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Hey y'all, I don't do this like ever but a good friend of mine recently lost his beloved dog Susie and is trying to get a memorial plush of her. Anything helps!

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Runaan: *does a battle dance* Me, 3 years later: Nice

I have found thee coolest thing today! It's badass, it's graceful, it's terrifying, and it was hiding in plain sight right under my nose, every time I rewatched TDP.

How very Moonshadow.

Okay, from the top: I've had headcanons for a long time now about Runaan probably using various little magic tricks in combat, or to avoid combat, that the big gust of wind that blew out the torches in Harrow's stairwell was created using some kind of enchantment, perhaps from a horn cuff, and that Ethari's swirlies are literally enchantments he engraves in metal to keep his husband safe somehow and that's why he loves putting them in everything he makes: the more swirlies Runaan is wearing, the more tricky tricks he has to ensure he'll come home to Ethari in one piece.

Today, watching S1E3 again, something clicked, and Lady Serotonin has blessed me with her presence. Seems that those headcanons are all tied together, and that there's much much more to what Runaan was capable of doing in battle - as long as he had all the swirlies Ethari had given him, and moonlight to activate them in.

You guys remember this Completely Extra Showmanship tee emm that Runaan displayed atop the wall before literally running down the side of it and crashing directly into Rayla's swords with his own?

Right at that last pic, when Runaan's leaping off from the wall at her, there's a pretty big sound effect. I usually watch and listen with everything down pretty low for sensory reasons, but today I had the volume up, and I realized (after almost three years in this fandom, how many times have I rewatched this show, I admit that sound is Hard tee emm for me sometimes, but GAH) that the noise that happens when Runaan's blades clash with Rayla's isn't just some dramatic collision noise. It's an actual thunderclap. It's definitely not the noise of four swords literally smacking together, not even close.

Ahaha, echoes of thunder, anyone? Yeah.

I had to stop and listen to it several times and try to figure out why it was there. I had an express train of thought that went like this, in about 12 seconds flat, and left me literally clutching my head and swearing in amazement:

bahaha Runaan has a lightning enchantment jewel in his bowblade

omg wait does he??

no, no jewels, but SWIRLIES

are. are they really enchantments after all, all of them, does Runaan really have that many spells he can yeet off if he needs them

Ethari would not like me questioning his loyalty and dedication to Runaan coming home alive all the time, no wonder he loves putting swirlies in everything

holyshitholyshit Runaan just cast a thunderclap at Rayla, no wonder she's grumpy at him in the next shot

HOLYSHIT RUNAAN CAN JUST MAKE THUNDERCLAPS IN BATTLE?? SHOCK AND FRIGGING AWE

that wind spell might have literally come from his hair cuff after all, are you kidding me rn

okay thunder and wind, these are nature sounds

it sounds like forces of nature or... acts of God fate? definitely not elf sounds, Runaan's using the illusions of natural elements to obscure his true actions and mislead the enemy

just like mystica arbora, trees are natural

no no wait wait no wait I'm missing something

because he said "Mystica Arbora" out loud, but he didn't say anything on the castle roof, what, what did he do up th-

holyshit all over again

Runaan wasn't being Extra for no reason, he was being Extra for good reason

Rayla danced with Callum to open the Silvergrove cloaking spell

Callum copied a dance from an elf who activated the Moonhenge on a floor covered with big swirlies

Runaan wasn't slish slashing randomly, he was dancing to activate his thunderclap enchantment

is this why Runaan is such a pretty fighter, because it's literally a dance battle every time?? the answer is yes!

hhhhhhhhhhelpmeeeeee

is every dance literally enchanting, then, because that actually makes sense, the moon is constantly circling and spinning so Moonshadow elves doing the same thing to activate their inherent magic would be so cool

this is why Moonshadow elves get the Elf Grace distinction in Tales of Xadia isn't it

okay so wedding dance, it's an enchantment or a spell then, or a bunch of spells? what do they do, aaaaaaaa

okay but I can't stop thinking about the Moonhenge, those swirlies on the floor

are those runes on that floor then, is that the deal, and if those are runes, then

does that mean all of Ethari's swirlies are dance moves??

Omg whew, that was a ride.

Basically, it looks like Runaan can activate some pretty fun stuff to help him out, just by dancing the right patterns in the moonlight. If all his enchantments are nature-based, I wonder what else he can do. Could he summon an illusory banther or a flock of birds? How about a fog bank? Could he make it rain bananas? Don't look at me like that, you know it would be very distracting! Echoing, ghostly voices could be fun, or the flickering lights spell from ToX, or-

You get it. Nature-based shenaniganry ftw. This is gonna be so much fun for fics.

Also, I do want to mention that there's no way to be certain that any of the things Runaan can create in the light of the full moon come from Ethari's enchantments. Maybe Runaan can just do that as a trained assassin, and Ethari's enchantments are for other things, like good sleep, warm feet, no blisters, no infections, sweet dreams, swift running, staying alert, and so on.

meta: Runaan danced the key for his thunderclap enchantment, and it released without needing a verbal trigger word

theory: Runaan dances enchantments in moonlit battle

headcanon: Ethari's swirlies are his crib notes

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Everybody Hates Marcos

I recently noticed people liking some of my older posts on Moonshadow assassins (thanks guys, glad you enjoyed), and rereading a couple of them back to back in light of the little peek we've gotten at BH only seems to bolster the notion that Runaan does as much of the assassining as he can.

For the Moonshadow assassins' reputation according to Viren post, it would be ironically funny if Viren didn't know that all of the assassins he was describing to Harrow as an unstoppable threat were really the same prolifically stabby elf. Alternately, it would be very deeply interesting if Viren did know about Runaan and his endless stabbiness, and pretended he didn't.

Then there's Rayla getting fooled by Callum pretending to be Ezran. The implication is that Runaan never intended for Rayla to stab the young prince, so he never gave her any information that would allow her to track down Ezran without him. The idea that Runaan always intended to take Ezran himself so Rayla didn't have to isn't a new one to me, but the reinforcement from the other side of things is really helping it land: Runaan always intends to take everyone himself.

So I have two new thoughts, from these older thoughts:

1. Marcos and Viren just roll with there being multiple assassins after Harrow, as if more than one is normal.

First, we all thought Runaan always led a team of six assassins. Over time, headcanons formed for fewer than six, and also for solo missions. I've had a fresh one since I started writing this, so I'll add it: the elves seem to defend Xadia's border in pairs, so what if, when Runaan goes on missions to the human lands, he takes one other elf with him?

This might normally have been an assassin's SO, like Lain and Tiadrin going on missions together in the black ops version of the Sacred Band of Thebes (heyo it's my "assassins are all queer and their love must be partly tactical" love letter to the Sacred Band headcanon again). But Runaan went and fell for a soft elf who does not stab, and so he may need other partners to watch his back and make sure that they both get home to their family.

Maybe every elf that Runaan took on his mission to Katolis, except for Rayla, was someone he'd taken on previous missions. Maybe that's his standard training method: train them in the Silvergrove until they're ready for a proper mission, and then go with them and make sure they get it done right because their life back home hangs in the balance.

And then there's what Rayla said in "Ghost":

"When assassins are sent on a dangerous mission, Ethari enchants one of these flowers for each of them." "Mission" is singular, but "one... for each" indicates a plural. The grammar in this sentence tells me that a single mission with multiple elves is standard for Ethari's Dangerous Mission Enchantment Protocol. It doesn't say how many "each" is supposed to represent, so it could vary with circumstance. But in a culture so packed with angst, it's probably mostly a good thing that the Moonshadow assassins don't go taking dangerous missions alone.

And I kinda like the soft angst of Runaan shepherding younger assassins through their early missions and then trusting them to watch his back when things get really dangerous. But even then, he has a hard line where he won't let another risk themself for him when he'd rather go alone and pay the price himself. I wonder if, when he was younger, he tried to do everything himself and didn't help others train and learn as much as he does when he's older. If he's matured to some angsty "as good as it gets" mindset where he'd rather risk or ruin one or a handful of lives belonging to people he loves than risk utter failure on his own and all-out war and disaster. To slowly taint those you cherish in order to protect others you also cherish from an even worse fate... ahaha god, that's so angsty. Whose souls do you chose to darken? Only those with the brightest spark.

2. Runaan may not have intended for Rayla to take Ezran, but he sure sent her after Marcos quickly, to keep their mission on track. Runaan was basically ordering Rayla to kill someone to protect the team so the team could protect their loved ones and all of Xadia, and she couldn't do it.

What he was asking of her was a kind of halfway point between what Runaan's duty demands of him and what Rayla ended up choosing to do on top of the Storm Spire. Runaan's duty is focused way out at the tip of his sword, but his train of thinking ties that directly to the people he loves and protects with his stabbing.

Rayla's choice was her own, though, atop the Spire. Neither Runaan nor anyone else told her to do it. She chose for herself, because she knew in her heart what was right, in that moment, and she followed it.

Why didn't Runaan kill Marcos himself, then? As the only member of the squad who hadn't taken before, I think Rayla needed to come home blooded. It was her first mission, and maybe on your first mission you must take a life, whether you're solo coughEljaalcough or in a duo with the assassin leader as he helps you get your first kill or in a squad of six. Rite of passage kind of thing, in the way where failure might get you ghosted, or worse.

Maybe the way that Runaan pointed Rayla after her target is how he interacts with other young assassins when he's on their first missions with them. Silent, focused, but still guiding from the shadows. Halfway there, halfway not, an unobtrusive guide, a living reminder of all his own teachings, who stays out of your way except in the most dire of need.

So Runaan's combining Rayla's first training mission with possibly the most dangerous mission of his life. Neeeat. And once he got everyone into the castle, then things were going to get extremely dangerous, so he didn't want anyone on his team worrying about who/when/where/how Rayla was going to take a target after that point. Best to get it out of the way outside the castle, so everyone can relax and focus on their own thing.

So maybe Runaan did rustle that bush really loudly and alert Marcos to their presence, after all. And maybe it was on purpose. If he knew Rayla had to take a life on this mission - for honor or cultural or magical balance reasons - and if the rest of the team knew it too, then he could've been on the lookout for a way to force an early resolution to everyone's concerns about Rayla's capability: give her a convenient human target and get it over with.

Maybe he was so furious with Rayla when she let Marcos live because he'd deliberately selected Marcos to die.

Which is very ironic, because that's what I think Viren did, too, by sending him out into the forest with the full moon approaching. If any of the patrols just didn't report in the next morning, Viren would know Xadia had sent its regards, and they'd be arriving on the full moon. Viren knows what he did at the Storm Spire. If he's got any sense at all, he's been expecting reprisals. Marcos was Viren's canary in the coal mine, and he was also Runaan's injured mouse for his kitten to cut her teeth on.

Bahaha. Viren and Runaan literally can't stop paralleling each other, can they. But this makes Marcos's promotion to recurring character and one of the heroes of S3 all the more amazing! If two of the show's major early plot drivers wanted Marcos dead, and he survived them both thanks to Rayla, then everything he does is possible because of her choice, and that comes back around to save her and her allies at the end of S3, when Marcos rallies with Opeli, Barius, Corvus, and Queen Aanya and her army to defeat Viren's forces.

Rayla saved Runaan from doing exactly what Viren expected him to do, and ended up saving herself, along with Marcos and countless others, too.

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Post-TTM where Rayla ended up as an undercover agent for Lux Aurea.

She would send out info about dark mages' whereabouts and Janai would arrange a special ops to infiltrate the area.

But one day, her cover got busted. So she ended up calling for an immediate backup.

She didn't expect that her rescuer would be Callum.

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Harrow and Viren : Sacrifice. (TRIGGER WARNING : Depression, Suicide)

 Jason Simpson, Viren’s VA, once said that Viren’s core theme is sacrifice. The question is: whom? His pawns or himself? Or perhaps both? 

I will allow myself to quote the French series Kaamelott, a retelling of the Arthurian legends. Promise, it won't be long, but read this through.

King Arthur (who has many similarities to king Harrow as I remarked in this post) wasn’t able to lead his knights to the Grail. He couldn’t bring eternal salvation for his people. He couldn’t find his way out of depression either. After failing his suicide attempt (he slit his wrists in his bathtub), the fallen king dreams of an old man who has offered to show him the Holy Grail. It turns out to be the very bathub in which Arthur slit his veins. Inside of the container that recieved the Christ's blood is carved an inscription : "You all have been such a pain in my ass." When awake, the fallen king ends up saying this :

 “What is someone who suffers and spills his own blood so everyone is guilty ? All suicided are the Christ, all the bathtubs are the Grail.” 

Of course, Viren is meant to be a corrupted biblical saviour figure, as shown by the Moses reference and by his fake self-sacrifice at Lux Aurea. But in my opinion, Harrow has his own christic delusions as well. 

Harrow died so humanity doesn’t have to pay the price of his mistakes and may live at peace; Viren died out of a noble desire to guide his people to prosperity, to a land of milk and honey. 

Viren's trade with Aaravos held some resemblance with suicide.

But Harrow didn’t save humanity by his death, and neither Viren by his commitment.

 If all the suicided are the Christ, and all the bathtubs are the Grail, Harrow’s Grail is his grief, gilded with honour, filled without any regard for those who will pay for this disguised suicide. 

Viren’s Grail seems to be dark magic, the very core of his commitment, but also of his thirst for power. After all, dark magic is sacrificing something and a bit of the mage’s own health in order to get something better. Dark magic is the very definition of sacrifice.

“I won’t hide into the body of an innocent while he gives his life for the choices I made.”

Harrow, 01x02

Harrow did have to die as a punishement. But that doesn’t mean he had to die for things to actually get better in the long run. He could have hidden himself with the boys. He could have went along Viren’s soul-feng plan. He could live to ensure peace broke out (which means “to keep Viren on a leash”). 

But this isn’t what he did. He says he dies as a king, but to me, he dies as a mere man. A king would have ensured his realm was doing fine. But Harrow accepted death with such ease I cannot help but wondering if he has been hoping for it, as if he wished to be reunited with Sarai. When Sarai died, he said "It should have been me." As of all the “pay the price for my mistakes so humanity may live” was just a pretext. He chose to die on the narrative of war’s autel while he didn’t have to. Sure, he did it to ensure peace and order. But he was so eager to die that he didn’t do anything to prepare for his succession, which ended up creating chaos and causing countless innocents die for the choices he made. 

“We must be ready to sacrifice, even the ones we love. I would have asked you to save the egg over my life if it came to it !”

Viren, 03x03

 In my opinion, Viren doesn't lie about his commitment. For example, when the assassins come in the first episodes, Viren could bargain with the egg. After all, it seems like a valid course of action, since Rayla tries to follows it. But Viren actually choses to die rather than letting it leaving Claudia's costudy. So while power does attract him, it's definitely not his core motivation.

But Viren’s mindset got twisted by dark magic until “prices to pay for the greater good” became his mantra. Sacrifice, his or his pawns’s, became his only way to solve problems. The reason why he makes this trade with Aaravos is because everything else he tried failed -plus, he is about to be sent straight to the scaffold. His desperate quest for saving the world became a quest to save himself from his own weakness. There are so many people whom he couldn’t save. So he refuses to feel powerless again and goes further and further into commitment. He meant to save humanity but lost his own doing so and destroyed that of his soldier’s. 

So is there even a Grail, a way to achieve redemption for all? Is sacrifice even the right way to go? Isn’t just chaining oneself with history? Or using the blood of history as a noble excuse to fulfil one’s ego? One’s Grail? 

I think Callum and Rayla’s arcs show the Grail exists. Both of them almost died for their quests. 

But the Grail only works as long as you fill it with another blood than the narrative of war’s.

#submission

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i don't know if you talked about this before (sorry if you did), but what do you think of ezran's decision to abdicate the throne in 3x04, even though they still went to war against Xadia anyway? or even why he was arrested after abdicating

Short answer because I’d like to do a longer meta some day about Ezran’s various arcs over the first three seasons, but some slightly expanded thoughts here if you’d like. Also video essay about the greater place Ezran’s choice has thematically, here.

From a plot standpoint? Ezran was forced in between two impossible decisions, and while he was somewhat manipulated by turned members of his council (i.e. Saleer) he refused to be stripped of agency. Instead, he chose to strip himself of political agency in order to place it into the hands of his people. In some ways, his plan was perfect. If enough of his soldiers had chosen to go not go to war with the other three kingdoms, Katolis would have effectively avoided war with both the allied kingdoms and with Xadia, just as Ezran wanted. Furthermore, if even Opeli was surprised that Viren was able to sway the crowds and acquire power, I’m not gonna critique Ezran for not seeing that part coming. 

From a plot / symbolic viewpoint? The idea of exchange - one life or power for another or some kind of goal - has been the basis of the show. Magical creatures for dark magic. The primal stone for hatching Zym. Zym for peace. Etc. So exchanging Ezran for Viren is a nice bit of narrative irony, especially if Viren had something to do with what might’ve happened to Harrow in 1x03. Additionally, Ezran’s arc in S3 is already wrought with irony, as Harrow says in 1x02 that “A child is freer than a king.” Ezran is not only a child king, but he then becomes a child king who chooses to be in chains. Also continues the theme of kingship being internal rather than just physical (who wears the crown) as Ezran acts as king before he puts the crown on, and resumes his status as king in 3x09 without a crown on at all, the actual thing broken and bent with Viren’s blood. Ezran doesn’t need the crown to be king.

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(Angry rant ahead)

If there's one thing that makes me fucking upset, it's how Claudia talks down to and patronizes Callum. Even in his own book.

"It's so cute that you're keeping a little spellbook of your own" Shut the hell up he's not a child, and it's not like he's doing this to imitate you. Believe it or not, Claudia, he's a person with hopes and dreams and ambitions and his own damn agency. Not an adoraburr for you to fawn over.

He. Is. Not. Obligated. To "get over his fear". It's not like his worries are unfounded. He's allowed to set boundaries! Even if it were something irrational, he's not obligated to do things that terrify him! Clauds, if Callum was nice enough to travel on foot when Rayla was scared of the boat, you can accommodate him.

And given what we know about dark magic...

It can physically hurt you and going too far can be life-threatening, it's morally controversial and a major political point of contention, and trying it makes a part of your subconscious want more.

This makes Clauds come across like an addict trying to peer-pressure someone into drug use, jesus christ

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Aaravos and the wings

Okay guys, revisiting old posts on Reddit to aliment one of my theories, the one about Aaravos and the possibility of our dear startouch getting wings!

(@beautifulterriblequeen​ this one is for you, ‘cause you’re the one who gave me the idea of Aaravos getting wings… with the post you made about those deeper purple-kind-of wings :D)

Well I might have found the ultimate proof that you saw correctly and that the creepy caterpilar friend will have them! 

Keep reading

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pining from the start: a callum centric “book one: moon” meta

AKA Callum had a crush on Rayla almost immediately but didn’t realize it for two seasons and here’s why. Like many of you, I was waiting a while for my copy of the novelization and eagerly made my way through it once it was in my grasp. Before the book was released, I thought it would ‘confirm’ the pining!Rayla side of things, as I’ve laid out my thoughts on her half of Rayllum’s progression before in both more serious and more silly ways. And to some degree it did, with a couple of particularly good lines here and there.

But, far more so, the book confirmed my reading of Callum I had in season one, of him actually having developing feelings for Rayla almost the whole time even if it took him a while to piece it together. Or, at the very least — if you’re like me and see Callum as demiromantic — his heart was laying the groundwork for romantic feelings to develop later on. 

So, without further ado, let’s get into it!

Comparison & Set Up

The parallels between Claudia and Callum’s relationship and Callum and Rayla’s were always evident to me, even — or perhaps particularly — in season one. Claudia is older, talented, and kind with a quirky sense of humour. Callum wants to impress her and also quickly mades his admiration of her known: “It’s so amazing how you can do things like that [aspiro spell].” Already, there are some pretty easy parallels to see. Rayla is also a little bit older and very kind hearted. She’s talented and Callum makes his admiration of her consistently evident (particularly in 1x05). Like Claudia, she also serves as an early magical mentor for Callum, explaining things of interest to him. 

Thus, I was very interested to see how “Book One: Moon” (novelization) could describe Callum’s crush on Claudia. The passage below was the main descriptor I found when going through the novel, and I was not disappointed.

“[Callum] had always found [Claudia] sophisticated, worldly, and enchanting […] In fact, her love of magic was one of the things that made her weirdly fascinating to Callum, or rather, weird and fascinating. When he was with her, Callum always felt a light, persistent fluttering in his stomach, like a moon-crazed moth was trapped in his intestines.”

Keep reading

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the minute ray gets back to the silvergrove she

1) holds callums hand and practically drags him along all excited

2) invites him to go get moonberry surprise, in a manner thats basically a differently-worded "lets get dinner sometime"

rayla

rayla honey thats called a date

sweetheart you're not subtle

and he's completely unfazed and all ":D !!!!" and im fully convinced he did not pick up on it at all

anyways headcanon that she actually was trying to ask him out she's just bad at it and he's really dense

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Ethari’s Opals Are Actually Really Angsty

aka Moon Opals Speculation – Part II

NOT THINKING ABOUT THE SYMBOLISM BEHIND THIS!!!

Mm’kay so. Four crescent moons and a full moon, right? See it? Two crescents on top, two on the bottom, a full moon in the middle. Why? Let’s take a look at the phases of the moon first.

Phases of the Moon

Alright, we got from left to right a waxing crescent, full moon, and a waning crescent. These are the phases of the moon. Waxing crescents resemble blooming, young life. Full moons resemble those at the peak of their life. Waning crescents resemble the old and those nearing death. (Interestingly enough, ancient pagans surrounding the UK believed in this, and seeing as that Moonshadows are Scottish or English, this just adds to more culture symbolism!)

Obviously Ethari would craft this into their opals. Runaan is an assassin, deliverer of fate, bringer of death, vessel of justice. It would be appropriate to have the phases of the moon of their matching opals.

Not only this, but Runaan left before the full moon, probably a day or two after the new moon. He killed the king on the full moon. He was supposed to return with the waning crescent. But he didn’t. It’s a reminder to Runaan of his duty to his heart, the opal conveniently being placed right over his heart. For Ethari, it was a promise, hope. A reminder of the promise his husband made to him, which is supposed to give him hope. He will return when the moon is waning.

Why Four Crescents? Why Not Just Two?

Runaan and Ethari are very sentimental. “My heart goes out with this one” this, “Don’t worry, I’ll return your heart to you” that, “My love will be with you, even when the moon is not” and so forth. (Ouch, that last ones hurts even more now.) They are two people working together as one, even when they’re apart. So Ethari makes them matching necklaces, but with four crescents, a waxing and waning to represent one half of the couple, a waxing and a waning to represent the other half of the couple. They realise they are two very different people, but their hearts will always be the same. 

Runaan and Rayla killing the king to avenge their family name was supposed to fix everything, repair the tear in their family that had intruded due to Lain’s and Tiadrin’s “betrayal”. So, when the king dies on the full moon, Ethari and Runaan will be able to come back together and everything will be the same as it was from before. Hence why there is only one full moon on the opals.

What About Those Metal Curves On The Sides?

Hmm? Oh, these? Unimportant, right? (Wrong.)

Don’t you think these side pieces look a little bit like a bow being drawn back? Hmm, wonder where we’ve seen this.

I’m sobbing right now, guys. I can’t continue this, I’m sorry, I can’t.

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Are YOU looking for a creative mode mc realm?

Are you looking for an LGBT+ poc + nuerodivergent friendly realm?

LOOK NO FURTHER!!1!

how do i get in to Crafty Homos?

join our discord server!!

cool! now fill out the application forum!!

boom now ur playin the craft

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Character Analysis - CDR Gren

He goes by many names. Cinnamon Roll. Strawberry boi. But at the end of the day, we all know him as the sweet “Why see myself as chained down when I can be chained up” interpreter that is Gren.

As a character, Commander Gren is a fan favourite among The Dragon Prince fans. People love him for his awkwardness, his strong resemblance to a particular fruit, but also because of his optimism.

After no longer than five minutes without Amaya, Gren was betrayed and secretly thrown into a dungeon where he would be held with minimal food, water and social interaction for weeks. He wasn’t even regard as valuable to Viren. Just an annoyance that would get in his way. Yet, he continued to be a Happy Pappy Patton™ 

SS fans know what emotions he was hiding. While it’s true he could always remain that way, it’s also certainly true that in real life, many people’s mental stability can come crashing down after trying to stay too positive for too long in a bad situation. This is called “toxic positivity.” One of the many things that makes The Dragon Prince so great, is that it reflects real life moral situations, resulting in real life emotional and mental reactions. Even negative ones, such as manipulation, sorrow, guilt, regret, ect.

But how does war effect optimism? Some people might argue that Gren won’t get any character development; and some of their points are true. Originally, Commander Gren was designed to be a minior character. He would serve as subtitles and a comedic foil for Amaya, and not much else. And whilst his role expanded, Gren doesn’t have much development yet. However, I do strongly believe that he will expand further than his peaceful persona, and there are many reasons as to why he will. First of all, he believed his closest friend died for he and her soldiers lives. It often feels like a part of you has been ripped out when you loose a loved one. And Gren believed he did for a while. How optimistic can you be when the person closest to you is gone? We don’t know much about how Gren reacted after the breach collapsed, but it’s clear he tried his hardest to get to her to help, and cried when they reunited.

He is Amaya’s voice… but she is also his. He is “happiest at General Amaya’s side,” but the Commander uses that strength he gains when he’s near her as a crutch, and needs to find his own voice. In fact, he may have emotional issues about leaving Amaya’s side.

As General and Commander, much of their work is dangerous, people often knowing little of what they’re dealing with. Gren now has accept their mortality. Whether he feels himself a diplomat or not, the future of tdp isn’t going to be smooth.

And then there’s the war. Not only did “bashful, unflappable Gren” have to experience and go to war, a horrifying experience on its own, he did it without a weapon. A diplomat can’t talk his way out in a battle.That’s does make me wonder what he did the whole time, carrying naught but a banner, but that’s a story for another time…

I do not want his optimism to sizzle out of existence, but hope we get to see more of character depth, development and emotional reactions from Gren. We know we are going to find out more on how Aanya contributed to the lead up of the war (and how she survived the Smoky Assassins), so maybe we’ll see of his contribution to this as well (since after Amaya’s “death” we didn’t see him again until the Final Battle), and his emotional state at the time.

And finally, to seal the deal, here’s what Commander Gren’s voice actor Adrian Petriw Said when asked about what he would like to see in Gren’s character development.

“I, surprise surprise, am a people pleaser in my life, and I think that Gren also suffers from this appliction, and while I think that there is so much loveliness that come from it, and there is such a beautiful optimism that he has, I do hope that he… When he’s not with Amaya - because I think that Amaya gives him so much strength - but when he’s not around Amaya I do hope that he works on finding his own voice, and he works on standing up for himself.”

BONUS - My headcanon of Gren’s sexuality

This is just a lil somthing I like, not an analysis

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I believe it was daytime when Rayla and Callum were about to dance their way into the Silvergrove, but it was nighttime when they entered the Silvergrove because of magic. So when it’s daytime in the rest of the world, it’s nighttime in the Silvergrove and vice versa.

But there is a tactical reasoning to this, I think. Before the first big war with humans and elves, there was probably no need for a protective illusion barrier around the Silvergrove. But after that, there was, and so was the need for there to be assassins. So when the barrier and assassins were established, the moonshadow elves had to consider that the assassins would do a lot of traveling. So they decided that they would have this visual time flip for two reasons:

1. It would allow the elves to go about their lives during the night and under the moon where they draw their power from. They probably did this before and wanted to continue doing this, so when the barrier was created, everyone in the grove had to ‘switch time zones’.

But why not just have a barrier and no time change?

2. They had to consider their assassins. The assassins have a hard enough job already. Imagine what it would be like to have to do daytime missions even though they were adjusted to the night. It would be jetlag. So they flipped the time of day inside of the Silvergrove so that the assassins wouldn’t have to deal with this ‘jetlag’. It would make daytime missions easier and would reduce the risk of deaths since they wouldn’t suffer such bad fatigue

But what about nighttime missions? My theory is that nighttime missions are only saved for the big ones, so they are not as common. Because of the importance of these missions, they are probably also only done on the night of a full moon, giving the assassins a bit more strength and an energy boost.

[tdpmeta]

So I still don’t understand why Ethari’s blade in S3E3 reverses the reflection?

See? Ethari’s hair is normally parted right to left, and Rayla was standing on his right side, not his left. Also, Rayla normally tucks the right side of her shirt under the left at the collar, unlike in the reflection of the sword.

I know that sometimes metal likes to do weird things with reflections such as flipping horizontally and/or vertically, so maybe it could be something like this. 

But the little voice in the back of my mind whispers “everything is done for a reason.” So I was thinking that Ethari did this on purpose. That seems like something he would do. The only question then is what purpose does that serve? What is the point of doing it? To make it look cool? I don’t think so. As much as Ethari likes his swirlies and things looking nice, I think it would be something more. Maybe the assassins use it for some sort of trick?

So as you think about Ethari’s designs and the techniques of the assassins, take a look at this.

This part may get a little confusing. Apparently mankind can’t just transfer their train of thoughts, so let’s attempt to translate my disaster of ideas into words. Easy, right?

Rayla is on Ethari’s right, right? But in the sword she is on his left, RIGHT? Now, Ethari looks at Rayla. We know that means he has to look in her direction, and in the sword, that would be to his left. But HE IS LOOKING AT HER. Which means that in person, he will look towards his right, seeing as that she is actually on his right side, he is looking at her, and his reflection is flipped. But… he is facing the sword. He is facing Rayla via The Sword. That means that Ethari is actually looking away from Rayla’s reflection. And…

Where was I going with this? I was onto something, but then I lost it.

Anyways, I’m pretty sure that Runaan’s bowblade does not give off any sort of reflection, if I’m correct. And the same goes for Rayla. It can be safely assumed that Ethari made their weapons. So… why is this one different?

[tdpmeta]

Ok, y’all see Runaan, right?

See how his left horn is broken and his left arm has lost blood circulation?

Okay, now let’s take a look at the mirror.

Notice how the mirror does not mirror Runaan, but flips it. In the mirror, it looks like Runaan’s right horn is broken, and his right arm has lost curculation.

Now let’s take a look at Viren in the mirror.

The light is coming from his left side, and we see throughout the series that Viren parts his hair from left to right. So the mirror is not flipping his image, but is actually mirroring it, like a normal mirror.

Weird, right?

But GET THIS.

The candles. The candles are not flipped. They are mirrored. Which really threw me off when I saw Runaan in the mirror, because even though the candles were mirrored as normal, Runaan was not.

See Claudia and Viren? They are mirrored as normal in Aaravos’s mirror.

Conclusion: the mirror will act as a normal mirror around humans and non-magical objects, but with act as a flipped mirror for elves, magical creatures, etc., etc..

Feel free to add on! This is only a very basic theory concept (I’ll probably come up with more later).

[tdpmeta]

Fallen Startouch Elves

Small Aaravos spoiler from the TDP Artbook

This is probably nothing new but it’s something I just thought about again when I read the short line in the artbook, how

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