#human kingdoms

[knuffi516]

Had Claudia her new outfit sewn herself or stolen from someone?

Because it has mild Durian influence.

[atomic-bomn]

Imagine in a darker (Otherwise a less goofy when comes war) TDP we can see actual warfare but imagine how good humans are at psychological warfare compared to elves who honor traditional warfare while humans had to innovate and adapt to a stronger enemy (as humans do)

A sign at the breach will read;

"Elves. Listen and go home. This is the one warning you will get before archer fire. Our governments have signed our death warrants. We will die here. We will make sure you die here. If you are here your kingdom has abandoned you and sent you only to die._

"Your government has abandoned you. We are protecting all we love and hold dear. We will not move, we will not surrender, we will not fall. Please leave. You are being sent simply to kill and die and be disposed of. Go home and enjoy your wife, Husband and Children. Lest you let others enjoy them while you're away"

"Not one elf beyond this point has come back. Your government knows this and still sends you. We do not like killing, We do not like war nor want it. Beyond this sign is our fields of hate, Your fate will have been sealed and you will be buried according to Katolian custom."

[xadianglyphs]

The Puzzle House Runes

I started this post, uh... months ago, and then (believe it or not) kind of lost interest? There's not really a lot to say, unfortunately. It turns out there are three-ish subsets of runes used in the Puzzle House and Kpp'Ar's cane, and while it turns out the overlap between them is small, it does exist. That's about it. Here's a breakdown, though.

The clearest set are the tower runes, because they're very helpfully laid out in Adam Ratcliffe's concept art:

They're included exactly as designed when we see the tower in s7e2:

Then we have Kpp'Ar's cane, which was the main point of comparison I wanted to study. Are the tower runes the same as the cane runes? I ran into two small problems, here: first, it is extremely difficult to get a good look at the cane. Second, the cane's two appearances (s5e2 and s6e6) seem to show exclusively opposite sides of it. I wound up treating their runes as two different subsets as I tried to track whether it was even the same prop model at all. (Jury's still out. It would be weird if it wasn't, but it would also be kind of weird if they just happened to show only two exact opposite angles.)

The cane as seen in s6e6 shares some runes with the tower (green) and introduces some new ones (pink). They are also identifiable in and their relative placement lines up with the end credits art:

The cane as seen in s5e2 appears to share only a single rune with the s6e6 cane, and I'm honestly not very confident in that identification because the relative placement is wrong. In hindsight, I think it's a very similar but ultimately distinct rune. There is, however, a positive identification of another rune from the tower set:

Combining all three sets, there's the house exterior matte painting. The tower runes (green) are faithfully replicated on the near tower, and the far tower incorporates runes from both cane views (s6e6 in pink and s5e2 in cyan). There's also a small set of runes near the door that draw from both the tower and s5e2 cane sets:

Finally, there's the interior, in both its concept art (by Lillian Lai) and finalized appearance. There are runes visible on the rug, but the one in the final screen appearance doesn't match the concept.

You can also see the other reason I did all this work, which was to confirm whether the big "K" crest over the fireplace is a recurring rune or a unique piece of (presumably) heraldry. It's a rune: s5e2 cane rune #2, visible there, here, and in the exterior.

In the interest of exhaustive detail, there are also a couple runes on the floor in the map/dungeon room, but they do not correspond to any others as far as I can tell:

(Nor do any of these correspond to the carousel runes, just in case you were wondering. Or to the runes in Puzzle House, but that part isn't very surprising.)

[tales-and-creatures-of-xadia]

Human Kingdoms

Part 2-

Duren, Evenere, Katolis

[quietninjakitty]

For the people who don’t own Tales of Xadia, or wherever this info comes from and don’t know the demonyms of the human kingdoms, such as myself.

Evenere=Evenerean/Evenereian

Del Bar=Del Barian

Katolis=Katolian

Duren=Durenian/Durian

Neolandia=Neolandian

Source: TDP Wiki

[avenger09]

My "The Dragon Prince" Characters

Individual specifics on a few of the characters can be read here, and here. You can also see an early concept of the first three here.

[theredhairedmonkey]

A random question ,but do you think Rayla saying some things about humans ( "stupid human life" , "big dumb human" , "he saw past human hatred" and "humans are so weird") counts as racist? I like theor relationship, but it has kinda always stood out to me.

Cautiously, I’ll say that: yes, the things Rayla says about humans are indeed racist. With the exception of “human hatred,” I think these comments are at least mildly derogatory, and something that I think Rayla begins to grow out of.

The reason I say “cautiously” is because this isn’t akin to the racism that most people are familiar with. In our world, racism is the systemic oppression of some races by others, through institutions, laws, norms, attitudes, etc. but usually the key aspect is that this racism persists within a society or between societies with an established (usually hostile or toxic) relationship.

Rayla and Callum, however, aren’t from the same society. It’s not like elves and humans live in the same kingdom, where Rayla is treated as someone superior to Callum. Nor does Xadia exploit the people of the Human Kingdoms for resources or other reasons. Instead, Rayla and Callum are from two societies that have had no meaningful contact with one another in a thousand years. Aaron and Justin have actually said in an interview here that most elves have never even seen a human before. So Xadia and the Human Kingdoms show racist attitudes toward one another much like Ancient Rome and Han China; both clearly have stereotypes and derogatory ideas about one another, but both were too disconnected by time and distance to actually oppress or exploit the other.

So what I’m saying is that Rayla shouldn’t be harshed on too much for having racist beliefs, especially when she was notably one of the first elves to even show empathy for humans (certainly one of the first assassins in living memory who did so). Additionally, she acknowledges the mistaken beliefs she has, as one of the results in falling for Callum is her realizing how incredible and amazing humans can be.

And it’s this attitude she consciously holds on to, particularly in TTM:

So, to answer your question: yea, What Rayla says about humans is racist, but in context it’s not what you think, and in the grander scheme of things, showcases some great character development.

[medu-nefer]

Okay, hear me out

Maybe it’s obvious or maybe it’s just stupid. But has anyone else thought about Human Kingdoms mirroring the types of elves?

I skipped the Startouch Elves, since they’re so few. But maybe they could be mirrored by Dark Mages or something, since they are so different (due to their longevity, they have a detached perspective, etc.). Idk.

Now, it’s hard to say if there’re more ways to connect those two sides because we haven’t really met all the peoples, but both the Sunfire Elves and people of Neolandia seem to be big on their military force. Creatures connected to the Earth are patient, sometimes stubborn, and care deeply about the history and balance of the natural world - and that seems quite a lot like Aanya. The people of Evenere are cut off from the other kingdoms and perhaps the Tidebound Elves are also more independent, compared to the other elven types. Harrow and Runaan mirror each other in a lot of ways; the whole situation takes place because Katolis can’t let go of the past, past filled with death and wishes for revenge - while Moonshadow assassins bring death (much like the Dark Mages poaching Xadian creatures) and are all about justice; Moonshadow Elf assassins (presumably) have a record of invading Katolis specifically, and Claudia and Viren venture into the Xadian lands to replenish their supplies.

I don’t know if the humans’ and elves’ general features will align but I think so far they have, and quite a lot.

TDP isn’t a black-and-white type of show. The viewer’s sympathy is supposed to switch (first you side with the elves, then humans, then elves again, stuff like that). And I think it’d be a nice way of showing that although both races are different, they actually are pretty much the same in a lot of aspects.