#soh:tla

[stars4krios]

" Gleymdu mér aldrei þó ég héðan flýg

Gleymdu mér aldrei, elskan mín "

[stars4krios]

"1,000 years and it still hurts like the day I lost you."

[stars4krios]

Ilyian sketch for fun!!

[stars4krios]

Part one of rewatching The Dark Prince and (attempting) to analyze it

Part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, more coming soon..

Dark Prince Makes You His New Plaything. (Episode one)

Side note: I'm aware this video is completely improvised and that Brad had no plan for it to turn into what it is now but we're gonna pretend it that half the things in this ep aren't retconned for ⊹fun!!⊹

Another side note: SB and Carys are different characters in my brain and will be referred to as such. SB is the listener of The Dark Prince and Carys is the main character of Shadows of Heaven: The Last Ascendant; they have similar stories but not the same story.

Pre-video thoughts:

・This is four years old, I was 10 when this video came out.., oh my.

・Also amazing title; totally helps me convince my "normie" friends to watch the series

Things I noticed / analysis:

・Straight off the bat Samiel refers to SB as "young boy" which perpetuates the inherit toxicity of their (supposed) age gap; Samiel has lived multiple of SB's assumed life times, there is a power imbalance in just their age difference not to mention the prince/servant thing they have going on here. "little boy" (along with any adjective like "little" followed by a noun that is not inherently true about SB like "boy" or "thing") is also used, it's similar to "young boy" as both terms are used to demean SB. I'd like to remind the audience that SB is a grown man. He is not a "boy". "Boy" is sometimes used as a lighthearted nickname for men but Samiel is not being lighthearted, he's infantalizing SB. He is drawing attention to the power imbalance born from their age gap.

・"I'm assuming you know [my name]" no, actually! At this point we don't and technical things aside this implies that to the people of the Obsidian Cascade Samiel is the "Dark Prince". To them that is his name, it's all they have to call him.

・Samiel is aware that he scares his people and he enjoys it. He seems to revel in those physical cues a person exhibits both when they're scared or aroused. That seems to be what he likes about SB; he's both terrified and turned on.

・Samiel says he's "had [his] eye on [SB] for a while" and yet he does not know his name previous to this interaction. I highly doubt it'd be very hard to find it: go to head servant, ask head servant for the name of the boy with [insert feature(s)] or something. This shows how little Samiel cares for who SB is in these early episodes, he likes SB for his visual appeal; for his body, his aesthetic. It's all surface level.

・"I do like to play with you mortals" oh wow he's back to dehumanizing SB and demeaning him into a singularly characteristic: a young mortal! On a more serious note this implies that SB is not Samiel's first "mortal plaything" (this is explicitly confirmed by Maive in the novel but I'm still on the fence about including it in these analyses and Brad who I believe said either in the discord or on a stream that Samiel slept with so many people that he'd be IN DEDT due to child support expenses if Divines could get humans pregnant, talk about a WHORE) 

・"I can see it in your eyes you don't need to tell me your answer" the act of asking for a compliment (he'd asked SB if he thought he was attractive before this) but then immediately removing the person your asking to compliment you's ability to actually give you one is so idk odd? Like he's taking away even more of SB's autonomy with this act of just reading his physical reactions; SB has no way out of this situation.., not that I think he wants out but that's besides the point.

・The manipulation of making SB think that either he was going to die or someone else was if he chose the "wrong" answer to a question he hasn't even been asked yet to just hit him with "Black or Red". The color of a fucking feather. This also exhibits just how much of a diva Samiel is and not in the 2025 AAVE/slang use of "diva" I mean the dictionary definition of "diva": someone who is self obsessed, temperamental, and hard to please. He is genuinely talking about killing a good chunk of his nobility over a fucking feather, over not looking his BEST. Imagine what this man does on a bad hair day.

・Once again Samiel likes watching people be shocked and afraid, he laughs at SB's shock at the insanity of his question. He plays it off as a joke as if SB was not genuinely terrified that he or someone else were going to die if he chose wrong. This is so "you fell for the rage bait LMAOOO!!" in response to someone being upset at your words. "I told you I like to play!" is it really a game if only one of us knows we're playing?

・"I'm showing an extraordinary amount of self-restraint right now. I could take you right now, do whatever I wished, you would be powerless to stop me and I'd be in my right to do so." hey, WHAT? You can't even excuse this shit, he's blatantly using both the authority he holds over SB as his king and the physical power he has due to both being a fighter and a Divine. I know SB is lowkey enjoy this BUT STILL, SB does not at once in this audio agree to be treated like this even if he likes it and because Samiel has said that SB is not the first that means there was potentially someone who was forced into this.

・ok but I do enjoy SB seemingly playing along Samiel's insanity but not being a push over; he makes his opinion very clear even if he doesn't say it. Which is emphasized with SB giving Samiel "the look" in response to being told that the feather was a serious matter.

・Samiel relating almost everything back to how easily he can kill SB is only.., mildly terrifying. So is his seeming indifference to violence, death, gore, and murder. (This is all made worse by Carys' canonical aversion to it)

・implications of rough sex.. Hmmm.. Noted, I say like I write smut

・I do enjoy Samiel and SB's equal physical attraction to one another, it balances their early relationship ever so slightly.

・Samiel making himself more physically vulnerable to SB by removing most of his clothing and dropping at least one of his walls and letting a more childish and sarcastic version of himself shine through is quite compelling as this is when he kisses SB, or more so this is when he tells SB to kiss him. I've talked a lot of shit about Samiel being manipulative and kind of cornering SB into going with what he wants but this act of not doing what he says he could (taking advantage of SB) and giving him the agency to kiss Samiel on his own terms ever so slightly amends all the shit he was saying and doing earlier. It shows us that kind person under all of it that SB sees. It gives us hope that we can "fix" this.

・Samiel repeatedly talks about SB's "assets" so I'm assuming this man has the FATEST ass in the cascades because this man will not shut up about it.

・and finally traits SB is confirmed to have in this ep: an exspressive face (and in turn wearing his heart on his sleeve), he's observant, and detail oriented.

Things I found funny:

・Samiel: "tell me your name" *proceeds to not use it ONCE* (ik it's bc it's bf asmr shhhh idgaf)

・Samiel: *fishes for complement* *doesn't let SB actually give him one*

・Samiel wanting pity because if he looks bad he'll have to kill like 3 Lords and he replaced them 3 decades ago! (Mind you he doesn't actually have to kill them, this is all self inflicted)

・ also Samiel immediately agreeing with SB on his choice is very hilarious 

・Samiel getting SB's attention at the end just to see him turn around/see his face again

Post video thoughts/headcanons:

・I'm not going to deny the fact that SB is clearly attracted to Samiel but that doesn't give Samiel the right to manipulate and infantalize him. SB cannot say no in many of the situations, he doesn't consent to the degradation even if he likes it.

・Making this analysis made me realize that like every divine is lowkey infantalizing SB. A reoccurring topic in Bread's discord recently has been how the Divines treat Humans; the Divines as a race have almost ingrained babying and infantalizing humans into their culture with the idea that they exist to protect mortals. This belief leads to things like SB almost exclusively being refered to as "Boy" by Divines prior to his ascension. Not long after SB ascends Samiel stops calling him boy and starts calling him "love" or "my love", and Michael's "the boy" turns to "friend". The only two excluded from this are The Custodian who still calls SB "Boy" - seemingly from a more "I'm 3,000 everyone is a child to me" kind of way (but they have their own problems with humans we'll get into at a later date) - and Ilyian who never does.

・Headcanon that Samiel wasn't lying when he said the Armour was 5,000 years old but instead he was lying about having it for that long; he inherited it from King Arvin who inherited from the king before him, ect, ect.

・ Maybe The Knights of The Eternal Flame are just a very small sect of paladins or maybe paladins from another realm.

[stars4krios]

I'm rewatching The Dark Prince, I'm on The Ritual and honestly I kinda love how The Custodian just plays in our faces, straight up lies about why they never left the alter and looking back on it, it's not even a good lie! "I had a feeling" if anyone else had said that we'd immediately be suspicious of them & their credibility but because it's The Custodian, Divine Ascendant of Insight, the person who called Michael out on his bs, we're not suspicious of them and neither are any of the characters because they know The Custodian, Samiel was partially raised by them, Michael raised his brothers with them, Ilyian & Carys knew them as a pillar of their community, and they've always been there; to them and us The Custodian is a creditable source, why would the Divine of Insight lie and especially about something like why they never left the alter? It makes the reveal about the prophecy & Arius even more shocking because: The Custodian was lying to us the whole time?

[stars4krios]

I like to think the skittle squad sits around the campfire at the middle of their camp before they go to bed to tell stories. Stories about they're lives before the war, before Marcellion defected, and after Oblisks of Infinity: before Arius left.

It's all bittersweet, sharing old memories; missing what they lost but enjoying the moment of laughing with the family they've made.

SB and Ilyian tell stories of their vacations, interjecting to add a detail the other missed (or purposely left out). They tell stories of their families and tease each other for old gossip sessions.

Ilyian also tells stories of his time as the Wandering Guardian; who he's met, where he's been, what he's seen, what's changed over the years.

Michael tells adorably embarrassing stories of a younger Samiel and Zazriel; he tells of their mother briefly and even less so of his father. He jokes about his service in the divine military, all the stupid things he did as a new recruit.

Samiel tries to embarrass Michael right back.., it mostly fails, but when it does work he enjoys watching Michael flush crimson as he laughs at his older brother. Samiel also tells stories of his time under The Custodian's care, ones like the one he told SB in The Respite, stories of his childish stupidity.

The Custodian is the last to tell stories of themself, mostly sticking to ones of other people; the most memorable of the ascension parties, Michael's horrendous baking skills, old gossip, the works. Their stories were so rarely about themself that after their trip to The Oblisks of Infinity, their new found willingness to tell stories of themself as a twenty-something felt like whiplash. The sweet stories about Arius and Aletheia are tinted with a bit of bitterness when they remember how long ago that was.

[stars4krios]

Guys I'm losing my mind

I'm slowly becoming obsessed with the Varnacht

I feel like those ppl who are obsessed with side characters who have like 3 frames in the entire show

I love them so much (they're in like two sentences)

I really really hope the Varnacht become at least slightly important side characters bc they're always with Samiel and I love them

I need a named Varnacht to become obsessed with (no one will take Ilyian's crown but they will become a close second)