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daisymylove · 7 months

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Sword catcher spoilers, speculations and theories about "Ragpicker King" and some ramblings ahead, proceed at your own discretion.

So I'm 90% sure Vienne is alive and we will find it out when lin comes to the palace to treat her

She has an official art and there was a whole snippet about her, I don't see the point of making all that fuss about a character that was going to have three interactions with Kel (speaking of which, I kind of shipped them even tho I know ana will be his end game 👉🏻👈🏻 am I the only one?), kill some random guys and bite the dust. On top of that her arc was about to get so interesting. She is a trained assassin, oath bound to protect this little girl, whom she loves deeply, until she dies, but then her charge was murdered, and her life's mission came crashing down on her. The angst, the potential.Her dying would be a huge waste.

I don't question Jolivet's loyalty, at least not now, but Markus is not a mentally stable person (btw whats up with him? does anyone have a theory?).I think he lied she was dead bc markus may have killed her otherwise and, as dangerous as she is, Vienne may be more useful to them alive than dead with the possibility of a war looming over.I also don't discard the possibility that he may have personal ties to vienne and/or her family. The whole covering her with his cape could have been a show of respect for the black guard if she's really dead, like kel thought, but compounding with the fact that, even tho she charged on conor, jolivet did nothing to either stop or harm her, it struck me as oddly affectionate. Anyone can correct me if im wrong, but I dont remember kel mentioning anything about an accent, which makes me assume she speaks their language on a native level, so there's that

One thing I didn't like was that this trained bad ass assassin was completely unarmed during such an important event.Kel is always armed, even when impersonating conor he had a dagger on his person. Granted, it's easier to conceal weapons on male attire, but it would've been more realistic if she'd had at least one dagger, had been forced to use it and thus was left unarmed. Its not enough to tackle all those guys, as kel himself thought, but she wouldn't have been helpless.

I'm also 90% sure Lin and conor are going to have sex on a beach, I'm willing to bet money on it.I've read way too many books by Cc to not recognize her foreshadowing. Besides, she's fond of writing sex scenes on peculiar locations.

The "yes I'm the goddess come back" may have been scheming on Lin's part (loved that btw) but I'm sure she actually is the goddess come back. She will also be queen, as the prophecy foretells. Charlon saying to luisa "dance for your future court", but Lin ending up being the one to actually dance also reeks of foreshadow.

Now to the ragpicker king, we know almost nothing about andreyen and I have a lot of speculations. First I thought he was the Makabi, what about the ragpicker being a figure that has always existed in Castellane, his symbol being a bird and his having a bowl that allegedly belongs to makabi's lineage. But when he said ragpicker king is a title, which he inherited from another, I put it in the back burner (it hasn't been discarded tho, im not discarding anything for now and he would hardly tell kel "yo I'm this immortal entity and have been forging my death over and over for centuries" if that were the case) in favour of thinking he's the Maharam's exiled son. He's the right age and it makes sense for a boy that has been shunned by everyone and left to fend for himself to turn to crime.

What has been nagging at me, on the other hand, is that he matches Lin's vision of Suleman from her dreams. Pale, tall, handsome, long black hair and when his eyes were going to be described the dream was conveniently interrupted. I'm not saying he is suleman for sure, idk how that would work in practical terms -- is he an immortal and suleman never actually died at the sundering? unlikely, considering Lins dream and how vivid it was. Is he a reincarnation? Under that line of thinking he could be both the exiled boy AND suleman on a single person -- and he could have no relation to him whatsoever, the physical resemblance being just a coincidence (but really?) and I'm just crazy.His interest in the stone and magic in general checks out for both suleman and exiled son, so it isn't really an indicator.

I rather liked andreyen, merren and Ji an, tho, I really don't want him to be the bad guy, but as previously said I'm not discarding anything.It seems pretty obvious to me that he wants to use lin and her abilities in some way, much like he has a use for kel, but that doesn't necessarily mean he has nefarious goals or anything

I think Anjelica, Aimada, the malgasi princess whose name I don't remember now and the prince with the huge bank account will make appearances, they have been mentioned way too much to not feature at all

and what was that dream kel had with fire and phoenixes? There's something there, I can feel it

anyway, that's what I have so far

as a side note, I'm a bit drunk and haven't proofread this properly (i never do when writing on this blog tho, sorry lol), hope its coherent enough

#sword catcher spoilers #sword catcher #kel saren #lin carter #the ragpicker king #conor aurelian #kang ji an #merren asper #vienne d'este

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kaitcreates · 6 months

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Over analyzing the Sword Catcher official art because I can.

First up Kel. He has his sword catcher medallion on and his clothes look blue then green like he’s described wearing in the book because the Queen wanted him to wear her home country’s colours and it doesn’t look like what we see Conor wearing in his portrait so Kel might’ve picked this outfit himself. The coat also ruffed up’s little, one of the sleeves even has a tear in it, he doesn’t start getting into any serious fights in the book until he sides with the Ragpicker King, around the same time he starts finally exploring his own identity if only slightly so this’s probably around that time frame. He has the scar on his eyebrow that Conor is described as having which I can feel has some sort of importance to their characters. The background is some waves, clearly referencing his love of the ocean and sailing, along with swords indicating his sword catcher title. His foreground is one of the less interesting with just a pile coins for his wealth as the prince’s fake cousin, a pile of scroll for how much reading he does, and a pile of something back that I’m not quite sure what it is. It looks like it might be some black powder but he hasn’t done anything with black powder yet in the story. Maybe it’s a metaphor for life as he knows it getting blown up as the story goes along, who knows. It’s also worth noting that he doesn’t have any flowers in his portrait, this might be nothing but it’s almost like a theme with most of the other portraits so it’s worth noting.

More characters under the cut because this got long:

After that we have Conor. His clothes and jewelry aren’t anything to write home about, it looks properly royal with plenty of jewels showing of his wealth. Though I do take not that the eyebrow that has a scar though it is covered in his portrait. His background depicts the Castelane lion on top of the city state’s national colour of red obviously a nod to him being the prince of the City-State. The hour glasses seem to represent his limited time as pressure begins to build on him, and I’m not quite sure what the falling rings represent, maybe they’re supposed to be coins and represent something about his debt. Again the piles of money, books, and scrolls represents his wealth and being well read. We can see what one do the scrolls says but it’s not very clear and seem to be written in one of the world’s fictional languages, if anyone can translate it please send it to me but it might not be anything special. The banner/flag in the corner is certainly important but I can’t remember anywhere that it would belong to at the moment so again if you can think of anything that would be a huge help. It’s also once again worth noting he’s one of the few character to not have flowers in his portrait.

Lin’s is arguably the most obvious. She has her mystery-stone brooch, her ashkar ring, is wearing the ashkar’s mandatry colours of blue and grey, and her medical satchel. The background has a glyph behind her with runes in it since she’s trying to bring magic back, the golden whisps also look magical, and the herbs and plants are for healing. There are diagrams of human anatomy behind her and the flowers have vials of what I presume is medicine strewn in them. This is also the first showing of flowers in a characters portrait, I thought it was representing her medical herbs and flowers. In the flower bed you can also see a split open pomegranate which could symbolize her growing doesn’t into darkness and crime as she tries to find a cure to Mariam similar to Persephone and the underworld.

Antonetta’s is relatively simple. Her outfit is what her mom forces her to wear throughout most of the book and she’s wearing her heart locket. Her background is also pretty simple with no special patterns or symbols to speak of, just some lace patterning at the edge of the circle similar to her outfits. It’s really the foreground that interests me. The perfume bottle is slightly odd as we never get any focus on her using perfume or smelling nice, but it does fit the perfect noble woman image so it’s not out of place. The sword being mostly hidden except the hilt is a nod to the secret sword lessons she takes, which she’s hiding from nearly everyone. The rose is obvious symbolism for looking beautiful and pretty but having thorns if you try to grab it. Around this I started thinking that maybe the flowers represented characters who were trying to get more then their current position in life was giving them. The most confusing thing about her portrait though is the bloodied handkerchief and golden locket around it. Bloodied handkerchieves are pretty much solely used in fiction for someone with a deathly illness but as far as I know Antonetta isn’t sick in anyway and defiant not of the fatal kind. Maybe it’s a nod to her friendship with Mariam.

For The Ragpicker King I would like to bring your anterior to his right hand. As you can hopefully see it looks like some slights scars are peaking out from his sleeve. What does this mean? I don’t know. I have no memory of this being described in the book, and was just something interesting I noticed. In the background you can see something that almost looks like a jail cell, likely referring to him being a criminal. There are also many playing cards flying around behind him for some reason, I’m not really sure since it’s never made note of him being especially in to card games or to use card metaphors in his plans. The piles of envelopes are likely his letters to and from the King and the books represent him once again being well read and his enjoyment of research. The evolvement of flowers once again confuses me because from what we see he seems perfectly content in his current life. Maybe it’s about how he escaped a life he was unhappy in.

Ji-an doensy have much going on, neither do most of the characters moving forward. The most interesting thing I could find about her appearance is that she’s wearing makeup. She has the two black swans, which I’m pretty sure I’m not remembering the full importance of, from her line about the swan pulling her carriage. She has a variety of swords in the back ground, one of which is she is holding. This could both represent her status as a killer but also as sort of like ghosts of the family she killed. Her flowers continue to feed into my “escape from current life/escaped from past life” theory and there isn’t much else to say.

Merren has nothing super interesting about his appearance in this portrait. It suits his personality and that’s about all I could say. The background is an obvious nod to his poisoner status with the wisps of smoke(possibly from hot tea?) leading up to a skull. I’m not entirely sure what the quills are supposed to represent, maybe it’s supposed to be because he’s a student so quills are like pencils in their world. Mostly his foreground also just seems to be about him being smart if a little messy when it comes to parts of his life outside of poisons and antidotes. The most specific thing I can find is the spilt concoction which is likely poisons. Once again the flowers are confusing, I had a theory that the flowers represented someone studiously seeking out knowledge, except Ji-an and Antonetta don’t follow this pattern. Merren also doesn’t fit into the “run/ran away from a life they didn’t like” theory unless there’s a part of his backstory that we don’t know about that fits into it. If anything he was pushed out of a life he liked. The flowers aren’t a super big part of the portrait and more of just an accessory anyways so fine, maybe it’s not meant to connect to the other flower portraits.

Joss’s portrait has two elements worth taking note of. First, the abundance of arrows and bows. This is mostly likely a nod to indoor archery, but I do hope we get more archery in his character and fighting style down the line. Second, he has some flowers in the foreground. Which just adds to the confusion because, as far as we know, he’s pretty happy with his current life and he almost definitely hasn’t ran away from an old life.

And the flowers continue to be confusing. Vienne is special in the fact that the flowers are pretty much the only other element of her portrait outside of herself. They do kind of make it look like she’s buried in flowers, especially with her helmet resting on the bed, and does work with the fact that she died at the end since giving flowers is a common way to pay respects to the dead, at least in western culture. In my admittedly short research session, the flowers seem to be Marigolds. These flowers are commonly used in day of the dead and symbolized grief and mourning in the victorian era, continuing the idea that these flowers are being used to represent her death. In renaissance times(the time period Cassie says she took the most inspiration from for those world) Marigolds were gifted to woman that men wanted seduce. What this means for Vienne I have no idea but it felt worth mentioning.

Now at this point you might be thinking “Couldn’t the flowers not actually mean anything and instead it’s the lack of flowers that represents something?” And I was think that too until Jerrod and his lack of flowers came along! Why are the only characters without flowers Kel, Conor, and Jerrod?! In other news Jerrod has basically nothing to take note of. His fingers look much paler then the rest of his hand from the chalk and the daggers facing towards his head could either represent that he’s being threatened or that he’s threatening. That’s really it. The rope and keys seem to be vaguely related to being able to get into places, but at the current moment they don’t seem to really be that personally connected to him.

So over all I have three main questions after this:

What in the world do the presence or lack of presence of flowers mean?

Were the details that don’t make sense to us right now cut after the art was made or are they hinting at future developments?

Why didn’t Mariam get a portrait?

#sword catcher spoilers #sword catcher #sword catcher deep dives #conor aurelian #kel saren #lin caster #antonetta alleyne #joss falconet #merren asper #kang ji an #jerrod belmerci #the ragpicker king #tcoc #the chronicles of castellane

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