My little thoughts on Oreale and the true creator of the prophecy
"Argai" was one of my favourite childhood shows, I enjoyed to watch it on TV back in very early 2000s, and it had memorable characters and interesting setting and story, mixing fantasy, distopia, futurism, technologies and magic. Plus, it had interesting concept about time-travelling — there's no paradoxes and parallel timelines, and you can die only in your timeline (example: if you're from the future, but die in the past, you'll just teleport into the future, i.e. into your time), i.e. after defeating the antagonist both from the future and the past, the future wasn't changed or destroyed, it just was free from the tyranny, the characters kept their lifes and memories etc (the show also hints the principle of self-consistency). Some elements raised questions, and I could go deeper into these moments (mostly it is the antagonist's imbalance and too powerful abilities, the past version of the antagonist and also the fact that she for whatever reason didn't keep her victims and hence sources of immortality in her kingdom, her secret tower in enchanted forest, in spaceship or prison-planet — like, if one of victims dies or awakens, Oreale herself will die), but not in this post. The story was finished and good, and I hope, the show won't get some revival or new seasons. I don't want to see, how my childood shows get destroyed. Here I kinda want to look at the main antagonist, the Dark Queen aka Oreale, the white king cobra with rubine eyes and purple mantle.
Although she has this trope of an"arrogant, sadistic and powerful dark lord that laughs at everyone", she still has interesting and pretty unique (at least, for the time the show was released) traits in personality and arc. The show gives no information about her past, she only once tells that in her country/kingdom every fight is only to death, i.e. only one has to survive, no mercy, no diplomacy etc, pure victory or death, what kinda implies she is the product of her culture and traditions of her ancestors (probably her people and ancestors shared similarity with vikings). She is ancient and immortal sorceress from pre-12 century (already in 1183 she was experienced queen and witch with army, i.e. way before her confrontation with the protagonist prince in 1250), the warrior queen, who not only rules and leads army, but also fights, using horse and weapons, not only spells. In Middle Ages she defeated all her enemies and rivals (in fact, it's interesting moment — through the entire show exactly she destroys and kills various dictators and tyrants or becomes the reason of their death both in the past and in the present/future) and continued her expansion on the continent, hence she ruled these centuries. However, for whatever reason at some point she hid in shadows, apparently getting new knowledges and building her robot army and main space ship, and near the end of 20 century (I don't know, why, I always thought she ruled all these 825 years, and, well, if not, then more sense to attack the exhausted countries after WWI or WWII) she attacked the most powerful county and conquered it, killing rulers, usurping and creating own totalitarian dictatorship with eternal prison-planet for all who are against her to their deaths and with technologies for torturing and reading thoughts and memories, then she starts the global bloody war, using chemical weapons and lasers, so only 1/10 of Earth survives, people live only in her city, all other continents and countries are destroyed, i.e. only ruines in jungle, swamps, lakes and forest etc, only in few on these places savage tribes of cannibalistic mutants live. Not to mention the Dark Queen attacked other planets, either conquering them or destroying, so only one planet still has guts to oppose her and keeps own authonomy. So, after late-1990s she rules like 80-90 years or whatever. And, yeah, Oreale is very cruel dictator, she's that type of dictator — if Oreale fails, she will destroy everything she ruled, i.e. she was ready to destroy Earth to ashes, if she dies. And she was okay with drying rivers and burning forest etc.
What I find interesting about her — she was never afraid of death. Not in terms of immortality, she indeed wasn't afraid of death. The source of her fear was the other thing — if someone will deprive her of her free will and right of choice, if someone will take away her right and freedom to choose life or death and stuff i nfavor of some prophecy (or divine fanfiction, if you well). She tried to do everything to be this free and invincible ruler of the world, so her fear to lose it to some vague prophecy and hence for preventing it to play with the enemy from the past, who also followed the prophecy, became her demise. Her lines "If I must die, I'll decide myself, when and how! Only I decide my path and destiny!". When there's no predetermined events, she herself started these events, creating the enemy — actually, the funniest and ironic trick was exactly in the fact that one of her victims (young beautiful girls) had beloved, others didn't have. And, well, all these thousand years Oreale was alone, no mate or sibling or dinasty or heir, what confirms her being asexual, she wanted only immortality and ruling the world. The only two male characters she had some feelings to — her devoted servant Geko and Lucifer, her mentor.
And here's my question — who is the creator of the prophecy? The show vaguelly mentioned it was some unknown ancient monk, but I doubt it is true. Logically, it could be Merlin, because he had the "foreseeing" ability in the lore, and in the last episode he also tells to the main characters about how every tale ends — you know, how brave and noble prince saves his beloved and the world, how light defeats darkness, how good defeats evil etc. But I have another answer — it could be Lucifer, who was also Oreale's mentor in the show. Like, he knew about the prophecy all these centuries, he is beyond time and universe, but for whatever reason he didn't tell about it to Oreale like "Hey, there's some mortal idiot made vague prophecy. It can become real, so don't take it too seriously, don't allow it to manipulate you, and better just destroy the book, or else someone else can make it real, don't underestimate your enemies and don't play with them", she discovered it only in 2075 after the protagonist's arrival to the future, and exactly Lucifer fed to her this idea about the battle of fates, the battle for her future and her path, he fed to her this idea, as well as he stated clearly that if she wins, she will rule Hell with him like his equal and beloved queen, but if she fails, she will die and be erased to nothing, she will in oblivion, in the void of nothing. And when she is defeated and lost everything, he just abandons her to die and cease to exist. And what's interesting, when the protagonist sneaked into Oreale's space ship for saving his beloved, Lucifer did nothing, he literally allowed to the prince to do this and hence to win. Personally, I think, this "prophecy" simply was his last test for Oreale, for showing her skills and inner strength, how loyal and stoic she is to her worldview, how much she controls her path and future, her life, how easily to fall into this fear of some destiny or whatever. She wanted everything, she reached for this, she succeeded in it, but in the end she lost everything and was lost in the void and oblivon.
Perhaps there was some kind of a bet here, you know, what is stronger — eternal, immortal and lonely perfection with complete freedom from morality and powers to corrupt and destroy, or a love and friendship through space and time in the name of saving a loved one and a world, and how characters actually create the events themselves and bring them to life, not because someone predicted/foresaw it. It could be interesting detail and shade in the story.
