wingedshadowfan

[wingedshadowfan]

oh tell me what you're willing to do.

[wingedshadowfan]

Xaden: Its so nice to be wanted for once Dain: You're wanted for murder! Garrick: Don't listen to him honeybear, you're wanted for much more than that

[wingedshadowfan]

your post is very well made and i agree wholeheartedly but i wanted to add one thing I've noticed in my time participating in fandoms that caused even people who liked caitvi to turn on it after season 2: people tend to like a specific ship dynamic and that is "character A is traumatized/mentally ill and character B fixes them" and a lot of people liked that dynamic for caitvi before s2 with vi being the traumatized one, and i guess people wanted to keep that dynamic in s2 and got mad when caitlyn had her own issues to deal with. it feels like people only allowed vi to have depth and feel emotions and caitlyn should have just been her cutesy therapist girlfriend and they didn't like that she got to be a fully developed character as well

You make a really good point. I didn't see nearly as much discourse around Caitlyn after season 1, and that's probably in part because to many of those people, she came off like the perfect female romantic interest - hot, supportive, and (again, in those people's eyes) existing mostly to serve Vi's own character.

It's funny when people accuse season 2 of treating Vi like an extension of Caitlyn/Caitlyn's girlfriend (which, lmao, way to ignore the entirety of the Vi and Jinx teaming up to save their father arc) when I would argue that such an accusation would fit Caitlyn's character and purpose more in season 1. Not saying that Caitlyn's character in season 1 can be reduced to just being Vi's love interest, not at all, but it was easier to fit her in that box.

Then comes season 2, and the Asian lesbian that nobody can deny is a lesbian any longer has *gasp* more agency! and *gasp* a morally grey arc! She also stops being physically thrown around like a ragdoll so much when she decides that she has fucking had it after her mom's memorial gets attacked, and I can't help but see the symbolism in that too.

Suddenly, it's harder to treat Caitlyn like the submissive Asian waifu I pretended she was in season 1! I don't like this anymore! She made Vi upset, how dare she! Caitlyn should still be crying in the rain like the good little submissive Asian femme I want her to be!

As always, nobody will admit that these factors are at play when the fandom vilifies Caitlyn so much while babying other characters guilty of their own war crimes, but I've been around enough to see what happens when a wlw character gets a morally grey arc - people always, always absolutely lose their shit. Add in the fact that Caitlyn refuses to be a dainty submissive Asian waifu and you get *gestures around* this.

[wingedshadowfan]

One of the best revelations coming out of Onyx Storm is still finding out that Ridoc and Aotrom are basically the same spirit. Love that Aotrom is to the other dragons what Ridoc is to the squad. They need it.

[wingedshadowfan]

Darlington’s fate is highkey terrible… he’s half demon and leashed to a girl forever. Maybe deep down he wants that in a kinky way but 💀

for real, darlington is such a tragic character.

searching for the arcane ever since he was a kid, training for something more that he can't even see, the parents who literally didn't want to parent him and tried to freeze him out of black elm, the conservative and kinda abusive grandpa who turned sick and paranoid and asked an underage danny to mercy kill him (and he did it), living by himself and scraping by until he made the hiram elixir without any knowledge of or guidance by the societies and was found passed out hours later by a mailman on the stairs of the house he'd fought with his everything to keep.

sandow appears at his hospital bed, offers him the key to everything he's ever wanted, and danny becomes darlington. he becomes dante. then he becomes virgil. somewhere inbetween he embodies lethe. he'd been going through the dante applications when sandow called in and basically said, "hey, we went ahead and recruited someone who was born able to do what you've always wanted to do and almost died trying. here's her file."

and we know alex's history - that file is incredibly fucking concerning to say the least. and darlington tries, he really tries to make her feel at ease, to make everything easy and digestible for her, and what does he get? the aurelian ritual blows up in his face and he has to lie to defend the lethe delegation. he learns why and begins to understand alex, but he's still ill-equipped to deal with someone like her, someone who's been through so much. then the halloween party at manuscript, a complete shitshow of getting drugged, practically assaulting his dante under the influence, but also seeing himself as a knight in the mirror with a sword in his back, seeing alex as queen mab. understanding it and yet not knowing what it means throws him in for a loop. he starts to figure alex's mysterious past out, but even more than that, he incidentally starts to figure the nexuses out, and sandow can't afford him to. getting swallowed by the hellmouth while alex lets it happen is one thing, blaming himself for it all is another.

a whole year of rebuilding black elm in hell, torturing and getting tortured, and crying out to alex, because no one else can hear him (and who could know his soul?) and he's somehow connected to her of all people, the puzzles and the games, the murders, being spat out both man and monster . having killed his parents and trying to come to terms with not being able to not love them despite all they've done. now also being chained to alex for life in servitude, finding out his virgil didn't even like him, going back to hell with the intention to surrender himself, escaping but accidentally indirectly propping the door to hell open, his grandpa's gray still talking about legacy after everything he's sacrificed, finding said virgil's body in his car trunk. GOD.

this guy has never caught a damn break. he's 23. his future is already fucked up, he's a beast on a leash and a beast of a different kind seems to be holding the other end of it. and he doesn't mind, of course he doesn't: alex is his gentle ruler, his monstrous queen, a horrid girl who carried his soul out of hell. and now they're going to send back everything that slipped out. together.

[wingedshadowfan]

Who do you think is Alex’s father? A demon? What do you think a wheelwalker is exactly?

god, these are good. i can talk abt this for ages, but long story short, i have no idea!

i don't think alex's dad is a character we've met, and i'm leaning more towards "we might not meet him at all" but! i do think we might learn more about him.

estrea stern, mira's mother, said alex's dad was a "bad wind that blew through", and it's hard to say whether she thought so because she could feel something was off about him (like maybe he was a demon, or it was actually his side of the family who were wheelwalkers?) or simply because he got mira pregnant, met her mother, and in alex's words "took one look at my grandmother, turned right around, and never came back." this makes him very interesting - clearly estrea didn't like him, but didn't seem to find him dangerous either, just bad news, but he seems to have been scared of her. of something he saw in her.

i'm personally very torn on whether estrea stern was the wheelwalker, or alex's father was. estrea seems to have had magical abilities - her fortune telling, her candles keeping the grays away, her remarks on mira's pseudo magic scams. but none of this strikes me as "she was a wheelwalker" or even as "she knew alex was a wheelwalker". it's more of an ambiguity of the writing - is she magic or is she not? in that sense, i think estrea stern is magic the same way turner is with his spidey sense. and yes, mira seems to have no powers, and iirc estrea had already passed away by the time alex got touched by a gray for the first time, so maybe estrea couldn't have known alex would end up with the gift of being a wheelwalker (which, weird if you're a wheelwalker yourself, and a fortune teller at that)? so while alex herself wonders what would've happened had estrea lived longer and continued to watch over her, i can't help but feel like she would've done more to protect and teach alex and mira in advance, just in case, had she knowingly been a wheelwalker. she clearly cared deeply about alex.

all of this to say, i kinda think alex's dad might be the one on the wheelwalker side of the family? doesn't change the fact that he abandoned her and mira lol. in any case, i think we'll learn why he was afraid of estrea stern/why he left.

now, wtf even is a wheelwalker. boy, i have only guesses. i think being a wheelwalker is having a magical gift (a potentially hereditary and lot randomly distributed one) rather than being a different species altogether. now for alex, this is roughly split into two main categories so far

abilities related to the grays (seeing and later hearing them, them touching her in specific circumstances, being able to see their memories, to take them in her body at will and temporarily "borrow" their power to boost her own strength, kick them out, summon them to her aid)

whatever the fuck she did when she carried darlington's living soul out of hell

in addition, daisy whitlock could live forever so long as she consumed living souls, and the "stronger" a soul's power, the longer she could live off it - it's why she'd been consuming girls, then wheelwalkers. a gray can go rogue and potentially inhabit a wheelwalker when drawn to their power, in which case daisy was able to not just kick them out, but push them into another person. apparently she can resist the magic of a compulsion coin too but no one gaf. i assume alex can do all of those things too, just hasn't yet

alex can also apparently resist her soul being consumed by a wheelwalker, and pluck consumed souls straight from one. later she finds she can carry a living soul within herself, not just grays, but without consuming it like daisy had (just tasting it) and move freely between hell and our world, which i assume she can do between other worlds too, because of daisy's "all doors are open to us" and alex's blood "propping" the door to hell open

this repertoire of hers is incredibly hard to summarize as one ability, especially when we don't know exactly what planes she can move between, whether grays/souls exist in a different realm/plane, whether living souls effectively just become grays when they leave their body or lose it, etc. personally i haven't figured it out yet but i'm sure alex's and darlington's dreams, their bargaining with golgarot, as well as darlington's manuscript hallucination, are the key to all that.

another interesting thing is that the frantic spirit who entered daisy's body (described as both soul and spirit iirc), whom she'd pushed into north in her panic, could tell she wasn't a woman; she was something terrible. he could see night gathered around her. this is, ofc, exactly how high-off-his-ass darlington sees alex in the mirror at the manuscript halloween party and in his dreams. so how does this soul/gray in north's body see that?

[wingedshadowfan]

How do you think Darlington's life would have been had Alex not been involved?

okay, let me do some mental math here.

if alex had never existed (bcuz i don't think she would've otherwise refused to join lethe, precisely bcuz lethe had watched her for years and waited for the perfect opportunity to make her an offer she couldn't refuse, just like they did with darlington after the hiram elixir he brewed almost killed him, and how i theorize they did with michelle after a suicide attempt), darlington would've maybe gotten to choose his own, perfect dante, or maybe another unfortunate soul would've been recruited in a similar fashion.

he would've still pursued his idea of creating a map of new haven's magic. trying to uncover why this damned city is so cursed is in character for him, with or without alex. he would've still gotten too close to the truth for sandow's comfort. the only difference would be that without alex to open his eyes to lethe not always being the heroes, he'd still trust them explicitly. and when he gets swallowed by the hellmouth, he wouldn't even know what hit him and why.

the way that i understood it, he found out it was a mouth immediately but he didn't know sandow had sent a hellbeast after him or why. he only found out for sure in hell, either after alex's failed attempts at bringing him back or after sandow's death and getting to talk to him.

why do i think darlington would still get swallowed by the hellbeast even with another dante?

because alex couldn't have saved him by speaking the death words. as he gets swallowed by the darkness, he's heartbroken not because she didn't save him but because she chose not to try. his greed for knowledge got him too close to becoming a threat to her survival in yale so she just let him go. the death words wouldn't have worked against the hellbeast. so i think it's safe to assume another dante, who'd spoken the words, couldn't have saved him in that moment either. and if they had, sandow would've just kept trying.

another dante likely wouldn't have tried to find where darlington had gone or how to bring him back. not even darlington's virgil did - michelle, arguably, didn't even like darlington. yes, pammie might've grieved him, but that's not the same. alex's main motives for trying to save darlington where no one else cared enough, are specific and unique to her and their relationship:

gratitude - he'd given her what was most valuable to him, knowledge, wonder, the key to the world of magic, and with it, a means of protection. the death words had changed her life. ever since the aurelian ritual, he'd started seeing her for who she was, he'd shown her tenderness and regard like no one else had, he'd protected her. she knows he's a good person who just believed, perhaps a bit too much, in lethe's greater purpose.

guilt - given the previous point, she realizes he didn't deserve such an end(/to suffer in hell for eternity) for figuring out what she'd done, and that her old life and fears are still haunting her. it's why she'd done it. she feels directly responsible for what happened to him, feels like she could've prevented it, had she stepped forward. she's also seemingly the only one who cares enough to do something.

she sums this up herself perfectly when anselm warns she wants to open a door that isn't meant to be opened:

Why didn’t these people ever get it? Protect your own. Pay your debts. There was no other way to live, not if you wanted to live right. She crossed her arms. “We owe him.”

another dante wouldn't have been able to bring darlington back even if they tried. alex is ambitious, hungry, a survivor, a canon ball, and is unafraid to lie, to manipulate, to play dirty - she uses every skill from her old life at her disposal in solving the mystery and bringing the gentleman of lethe back. it's all made easier by the fact that she's a wheelwalker. all doors are open to her.

in summary, i think if alex had not been involved, darlington would still be rebuilding black elm in hell, brick by brick, not even understanding why. and that last part would've been the worst.

[wingedshadowfan]

your posts are feeding my darlingstern brainrot and desire to reread

i ate up fanfic but it’s not super satisfying bc i think darlington is hard to write

thank you anonymous, i am more than happy to be of service 🎩🤏 esp knowing how small/dormant the alex stern series fandom can be

what can i say? i've reread both books (and if you know me personally, that is saying a lot: i am religiously against rereading bcuz i feel like there are too many good books in the world to keep reading the same ones, but i keep outlining and finding new things i hadn't noticed the first time around so rereading these two never felt repetitive or like a waste of time to me)

and darlington specifically is one of my all time fav male fictional characters, i fully want to put this man in my mouth and shake him up and down like a dog

and yes, oh my god, he is super hard to write (kudos to all writers who've done it)!! for whoever hasn't seen it yet, i've made a post recommending some fics before but it's truly a struggle for us darlington enjoyers so i'm always open to recommendations and self-plugs, and i am also planning to maybe cook something up myself after i'm done w/ my exams

[wingedshadowfan]

you guys ever think about how darlington was perfectly equipped to be virgil but awfully i'll-equipped for alex to be his dante?

when he meets her, he starts taking Ls immediately because he has no idea what to do with someone like her. i think he even describes her as an animal looking ready to bolt or something😭😭 reading her file couldn't have prepared him for the truth of her

despite their differences, he does his best with her and it still blows up in his face with the failed aurelian ritual. and while he blames her for being careless, he blames himself for apparently not getting it right with her from the start and for almost jeopardizing the lethe delegation in the process. we need to remember he's like 22 at the time.

when she tells him what actually happened, that the grays could touch her, he's so shocked he doesn't believe her.

“That isn’t possible. I mean …” He set down his wine, ran his hands through his hair.

she understandably lashes out at that, and seemingly blames him for not knowing everything and not preparing her well enough, which he can't fathom. he did prepare her. he'd tried to put her at ease, sent her specific passages to read, and the grays were coming at him too, he helped her, he-

but this isn't about him and alex makes that more than clear. it's about her. it's about lethe.

and he doesn't like to admit it, but realizes it - he'd happily been a cog in the machine, thinking himself a knight with bowed head. hoplite, hussar, dragoon. the shepherds had left her to the wolves until a moment came where they could "save" her, a moment when she would become useful to them.

and he doesn't know what to do with that. with this discrepancy in his worldview, sure, but more so with her justified anger, her pain, her trauma.

After a long moment, he said, “Would it help to break something else?”

She was breathing hard. “Maybe.”

Darlington rose and opened a cupboard, then another, and another, revealing shelf after shelf of Lenox, Waterford, Limoges—glassware, plates, pitchers, platters, butter dishes, gravy boats, thousands of dollars’ worth of crystal and china. He took down a glass, filled it with wine, and handed it to Alex.

“Where would you like to start?”

[wingedshadowfan]

do you think darlington regrets not giving up since his drive led him into becoming a demon

ooh. this is a loaded one.

my answer would be a definite "yes, and".

there's the moment in hell bent where he and alex go to see his parents' bodies:

How could this be his life? His home? What had he allowed for want of skill or knowledge or grit?

“I am struck by the profound depth of my failure.”

i think he deeply regrets it and has blamed himself for everything since the very start.

He tried to speak. A warning? The last gasp of a know-it-all? Here lies the boy with all the answers.

he blames himself for figuring out alex had murdered all her friends and inhabited hellie, bcuz he knows that's why she didn't speak any words of protection for him. he literally blames his very demise on his greed for knowledge before he even knows it was sandow's hellbeast that swallowed him.

and obviously this doesn't change how he feels (or at least not immediately) but i find alex's reminder incredibly discerning:

“You didn’t let the demon in the door. Sandow did. The societies did. When the time came, you stood between the living and the dead. Hoplite, hussar, dragoon, remember?”

she makes some excellent points.

darlington didn't kickstart the chain of events that lead them all here. in fact i've argued before that yes, he made an elixir that almost killed him bcuz he wanted to see the grays, but he was recruited from his hospital bed after nearly dying, only to be used by lethe just like alex. yes, he was doing research bcuz of his thirst for knowledge, but it was sandow who tried to get rid of him to hide his corruption scheme, and without his research alex wouldn't have defeated daisy. yes, darlington was punished for his greed in hell, and not for the fact that he'd mercy killed his grandpa (the reason he survived being swallowed by the hellbeast in the first place), but he wouldn't have been there at all if the hell beast hadn't been sent after him. what i mean to say is, it's all so interconnected that it's easy to attribute all the tragedies to his greed.

but alex reminds darlington that he'd been trying to do the right thing again and again. he recites this poem to her, the men of lethe, the same way he teaches her everything he knows so she can survive and start living. and even though they both think this dude's poetry sucks, and it's ironic he lost his arms when a portal closed on them, alex reminds darlington: we are the shepherds. he believes in lethe's greater purpose, in ensuring balance and safety in handling the knowledge of the arcane and the dangers that come with it. he's a knight, head bowed in service, a sword in his hand, a sword in his back.

thank you for this question (sorry i went off on a tangent i'm obsessed with them and will take any chance i get to talk about them)!!

[wingedshadowfan]

“Thanks,” Alex whispered as the Emperor and Zelinski hurried away.

Darlington cast her one angry glance and bent to begin the work of clearing the circle. “I did that for Lethe, not you.”

If in the third book there is a scene “I did that for you, not Lethe” this will be the best book loop ever

[wingedshadowfan]

Alex Stern, Darlington, and Dante in Hell

DISCLAIMER: Okay so I'm realizing this post might have several parts as I'm only like half way through the Cantos and there are definitely more connections (i.e. Alex waking up on the second trip to Hell in the river of boiling blood and the 7th circle of Hell.) Also, people literally write whole ass academic articles about intertextuality and I do not have that much free time so if anyone is scholar of Dante please feel free to chime in. So. Also this is so long. I am both sorry and begging you to make the hours typing and looking into this worth it.

Okay, so as most folks know and probably connected, Dante's Inferno starts with:

"At one point midway on our path in life, I came around and found myself now searching through a dark wood, the right way blurred and lost" -Inferno, Canto 1, lines 1-3

and when Team Murder awakes they find themselves in a similar orchard:

"She looked up and realized she was staring through the branches of a tree, many trees. She was in some kind of forest... no, an orchard, the branches black and glittering and heavily laden with fruit, its skin darkest purple." -Hell Bent, pg. 271

Now this is also connected to the Tree of Knowledge by Dawes (pg. 272) and of course we get some Hymn of Demeter like pomegranates from the orchard of Hades that Persephone eats.

But Leigh Bardugo in her many connections of cthonic stories (love Darlington's line about who is Dante, Virgil, Beatrice, Orpheus, and Eurydice) is of course pulling directly from the Inferno in more ways than the opening. In Dante's Inferno, of which I am no expert, as Dante is being guided through the underworld by Virgil he passes through several circles of hell each focused on the punishment of a certain sin and sinner.

Now Darlington is trapped in Hell after being eaten by the Hell Beast, specifically because he mercy killed his grandfather and is therefore a murderer. But here's the thing. He's not punished for murder. He's sent to Golgarot who is a demon prince of greed.

"Turner tapped the book he was reading. 'You thought Darlington got eaten, right? By Mammon?' 'Maybe,' Dawes said cautiously. 'There are a lot of demons associated with greed. Devils. Gods.' Greed is a sin in every language. That was what Darlington had said. Sandow's hunger for money. Darlington's desire for knowledge." -Hell Bent pg. 311

Darlington is ambitious. This goes as far as his Hell vision from Golgarot. He doesn't dream of tenure or just a filled house or feeling like the hero. My guy dreams of being able to know everything ever in a never ending symposium where he also has traveled the world and absorbed the wisdom of mystics and scholars by simply touching them. That's not just ambition that drives someone to train and hone himself for adventures to come, that's greed. And his mortal soul's punishment is tragic and narratively fitting surrounded by the ruins of a legacy he has barely been keeping afloat with odd jobs and his bare hands:

"He had a rock in his hands, and as they watched, he lugged it over to what might have been the beginning or end of a wall and laid it carefully atop the other stones...He didn't stop moving, didn't alter his gaze...Darlington didn't break his stride, but Alex could see his chest rising and falling as if he was fighting for air. 'Please,' he gritted out. 'Can't...stop.'" -Hell Bent pg. 277

Except it's more than just narratively fitting. It's quite similar punishment for greed and avarice Dante describes in the 4th circle of hell where the guilty push stones or weights (depending on the translation) over and over again and do not speak to Dante and Virgil, other souls guilty of anger and melancholy babble nonsense. The Canto begins with Plutus, the Greek and Roman god of riches, wealth, and abundance, speaking nonsense words to Virgil and Dante. Virgil, a great speaker himself, responds in telling him to be silent and calls him a wolf. The Commentary in my translation by Robin Kirkpatrick discusses how Dante equates greed and the pursuit of specifically money as a pervision of intelligence. The lack of speech and inability to speak in contrast to Virgil is as Kirkpatrick puts it,

"Dante combines an irrepressible linguistic inventiveness with a profound sense that corruptions of mind and sensibility are directly reflected in corrupted applications of language, or in the lessening of a capacity for coherent thought and word...Intelligence here is reduced to the rolling of boulders, a subjection of mind and energy to mere materiality."- Commentary and Notes, pg. 341-342

And um. Yeah.

"Darlington had been frightening to the shades of the Veil and even to himself. It had been...If he was honest, it had been exhilarating. He had been a creature of the mind since he was a boy– languages, history, science. The rest of it, the training he'd put himself through–fighting, swordplay, even acrobatics– had all been in service to the future adventures he'd been sure he would have. But the great invitation had never come...And now? Was he human enough? He had been able to sit at the table and hold a conversation. He hadn't growled at anyone or broken any furniture, but it hadn't been easy. Demons were not thinking creatures. They operated on instinct, driven by their appetites. He had prided himself on being nothing like that. Never rash. Guided by reason. But now he wanted in a way he never had. He had been tempted to bury his face in his soup bowl and lap at it like a greedy animal. He wanted to place himself between Alex's legs now and do the same to her." -Hell Bent, pg. 414

and

"He had been prepared to speak, a quote from... His demon mind couldn't manage it. He remembered Alex with her book of poems. Hart Crane. He grasped at the words." -Hell Bent, pg. 465

But the connection doesn't stop there. Dante sees several beasts when he first enters the woods. They are warped versions of a leopard, a lion, and a wolf. One is a leopard who is often interpreted as a representation of lust, the other is lion for pride, and finally and most relevant to us, a wolf for greed. The wolf that Virgil calls Plutus. The wolves that guard Golgarot's realm that are not quite wolves. That chase our Team Murder and become their demons.

So. Long story short. Darlington and his demon form are not just a metaphor for beast like animal instincts of the inhuman. It's another reflection of greed and what in pursuing it and worshiping it, leaves one without human reason, speech, the mind. All things that define Darlington and he sees as integral to his personhood. Except his greed in pursuing those very things of knowledge and magic and wisdom and the unknown leave him with less than he started with. And its tragic and amazing and I need to read more analyses of Inferno and the rest of the Comedy and the third book needs to come out so we can see how else Leigh Bardugo combined the circles of hell and New Haven.

[wingedshadowfan]

Alex: We all have our demons.

Alex, grabbing Darlington: This one’s mine.

[wingedshadowfan]

Darlingstern moments that play in a ceaseless loop in my head, Vol. I

The fact that Alex was sweaty as fuck the first time they met and made Darlington roll up her sleeve to check for track marks

Darlingtons prudish shock when Alex takes her shirt off in front of him

The fact that they got shitfaced and broke a bunch of Lethe glassware??? Like she got Mr. Lethe to be like “fuck the rules”? And they passed out in the parlor???

Alex’s foot/hand/arm fetish

When Darlington complimented her Queen Mab costume, then said “didn’t someone say love is a shared delusion?” And “two people reciting the same spell”

Darlington getting annoyed when some guy hits on her

The “incident”

His heart hurting for the wanting of someone

The fact that Alex literally has constant imaginary conversations with him and everything reminds her of him and she always assesses how he would feel about her actions

[wingedshadowfan]

this made me scream inwardly. yes.

i think they're the perfect lovers precisely bcuz they could've so easily been the perfect enemies.

they're the same in their hunger, their ambition, doing what it takes, surviving. they were just diametrically opposed in their wants and what was given to them at the very beginning, which is why they had that fight after the aurelian ritual.

alex saw him as a blue blooded rich snob who's lived a perfectly quiet and peaceful, privileged life in abundance, allowing him to become well read and well traveled.

darlington saw her as a no one who'd lucked into a unique and priceless gift, and still made all the wrong decisions, went down the wrong path and ended up at rock bottom.

greed is a sin in every language.

he'd risked his life for something she would've thrown away if she could. what he thought were poor choices had kept her alive. she would've run from the places he wanted to go, and not looked back.

and it all changes when she smashes his wine glass against the wall.

[let's also not forget how he'd dealt with aurelian. he's not above deception and cunning.]

The thing about Darlington is at first glance he seems so much more tame and straight laced in comparison to Alex, and, like he is to an extent, but its all about the packaging. (And isn't that the thing between these two anyways from the very start?) I just always get reminded how many of his character traits aren't some dignified or morally superior dichotomy to Alex and her ruthlessness. The thing is, Darlington is just as ruthless and ambitious, he just didn't have to confront it until Hell. The desperate, starving, consumption motif is so clear from Alex's very first chapter but it's not til later that you realize Darlington is the exact same way, just about things other than the extreme level of survival Alex had to endure. Instead, Darlington was able to scrap by and keep the legacy going, serving something and keep the roof over his head. It makes it less obvious then that he is also a survivor and has that same drive.

You can especially see it in the way he tries to prep himself (the exercises, the learning, the training) for the long awaited "grand adventure," the way he treats his study of the arcane (I mean seriously, you cannot paint that boy as the lawful good archetype if he decided to devote himself into brewing a mythic possibly fake archaic drink that might MIGHT let him see the great beyond just because he had to believe there was more to this life, he had nothing left to lose, and he just had to find out and couldn't be satisfied with only some instead of all), and even more clearly, the dream vision he is granted in Hell. Dawes gets a dream of academic success, Turner professional success, Darlington has a dream where his house is never empty and there is always more people, knowledge, and he finally knows the secrets of every mystery in the world. He just hides all this better. He has the polish, the East Coast rich vs LA rich, and the austere Puritanical upbringing that makes him seem as Alex puts it, "expensive." But the reason these two work (and the reason I am insane about it) is because of this shared character trait of never being satisfied and always wanting more (what's really interesting is Alex seems to want more comfort and security and Darlington wants more risk and adventure and that's what drives the conflict). I'm drawn to the parallel someone on here once said about how Darlington is a sword and Alex is a cannonball. Same effect just different methods. Different packaging. Add in the questions of who is the rabid dog, who is the soldier, the servant, the monarch, Dante, Virigil, Beatrice, Orpheus, and Eurydice? I just love how these two characters seem SO diametrically opposed at first glance but are actually so alike in childhood, character, and ambition.

[wingedshadowfan]

unironically getting drunk at least once so he doesn't crash out is one of my predictions for darlington in the third book!!

nobody asked but here goes:

drinking is going to be an attempt for darlington to dampen his other urges (like feeding off people's emotions for example) by indulging in something else, something numbing, familiar and less destructive to others

we already know he's prone to drinking - a glass of wine is the first thing he reaches for after he and alex get back to black elm after the failed aurelian ritual, there was this bottle from michelle i think (?), and he's drinking armagnac again the night he comes back from hell. his grandfather had literally told him he can fix everything with good alcohol and impeccable manners or smth like that

now, let's talk social psychology for a sec here because i have an exam in a few days: the state of high self-awareness, like when you're looking at yourself in a mirror or you know you're being watched or filmed, etc. causes discrepancies (like the fact that you're a demon from hell who experiences hunger for others' emotions and needs to feed on them now) to become more salient. basically, the more attention you pay to yourself, the more you notice these inner conflicts and that makes you uncomfortable. if you can't reduce the discrepancies (and become less of a demon from hell), you simply avoid being in a state of high self-awareness, which is often done through... you gussed it. alcohol and drugs. one of my professor's exam questions is: to what extent is high self-awareness a risk factor for alcoholism? now i think darlington having high self awareness is kind of a given considering the changes he's undergone and the concern and attention from the people around him. there's also the idea of self-awareness as a personality trait with a private ("i think abt myself a lot") and a public ("i'm interested in what others think of me") form. daniel "darlington was a good talker, but he was happiest when no one was speaking to him, when he didn’t have to perform the ritual of himself and he could simply be left to watch others" arlington is the definition of that. so there you have it.

in a less real-world and more fantasy-world sense, think of why alex had kept herself in a nearly constantly drunk and/or high state for years - it numbed her enough so she wouldn't see the grays. this could work for darlington's urges too. alex was safe when she was out of her mind - and perhaps her "gift" isn't related to being in a state of self-awareness but rather consciousness, concentration or something else. alcohol point stands regardless. i think her past is going to be a great parallel to what could happen to darlington too if he lets it, esp considering how he didn't empathize with alex in the beginning bcuz he thought the responsibility for her addiction/substance abuse was her own entirely, and not her literal means of survival. this whole idea about empathy vs blame depending on the degree of personal responsibility for one's state is also derived from my social psychology lectures but i won't go into it.

an interesting thing darlington notes during the manuscript party when he makes sure alex refuses the wine offered there: he hasn't seen alex drink since the two of them got drunk together and trashed all the fine china at black elm after that aurelian ritual. he wonders if she keeps clean now. coincidentally, she's had a drink only once since (than i can remember of) - when she curses him out and shots his expensive armagnac after he comes back from hell.

both times we've seen him drink on-page, she's the one to take his drink from him - when she throws his wine glass against the wall and when she drinks the armagnac. maybe she knows where that road leads, maybe it's coincidental, maybe it's foreshadowing (i'm delusional if you hadn't noticed back when i started going off abt social psychology) for her attitude towards his attempts to numb himself to the truth of what he is.

i think she accepts him as a demon, wants him to stop denying himself and crash out, and she's not afraid of him bcuz she holds the reigns.

impatiently waiting for ninth house 3 to see Darlington crash out and indulge in his appetites 🤧

[wingedshadowfan]

i like to think he knew she was lying (for my mental health) bcuz she kept trying to bring him back, and she mentions multiple times she can almost feel his presence, hear him talk, and he'd been calling out to her from the start

now idk if this happens before or after her conversation w/ anselm, and idk if darlington would have a way of knowing, but alex sees his childhood through his grandfather's eyes and it puts his character into perspective (a parallel to darlington finally putting her character into perspective when she tells him the grays touched her at the aurelian ritual, and that lethe had never been there for her)

During her conversation with Anselm, Alex had to lie to him:

“I didn’t come here for magic or for fun or because I wanted to make friends and learn to talk about poetry at cocktail parties. I came here because this is my one and only chance at a future that doesn’t look like that file. I’m not going to throw it away for a rich kid who was nice enough to talk down to me a few times.”

Did Darlington hear this? Did he doubt Alex for a moment, did his heart break at the thought that there were no people left in the world to mourn him?