Elarion Theory - The Sixth Human Kingdom
Alright, so we know The Dragon Prince has a really strong theme of six. Six primal sources / arcanums, six elven races, six nexuses, the six-sided key of Aaravos, which even featured in Callum’s dream about dark magic, despite only needing to bear the one sigil. So, why are there only 5 human kingdoms?
I know Elarion theories are a dime a dozen now, but hear me out. The very first theory I read on Elarion was one by TrebleRose689 on Reddit, and it talked about how Elarion might actually have been a settlement or even a kingdom of people, rather than just one person. I’ve read dozens of theories since, about how Elarion is the mage in the first episode intro, or how it is a woman, or even a tree, but nothing has taken my attention like the kingdom theory. So I finally decided to do some digging for myself.
I’ve seen a few mentions of Tolkien words being used throughout the TDP world, and of course the show itself directly references LotR, so I dropped all of the names of the human kingdoms into the online Tolkien Dictionary, and here’s what I discovered. Apologies if these notes seem vague.
Katolis
-TOLKIEN- Kato - afterwards Lis - honey Lis - sweet Lis - grace/blessing -SUMMARY- (First kingdom) from the grace / sanctuary after the war -CANON- Largest kingdom, closest to the border, strongest military -OTHER- Latin - Catholic, roman
Neolandia
-TOLKIEN- Ne - that Ne - scent Ne - ago/behind Ne - was/in the past Ne - mid/inside Oland - tide/motion of the sea Ia - ever Ia - abyss/void -SUMMARY- Long devoid of water / Dry since long ago -CANON- Desert lands, scarce water
Evenere
-TOLKIEN- Eve - person Nere - man, male person -SUMMARY- Humans and humans? -CANON- Swamp lands, dreary, reachable only by ship, independent -OTHER- Latin - events
Duren
-TOLKIEN- Dur - servant/to serve Dur - to show interest Dur - dark/gloomy En - then soon En - Made En - there look yonder En - of the En - once more En - thereupon -SUMMARY- Look towards the future / serve the future -CANON- Harvesting kingdom, lush (plains?) nation
Del Bar
-TOLKIEN- Del - disgust/horror Del - thick/dense Del - travel/proceed Bar - home/earth/dwelling/house Bar - lord -SUMMARY- Uninviting settlement / Traveled dwellers -CANON- Kingdom in the mountains, hunting and smithing, life close to nature
And finally
Elarion
-TOLKIEN- El - star (Elostirion - star fort) Ela - behold Arion - land of shadow / place of shadow -SUMMARY- Castle of dark stars / Dark castle of stars -OTHER- Name - Elario - happiness/joy Name - Clarion - the name of a king (arthurian)
My guess? Elarion was one of, if not the biggest human settlement when Xadia was still whole. It was the first human ‘kingdom,’ until it got tainted by dark magic, which resulted in the humans being driven out when it was discovered by the elves. Perhaps this settlement still sits on the Xadian side of the continent, maybe abandoned, maybe not. If it does exist there, we could potentially see the characters find this place, either a ramshackle collection of structures with secrets to uncover, or a hidden settlement of remnant dark mages, that may even tell their own stories of what happened way back when.
Elarion by Tolkien terms appears to mean a fort or castle of darkness and stars, with stars being the forefront of the word. What if this settlement is near the Star Nexus itself? So when the poem speaks of 'turning to the stars,’ it means the humans living there possibly quite literally went to the nearby startouch elves for help, but they 'went dark’ or turned their backs on the humans. A 'dark star castle.’ Built for the startouch elves but ignored by them perhaps?
If all of this is true, if Elarion is indeed the settlement where dark magic was born, it would have built up there, and for the mostpart, remained. If the elves confronted humans about dark magic, it would have been right there where it lived. If the place Aaravos is trapped in is indeed the star nexus, which is near Elarion, that isn’t all that far away from the original home of dark magic.
Anyway, thanks for reading! I hope you found this interesting, and please feel free to add your notes or thoughts about this theory, I’d love to see what others think!
















