Remi
He has no stated title. The frontmatter of this entry used to give him "mercy" in the position the archive uses for a Virtue or a Sin. Ch. 17 does not award one. See ../lore/the-fourteen.md.
Twenty-six, unremarkable, undefeated in eight years, and hated for it by everyone he beats gently.
He is also the only one of the Fourteen the saga never finishes with.
Who he is
Average height, unremarkable build, the kind of person you would overlook in a crowd. Only two things stand out: hands calloused from years of training, and "eyes, which held the particular sadness of someone who'd won too many fights he never wanted to start" (ch. 17).
What his opponents want
To be hurt. That is the whole conflict of the chapter.
KLN: Then hurt me! Just once, show me what it feels like to lose to someone who's actually trying! RMI: No.
Fighting him is "like fighting water". When Marcus overextends, Remi has a throw that could break ribs and instead guides him to the ground. The match ends with a hand pressed lightly to Marcus's throat, "a killing position, delivered with the gentleness of a saint".
MRC: I don't want your pity! I want your respect! RMI: I'm not holding back. I'm just not breaking you.
They all come back. They are addicted to the possibility of finally forcing him to show them real violence.
Why he does it
Not talent. He is explicit that he has none.
"I discovered I was mediocre. Completely, thoroughly average. Good enough to win most fights, not good enough to be great. Not fast enough to be legendary, not strong enough to be famous. Just, competent."
The students think he is hiding a secret technique. He says there is none: "I win because I've accepted what I am. Average skill, applied with infinite care."
And the mercy follows from the mediocrity rather than from strength:
"When you know you're not special, when you know you're not blessed with exceptional talent, you learn to value what you do have. Restraint. Precision. The ability to end conflicts without creating new ones."
The arithmetic of it
He has worked it out and can state it:
"I could break Kellan's arm tomorrow. Snap it like a dry branch. And for about ten seconds, he'd respect my power. Then he'd hate me for the rest of his life. [...] Instead, he keeps coming back. Keeps training. Keeps improving."
"They think I'm denying them something by refusing to hurt them. But I'm giving them something more valuable than victory. I'm giving them the chance to keep trying."
What he gets out of it
Blook asks and does not accept the first answer.
RMI: I get to be useful. Not great, not legendary [...] But useful. A place where people can test themselves safely. BLK: That's not enough. RMI: It's exactly enough. Because enough is what I am.
And the thesis of the chapter:
"Mercy is strength in disguise. The hardest thing in the world is having the power to destroy someone and choosing not to. Every day. Every match. Every moment when they're vulnerable and you could end their hope forever."
Placement
He is the twelfth soul, and he is put directly before Louch Ashford, who is the best at everything and destroyed by it. Remi is the worst case of the same argument run the other way: a man with no gift at all who is the only person in the volume at peace.
The narrator's bracket for the chapter is the friendliest in Act 1: "Mind showing me some moves?"
He is not mortal
Ch. 20 gives him three lines and they undo the chapter above.
GBR: I'm surprised you'd stay by a mortals' side on their deathbed. BLK: He's no mortal, Gabriel. GBR: I know that, after all, you did choose him.
Remi heard his name called from somewhere much closer than the distant stars. Closer than breath. Closer than the space between one moment and the next.
[ It's time to go home, Remi. ]
Two things here are true of nobody else among the Fourteen. Blook chose him, where the other thirteen were hunted from sketches. And he is not mortal, in a chapter that has just spent seventeen chapters establishing him as the most ordinary person in the volume.
The chapter that introduced him is called "Perfectly Mediocre". Nothing in it hints at any of this.
He is still speaking in Acts 2 and 3
He is in the heavens with the third narrator, thirty chapters after his death, and he is the one correcting it.
Ch. 53 is told in that voice, and Remi answers it in italics throughout. What he says is the saga's clearest statement of what its largest beings are: Gabriel purity, Lucifer malevolence, Vazroth despair, Akumu fear, and Icarus not incarnate at all but "the first and only apostle of Freedom". See ../lore/the-incarnate.md.
The ch. 48 bracket, "I'm so excited for my date with Remi!", is the same speaker looking forward to his company. See ../lore/the-narrator.md.
His dojo outlives him by centuries
Ch. 131. Ivy finds it in a forgotten quarter, abandoned for generations, and finds it wrong in a way she cannot explain: "training floor impossibly clean, ancient weapons still sound, scrolls preserved despite time that should have destroyed them."
The sign says Remi's Dojo. Defense Through Understanding. The legend attached to it is exactly what ch. 17 showed: "a fighter who'd refused to kill, who'd taught that true strength lay in protection."
She takes it, and keeps his name on it:
Remi's Legacy - Poison Flower Dojo Defense Through Understanding, Survival Through Skill
See ivy.md.
The dating in that chapter is folklore, not fact. "The stories placed him anywhere from fifty to two hundred years ago", which is wrong by a wide margin in a saga where Act 1 sits centuries before Act 7. It is recorded as what people in Ivy's city believe, not as a date. See ../lore/the-timeline.md.
Open questions
- His title. Blook names no Virtue aloud, though the chapter is entirely about mercy.
- What he is. Ch. 20 says only that he is not mortal. The ch. 53 list he recites places everybody else and leaves himself off it.
- What Blook choosing him means, and when it happened. Ch. 17 shows a first meeting with no sign of one.
- Why the dojo is preserved. Ch. 131 notices it and does not explain it.