We’ve seen Alastor work to manipulate the actions of others through hitting their vulnerabilities before, but his conversation with Vox here really showcases it tenfold.
Alastor knows Vox extremely well — knows him well enough that his ego isn’t just ego but a wound, that he’ll never truly fill his cup without recognition, especially from Alastor. He breaks him down by framing every victory Vox has as borrowed, derivative, or dependent on someone else, pointing out that Vox needed allies, spies, Carmilla’s technology, and will need Charlie’s public validation before he can feel like he’s truly won. Alastor plays this card because Vox’s whole identity is built around being modern, dominant, untouchable, and better than Alastor, so when Alastor suggests that none of it counts, Vox can’t resist chasing that validation, chasing something bigger & brighter.
Alastor’s “Oh, he is too easy” is such a brutal character beat because it shows Alastor was never improvising from weakness or desperation even while kidnapped. He knew exactly which nerve to press. Vox’s fixation on Alastor is still intimate enough, despite the hatred threaded through, that he listens to him, reacts to him, measures himself against him, and lets Alastor define the terms of his victory, because he is still caught in the same loop, desperate to prove himself to the one person whose opinion can still make him lose control.
Why do some people get weirdly defensive whenever someone talks about transfem Jax, a simple… “I don’t agree.” Would be fine, but they always go on some fuckass rants. “Jax is a man, not trans. You can’t force me to believe it!” No one was forcing you??
#tadc