Okay, I’m still mentally on Episode 25 for a minute, but there’s something so heavy about Hal instinctively casting the illusion of Azgra’s face to fight.
And yes, it was an illusion. It was a boogeyman image pulled up to cause fear, to cover up the scared and unready man beneath and give himself an advantage over an enemy he was facing all alone, the first time he’s taken up a blade by himself without someone actively beside him. He called up Azgra because of the theme of the gala and because Azgra is the boogeyman, not just to the orcs but to everyone. The god of war who used his children as a blade against the rest of the world.
But there’s something … Azgra was the god of war. He made his children as weapons. And when Hal needed to be a weapon, when he needed to fight, he called up his god’s face. Instinctively.
Because Hal is an orc. And Azgra was the Shaper of the orcs, and in so many ways he’s still the Shaper of the orcs. Because … Because no one ever quite escapes the legacy of how they were made, how they were raised, how they were shaped. Choices can be made. Always. New paths can be walked. A new world can be made. But maybe … maybe there’s always the memory of fingerprints in the clay.
And I’m just … I’m remembering that scene we saw in Episode 21. The flashback, a young Hal and Thaisha at the Lloy’s. The retelling of the first Farramh, the celebration born from Azgra’s death at his children’s hands, and the thanksgiving that they were immediately dared, forced, asked to give to the god they had just destroyed.
“He that seeks to destroy you is your teacher, and so we bless the Conqueror for his lessons, which were many.
We bless the Conqueror for his craft, for he shaped us not as children, but as weapons, and a weapon knows no doubt or hesitation.
We bless the Conqueror for his hunger, for in his appetite, he saw Aramán forever changed from what it was to what it might be.
A blessing to him, then, that the Rungjani reject peace in favour of a dream.
And we bless him above all else for his honesty, because of all the gods of Aramán, ours was the only one who never lied about what he truly was.
For his honesty, we bless him most of all.”
We bless him for his lessons. We bless him for his craft. For making weapons of us, so that we could fight even the gods themselves in the end. And we bless him for his honesty, for never lying about what he was.
Hal grew up with that. That story. That memory, told and retold. That lesson.
Azgra was a horror. Azgra was a terror. Azgra kept them in slavery. But he never lied about it. He shaped them in his image. He taught them how to fight. He taught them how to fight gods themselves if it came to it. He taught them how to subsume fear, how to face it, how to fight even when hope was dead and victory was impossible. He taught them everything they needed to kill him. Not intentionally, probably not intentionally, but the lesson was taught regardless, and they were perhaps somewhat cruelly grateful for it.
And when Hal had to fight. All alone, in the midst of this cavalcade of lies and deception and assassination, while his friends fought and possibly died somewhere close by, out of his reach. When Hal had to fight.
He wore the face of Azgra. Who did not lie, and who made weapons without fear.
And … And the funny thing is, Hal wore that face as a lie. An illusion of bravery, monstrosity, terror. The face of dead god to frighten a foreigner who brought terror and death into the heart of Dol Makjar, into the heart of Kahad, into Hal’s home. It was an instinctive reaction, just to pull up the face of a boogeyman. It was a lie.
But every truth starts with a lie. Into every mask we wear, we have to put at least a touch of our real face. Fingerprints in the clay.
There is something so tangled, and heavy, and complicated, and stained about the relationship between Azgra and his children, his people, his killers. He shaped them. He enslaved them. They hated him. They killed him. But when challenged on the spot, with his blood not yet cooled, they gave thanks to him, as honestly as they could, for the things he had, intentionally or not, given them, showed them, taught them. They thanked him for his honesty.
And seventy years down the line, in the midst horror and death and so many lies, an orc who loves stories, who loves the truths hidden in lies, who had put aside his blade and was forced to take it up again … chose Azgra’s face to show his enemies. Instinctively.
He who seeks to destroy you is your teacher. And so we bless the Conqueror for his lessons.
How hard it is, to be something other than what you were made to be.
But at the end of the day … Azgra’s face comes off. And Hal, the playwright, the wordsmith, the dreamer, all these things an orc under Azgra would never have been allowed to be, remains underneath.
We take the lessons we are taught. But we are always more than them. Or at the least, we always have the potential to be.
Sorry. That was just … such a weighted image. So off-the-cuff, and so heavy.
The orcs were shaped by the god of war. And while that is not all they are, they have fought and died and killed to prove it is not all they are … it is still part of what they are. They’ve moved past him, beyond him. They’ve killed him with their own hands, and with the lessons he himself taught them. There can be peace now, and art, and gentle things. But if war comes? If an orc still has to fight? Then Azgra’s face is still one they can choose to wear. Both as a lie, and as a truth.
No wonder Thaisha sometimes finds Hal, and his art, and his choices, and the Hallowed Round as a concept, so fraught and so heavy sometimes.
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