Alastair In ChoG: *snaps At Thomas For Calling Him By His First Name, They Are Not School Boys Anymore*

I sometimes have a few issues with facial expressions, especially if there's no words being said. In that scene where Illya shocks Rudi for the first time he looks at Napoleon, but I can't tell if it's from Napoleon still having his hand on Rudi or from seeing how strong the electric was. Can you break down his expression for me, please?

I think it’s open to many interpretations, but I’ll try to break down his facial expressions as I see them.

First, I think I need to consider where Illya is at mentally. He’s just been “betrayed” by Gaby and his first priority is, not contacting his commanding officer and telling him the situation or trying to find the bomb, but finding Solo. Illya had been listening to the conversation between Gaby and her Uncle Rudi; he knows Uncle Rudi “needs to make a telephone call” and that’s likely to tell Victoria that Solo is CIA—Illya knows Solo is in trouble and needs to get to Solo before it’s too late (although from his perspective, it might already be too late, but he’s going to try to save Solo anyway—which I think says a lot. Perhaps he felt he owed Solo since Solo had been in a similar situation of not knowing if he was still alive after the boat incident but Solo went to save him from drowning anyway?)

Let’s assume that Solo is being held at the Vinciguerra shipping facility since that is most likely and the design of Rudi’s lab matches the design of that facility. This gives Illya some advantage because he’s already been there before and knows about the hidden button to get to the basement, however, the facility is heavily guarded.

Illya would have to find a way to sneak past, or probably fight off, all these guards to get to Solo. This is probably why, although Uncle Rudi and Illya were at the same location (Vinciguerra’s Manor) when Gaby exposed them, that Uncle Rudi got to Solo before Illya.  So Illya has done all this work to find Solo although he has no way of knowing if Solo is dead or alive. Fortunately, Solo is still alive. Now here’s where it’s a bit confusing for me, does Illya know that Solo was being tortured by electrocution? I don’t see how he cannot given that there are no other physical signs of torture. Solo is sweating, blood is streaming from his nose, and there are tears along his cheeks. Illya is also a skilled tech with proficiency in computer programming languages FACT and COBOL, so he would be able to recognize how the chair is wired up. Yet, after he’s strapped Rudi’s right hand, when he comes to the front of the chair, he looks curiously at the contraption with a foot pedal.

Although, perhaps he’s merely looking for the on switch? Either way, he’s startled when Rudi is electrocuted.

Interesting thing, though, is that he checks Solo’s reaction, not Rudi’s. Is this realization of how badly Solo was tortured? Or surprise that it is an electrocution device? (Which I don’t think makes sense, again because of his specialities… but he was also surprised to see an aircraft carrier… while flying over the ocean… which is also confusing but I guess you can argue that he didn’t expect the British Navy to get involved? I digress.)

Illya’s expression does change from surprise to this expression:

He’s looking more intensely at Solo. Perhaps this expression is deep concern over Solo’s welfare. This realization of what this chair does, if you want to call it realization, is unsettling to him. Perhaps he’s realizing how close Solo would have been to dying if he hadn’t gotten to him in time. Or perhaps he was worried he’d injured Solo again because he hadn’t been paying attention to the fact that Solo was still touching the chair. In this angle, Solo is still touching the chair when Illya presses the pedal:

I think you can make a lot of arguments on what Illya’s reaction means, but either way, he’s not happy. Once he knows what this chair will do to Rudi, he’s quite keen to torture Rudi with it for information. The second time he presses the pedal it’s in response to Uncle Rudi being willing to testify against anyone, even his own niece. The third time, he’s taking his anger for Gaby betraying him (“It’s not the same”) out on Rudi simply for the sake of doing it, but the pedal doesn’t work that time, but he keeps jamming his foot on the pedal anyway until Solo tells him it has a glitch. Illya is clearly disgusted by what Rudi subjected Solo to and angry at Gaby for endangering Solo as well. Which is probably why he fights against believing Gaby didn’t betray them and learning that Gaby is a British spy working for Waverly (“You’re wrong. […] You’re wrong. I saw her betray us at Vinciguerra.”) It takes Waverly telling him that he told Gaby to betray them for Illya to accept what had happened and forgive her. He realized she had no choice in the matter, that she had to obey Waverly, even if it meant possibly getting her teammates killed.

A difficult situation that Illya probably knows all too well.

In the end, he would have done exactly the same thing in her position.

presented without comment

Niall Horan

May 11 2024

can we all agree if we get a season 2 of my lady jane, Guildford and Jane enjoying wedded bliss with little to no conflict should be a must, they survived an execution and almost burning at the stake together, let’s not do the breakup-makeup thing please

The fact that "Lucie" was the first thing Jesse said when he came back to life 😍😍😍😍

Also, was anyone else suprised that he woke up and after seven years of death instantly was strong enough to lift and carry Lucie? Maybe it's an indicator of how much power Lucie used on him. Which, in turn, would explain her fainting (and could assure us that she's quite alright and just needs rest to fill up her energy levels again)

"Thomas was so quiet and small they were always losing him, rather like a human marble, and if left to his own devices he would inevitably roll toward Alastair Carstairs. [...] It was a simple matter to locate Thomas when he was lost. Matthew only had to follow the sound of Alastair's irritating voice."

- Cast Long Shadows

My HEART💔

So in Learn About Loss, Jem (Brother Zachariah) inquires after Annabel Blackthorn, believing her to be an Iron Sister. This must surely mean that Malcolm will not do anything too obviously necromantic in CoT, otherwise Jem surely would have heard.

TDA - TLH parallels:

Mark glared. "She [Cristina] is nothing like me."

"You don't have to be like someone to love them," said Emma.

- Lord of Shadows

"I am nothing like you, Thomas," said Alastair.

- Chain of Iron

Know what I want from Chain of Thorns?

After they’ve gotten Lucie back, her working on The Beautiful Cordelia some more and deciding to write in a love interest for Thomas since we already know she writes her friends in a lot and thinks everything needs x1000 romance

Give me Lucie asking him about girls they know and what he thinks of them and don’t you think she has the nicest hair and don’t you think she’s funny trying to fish for who she should use for inspiration and try to figure out what kind of characteristics Thomas likes in a girl

Give me Thomas answering those questions at first while he’s kind of confused but doesn’t yet realize what’s happening and then when she gets to about question three being like Lucie what are you doing and her explaining to him how Lord Thomas needs a love interest and she needs inspiration to help write a perfect girl for him and how it’s hard because he’s never really seemed all that interested in any girls in particular

Give me Thomas hesitating and considering what to do and lowkey thinking that it’s stupid to tell Lucie about his sexuality just to have an imaginary boyfriend instead of an imaginary girlfriend in her made up story but also not wanting to lie and make up a girl type or tell her the truth about his type and have her interpret it as that’s what he likes in girls and make some girl version of Alastair that’s all wrong and not wanting Lucie to start pointing out real girls to him that she thinks he would like

And part of him really does want his character to have a guy as a love interest if he has to have a love interest at all and he does want to tell Lucie even though it makes him nervous (but he already knows she has no problem with Anna and Matthew’s sexualities and writing them into the stories so that helps a bit)

Give me Thomas telling her that that’s because he hasn’t been interested in any girls and Lucie being like oh okay well then do you like boys? What kinds of boys do you like? Oh, maybe Lord Thomas will meet a prince! and Thomas being relieved that she’s acting the same as she was before she knew but also still overwhelmed and embarrassed by the volume of enthusiastic questions about his type and whether he would find this kind of character or that kind of character more interesting romantically

Also give me Lucie asking if he wants the Lord Thomas stories being private stories just for them with him just having a very mysterious love interest no one knows anything about in the main story she shares with everyone else and letting him decide if and when he’s fine with her sharing the stories that focus on his love interest while still including him in the stories and still giving him his own (somewhat) more accurate love interest