Warrior Nun: Michael Salvius and the Deceit of Death

The boy who died twice.

[Warning: This essay contains spoilers for Warrior Nun seasons 1 and 2.]

I always consider Michael Salvius as the boy who died twice.

In Warrior Nun season 1, Michael is not introduced as a character, but rather as a mystery. While secretly exploring ArqTech’s lab, Ava sees Michael through a set of glass doors. It’s unclear who he is, but it appears he’s been trapped in the lab for an unknown reason. This makes Ava suspicious of Dr. Jillian Salvius, who it seems may be keeping Michael as a hostage. It also toys with audience expectations regarding Salvius’ intentions, as her kidnapping a child for unknown reasons makes her appear evil. However, the presentation of Salvius in the next few episodes of the season reveal something is amiss. She doesn’t seem evil, but rather in over her head regarding her scientific experiments on religious artifacts.

It takes some time before viewers discover the child Salvius has locked up isn’t kidnapped, nor is he being confined to a single room for nefarious purposes. The young boy is, in fact, Salvius’ son, Michael. Unfortunately, the boy has a sickness that Salvius decided to treat using the holy material divinium. Because of divinium’s properties, it works better than any modern medicine to keep Michael alive. However, divinium won’t last forever. It seems that, as Michael grows or as time passes, Michael’s sickness will be able to withstand the divinium in his body unless it’s pumped through his bloodstream constantly. Searching for both a more permanent solution and wanting her son to leave the confines of his room, Salvius constructed the Ark, a portal to a dimension she believes does not have the concept of death. Therefore, if Michael were to live in this other dimension, he wouldn’t have to fear an untimely end.

Dr. Salvius’ intentions are noble. However, because of the divinium coursing through Michael’s bloodstream, he has an unseen—and unknown—connection to Adriel. However, history has recorded Adriel as both benevolent and deceased. Meaning that, when the false prophet begins sending Michael instructions related to the construction of the Ark, he and his mother believe the divinium has given Michael a connection to an angel. Michael begins to draw pictures of the Ark, which Salvius has interpreted and used to build a working version of the portal. A portal that she intends the two of them to go through together. While Salvius has shown off the importance of her scientific discoveries surrounding the Ark to investors and other scientists, the reality is that she plans to go through alongside Michael. A boy Michael’s age should not be alone in an unknown world without his mother. And so, her intention is to ensure he is not on his own.

But fate has other plans. In the Season 1 finale, when Ava enters Adriel’s tomb, Adriel reaches through her and briefly makes physical contact with the Halo. This allows the Ark to open, giving Michael just enough time to run through. Before Salvius can follow him, though, Ava gets the upper hand. Adriel’s contact with the Halo is broken, and so too is Salvius’ heart. Michael is now gone, destined to traverse a new world without his mother. But, at the same time, the Ark now works. Adriel has gotten what he wants, and is set on using the Ark for his nefarious purposes. But first, he builds his following of Firstborn Children over the span of two months. During this time period, Michael Salvius is presumed dead, despite his mother’s attempts at going through the portal to find him.

And, to an extent, he is.

The next time the audience sees Michael is in Warrior Nun’s Season 2 premiere, though there’s no direct indication that it’s him. This is because the audience doesn’t yet have all the puzzle pieces surrounding how Reya’s dimension works nor Michael’s ability to return to Earth. So, for all the audience can tell at the start of Season 2, this new “Miguel” character is just that: A new character. However, Season 2 contains many hints prior to the reveal that Miguel is, in fact, Michael. While trying to assist Lilith in understanding her powers, Salvius realizes time moves differently in the dimension beyond the Ark. Because seconds on Earth equate to hours in the other dimension, it’s feasible that Michael was able to age up if he spent most of his time apart from his mother on the other side of the portal. It would also explain why “Miguel” has so much knowledge about the supernatural occurrences transpiring around Adriel. He learned all of it after he went into Reya’s world.

There is also one part of Michael’s disguise that makes it almost obvious that he is Dr. Salvius’ lost son: His name. For whatever reason, Michael chose to disguise himself using the name “Miguel,” which sounds incredibly similar to Michael. Warrior Nun never fully explains why Michael decided to use an alias that sounds almost like his real name when gaining Ava’s trust and forming rebel groups against Adriel’s Firstborn Children. However, it’s possible Michael choosing the name Miguel was a hint at his real identity that goes beyond the phonetic similarities between both names. Michael deciding to call himself “Miguel” seems like the kind of pseudonym a child would think up. A name similar enough to their own they can remember, but different enough to be a disguise. Because of the child-like simplicity of changing “Michael” to “Miguel,” Michael’s fake name doubly hints at who he really is.

But, obviously, Michael doesn’t come back to Earth the same person he was when he left. Having aged close to 20 years, Michael is much wiser and more attuned to the world than he was as a boy. He understands he was tricked by Adriel into making the Ark, feeling gracious that Reya existed on the other side to offer him assistance in defeating the false messiah. Having aged so much, he also recognizes how strange and bittersweet it must be for his mother to see him again. She’s missed all his formative years, unable to watch him grow into the young man he’s become. It’s a tragic reunion, yet one that encapsulates just how horribly Adriel’s plans have impacted everyone in the main cast of heroes.

But Michael’s return in Warrior Nun Season 2 also reveals his first death.

Michael Salvius “died” at the end of Warrior Nun Season 1. However, this was not a real death. Nor was it a fake one. Instead, watching Michael go through the Ark and comparing it to who he becomes in Season 2, it seems that the previously-established Michael has, from the audience and main characters’ perspectives, died. The older, wiser Michael seen in Season 2 is a far cry from the naïve boy from Season 1. This version of Michael understands the overarching stakes of Adriel’s rule, and of the Ark’s general existence. Something he was unable to understand in the first season because he was, at the end of the day, just a young, dying boy trying to help his mother save his life. Michael’s Season 1 “death,” therefore, is that of his own being. It could be considered innocence, or ignorance, but the point still stands. The Michael seen in Season 2 is one brimming with knowledge, following the death of who he used to be before he went through the Ark.

But Michael’s Season 1 “death” is simply a metaphor for his gaining a more direct role in the battle against Adriel. His knowledge becomes pertinent in the fight against the false prophet. However, it’s not just knowledge Michael brings to the table. It’s also a key way of killing Adriel for good. While preparing to fight Adriel head-on, Michael reveals to Ava that he has a secret weapon: Himself. Knowing that there would be no way to get close to Adriel with something that could obviously harm him, Reya infused Michael’s body with a divinium bomb. One that Ava could set off while the pair are close to Adriel, killing him since divinium is the only known material that can harm him. While the blast would kill Adriel, though, it would also result in Michael’s death. Ava is adamant that they don’t do this. That Michael should be able to return to his mother instead of making it so she tragically loses him again. But Michael says there is no other way.

He’s proven right in Season 2, Episode 6, when the team decides to launch an assault on Adriel at ArqTech. While the plan was seemingly starts to go well, many moving parts that had to be perfected fall apart. Ava loses the Halo’s power very briefly before being attacked by Lilith. Other members of the OCS are forced to continue the mission as her vital role is interrupted, but it doesn’t matter. Adriel already knew they were coming. Pope Duretti dies and Dr. Salvius’ home is invaded by Firstborn Children. Mother Superion is killed (albeit temporarily) as Adriel’s loyalists take the Ark, Salvius helpless to stop them. Father Vincent also gets his hands on the Crown of Thorns, the only ancient device that could dampen Adriel’s powers. With Vincent’s loyalty up in the air at this point, he runs off with it, dooming the mission. The episode ends with Adriel grinning as he looks up, saying, “Missed me again, Reya.”

As everyone regroups in Season 2, Episode 7, it slowly becomes clear that Reya’s plan to use Michael as a weapon is the only way for Adriel to be defeated for good. While Ava tries to fight back against the notion, even after their monumental failure, the beginning of Season 2, Episode 8 sees her realize Michael is right. He has to die if the mission is to be completed. This, in turn, sets up a more permanent death for Michael. While he died in a metaphorical sense at the end of Season 1, Season 2 has thrust him into a position where he is liable to die for real. While his sacrifice will be able to save the world from Adriel’s reign and give everyone he cares about—especially his mother—the chance to live in peace, it also means resigning himself to die.

However, he seems to be okay with the idea because of the way death works in Reya’s dimension. During a conversation with his mother, Michael talks about how she was, to some extent, correct about Reya’s world. Death works differently on the other side of the Ark than it does on Earth. Meaning that, even when Michael dies to defeat Adriel, a part of him will still live on in Reya’s dimension. Michael isn’t clear about what this means, nor does he elaborate on how this is any different than dying and going to an afterlife. However, it seems that Michael may be in a unique position. One that perhaps no other Earth-based character on the series can claim.

I think Michael Salvius can’t die.

In all my time writing about Warrior Nun, I know this series does nothing for shock value. So, in the Season 2 finale, when I saw Lilith violently tear a hole through Michael’s chest, I wondered what the final play would be. As it turns out, Michael’s second—and very much real—death allowed Ava to use his body as a bomb, destroying the cross weakening her powers and allowing Reya’s tarasks to kill Adriel. Michael’s death served as a way for Ava’s character to come full circle. However, the shocking nature of his final scene, coupled with what he told his mother prior to the final mission, implies Michael’s time in the series may not be over. That, somehow, there is still a version of him out there, somewhere in Reya’s dimension.

Death has been part of Michael’s life since he was a child. He was dying of an illness that could only be treated with divinium. In order to sidestep the inevitability of death, Salvius created the Ark, through which Michael entered. While he went into a world where death worked differently than it does on Earth, his mother didn’t know he would be safe. And so, despite not truly “dying,” Michael was dead to the world for some time. His return under the moniker “Miguel” reveals he did not die, but has instead returned to Earth to die. Even so, he will not be dead in the way other living things on Earth become. Instead, part of him will live on in Reya’s world. Much like the start of his life, the mysterious powers of another dimension seem to be keeping Michael from permanently dying.

Given how important death is for Michael’s character—and given how differently death is treated when associated with him—I don’t think his death at the end of Season 2 is the end for everything he’s done. For a boy who has managed to outrun death so far, Lilith being his permanent ending would feel too anti-climactic. Instead, I believe Michael will be used as a tool to further explore Reya’s dimension. If part of him still lives on beyond the Ark, then he might be able to teach Ava more about the Reya’s world. Or whatever extension of him remains can do so, anyway. This could then lead into the events of Warrior Nun’s next story, which will no doubt deal more closely with Reya’s dimension and everything associated therein. It would make sense for Michael to be part of that, too, deceiving death once again for another chance at life.

Michael’s journey and its ties to death makes him a unique part of Warrior Nun’s cast. By dealing with the idea of death through a dying young boy who simply will not die, Warrior Nun makes it unclear, even in Michael’s final fate, if he’s truly been laid to rest for good. While not everything about how death works in Reya’s dimension has been spelled out, Michael’s final conversation with Salvius seems to give away the fact that he’s not gone for good. That, because of the way Reya’s dimension works, he’ll never be dead forever. Even if she can’t see him again, Michael’s mother got exactly what she wanted. She gave her son the chance to fight death and win. If Michael is to be believed—that part of him still lives on in Reya’s world—then the concept of death will most assuredly be a major part of Warrior Nun’s future.

And I think Michael will be the key to understanding how death plays into Warrior Nun’s larger story.

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