I am a Solomon Sallow apologist, and I’ll tell you why:
As someone who lives with chronic pain and an incurable disease, there comes a point when you want to stop hoping to ease the pain. 🎗️🎗️🎗️ (not terminal, thank goodness, but I’ve spoken to many friends who are dying in recovery sessions who all feel the same way. I am not the voice for everyone, but from my experience, this is a pretty common feeling upon those with chronic pain and illnesses.)
You’ve tried all you can, but you’re tired of being let down, and you’re physically exhausted. You come to terms with it being better to live your days with gratitude and content rather than spending the rest of it anxious and exhausting yourself trying to find a possible solution. When you die, what would your finals days look like?
Anne and Solomon had exhausted their efforts to try and find a cure, but nothing could be found easily. Anne was probably so scared, but there’s something inside you that changes over time when living with an illness, and I believe it’s a sort of wisdom. Wisdom about life, about time, and about priorities.
Anne loves her brother so much. She wants to be with him in her final days, her final hours, but he is so hell bent and obsessed with fixing her issue that he spends barely any time soaking in the moments they have left.
Where a lot of people see it as loving, it also comes from a place of selfishness. Sebastian cannot stand the fact that his sister is coming to terms with her fate, because he doesn’t want to believe it. He doesn’t know what he’ll do without her. He can’t live without her.
And as somebody who lives with a chronic illness, I’ve had a family member overstep boundaries in my health journey to the point of it being about their comfort level in the situation, not mine. And I realized that they based their happiness off of my physical state, and when I didn’t live up to their expectations, I felt a weight of guilt.
Anne doesn’t want her brother to go down the road he’s heading, because she doesn’t want him sacrificing his morals and integrity for a maybe…
But Sebastian won’t listen. He won’t listen to her, he won’t listen to Solomon, and Solomon is fed up.
Solomon is the one who really knows what Anne goes through in a day, how she feels, she probably even opens up to him. Solomon is already stressed and exhausted with caring for Anne, he has no time to deal with Sebastian and his naivety.
Once he starts bringing dark magic around Anne, Solomon knows it’s no use at this point to parent him. So he resorts to the last option which is setting boundaries and making a no contact rule with Sebastian.
Solomon, who lost his brother, is about to lose that brother’s daughter to an illness. He’s probably a wreck. There’s no evidence to suggest he doesn’t love his family, and with his dedication to taking in his niece and nephew after their parents untimely death shows me he cares to a degree.
I think I should write that, from how we see Solomon treat Sebastian in the game, I am not a fan. Solomon has very little grace towards his nephew, whose intentions are good. It is sad to see Sebastian, a boy who thinks he’s helping, get shot down at every turn. This begs the question, what was their relationship like prior to what we see onscreen?
From my inference, I believe Solomon has tried being nice and understanding pleanty before. Now he’s fed up.
Now, about the death:
Solomon is an auror. He is 100% against the dark arts, no matter what. Just because I could find a cure for something, that begs the question, is it morally right? Going down the path of the dark arts to find a cure to an illness does not justify the act itself.
Let’s put this into realistic terms. Say I was able to find the cure for my disease, but the way I found the cure was to kill 50 people, pour a bunch of oil into the ocean, and burn down a mosque. The ends do not justify the means. (I know it’s a bit of an exaggeration, but I think you get the point lol)
Sebastian snapped and committed an act that he can never take back. And in finding a cure for his sister, he took away her last person for stability. Her uncle, a man who was trying to make the rest of her life as simple and painless as it could.
Now, for my little defenses for Sebastian. Sebastian doesn’t understand everything 100%. He thinks finding a cure is what Anne wants. He thinks what he’s doing is helping, because finding a cure is the ultimate goal! What he doesn’t understand is what it’s like to live in constant pain and exhaustion. To want nothing more than simplicity and stability while you are sick and dying.
Sebastian needs to grow up. I still love him, but I have to say, as somebody who has lived in Anne’s shoes for almost a decade, I am team Solomon.
PSA: Just my thoughts though, don’t take this to heart. I’m not an argumentative person, so if you do support Sebastian in this situation, that’s totally fine! I understand there is more than one point of view. The situation in itself is not black and white either. Each character shows positives and negatives to the situation, which is very refreshing because it’s realistic. All opinions are valid. This is just mine and I thought I’d share it😊
PPSA: Can’t believe the devs of this game had me writing a thesis on a moral quandary. Damn…
