I'm Sorry For Bringing Up Chapter 40 At The End There - Tumblr Posts

Do you ever think about just how powerfully symbolic Matthias killing the wolf in Hellgate at the beginning of SOC is? How him killing the animal sacred to Djel is a representation of him "killing off" the values imposed on him? Of him "killing" his old self, the drüskelle who'd sworn an oath to his country and to its cause, the boy who'd been manipulated and had his grief and pain exploited to fuel hatred, forced to drink the poison Brum had forced down his throat his entire life? Of how he recognises that "the life you live, the hate you feel – it’s poison. I can drink it no longer", but then there's the bitter irony of how that poison still kills him in the end as he's shot by another drüskelle, as he's "killed" by his past and the boy he'd been? Because I think about that a lot.