there were all sorts of practical reasons for why he wanted Lindon to learn the Path of Blackflame, but I choose to believe that Eithan also chose it because he thought the black/white duality schtick would be super cool looking and that it'd be hilarious to make Lindon's appearance and personality mismatch even more
This series was pitched to me in part as "you know how in shounen manga there's always a cool girl who is more experienced with the protagonist and in short order gets sidelined to show off how much cooler the boy is"
I appreciate that Will Wight started making Jai Chen more relevant and made it obvious that she's supposed to be the Romance Arc because I was worried that it was heading toward Lindon/Yerin this book when I really like them so much more as besties
I think one of the implications in Suiel’s vision of Lindon’s future is that the woman he eventually married if he stayed in Sacred Valley was Jai Chen
Lindon coming to grips with how he can't get away with just begging, tricking, and stealing his way to the top despite that being the only way he's known how to fight until now
Yerin struggling to accept the grieg that's literally weighing down her shoulders and accepting that her master really is fine and she needs to confront that
Yeah, the thing you need to understand is that Will Wight straight-up said, in an AMA with fans, that his inspiration for Cradle was primarily "I really liked Bleach but I thought it was lame how the cool girl characters never got to do stuff".
I've described this entire sequence as "Jai Daishou discovers that it's surprisingly difficult to find someone willing to kill the most annoying man in the world." and I stand by it.
but I stay silly :3