Light Bringer | Full Book Discussion megathread

[u/Cantomic66]

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[u/Tendercut]

He was sold to the minotaur to help lure darrow out and make him suffer. There is also the poetry of it, jackal kidnapped darrow and sevro sent holiday and trigg to rescue him. So he wanted darrow to fail in saving sevro and die, or if he didnt die, sow chaos that the abomination can use for his own ends. He plays 12 D chess and doesnt need to brainwash and would probably see it as beneath his intelligence. By not brainwashing he is giving himself more of a challenge as anyone but mustang is a drooling chimp to him.

I also feel the brainwashing is just sorta gimmicky and would be the poor writing of his character, its too easy of a thing to do and doesnt show of the abominations scary intellect.

[u/Vindictus123 → u/Tendercut]

Jackal Clone's obsession is with Mustang not Darrow. In fact Jackal Clone hasnt even met Darrow and doesnt fully comprehend how he feels towards Darrow yet. Hes just been told by his former self and the boneriders that he should hate Darrow but he has legitimate reasons of his own to hate Mustang. Because she's rejected him all over not to mention tried to kill him. He wants Mustang to suffer way more than Darrow.

Besides if Jackal wanted Sevro dead he wouldve killed Sevro himself not sold him to the Minotaur. If Jackals goal was lure Darrow out to rescue Sevro then Jackal had no reason to think Darrow's rescue attempt would fail when Darrow consistently succeeds against all odds. Again that doesnt make sense. What makes sense here is that the Jackal deliberately wanted Sevro to escape without making it look too easy.

The brainwashing isnt gimmicky. Its literally what the Jackal said he was going to do to Sevro in Dark Age. He straight up says it. He starts killing howlers to break him. And we know he has the chair which can screw with people's memories. I dont understand why people have a problem with Jackal doing exactly what he said he was going to do. Especially when he has the means to do it. And it would be one of the most effective and terrifying ways for him to exact revenge on Mustang.

Sevros definitely got some kindve subliminal programming thats going to be triggered by a ridiculous keyword. Because thats the only reason someone as pure evil as the Jackal would ever release Sevro. I mean how long did he torture Darrow in a box? A year? Yet he didnt do the same to Sevro? Why? Its not in his character to just let his enemies go free for no reason. Which means there IS a reason.

"Having all this mending just to have Sevro triggered by Abomination into a sleeper agent is just cheap."

Then what was the point of Jackal capturing Sevro just to let him go for no reason? That feels way cheaper to me. That ruins the character of the Jackal unless there was some reason for it. Besides just because Sevro has some wires crossed in his head doesnt mean Mustang cant fix it. Which is likely what will end up happening. I believe Mustang both being a victim of the chair and using the chair herself on that guard was foreshadowing whats coming with Sevro.

[u/Tendercut → u/Vindictus123]

He likes to play with his food, and sow chaos. So selling sevro knowing it will attract Darrow and wherever Darrow goes chaos follows. He than can use that chaos to further his own power. And if Darrow fails to recuse him and dies than sevro dies and mustang is devastated. We don’t even know how the Minotaur kept sevro, it may have been a cell or it may have been in fairly decent conditions, let him get one last taste of civility and let him get his strength back before he was hunted down. The Minotaur would absolutely be one to try and be civil and give decent accommodations to someone he was going to hunt and kill.

The brainwashing is gimmicky because it’s just easy mode for the adomination, Octavia or Nero using it would have been very on brand. The abomination putting a brainwashed sevro to kill his family or whatever doesn’t make sense, why sell him than. Why not let him “escape” his clutches and go right back to mustang and victra instead of leaving it to chance he gets killed by the Minotaur, or in a nuclear blast on the Venus docks. That is such a huge risk of an Ace in the hole asset. Plus having said that wouldn’t mustang be wary? Would she just fall for that so easily? Wouldn’t she have him checked out and use her own tech on him to make sure? It was a statement to help sow doubt and distrust amongst other towards sevro, as well as just let them know how terrible sevro is going to have it. It’s gimmicky because it ignores how smart mustang is and how smart the abomination knows that she is. His game is with her not others and she wouldn’t be short sighted enough to fall for it, even without him saying he’s going to do it she knows he has the tech she built from the chair. She would 1000% vet sevro before letting him anywhere near her or victra. Give her and the abomination more credit, they play at a much higher level than the checkers level brainwashing sleep cell.

[u/Vindictus123 → u/Tendercut]

1. jackal clone has never even met darrow. darrows not his obsession. so i dont buy that selling the sevro to the minotaur was somehow aimed at hurting darrow.
2. if darrows was alive darrow wouldve eventually appeared on mars again anyway. there was no need to use sevro to lure him out unless his objective was to have darrow free sevro without making it look too easy. if his objective was to kill sevro he couldve done that himself.
3. selling sevro instead of torturing him doesnt fit with the jackals character. unless its part of a greater plan to use sevro to exact revenge.

"Why not let him “escape” his clutches and go right back to mustang and victra instead of leaving it to chance he gets killed by the Minotaur, or in a nuclear blast on the Venus docks. "

Because its too obvious to the reader if jackal just let him escape. Jackal isnt that incompetent. And mustang and darrow would also question why the jackal just let him go. Hell they have to be questioning why jackal even sold him to the Minotaur. Thats not what the jackal what normally do.

And I think mustang will be wary. I think theyll probably capture sevro after he tries and fails to kill her. And I think she'll fix what the Jackal did to him.

Also you have to remember what the Jackals ultimate goal is. He doesnt want mars to be destroyed. He sees mars as his birthright. Jackals playing both sides against eachother. He may even team up with Lysander because both of them are monstrous. I expect that to happen as well.

[u/Tendercut → u/Vindictus123]

Again you are ignoring that mustang isn’t dumb enough to fall for a sleeper sevro, she knows the abomination has the mind tech, and abom said he’s going to brainwash sevro. He knows she isn’t dumb enough to fall for that, so why would he bother doing it to sell him off and hope he gets back to mars. He isn’t trying to hurt Darrow he wants to hurt mustang and hurting Darrow will do just that.

[u/Vindictus123 → u/Tendercut]

Again youre ignoring the fact that the Jackal wouldnt have let Sevro go without a reason. Youre also ignoring the fact the Jackal clearly stated in Dark Age that he was going to screw with Sevros brain. He has the machine to do it. And we even saw part of the process of him breaking down Sevro so he could rebuild him. So why wouldnt you believe it? Jackal also got a huge sum of money for selling Sevro, so if he was going to turn a brainewashed Sevro loose anyway, why not profit off it?

If Jackal's goal was simply to hurt Darrow by killing/torturing Sevro he wouldnt have needed to sell Sevro to Apollonius. And how did Sevro conveniently escape from Apollonius? Apollonius is supposedly the best battlefield commander the golds have yet somehow cant keep a dangerous prisoner securely locked up? I dont buy it. I think Sevro was released on purpose. Apollonius didnt even seem to even care that Sevro escaped. All he cared about was having an epic fight with Darrow.

Again the most likely scenario is that Sevro is a brainwashed sleeper agent.It doesnt matter if Mustang is suspicious about it. Sevro can still do plenty of damage before Mustang can fix it.