Just found this post about virtues and excess and deficiencies and went like "THAT'S THE MYSTIC KNIGHTS THING, THAT'S THE SHOW"

Like it went right to my head in seconds

 

Courage is the first thing on that list, and it immediately taps into what I was saying about Rohan being tested for courage, being the 'brave one', but uhhhh... kinda being bad at bravery...? But it makes so much more sense to see both ends of the scale this way: rashness (literally what Deirdre calls him out for) and cowardice (which is constantly getting to him even when there isn't a curse. He runs from so much - "i want to know my destiny! Nooo why am i Draganta" "i want to know my family! Nooo my mom's mean" "i want to be a knight! Nooo i'm letting everyone down, time to run awaaay"). It's like Fin Varra was testing him to see if he was even capable of threading the needle, not necessarily capable of staying at that sweet spot.

Loyalty's in the longer list I found. I love that the excess is 'conformity', because some of the few times we've seen Ivar be wrong is because he encourages everybody to respect traditions. We don't see 'disloyalty' too often from him, but that is his major character flaw: he's always picking the short-term plans to get the chalice over the slow-and-steady plans. Tbf, the one time he did break completely off to do his own thing, he got the chalice in one try. But it's not like the show let that go unpunished, so yeah, it still falls onto this spectrum of nuance. :3

Humlity for Garrett is pretty obvious. The thing we don't see is the deficiency of it: he wasn't on the show long enough to have an arc about spineless and meek. I'd like to think it'd be when someone 'better' than Garrett comes along - like his dad or a sibling or something. It would've been great to see him go from bragging to instantly shutting up, and I'd especially love to see how everyone bonds around getting Garrett to believe in himself no matter what his family thinks.

The last two were harder. 🤔

Angus had 'honesty', and while I'm happy to sub in "Truthfulness," I don't entirely agree with it...? The excess of that is (according to the list) being indiscreet and imprudent. Okay, fair for imprudence - he himself calls attention to how often he blurts out the wrong thing. They've all had their turns at cutting him off. Indiscreet, though... 🤔 It's not like these all need to apply - this an entirely random, separate list - but I'm not sure I saw indiscretion being too prominent in him. If anything, he was always too discreet. And that's why I agree with the deficiency in him more: it's "deceit" and "boastfulness" (he talks a lot of shit he knows he can't back up). "False modesty," though - ehhhhh... I didn't see him doing that a lot. Technically, he tried buttering Cathbad up to help him with getting his armour, but that falls under 'flattery' more than 'humblebrag'. We'll just cross that and 'discreet' off his list. 😌

Deirdre was definitely the hardest. Her noble trait was selflessness, and the closet I could find for that was 'Generosity'. But her arcs were never about being stingy or wasteful. What seems to match her better is 'Fair'. She absolutely overdoes it and pulls rank to be all self-righteous with her royalty. And she's judgy, and she can pick fights with the others real quick. 😝 On the other side of that is just 'unfair'. She does technically struggle with having the wisdom to make the right decision as a leader, and when she was ruling for a few days, she did make a lot of unfair calls. So I think this suits her, even there's a bit of massaging being done to these terms.

 

😋 I just like this. It gives me an easy set of anchors for everybody, and it especially gives a fast look at some parallel flaws we know they have (like perfectionism for Deirdre, short-temperedness for Angus, naivete for Rohan, stuffiness for Ivar, and derisiveness for Garrett). Easy prompts for head canons 🥳