Hackposting 30.5.

[yvannairie]

(Crossposted from Tumblr)

The more I joke about Ovan being Aura's favourite the more seriously I start taking my own position on it, partially because I feel like in any other cyberspace story the overlord AI punishing his planeswalker hackerman activities would be part of the premise, but in the story we get, it's actually almost the exact reverse of that.

Ovan is not just not punished for his initial curiosity, he's already been rewarded for it when the story starts. His possession of the Epitaph, while entirely symbolic, marks him as having a scholarly mastery over The World, having discovered the secrets of the world and then being rewarded for that knowledge with the revelation of the final secret, inaccessible through means other than the favour of its keeper. Ovan has completed exactly the kind of hero's journey you'd expect from the character he's playing as the guildmaster of the Twilight Brigade. In Fidchell's prophecy in vol3 he is practically identified as a "master of both worlds" figure, a cipher for both AIDA and The World, already in possession of the keys to both.

Also, Ovan's possession of the Epitaph -- the final secret -- does implicitly mean Aura liked the story Ovan was telling to Aina about The World. If her first wish was simply to be born, to exist, then it would stand to reason that after being granted that, she would like to be acknowledged as being there, in existence, as a part of the world and The World alike. It's an acknowledgement that she liked being seen and found, that Ovan's interpretation of her made Aura feel understood.