imprisoned Aaravos theory, now
Okay of course this isn’t anything perfect and to some extent is more a broader band of ideas than a singular solid theory but before I get to any of that let’s get to what we actually know.
1000 Years Ago:
- Aaravos had some involvement with dark magic, seemingly unknown to the elves, likely, though not guaranteed, to be something to do with humans discovering dark magic
- Aaravos was present at the division of Xadia
300 Years Ago:
- Luna Tenebris’ reign comes to an end, Avizandum’s begins
- Likely the era of the Orphan Queen
- Aditi is on the Sunfire throne (and Aaravos knows what happened to her in the end)
- Aaravos was imprisoned around this time (and not present during a major human-elf conflict)
Now:
- Runaan is terrified of the mirror
- Most elves claim not to have heard of Aaravos, and those who have are extremely hesitant to talk about him
- Any text mentioning Aaravos has its pages become unreadable
- The name of somebody close to Aaravos is on this map
There’s some other stuff I could add to this list (eg. some stuff from the Midnight Star Poem) but it’s not as relevant so I’ll mostly be going off of the above.
What I think is most important here is that there seems to have been A LOT of major events going down ~300 years ago. I doubt this is coincidence and rather I think these are more likely all linked.
From the above listed in the “Now” part we know whatever Aaravos did, it must have been absolutely horrific. Almost inconceivably so, keep in mind humanity functionally wiped out very sapient / self-aware species who were likely capable of speech and had major interactions with elves / humans / dragons (the unicorns), among other crimes, and they were “only” banished by Luna Tenebris, despite already being seen as “different” and ostracised by the elves. Compare that to Aaravos’ situation, he was likely one of the most powerful beings in the entirety of the world at that point (being one of the First Elves (and therefore a Startouch elf), AND a “Great One”, although we’re not 100% certain what these mean they seem extremely significant), an apparent ally of the elves was imprisoned indefinitely, and guarded by the most powerful force in the world, to me this says he must have done something atrocious. Along with the mysterious disapperance of Luna Tenebris, and imprisonment of Aaravos, I have two main ideas with regards to this, which are, to be honest, complete opposites:
- Aaravos and Luna Tenebris were close friends, Tenebris is the name of the person close to Aaravos on the map (Gulf of Tenebris), additionally Tenebris was more tenable towards humans than most Xadians, something that would’ve played into Aaravos’ goals. If she were somehow involved with whatever Aaravos did to get imprisoned, it would explain why we know so little about Tenebris, she just seems to have disappeared from the record and she may have been dethroned as a consequence of this, Xadians disgracing her (I have another kind of wild theory about where she could be), and Aaravos was imprisoned. This could even tie into the Orphan Queen & Aditi, Aaravos at one point had a close interaction with a human, and it’s commonly thought this is likely to have been the Orphan Queen. I can’t come up with specifics for as to how this would tie in, but certainly we also know, again, “something” happened to Aditi, and it seems like it was likely horrendous / a tight kept secret.
- The other major possibility in my eyes is that Aaravos could have slain Luna Tenebris, primarily because I can’t think of anything else so egregious that would’ve gotten Aaravos the treatment he has. But then I can’t really line up other events in my head, there’s still quite a few questions there, why haven’t we heard much about Tenebris? Who instead is the individual on the map close to Aaravos? How do Aditi & the Orphan Queen tie into this? Why would Aaravos have done what he did when he did if it seems he was likely to lose at the time?
I tried to put some time into this and make it as clear as possible. But I feel like it hasn’t come out as well as it could’ve if anyone has any additional questions for me on this stuff then feel free to ask.
