What's the work?[]
Chronicles of Ancient Darkness is a book franchise written by British author Michelle Paver that takes place 6,000 years ago in Stone Age Europe. The series follows a boy named Torak in his quest to defeat an evil cult of mages known as the Soul Eaters with the help of a Raven Clan girl named Renn and his canine companion, Wolf.
Who is he?[]
Thiazzi is the Oak Mage and a member of the Soul Eaters. He is the most violent and sadistic of all the Soul Eaters. He serves as one of the two main antagonists (alongside Seshru) of Soul Eater and the main antagonist of Oath Breaker.
What has he done?[]
Backstory[]
Thiazzi was born to the Oak Clan and became the clan's mage. Overtime, he gained strength and joined the Healers. However, the Healers became corrupted and became known as Soul Eaters. One of them, the Wolf Mage, denounces their actions and abandons them. He then smashes the Fire Opal into three pieces and it starts a Great Fire. All the Soul Eaters fled and went into hiding over the years.
Soul Eater[]
Fourteen years after the Great Fire, Thiazzi and the other Soul Eaters come across the Eye of the Viper and locate the Door, an area where the mortal world and the Otherworld are thinnest. In order to protect the charm from the demons, they require nine predators as sacrifices. Thiazzi travels to the Forest with Seshru and Nef and captured Wolf. While capturing Wolf, Thiazzi steps on his tail so hard that the tip becomes necrotic.
When Torak and Renn track the Soul Eaters down to the Eye of the Viper, Torak poses as a boy from the White Fox Clan. Torak starts hating Thiazzi immediately when he sees the Oak Mage torturing a half-grown owl, which is later sacrificed by Torak under Nef's orders. When Renn sneaks inside the maze of caves, Thiazzi seals the entrance with a boulder, forcing Renn to find another way out.
After the Soul Eaters locate the Door, Torak and Renn free Wolf and they amputate his necrotic tail tip. Meanwhile, Thiazzi slaughters a polar bear and wears his pelt, while warding off its vengeful souls. After Nef realizes that Torak has released all the predators and raises the alarm, a fight ensues. Wolf knocks Thiazzi down and bites off two fingers from his left hand. Renn steals the Fire Opal and flees with Torak and Wolf, though not before Seshru manages to briefly open the Door and release a flock of demons.
The three Soul Eaters and Eostra's eagle owl give pursuit in order to reclaim the Fire Opal. They catch Torak after he has been separated from Wolf and Renn. The furious Thiazzi threatens to beat up Torak to reveal the Fire Opal's location, but his two companions warn him not to kill him yet. When the Soul Eaters recognize Torak as the son of the former Wolf Mage, they force Torak to lead them to Renn who has the Fire Opal, though not before Seshru forcefully tattoos the Soul Eaters' symbol on the boy's chest, while Thiazzi holds him down.
By the time Renn is found, she plans to jump in a chasm with the Fire Opal in order to destroy its power before the Soul Eaters threaten her with arrows. When Torak spirit walks in a polar bear, he breaks Thiazzi's arm and has him at his mercy. Before Torak can kill the helpless Thiazzi, Wolf wordlessly convinces him not to truly become one of the Soul Eaters. Nef takes the Fire Opal from Renn and sacrifices herself to repay her debt to Torak's father. The demons follow her down the chasm and end up being trapped under ice while the Fire Opal's power becomes undone. Thiazzi and Seshru flee the scene.
Oath Breaker[]
At the Seal Islands, Thiazzi finds the last piece of the Fire Opal. He goes to the Crag and shifts the altar, finding the Opal hidden underneath. He is caught in the act by a Seal Clan boy named Bale, Torak's friend. Thiazzi overpowers Bale and throws him over the edge. As Bale hangs for his life, Thiazzi stomps on his fingers, and the young man falls to his death. The Oak Mage then sets out for the Forest, and Torak swears to avenge Bale by killing Thiazzi.
After crossing the Sea, Thiazzi travels in his dugout along the Blackwater river, heading east toward the Deep Forest. Torak, Renn, Wolf and Fin-Kedinn follow him. Knowing he is being pursued, Thiazzi sets a taut and nearly invisible sinew to cross the river. The pursuers come close to getting their heads cut off by the sinew as they paddle along the river. However, Fin-Keddin gets injured, forcing him to retreat to the Raven Clan.
The Deep Forest clans are on the verge of war and Thiazzi has murdered the mages of the Forest Horse and Auroch clans and manipulated them into believing that the other has killed their mage in order to incite a war between the clans. He also reintroduces the banned punishment of cutting off hands. Thiazzi then steals several children from the clans with the intention to turn them into tokoroths and the Auroch Clan dismembers the hands of a Salmon Clan man named Gaup as they accuse him for the act. He also takes advantage of a pyromaniac woman of the pacifistic Red Deer Clan who calls herself the Chosen One to spy on Torak and Renn.
In his disguise of the Forest Horse Mage, Thiazzi forbids anyone from going to the sacred grove and takes it as his place of fasting. In the privacy of the secluded grove, he kills predators with fire and places the corpses to hang from the the branches of the Great Oak. Torak tracks Thiazzi down to the grove and challenges him. However, the Oak Mage vanishes when Wolf causes a bison stampede.
After the Chosen One sets loose a devastating forest fire, Torak is captured by the Forest Horse Clan, while Renn is captured by the Auroch Clan. The Deep Forest clans gather near the sacred grove in an uneasy ceasefire. In his disguise of the Forest Horse Mage, Thiazzi presents the speaking staff of the Auroch Clan. He lies to the surprised Auroch Clan that he has spoken with their mage who has given him the staff in token of trust. He then returns the staff to the Aurochs to honor that trust. Much to everyone's surprise, the Forest Horse Mage then claims that both he and the Auroch Mage have received the same vision. He declares that the Deep Forest clans must no longer war with each other, but unite against a greater enemy. He blames the clans outside the Deep Forest of all the misfortunes, taking the previous actions of the Soul Eaters and pinning the blame on the outsiders. This preaching convinces the previously hostile Deep Forest clans to embrace each other.
Thiazzi then has Torak brought forth and unjustly blamed for the Soul Eaters' actions and trying to hide his evil nature. Thiazzi declares that Torak must be executed, but a sensible Auroch man says that the Auroch Mage must first agree to this decision if the truce is to stand. This comment brings some sense back to the Auroch Clan. Knowing that he must agree to this demand for the sake of his goals, Thiazzi says that he shall appear with the Auroch Mage the next day and should they both agree, Torak will die.
During the following night, Torak escapes with Renn's help, but he abandons her to hunt down Thiazzi. She is recaptured, but she convinces the Deep Forest clans to let her have an audience with the Auroch Mage. She is taken to the Auroch Mage's secluded shelter where Thiazzi is impersonating their mage. After they are left alone, Thiazzi pretends to be reasonable and listens to Renn for a while. Renn tries to warn him about Eostra, but Thiazzi destroys her bow and captures her to use her as leverage for Torak.
At the sacred grove, Thiazzi imprisons the tied up and gagged Renn inside the Great Yew, smoking the tree with the threat of suffocating her. Eventually, Torak arrives at the grove on the back of a forest horse. He throws away his weapons and breaks his oath to avenge Bale so that Thiazzi would let Renn go, but Thiazzi merely taunts him. The Oak Mage sets on fire the junipers surrounding the grove's entrance, sealing off the grove. During the fight, Thiazzi fools Torak into thinking that Renn is inside the Great Oak that stands next to the Great Yew. When Torak realizes he had been tricked, a battle ensues between him and Thazzi and Renn manages to escape the yew. Thiazzi chases Torak through the branches, eventually cornering him at the Great Oak's top. Renn throws for Torak a burning brand of wood. He hits Thiazzi with it, but the Oak Mage is protected from the fire by the Fire Opal. Eventually, Eostra's eagle owl snatches the Fire Opal from Thazzi's possession, causing him to catch on fire and fall to his death.
The Deep Forest clans learn of Thiazzi's manipulations and they make peace with each other. However, one of the captured children turns into a tokoroth and flees to the High Mountains, where Eostra is waiting.
Heinous standard[]
Thiazzi's crimes stand out from the other characters in the series, even the other Soul Eaters, as he takes great sadistic pleasure in torturing and killing other living beings, including defenseless children and animals alike, such as mutilating and burning them alive. He can hurt both physically and psychologically, like when he snaps in two Renn's beloved bow before her eyes. He also provokes Torak to rage by taunting him about the deaths of his parents and Bale. Unlike the other Soul Eaters, he does not take any interest in obtaining Torak's spirit walking powers, because he felt like he didn't have to, as he had the Fire Opal in his possession. While he does claim that being sacrificed by fire is the noblest death a hunter can receive, he only uses it for power and clearly takes great pleasure in incinerating the Forest in order to rule it, while also reintroducing banned customs, such as cutting off others' hands. He also takes advantage of the pyromaniac Chosen One to help him in his goals for world domination by having her set a huge forest fire and frame Torak for it. While Eostra is the most feared and powerful Soul Eater, she does not harbor any emotions other than hunger for power, while Thiazzi clearly exhibits more emotions, as he is the most violent and sadistic of the Soul Eaters. According to Michelle Paver, Thiazzi lets his hair grow long because he believes that it holds part of his strength.
Freudian excuse[]
The author very well establishes that the Soul Eaters believe to be right with their actions. However, aside from Nef, the Soul Eaters were not well-intentioned extremists and Thiazzi was just a selfish and delusional psychopath who murdered others just for the fun of it. His self-righteousness is more akin to other villains like Judge Claude Frollo and Tzekel-Kan, rather than an extremist acting with good intentions.
Verdict[]
No merit for this monster.