Thinking about Davenport again
goddamnit listening to stolen century again
"Haven't we earned a little wrath?"
Like fuck man your just gonna drop that line and act like I'm Not gonna analyze this man?
Okay so what we know about him
- He was extremely professional at first. Not cold I suspect, but very intent upon garnering and deserving the respect of the crew to the point that they hardly knew him until merle ended up getting to know him in cycle 1
- We know he felt uncomfortable trying to save people from planets by bringing them on the ship because he needed to insure the crew's safety and simalarly was willing to leave behind the plane they spent most of canon on in order to keep the crew safe
- We know that from Lucretias perspective he appeared to be only about his work and... well I'll get back to this one in a second
- There is a deep well of anger bubbling just below the surface
- He helped develop the bond engine in under a year, mastered illusory magics in under a year, and then went on to become a Level fucking 17 artificer with the ability to Weild Time
- His biggest regret is not making Lucretia feel heard
- He loves a good party. And this is the point that gets me. This is the point that makes him very interesting
Because with much of this you can paint a clear picture of a stern gnome with a heart of gold who care for his crew like family.
But that is only what he is under frankly inconceivable levels of pressure. Because as soon as the pressure is off
- he's leading crews into dangerous adventures,
- he's cracking jokes to his enemy's face while surrounded by her crew,
- Then proceeds to throw a party there and This Is Routine
- he's a fan of professional wrestling
- and he loves music so much that he made his armour out of steel drums when literally any other material would have been easier to work with.
So now is when I get back to the point of him only having his name left.
I dont think Lucretia knew him very well.
I think that those semi-professional boundaries either never fully left for them or if they did, they shifted with time to a dynamic where Lucretia never fully understood Davenport (perhaps almost parent-child in nature)
Because it's not that there was nothing but his work, I think it's that she didn't know enough about the story she was rewriting and she cut away swathes of material that she simply didnt know existed
Davenport was a very accomplished gnome, it's impossible that he had done Nothing in his whole life until the light of creation dropped and kicked his space fascination into high gear. And besides that he had to have had a childhood, parents, family.
I think Lucretia messed up and took more than she needed to and left Davenport trapped in his own head for a decade and I dont think that was her intention but it sucks
He's just a very interesting dude and I love thinking about him
