#And Hunter is the latest in that line of grimwalkers. And hes only 16!

[icefire149]

The destiel vs huntlow poll is so funny since I'm an avid shipper of both. It's massive brain worms vs massive brain worms. I need my fellow spn fans to understand its a fun match up.

[astriiformes]

Thinking about Hunter explicitly being the youngest of the Golden Guards (which I think is true, even if a lot of things he was told about the position weren’t) and also about him very possibly being the only one to have been passed off as the Emperor’s nephew instead of just a particularly loyal subordinate.

Because yeah, that’s how you get people not to blink when you put a 16 year-old in charge of the Emperor’s Coven. It’s just nepotism, obviously. And that’s how you get a kid with that much responsibility foisted on his shoulders, in a worse position than even many of his doomed predecessors, to stay loyal to you. Tell him you’re his family -- his only family -- and it’s more than just your ideals binding you both together.

I’m not sure how serious Belos was when he told Luz “I really thought he’d last longer than the others,” but I think there might have been a grain of truth to it, and part of why is the realization that Belos has definitely used different strategies over the years to keep the grimwalkers in line. Just a constant cycle of Ah, that one betrayed me too, I’ll tell the next one something different. It’s like a time loop to him, with a reset button whenever it fails. (Hence “It hurts every time he chooses to betray me.”) He never saw them as different people, just echoes of the same one, and I’m sure every time one rebelled, he took notes and plotted how to keep the same thing from occurring again. Cut off access to more of the outside world with this one, encourage that one to be more trusting, don’t let this one read about a certain topic. And he really might have thought he’d perfected his strategy with Hunter -- promote him young, keep him particularly close, throw in a dose of supposed familial warmth to inspire devotion, emphasize his special role in the Titan’s plan (which might have been harder to do with some of the other Guards, without the Day of Unity on the immediate horizon).

It really makes it all the more impressive that Hunter still ended up questioning what he was told. He’s the latest to be subjected to a cycle of brainwashing that’s been refined over multiple centuries, and while all the grimwalkers went through horrible things and met horrible fates, it seems like Belos’ treatment of them had to have grown even more abusive and restrictive as time went on.

As more and more of them died.

As Belos grew more frustrated.

As his brother wouldn’t stop haunting him. Every. Single. Time.