Thread:LucidPigeons/@comment-2175012-20160323030814/@comment-26205772-20160426205535

I suppose I should elaborate a little on Draynak in order to properly go over potential mitigating qualities.

Draynak is the master of Lucia, a Dark Divinity, and a malicious god sealed in the City eons ago under enigmatic circumstances. Draynak's basically the definition of narcissism; it lives by assimilating stronger beings into itself as to ascend form. It's got an ego large enough to believe that the whole of reality should revolve around it, and seeks to assimilate enough into itself to become the strongest being in existence and remold reality to its will and destroy all resistance. From its seal, Draynak has Lucia engineer a variety of atrocities for the purpose of unsealing it, having her torture hundreds of young, Seer-blooded humans/half-humans on Earth, and having her draw IT through the City and Earth – again fully knowing it'll destroy each – so it can assimilate It into itself. Personally, before it's unsealed, Draynak is responsible for subliminally implanting knowledge of the City and the Remeditary in the Irish professor Hansel Brighterson, causing him to develop an obsession with it which culminates in Lucia trapping him in the City. At the crux of Lucia's plan, Crystal Hopper, tortured, mutilated, raped and impregnated with something that will make her compatible to become Draynak's host. One thing leads to another, and Draynak is freed from its seal by Lucia, infesting Crystal and killing her in the process.

Draynak doesn't waste any time in soaking in its own pride. It proudly boasts it's been responsible for everything that led up to this point, takes Faye's mad devotion to it with glee, and announces its intent to take over all reality. Ultimately, it doesn't get that far; Michael, Daniel, and Eliza pursue it to a sort of unbuilt corner of reality, which culminates in Draynak being enraged, a quick fight ensuing, and Daniel giving his life to force himself into Draynak's mind. Daniel forces Draynak to create a portal into the Nexus-flow, and the raw energies of space sunder through Draynak's weak form and destroy it.

Now, Draynak's heinous enough. Its goal to remake reality is based entirely off of its own selfish need for power and self-indulgence, and it's more than happy to oversee Lucia's atrocities and destroy everything that doesn't pledge themselves to it. The problem is... Draynak's affable. Really affable if it's not provoked. It seems to maintain a fairly cordial relationship with Lucia (even lightheartedly teasing her), outright rewards Faye for his devotion and promises him power after it is done ascending, and, by all accounts, it's sincerely grateful to even its unwilling pawns. Draynak affectionately refers to Hansel as his “little messenger” and seems more than ready to grant him whatever he wants, even despite the fact Hansel is nothing but horrified what he's been made out to do. Finally, Draynak orders all its pawns spared and their worlds to remain intact as a sort of thanks for their service, even though they've all defied it.

Sounds like an instant disqualifier, right? The problem with that, though, is that, during the final confrontation with Michael and Draynak, Michael wastes no time in analyzing Draynak's behavior. He realizes it ultimately considers nothing but itself ultimately irrelevant and states that Draynak likely only behaves the way it does to win more worship, and if those things should ever stop worshiping it, Draynak will destroy them without question. Michael believes that Draynak only extends this care to whatever is useful to it, so this may in fact be a rather thick form of pragmatic villainy and nothing else. To compound this point, after Michael delivers one two many blows to its ego, Draynak snaps and decides to destroy him, as well as Earth's universe, stating that “there is no place for rebels in my perfect universe.” There's not much onscreen evidence Draynak actually doesn't care about Lucia or Faye, but there's nothing explicitly invalidating Michael's theories. The story doesn't really lean one way or the other.

Any thoughts on that?