but what happens at the end of the story?
that's the thing, i don't believe that the story ever truly ends. it goes on and on forever, and each and every step of the way, every friend you make and every moment you share, it all makes up the pieces of your heart. i think...that's why we ache. even if you don't remember, even when those faces and memories begin to blur, your heart recalls all of it.
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Thinking about how I really want the end of Book 7 not to end in a battle, even though it’d be so cool.
We’ve already seen that Malleus is incredibly powerful, and honestly as it is now, I don’t see a way for the students to be able to reasonably fight him and win. Yes, everyone at NRC is exceptionally powerful, but they’ve commented time and time again how Malleus is on a whole other level than anyone there. We’ve fought him a couple of times now, in and outside of dreams, and it has always ended in defeat.
So then how do we save him? The one way that no one would think of, except perhaps Diasomnia and definitely Yuu—the power of friendship making Malleus willingly stand down.
Malleus has been alone for the vast majority of his life. Now, even when he is attending NRC, constantly and perpetually surrounded by students and mages, nearly everyone is too afraid of him to approach him. Because of that, when the potential of one of the few people who are near to him leaving arises, he is so terribly scared and sad that he doesn’t know what to do besides force them to stay. He would rather have the people he knows live out their days in eternal slumber and only interact with them inside their dreams than watch them age and fade and eventually disappear from his life entirely. He is willing to be the sole person in the entirety of Twisted Wonderland awake, just so that he does not have to lose a single soul.
That is an incredibly lonely fate, to be the one person left not dreaming. Of course, he can enter their dreams, control them, see them and touch them and live out lives that can endlessly and eternally restart. But that is not the same as being with them in reality. Dreams are wonderful, but they are not real. Some part of Malleus must realize that—that his actions here are condemning him to a future that is so much more isolating than what he thought. And yet, what else can he do? If he restarts time, if he reawakens everyone, they will die. They might hate him. And worst of all—they will leave, given enough time. No matter how terrible it would be to be the only person left conscious in the world, Malleus must believe that that cannot compare to the fate of being left.
So what can we do to stop him? We can certainly try to fight him. We will probably fail if we do. The mages defending the rest of the world from eternal slumber’s reserves will run dry, while Malleus will continue to rule over his domain of dreams, which will only grow larger with every attack and eventual defeat that comes.
Or, perhaps, we can try to save him. Diasomnia, as is, is not doing so well in terms of magical prowess as other dorms are: Lilia’s magic is fading, Silver is spending himself transporting himself and others from dream to dream, and Sebek, while powerful, is still only a freshman. Similarly, Ramshackle can hardly even hold a candle to everyone else: Grim, as much as he boasts, does not seem to be notably powerful (yet), and Yuu has no magic to speak of at all.
Imagine how shocking it’d be then, if these people, so utterly weak in terms of magic, are the people who are able to take down one of the greatest mages in the world. And they don’t even do it through battle—they do it through understanding where Malleus is coming from and trying to calm his worries. They tell him that yes, people will go, and there is no way to stop it, no matter how much someone might wish for it to be so. But for every time someone leaves, someone will also come. Malleus’ world started with Lilia, and then Silver, then Sebek, and now finally Yuu. Lilia is leaving, and so might Yuu, but that does not mean that they will be gone forever. There will be memories and stories and dreams to last a lifetime, and, while their gaps will never be filled, more spaces will open up to accommodate more people. We’ve seen it through the way that Malleus has slowly come to know more of the student body—his ‘friendly’ fights with Leona, Cater perpetually trying to get pictures with him, learning a bit more about technology through Idia and Deuce…while these cannot quite be called friendships yet, there is something there that can’t be mistaken. And maybe, because the people telling him this are his first real friends and closer to him than anything, he’ll consider it.
Maybe Malleus won’t listen to reason. Maybe Book 7 will end with a breathtaking battle that encapsulates the world’s best mages to overthrow the fae prince—NRC, RSA, NBC, legends outside the schools, and more—and I would be okay with that. But I also think that Book 7 ending in peace, where Malleus takes the hand we offer and steps down from his reign of slumber without any more bloodshed, would be just as beautiful.
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