#wizardheirread

[francesderwent]

tbh Seph’s Catholicism would hit harder for me if it weren’t for Nick’s “being a weir is just a talent, it’s compatible with any faith, all that old magic old religion stuff exists and it IS real but you can just ignore it don’t fret” speech which flattens everything into boring neutrality.

if the weir can be traced back to the old religion which is full of evil blood sacrifice, and you don’t wanna do evil blood sacrifice, seems like that SHOULD lead to some inner conflict. how do you know that the modern sanitized spoken charms don’t have their roots in the old magic? how do you know all your magic isn’t the magic of the demons? how do you know your magic is good? Seph asks why all wizards are power-hungry maniacs but he doesn’t worry about the religious implications! why??

also. it’s compatible with ANY faith? tell me you think faith is irrelevant without telling me you think faith is irrelevant. sure seems like Nick thinks every faith is just sweet comforting ideas about the next life which can be made compatible with the facts of this world by just laying them neatly on top and not worrying about how they interact. sure seems like he never considered that maybe the reality of the world would only be really compatible with a true faith which describes all of reality.

[iamfitzwilliamdarcy]

maybe I’m being unfair or inaccurate but what Jesuits in the early aughts were doing Latin Mass ?

[francesderwent]

they never come up with a clever little name for Leicester’s wizard thralls so the whole book Seph is like “oh no….my worst enemies….the alumni”

[francesderwent]

like you get to the end of book two and Seph’s little sign-off is “haha I used to expect nothing so I wouldn’t be disappointed, but after my Experiences, maybe I should expect things more!” which. is an INSANE takeaway from being tortured for nearly a year, getting permanently maimed, killing the guy who was tormenting you, and ALSO finding out that your mother gave you up and never told your father you existed.

[francesderwent]

I cannot help it when Seph gets to Trinity and he joins Fitch’s tech company and works at the docks with Jack and he’s learning silversmithing and glassblowing from the neighbors and he’s going to Latin Mass on Fridays and when he shows up to hang out looking bad Ellen gives him half her ice cream cone…that moves me

[francesderwent]

Jack is protected by surrounding him by friends and family who are all looking out for him. connections keep him safe. whereas Seph is protected by separating him from any family, so that he remains anonymous and unconnected, where no one’s enemies can find him. Jack is kept in the dark, but he’s sheltered. when things get bad he has people on his side. Seph is kept in the dark, but he’s infinitely more vulnerable than Jack, because he has no one to turn to, and no way to tell who’s on his side.

[iamfitzwilliamdarcy]

Hastings being so suspicious of Seph is so funny to me and I’m not sure why lol

[francesderwent]

one thing about Jason….he is scrunkly

[francesderwent]

maybe my biggest pet peeve in the Heir trilogy is that we meet a Seph who’s very cautious about his powers, especially when it comes to girls. he goes through an experience where someone else’s mind-magic is used to make him doubt his own sanity and contemplate suicide. and then he spends his summer in Trinity indiscriminately using Persuasion on every townie girl he meets—and the fact that this sudden switch has gotta be a trauma response is never remotely dealt with, because the storyline needs Seph to be ready to use his powers in increasingly violent ways.

[iamfitzwilliamdarcy]

oh we finally get Seph at least acknowledging murder is a mortal sin

[francesderwent]

Hastings telling Seph “it seems we are a dangerous pair”

[francesderwent]

”Linda and Leander were—ah—involved years ago.”

“What?” Seph looked up at his teacher in surprise. “You wouldn’t know it.”

“Well, yes, Seph, you would know it, if you were older and just a bit wiser.”

[iamfitzwilliamdarcy]

I texted @francesderwent about this earlier but there’s an absolutely insane line from Nick in Wizards Heir when Seph is asking him why wizards are like so bad and if it’s innate to wizards — and Nick answers that the problem with wizard is their power manifests young and young people shouldn’t have so much power because they lack wisdom and discipline and it makes them spoiled —

this reminds me lowkey of Heyer actually- inevitably when the main love interest kinda sucks, it’s because his father died and he inherited young - but a father would have guided a son into his inheritance and wisdom and so a wizard father also would have done (see my other post I’m sure tumblr won’t let me hyperlink) - wizards just have some fatherless behavior I guess

but the really insane thing that Nick says is “sometimes I think it would be better if all wizards were raised as you were, by anaweir, ignorant of their powers until they are grown. They might be more tolerant of others.” and it’s insane because Seph is out of control! He’s so isolated he can’t do anything about his powers and ends up accidentally hurting and killing people. He’s vulnerable to actually truly Bad Actors who DO know that power and want to use it themselves - they torture him for nearly a year!!!! But I guess he’s nice now so it’s ok!!!

And also!!! A child has a right to know his parents and Seph is robbed of that and it has drastic consequences and this is like??? So invalidating of his experiences??

[iamfitzwilliamdarcy]

I demand Seph as an Anglo-Catholic have an opinion on the dissolution of monasteries and who the English cathedrals belong to

[iamfitzwilliamdarcy]

Just feel like someone should have caught this one

[iamfitzwilliamdarcy]

Jason getting to work with Hastings (and Seph feeling jealous!) then promising Hastings he’d get Seph away from the island and Jason is like barely older than Seph