Invisible String
Robin Blyth/Edwin Courcey - E - 3.5k
In the days leading up to the equinox gala, Robin convinces Edwin to take a break from his research and join him for a walk. And maybe a little bit more.
Where We Belong
Robin Blyth/Edwin Courcey - E - 5.5k
Croquet, secrets, and a question. Five moments that take place after the end of the series from the perspectives of Robin, Edwin, and Adelaide.
Heartstopper 🍂
Everything in Transit
Charlie Spring/Nick Nelson - E - 41k
University AU. Three years of Nick and Charlie—from friendship to more, with a few road bumps in between.
I Cherish With Fondness the Day (Before) I Met You
Charlie Spring/Nick Nelson - E - 75k
Yachtie AU. Bad first meetings, prickly interactions, close quarters, and lots of really good horny decision-making.
Ok, it’s time. Collar Talk™. Specifically, my most controversial Dark Rise take ever:
The Collar is Actually the Ultimate Display of Trust
I’m actually… nervous to post this one? There are like a dozen other things I’d like to discuss here but this is a start.
The Story Came Later
The Collar isn’t common knowledge. It has been a “family secret, handed down over centuries” by the Gauthiers.
I’m sure the secret slipped out over time, which is probably how Simon found out, but neither the Stewards nor the people of the old world seemed to know of its existence—or at least they weren’t equating it with mind-control:
"His people never knew he was ensorcelled, only that he’d become the Dark’s lieutenant. They thought he did it of his own free will."
Which makes sense... he’s the Betrayer, after all, not a sympathetic champion who was enslaved and used against his will. That would have been ah-mazing propaganda for the Light to use.
So… if their contemporaries weren't spreading the word that Anharion was being controlled by the Collar, that means the story cropped up later—after the war and fall of the old world.
There’s a degree of separation, so why exactly should we believe this story? Where’s the credibility?
The Collar’s Purpose
We explicitly see the Collar’s actual use: not only does it completely replenish James’s zapped magic, it floods him with (possibly limitless) power. This power "wasn't his own; it came from the Collar" and then we learn it's being harnessed directly from Will's supply of magic "so immense it seemed endless."
Pacat even drops in blatant Collar imagery:
A circle completing itself: the seeking tendril of James’s magic connected to the vast reservoir of his own.
But the key part here is that Will doesn’t know all this is possible because James is wearing the Collar, so he isn’t associating this experience with his typical self-loathing and poisoning the narrative.
(Also… “seeking tendril” is uhh… more on that later.)
Which Is Where Trust Comes In
We don’t know why Anharion switched sides, and that doesn’t matter right now. What matters is that they would have needed to rekindle trust to be on the same side of the war.
(To me, since the Collar is the key to Will/Sarcean’s power it doesn’t make sense to me that he would have forced it on Anharion… that would just be odd.)
And the thing is, Sarcean didn’t need to control Anharion to get that validation.
The act in itself of putting on the Collar is all that’s needed for Anharion to show he’s on Sarcean’s side. He had no way of knowing what the Collar would actually do to him, so making that choice would be the ultimate show of trust.
And, in turn, Sarcean granting Anharion access to all of his power via the Collar is the ultimate display of trust right back.
That would have been such a vulnerable moment for both of them.
That said, we don’t know the when either. We assume Anharion wore it from day 1, but it very well could have come later in the war, possibly after he faced a serious injury hence the “slit throat” appearance. That possibility also points to love and trust.
The Compulsion of the Collar
Before Will knows the story of the Collar, he gets the sense of a “whisper in his ear, over his skin, in his blood. Take me. Use me. Do it.”
Then when he’s told it supposedly “controls the Betrayer” he suddenly interprets the Collar’s draw as a sign of his darkness and hidden desire to possess James. That’s what I mean by narrative poisoning.
Because I think this is actually just his magic calling to him.
The Collar is essentially the key to his “hidden door” he has been seeking yet terrified to find, and the compulsion/draw above is such a similar full-body description as when James first taps into Will’s power:
Soft lips brushing his ear. “That’s it.”
James’s magic was flowing over his whole body in warm, slow, rippling oscillations, the gentlest pulsing.
Whispers, hands, blood. We’re seeing a version of those same “seeking tendrils” from James and there’s that familiar push/pull:
You can’t, you mustn’t. He knew what he should have said. Stop this. We can’t.
It makes sense that Will’s feelings and reactions are the same with the Collar as his own “door” since it’s essentially the same thing. His magic wants to be let out, but Will refuses to trust himself with it.
The draw they both feel is also deeply sexual. I mean, this alone:
The cloth slid away like a negligee slipping to the ground. The naked gold and rubies hit both of them with its power. Will felt it in his teeth. James’s eyes were swallowed with pupil.
And, once again, that perfectly mirrors how intimate they are during their sex magic seeking scene. I could quote that entire thing, but I’ll go with:
The hot, sweet feel of James blazed through him, and he cried out. His veins lit up with power; he lost hold of his surroundings.
I think this loops back to the rekindling of trust and the way the Collar represents their partnership. Intimacy, power, and trust all go hand in hand.
Compulsion vs Obsession
We don’t get Gauthier’s pov to know how he actually feels—and we don’t get other characters reacting physically or emotionally to the Collar—but the description he gives of his family points to a different kind of compulsion:
“Like dragons hoarding jewels, all who touch the Collar crave to possess it. . . . Because they crave to possess him.”
My personal theory has always been that any compulsion magic was planted by Sarcean or Anharion so the Collar would always find its way to his Reborn self. But I also would love if there’s no magic at all making the family obsessed. Humans don’t need magic compelling them in order to be power hungry.
Either way, this obsession allowed the Collar to be kept secret and safe in the same family since the old world. That’s wild.
Control vs Craving
At no point does James say he feels the need to obey Will. What he feels is, once again, more intimate:
He could feel the craving he had to serve, to give himself over.
Even Gauthier normalizes the craving to submit:
“Some who crave submission have tried to put it on themselves.”
He’s not implying that those people were manipulated by the Collar, just that it was something they wanted.
Let’s call it how it is: James is submissive. And probably has a praise kink. We all know it. We’re shown it time and again. He doesn’t need to be tricked or controlled to want to do what Will says.
But think about that moment where the Collar is finally on and activated. Can you imagine what James is feeling?
There's the immediate relief, yes, but I mean the power. The idea of being submissive to Will already gets James all hot and bothered, but to then be granted access to all of his magic? And to have your memories and remember that the most powerful person trusted you with that gift? Oh lord.
Yeah, I can see that getting him to a "let me show you what I can do" kind of mindset for Will, which would probably also track for Anharion. God, it was also probably such a turn on for Sarcean to see Anharion wielding his power. And to be the only one who knew. Can you imagine?! The Collar has so many layers of kink, but it’s all rooted in mutual trust.
Jealous Master
The Collar only ever had one master. A jealous master, that would never allow his possession to belong to another.
This is another part where reading with the lens of Collar=Sarcean’s Power instead of Collar=Mind-Control changed how I interact with the text.
The possession here is the Collar, not James, and Sarcean’s emotions make sense to me.
Sarcean anchored his power to the Collar, allowing Anharion to access it whenever he wanted or needed, no matter how far apart they were.
And before his uprising, that power was used and abused by the Sun King for all sorts of dark deeds. I doubt Anharion was spared from all of that and I have a feeling he was also pulled into some bad shit after TSK “fled” the palace.
Of course Sarcean would be possessive over his power. He finally has complete say over how he uses his magic now, no longer forced to serve a two-faced king he loathes.
That possessiveness adds to how meaningful it is that he still chooses to share his power with Anharion.
The Final Chapter
Pacat is blatantly playing games with us by intentionally having Will ask low-stakes questions that read as demands and then having Will do a complete narrative flip partway through the chapter once he sees the Collar.
Honestly, I'm obsessed with how Pacat manipulates the reader here, using Will's self-deprecation to make us view what’s happening through a twisted lens. I think the similarities of these two moments is a clue to the truth though:
“You came to me.”
James said, “You asked me to.”
“If you knew it was a trap, why did you come?” She sounded like it hurt her, and maybe it did.
He said, “You called for me.”
Pacat even purposefully gets us to think about this arrest with the repeat of “both of you” when James arrives only a page or so before. It definitely feels like they want us to connect these two scenes and see the emphasis on choice.
But since we’re being reminded of Sarcean willingly walking into a trap, I do wonder if James is also using this moment to test Will (again) and make sure he’s truly safe. Poor James has had to learn about self-preservation the hard way. Why did James cover the Collar with the cravat, after all? That’s a tangent for another time.
Impact on the Story
This doesn’t mean Sarcean was a good guy. At all. I think his uprising was like Will’s “boy’s revenge” just on a far larger scale with significantly more destruction.
I think Sarcean has just as much of a problem with “the end justifies the means” thinking, and I think Will (and everyone really) is going to have to grapple with all of horrible realities about the war, no matter how justified the cause might have been.
I also think that resolving the drama of the Collar controlling James early on won’t harm the story at all.
They only have three days before the people who fell to the white death wake up. There’s plenty to deal with and absolutely no time.
And, like the Collar, saving the world hinges on trust:
Will has to trust in himself and accept his powers.
He has to trust that James is genuinely there for him.
Cyprian and Violet have to trust that Will is still the boy they knew.
Violet has to trust that Tom won’t harm her.
And so on. Like Marcus said in his journal, “Let us put aside old grudges and differences.”
Which makes me think of this realization I had about the war in the old world:
Since Rathorn is a Gauthier, that means he had Blood of the Basilisk, so we can assume Basilisks fought for Sarcean—meaning Lions served alongside Basilisks that had the power to control them if they wanted to.
What it comes down to is the balance of power and trust.
You. You, you, you. The Collar really is that “circle completing itself” tying these two together.
I love trying to dissect this scene. James jumps from absolute terror to being bombarded with disjointed flashes of the past and feelings from an entire lifetime of memories. We can tell it’s not just an easy flow with that return of the “try to run” that Pacat used to play tricks with us before. (Also, do we think Anharion regretted the arrest and that’s why it pops up again here?)
And as that’s happening, all that power he lost (by being a fucking hero) is being restored and then there’s even more on top of it. But he’s still not clearheaded yet so he’s resistant because it feels good but it’s the thing he has been dreading.
And then it stops with You. You, you, you.
Always and forever, he was bound to one person. “But the Dark King is its master,” said James. “And I serve Him, not you.”
He finally sees clearly and knows where this power is from—who this power is from—and he wants to use that power for him. Just because he chooses to serve Will doesn’t mean they aren’t equals. Same goes for Violet or anyone else.
Ok, it’s time. Collar Talk™. Specifically, my most controversial Dark Rise take ever:
The Collar is Actually the Ultimate Display of Trust
I’m actually… nervous to post this one? There are like a dozen other things I’d like to discuss here but this is a start.
The Story Came Later
The Collar isn’t common knowledge. It has been a “family secret, handed down over centuries” by the Gauthiers.
I’m sure the secret slipped out over time, which is probably how Simon found out, but neither the Stewards nor the people of the old world seemed to know of its existence—or at least they weren’t equating it with mind-control:
"His people never knew he was ensorcelled, only that he’d become the Dark’s lieutenant. They thought he did it of his own free will."
Which makes sense... he’s the Betrayer, after all, not a sympathetic champion who was enslaved and used against his will. That would have been ah-mazing propaganda for the Light to use.
So… if their contemporaries weren't spreading the word that Anharion was being controlled by the Collar, that means the story cropped up later—after the war and fall of the old world.
There’s a degree of separation, so why exactly should we believe this story? Where’s the credibility?
The Collar’s Purpose
We explicitly see the Collar’s actual use: not only does it completely replenish James’s zapped magic, it floods him with (possibly limitless) power. This power "wasn't his own; it came from the Collar" and then we learn it's being harnessed directly from Will's supply of magic "so immense it seemed endless."
Pacat even drops in blatant Collar imagery:
A circle completing itself: the seeking tendril of James’s magic connected to the vast reservoir of his own.
But the key part here is that Will doesn’t know all this is possible because James is wearing the Collar, so he isn’t associating this experience with his typical self-loathing and poisoning the narrative.
(Also… “seeking tendril” is uhh… more on that later.)
Which Is Where Trust Comes In
We don’t know why Anharion switched sides, and that doesn’t matter right now. What matters is that they would have needed to rekindle trust to be on the same side of the war.
(To me, since the Collar is the key to Will/Sarcean’s power it doesn’t make sense to me that he would have forced it on Anharion… that would just be odd.)
And the thing is, Sarcean didn’t need to control Anharion to get that validation.
The act in itself of putting on the Collar is all that’s needed for Anharion to show he’s on Sarcean’s side. He had no way of knowing what the Collar would actually do to him, so making that choice would be the ultimate show of trust.
And, in turn, Sarcean granting Anharion access to all of his power via the Collar is the ultimate display of trust right back.
That would have been such a vulnerable moment for both of them.
That said, we don’t know the when either. We assume Anharion wore it from day 1, but it very well could have come later in the war, possibly after he faced a serious injury hence the “slit throat” appearance. That possibility also points to love and trust.
The Compulsion of the Collar
Before Will knows the story of the Collar, he gets the sense of a “whisper in his ear, over his skin, in his blood. Take me. Use me. Do it.”
Then when he’s told it supposedly “controls the Betrayer” he suddenly interprets the Collar’s draw as a sign of his darkness and hidden desire to possess James. That’s what I mean by narrative poisoning.
Because I think this is actually just his magic calling to him.
The Collar is essentially the key to his “hidden door” he has been seeking yet terrified to find, and the compulsion/draw above is such a similar full-body description as when James first taps into Will’s power:
Soft lips brushing his ear. “That’s it.”
James’s magic was flowing over his whole body in warm, slow, rippling oscillations, the gentlest pulsing.
Whispers, hands, blood. We’re seeing a version of those same “seeking tendrils” from James and there’s that familiar push/pull:
You can’t, you mustn’t. He knew what he should have said. Stop this. We can’t.
It makes sense that Will’s feelings and reactions are the same with the Collar as his own “door” since it’s essentially the same thing. His magic wants to be let out, but Will refuses to trust himself with it.
The draw they both feel is also deeply sexual. I mean, this alone:
The cloth slid away like a negligee slipping to the ground. The naked gold and rubies hit both of them with its power. Will felt it in his teeth. James’s eyes were swallowed with pupil.
And, once again, that perfectly mirrors how intimate they are during their sex magic seeking scene. I could quote that entire thing, but I’ll go with:
The hot, sweet feel of James blazed through him, and he cried out. His veins lit up with power; he lost hold of his surroundings.
I think this loops back to the rekindling of trust and the way the Collar represents their partnership. Intimacy, power, and trust all go hand in hand.
Compulsion vs Obsession
We don’t get Gauthier’s pov to know how he actually feels—and we don’t get other characters reacting physically or emotionally to the Collar—but the description he gives of his family points to a different kind of compulsion:
“Like dragons hoarding jewels, all who touch the Collar crave to possess it. . . . Because they crave to possess him.”
My personal theory has always been that any compulsion magic was planted by Sarcean or Anharion so the Collar would always find its way to his Reborn self. But I also would love if there’s no magic at all making the family obsessed. Humans don’t need magic compelling them in order to be power hungry.
Either way, this obsession allowed the Collar to be kept secret and safe in the same family since the old world. That’s wild.
Control vs Craving
At no point does James say he feels the need to obey Will. What he feels is, once again, more intimate:
He could feel the craving he had to serve, to give himself over.
Even Gauthier normalizes the craving to submit:
“Some who crave submission have tried to put it on themselves.”
He’s not implying that those people were manipulated by the Collar, just that it was something they wanted.
Let’s call it how it is: James is submissive. And probably has a praise kink. We all know it. We’re shown it time and again. He doesn’t need to be tricked or controlled to want to do what Will says.
But think about that moment where the Collar is finally on and activated. Can you imagine what James is feeling?
There's the immediate relief, yes, but I mean the power. The idea of being submissive to Will already gets James all hot and bothered, but to then be granted access to all of his magic? And to have your memories and remember that the most powerful person trusted you with that gift? Oh lord.
Yeah, I can see that getting him to a "let me show you what I can do" kind of mindset for Will, which would probably also track for Anharion. God, it was also probably such a turn on for Sarcean to see Anharion wielding his power. And to be the only one who knew. Can you imagine?! The Collar has so many layers of kink, but it’s all rooted in mutual trust.
Jealous Master
The Collar only ever had one master. A jealous master, that would never allow his possession to belong to another.
This is another part where reading with the lens of Collar=Sarcean’s Power instead of Collar=Mind-Control changed how I interact with the text.
The possession here is the Collar, not James, and Sarcean’s emotions make sense to me.
Sarcean anchored his power to the Collar, allowing Anharion to access it whenever he wanted or needed, no matter how far apart they were.
And before his uprising, that power was used and abused by the Sun King for all sorts of dark deeds. I doubt Anharion was spared from all of that and I have a feeling he was also pulled into some bad shit after TSK “fled” the palace.
Of course Sarcean would be possessive over his power. He finally has complete say over how he uses his magic now, no longer forced to serve a two-faced king he loathes.
That possessiveness adds to how meaningful it is that he still chooses to share his power with Anharion.
The Final Chapter
Pacat is blatantly playing games with us by intentionally having Will ask low-stakes questions that read as demands and then having Will do a complete narrative flip partway through the chapter once he sees the Collar.
Honestly, I'm obsessed with how Pacat manipulates the reader here, using Will's self-deprecation to make us view what’s happening through a twisted lens. I think the similarities of these two moments is a clue to the truth though:
“You came to me.”
James said, “You asked me to.”
“If you knew it was a trap, why did you come?” She sounded like it hurt her, and maybe it did.
He said, “You called for me.”
Pacat even purposefully gets us to think about this arrest with the repeat of “both of you” when James arrives only a page or so before. It definitely feels like they want us to connect these two scenes and see the emphasis on choice.
But since we’re being reminded of Sarcean willingly walking into a trap, I do wonder if James is also using this moment to test Will (again) and make sure he’s truly safe. Poor James has had to learn about self-preservation the hard way. Why did James cover the Collar with the cravat, after all? That’s a tangent for another time.
Impact on the Story
This doesn’t mean Sarcean was a good guy. At all. I think his uprising was like Will’s “boy’s revenge” just on a far larger scale with significantly more destruction.
I think Sarcean has just as much of a problem with “the end justifies the means” thinking, and I think Will (and everyone really) is going to have to grapple with all of horrible realities about the war, no matter how justified the cause might have been.
I also think that resolving the drama of the Collar controlling James early on won’t harm the story at all.
They only have three days before the people who fell to the white death wake up. There’s plenty to deal with and absolutely no time.
And, like the Collar, saving the world hinges on trust:
Will has to trust in himself and accept his powers.
He has to trust that James is genuinely there for him.
Cyprian and Violet have to trust that Will is still the boy they knew.
Violet has to trust that Tom won’t harm her.
And so on. Like Marcus said in his journal, “Let us put aside old grudges and differences.”
Which makes me think of this realization I had about the war in the old world:
Since Rathorn is a Gauthier, that means he had Blood of the Basilisk, so we can assume Basilisks fought for Sarcean—meaning Lions served alongside Basilisks that had the power to control them if they wanted to.
What it comes down to is the balance of power and trust.
More Evidence that Ettore is the King to be Called
Now that I'm a bit further along in Dark Heir than I was when I originally posted this theory, I've gotten a few more pieces of evidence.
First, the two instances (perhaps more to come) where Ettore is described as being king-like:
Instead of greeting them, the Devil took a flask of spirits from one of his men, then chugged it, then went to the seat in front of the osteria’s hearth fire and threw himself down on it, a grimy king sprawled on a grubby throne.
And then this quote from Cyprian:
‘You drank from the Cup.’ Anger burned in him, hot and bright. ‘You might act like a bandit king, but you’re not. You’re a shadow. You’ll kill everyone around you. It’s only a matter of time.’
So these are good foreshadowing, and I half-remembered them from previous reads. But then I saw this quote from Cyprian, and now I'm 100% convinced of this theory:
‘You’re an oathbreaker! You deserted when you swore to defend the Hall! You ran,’ said Cyprian, ‘when the Stewards needed you most.’
"when the Stewards needed you most", a.k.a. their darkest hour. It cannot be a coincidence that the last sentence is divided by the dialogue tag in that way. This is an intentional choice that is meant to tell us something.
Ohhohooo let me tell you, when I got to “grimy king” during my first re-read I paused and stared at the page for so long my eyes started to water. It completely reframed the Steward reveal/plot twist for me.
We’re led to believe that the reason “only with Ettore can you stop what is to come” is simply because he’s the last Steward and can open the watch tower wards/possibly get the staff. Case closed. But I totally agree this is actually a riddle that has to do with more than just Steward blood and (now long-since broken) oaths.
Honestly, all I need to be convinced that Ettore is from the line of kings is the simple fact that the Elder Steward sent them on this quest.
Euphemia knows Ettore abandoned his vows. She knows he has been living with his shadow. And the man is 35. 35! He is a decade older than any other Steward we see—Stewards who would have been killed by their mid-20’s because they were turning.
And yet… she’s not at all concerned, even knowing the risk shadows pose to the entire world. No one was sent to kill him or drag him back to the Hall which makes no sense unless she knew he wouldn’t pose a threat, at least for a very long time.
Something convinced her that Ettore’s shadow wasn’t a threat, and I would bet anything that it’s also the reason why he was sent to Scheggino in the first place. I love “the Elder Steward knew who Will was” theories but I need more of “the Elder Steward knew Ettore has the Blood of Kings” talk.
I've written previously about my theory that Ettore is the King to be Called.
The other day though I had a darker thought, which didn't occur to me at the time but really should have been the natural conclusion to that theory: what if Ettore is the Sun King reborn?
His last name invokes the Fasces, a political symbol which could suggest he is either a uniting force (in the vein of leftist thought during the 1820s when the story takes place) OR that he is a fascist figure (an ideology that didn't exist yet, at least by that name). The Fasces was originally symbolic of an ancient Greek or Roman ruler's power, specifically the authority to punish or execute. Now THAT sounds like the Sun King to me.
When Will tries to persuade or manipulate (a skill he is normally very effective at using) Ettore into helping them, his efforts totally flop, leaving the task to Cyprian instead. Sarcean took orders from the Sun King, not the other way around — perhaps this is partially the reason Ettore is immune to Will's usually uncanny ability to bring people over to his side.
Also, I don't think this is 100% confirmed, but the Sun King is likely the only one of the four kings that didn't drink from the cup. The story says that 3 kings drank in a bargain with Sarcean, and the other fled with his army. Given their history, it seems unlikely that the Sun King later decided to throw in his lot with Sarcean and willingly come under his command. So the Sun King, or one of his descendants, seems likely to be one and the same with the King to be Called.
Now, if I'm on the right track with this, I don't think Ettore has his memories of his previous life, or is even aware that he had one. If he did, I can't imagine him not using that knowledge to bend the Stewards to his will. But even without his memories, I can imagine a former king would be primed to resent being forced to take orders from the people who were under his command in his past life. Then growing older and feeling like he was groomed into drinking from the cup, indoctrinated into a short life of strict abstinence from pleasure, devoid of any autonomy. So even without his memories he comes to bitterly resent the Stewards, goes AWOL, and pursues a hedonistic lifestyle motivated mostly by self-interest. He amasses his own little court and bandit army, and commits violence regularly for money.
True, he does free The Hand from Sinclair, thereby earning her loyalty even though (by her own admission) he is not a good man. I originally saw this as an act of kindness extended to someone he felt a kinship with, as another person whose life trajectory was taken out of his control by people stuck in the conflicts of the ancient past. But you could also see this as an example of the unlooked-for kindness that binds a hunter's prey to acquiesce to the silken rope. Then again, he does mourn The Hand when she falls to the White Death, and he shows kindness to James, and he does agree to do the Right Thing when it comes to helping Will and his friends. But is any villain completely evil? Isn't that question — and the question of whether we're forever defined by the wrong choices we've made in the past — central to our understanding of Will as a person?
Ultimately I could be waaaay off base with any of this. The only thing I'm truly confident about is that there is much more to Ettore than we've been told, and I'm still betting it's some kind of connection between him and the Kings of the Old World.
I definitely think there are too many clues to dismiss the possibility of Ettore being from a line of kings (that’s been on my bingo card for a while too… Euphemia was way too chill about him being out there alone with his shadow) but the Sun King automatically gave me chilling Regent/villain-hiding-in-plain-sight vibes and that doesn’t click with Ettore for me.
BUT, because of the simple fact that he is from Italy, I assume there’s a good chance of his being a descendant of TSK, and I now think his name is actually a clever way to link the past and present to represent that lineage.
Cyprian and Grace are told that Ettore Fasciale is a common name in the area. Probably a lie to get them to leave, sure, but this post got me curious because even a lie can be a clue. Apparently that surname is not at all common in Umbria and actually has ties to southern Italy, primarily the Lazio region which surrounds Rome. So, to your points about fasces and the origins of that symbol tracing back to the Ancient Roman rulers… that’s another point in the column for Ettore having the blood of kings to me.
Then diving more into the history of fasces before the 20th century felt… familiar. (Thanks Wikipedia for this midnight rabbit hole when I should be sleeping.)
While fasces originally seemed to represent authority and punishment, it was later conflated with the Aesop fable of a bundle of sticks being harder to break than a single one. It was then seen to represent justice and stability, then unity during the French Revolution. There have been lots of other mistranslations and misconceptions over the centuries, both an expansion and muddying of the original meaning.
One of the things I paid close attention to on my last re-read was any story or fragment of history that was presented as “fact” and how those slowly started to unravel. I even highly doubt the story of TSK refusing the Cup as it has been told to us since nothing from the old world can be trusted as completely true.
If Fasciale is inspired by fasces, which I now believe could totally be the case, then I think there might be a few possible purposes:
to further link Ettore to the line of kings
to reinforce the way history/stories change over time
to highlight the way the light is seen as just and good but could have a completely different origin
Ok, off to bed I go to dream about the release of book 3!
‘That is the power of the Collar! It takes the will of the Betrayer and replaces it with your own. Put it on him and you can make him yours … you can make him do anything. That’s how Sarcean kept him as a plaything in his bed at night, and by day sent him out to kill his own people.’
It's how the story goes. It's how everyone knows it to be, even James. You collar James, you control him.
Except that isn't the case. That 'control' lies with Will now. (quotation marks because we still dont fully understand what the collar does and to what extends his will, actions, thoughts etc are influences and controlled)
So that begs the question, where did that come from? Who would gain the most by collaring James? You'd expect the answer maybe to be Sarcean, the Dark King. And depending on what the collar that could be true.
But it could be someone else. Could be the Sun King. Maybe Sarcean didn't want the collar on Anharion, his own moral conflict. Like how Will doesn't want to collar on James, violently sick at even the idea of it. With how much is mirrored in the past, that feels a strong contender.
Or maybe, I'm just reading too much into it and it's knowledge lost and changed over time, as happens when *checks watch* 10,000 years pass
Feel like I need to create a second tumblr account tor all this Dark Rise stuff… been living for these posts lately.
My basic assumption is it’s just more propaganda and anti-Sarcean gossip from the light/Sun King or a fabricated story spread later, along with the “Sarcean’s catamite/plaything” bit…
But one of my (many) WILD theories (based on the belief that the Collar was specifically designed for the positive outcomes we actually get to see with accessing that bottomless well of power and restoring memories—not just plain old control) is that the “collar him and he’s yours!” rumor was something Anharion and/or Sarcean started so that the Collar would always find its way back to him.
Or, if it was just propaganda from the old world, then something they didn’t really care to correct because it would be beneficial in the end (at the expense of poor James’s mental health). I’ve even wondered if James is wrong that the obsession stems from “grubby dreams” of men or if there’s some kind of compulsion magic on it as well.
If people think that anyone can collar him to gain his power, that keeps the Collar in play even after 10,000 years, ensuring it doesn’t get lost to time. If it’s just “hey only this one really powerful dude can use it and no one else” then I wonder what would have happened to the Collar.
But not just "hey only this one really powerful dude can use it and no one else" there's also the fact that half of the world is against him. More people would've seeked it out, sure, but the chances of it remaining intact and in the 'right' hands for the desired outcome.. . Not so high anymore
On another note (this thought just entered my mind sorry), the collar is in pristine condition. We get mentions of how beautiful it is, but none of the way it could've been tarnished after all these years. Is that part of it's magic? A compulsion others feel to keep it clean? The medallion from the Lady has seen better days, but the collar? Perfectly intact.
My point is that ANY hands are the right hands. That’s the best sneaky part in my opinion if Sacrean/Anharion came up with the rumor. Sinclair, the Stewards, Gauthier, some rando on the street—it doesn’t matter what side they’re on or what their motives are, because the outcome will always be the same and always benefit Sarcean.
James mentions that the Collar can’t be melted so I don’t think it can be damaged or broken apart in any way, so it’ll always remain fully intact. The Gauthier family’s obsession also probably guaranteed it was always nice and shiny.
It shouldn't surprise me, but yet it disappoints me nonetheless.
My first thought was smth like, wouldnt they have smth against it based on morality but then the memory of cyprian saying to put it on him slapped my in the face like a dead fish so🧍🏼♀️
Yep, basically the first thing James says is “Please. Don’t give it to my father.” Gut. Punch.
And he fights so hard during the interrogation to hold back anything about it because he knows they would try to use him. Like with using the Cup, the end justifies the means, right?
‘That is the power of the Collar! It takes the will of the Betrayer and replaces it with your own. Put it on him and you can make him yours … you can make him do anything. That’s how Sarcean kept him as a plaything in his bed at night, and by day sent him out to kill his own people.’
It's how the story goes. It's how everyone knows it to be, even James. You collar James, you control him.
Except that isn't the case. That 'control' lies with Will now. (quotation marks because we still dont fully understand what the collar does and to what extends his will, actions, thoughts etc are influences and controlled)
So that begs the question, where did that come from? Who would gain the most by collaring James? You'd expect the answer maybe to be Sarcean, the Dark King. And depending on what the collar that could be true.
But it could be someone else. Could be the Sun King. Maybe Sarcean didn't want the collar on Anharion, his own moral conflict. Like how Will doesn't want to collar on James, violently sick at even the idea of it. With how much is mirrored in the past, that feels a strong contender.
Or maybe, I'm just reading too much into it and it's knowledge lost and changed over time, as happens when *checks watch* 10,000 years pass
Feel like I need to create a second tumblr account tor all this Dark Rise stuff… been living for these posts lately.
My basic assumption is it’s just more propaganda and anti-Sarcean gossip from the light/Sun King or a fabricated story spread later, along with the “Sarcean’s catamite/plaything” bit…
But one of my (many) WILD theories (based on the belief that the Collar was specifically designed for the positive outcomes we actually get to see with accessing that bottomless well of power and restoring memories—not just plain old control) is that the “collar him and he’s yours!” rumor was something Anharion and/or Sarcean started so that the Collar would always find its way back to him.
Or, if it was just propaganda from the old world, then something they didn’t really care to correct because it would be beneficial in the end (at the expense of poor James’s mental health). I’ve even wondered if James is wrong that the obsession stems from “grubby dreams” of men or if there’s some kind of compulsion magic on it as well.
If people think that anyone can collar him to gain his power, that keeps the Collar in play even after 10,000 years, ensuring it doesn’t get lost to time. If it’s just “hey only this one really powerful dude can use it and no one else” then I wonder what would have happened to the Collar.
But not just "hey only this one really powerful dude can use it and no one else" there's also the fact that half of the world is against him. More people would've seeked it out, sure, but the chances of it remaining intact and in the 'right' hands for the desired outcome.. . Not so high anymore
On another note (this thought just entered my mind sorry), the collar is in pristine condition. We get mentions of how beautiful it is, but none of the way it could've been tarnished after all these years. Is that part of it's magic? A compulsion others feel to keep it clean? The medallion from the Lady has seen better days, but the collar? Perfectly intact.
My point is that ANY hands are the right hands. That’s the best sneaky part in my opinion if Sacrean/Anharion came up with the rumor. Sinclair, the Stewards, Gauthier, some rando on the street—it doesn’t matter what side they’re on or what their motives are, because the outcome will always be the same and always benefit Sarcean.
James mentions that the Collar can’t be melted so I don’t think it can be damaged or broken apart in any way, so it’ll always remain fully intact. The Gauthier family’s obsession also probably guaranteed it was always nice and shiny.
‘That is the power of the Collar! It takes the will of the Betrayer and replaces it with your own. Put it on him and you can make him yours … you can make him do anything. That’s how Sarcean kept him as a plaything in his bed at night, and by day sent him out to kill his own people.’
It's how the story goes. It's how everyone knows it to be, even James. You collar James, you control him.
Except that isn't the case. That 'control' lies with Will now. (quotation marks because we still dont fully understand what the collar does and to what extends his will, actions, thoughts etc are influences and controlled)
So that begs the question, where did that come from? Who would gain the most by collaring James? You'd expect the answer maybe to be Sarcean, the Dark King. And depending on what the collar that could be true.
But it could be someone else. Could be the Sun King. Maybe Sarcean didn't want the collar on Anharion, his own moral conflict. Like how Will doesn't want to collar on James, violently sick at even the idea of it. With how much is mirrored in the past, that feels a strong contender.
Or maybe, I'm just reading too much into it and it's knowledge lost and changed over time, as happens when *checks watch* 10,000 years pass
Feel like I need to create a second tumblr account tor all this Dark Rise stuff… been living for these posts lately.
My basic assumption is it’s just more propaganda and anti-Sarcean gossip from the light/Sun King or a fabricated story spread later, along with the “Sarcean’s catamite/plaything” bit…
But one of my (many) WILD theories (based on the belief that the Collar was specifically designed for the positive outcomes we actually get to see with accessing that bottomless well of power and restoring memories—not just plain old control) is that the “collar him and he’s yours!” rumor was something Anharion and/or Sarcean started so that the Collar would always find its way back to him.
Or, if it was just propaganda from the old world, then something they didn’t really care to correct because it would be beneficial in the end (at the expense of poor James’s mental health). I’ve even wondered if James is wrong that the obsession stems from “grubby dreams” of men or if there’s some kind of compulsion magic on it as well.
If people think that anyone can collar him to gain his power, that keeps the Collar in play even after 10,000 years, ensuring it doesn’t get lost to time. If it’s just “hey only this one really powerful dude can use it and no one else” then I wonder what would have happened to the Collar.
