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She's got a bit of a crush on him I believe, along with a slight amount of envy about his romantic relationship with Yerin. Romantic relationships are something that Mercy can't really attain because of who she is. At least not before now.
I wouldn't say it's anything major though.
There are a lot of hints that Mercy at least has a crush on Lindon, but genuinely thinks him and Yerin are a good couple and wants the best for them.
If Yerin hadn't been around, it's possible Mercy may have made a move, but it's hard to say for sure how that would have shaken out.
I cant remember if this was in Wintersteel or Bloodline, >!but I'm always amused by the moment where Pride begrudgingly admits Lindon might be worthy of (probably courting) Mercy, and then Mercy clamps her hands over his mouth and rushes him out of the scene while nervously laughing at his 'joke'.!<
The curious thing about the whole Grace thing is that by the time they propose it as an option, Mercy and Lindon have been close for years now, and even Pride spent that whole time thinking Mercy was touting him as a potential suitor.
Even Charity knew they were too late by the time she asked, but they're not going to use their biggest bargaining chip (Mercy) just to tie a promising young Underlord to the family. Mercy is the clan heir, and could be used for bargaining with other monarchs, or Archlord level negotiations.
It's like if the Crown Princess of Shadowland was best friends with the hot young Mayor of Nowheresville. They gain more marrying him to the Princess's cute cousin twice removed than "wasting" the Princess's prospects of marrying another royal.
Not a Monarch, they wouldn’t WANT another Monarch. Maybe a sage, given a few decades, but they definitely weren’t expecting it so early. Meanwhile, Malice was actively molding Mercy into the next Monarch, and we know Malice views romance as something for after reaching the peak.
In Reaper, Malice talks about how she saw 2 or 4 SAs following Eithan ascending to Monarch. The 2 are easy to guess at that point in time for her. So she does know they are going Monarch. Whether she told Charity is another matter.
Who cares about what Malice knows in Reaper? We’re talking about in Wintersteel. At that point in time, why would she support them if she knew they were going to be Monarchs? The current Monarchs have a very, VERY clear deal that if any of their people ascend to monarchs, or any unaffiliated people for that matter, they would force them to ascend or kill them as a ground, because the world can only support so many Monarchs. If she saw them advancing in fate to monarch, she’d know they were going to be against the monarchs, or they’d be ascending, in which case she gets nothing. Besides, fate was in constant chaos at and around the time of the Uncrowned King Tournament, and I’d imagine quite a while after, so she couldn’t have known about them advancing for long before she stated it in Reaper.
Another big point is that marriage, especially to someone she likes, might have impacted Mercy's advancement. Not sure where, but IIRC during Uncrowned or Wintersteel it was mentioned she wasn't allowed to do romantic/marriage stuff until she reached Archlord, since she needed to focus on her path first.
Yes! I thought it was very funny how Malice is popping out kids left and right, but also doesn't want Mercy to pursue a relationship when she should be focusing on her advancement, and actively forces her to undergo her Underlord advancement. But a year later, she >!advances to Overlord and they cry "you're advancing too fast, Mercy! Slow down, be patient, don't be reckless like your friends who are absolute powerhouses, Mercy! Your friends suck, leaving you behind like this, Mercy!" !<
To be honest, I suspect that is because >!they erode the control Malice has over her. For one thing, she might have been worried that they'd get her to advance with them. Mercy was a useful tool to help keep them under control and aligned with family interests, but she shouldn't care more about them than her mother, at least to Malice.!<
Aside from that, one thing to take note of is that advancement tends to also come with increased civic and political responsibilities. Advancing too fast can leave a person with great strength, but not the experience to apply that strength when ruling an empire.
Reaching Underlord at her age is to be expected, and seems to be the point children of Monarch families first get given responsibilities. Overlord might still be doable too. But move past that and you might get tossed into responsibilities you aren't ready for, like someone being made CEO of a Fortune 500 company when just out of business school. Doesn't matter how well you graduated, you won't have the experience to deal with that.
Pedantic, but “twice removed” implies a generational gap. My grandma’s first cousin is my cousin twice removed. Since Malice’s parents are dead, even cultivator shenanigans won’t make that work. Something like 3rd cousin is better, because it implies distant relation, but of the same generation. My grandma’s cousin’s son’s daughter is my third cousin, while my grandma’s cousin’s son is my second cousin, once removed, for clarity.
True, but just think about how most Akura are generationally screwy! After all, Harmony would be Malice's great grandson, if he was Charity's nephew, so they were trying to marry him to his Grand-aunt. Malice has been popping kids out for 400 years or so I think.
I thought about that lol, but unless Malice’s grandma’s cousin survived the purges and became at least an Archlord, I very much doubt she is still around. Maybe she’s kicking ass with Abidan. I dunno. Maybe the removal can count downward. So Mercy is actually the proverbial grandma and her cousin’s son’s daughter is Grace. I literally only thought of that just now, actually.
The removal actually does count both ways, since it's counting the gaps in generations, while 2nd/4th cousin is counting how far up the chain (how many"greats" +1) your shared grandparent is. I learned a lot of useless genealogy knowledge as the youngest of over 60 cousins.
It's actually tough to define for the Akura, because it's almost always for cousins, and Mercy is an aunt, not a cousin, to pretty much the entire clan.
Edit: and of course, generation meaning "one's peer group of similar age", and generation meaning "which offspring tier" are opposing terms that really muddle things even further
She’s technically Fury’s cousin, so that clarifies things for his branch of the family at least.
Edit: I’m an idiot. Mercy is Fury’s half sister. I don’t think either of them have living first cousins, on Cradle anyways, since Malice’s siblings or their offspring are never mentioned.
I thought Fury was Mercy's half-brother, just many, many years older than Mercy? I swear Fury refers to Malice as his mother, but I can't remember where.
I think with hindsight after his later advancements and power Malice would want him tied to Mercy rather than Grace. He was a promising talent in Wintersteel... but knowing that he'll never slow down that talent for advancement... I think that would change her mind. Though [Dreadgod]>!just ignore the fact that he's directly antagonistic towards Malice and she wants him dead or gone very badly!<
> Malice would want him tied to Mercy rather than Grace
I think Malice just wanted him tied to the Akura family and Grace was a "cheaper" way to do that than Mercy - Mercy's hand in marriage is much more politically valuable than Grace's. After Lindon advances even further I suspect that Malice would have been open to him marrying Mercy, but likely with some conditions (e.g it doesn't happen for X years to avoid interfering with her advancement). In fact, (spoiler from a later book I think) >!doesn't Lindon get shown a line/strand of Fate that results in him and Mercy marrying?!<
The way I look at it, she has really conflicted feelings, which are mostly rooted in friendship, but with a small crush as well, which she has no interest in pursuing. It doesn't help that everyone seems to be pushing her in that direction - Pride and Malice especially have been pressing that angle.
She doesn't seem to be interested in getting with him, but he is also the only male near her age that she has a close relationship with besides her brothers, so her feelings towards him are strong, and could easily be misinterpreted... Including by her.
> he is also the only male near her age that she has a close relationship with besides her brothers
I think her feelings are in large part due to the fact that he's the only (non-related) male near her age who just behaves normally around her. He's not afraid of her like many of her peers are and he's not using her because of who her family is.
Reaper spoilers ahead: >!Her situation has some interesting similarities to Eithan's - he quickly exceeded his peers and became lonely because of it. Obviously she hasn't advanced to the same extent that he did, but in the training for the UKT we see that others don't even want to spar with her which combined with being a monarch's daughter has also left her very isolated. !<
She likes him and is aware that he’s one of very few people her age with the potential to court her (power and talent-wise). Not sure I’d call it a crush, but Lindon doesn’t quite fit in the “will never be more than a friend” box.
I think Mercy just admires him more than others, for the most part.
I personally would classify it as a small crush, but I think that's all it would be, a little tug of attraction that adds a little bit of conflict to her emotions. The touch of "not jealousy, maybe envy?" is what I think makes it such a grey area, even for her. She wants what Lindon and Yerin have, more than she wants Lindon for herself, but it's so tough when there really is no one who can compete with Lindon, and she knows it.
If Yerin wasn't around, she might indulge those feelings a little more. I get the sense it's more a sort of envy of their uncomplicated bond...something she feels on some level she cannot have while part of the Evil Family.
He's the first boy her age to actually treat her like a friend, helping her out of tight spots, comforting her when she got eliminated from the UKT, he's kind of this larger than life guy who just does what he does. I think there's a bit of schoolgirl love there. But Yerin is also her best friend so she mostly just seems to wish she had that quality of relationship with someone. I kinda hope we see her find someone at least decent in Waybound. She's a good person, she deserves a healthy relationship.
#301
Questioner
When Malice was punishing Mercy after she lost in the Uncrowned tournament, did she intentionally not include Lindon in the punishment?
Will Wight
What I intended for that moment, and I'm still going to leave it a little bit up to interpretation because it's all about how you read the characters in the end, but my intention for that scene was more about Malice was kind of treading the line and so she was going okay which of these would be more embarrassing to Mercy and which of these would be a little too embarrassing and that was one she decided, based on her analysis of the situation, that would be a little too embarrassing for Mercy. Now is that true? Would it be too embarrassing to Mercy? She didn't know. It was just kind of one of the things that Malice thought at that time. So that was my understanding of it.
Reaper Release Stream (Nov. 1, 2021)
I wouldn’t say that. I think she might have been interested, but more than anything she is simply envious of his, and Yerin’s relationship. She doesn’t have anything like it, and the fact that Lindon, and Yerin are her only friends, she feels scared that she’ll be left behind.
Yes, to some degree. Think about it. Before Reaper, Lindon was pretty much the ONLY suitor Mercy could realistically have. Also, I'd say she isn't so out of the picture for Lindon as well, give that, in the possible futures Suriel shows him in Bloodline, some he marries Mercy.
I know it's not in genre, per se, but I would've really liked a plot line of Lindon being engaged to Akura Grace and he and Yerin being really close friends or the One That Got Away.
If Lindon was like 20% more ambitious or if they'd grabbed him right post Ghostwater it would've been a believable and dramatic plot line, I think, and made Lindon ask what he'd sell away for power.
Honestly after reading bloodline I an curious on how (warning spoilers for bloodline below)
What Mercy and Lindon's relationship would have been like and what events would have needed to proceed to have them become engaged together.
Wonder what powers and abilities their kids could have, the Akura clan would be pretty op after their marriage as children spawned from high level sacred artists especially from ones as powerful like Lindon and mercy would lead to talented children.
It could be a cool what-if to explore if Will was interested in exploring it.
Anyone interested in writing a fanfic?
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She's got a bit of a crush on him I believe, along with a slight amount of envy about his romantic relationship with Yerin. Romantic relationships are something that Mercy can't really attain because of who she is. At least not before now. I wouldn't say it's anything major though.
There are a lot of hints that Mercy at least has a crush on Lindon, but genuinely thinks him and Yerin are a good couple and wants the best for them. If Yerin hadn't been around, it's possible Mercy may have made a move, but it's hard to say for sure how that would have shaken out. I cant remember if this was in Wintersteel or Bloodline, >!but I'm always amused by the moment where Pride begrudgingly admits Lindon might be worthy of (probably courting) Mercy, and then Mercy clamps her hands over his mouth and rushes him out of the scene while nervously laughing at his 'joke'.!<
[удалено]
The curious thing about the whole Grace thing is that by the time they propose it as an option, Mercy and Lindon have been close for years now, and even Pride spent that whole time thinking Mercy was touting him as a potential suitor. Even Charity knew they were too late by the time she asked, but they're not going to use their biggest bargaining chip (Mercy) just to tie a promising young Underlord to the family. Mercy is the clan heir, and could be used for bargaining with other monarchs, or Archlord level negotiations. It's like if the Crown Princess of Shadowland was best friends with the hot young Mayor of Nowheresville. They gain more marrying him to the Princess's cute cousin twice removed than "wasting" the Princess's prospects of marrying another royal.
But didn’t they know he was a future monarch as per Malice’s fate viewing ? They were just trying to get a good deal I think. Apple at 1990 prices.
Not a Monarch, they wouldn’t WANT another Monarch. Maybe a sage, given a few decades, but they definitely weren’t expecting it so early. Meanwhile, Malice was actively molding Mercy into the next Monarch, and we know Malice views romance as something for after reaching the peak.
In Reaper, Malice talks about how she saw 2 or 4 SAs following Eithan ascending to Monarch. The 2 are easy to guess at that point in time for her. So she does know they are going Monarch. Whether she told Charity is another matter.
Who cares about what Malice knows in Reaper? We’re talking about in Wintersteel. At that point in time, why would she support them if she knew they were going to be Monarchs? The current Monarchs have a very, VERY clear deal that if any of their people ascend to monarchs, or any unaffiliated people for that matter, they would force them to ascend or kill them as a ground, because the world can only support so many Monarchs. If she saw them advancing in fate to monarch, she’d know they were going to be against the monarchs, or they’d be ascending, in which case she gets nothing. Besides, fate was in constant chaos at and around the time of the Uncrowned King Tournament, and I’d imagine quite a while after, so she couldn’t have known about them advancing for long before she stated it in Reaper.
Another big point is that marriage, especially to someone she likes, might have impacted Mercy's advancement. Not sure where, but IIRC during Uncrowned or Wintersteel it was mentioned she wasn't allowed to do romantic/marriage stuff until she reached Archlord, since she needed to focus on her path first.
Yes! I thought it was very funny how Malice is popping out kids left and right, but also doesn't want Mercy to pursue a relationship when she should be focusing on her advancement, and actively forces her to undergo her Underlord advancement. But a year later, she >!advances to Overlord and they cry "you're advancing too fast, Mercy! Slow down, be patient, don't be reckless like your friends who are absolute powerhouses, Mercy! Your friends suck, leaving you behind like this, Mercy!" !<
To be honest, I suspect that is because >!they erode the control Malice has over her. For one thing, she might have been worried that they'd get her to advance with them. Mercy was a useful tool to help keep them under control and aligned with family interests, but she shouldn't care more about them than her mother, at least to Malice.!< Aside from that, one thing to take note of is that advancement tends to also come with increased civic and political responsibilities. Advancing too fast can leave a person with great strength, but not the experience to apply that strength when ruling an empire. Reaching Underlord at her age is to be expected, and seems to be the point children of Monarch families first get given responsibilities. Overlord might still be doable too. But move past that and you might get tossed into responsibilities you aren't ready for, like someone being made CEO of a Fortune 500 company when just out of business school. Doesn't matter how well you graduated, you won't have the experience to deal with that.
Pedantic, but “twice removed” implies a generational gap. My grandma’s first cousin is my cousin twice removed. Since Malice’s parents are dead, even cultivator shenanigans won’t make that work. Something like 3rd cousin is better, because it implies distant relation, but of the same generation. My grandma’s cousin’s son’s daughter is my third cousin, while my grandma’s cousin’s son is my second cousin, once removed, for clarity.
True, but just think about how most Akura are generationally screwy! After all, Harmony would be Malice's great grandson, if he was Charity's nephew, so they were trying to marry him to his Grand-aunt. Malice has been popping kids out for 400 years or so I think.
I thought about that lol, but unless Malice’s grandma’s cousin survived the purges and became at least an Archlord, I very much doubt she is still around. Maybe she’s kicking ass with Abidan. I dunno. Maybe the removal can count downward. So Mercy is actually the proverbial grandma and her cousin’s son’s daughter is Grace. I literally only thought of that just now, actually.
The removal actually does count both ways, since it's counting the gaps in generations, while 2nd/4th cousin is counting how far up the chain (how many"greats" +1) your shared grandparent is. I learned a lot of useless genealogy knowledge as the youngest of over 60 cousins. It's actually tough to define for the Akura, because it's almost always for cousins, and Mercy is an aunt, not a cousin, to pretty much the entire clan. Edit: and of course, generation meaning "one's peer group of similar age", and generation meaning "which offspring tier" are opposing terms that really muddle things even further
She’s technically Fury’s cousin, so that clarifies things for his branch of the family at least. Edit: I’m an idiot. Mercy is Fury’s half sister. I don’t think either of them have living first cousins, on Cradle anyways, since Malice’s siblings or their offspring are never mentioned.
I thought Fury was Mercy's half-brother, just many, many years older than Mercy? I swear Fury refers to Malice as his mother, but I can't remember where.
No, you’re right. I actually knew that Fury was Malice’s kid. I just had a moment of insanity and thought that made him Mercy’s cousin.
I think with hindsight after his later advancements and power Malice would want him tied to Mercy rather than Grace. He was a promising talent in Wintersteel... but knowing that he'll never slow down that talent for advancement... I think that would change her mind. Though [Dreadgod]>!just ignore the fact that he's directly antagonistic towards Malice and she wants him dead or gone very badly!<
> Malice would want him tied to Mercy rather than Grace I think Malice just wanted him tied to the Akura family and Grace was a "cheaper" way to do that than Mercy - Mercy's hand in marriage is much more politically valuable than Grace's. After Lindon advances even further I suspect that Malice would have been open to him marrying Mercy, but likely with some conditions (e.g it doesn't happen for X years to avoid interfering with her advancement). In fact, (spoiler from a later book I think) >!doesn't Lindon get shown a line/strand of Fate that results in him and Mercy marrying?!<
Tbf that was before he became a psuedo sage. I think once he manifested authority she’d be fine with a mercy x Lindon pairing
The way I look at it, she has really conflicted feelings, which are mostly rooted in friendship, but with a small crush as well, which she has no interest in pursuing. It doesn't help that everyone seems to be pushing her in that direction - Pride and Malice especially have been pressing that angle. She doesn't seem to be interested in getting with him, but he is also the only male near her age that she has a close relationship with besides her brothers, so her feelings towards him are strong, and could easily be misinterpreted... Including by her.
> he is also the only male near her age that she has a close relationship with besides her brothers I think her feelings are in large part due to the fact that he's the only (non-related) male near her age who just behaves normally around her. He's not afraid of her like many of her peers are and he's not using her because of who her family is. Reaper spoilers ahead: >!Her situation has some interesting similarities to Eithan's - he quickly exceeded his peers and became lonely because of it. Obviously she hasn't advanced to the same extent that he did, but in the training for the UKT we see that others don't even want to spar with her which combined with being a monarch's daughter has also left her very isolated. !<
She likes him and is aware that he’s one of very few people her age with the potential to court her (power and talent-wise). Not sure I’d call it a crush, but Lindon doesn’t quite fit in the “will never be more than a friend” box. I think Mercy just admires him more than others, for the most part.
I personally would classify it as a small crush, but I think that's all it would be, a little tug of attraction that adds a little bit of conflict to her emotions. The touch of "not jealousy, maybe envy?" is what I think makes it such a grey area, even for her. She wants what Lindon and Yerin have, more than she wants Lindon for herself, but it's so tough when there really is no one who can compete with Lindon, and she knows it.
If Yerin wasn't around, she might indulge those feelings a little more. I get the sense it's more a sort of envy of their uncomplicated bond...something she feels on some level she cannot have while part of the Evil Family.
He's the first boy her age to actually treat her like a friend, helping her out of tight spots, comforting her when she got eliminated from the UKT, he's kind of this larger than life guy who just does what he does. I think there's a bit of schoolgirl love there. But Yerin is also her best friend so she mostly just seems to wish she had that quality of relationship with someone. I kinda hope we see her find someone at least decent in Waybound. She's a good person, she deserves a healthy relationship.
I do believe that WW addressed this scene in a WOW!!
Link?
#301 Questioner When Malice was punishing Mercy after she lost in the Uncrowned tournament, did she intentionally not include Lindon in the punishment? Will Wight What I intended for that moment, and I'm still going to leave it a little bit up to interpretation because it's all about how you read the characters in the end, but my intention for that scene was more about Malice was kind of treading the line and so she was going okay which of these would be more embarrassing to Mercy and which of these would be a little too embarrassing and that was one she decided, based on her analysis of the situation, that would be a little too embarrassing for Mercy. Now is that true? Would it be too embarrassing to Mercy? She didn't know. It was just kind of one of the things that Malice thought at that time. So that was my understanding of it. Reaper Release Stream (Nov. 1, 2021)
What did he say? I’m not very familiar with wow
I wouldn’t say that. I think she might have been interested, but more than anything she is simply envious of his, and Yerin’s relationship. She doesn’t have anything like it, and the fact that Lindon, and Yerin are her only friends, she feels scared that she’ll be left behind.
Yes, to some degree. Think about it. Before Reaper, Lindon was pretty much the ONLY suitor Mercy could realistically have. Also, I'd say she isn't so out of the picture for Lindon as well, give that, in the possible futures Suriel shows him in Bloodline, some he marries Mercy.
Im pretty sure she has a crush on him at least. I’ve been thinking about writing a fan-fic about it but idk if there would be interest.
I’d be interested
I know it's not in genre, per se, but I would've really liked a plot line of Lindon being engaged to Akura Grace and he and Yerin being really close friends or the One That Got Away. If Lindon was like 20% more ambitious or if they'd grabbed him right post Ghostwater it would've been a believable and dramatic plot line, I think, and made Lindon ask what he'd sell away for power.
Honestly after reading bloodline I an curious on how (warning spoilers for bloodline below) What Mercy and Lindon's relationship would have been like and what events would have needed to proceed to have them become engaged together. Wonder what powers and abilities their kids could have, the Akura clan would be pretty op after their marriage as children spawned from high level sacred artists especially from ones as powerful like Lindon and mercy would lead to talented children. It could be a cool what-if to explore if Will was interested in exploring it. Anyone interested in writing a fanfic?