Thiazzi is a major antagonist in Michelle Paver's Chronicles of Ancient Darkness book series, serving as one of the two main antagonists (alongside Seshru) of Soul Eater and the main antagonist of Oath Breaker. He is the Oak Mage and a member of the Soul Eaters.
What makes him Pure Evil?[]
- Thiazzi is a brutal and sadistic sociopath who had no qualms of torturing and killing anyone, even including defenseless children and animals.
- He chose the path of evil once the Healers became malevolent and turned into Soul Eaters, minus Torak's father and the Walker.
- He conspired with the other Soul Eaters to release a flock of demons by opening the Door at the Eye of the Viper and sacrificing nine predators to protect them from the demons.
- When the Soul Eaters capture Wolf as a sacrifice, Thiazzi steps on his tail so hard that the tip becomes necrotic, while laughing maniacally.
- He tortures a snow owl before Nef forces a disguised Torak to sacrifice it.
- He sacrifices a polar bear and wears its pelt, while warding off its vengeful souls.
- When the Soul Eaters confront Torak after he and Renn freed the sacrifices and Seshru released the demons, Thiazzi threatened to beat him up in an attempt to interrogate him about the Fire Opal's whereabouts until his companions warn him not to kill him yet. When they recognize Torak as the son of the former Wolf Mage, Thiazzi holds Torak down and mocks him, while Seshru forcibly tattoos the Soul Eater symbol on his chest.
- When Thiazzi manages to find a Fire Opal piece at the Seal Islands, he is caught in the act by Bale. A fight ensues until Thiazzi overpowers Bale and has him dangling over a cliff. Thiazzi then stomps on Bale's fingers, causing him to fall to his death. When Torak finds his body, he vows to avenge him and slay Thiazzi.
- He sets up various deadly traps in an attempt to kill the protagonists as he is being followed. Eventually, Fin-Kedinn becomes injured and is forced to retreat to the Raven Clan. Torak, Renn and Wolf soon discover that Thiazzi had been causing tensions within the Deep Forest clans over the months.
- He murders the mages of both the Forest Horse and Auroch clans and blames the clans for the murders, while disguising himself as the slain mages to instigate a war between the clans of the Deep Forest. He also manipulates the clans into believing that his teachings of the Way are absolutely correct and that they have been performing them wrong to the point where they scar themselves for not following the Way.
- He manipulates a pyromaniac woman of the Red Deer Clan known as the Chosen One to spy on Torak and Renn.
- He kidnaps children from the clans to turn them into tokoroths and pins the blame on each clan for the abductions. The process of turning children into tokoroths is extremely horrible and it involves the child being put in isolation and being given just barely enough food and water to keep them alive. Once the child has become an empty husk of itself, the Soul Eater summons a demon and traps it inside the child's body and from now on the newly created tokoroth can only follow its master's orders.
- He introduces the outlawed punishment of dismembering hands. Gaup of the Salmon Clan falls victim to this practice as the Auroch Clan accuses him of stealing their children, while he was searching for his daughter.
- He kills many predators with fire at the sacred grove and hangs them up on the Great Oak.
- He deceptively blames the outside clans for the Soul Eaters' previous actions and convinces the Deep Forest clans to unite as allies and wage war against the Open Forest, so Thiazzi can conquer the whole Forest for himself.
- He blames a captured Torak for the Soul Eaters' actions and trying to conceal his evil nature before declaring that he must be killed. He only stops when an Auroch man states that the Auroch Mage must decide Torak's fate.
- When Renn tries to reason with Thiazzi, he snaps her bow in half and imprisons her inside the Great Yew to be used as leverage to lure Torak into his trap. He also tries to asphyxiate the bound and gagged Renn by smoking the tree.
- When Torak arrives at the sacred grove and breaks his oath to avenge Bale so Thiazzi could spare Renn, he proceeds to taunt Torak more and tricks Torak into thinking that Renn is trapped in the Great Oak.
- He declares that he is the Master of the Forest and that the fire is on his side as long as the Fire Opal is in his possession.
- Although Michelle Paver clearly establishes that the Soul Eaters, including Thiazzi, believed to be right with their actions, it is made clear that Thiazzi was not a well-intentioned extremist who wanted to improve the lives of the clans, but a power-hungry hypocrite who wanted to dominate others, with Paver even mentioning how Thiazzi lets his beard grow as it holds part of his strength.
- Although it is mentioned that Thiazzi's whole clan died at some point before the events of the story, there is absolutely no indication that Thiazzi cares about them or that his actions are motivated in any way by their deaths. Instead, he is portrayed as an opportunistic and sadistic sociopath who wants to dominate the whole Forest out of lust for power.
Trivia[]
Thiazzi is the only Chronicles of Ancient Darkness-villain to be Pure evil.