dark heir was a gay comedy

Can we talk about how, when Anharion and the Lady arrest Sarcean in Will's vision, Sarcean says to them:

And then, when James arrives in the palace and stands alongside Visander in Katherine's body, Will says:

Punch me in the throat, why don't you, Pacat.

this book has me in a death grip.

Visander stuck in Katherine’s body be like

visander, the queen's champion

Anharion x Sarcean x Visander - in that legendary pose...

Thanks to @yv-sketches for this pretty art! Having those three posed together like this is among my art wishlist!

(i added the colored bits)

Old World

Bonus VISANDERR!!! 🤍

I think I finally locked down designing the betrayer ✨💋 + some more concepts of sarcean 🖤 here some oldies

Who would’ve thought the animation class I took many years ago became useful today 🤣🤣 (I am no professional character designer but I do have minimal experience + this is just for fun 🫶🏻)

this is my bingo card of things that might happen in D3

and/or things that, IF they happen in D3, it will wound me personally

Thinking about the Dark King’s magic

James described the Dark King’s magic as infinite. Does that mean he [sarcean] doesn’t have a limit on his power like James does?

Also, literally everyone is using the Dark King’s powers for themselves.

The stewards use the cup. Sinclair uses the brand. The queen/lady resurrected Visander saying the same thing Sarcean said when he killed his allies so they could be reborn. The sun king built his palace on the oubliette (which seems to be dark magic ground zero) and used Sarcean as his general. Also there’s all of these dark artifacts that still contain his power thousands of years later.

None of the other old world character’s magics have persisted or been used to the same extent.

Yet Will can’t access his own power without James.

Okay but Will was so (fairly) angsty about how his blood killed Katherine, but she purified the sword!!! It was the Lady who killed Katherine because she wanted Visander to resurrect

Reread Dark Heir and I love that the trauma the characters go through actually follows through in the writing

Visander is incredibly claustrophobic after having to dig himself out of his grave and its a repeated theme when hes anxious; walls closing in, shortness of breath, darkness, returning to that box. Its such a nice touch, especially because Visander does keep getting put into claustrophobic environments; the carriage, tight clothes, the boat, small rooms... He's the perfect Champion and he is traumatised and he is still the perfect Champion. He's very human, for lack of a better word, he isn't untouchable

And Will has a so much trauma from his mother, and then from Kathrine and he links them together so much. To be hated, for those he loves to try to kill him. Choking. Being stabbed; his mother through the hand, and Kathrine's visage stabbing him as Prescott.

A lot of characters in media go through shit and while they might talk about it, the way Pacat writes out the extending effects of trauma is so good. Especially when you can just assume that all of Will thinking of his mother was just to build up to the reveal in Dark Rise, but he continues it into Dark Heir because its not just a writing trope, not just for a reveal, its part of him

(also speaking of repeated words and a reveal, im fucking feral in realising that the 'try to run, i'll always find you' was said to Sarcean by Anharion and not the other way around, even though its echoed now in reverse with James and Will fearing the Dark Kings pull over James)

"you may be a dead man from a defunct world, but you are my wife, and you can't appear at dinner without dressing" might be pacat's greatest line ever

Dead Dove and Dark Heir: An Analysis

TW// incest, age gap relationships

I do think Dark Heir is a bit more subversive than most other YA titles. Obviously, we have the BDSM coded relationship between Will/Sarcean & James/Anharion. But I think it goes further than that because the books don't shy away from more taboo things in the way a lot of recent YA titles tend to. Namely, incest and age gap relations. Furthermore, I think its willingness to engage with these topics with nuance adds to the depth of its chatacters.

For example, Will and Katherine. We need to talk about them, lol. I think whether they're actually blood related or not is ultimately irrelevant because of one detail. Katherine looks a lot like the Lady, and the Lady looks a lot like Will's mother, Eleanor. So, from the very beginning, Will pursues someone who looks like his mother, or the woman who raised him at the very least (albeit abusively). He has ulterior motives for doing so, but there's no doubt he felt an attraction to Katherine, and Katherine definitely felt attraction for him. It's all very Freudian. And I think how Dark Heir handles this complicated blend of romantic attraction & familial connection is what sets it apart from some other YA works. It refuses to draw definitive lines between these two feelings within Will. Will doesn't even feel especially disgusted or anguished by his flirtation of someone who turned out to be his sister. He probably suspected it as he was flirting with her. It's weird, but one can say it's the natural consequence of Will being his own person but also being Sarcean at the same time. Will doesn't feel or react normally to these tangled up feelings because he's not normal.

Now for age gaps. There's a lot of examples, but the main ones are Tom & Devon, James & Simon, Will & Howell, Cyprian & Ettore, Visander & Sarcean. The books frame James and Simon very negatively. It was abuse, period even though Simon was never able to have James become his lover. But the way characters like Jannick and Cyprian, following his father's example, and some other Stewards frame it doesn't acknowledge the abuse & instead blames & shames James for the supposed "relationship." This is horrible in this case, of course, but I think it speaks to a relatively blasé, maybe even period typical view of relationships between teens/young men & older men that goes on to affect & complicate every relationship/interaction listed above, some in ways different than to how it affects James & Simon. But I will come back to James at the end of this, so put a pin in that.

With Tom & Devon, I don't think the book has especially condemned it or portrayed it as inherently abusive. Tom is an adult for one. But Devon is undoubtedly thousands of years older than him. There's an element of Devon not telling Tom everything that I think is hinted at. At the end of Dark Heir, Violet thinks that Tom is strangely ignorant about the bigger picture of what's going on. He only knows what he learned from his Dad & Sinclair. At least Violet thinks so. It makes one wonder why he doesn't seem to know more even though he's dating someone who knows so much more than even Sinclair. Perhaps this is a consequence of the age gap between Tom and Devon. I don't particularly think this must mean Devon is abusive for dating Tom. And he's not, imo, comparable to the Regent from Captive Prince. But I think Devon's walls are up, and it maybe benefits him to keep Tom in the dark about all that Devon knows. This is part of a pattern that these books follow when it comes to most of their age gap relationships. They're not summarily condemned, but rather they're complicated, and their dubious, more negative qualities are subtly hinted at.

Visander and Sarcean is one such complicated age gap relationship. Upon hearing about Will from Elizabeth, Visander thinks, "This time I am the man and you are the youth." Near the end of the book when Visander confronts Will he says, "You're the same age now as I was when you killed my family." So it appears that when Sarcean slept with Visander, Sarcean was an adult, and Visander was a young man of about 17. When Visander is first introduced in the story, Sarcean thinks of him as a "young man" and a "young guard" and a possible "dalliance, to pass the time." This imbalance is only enhanced when Sarcean later thinks of Visander as "a trifling, easy to fool." Visander was a youth in love, and Sarcean was a man looking for easy amusement. Visander later feels betrayed by Sarcean for apparently killing his family. He emphasizes that he had trusted Sarcean. Their age gap adds an uncomfortable layer to Sarcean's treatment of Visander and how it might have contributed to Visander's lasting hatred of him. A hatred that, in turn, has Visander trying to kill Will, or the Dark King as a youth, as Visander sees it. Their age gap has now been reversed, and taking advantage of Will's youth, much like Sarcean took advantage of Visander's youth, he will take this opportunity to kill Will. It's like a cycle. Again, the book does not explicitly go out of its way to condemn Sarcean sleeping with a young Visander. It simply adds complications and nuance to the characters & their relationship that the reader must interpret themselves.

Will and Captain Howell's interactions are similarly ambivalent and complicated. Will knowingly initiates the flirting between them, and he doesn't seem particularly afraid of Captain Howell's advances. But their power dynamic is switched when Will uses his power to control Howell. The scene plays out like a scene of sexual exploration and discovery. Will tells Howell "No, don't fight it, just let me", he says "you're mine already", and when Howell calls him Master will thinks "Yes" as "with a lurch, he was inside Captain Howell." In many ways, it mirrors the scene where James pushes his magic into Will to release Will's magic. The sexual subtext is inescapable. But Will taking control of Howell is framed as feeling empowering to Will. Will effectively flips the power script of a young man and an older man in a sexual encounter, which brings awareness to the fact that the script usually doesn't play out like this. Their interaction is further complicated when James sees Howell and Will and freaks out. I'll come back to this...

The last significant age gap "relationship" is Cyprian with Ettore. This relationship is more subtle with its sexual subtext, but it's there. Ettore teases & pokes at Cyprian. We later learn this is because Ettore is himself a Steward, and he sees himself and his past flaws in Cyprian. But some of Ettore's teasing takes on a sexual nature. First, when his men ask Cyprian for a kiss and Ettore himself says, "Rethinking that kiss?" Then, when Ettore invites Cyprian to watch him have sex with a prostitute, who he has dressed in a Steward's tunic. After, Ettore emerging from the bedroom soon after Cyprian, "ostentatiously tucking in his shirt" makes Cyprian flush because of the implications Ettore undoubtedly wanted to illicit. This teasing and mockery come to head when Ettore asks Cyprian to kneel and beg him for help. Cyprian acquiesces despite the burning humiliation of it. This is when James goes to Cyprian and tells him he didn't like watching Cyprian kneeling for Ettore.

James says it's because he doesn't like being reminded that Stewards can be selfless, but I think it goes deeper than that and connects with James's reaction to Will and Howell. James freaks out when he sees Will and Howell holding on to each other. He asks Will if Howell hurt him. James's fear here can easily be interpreted as a remnant of his experiences with Simon. James has been hurt & taken advantage of (nearly sexually) by an older man. So when he sees Will and Howell, his mind goes to the worst possibility first. Similarly, I would argue that James's discomfort with watching Cyprian kneeling for Ettore is similarly connected to his trauma with Simon & Sinclair. This connection is supported when, later in the book, as Sinclair tries to collar James, Sinclair orders James to kneel.

These are some of the ways Dark Heir uses more subversive and taboo subjects to add depth and subtext to its world and chatacters, without forcing the readers to see these subjects in only one way. The series, much like Pacat's other work, doesn't shy away from so-called Dead Dove subject matter. And I think that's a strength of the series.

in honor of my great sorrow and distress, here are some memes i have made for dark rise & dark heir. enjoy.

sarcean picking love interests