I did not know any of these details and they make a lot of things that I said obsolete.
I treated Reinhardt as a human convict who's under constant supervision, not a literal bored demigod, as I have to admit I haven't read the story, so I was answering from the point of taking your first edit of the post for granted. but yeah, I take back almost everything I said, this is outside of my field of experience, so I'll leave this forum to the professionals. Hope you find you answers soon.
If you don't mind taking it from a nobody like me: I don't think your post was that far off. I mean, when it comes to first posts, mine became obsolete as well, to a certain degree, but even that has still some merit left, just like yours. Because these are questions that will eventually be important, no matter what the other character may be.
A being so strong, even if they could use their full power at any given time, may some day grow bored or find something else that is interesting. The questions simply change, depending on the subject, therefore, your "aftermath" remains just as important in a story.
Well, to answer the first part, he killed the kid's parents after taking his body and what he is, well, ana artifact of the cult of Adam, one of the main antagonists of the novel and yes, he has killed many, but only when threated or agitated, something Noah, as a child, did not do.
So, in other words, as I said, he would have caused issues left and right. No way he goes around until he finds Noah, so he can introduce him to his "friend group".
To answer that if others filled the gap, they did yes, but Noah did it first. Everyone else is important, but I like to think for most living things, the first time is always the most important and why I incorporated it into his instinct.
Yes, which is why it is too weak. Being the "first" might mean "something", that much is surely true, but it doesn't mean
enough in this case.
People also wouldn't have let anyone near him; not Noah, not anyone else. How long was he just "around", playing friends with him until they parted? It would have had to be long enough for them to leave an impression on him.
But he would have been a menace wherever he went. Even if he managed to get to a place where people who were undeniably on his tail didn't find him right away, as he doesn't know how to act human; he would have caused people to stir in the pot and those who already knew of him would come to get him.
Also, why would he have killed the parents of the body he possessed? If he doesn't feel emotions and is going to cause trouble either way, so people would have pursued him no matter what, it seems pointless.
And what exactly did Noah do, which wasn't something the parents of the boy he possessed would have tried? Were they immediately trying to kill him, as soon as they laid eyes upon him, not even bothering to safe their child? That goes against human nature; even the most passive parents care when their children die; parents care when their children die, even when they themself willingly caused it.
But I guess that's just a small issue, compared to the rest.
You say he isn't human, he doesn't have emotions, yet he clearly holds emotions for Noah and his friend group. If he's just curious and such an evil monster, he could have gotten any human to learn from them what it means to be human. But you say that it's because of what Reinhardt thinks that Noah "understands" about him and his way of life.
I already made that clear: He BELIEVES that Noah understands his ideology of life and understands what makes Reinhardt 'weak' when that's simply not true. He's an overthinker.
But that means nothing, as I said. What even is his "ideology of life"? If it's his missing humanity that makes him "weak", everyone who studies him would understand that much; in fact, it is something very human to say in the first place. In the end, how does his missing humanity make him "weak"? What was it, that made Noah as a child "strong"? In what way, that isn't emotional, did he "overpower" him? And why was he the first to overpower him in that way?
Also, to him, a child (as he doesn't seem to understand the concept of growing up, meaning he doesn't know that there's no way a child knows "powerful magic") would simply be a brainless creature. He would think he's an idiot, not knowing that's just him being a child - let alone think that he understands him in some way. And later on, once he's understood more of humanity, while simultaneously being a menacing being that everybody fears, wouldn't he understand that that is not the case, since he was just a child and stupid by default and then hadn't met him in many years? Why would he believe him to be special?
And how come a being that doesn't have emotions turns into an "overthinker"? Overthinking largely comes from anxiety, or the idea of filling in gaps when you try to align what you know with what you perceived to be an important thing to factor in, yet don't quite know. For example, if he factored in Noah's behavior, which should be this curious thing he doesn't understand. He wouldn't question human behavior, since he isn't human and doesn't understand being human. If he did, your claim of how he doesn't have any emotions and doesn't act on them would not hold water, because he would learn how to understand them and question things in light of these understandings, no matter if he himself naturally holds emotions or not. Emotionless creatures are like machines. They take what they see at face value; they won't interpret things they don't clearly understand, so overthinking seems far beyond his capability. [EDIT: Actually, think of someone with autism and how they can't read social cues. But while some autists, depending on where they are on the spectrum, may react with anxiety and stress, causing them to overthink, trying to decipher the cues they don't naturally perceive, that can't happen to Reinhardt, since he doesn't feel anxiety and can't get stressed out.]
His main point of personality, although it may be perceived that way, would also not be "curiosity", as even that is a human emotion. It would be him filling in for missing information. That, I understand. To take things in order to build up what isn't there; in order to set yourself up to a standard. But everything beyond that - be it curiosity; desire; obsession - they are all human emotions. The opposite of what you are trying to portray.
In short, Noah knows Reinhardt cannot change and never will change, so it's best to keep him on a leash, and Reinhardt is aware of Noah's desire to keep him on a leash, using it as his chance to finally understand what he lacks, which doesn't exist, merely being his own overthinking for something grand and placing that limit upon himself.
And to close this paragraph off: It means that he is, in fact, not on a leash. It means he can free himself at any given moment, otherwise, he wouldn't have let himself get caught. Since "real curiosity" is human, and you can't have one thing without the other. He could only understand that he needs to be powerful, but making sure oneself remains intact is of utmost importance, since a broken body is a body that cannot be strong. Letting someone have the hand over their power is illogical. Why would someone with no emotions and no humanity, who should be functioning solely on caculated risk and logic, do something so illogical, because he overthought something x amount of years ago and thus finds it a fun (which he shouldn't be able to, but whatever) experiment to have someone put a leash on him, because that person understands him, therefore he trusts him (which is also a human emotion and something he shouldn't believe in, as trust is a flimsy, emotional concept, no matter what it's based on). It would only make sense if it is not, in fact, trust, but the knowledge that he can free himself whenever he wants. That also means that Noah, if he's oh-so intelligent, should know it's all bullshit. If it's all make-believe, they don't need the whole capping thing going on; that would just be gold flitter on a turd. I don't understand his agency, just as I don't understand that of Reinhardt.
He would eventually realize that Noah understands nothing and move on; or find something more interesting and move on; or just realize that his time is being wasted and how inefficient his approach is and move on. Since he has no "personal" feelings and reasonings, there's nothing keeping him and doing something freely out of "curiosity" will always have its limitations in how long a reader will buy it.
Now, I understand it might come off as if I'm trying to bash your story - yes, I can tell - but what I'm actually trying to do is to give you the absolute state of what your insight into your story is telling me. Even if others may see it differently, because people are inherently different, you need to account for people trying to actually get behind your character.
And with that setup, you will have those who won't understand that he doesn't have emotions, because, frankly, for someone without humanity and emotions, he displays a metric ton of them. They would wonder why he does things, from an emotional point of view.
And those who catch that he's supposed to have no emotions will care about why he displays emotions whenever and however it fits the plot.
The only ones who likely won't question anything are those who read without thinking too deeply about it, and don't really try to understand the characters and their motivations in the first place.
But in the end, everything lies in the execution. Maybe reading it will cause less questions, since you condensed all of your own intentions with the character, which are usually not as clearly stated within a story. It may read quite differently in action. But that I can't pass judgement on, since I haven't read the actual story. I'm going off of the things you stated here and those alone.
That will likely be the last I add to this thread, so fret not. But in general, just take it as a point of view to challenge your writing, even if you can't understand why I keep banging on about this.
