I don’t dwell enough on the fact that Elias is so very close to being my favorite kind of villain: the one who just wants to see how much he can get away with until even he’s almost sick of it and he just wants to see if anyone can stop him
He can’t stop getting away with shit, he can’t stop escalating, because then he’d never really know, would he? He’d never know if he really was good enough to win. Good enough to have everything he ever wanted and more. And no matter how much it costs him he absolutely cannot do less than the most at all times, because not knowing if he could is worse than the consequences of succeeding
I’m convinced this is why Jonah sounds so chill about dying when the fear of death has been his motivation all along: he’s more Beholding than he ever admitted to himself. He knows now. He knows exactly how powerful he could become, exactly how much shit he could get away with, and exactly what it would take to stop him.