#ap notes | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

s0lairee · 2 months

Text

USUALLY i keep the incoherent rambling to @xanyiaz's dms, but y’all know how i feel about vincent. so, here: roughly 2000 words of me talking abt him and the house of solaire.

(also, all non-art, original posts that i make, whether they’re just me keysmashing or me actually dissecting a video will now be tagged as #jo speaks <3)

(possibly incomprehensible) spoilers for “questioning the king” underneath (and a bit from sam’s latest vid). this isn’t really theorising, it’s more “jo analyzes fictional characters and cries”

first of all. CAN we get a round of applause for the voicing and the thumbnail. erik did such a good job - i wasn’t actually expecting a william vid since hedral has been mia for two years, but this was INSANE. erik’s voice is much softer than hedral’s (i think it’s because erik is used to voicing younger characters?) and it really adds to the tone of the video. also, the thumbnail is so perfectly in style with the summit thumbnails. everything is wonderful i just needed a moment for that.

anyways. i did not expect the video to go like this? i mean, everyone expected vincent to call william out for everything at some point, but dude, this caught me so off-guard. and in hindsight, it shouldn’t have. obviously the fandom paints (or painted, before the summit) william as the vamp dad, but he’s a king. he’s going to be political, pragmatic, and sometimes callous. callousness is why he survived. if he was as feeling as vincent is, he wouldn’t have survived his maker.

but like. i completely expected william to stand his ground against vincent’s criticism and mention how it was the right thing to do, but i thought eventually he’d give in and (at the very least) apologise. what i DIDN’T expect was for william:

to not do that.

to pretty much only apologise for keeping vincent out of the loop

to emphasise that this was what being a vampire prince entailed - this was what politics meant

and to GIVE HIM AN ULTIMATUM. it didn’t seem like one, but “if you’re one of us, that’s part of the deal” very much implies “be a solaire and do what is expected of you, or leave.”

i’m glad that vin and william, in some way, found a middle ground. but (as much as i was on will’s side this whole time bc vin always seemed too naive for the rough politics), vincent is right. william shouldn’t have given that burden only to porter. that’s one vampire against dozens that are at least centuries old. also, not to mention, vincent would NOT have trusted porter. can you imagine the mental strength it took vincent to not only hear porter out, but hear stuff that his maker was supposed to tell him from the one person he couldn’t stand? can you imagine how porter felt to be the messenger caught between these two??? and somehow, it’s worse when william doesn’t back down and just accept that vincent was right. he can excuse everything else as politics, but he can’t excuse this. and it’s so weird that he tried so hard to brush past that.

also. william’s favouritism is incredibly obvious. it’s insane. like, this entire audio, he’s prioritising vincent (and lovely, to some extent). his literal first lines are him choosing to speak to vincent and lovely alone, when sam is RIGHT THERE. he refers to sam as samuel, being one of the only people who does that. he also took the time to explain himself to vincent, but to sam he just says “say what you will.” it gives the vibe of the older sibling that the parent knows will understand, and i know sam doesn’t care about the house like vincent does, but GOD it really rubs it in. i know there’s that convoluted father-son dynamic between vin and william, but william put the pack, their mates, sam and darlin’ into the firing line. porter only gave vincent and lovely an alibi. none of the others. this was the pack's first summit too. if sweetheart was caught eavesdropping, they would have been in SO much trouble. it’s pure dumb luck they escaped.

also. my brain ran away here. but porter, who isn't will's progeny but acts like his dutiful son, doing whatever is asked of his king because he saved his life - porter, who can't help but feel slighted when after everything, william still fights to justify his actions to vincent (while porter understands). porter who watches (in his mind, at least) vincent throw all of that away for what's "morally right". porter who is faultlessly loyal but so goddamn alone. are you picking up what im putting down <3

^ going off on that, the different reactions (or possible reactions) to will’s ultimatum have me frothing at the mouth.

i want to say porter is fiercely loyal to william and the house but i do think a lot of it is desperation and his own version of “morally right”? like to porter, the right thing is listening to whatever his king - the man that took him in and saved his life - says. or it could be cowardice. if he doesn’t do what will wants him to do, he would have to leave the house… and where would he go? to treasure? imagine explaining this shit to them. he literally has no choice.

to sam, it's the practical, good thing, and it's almost political. and this way of thinking is easy for sam, since he's not really as loyal to the house as vincent is. in fact, he's almost completely detached. so sam's idea of what's right is that william should've considered vincent’s opinion too, or have some kind of counsel, because they were the people who were most directly in the firing line. so when william so self-assuredly says he isn't wrong, and won't ever be wrong... he lost sam. (sam also never outright got the choice to leave like vincent did. he still made the decision. he's, like, 100% gone.)

and to vincent, it's almost completely emotional. he had this responsibility for the summit thrust onto him suddenly after william shielded him from a lot during his growing up as a vampire. he had so much information kept from him by his maker, his family, and he had to put up with the one person william knew he couldn't put up with. he also almost lost his partner, his brother and his friends in the whole mess.

+ need to add that vincent is very, very emotional. throughout the whole summit, there wasn’t one time when he was able to go with the (albeit fucked up) flow. partly, this is who he is; someone who feels everything in extremes, and partly because william had shielded him from the worst of the vampire world for so, so long. this isn’t a positive or negative character trait: it’s just a trait, and something will should have considered. then again, if not vincent, who would host the summit? not sam. certainly not alexis. and porter couldn’t.

(also, it’s precisely how emotional he is and how much importance he places on family that makes “a prince is supposed to answer to his king, not the other way around” STING.)

now the part that GUTTED me: the ultimatum, and why sam is most certainly leaving (and vincent might consider it, but GOD i fucking hope he doesn’t.)

erik has established both sam and darlin' as being completely self sufficient. like they've both expressed that they're better with each other, and that they've grown as people, but also they're not tied down by any obligations to anyone. darlin' may be fiercely protective of their pack and their identity as a wolf, but sam is heavily disconnected from the house. he might only be sticking around because of vincent, and those two are BROTHERS your honour. but like, he doesn't really feel anything emotional to them nor does he have an obligation to them, even as a vampire.

(especially as a vampire, a status he did not want and is going to give up some time in the future.)

but vincent has both emotional (and i wanna say political?) ties to the house. one, being turned saved his life. he didn't have the choice that lovely had, but he also doesn’t completely hate it like sam did (maybe bc he was unempowered before and the loss of power didn't hit as hard.) two, he's kinda reconciled with his status as a vampire prince. he really does love william. whatever relationship they have (had.) was good - there was some amount of trust there (that will broke now).

and also, being a vampire allowed him to save lovely. vin and lovely are COMPLETELY devoted to each other. they've had one of the most dramatic changes together.

more than that, the solaire house is family to vin. like, at least in the context of lore and the channel, it has been such a massive part of his life. he introduced his partner to his maker. he took them to the summit. he has confided in them abt princely duties. the house is, for better or for worse, his family.

(also, william bringing out all of vincent’s worst memories right in front of lovely (who was also there for those memories) is so fucking insane. wh. every argument he made in this video is so so insane.)

somehow, for all the analysing i'm doing, i can't predict lovely's emotions. i know they're gonna be angry in their own way: very soon after mastering their powers, they had it taken away from them; and very soon after being crowned in the house of solaire, they're watching it crumble.

will giving them an ultimatum felt very final. i know erik mentioned wanting to wrap up a few plotlines, and i’m totally ok with that (not . i need vincent. but i can make my peace w things) but if this is how it ends i will cry

in conclusion, will was fighting between politics and progeny. he tried, desperately, to have both. unfortunately, you can’t have both. fortunately, you can try to rebuild the relationship the choice broke. unfortunately, will didn’t do that. he wasn’t fair to a single person here. he still sees tasks and details as a privilege given to solaires, not something that is expected of him as vincent’s family.

most of erik’s plotlines have a theme, and this one seems to surround trust and choice and how the right thing isn’t always in black and white. so yeah it would fucking suck and i would bawl my ass off if vincent and lovely decide to leave the house …… i know it would be the right thing to do but also i wish porter could knock some sense into william or something.

i would love to see that, actually. feels shakespearean.

23 notes · View notes