hear me out. Ambrose (derogatory) could have been such a good character if he was *actually old* (no that party city beard ain't fooling me).

Like from the beginning it could have been "I'll show him- threatening a new student before orientation, no less- ACK, oof, my back!"

And YW would have been like "Nah don't worry about it old man, I'll fight that Mall staircase or whoever for you. But first let's get you to bed, you haven't taken your meds today."

Like it could've been such a great dynamic between a guy who's knowledgeable and truly wants to help but is way past his prime, and the young apprentice who has no idea what's going on at any given time but is "yeah this dude will 100% keel over from trying to take on the weight of the spiral if I leave him alone for two seconds so I'll knock some heads for him. I like knocking heads anyway >:D"

First off I absolutely love "Ambrose (derogatory)" I'm gonna get that tattooed on my body /j

AND SO LIKE IM KINDA LIKE 🤔 AT THIS SCENARIO (not you anon your idea is absolutely lovely, just thinkin hard about this) BECAUSE LIKE. OKAY HERE'S MY THOUGHT PROCESS

I guess it would be cool to have a YW who instead seems eager and willing to fulfill the role of the Savior instead of dreading it (and it would give a bit of a different face to their relationship mentor/mentee with Ambrose) buuuuuut like in the case that Ambrose is really too old to deal with things himself, instead of whatever reason he doesn't do things in canon, he could always just like find a capable and prepared adult to deal with the nationwide threat of Malistaire INSTEAD of the new kid who's eager to fight

AND THIS ISNT ME DISSING ON YOU ANON I LOVED YOUR IDEA. Like instead of seeing the YW unhappy and resentful and trudging along doing dangerous stuff it's interesting and cool to see where in an alternate universe the YW immediately takes to being a hero and loves the action and does it FOR Ambrose, not just because he told them to. I think that would be very cute if it like, removed the actual issue that Ambrose is still relying on an ill-prepared child to do his work. Whether in canon where the YW is urged to follow Ambrose after Malistaire, or if Ambrose falters and then the YW rushes in to beat his minions up instead, it's still on the Young Wizard to clean up this very adult mess. If this scenario continues on just like canon, the Wizard still ends up being Bartleby's Scion with a tainted Shadow Soul and heaps and heaps of trauma. It just started out a little differently

I HOPE IM NOT SCARING YOU ANON IM NOT SCOLDING YOU IM JUST ANALYZING THIS (please don't be sad I love you anon ty for sending this). Please feel free to send me more of this if you like because it's really interesting tbh. I really.hope I didn't scare you off with this HASKDNDRLSJSJ this was a great ask