More Anton thoughts
Mar. 4th, 2013 08:17 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bjornwildeI've finished Night Watch and definitely love it. I am still not quite sure about Anton's voice though. At first I thought he was very serious but then I realized that all the dialog if fairly serious. Is the serious thing a cultural thing or just the tone of the book? His motivations are interesting also but I think I have a few theories that may or may not be canon.
The book is broken up into three stories, or what we would call books, and each story is a different case. Also for those not familiar with the book or movie, Others are all supernatural beings who either serve the Light (i.e. selfless motivations) or the Dark (selfish motivations). They are policed by two agencies, the Night Watch (the Light's agency) and the Day Watch (the Dark's). The two agencies enforce a Treaty between the two forces to keep the peace, basically every "good" action must be counterbalanced by a "bad".
The first case seems to be about finding and saving a powerful Light sorceress, the second seems to be an entrapment of Anton as a serial killer of Dark Others and the third seems to be the head Light Sorcerer attempting to rewrite Fate. All this is true and yet not the whole truth.
In the first story, a sorceress is found as well as a boy who will become a great dark sorcerer.Anton is an Other who works in the Night Watch's IT who gets pushed into a field assignment by his mentor who happens to be Boris, the head of the Night Watch. He is assigned to track down a vampire that is suspected of feeding without a license which leads him to the boy I mentioned, who is the target of the vampires. While searching for the vampires, Anton comes across Svetta (the Light sorceress I mentioned) who is under a terrible curse, the kind of curse that causes city wide disasters; earthquakes, typhons, etc. He tries to knock out the curse, fails, but moves on to his true assignment, saving the boy from a vampire attack. Upon reporting all that happened to the boss, Anton is given a partner, an owl named Olga. Olga actually is an ancient light sorceress (in case you haven't run across her in Milliways) who trapped as an owl as punishment for some old crime. Ultimately the boy is saved, the sorceress' curse is broken and Olga is allowed to have human shape again as well as some degree of her powers.
Next case, Anton is back to working in IT but gets pulled into a case since he is the prime suspect in a series of Dark Other murders. Thinking he has nothing to lose, he kind of goes off the rails, displaying powers he has never used before. It's finally proven he is not the murderer and that the whole thing was a test for Svetta as she is being trained and needs to put the needs of the many against the needs of the few, in this case Anton. Oh forgot to mention, in the course of the first case, it is predicted that Anton and Svetta are fated to love each other. Svetta already acknowledges feelings for Anton but Anton does as well though reluctantly. On one hand he doesn't like being Fate's tool and on the other she is fated to outclass him in power so what's the point?
In the final case it turns out that Boris, the boss of the Night Watch, has been spending the entire time orchestrating all of these events so that Olga could return to her true power as he loves her and wants her to be his equal. There is of course more that occurs, the team of Others that Anton is on goes on a holiday but Anton can't seem to relax. He pushes Svetta away and ultimately keeps her from using the Chalk of Fate but that's okay as she had been a decoy and Olga had the other half and was doing something with it that was never revealed. Anton also used a hell of a lot of power in the third story, power he had never shown before.
Onto my theories:
Boris has many plans in action besides freeing Olga. I think he pushed Anton to expand his powers and reach his full potential.
Anton I think is more ironic than sardonic. He questions things and when backed into a corner, he did push back and did what he thought needed to happen, all while "playing by the rules" and despite working against the Boss. He also constantly says he is not a field agent or even field agent material yet does what is required without flinching.
He also spends a lot of time worrying about his love for Svetta. Most of this dialog is about her being greater in power than him but I think it really boils down to him not being sure if he can trust his feelings; are they are true or if it is just Fate.
I think I do need to read the book again now that I have read it once.
And for those who have read the book, I find I am left wondering what the remoralization spell Anton cast at himself did. Did it turn him Dark? Did it change his mind about Boris' actions?
I think the thing I love most about Anton is his use of music as a divination tool. In fact that is what his user name is, melo- (song) + mancer (divination).
The book is broken up into three stories, or what we would call books, and each story is a different case. Also for those not familiar with the book or movie, Others are all supernatural beings who either serve the Light (i.e. selfless motivations) or the Dark (selfish motivations). They are policed by two agencies, the Night Watch (the Light's agency) and the Day Watch (the Dark's). The two agencies enforce a Treaty between the two forces to keep the peace, basically every "good" action must be counterbalanced by a "bad".
The first case seems to be about finding and saving a powerful Light sorceress, the second seems to be an entrapment of Anton as a serial killer of Dark Others and the third seems to be the head Light Sorcerer attempting to rewrite Fate. All this is true and yet not the whole truth.
In the first story, a sorceress is found as well as a boy who will become a great dark sorcerer.Anton is an Other who works in the Night Watch's IT who gets pushed into a field assignment by his mentor who happens to be Boris, the head of the Night Watch. He is assigned to track down a vampire that is suspected of feeding without a license which leads him to the boy I mentioned, who is the target of the vampires. While searching for the vampires, Anton comes across Svetta (the Light sorceress I mentioned) who is under a terrible curse, the kind of curse that causes city wide disasters; earthquakes, typhons, etc. He tries to knock out the curse, fails, but moves on to his true assignment, saving the boy from a vampire attack. Upon reporting all that happened to the boss, Anton is given a partner, an owl named Olga. Olga actually is an ancient light sorceress (in case you haven't run across her in Milliways) who trapped as an owl as punishment for some old crime. Ultimately the boy is saved, the sorceress' curse is broken and Olga is allowed to have human shape again as well as some degree of her powers.
Next case, Anton is back to working in IT but gets pulled into a case since he is the prime suspect in a series of Dark Other murders. Thinking he has nothing to lose, he kind of goes off the rails, displaying powers he has never used before. It's finally proven he is not the murderer and that the whole thing was a test for Svetta as she is being trained and needs to put the needs of the many against the needs of the few, in this case Anton. Oh forgot to mention, in the course of the first case, it is predicted that Anton and Svetta are fated to love each other. Svetta already acknowledges feelings for Anton but Anton does as well though reluctantly. On one hand he doesn't like being Fate's tool and on the other she is fated to outclass him in power so what's the point?
In the final case it turns out that Boris, the boss of the Night Watch, has been spending the entire time orchestrating all of these events so that Olga could return to her true power as he loves her and wants her to be his equal. There is of course more that occurs, the team of Others that Anton is on goes on a holiday but Anton can't seem to relax. He pushes Svetta away and ultimately keeps her from using the Chalk of Fate but that's okay as she had been a decoy and Olga had the other half and was doing something with it that was never revealed. Anton also used a hell of a lot of power in the third story, power he had never shown before.
Onto my theories:
Boris has many plans in action besides freeing Olga. I think he pushed Anton to expand his powers and reach his full potential.
Anton I think is more ironic than sardonic. He questions things and when backed into a corner, he did push back and did what he thought needed to happen, all while "playing by the rules" and despite working against the Boss. He also constantly says he is not a field agent or even field agent material yet does what is required without flinching.
He also spends a lot of time worrying about his love for Svetta. Most of this dialog is about her being greater in power than him but I think it really boils down to him not being sure if he can trust his feelings; are they are true or if it is just Fate.
I think I do need to read the book again now that I have read it once.
And for those who have read the book, I find I am left wondering what the remoralization spell Anton cast at himself did. Did it turn him Dark? Did it change his mind about Boris' actions?
I think the thing I love most about Anton is his use of music as a divination tool. In fact that is what his user name is, melo- (song) + mancer (divination).
