2025-03-12 1:38:58 ¶ ●

There are certain ways in which I see Leitner as a more extreme version of Gertrude, and this is a great example of what exactly I mean by that. After all, both Gertrude and Leitner lost their assistants. However, the context around their assistants deaths are a lot different.

Gertrude didn’t kill Eric, Fiona, or Sarah. You could argue that she should have been more of aware of the part Emma played in Fiona’s death, but we’ve also been shown by Jon why being super paranoid over your assistants actions usually causes more harm than good, and it’s not exactly shocking that Gertrude wasn’t overly suspicious about deaths that occurred in her extremely dangerous line of work.

You could argue that Leitner didn’t directly kill his assistants either, but I would say the context is very different since it was his pride that lead them to their deaths. He knew his books were dangerous, and despite that, he was willing to sacrifice more people he than he can remember because….why? He wanted to learn secrets and make a name for himself? That was worth dozens of lives and getting people marked by things they would never be able to fully comprehend? That doesn’t sound worth it to me.

But Gertrude isn’t exactly innocent in regards to her assistants either. Gertrude did kill Emma and Michael, but her motivations for that go a lot deeper than secrets or ego. Emma was psychologically torturing people and then leading them to their deaths, people that Gertrude cared for enough to avenge. She did kill Emma Harvey, but that was more about betrayal than anything else. Then we get to Michael. His death is easily one of the worst things Gertrude did in the series, but from her point of view, she genuinely thought she was saving the world. She was wrong. But her intentions were good. It’s not like she sent Michael through the door to “establish a name for herself” or whatever Leitner was doing.

I think Gertrude and Leitner are interesting character to parallel because it’s easy to think of Gertrude as this harsh women who’s willing to do anything for her investigation into the supernatural…but no, Leitner is willing to do anything for his investigation into the supernatural, and that’s not a good thing.