#the ''kill a maiden to gain her power'' thing is the magic’s escape route

[bestworstcase]

i do think it’s thematically important that the maidens are inherited in this specific way, it’s not an accident that when the narrative sets down the rules the potential violence is not just remarked upon but given emphasis and used explicitly as justification for the aura transfer machines. nearly everything ozpin does is rooted in keeping the maidens within his control—selecting candidates in anticipation of their deaths, giving the branwens bird forms to identify maidens when the line of inheritance jumps the tracks, chaining the maidens to these vaults, etc—and his greatest adversary in this endeavor is the maidens themselves, because the magic preferentially selecting maiden-killers is, in effect, the magic fighting against this control.

why does the magic transfer itself like this? it will not be controlled. throughout the years ozma and his allies have devoted enormous effort to dictating the Final Thoughts of anyone who receives this power in order to maintain control over it (& their abject failure in this regard leads to the invention of the aura transfer machines); meanwhile the magic binds itself to "random" heirs if the candidate its host has in mind is unsuitable, and prefers to go to ozma’s enemies when it can.

(and do mark that. the person in the maiden’s Final Thoughts is explicitly only a suggestion, one the magic can and will disregard if he or she is unsuitable. ozpin et al believe that these candidates are only rejected if they are 1. male or 2. too old, but none of them can read minds; and as ozpin says, maidens choose themselves. it’s just as likely that there are additional disqualifying criteria, such as the candidate being coerced or just not being spiritually compatible. there’s no reason to think that KILLING A MAIDEN couldn’t be a disqualifying act if the magic were unwilling.)

of note in this regard is that cinder breaks amber’s aura (orange) before using the beetle to draw out the magic (golden):

which matters because the magic is attached to aura and separates at the moment of death; as i said in the last post, the grimm beetle is successful because it respects the magic’s own rules. cinder breaks the outward projection of amber’s soul and then shoots her in the back (symbolically, killing her) and then claims the magic as she begins to die. had she walked up and slit amber’s throat here instead, she would have almost certainly inherited all of the magic too. the grimm beetle thumbs the scales a bit but in the context of the magic’s rules, it’s playing ball.

whereas:

when cinder uses her arm to drain raven’s/penny’s auras, she doesn’t gain any portion of the spring/winter maiden’s magic, nor do either of them suffer lasting harm in the vein of amber (coma) or pietro (holes burned through his aura).

so there’s nothing special about grimm that allows them to violate the magical rules. all evidence suggests that the ATMs don’t work for this purpose either: as soon as amber dies, the magic rips free, and cinder’s grimm arm can harvest aura but not magic. it follows that in the event of a complete aura transfer, the magic would detach from the donor aura as soon as the donor died, leaving the recipient with two souls and no magic. there is a degree of wiggle room (under particular circumstances you can convince the magic to begin separating before the previous maiden is fully dead) but you can’t outright cheat.

which is the whole point. you can’t take a maiden’s magic without killing her and you can’t circumvent the maiden’s agency by stealing the soul of its host. the maidens are unbound by death. and i think there’s a literal causal relationship between how ozma treats the maidens and how they choose their hosts—he can’t use them as weapons without losing them, or outright delivering this magic into salem’s hands. nor can he hoard them or hide them away forever because he can’t dictate their final thoughts.

[coruscorp-blog]

DEAR, MS. ( TITANIA JIANG )

We are pleased to have you back for another year as an UPPER THIRD YEAR STUDENT at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. We sincerely hope your classmates in SLYTHERIN treat you well.

tw: death, murder, abuse

small li zhaojun. little zhaojun. did you ever think your happiness could be stolen?

you’re five when the crooked man comes to visit your house. there’s three rabbits: your mother, your father & you. one wolf. him. you come to learn that the crooked man wasn’t quite human in the same manner as your family. he is a thing called a pureblood wizard. he is also a thing called a lunatic. why? why you ask? blame his parents. their incestuous liason a cause of their blood values that spread in the false name of purity.

a moment of madness sets him at your doorsteps. chop chop chop? crunch crunch crunch? oh no wait, that’s not the sound he makes when he kills your parents. you watch him grab a stick, you see lights of hideous colours & then your parents fall to the ground. first in agonizing pain. then in silence. how can something simple have so much power? how can you be so feeble? so weak?

tell me what are you going to do zhaojun?

option one, raise your tiny fists & pummel him weakly. option two, pray to whatever deity that will listen to you right now & ask for a peaceful death as if. oh, there’s option three too, when the insanity spreads into you, fear spreads into you, despair spreads into you & something inside you snaps. clink clink smash. there are pots flying, there are glass shards flying. who caused it? of course it’s you.

the crooked man notices. the stick lifted at you is suddenly lowered for a second. long enough for relief but not long enough for you to unstick yourself from the back of the wall & make a dash for the door. then he lifts his wand again.

everything turns black.

do you remember who you are li zhaojun? do you remember how to feel?

“take it easy,” the crooked man says as he offers you some chamomile tea. “you went through a lot.”

“a lot?”

“yes your family was attacked by a stranger…i’m so sorry to say that your parents couldn’t make it but i managed to rescue you in time.”

“….oh….”

“i know it’s a lot to take in so i’ll spare you the details for now. stay in bed & keep yourself rested.”

he is an excellent liar don’t you see? the crooked man doesn’t tell you about how he has obliviated your memories of the event to weave in his own scheme as he carried you back home to his crooked little house with its crooked shadows. he doesn’t tell you about his plans for you, how he only let you leave because he knew you had magic in you just like him. he was going to turn you into his little puppet, carve you into his favourite masterpiece to keep around for his own convenience. you will be his perfect weapon, you should be honoured by what fate has given you.

“zhaojun,” he says as if he knew this name all along, as if he didn’t peek into your mind to find all your information to play the perfect caregiver. to earn your sympathy & you are so stunned you don’t even notice how things don’t manage to match up when they should. foolish, this is how you end up choosing the wrong path. the crooked one away from the truth.

“would you like to come live with me back in england? i would love to have a daughter like you.”

“….yes.”

tiny nia. strong titania. willingly walking yourself into an iron maiden. do you even remember who you are?

the english capital had a long history of dread & drear, so you walk right into it. the cold & gloomy which brings you that parts of it may have died. fitting for you don’t you think? you lose a bit of zhaojun every single day as you assimilate more & more into titania. sometimes when he has his brief lulls in slips of alcohol he drunkenly calls you nia. it sounds tender during those few minutes doesn’t it?

otherwise it’s all about harsh slaps of a belt on your back when you don’t meet standards. or when you don’t do what he asks you to do, fast enough. sometimes the crooked man just slips away completely. he mutters things that tosses himself into a crazy frenzy & he rambles on & on about curses. sometimes he lifts his wand at you & you have to wonder what you will do next.

when games become a life or death situation the answers become all the clear doesn’t it?

slowly you learn the game of survival. you must choose the best ending even if it means turning yourself into glass & forcing yourself into nooks & crannies that do not fit your broken body. there is nobody to sand you down until you are soft again.

you choose your options wisely don’t you? learning when to be saccharine sweet to ease the temper of a mad man. when to turn your fangs on strangers & engorge the organs of their carcass. oh how he teaches you well the ways of monsters. not gods, they left you long ago.

dear titania did you not notice how your shadow has turned crooked? you are one of them now, crooked girl.

the crooked man tells you to call him father. your name becomes titania jiang as you are taken to hogwarts. who said they would give you a choice to enter school or not? at least you learn how to devour & only so. it is the key that unlocks your own special route, the strange hat bringing you into the house of emerald & silver snakes. they call you cunning, they call you ambitious. but i know what you call it, you call it endurance. anything to escape the pain that has finally eased away now that you have learnt.

adorable aren’t you crooked girl with your crooked shadow? so cute but oh how i see through your every movements. but nobody else will. nobody else will see how your shadow manically laughs during the funeral of your so-called father.

how could they? they only see a girl mourning, life interrupted on her possible final year at hogwarts. just a seventeen year old girl weeping. but for what? why would you weep when you were the one who slipped the poison in during winter break, ever so slowly ever so subtly into an ailing man’s food until his hair began to fall out & his teeth slowly came to rot.

“i’m so sorry for your loss. would you like some time off?”

goodbye crooked man.

“…i think it would be in my father’s wishes for me to continue my studies. this may have been my final year but i firmly believe i should continue afterwards.”

oh nia, did you ever think you could love anyone? that anyone can love you?

you are now in your upper third year doing your best to survive. a muggleborn among purebloods, pretending to be one of them. there is black in your blood, but sugar decorates your lips when you smile. you know when to twist words in the shape of knives into people’s rib-cages when they aren’t looking. you know when to let honey drip.

survival. friends are not a necessity unless they are there to decorate what you need. love is not a subject unless there is something to be gained. academics not for yourself but moreso for staying on the professor’s good side. goals. the end game. have you not noticed yet crooked child? you no longer know the definition of the word emotion. or how to feel. you’ve been running for how many years now? look at how you smile, look at how you nod, it seems that you’ve weaved what you lack into some sort of vice grip onto others.

leech. always stealing, never giving. poor you. putrid. filthy. but at least you know right? have you been looking for the restart button? probably not. it seems you are satisfied. truly, you are frightening crooked girl.

now do tell, will you turn other’s into your crooked way too?