Luni || any/all || Main blog @officiallyluni A place for TDP commentary, thoughts, theories, and appreciation Please block the #tdp critical tag if you are not comfortable with seeing any negativity expressed towards the show, thanks!
A question that has always nagged at me is Katolis's apparently censored history in comparison to Duren. We know Duren is known for their high education rates and their grand librarians, to the point a librarian skin themed after Duren is available in the former Xadia game
But Katolis is also known for the same thing, they have an expansive library containing books on the history of giants and even some books that held knowledge of Aaravos
Yet their history is censored in the way it isn't for the Kingdom of Duren. Its no surprise the two kingdoms who got the most prosperous lands have their hands bloodied from war but where Duren learns from it, Katolis seems to hide it.
In the Tales of Xadia book Katolis is described as old, constantly building upon itself to the point it is very common for the average Katolian to discover another basement or a secret extension of their homes they had no knowledge of
Its a very literal metaphor, Katolis is constantly burying the past despite preaching of history and legacy.
It makes me wonder how much of it currently is purposeful.
Does Opeli know the true history, as she seems to be the one in charge of his education and most fluent in Katolian law, order, and history?
Or was she too fed a glossed over book, skipping over the unsavory parts of their past?
anyway absolutely insane extension of the whole magma titan scenario in the novel is that there's an additional scene where Harrow has decided that he will follow Sarai's counsel and not go through with Viren's dark magic proposal, but when he meets with Annika and Neha they refuse his help because someone (it's Viren) has let slip to them that Katolis doesn't have the capacity to aid Duren without sacrificing its own people, and then it's only when the alternative is letting them walk away empty-handed that Harrow falls back on Viren's plan as the way to save everyone
actually do want to highlight how arrogant Harrow comes across in the narration, like:
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And like yeah, Viren doesn't exactly come out of this sequence covered in glory, but Harrow's reaction to the idea that he informed Neha and Annika of Katolis's true situation to force them into a moral dilemma is just... he was deadass going to give them 50,000 of his people's lives without even telling them. Apparently without a single thought to how that would feel from their end, because it makes him feel like a big man correcting the world's injustices. Viren is arguably the only person here treating anyone involved with even a shred of dignity by being transparent about the costs involved.
The whole "servant king" thing is an extremely loaded concept and I think they actually do a pretty good job exploring some of its failings with Harrow—how sacrifice and even servitude can become an expression of power that fears and abhors the powerlessness of receiving and accepting aid. It's something I think both he and Viren fall prey to at different points, and it's the central sticking point in their final conflicts.
I can't be the only one who was waiting for someone to tell Rayla "the deaths of the other assassins was not your fault, they would have died no matter what, you did what you had to do and you saved the world, if you had stayed you would have just died with them and nothing would have been solved", right?
Loved both of these tag rants so much, I had to add them to my reblog:
Rayla, it was never your fault, you're not to blame for anyone else's decision, and you should've heard that from someone other than Callum and earlier than almost 2½ years after the fact ❤️
Ahem. Yeah Lain and Tiadrin choosing their work over their daughter wasn't okay to me. Mostly so because dragonguard isn't something you train all your life for‚ it was a temporary thing because they were the strongest warriors. They chose duty over their daughter
Here comes the but
Lain and Tiadrin left Rayla with their best friends‚ they left her with people they know would take good care of her and love her. Yes! not visiting and only sending letters was shit but they believed Rayla was happy.
What did Runaan and Ethari did? Runaan tried to kill her and Ethari banished her without proof of her being the reason of the assassin's deaths. He didn't know what was going to happen to her‚ she was basically homeless and he still left her go. Yes he probably knew Callum would take care of her but still?
Runaan then sees her again in the in-between and tries to kill her again.
"oh but Lain and Tiadrin barely reacted to her! They only reacted to the egg!" Ok how is that worse than trying to kill her!?
Lain and Tiadrin were missing part of their souls just as Runaan. They weren't their true selves. They still told her they loved her‚ respected her wishes and believed in her happy future.
Lain and Tiadrin are demonized all the time even if Runaan and Ethari did plenty shit to Rayla. They redeemed themselves in season seven but that doesn't excuse what they did. It's even more frustrating when you see Tiadrin being demonized as a mother in "bad mom" posts alongside Lissa.
Oh how lucky is Rayla to lose her evil mother and get her amazing dads who are perfect and good parents unlike the other two.
Disclaimer: I do not think Rayla's character was completely nuked in arc 2. I like her growth, but I also acknowledge that, upon deeper inspection, you can see how some of her coolness was taken away in favour of rayllum. The episode im analysing is a prime example of that.
I decided to write this analysis as a twitter thread to explain why I believe this episode is badly written and harmful to Rayla.
First of all, here's the meaning of women in refrigerators according to Wikipedia. The scenes involving Rayla in this episode are a prime example of fridging. Allow me to elaborate on that
The whole episode's plot A goal is to have Callum unlock the Ocean arcanum and let Soren have his moment with Elmer. I don't see an issue with Soren's plot as it doesn't specifically use Rayla for its development, unlike Callum's. Now, there's two scenes that are the problem.
First one is when Finnegrin drags Callum to force him to pick whose arm he'll be cutting off, and finally tries to force him to use dark magic. Upon that moment, Rayla panics and uses a bit of wood she bit off of Elmer to free herself. This seems like it could be a cool moment... But she's not allowed to do anything of substance. She doesn't even touch Finnegrin- as soon as she grabs weapons, her blood is frozen. The spell spreads quickly and she's in agonizing pain for multiple seconds, screaming all this time.
The purpose of this is to show callum the spell for his future use of it, and to get him angry so that he punches Finnegrin and ends up knocked out by Elmer. Notice how the focus of this is HIS feelings, as in the next scene Finnegrin points out how he lost his mind at the sight.
Now, the next, worse scene, where Finnegrin wants to use Rayla as bait for the sea leviathan. Rayla is once again put into a dangerous, traumatising situation. She's terrified of water, and here she is being pulled down to it, fully immobilised, about to be KILLED
But we dont focus on her feelings, and how terrified she must be, reliving her childhood trauma. The central piece here is Callum, who swoops in, saving her with his sky magic. Rayla is pushed back onto the ship, into Soren's arms, where she's only ungagged, but still bound. Callum then gets attacked with Venus frigoris, and now let's compare his reaction to Rayla's- unlike her, he's very quiet, and the spell spreads slowly. Rayla, an assassin trained to never fear death, can't stop screaming. Callum stays quiet and calm before using his first Ocean spell. Rayla was helpless, Callum gets to be cool. Then he gets attacked by Elmer and Soren's plot takes place. Finnegrin dies. Everyone is happy. Rayla comforts Callum by hugging him. We don't focus on her, we completely ignore the horrors she had gone through Just minutes prior, while focusing on Callum feeling guilty about using dark magic. No one asks if Rayla's okay, because her suffering doesn't matter- it was just a motor to drive Callum's plot forward. Could this have been handled differently? yes. Yes it could.
Finnegrin could've used literally any other character on the ship. Callum never showed that he had any bias towards Rayla, he didnt want any of his friends hurt. He could've used EZRAN, Callum's literal brother! But yeah, the brothers' relationship isn't as expanded on In arc 2 as it was in arc 1. Hell, Finnegrin could've used Callum himself! There are multiple ways it could've been handled. At the very least, there could've been shown a scene of Rayla processing the events and getting comforted by Callum instead of the other way round.
Mmm I'll reblog this again later because I can't currently take screenshots from the show, but to make note of it anyways, on another rewatch from awhile ago of season 7 I'm pretty sure I noticed at the end of it Aaravos also refer to Callum as a vessel but the way he called him it he was more so suggesting he'd be a future/potential one rather then a current one, which is really interesting if we're looking at the folis/parallels (however you want to interpret them and label them) between Aaravos, Viren, and Callum since it is only the three of them each in which Aaravos has ever applied this term throughout the series.
Viren underestimated the bond between Soren and Claudia. When Claudia asks him about telling Soren to kill the princes, you can see it in his face that he never thought they would have actually talked about it…she folds so quickly because she wants to believe him, even though he’s literally just finished talking about how Soren almost dying didn’t matter in a truly fascinating character moment. She’s willing to believe whatever she needs to maintain harmony and hold onto this vision she has of her family as a cohesive unit.
I think it’s entirely possible Aaravos will underestimate that bond, too. If anyone can bring her back from the brink it’s going to be Soren and Terry. Terry I think Aaravos has potentially attempted to account for, but Soren? I think underestimated. I think Terry is going to go find Soren and together they’re going to be able to bring her back.
i'm tired of ppl always just assuming the word "blorbo" is describing a male character. no. blorbos can be women. i put HER in the microwave. hit HER with a comically large mallet. chew on HER. compare HER to a wet cat. put HER in a jar and shake it. dunk HER in milk and throw HER at the wall to hear the splat.
