신년맞이 파이널판타지 15 한복 합작 주최(총괄), 아덴 이즈니아로 참여했습니다.
저승사자같은 느낌을 주고 싶었는데 어떻게 느끼실지는 확신이 안드네용 ^.ㅠ
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신년맞이 파이널판타지 15 한복 합작 주최(총괄), 아덴 이즈니아로 참여했습니다.
저승사자같은 느낌을 주고 싶었는데 어떻게 느끼실지는 확신이 안드네용 ^.ㅠ
합작 사이트(한글):
Why was Coraline supposed to be unpublishable?
I’d showed the first three or four chapters to Richard Evans, my editor at Gollancz. They’d published Good Omens. The next time I saw him, he said “I loved Coraline. Best thing you’ve written so far. It’s unpublishable, of course.”
“Why?”
“It’s horror for kids. You can’t do that. And you’re writing for children and adults at the same time, and there’s no way to publish or market that.”
And, of course, he was right. In the publishing world of 1992, it wasn’t publishable. Even when I sold it, initially, unfinished, to Avon Books, in 1998, it was as an adult book. They couldn’t imagine publishing it as a kid’s book. It took things like Harry Potter and the Series of Unfortunate Events to change the landscape enough that Harper Childrens (now owned by the company that had bought Avon) even considered publishing it.
Curious how those things go. In Dutch, horror for kids has been available since at least the 70′s. In the early 90′s it even became a very popular children genre.
Okay, so I played the Ardyn DLC and Its pretty good but im still confused on his story. from my understanding his girlfriend and brother lied to him about his future and he was disowned by the Gods?? idk. I know he has alot of hatred for his brother and wanted to get revenge. i also understand that his hatred for the kings and thats why he did those things to noctis. he wanted noctis to become just like him or suffer just like he did.
His story is still sad though regardless.
anyone else understands the episode?
It’s rather confusing because we keep seeing contradictory visions. These might either be Ardyn’s mind trying to understand what happened, the deamons that posses him torturing him or Bahamut manipulating him.
What happened was:
Aera had a vision of Ardyn being the chosen king (we know this as a fact from when Ardyn acquires Ifrit’s memories).
Against the gods’ orders she tells Somnus. (Probably because she hopes it will stop Somnus from sending more soldiers to kill Ardyn)
Somnus pretends to go along with the gods’ will and prepare Ardyn’s coronation.
When Ardyn appears, Somnus claims that the gods choose him (in the prologue we see Aera’s surprise at this).
He attacks Ardyn, and in the struggle kills Aera. This causes Ardyn to loose control of the scourge he has accumulated in his body.
Ardyn touches the Crystal in the hope the gods will settle the conflict and reject the murderer of their chosen oracle.
Instead the Crystal traps Ardyn’s soul, making him immortal and rejects him.
After discovering that he cannot kill Ardyn, Somnus crucifies him in a cave in Anglegard.
Afterwards, Somnus claims that, when he put on the ring of the Lucii, the gods told him he had done the right thing.
During his imprisonment, Ardyn keeps having visions/dreams of Aera’s murder and a taunting Somnus; again, we don’t know if this is his own mind, the deamons or the gods. He tries to make sense of what happened and assumes that, since the Crystal rejected him, it must mean that he was never chosen to be king.
The episode proper starts when Ardyn is rescued from the cave by Verstael Besitia .
Ardyn is immediately recognised as the Adagium by the crownguard who attack him.
By defending himself, Ardyn discovers he can pour the scourge into people now, turning them into deamons and acquiring some of their memories and knowledge.
After seven months recovering in Nilfgard, Ardyn is completely apathic. Yes he hates Somnus, and would want revenge if it was an option. But Somnus and their entire world is gone so it’s impossible. Verstael tries to get him to seek revenge against Somnus’ descendant’s but Ardyn doesn’t see the point.
Verstael shows Ardyn a frozen, sleeping Ifrit, and suggests that Ardyn deamonify him and use his power to get his revenge. Ardyn doesn’t think that it’s possible and still doesn’t want revenge. He starts to wish that he’d be back in Anglegard so that everybody would leave him alone.
[I’m going to take a sec here to gush about how good the writing is of this episode. If you take a bit of time to research the psychological consequences of prolonged solitary confinement (which is a type of torture), you’ll see that Ardyn’s behaviour is spot on. Often the victims have a hard time functioning and connecting in the real world and loose the ability to socialise. In extreme cases they’ll recreate the conditions of their confinement to find some peace, such as locking themselves up in the bathroom. I’m so happy that Ardyn was so realistically written. Interlude over]
The Crownguard has infiltrated the facility and attack Ardyn. He sees Somnus’ image as each crownguard. Somnus taunts him about how he has constructed this great legacy while Ardyn has been erased from the history books and didn’t leave anything behind or achieve anything.
The attack causes Ifrit to wake up and the god attacks Ardyn.
Ardyn deamonifies Ifrit and sees in his memories that the gods told Aera he was to be king. He deduces Somnus was always planning on killing Aera, since he would never have been able to proclaim himself the chosen of the gods with her alive. He has a vision of Aera apologizing to him, saying she betrayed him by telling Somnus Ardyn was to be king and that she is to blame for his suffering. Ardyn rejects her claims, putting all the blame on Somnus and vowing to end his line, since he can’t touch Somnus himself.
At this point Ardyn disavows the gods, believing that they were deceived by Somnus.
His apathy dispelled, Ardyn starts to work with Verstael to invade Lucis.
Attack on Insomnia
During the attack on Insomnia, Ardyn discovers the existence of the “Old Wall” which allows him to confront Somnus.
During their confrontation, Somnus admits to being jealous of Ardyn and that what he did was horrible. But he refuses to apologise and asks Ardyn instead to understand him and claims the gods approved of his actions.
After dispatching Somnus, Ardyn turns to kill Regis, but Bahamut intervenes.
The god tells him that Ardyn’s purpose was always to spread the scourge throughout the world so that the True King could sacrifice him and destroy the scourge. This is the only way to end Ardyn’s suffering, otherwise the pain and loneliness will continue for all eternity. Bahamut promises Ardyn that the True King will also die and end the line of Somnus, giving Ardyn his revenge.
At this point there is a bifurcation, one which leads to the ending in the game, and an alternative ending which is described in the last two chapters of “The Dawn of the Future” which would have been episode Luna and episode Noctis.
Ardyn chooses to accept his fate so that his suffering might end. He hates the god’s, Somnus, his line, and the world that betrayed him and knew peace thanks to his suffering, but he just wants it to end. Noctis is the spitting image of his brother, which only makes everything much worse, but ultimately his treatment of Noctis aims to make sure the kid becomes able and willing to destroy him.
Ardyn refuses his fate, preferring to give into his hate and thirst for vengeance, even if it means he will suffer for eternity. If you want to know what happens in this alternate ending you’ll have to read the book.
Hope this clears up your doubts about what happened to Ardyn. It is indeed very sad. The only question that remains, I think, is if the visions Ardyn has are the product of his own mind or if he his being manipulated. Ardyn himself believes them to be the result of his own repressed desires (although he does wonder why he can’t get rid of them). Personally I think it is awfully convenient that the visions play right into Bahamut’s hands. After all, the apathic person Verstael rescues from the cave would have never agreed to spreading the plague at the god’s behest, and there was nothing Bahamut would have been able t threaten or promise to make him change his mind.
Update for DIEYMLIH! A classic kylux dynamic-arguing!
This is so good! Ben is still a selfcentered prick. He feels bad and tries to fix it, so he keeps pushing even when Hux tells him to leave him alone. Then he even goes as far as frocing intimate contact, grabbing Hux by the neck, off all places. Which further direves home that Ben is not thinking about what Hux is going through at all, just himself. I like this because it´s really credible, you can´t just flip a switch and change who you are. Ben still has a long way to go before he can get rid of his abusive personality. As for Hux, his struggle feels so real. Kylo hurt him so much but Hux can´t leave him, and there might even be apart of him that doesn´t wan´t to leave. It´s such a realistic representation of abuse victims. On the one hand this person who should try to protect you is hurting you, but on the other hand they keep swearing that it was the last time, that they are so sorry. Plus all the good times and any feeling you might have for them. And in addition you start to wonder what kind of messed up person would stay with somebody who abuses them. Sorry for the rant, I just liked this page very much and I´m tired of Kylux story´s where Kylo just offers half an apology and everything is ok.
Military ranks in Star Wars are so gorram confusing, especially in the First Order.
It’s like 90% of them are made up to satisfy the ego of the higher ranking officers. Like… Allegiant General? Grand Marshal? And they still use Grand Admiral but there aren’t any mentioned aside from Sloane???
I’m trying to figure out what rank Hux would have been around the time he met Kylo- which, if my scouring has given me the correct timeline, is around 22 ABY, a year before or after Phasma joins the First Order. (So Hux has known Phasma and Kylo for well over a decade)
And then it says non-comm officers wear black, but I’m guessing Hux just wears black because he’s wearing parade uniform all the time because he’s Extra like that? IDEK THE FIRST ORDER MILITARY IS CONFUSING.
Here are my five credits.
(I assume the command structure didn’t change since the time of the Empire) So basically, you have Imperial/FO Navy and Imperial/FO Army.
Navy ranks are following:
And the Army ranks are (sorry - no handy page to scan here, so just a transcript):
Sergeant (squad commander)
Lieutenant (platoon commander)
Captain (company commander)
Major (battalion commander)
Lieutenant Colonel (regiment commander)
Colonel (battlegroup commander)
Major General (corps commander)
General (army commander)
They seem to get mixed up a lot, to when it can be really hard to make sense of. During the time of the Empire, the third branch of the military was Stormtrooper Corps, but it seems this one was merged with the Army. Hells, sometimes it looks like everything was just mashed together. -_-
Also, what you don’t have included in any rank system is the rank of Allegiant General. Because that is a bantha-crap rank for a bantha-crap person.
(source: the Imperial Handbook)
I´m really curious where you got the 22 ABY date from. This is the timeline I´ve put together bassed on the Phasma novel ( Dawson, 2017), Bloodline (Gray, 2016) and TFA Visual Dictionary (Hidalgo, 2015)
From the TFA VD we know that TFA takes place in 34 ABBY, Kylo is born in 5 ABBY and Hux in 0 ABBY
Bloodline takes place in 28 ABY we know this thanks to a tweet of the author and because of a celebration that takes place celebrating the fall of the Empire.
In bloodline Ben is still training under Luke (Leia spoke with him a few days before the novel begins).
At the end of the novel Leia decides to start the Resistance.
We have no clear date for the Phasma novel but we can infer a lot. The novel is divided in two periods, a current one, and 10 years before that date.
In the -10 part Phasma joins the Order, meets Hux, and one year latter, murders Brendol, Phasma is said to be around 16 years old.
In the current part
Kylo and Hux are already working together
Vi Moradi tells us she joined the the Resistance a year before.
This tells us that the current part is set between 29 ABBY and 34 ABBY, and the -10 must then take place between 19 ABBY and 24 ABBY.
This information together gives us the following timeline:
ABY
0 Armitage Hux is born
5 Ben Solo is born
3-8 Phasma is born
19-24 Phasma joins the order
20-25 Brendol Hux is murdered
28 Foundation of the Resistance
28-34 Kylo Ren joins the Order
34 TFA
There are some additional sources i haven´t been able to check that could further narrow down this timeline:
Pablo Hidalgo mentioned on twitter that Hux and Kylo had been working together for 5 years, So Kylo would have joined shortly after Bloodline.
The Rise of Ren comic books tell the story of Kylo leaving, according to wookipeedia they take place in 28 ABBY, I haven´t read them but the date fits in the previous timeline and with Hidalgo´s information.
Galaxy´s Edge: Black Spire, also by Dawson, takes place shortly after “Phasma” current period and the wookiepedia states it takes place shortly before TFA, so 33 or 34 ABY
If we take this information as valid the timeline looks like this:
ABY
0 Armitage Hux is born
5 Ben Solo is born
8 Phasma is born (assuming she was 16 when joining)
24 Phasma joins the order
25 Brendol Hux is murdered
28 Foundation of the Resistance
28 Kylo Ren joins the Order
34 TFA & TLJ
35 TROS
As for Hux´s rank, we have much less to go on.
In Phasma -10 ( so 24 ABY) Hux is described as wearing a black uniform and Cardinal tells us that he rose rapidly through the ranks after Brendol´s death.
According to the TFA visual dictionary, black uniforms belong to sergeants and squad leaders.
The ranks between sergeant and general are Lieutenant, Captain, Major and Colonel. So in ten years he gains 5 ranks.
I don´t think Kylo would “work together” with a low ranking officer so my best bet is that Hux was already General in 28 ABY or Colonel or Major.
god okay me and my girlfriend were talking about this but the thing that REALLY gets me about hux is that you could argue that he’s not fully aware of just WHAT he’s doing. like don’t get me wrong, he KNOWS he’s taking lives and he knows he’s hurting people, but i don’t think that means much to him.
from day one, as we all know, he was abused and treated like nothing. he never had anyone to look out for him or care about him. think. this little dumbass has never been treated with kindness or genuine care ONCE. all he has EVER been taught is that he has to make it to the top by whatever means necessary. after years of some damn good fuckin beatings i think obeying the first order and not questioning it would be drilled pretty well into your head.
essentially what i’m getting at is that armitage hux does not understand the value of a human/alien life. all around him his entire upbringing people were dying left and right, being slaughtered left and right. to him that’s the norm. because of a lack of care and relationships, armitage is cold and unable to understand others emotions. he doesn’t get the pain of losing loved ones because he’s never HAD loved ones.
i think that’s what really gets me, is that while not excusable, his actions are something you can analyze over and over and over again and think about from different angles every time. hux has never had a family, hux has never had anyone, the only thing he has ever cared about is making it to the top because that’s what he was brought up to do. other’s lives mean nothing to him because he was TAUGHT that they aren’t worth his time.
it’s sad and it’s shitty but he was raised to be a blank emotionless slate and in some ways, it really did work.
Both the Empire and the Resistance/New Republic present mass murder as a valid way of achieving victory (when they do it themselves). So why would he think otherwise?
Hux lied
Going through Hux’s tags, I was somewhat surprised reading everyone’s outrage over Hux betraying the First order because it never occurred to me that Hux might have told Finn the truth. I immediately assumed that Hux’s plan at this point is to use the Resistance to get rid of Kylo and get rid of the Resistance once he is back in a position of power within the First Order. Of course, Hux is not going to tell them that. So when Finn asks, he tells him a well thought off half-truth that is both credible and convincing.
Hux deserved better. Although given the way Star Wars works this is probably the best we could expect. On the plus side, I'm fairly certain he's alive and we'll get some comic's or books about what he gets up to after this.
Also the Ben's final scene would have been perfect without the kiss.
Also (2) following Star Wars logic of one Good act motivated by selfish reasons redeeming characters, Hux redeemed himself.
tdp season 3 (III)
The final piece about my first impression about season 3.
Dark Magic
So, I’ve finally gotten to my favourite topic in TDP, the morality and ethics of dark magic, I already wrote a piece about this before, and not much has changed. If anything, what we see seems to merely confirm some ideas I already had.
We still have no idea why humans such as Harrow, Sarai, Callum and now also Soren seem to be prejudiced against dark magic and the show addresses the issue by not addressing it at all. On the other hand, I do think it’s confirmed now that the discrimination by elves and dragons is the result of hubris, contempt and having a chip on their shoulder the size of an adult thunder dragon. I do hope the irony wasn’t lost on anyone of a queen on a golden throne, in a gigantic golden city that drains resources for kilometres in their vicinity; accusing humans who developed dark magic to not die of “taking what doesn’t belong to them”. I mean, wow.
Besides, the Sunfire elves have this whole “pure of heart” test, that boils down to whether or not you have used dark magic, because apparently, as long as you don’t use dark magic, you can’t be bad? Not to mention that they are willing to execute in an extremely excruciating and painful way anyone who turns up, solely for having used dark magic. Ok, nothing wrong with that attitude…
But let’s get back to the human attitude towards dark magic. As I’ve already covered often enough, human’s aversion to dark magic never gets explained beyond rather ridiculous claims about “it will cost us more in the end” and “it’s a shortcut”. In the fandom a lot of people argue that dark magic is bad because you kill animals, but the humans in tdp use leather and eat meat, so it’s hard to understand why it’s ok to kill an animal to have sturdier boots but bad if you do it to cure someone’s tetraplegia or feed 100,000 starving people. And of course, the fact that practising dark magic is bad for the practitioner’s health doesn’t make it ethically objectionable. On the contrary, the fact that dark magic users are willing to sacrifice their wellbeing for the benefit of others makes them heroes.
An interesting part of human attitude towards dark magic is revealed in Viren’s need to hide his true appearance. We thought it was because he didn’t want people to know, but season 3 shows us that at least the people close to him, Harrow and his children, do know. And yet he needs to hide how he truly looks. You can put it down to vanity, but if that were the case, why does Aaravos go out of his way to make sure Viren looks normal when his children come to visit? And remember in my section about Soren, how I pointed out that the breaking point for him is watching his father do dark magic? Soren knows his father is a dark mage, and he knows that he has done more powerful magic than the one he uses on the prince. But actually having to see it is the problem. And that is why Viren changes his appearance because he knows he is only tolerated as long as people are not confronted by what he is. And it is so hypocritical. If Viren were a master swordsman, who saved 100,000 people by killing one creature in an incredible feat of martial prowess, he would be encouraged to display his scars proudly. But because he is a master mage he has to hide the physical mark of the sacrifices he has made in Harrow’s service and for Katholis.
The fact that people have issues with witnessing dark magic and its consequences, more than with its practitioners or knowing that something that appears normal is the consequence of magic, tells us that the problem with dark magic is not a rational or an ethical one, but an emotional or instinctual one. This is why, when asked why they object to dark magic, people are unable to come up with a rational justification. Emotional responses are ingrained by society while we grow up. So I’m headcanoning that the dominant religion is against dark magic, and even though it doesn’t have enough influence to actively persecute dark mages (at least in Katholis), it is still able to generate this low level but pervasive prejudice. And this is why we don’t see any other (openly) dark mages, not even in the courts of the other kingdoms, or why some people seem unjustifiable predisposed to distrust Viren and condemn dark magic, despite all the lives that it has saved.
My thing with this, and what I feel people ignore is that dark magic doesn’t discriminate between intelligent beings and other beings. Which is exactly what Sarai was justifiably worried about.
We dont know why the birds were important to Sol Regem. But we know he stopped trying to attack the city once he saw Ziard consuming them and flew back to square up with him.
We know the titan was likely intelligent. We know the dragons are intelligent and that Viren, Claudia and Aaravos still tried to harvest their parts and energy. That alone makes the whole “but killing animals for food is ok” thing a false equivalence because not every nonhumanoid is an animal to be consumed as food.
Not false equivalence. With the exception of Sarai, when people object to dark magic they do so regardless of the intelligence of the animals used.
And even so, killing intelligent people is still acceptable in certain circumstances. This is why Sarai’s objection is dismissed, because even if the titan is intelligent, killing one person to save a 100,000 would be considered the right thing to do.
It was a false equivalence because people arent a food source but like next time I guess just SAY killing an actual person is “okay” from the get.
Also Soren object not for seeing it in use but because it was used on people against their will
Soren only sees it used against the prince who volunteers
tdp season 3 (III)
The final piece about my first impression about season 3.
Dark Magic
So, I’ve finally gotten to my favourite topic in TDP, the morality and ethics of dark magic, I already wrote a piece about this before, and not much has changed. If anything, what we see seems to merely confirm some ideas I already had.
We still have no idea why humans such as Harrow, Sarai, Callum and now also Soren seem to be prejudiced against dark magic and the show addresses the issue by not addressing it at all. On the other hand, I do think it’s confirmed now that the discrimination by elves and dragons is the result of hubris, contempt and having a chip on their shoulder the size of an adult thunder dragon. I do hope the irony wasn’t lost on anyone of a queen on a golden throne, in a gigantic golden city that drains resources for kilometres in their vicinity; accusing humans who developed dark magic to not die of “taking what doesn’t belong to them”. I mean, wow.
Besides, the Sunfire elves have this whole “pure of heart” test, that boils down to whether or not you have used dark magic, because apparently, as long as you don’t use dark magic, you can’t be bad? Not to mention that they are willing to execute in an extremely excruciating and painful way anyone who turns up, solely for having used dark magic. Ok, nothing wrong with that attitude…
But let’s get back to the human attitude towards dark magic. As I’ve already covered often enough, human’s aversion to dark magic never gets explained beyond rather ridiculous claims about “it will cost us more in the end” and “it’s a shortcut”. In the fandom a lot of people argue that dark magic is bad because you kill animals, but the humans in tdp use leather and eat meat, so it’s hard to understand why it’s ok to kill an animal to have sturdier boots but bad if you do it to cure someone’s tetraplegia or feed 100,000 starving people. And of course, the fact that practising dark magic is bad for the practitioner’s health doesn’t make it ethically objectionable. On the contrary, the fact that dark magic users are willing to sacrifice their wellbeing for the benefit of others makes them heroes.
An interesting part of human attitude towards dark magic is revealed in Viren’s need to hide his true appearance. We thought it was because he didn’t want people to know, but season 3 shows us that at least the people close to him, Harrow and his children, do know. And yet he needs to hide how he truly looks. You can put it down to vanity, but if that were the case, why does Aaravos go out of his way to make sure Viren looks normal when his children come to visit? And remember in my section about Soren, how I pointed out that the breaking point for him is watching his father do dark magic? Soren knows his father is a dark mage, and he knows that he has done more powerful magic than the one he uses on the prince. But actually having to see it is the problem. And that is why Viren changes his appearance because he knows he is only tolerated as long as people are not confronted by what he is. And it is so hypocritical. If Viren were a master swordsman, who saved 100,000 people by killing one creature in an incredible feat of martial prowess, he would be encouraged to display his scars proudly. But because he is a master mage he has to hide the physical mark of the sacrifices he has made in Harrow’s service and for Katholis.
The fact that people have issues with witnessing dark magic and its consequences, more than with its practitioners or knowing that something that appears normal is the consequence of magic, tells us that the problem with dark magic is not a rational or an ethical one, but an emotional or instinctual one. This is why, when asked why they object to dark magic, people are unable to come up with a rational justification. Emotional responses are ingrained by society while we grow up. So I’m headcanoning that the dominant religion is against dark magic, and even though it doesn’t have enough influence to actively persecute dark mages (at least in Katholis), it is still able to generate this low level but pervasive prejudice. And this is why we don’t see any other (openly) dark mages, not even in the courts of the other kingdoms, or why some people seem unjustifiable predisposed to distrust Viren and condemn dark magic, despite all the lives that it has saved.
My thing with this, and what I feel people ignore is that dark magic doesn’t discriminate between intelligent beings and other beings. Which is exactly what Sarai was justifiably worried about.
We dont know why the birds were important to Sol Regem. But we know he stopped trying to attack the city once he saw Ziard consuming them and flew back to square up with him.
We know the titan was likely intelligent. We know the dragons are intelligent and that Viren, Claudia and Aaravos still tried to harvest their parts and energy. That alone makes the whole “but killing animals for food is ok” thing a false equivalence because not every nonhumanoid is an animal to be consumed as food.
Not false equivalence. With the exception of Sarai, when people object to dark magic they do so regardless of the intelligence of the animals used.
And even so, killing intelligent people is still acceptable in certain circumstances. This is why Sarai’s objection is dismissed, because even if the titan is intelligent, killing one person to save a 100,000 would be considered the right thing to do.
It was a false equivalence because people arent a food source but like next time I guess just SAY killing an actual person is “okay” from the get.
It’s not. Harrow objects to dark magic to save his life when Viren was going to kill a snake. Callum objects to Claudia killing moths for pancakes. Soren objects to dark magic even when it seems that no animal is killed whatsoever. Whenever dark magic is discussed the sentience of the animals it uses is never brought up, with one sole exception. Sol Regum doesn’t say “It’s ok to use dark magic as long as you don’t kill intelligent creatures.” Therefore, comparing’s people willingness to kill non intelligent creatures for whatever reason to their objection to dark magic is not a false equivalence.
Just because there is one single instance where the intelligence of the creature is brought up does not invalidate all the other instances where it is clearly considered irrelevant.
tdp season 3 (III)
The final piece about my first impression about season 3.
Dark Magic
So, I’ve finally gotten to my favourite topic in TDP, the morality and ethics of dark magic, I already wrote a piece about this before, and not much has changed. If anything, what we see seems to merely confirm some ideas I already had.
We still have no idea why humans such as Harrow, Sarai, Callum and now also Soren seem to be prejudiced against dark magic and the show addresses the issue by not addressing it at all. On the other hand, I do think it’s confirmed now that the discrimination by elves and dragons is the result of hubris, contempt and having a chip on their shoulder the size of an adult thunder dragon. I do hope the irony wasn’t lost on anyone of a queen on a golden throne, in a gigantic golden city that drains resources for kilometres in their vicinity; accusing humans who developed dark magic to not die of “taking what doesn’t belong to them”. I mean, wow.
Besides, the Sunfire elves have this whole “pure of heart” test, that boils down to whether or not you have used dark magic, because apparently, as long as you don’t use dark magic, you can’t be bad? Not to mention that they are willing to execute in an extremely excruciating and painful way anyone who turns up, solely for having used dark magic. Ok, nothing wrong with that attitude…
But let’s get back to the human attitude towards dark magic. As I’ve already covered often enough, human’s aversion to dark magic never gets explained beyond rather ridiculous claims about “it will cost us more in the end” and “it’s a shortcut”. In the fandom a lot of people argue that dark magic is bad because you kill animals, but the humans in tdp use leather and eat meat, so it’s hard to understand why it’s ok to kill an animal to have sturdier boots but bad if you do it to cure someone’s tetraplegia or feed 100,000 starving people. And of course, the fact that practising dark magic is bad for the practitioner’s health doesn’t make it ethically objectionable. On the contrary, the fact that dark magic users are willing to sacrifice their wellbeing for the benefit of others makes them heroes.
An interesting part of human attitude towards dark magic is revealed in Viren’s need to hide his true appearance. We thought it was because he didn’t want people to know, but season 3 shows us that at least the people close to him, Harrow and his children, do know. And yet he needs to hide how he truly looks. You can put it down to vanity, but if that were the case, why does Aaravos go out of his way to make sure Viren looks normal when his children come to visit? And remember in my section about Soren, how I pointed out that the breaking point for him is watching his father do dark magic? Soren knows his father is a dark mage, and he knows that he has done more powerful magic than the one he uses on the prince. But actually having to see it is the problem. And that is why Viren changes his appearance because he knows he is only tolerated as long as people are not confronted by what he is. And it is so hypocritical. If Viren were a master swordsman, who saved 100,000 people by killing one creature in an incredible feat of martial prowess, he would be encouraged to display his scars proudly. But because he is a master mage he has to hide the physical mark of the sacrifices he has made in Harrow’s service and for Katholis.
The fact that people have issues with witnessing dark magic and its consequences, more than with its practitioners or knowing that something that appears normal is the consequence of magic, tells us that the problem with dark magic is not a rational or an ethical one, but an emotional or instinctual one. This is why, when asked why they object to dark magic, people are unable to come up with a rational justification. Emotional responses are ingrained by society while we grow up. So I’m headcanoning that the dominant religion is against dark magic, and even though it doesn’t have enough influence to actively persecute dark mages (at least in Katholis), it is still able to generate this low level but pervasive prejudice. And this is why we don’t see any other (openly) dark mages, not even in the courts of the other kingdoms, or why some people seem unjustifiable predisposed to distrust Viren and condemn dark magic, despite all the lives that it has saved.
My thing with this, and what I feel people ignore is that dark magic doesn’t discriminate between intelligent beings and other beings. Which is exactly what Sarai was justifiably worried about.
We dont know why the birds were important to Sol Regem. But we know he stopped trying to attack the city once he saw Ziard consuming them and flew back to square up with him.
We know the titan was likely intelligent. We know the dragons are intelligent and that Viren, Claudia and Aaravos still tried to harvest their parts and energy. That alone makes the whole “but killing animals for food is ok” thing a false equivalence because not every nonhumanoid is an animal to be consumed as food.
Not false equivalence. With the exception of Sarai, when people object to dark magic they do so regardless of the intelligence of the animals used.
And even so, killing intelligent people is still acceptable in certain circumstances. This is why Sarai’s objection is dismissed, because even if the titan is intelligent, killing one person to save a 100,000 would be considered the right thing to do.
tdp season 3 (III)
The final piece about my first impression about season 3.
Dark Magic
So, I’ve finally gotten to my favourite topic in TDP, the morality and ethics of dark magic, I already wrote a piece about this before, and not much has changed. If anything, what we see seems to merely confirm some ideas I already had.
We still have no idea why humans such as Harrow, Sarai, Callum and now also Soren seem to be prejudiced against dark magic and the show addresses the issue by not addressing it at all. On the other hand, I do think it’s confirmed now that the discrimination by elves and dragons is the result of hubris, contempt and having a chip on their shoulder the size of an adult thunder dragon. I do hope the irony wasn’t lost on anyone of a queen on a golden throne, in a gigantic golden city that drains resources for kilometres in their vicinity; accusing humans who developed dark magic to not die of “taking what doesn’t belong to them”. I mean, wow.
Besides, the Sunfire elves have this whole “pure of heart” test, that boils down to whether or not you have used dark magic, because apparently, as long as you don’t use dark magic, you can’t be bad? Not to mention that they are willing to execute in an extremely excruciating and painful way anyone who turns up, solely for having used dark magic. Ok, nothing wrong with that attitude…
But let's get back to the human attitude towards dark magic. As I’ve already covered often enough, human’s aversion to dark magic never gets explained beyond rather ridiculous claims about “it will cost us more in the end” and “it’s a shortcut”. In the fandom a lot of people argue that dark magic is bad because you kill animals, but the humans in tdp use leather and eat meat, so it’s hard to understand why it’s ok to kill an animal to have sturdier boots but bad if you do it to cure someone’s tetraplegia or feed 100,000 starving people. And of course, the fact that practising dark magic is bad for the practitioner’s health doesn’t make it ethically objectionable. On the contrary, the fact that dark magic users are willing to sacrifice their wellbeing for the benefit of others makes them heroes.
An interesting part of human attitude towards dark magic is revealed in Viren’s need to hide his true appearance. We thought it was because he didn’t want people to know, but season 3 shows us that at least the people close to him, Harrow and his children, do know. And yet he needs to hide how he truly looks. You can put it down to vanity, but if that were the case, why does Aaravos go out of his way to make sure Viren looks normal when his children come to visit? And remember in my section about Soren, how I pointed out that the breaking point for him is watching his father do dark magic? Soren knows his father is a dark mage, and he knows that he has done more powerful magic than the one he uses on the prince. But actually having to see it is the problem. And that is why Viren changes his appearance because he knows he is only tolerated as long as people are not confronted by what he is. And it is so hypocritical. If Viren were a master swordsman, who saved 100,000 people by killing one creature in an incredible feat of martial prowess, he would be encouraged to display his scars proudly. But because he is a master mage he has to hide the physical mark of the sacrifices he has made in Harrow’s service and for Katholis.
The fact that people have issues with witnessing dark magic and its consequences, more than with its practitioners or knowing that something that appears normal is the consequence of magic, tells us that the problem with dark magic is not a rational or an ethical one, but an emotional or instinctual one. This is why, when asked why they object to dark magic, people are unable to come up with a rational justification. Emotional responses are ingrained by society while we grow up. So I’m headcanoning that the dominant religion is against dark magic, and even though it doesn’t have enough influence to actively persecute dark mages (at least in Katholis), it is still able to generate this low level but pervasive prejudice. And this is why we don’t see any other (openly) dark mages, not even in the courts of the other kingdoms, or why some people seem unjustifiable predisposed to distrust Viren and condemn dark magic, despite all the lives that it has saved.
Viren’s future and creator interview
Ehasz and Richmond have given an interview here. They talk about a number of interesting things of season 3 and what is coming next. Regarding Viren:
“Viren had a pretty crazy season. He basically sold his soul to a bug and would have lost his life in the bargain if it weren’t for Claudia. So what’s his next move? Will he have some sense knocked into him after all this?
Ehasz: I can’t tell if this is a spoiler. I will say that one of the things that [Jason Simpson] the brilliant actor who plays Viren experienced during season 3 was like, hey, he was so complex and layered. You could always believe there was a reason [for what he did], and then in season 3 he kind of became a villain. And I think he still played it with such depth and dimension and dignity, even though he was a villain.
But I will say that I think that Jason is more excited about the journey we have discussed with him for Viren in season 4 and season 5, and some of the complexities that are going to be revealed and introduced at that time. So my answer will be: Jason, who is amazing, is excited for what’s to come for his character.”
It interesting that this is basically echoing what a lot of people, myself included have been saying and feeling about Viren in season 3 and my hopes for the future seasons
tdp season3 (II)
First part over here. The first part is my take on Viren, and his relationship with Harrow and Aaravos, you don’t have to read it to follow this.
Soren
Soren’s evolution is one of my favourite things in the season and I’m so glad he changed sides and is comfortable with who and where he is now. What I find curious is that of all the good reasons they could have given Soren to leave his father, they actually picked pretty bad ones.
First is the reason for him leaving is when he sees his father do Dark Magic and it looks creepy. He isn’t doing it for a wrong reason (making your army capable of defeating the enemy is a good thing), and the prince volunteers for the transformation. This plays into Soren’s prejudice against dark magic, not any ethical objections to his father’s actions. Viren being a dark mage shouldn’t have been Soren’s breaking point. (I’ll go more into this in the section on dark magic)
Secondly, in his “we have to stand against evil” speech, Soren makes a couple of claims that simply aren’t true. He accuses Viren of lying when he claims to be acting for the good of humanity, while in fact, we know that is simply not true. And he accuses Viren of being evil because he is capable of convincing people. I’m sorry sweetie, I love you, and you’re doing great, but being persuasive does not make you a villain. I do understand where Soren is coming from, and I particularly enjoy the parallel with Harrow. In both cases, Viren never lies to them, and he doesn’t use magic, he explains why he believes certain things should happen and they agree with him. Later they regret it and, instead of accepting responsibility they blame Viren. And Viren is such an easy person to blame, isn’t he? He dresses in black, does creepy things and is way too intense. Again, it is such a natural human reaction, but I do hope that in the future, Soren’s misconceptions about his father get addressed. I’m also hoping Viren gets his head out of his ass and shows/appreciates his son.
Other people’s reaction to Viren
One of the things that surprise me is some character’s unjustified adverse reaction towards Viren. This isn’t to say that Viren doesn’t do bad things and that everybody should like him, but that there are clear instances where people’s treatment of him don’t seem justified by what they know about him.
This already starts in season 1, when Amaya accuses Viren of wanting Harrow to die. As a viewer, we know that nothing could be further from the truth, that Viren did everything he could to save Harrow’s life and that he was even willing to give up his own life. But even from Amaya’s point of view, this doesn’t seem a logical thing to say. What we can see from the flashbacks is that Viren has been nothing if not loyal and devoted to Harrow, whom he has served for years probably most of his life. And yet her first reaction, instead of expressing condolences for the shared loss of a loved one is to accuse him of wanting Harrow to die. Even if you take into account that she’s pissed over the coronation, the accusation seems too extreme, and she never apologises for it. Her assumption that Viren will betray Gren also seems to come out of nowhere, since up to this point Viren has never betrayed anyone.
Skipping ahead to season 3, we see similar behaviour. Ezran at no point questions why Viren is imprisoned. Remember, at this point all Ezran knows about Viren is that he has served his father all his life, kept the egg safe when everyone else thought it was destroyed, send his kids to bring it, Ezran and Callum back when everyone thought they had been captured by one of the Moonelves that killed Harrow, pretended to be Ezran’s regent to convince the other nations to help protect Katholis, and killed several soldiers when a fully armed group of soldiers went to arrest him. At the least, you would expect Ezran to want to ask Viren for an explanation, instead of letting him rot without a chance of defending himself.
And again, when Amaya hears that Viren is in the Sunfire elf capital. The last thing she knows about Viren is that he got imprisoned for pretending to be Ezran’s regent to get the reinforcements she requested. It’s ironic that despite her attitude, Viren is the only one at the court who takes her warnings and request seriously. But even when taking into account that he imprisoned Gren, it’s a huge leap to accuse Viren of being the most dangerous human alive and immediately side with her captors. For all she knows, he could be there to rescue her.
To recapitulate, Amaya and Ezran’s reactions make sense to us as viewers because of what we know about Viren. But they should make sense based on what Amaya and Ezran know. In all honesty, I’m tempted to attribute this to just bad writing, but in the section on Dark Magic I’m going to try and come up with a Watsonian explanation.
Can we get some appreciation for the original dark mage, who got an incredibly powerful elven (?) magic staff from a powerful mage (Aaravos?) and his first thought was, “this needs pieces of dead animals”?
Viren
So I see a lot of complaints about Viren being a villian in this season compared to the previous ones, that he isn't morally gray anymore. I couldn't disagree more.
First, let's see what his "morally gray" actions were:
Season 1
Good
Wanted to sacrifice his life for harrow.
Wasn't too mean to Runaan
Bad
Told Soren to kill the princess
Told Claudia to choose the egg over soren
Tried to usurp the throne
Trapped Runaan's soul into a coin
Season 2
Good
Showed that he cared for the queen
Season 3
Actually tried to save the kingdom
Wants the best for humanity
Bad
Sends assassin's to kill people in each kingdom
Kills a few guards
Forges letters
Threatens crowlord
Season 3
Good
Actually wants people to be happy, but aaravos ruins it for him.
Doesn't want his soldiers to die
Shows appreciation for his daughter
Told aaravos to fuck off basically cause he called his daughter an asset
Tries to connect with his son
Bad
Kills elf queen (though he doesn't do it he literally meant for it to happen)
Gaslights soren so badly
Does not show to care about soren
Could not care less about soren
Tries to eat zym
Relishes in trapping raylas parents
Does that again but with rayla
Was about to destroy the egg but kept it for greedy purposes
Tried to kill anyone that stood in his way
Idk but I don't see much changing as far as his personality goes. The dude clearly had no problem with killing people. So him doing it now isn't a surprise. Like Aaravos barely had to do anything here, he just brought out Viren's true desires. HOWEVER viren does state that he only wants to protect humanity, and never once did he want claim to the throne because of his own selfish reasons. That is what most people see as the morally gray part as his actions do have a noble cause...
But that still means he's a villian.
Viren is not the first villian to have good intentions but bad methods. Thanos, Ultron, Lotor, the list goes on. Even modern villians aka terrorists such as ISIL think they have good intentions... But their actions is what makes them a bad person.
You can say viren only wanted the best, but genocide and abuse isn't what a hero or morally gray character does. Soren said it himself, even though his father meant well, he is still a villian.
His traits did not appear much in the previous two seasons cause he was never given the moment to do so. He was always worried about stepping on people's toes, and after the elf attack, he finally showed his true side. I mean hell, have you seen what he did to Runaan? The dude was never good to begin with. Yes, all humans see elves as bad, but any human who loves to hurt elves isn't a good person, same as how any elves who like to hurt people aren't good either. Sol Regem isn't good, he wanted to kill others just to force a man to stop dark magic.
But yeah basically, viren never changed, Aaravos just allowed viren to exercise his true passion, regardless of true intentions. He's not misunderstood, not "uwu poor baby just trying to save humanity". He's an abusive father who takes advantage of the weakness in others to push whatever motives he has, be it in favor for people. Harrow isn't perfect, the elves aren't perfect, but Viren deliberately set up false flags to commit genocide on elves who had no idea what was going on, not to mention tearing down anyone in his way, including his son.
But I still love him, cause he's an interesting character of man who's morals conflict with his passion. Aaravos is giving him everything he wants and that itself if showing how corrupt Viren truly is. He's an extremist, and Aaravos only pointed it out for the audience.
First, a few points.
1. I don't think Viren knew that Aaravos was going to kill the queen. Even if he did, their entire plan relied on the fact that she would want to torture him to death in the most excruciating way possible, so I don't think to kill her qualifies as all that bad.
2. What genocide? Does Viren or Aaravos at any point indicate they wanna eradicate the elves? Don't think so. Going to war isn't the same as genocide.
My issue, and I think the problem of several other people, is that Viren is unnecessarily and out of character villainous, often for no other reason than to advance the plot in a specific direction. Throughout the first two seasons, Viren's evil actions serve specific purposes, and he doesn't seem to relish in the damage that he does. On the contrary, he seems to very much see it as a necessary evil. The only exception is when he turns Runaan into a coin, but Runaan just murdered Harrow, a bit of relish in his pain is understandable.
But in season 3 we often see him being evil and villainous just for the sake of being evil. Or for plot reasons.
1. There it's no need for him to be cruel to Ezran, this is the 8-year-old kid of his friend for whom he was willing to die a few weeks ago. Even strategically it would be much smarter If Viren at least initially tried to sell the narrative that Ezran is being removed from the throne for his own good, and lock him up somewhere in a tower. His behaviour seems to serve no purpose other than making him look villainous to the audience.
2. As Soren points out, one of Viren's strengths is his ability to get people on his side. But throughout season 3 he treats Soren unnecessarily badly and callously. Following his character, you'd expect Viren to go out of his way to get Soren back into the fold. But he does the complete opposite for no discernible reason except the writers wanting Soren's betrayal to seem natural.
3. The same happens with him taunting Rayla with the coins. It serves no purpose, he doesn't know her or care about her. Why does he waste time when he has so much more important stuff to do and is working on a tight time schedule? Because now Rayla knows about the coins so we can get a plotline where they rescue Runaan and her parents. There are a few more examples of this.
An additional issue is that Viren gets forced into so many villain cliches in this season. Like the thing with the broken shackle insignia. It was so predictable that that was going to come back and bite him in the arse. This show is fairly cliché and uses a lot of tropes. Like princes having magical powers for no particular reason, evil magicians vs good monarchy and soldiers, pre-teens being great at politics and the best leaders of state... The interesting part for me was that Viren was in many senses different and not predictable. But that is mostly lost in season 3. My main hope now is that, now that the writers have gotten where they wanted to get to, they can get back to writing Viren with the nuance they did before.
Tdp, season 3 (I)
So now that I’ve had a night to sleep on it, I’m ready to write down my main impressions of season 3. Overall, I’m happy with it even though it is too often predictable and there are several plotholes. It’s evident that the writers were trying to get the narrative to a particular point and character consistency and nuance be damned. However, there are still a lot of things to be happy about, and I do believe, the way the season ends, next season gives them the chance to go back to treating the characters with the attention to detail and complexity they deserve.
So now on to a more detailed review. Also, note that I’ve just seen the season once, so I might change my mind about things in the future. This also turned out a lot longer than I had expected, so I’m dividing it up in several posts.
Viren
My favourite character from season 1 and still my favourite character, up to the point that my interest in the show would severely wane if he were to disappear. Overall the plot of the show is fairly run-of-the-mill fantasy, with not that much innovation. For me, it’s mostly Viren and the effect he has on the other character and the plot, that makes it interesting.
I was unhappy with Viren during the first few episodes where he seemed to be reduced to a 2D evil villain who goes around doing evil things and generally acting sketchy just for the sake of it. There is too much of this throughout the entire season for my taste. But I am very happy that halfway thorough, despite what Soren later claims, Viren´s motivation is his desire to give humanity a bright future, as he has been saying all along, despite the mockery of others. Aaravos really has to drag the plan to attack the elves out of him, this is not his primary goal. And he doesn’t hesitate to put his own life on the line for his ideals. When Aaravos tells him he has to risk his life, he merely seems resigned. There are few tropes I dislike more than the villain who chickens out when they are expected to risk something for their goals, I’m delighted that the authors keep showing that this is not Viren.
Harrow and Viren
I’m thrilled with what we further learn about Harrow and his relationship with Viren. I’ve already pointed out I like complex and nuanced characters, so the more we are shown that Harrow isn’t a Good Guy™ the more I love him. Specifically, we see that despite blaming Viren for Thunder’s death and the egg, these things are ultimately Harrow’s responsibility. He gives Viren the go-ahead to go take the egg, and he is the one who decides that they are going to kill Thunder. And later, when he realises his mistake and feels guilty about it, he shifts all the blame onto Viren. It’s such a human reaction. And the fact that Viren doesn’t even react to it, doesn’t point out Harrow’s hypocrisy, tells us that this is not the first time Viren is used as a scapegoat for Harrow’s guilt.
Besides, we see that Harrow knows, and apparently doesn’t care, about the corruption Viren’s body suffers when he performs prodigious feats of dark magic. Back in season 1 I actually believed Harrow’s non sequitur about dark magic having a price referred to the price Viren pays, and that he doesn’t want to save his own life at the cost of his friend’s wellbeing. Ha. Now I’m even more interested in what went on between the two of them after Harrow made him kneel.
Aaravos and Viren
Aaravos is fantastic, he’s still as mysterious, with now additional helpings of being unnecessarily extra. Yet I find it very surprising that Viren seems to trust him so completely. One of the first things Aaravos does is enchant Viren so he can’t read any information on him and he absolutely refuses to give even the most straightforward explanation as to why he is helping Viren. Aaravos couldn’t be sketchier unless he went off every now and then to look out into the distance and went “BWHAHAHAHAHAAA, YOU FOOLS!”. In the second season, I thought it was because Viren was desperate. He didn’t care if Aaravos betrayed him and killed him because he thought humanity was doomed either way. But in the third season his situation is considerably less dire, and yet, Viren doesn’t hesitate to trust Aaravos with his life and humanity’s future. I’m starting to believe that maybe Aaravos is using magic to get Viren’s compliance. I think the best proof for this is that Viren led the army into Xadia without knowing why. This seems to go entirely against Viren’s nature, who always has at least five plans, who always want’s to be in control. I’d be astonished if there wasn’t something going on there.
I liked the fact that Aaravos got some blowback over Claudia, and now that it is the three of them, I suspect Aaravos is going to have a much harder time controlling Viren.
Second part here.