Reilly chuckled. "I'm not usually so steeped in Biblical lore. I've been reading religious texts a great deal since I arrived, looking for answers to - well, to many questions really."
He gave her description some thought. "Once I would've said creatures like that were bogies to frighten children, and the demons of the Bible too. But since arriving here, I've met so many beings...Catelyn, I came across someone here I think is a literal demon. If you meet a perfectly ordinary looking man with yellow eyes, I beg you do not engage with him. I think he wants to trap people into bargains for their souls, if he is what I believe him to be; I know that failing that he relishes human suffering, both watching and inflicting it. He did mine, certainly."
Catelyn stared at him. "Yellow eyes?" she asked. She had not seen anyone of that description, but then she did not usually haunt the castle when it was busy. "You believe he is a true demon?" Her only concept of a demon was of something like an Other, and the thought...well, she would have shivered, if she'd been capable of it. This castle...on the one hand, it gave people like them a chance for some kind of peace, but on the other, it let in both demons and people like Cersei Lannister.
"I had thought Hogwarts would be safe from such creatures," she said--having no idea just who or what Damien Thorn was, and so not knowing that worse than a demon was already here. "What did he say to you, that made you think so? If it is not private, that is."
"He's only just lately arrived. He calls himself Phil, a nice common mortal name. From the general hubbub at his Sorting I should guess I was not the only one to find him disturbing." He winced. "He said - without my having told him anything personal of myself - that he had seen Anna in Hell. That she blamed me for her to suicide."
Despite his chill, he chuckled at himself. "I owled a man claiming to be an angel, he'd put up posters about the Hogwarts Metaphysical Club. He wrote back that suicide is not an automatic ticket to Hell. I found it curiously reassuring, given that I don't even know this person."
Catelyn gave his hand a light squeeze. "He knew," she said quietly, and shook her head. "The things he could see in some of us, if he chose...I wonder that the school allows such creatures."
Now that was interesting...she knew well Camilla was no angel, but she had not suspected there were truly any at Hogwarts. "He claims he is an angel? I know next to nothing of this world's religions, but I would think such a thing as an angel might counter a demon." One would hope, anyway. "And...well, it is not outside the realm of possibility that your sister herself might come here." She was not without hope that Robb would be here someday--Robb who was dead, and Bran and Rickon, who hopefully yet lived. It was the blessing and the curse of this place, really, that it could call anyone it chose.
"So do I. But the school seems to have no rhyme or reason to who or what it Sorts."
He nodded. "I think of that often. Not always in the kindest terms to myself. If I of all people was granted a second chance, then why not Anna? Or Boris, or Marie? There seem so many more deserving of this."
"I do hope that it balances--that for every demon, every evil who comes here, something good will follow. There has to be a balance, or anarchy will follow." There always had to be balance--Lord Beric knew that, when he resurrected her; knew that he would have to die in her place. "Perhaps those who truly deserve it will come here to keep the equillibrium."
"Balance. That was the hardest thing for me to learn, early in my career," he said with a sigh. "At Port Arthur I thought I could prevent the outbreak of war altogether. I found out the hard way that whatever force it is that drives wars won't be diverted from its course by any one person - too many pressures in too many places ready to explode. It was hard to accept that the best I could hope to do was help make sure our side kept up or bettered the balance of power."
He shrugged. "But then, I was very young then. Doesn't everyone think they can change the world at that age?"
That gave Catelyn pause. She'd never thought about it that way before--she'd always assumed the war could have been diverted if Joffrey hadn't ordered Ned executed, but perhaps it would have happened anyway. If it hadn't been Ned, it would have been someone else--Joffrey would only have killed some other poor noble fool, sooner or later.
"Sometimes they can," she said, still thinking of Joffrey, and then of Robb. "And not always in good ways. Those with noble purpose rarely come to good ends, I've found."
Reilly chuckled. "No indeed. I have Lenin and the thousands that died for his noble dreams to hold up as an example of that. You know, my coup plot went off the rails when a lone shooter tried to kill him before I had my people in place - but she didn't succeed. Lenin ended up with severe head injuries, and he tried to run his empire while confined to a sickbed. He ended up with a slow, agonizing crawl toward death, almost two years' worth of suffering. I'd say it was a fitting revenge, except that he still managed to carry on decimating the country."
"You spoke of her, I think," she said. "The woman whom no one would have expected to do such a thing? It is a strange thing, to think that sometimes people will feel driven to acts they might never otherwise have contemplated."
She thought about this Lenin, trying to rule a nation while crippled, bedridden--such a man would not be fit to wield power, not in Westeros. Westeros historically had a rather terminal policy toward rulers who could not, in fact, rule. The shattering of House Targaryen was evidence enough of that. "I would think, in circumstances such as that, it would have been much kinder to put him out of his misery."
"Or in her case not so strange at all perhaps, given how little power she had to begin with. Once the Bolsheviks stripped that away, what but madness was left for her?"
He tipped his head back and closed his eyes. "As for Lenin, yes, probably it would have been kinder to him. But it was a sudden, shocking jolt for the Party; they thought they were dealing in purest theory, and suddenly it was brought home to them with a bullet that they were really in a cult of personality. They had no prince in waiting, no able lieutenants, no mechanism for installing a new leader at all. The best they could do was lavish medical care on him and hope he held on until they could find someone."
How little power...Catelyn knew all about that one. She'd never wielded power herself; what influence she had in life had always been over either her husband or her son. Not until she died had she gained anything like authority, and all she'd really used it for was to hunt down anyone and everyone connected with the Lannisters.
She looked at him--was he growing tired? She no longer remembered what it was to need sleep, so she couldn't really tell.
"Did they?" she asked. "Find someone to replace him?"
"They did, but nobody very good. Stalin. A pure thug. As far as he was concerned Lenin had done the intellectual heavy lifting, and his was simply to ham-handedly enforce the policies. If we all thought life under Lenin's rule was oppressive and painful..."
"Replacing a tyrant with a worse tyrant." She sighed. "Such is the way of every world, it seems. I had hoped it was confined only to Westeros." Robert Baratheon had not been a tyrant, but he had been a fool, and his son--if one could call Joffrey 'his'--had been a monster. "And what happened to Stalin, in the end?"
"To him? Not much, I gather. Stayed in power until he died, in the 1950s I believe. To the country, a great deal. He used main force to drag Russia from a country of peasant farmers to an industrial power, which in my opinion it simply is not made to be. His paranoid nature got even more paranoid once he got absolute power, so there were even more purges, exiles, star chamber convictions...Happens, when you see enemies lurking around every corner, I suppose."
Catelyn was not certain what an 'industrial power' was, but purges and exiles she could understand quite well. "Sometimes," she said, "there truly is no justice. The wages of sin may be death, but so is the salary of virtue. So many die who deserve to live, and some who deserve worse than death live long and cause untold damage. The Septons always said that the Seven had a plan, and I have wondered more than once if that plan was not to destroy us all in the end." Mad King Aerys had certainly been paranoid; he'd killed Ned's brother and father, all because his son Rhaegar saw fit to abduct Ned's sister. Though he, at least, had met the end he deserved.
He gave her description some thought. "Once I would've said creatures like that were bogies to frighten children, and the demons of the Bible too. But since arriving here, I've met so many beings...Catelyn, I came across someone here I think is a literal demon. If you meet a perfectly ordinary looking man with yellow eyes, I beg you do not engage with him. I think he wants to trap people into bargains for their souls, if he is what I believe him to be; I know that failing that he relishes human suffering, both watching and inflicting it. He did mine, certainly."
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"I had thought Hogwarts would be safe from such creatures," she said--having no idea just who or what Damien Thorn was, and so not knowing that worse than a demon was already here. "What did he say to you, that made you think so? If it is not private, that is."
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Despite his chill, he chuckled at himself. "I owled a man claiming to be an angel, he'd put up posters about the Hogwarts Metaphysical Club. He wrote back that suicide is not an automatic ticket to Hell. I found it curiously reassuring, given that I don't even know this person."
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Catelyn gave his hand a light squeeze. "He knew," she said quietly, and shook her head. "The things he could see in some of us, if he chose...I wonder that the school allows such creatures."
Now that was interesting...she knew well Camilla was no angel, but she had not suspected there were truly any at Hogwarts. "He claims he is an angel? I know next to nothing of this world's religions, but I would think such a thing as an angel might counter a demon." One would hope, anyway. "And...well, it is not outside the realm of possibility that your sister herself might come here." She was not without hope that Robb would be here someday--Robb who was dead, and Bran and Rickon, who hopefully yet lived. It was the blessing and the curse of this place, really, that it could call anyone it chose.
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He nodded. "I think of that often. Not always in the kindest terms to myself. If I of all people was granted a second chance, then why not Anna? Or Boris, or Marie? There seem so many more deserving of this."
((Night!))
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He shrugged. "But then, I was very young then. Doesn't everyone think they can change the world at that age?"
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"Sometimes they can," she said, still thinking of Joffrey, and then of Robb. "And not always in good ways. Those with noble purpose rarely come to good ends, I've found."
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She thought about this Lenin, trying to rule a nation while crippled, bedridden--such a man would not be fit to wield power, not in Westeros. Westeros historically had a rather terminal policy toward rulers who could not, in fact, rule. The shattering of House Targaryen was evidence enough of that. "I would think, in circumstances such as that, it would have been much kinder to put him out of his misery."
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He tipped his head back and closed his eyes. "As for Lenin, yes, probably it would have been kinder to him. But it was a sudden, shocking jolt for the Party; they thought they were dealing in purest theory, and suddenly it was brought home to them with a bullet that they were really in a cult of personality. They had no prince in waiting, no able lieutenants, no mechanism for installing a new leader at all. The best they could do was lavish medical care on him and hope he held on until they could find someone."
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She looked at him--was he growing tired? She no longer remembered what it was to need sleep, so she couldn't really tell.
"Did they?" she asked. "Find someone to replace him?"
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