that was absolutely ready to take him up on that offer. Because Bolaire has just betrayed him, manipulated him … trusted him, put his life in his hands, asked him to kill him …
He’s angry at Bolaire. Mistrustful of Bolaire. Fascinated by Bolaire. Resentful of Bolaire. Friends with Bolaire. Even still, even now.
Because … Because the thing is. He didn’t want to step down here, but he did. He chose to. He didn’t want the war. But in the end, he did choose to fight it. He chose to come down here with them. He chose to take up arms when fatally pressed. And he chose to take Bolaire’s sword, the sword Bolaire offered him, and he chose …
He chose to be part of Bolaire’s horror. Just a little bit.
He was tempted, so tempted, just for that moment with the mask. With Bolaire in his hands. He killed Bolaire because Bolaire asked it of him, because he was angry with Bolaire, but also because he just wanted to know. What this creature, being, friend, really is. What it’s like to hold him in his hands. What’s written here? What made this being? What would it be like to …
And it’s so perfect that what the mask, Bolaire, his magic, used to lure Hal was … applause. The sound of the stage. And the sound of a stage that broke the world. Living proof, embodied in the creature in his hands, that Hal’s craft, Hal’s art, has more than just the metaphorical power to change the world, but the entirely literal power as well. The stage that broke the world. The stage that killed the gods. Or one of them, at least. Because that, that is what Hal’s art has the power to do. He’s always believed it. But here, in his hands, in his friend, in his truth, is the proof.
Bolaire’s monstrosity is a horror. But it’s also a temptation like nothing anyone else could have offered. Art can change the world. And art can help end it, too. If Hal has to endure horror … why not take a little grim satisfaction in that too?
It’s so messy. The thing they have, the thing between them. It’s so … monstrous and angry and hopeful and manipulative and desperate and poisonously gentle and quietly wonderous and hideously wounding. Hal is everything Bolaire wants, everything he’s afraid to taint, everything he has to taint if he’s to have any hope of ever being accepted. And Hal, Hal, deep down, is angry. At the world, at what it asks of him, at what his family has asked of him. Hal is twice as afraid of Bolaire, what he is, what he means, because Hal knows that he could be that monstrous too. Because, sometimes, just sometimes, he wants to.
And here, in this moment, this horrible, twisted, desperate moment, they both get a glimpse of that. Of what the other is, what they could do. And …
They come out of it again. Still safe in each other’s hands. Sort of. Wounded, hurt, betrayed. But still safe. Hal does not abandon Bolaire, doesn’t lock him away, strip him down to an object. And Bolaire was gentle. Was truthful. Gave, as much as he could, what he thought he could to soften the blow. He’s manipulating Hal, but not out of malice. He’s just … trying to show what he is, what he has to do, how monstrous he is, in ways and places that mean Hal won’t run from him.
And he risked his life, and surrendered his entire being, into Hal’s hands to do it. Which. Even if he’s doing his best to manipulate Hal’s impressions of him, even if he’s deliberately using Hal’s vulnerability and shell-shock to coax him into some degree of complicity with Bolaire’s horror, he still risked his life to do it. He still gave Hal everything. Hal could have done anything once Bolaire was helpless, and no amount of manipulation can change the sheer vulnerability of what Bolaire offered him. Vulnerability for vulnerability. Hurt for hurt.
Oh, gods, it’s unhealthy. It’s so unhealthy. But, well. What do you expect between a god-killing weapon of war with such a tentative grasp on his own personhood, and a man whose art and career and entire life has been a series of lies, both professional and unwilling?
And. Also. Just one final little note?
Azune and Murray. Interspersed with this scene, interleaved with it. In their own little world of lies and pain and desperate need for trust.
Azune: I like this, Murray, I like – Sometimes you look at me, and I think that you … put on me a little bit of the disdain that you have for the institution that I work for, and I makes me feel like I might be losing you. Because of … the position I’m in. But, moments like this remind me that that’s probably just in my head, and … I really, ah …
Murray: It is absolutely in your head, I could never hate you Azune. You’re a good egg.
Azune, the monster, the liar, the beautiful nightmare, not by choice but forced by circumstance, hoping that this moment of trust and vulnerability is the truth, that it means Murray is still his friend, that she doesn’t hate him for what he’s had to do, to be. And Murray, instinctively, openly responding. Giving grace immediately. He’s a good egg. She could never hate him.
Azune, towards Murray. And Bolaire, towards Hal.
But Hal … can’t give it back as openly. He’s too shocked, too broken, too angry, too betrayed. Not yet. Not just yet. He can’t give the easy forgiveness that Murray can.
But he also didn’t betray Bolaire. And he also didn’t leave.
I love that Azune’s reflexive, immediately response to this grace is, I will kill someone for you. (Which. Also not healthy, my boy, my poor broken monstrous boy). With Bolaire that’s not a question. We all know he’ll kill and likely a lot worse for Hal. But Murray also promises that right back at Azune, and I believe her, to my core. And Hal …
Hal does kill someone for Bolaire. Two someones. Right then and there. Of course, he also kills Bolaire, as messily and gruesomely as possible. But still.
Let’s all go down into the dark together, huh?
Past the point of no return. No backwards glances. Our dreams of make believe are at an end …
I am going to say. One final final note? The title of this episode does stand alone, as Hal’s emotional point of no return, but if that title is also a deliberate reference to that scene from Phantom of the Opera? That’s, ah. That’s not at all loaded either, huh? A masked man trying to lure a supposed innocent into darkness, while she stands on a stage betraying him back, before they both plunge into a pit of darkness while the stage (city) burns around them. That’s. Hopefully not prophetic over here.
I would not put it past them, either. Heh.
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