Tears to Tiara

[shinta|hikari]

Hey, it is speculation so you don't have to agree with me at all. All I am saying is we should use some imagination in such cases.

About the betrayal thing, again you speak from a detached point of view. Have you forgotten how Octavia acted when she fought Arawn for the first time? She was already "betrayed" then, yet she still wanted to sacrifice her life just to kill as many of the "enemy" (including Arawn, who practically saved her life twice and she knew it) as possible. She did eventually decide to side with Arawn, but that doesn't mean that she has completely cut off all ties with her previous allies. That is just the type of character she is, extremely loyal, mainly stemming from her pride as a warrior. Is it correct? Maybe not, but that is not the issue.

I agree with you that it would have been perfectly alright to betray those soldiers if we are talking about what is "just", but we are talking about why Octavia did what she did. Acting out of pride is not equivalent to acting just. Heck, Octavia and Lydia tried to kill each other because of their pride, and one of them died because of that same pride. I would hardly call their actions righteous (especially Lydia's). I mentioned this from my first post, so you can't say that you mistook my saying pride as only righteous pride.

EDIT: By not killing those soldiers the first time they met (probably by accident), and agreeing to meet them again, there is already an unwritten agreement that she cannot betray. Meeting them again with an ambush party would have soiled her warrior's pride forever, that is unless they don't keep up their end of the bargain as well (which they didn't by trying to coerce Octavia by kidnapping the kid). Octavia would never do what you suggested (ask them to meet again then capturing them with a group). It just doesn't fit her character at all. If she wanted to capture an enemy soldier, she would have done it the moment they first met, killing most of them and keeping one for interrogation.

Her decision to not report the enemy soldiers and meet them again is not equivalent to serving two masters. She did that to completely cut off her ties with her previous master. She was probably trying to sort out her feelings after they made the proposal, and knowing that it is her decision to stay with Arawn's side that brought upon such a situation, she was just trying to take responsibility.

Anyway, that is enough from me on this matter. I just wanted to show why I like Octavia as a character so much. She isn't "pure" or one-sided. She hated Lydia for going easy on her, enough to do the same to her and insult her pride in the worse way possible. She doesn't always make the best decisions (contrary to what one would expect from her character type). Yet despite all this, she still has a kind, caring and undeniably mentally strong side.