Musings - My Theory about Maven
Yes, I know the book The Glass Sword comes out this year. Yes, it’ll likely invalidate my claim. I don’t know if I’m gonna read it. Maybe. I don’t know. So this contains spoilers for Red Queen, so if you don’t want to be spoiled, leave now.
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Okay. So, it turns out Maven was a double agent, working to get the Scarlet Guard into a position to kill them and the king. The queen Elara mind-controls Cal into killing his father, which is recorded on camera, and gets Mare and Cal arrested. There’s a gladiator battle, the two escape with the help of the Scarlet Guard that weren’t killed and it turns out Mare’s brother who was thought to have been executed for deserting is alive and is the Flash.
Great, and here’s my theory about Maven: Elara is actually mind-controlling him, just subtly. Having him just be the Evil Brother™ is super cliché and I hope Aveyard knows this. There’s a scene where Elara confronts Mare and Maven after a meeting with the Scarlet Guard and her and Maven start having a mental argument. Now, we don’t see the outcome of the argument, but it’s been establish that Maven is reckless and so, probably during the mental argument, Maven accidently lets it slip that he and Mare are helping the Scarlet Guard, Elara capitalizes on this and gives Maven subconscious mind-control until the time was right.
After everything went down, Maven suddenly starts acting like a Bond villain, taunting Mare and Cal before sending them to die in the arena. That’s Elara trying to break Cal’s will to fight, seeing how he just killed his dad and now his brother’s come to rub salt on the wound-Maven may have been resentful of Cal’s perfect skills (personally, I would’ve been annoyed and try to be more creative than him), but I don’t think he wants to kill Cal, that’s just Elara speaking through Maven. During the arena fight, Mare mentions Elara 'whispers something in his ear and he jolts, brought back to realtiy.' (Aveyard 375). What did Elara whisper to him and why would Maven have that reaction? Maybe Maven is fighting through the mind-control and Elara needs to reinforce it.
Now why would Elara want to control Maven? If she is so power-hungry, why not just secretly kill Maven, Cal and the king and take the throne for herself. After all, she had no problem killing Cal’s mom. Well, one, I like to think Elara genuinely loves her son but has no problem using him like a pawn, and two, I don’t think this system would allow the queen to just take over the kingdom. She could take the throne but there would likely be opposition from other Silvers, not to mention the fact that there were rumors about her killing Cal’s mom so it would be harder to find supporters if they think you murdered your own flesh and blood. No, I think Elara would use Maven as a puppet king, having a direct means of power rather than be shut down by the king and have no say in politics.
Could you say I’m reaching? Eh, I wouldn’t blame you. But I liked Maven and turning him into an Evil Brother™ just smacks of cliché.
3…
2…
1…
Okay. So, it turns out Maven was a double agent, working to get the Scarlet Guard into a position to kill them and the king. The queen Elara mind-controls Cal into killing his father, which is recorded on camera, and gets Mare and Cal arrested. There’s a gladiator battle, the two escape with the help of the Scarlet Guard that weren’t killed and it turns out Mare’s brother who was thought to have been executed for deserting is alive and is the Flash.
Great, and here’s my theory about Maven: Elara is actually mind-controlling him, just subtly. Having him just be the Evil Brother™ is super cliché and I hope Aveyard knows this. There’s a scene where Elara confronts Mare and Maven after a meeting with the Scarlet Guard and her and Maven start having a mental argument. Now, we don’t see the outcome of the argument, but it’s been establish that Maven is reckless and so, probably during the mental argument, Maven accidently lets it slip that he and Mare are helping the Scarlet Guard, Elara capitalizes on this and gives Maven subconscious mind-control until the time was right.
After everything went down, Maven suddenly starts acting like a Bond villain, taunting Mare and Cal before sending them to die in the arena. That’s Elara trying to break Cal’s will to fight, seeing how he just killed his dad and now his brother’s come to rub salt on the wound-Maven may have been resentful of Cal’s perfect skills (personally, I would’ve been annoyed and try to be more creative than him), but I don’t think he wants to kill Cal, that’s just Elara speaking through Maven. During the arena fight, Mare mentions Elara 'whispers something in his ear and he jolts, brought back to realtiy.' (Aveyard 375). What did Elara whisper to him and why would Maven have that reaction? Maybe Maven is fighting through the mind-control and Elara needs to reinforce it.
Now why would Elara want to control Maven? If she is so power-hungry, why not just secretly kill Maven, Cal and the king and take the throne for herself. After all, she had no problem killing Cal’s mom. Well, one, I like to think Elara genuinely loves her son but has no problem using him like a pawn, and two, I don’t think this system would allow the queen to just take over the kingdom. She could take the throne but there would likely be opposition from other Silvers, not to mention the fact that there were rumors about her killing Cal’s mom so it would be harder to find supporters if they think you murdered your own flesh and blood. No, I think Elara would use Maven as a puppet king, having a direct means of power rather than be shut down by the king and have no say in politics.
Could you say I’m reaching? Eh, I wouldn’t blame you. But I liked Maven and turning him into an Evil Brother™ just smacks of cliché.