Tales of Duviri is a storybook written by Euleria Entrati for the purpose of teaching children how to handle the manic flood of emotion that comes with Void exposure.
I pose a question: why does Euleria feel so strongly about this?
Her interactions with her own children are... let's call them wanting, and dialog implies that the negative aspects of their relationship--her denigrating, controlling nature, the distrust, etc--did not begin only after the Infestation brainrot set in.
We also know that she holds her father in extremely high esteem, but Albrecht did not think much of Tales of Duviri (see: him talking about his previous disdain for it in his own Duviri notes). Euleria put resources into writing Tales of Duviri instead of more traditional science, and Albrecht did not think much of it.
So why did Euleria write Tales of Duviri?
Let's rewind a step. Void exposure-induced mania, the whole thing Tales of Duviri is written to help manage.
How was that discovered and studied? It clearly was studied, enough to be a recognized condition and for the Orokin to build the iso vaults and for Euleria to write Tales of Duviri. But who would they have observed this mania in if Void research was an abandoned dead-end line of study?
Perhaps...the man obsessed with the Void who'd survived an unshielded Void dive?
Euleria had patient zero of Void mania sitting at her dinner table. Albrecht is the character who's undoubtedly had the most Void exposure.
Albrecht himself must have exhibited the Void mania and mood swings that Tales of Duviri exists to teach caution of.
And that's why Euleria wrote it; she had this gyroscope of a mood swing at home. She admired Albrecht too much to consciously deride his lack of control as irresponsible and so she channeled her energy into writing Tales of Duviri instead.
The emotion spirals of Duviri are loosely based off of what Euleria witnessed in the Entrati household and particularly Albrecht himself.
I don't believe that any courtier is a 1:1 translation of a member of the Entrati household, but more that their toxic interactions and dramatic heights reflected things that Euleria herself saw--or lived.
This reading of the Duviri characters and story--that they mean things to Euleria specifically--gives us a fun new lens to look at all of the chapters with.
"Two children, and no memory of her husband. Poor Mathila."
Two children like Euleria herself, eh?
Mathila loved her husband. He also textually does not exist. He's not on the screen or in the text. He is a memory, and one that Mathila herself cannot even remember. There is no portrayal of their love.
Pivot to a writer's perspective. You need to write a loving relationship. You look to real life for inspiration, right? If you're a married woman needing to write a married woman in love, you naturally look to your own relationship.
And if you can't find anything to base that love off of? Well...move that character offscreen. Just tell about the loving relationship, don't show. Actually, do you even have anything to tell about? Well. Move the entire loving relationship offscreen, then. She's got amnesia. Nobody needs to talk about the love to sell it or make it feel real now. The narrator can simply mention it as a fact and it need not be challenged. Euleria doesn't have to imagine a loving family life between a husband and wife and their two children and question why that's hard for her. There. Problem fucking solved.
Another parallel that fairly started screaming at me once I started considering that the Duviri courtiers had meaning to Euleria specifically: Luscinia.
"I was created to be Sorrow, written into being, to serve as a lesson... can that change?"
Luscinia knows that she is a tool. As much as she dreams of being more, she knows very well that she is a tool--both a literal narrative element to teach a lesson and within the story itself Thrax's servant (his personal songbird).
Is there anyone in Euleria's life who might have some angst over their position as a tool? A servant who wants to escape the limited definitions of their role?
And so... here I am, back to my old role. The diligent servant. Albrecht would have smiled at that, I think.
Luscinia: "This structure and I share much. Both of us once useful, both of us discarded, both of us now derelict. Both forgotten."
Loid: "How might this relic make himself useful today?"
Both Luscinia and Loid are also capable of surprising amounts of ruthless violence. Luscinia has no hesitation telling you to kill the Dax or otherwise wreak vengeance on her jailers. Loid's Necramech lines feature him ranging from being excited for ensuing violence to coldly promising the Murmur regret.
The Duviri Tales were a subconscious form of therapy for Euleria herself as well, allowing her to write a story where emotional explosions were a problem that must be addressed rather than a social struggle to be suffered through at the whims of the more powerful.
