#...I guess if Loop doesn't vanish for good afterwards the amount of Northern Islanders in the world technically hasn't changed

[echodoctor]

While I don't think the King and Siffrin are at all related, I do think there's symbolically a lot to be said about him siding with the party against the King as choosing love over family.

Or family (chosen) over family (blood), as the case may be.

This is especially fun if you want to go with ancient Greece as your inspiration for the culture of the Northern Island (because lots of star myths and being the origin of the whole Sisyphus legend), since kinslaying was an absolute hard no in that culture.

Like, generally most societies aren't cool with people killing their family members, sure, that's typically frowned upon. But the ancient Greeks were really serious about it even by your usual standards- it doesn't matter what your relatives did, you need to get someone they can't point to on a family tree to off them or you're in deep shit.

Siffrin and the King are (probably) not blood relatives unless you have a particular headcanon about that- I personally don't- but they are both Northern Islanders, in a world where that's becoming tragically, increasingly rare.

There's so few of them even left- and by choosing to walk into that throne room and confront him with the party, Siffrin ensures that, however this ends, by the time it's over there's going to be one less.

And that, no matter how much they hate each other, is a fundamental tragedy. They aren't family, but in a very real sense, Siffrin choosing to kill him is kinslaying, and I think they both know that.

I wonder if that adds to Siffrin's feelings that he has nowhere to go once their journey is done? Not only is his homeland gone, he's actively turning his back on the person who most openly represents it.

Of course, the King was the one who decided to put lethal force on the table here first by launching his whole supervillain plan to begin with, so he doesn't exactly have the moral high ground, here.

Personally, I'd love to see the two of them have an exchange a la the end of Euripides' Medea, where Jason declares that the Furies will bring vengeance on Medea for her crime of spilling family blood, and she's just like 'lol you think the gods are gonna listen to you after the shit you pulled?' The Universe ain't gonna do shit for you, tin can! You're not the favorite anymore!

(Actually, Siffrin as Medea is a fun thought in general, given the whole "almost broke the world for love" angle. Thankfully, he's lucky enough to have better taste in love than she did- inasmuch as she got a choice in the matter. Add in the parallels of 'came here from a foreign land, strange and dangerous powers, totally down for regicide'... yeah, I think you could do something with that.)