DAENA LADELL THEORY TIME: PH SPOILERS EDITION (CORRECTED) (till S3 MSF) (part 1) (part 2/conclusion in reblogs)
TW: for panels of violence, major(?) character death(/s) discussions among others
I've had about half a dozen variations of the theory below in my head for a while even before we found out what D.L. stands for (re: TSITA chapter 1) but when we finally got the canon flashback of Daena in the hospital after ATST, I was absolutely ensnared by this theory.
My theory is...
A. The person Delaney and Tim had to abduct was Kym. The person they mistook Kieran for.
B. They wanted to abduct Kym quite possibly to threaten Daena.
C. Dylan was collateral ofc which is so doomed by the narrative for him. Because even if it wasn't Kieran, even if it was Kym who had been abducted or anyone else at all, Dylan would still be collateral. Dylan was always meant to die.
Dylan will still be dead when the story ends because Dylan was dead before the story had even begun.
(*makes myself sob violently over this*)
First off, we've had enough nods about Dylan and Kieran being the kidnapped kids so I won't focus on that or point C in this post.
NOW FOR POINTS A & B
1. Daena Ladell succumbed to an accident on or around ATST
Daena Ladell had an accident on or around the time of ATST that eventually led to her demise. Though the Ladells tried to find answers for what happened to their eldest daughter, they never did. The way Kym says it here in ep. 133 tells us that Daena having had an accident leading to her death is something that's been repeatedly discussed around her. Maybe even in the official possibly fabricated? report accounting for her injuries in the line of duty?
2. Kym wasn't at Allendale when the blast happened
Seems weird, no? Why would Kym be the only person not at Allendale? Keep in mind, we've never had a flashback for her for the blast or the train station itself but only around Daena's death. And moreover, comsidering Kym and Will's conversation in ep. 118–
Usually, after a comment like this, we'd have some sort of callback/flashback to the speaker's experience as well. We never get it with Kym. We haven't even had a proper direct comment from Kym about the blast in all the episodes so far (as far as I can remember). It could be that ATST as an entire event was overshadowed for ten/eleven year old Kym by Daena's death.
But it could also be that the factory blast was actually the first blast Kym witnessed in her life.
Sure, one of our main characters wasn't at the event that led to the very core of the main narrative in the story.
It can happen sometimes.
But I highly doubt that Kym, in all her chaotic and exceptional energy, would stay away from a literal train station inauguration!!! Or leave early!!!! Wouldn't that be the coolest thing for a child her age so full of whimsy that she plays make-believe with box-shaped pirate ships? (I love you, first few panels of ep. 144 and thank you @annamlynska for helping me with the panel recall!!!!!)
Seeing a train station quite possibly for the first time? Seeing the King of Ardhalis? Potentially getting the chance to bug her parents into getting a train ticket and going on a trip together as a family?
SHE SO WOULD unless–
Unless she couldn't be there? Or had to leave early for some reason? Or someone she respected and adored convinced the whole family to go home instead of staying at the crowded event? The same person who said goodbye to Kym in the most cryptic way possible after making sure the family was staying safely at home?
Maybe Daena told Kym to stay home with her parents instead of attending the inauguration? Where she could have potentially been easily abducted?
Daena here is giving major sus vibes. Asking Kym to not be mad at her for quite possibly making her miss out on seeing the inauguration? Or maybe even simply for going to the train station alone and leaving her behind at home?
She was a cop.
Maybe she was suspicious? Who knows, maybe she knew Snapdragon too? Or maybe she was Snapdragon? (The same way that Thalia, Rafael's fiancée was, given how Rafael called Du-ew-ke Hawkes a murderer and the Mirage Opera House Director said he'd last seen Thalia in Jan/Feb xx16 aka when the Snapdragon members were massacred in the Orion Print Shop)
Maybe Daena was a good cop, too nosy for her own good? (y'all remember she chased a dude with a garden gnome canonically right? And we don't even know if it was before or after she became a cop?)
Maybe she was getting too close to an apostle, on the verge of uncovering their identity or even their plans? Maybe she knew she could be putting her loved ones in danger? And asked them to stay safe and stay home? Just in case?
3. Kym's trauma around guns is because of Daena
The panels from ep. 157 had a little flashback to Kym's therapy session after the factory blast.
Hello, I'd like to reintroduce you to: Daena got shot, and it was a fatal wound that led to her demise (this was already canon in ep. 141, I just conveniently forgot about the episode). This ultimately led to eleven year old Kym connecting death with guns and going to therapy and older Kym in the police academy having difficulties with handling guns.
No wonder, she's a perfect shot now. It is a direct representation of her overcoming her past trauma and though, she doesn't falter in her shots after being re-traumatized with Lauren's potential death, she does hesitate as a nod to her deep-rooted fears about losing her loved ones
4. Kym's trauma around guns is because of Daena... And so is Kieran's
I know, I know what you're about to say.
This still from ep. 73 is heartbreaking but here someone is getting beat to death with a bat. Yes, of course, but whoever said that's all that happened?
Kieran's words from ep. 107 tells us that his decision to not use guns may just have been a result of witnessing someone getting shot.
Sure, Kieran himself got shot in canon while on an infiltration mission with Belladona as referenced in ep. 73 but you, I and most of the fandom would agree that Kieran probably didn't choose to use swords because he got shot by a bullet.
Not by a long shot!
(Bullet? Shot? See what I did there?)
Then, who could it be about?
The person he lost? (I've got yet another theory regarding Dylan's death intertwined with the Hanbury street massacre but that's for another day)
But Kieran looks far too young in the above flashback? And rather unscarred, unblemished tbh for us to assume that the person getting hit with a bat in the above panel is his cellmate aka the kid who was kidnapped along with him. Frame comparisons from ep. 74 and ep. 136 respectively showing his scratched skin, the marginally more emotionless eyes, his hair grown a bit longer as well (or maybe I'm just reaching but who cares, I'm having fun here)
5. Daena's injuries from the glimpses we've had so far
The blood staining Daena's (and therefore Kym's) hands, the entirety of Daena's arm really, seems to contrast the relatively harmless few bruises and scrapes we can see on her face.
She looks like she's been through a fight. (She clearly has.) Could it be then that her more severe injuries, the kinds where one might bleed out to death were centred around her body rather than any of her limbs or peripheries? (Most definitely.) Could it be that she was, say, hit with a bat and shot in the stomach? (Probably.) Could it be that it was a painfully slow wait for her? As she tried to brace her actively bleeding gunshot wounds while getting help? (Most definitely.)
(She was shot in canon, I know, I simply forgot about ep. 141 😭)
6. Daena's watch stopped the moment she died (CORRECTED)
Somehow ep. 141 when Kym is in the hospital and tells Will about Daena's death completely skipped from my memory so here we go again.
It HAS been explicitly stated that the moment Daena's watch stopped was when when she died.
In ep. 133 with Daena lying on a hospital bed, the last panel is one where the watch crashes on the ground with screaming in the background. Based on ep. 141, the visual of the watch falling in ep. 133 is with Kym's screams in the background as the watch fell from Daena's hands when she died/flatlined in the hospital. (Could it be little Kym placed the watch on Daena's hands to remind her of some promise she'd made her about being back home before a certain time?)
