#trollan lore

[relatable-pictures-of-orko]

concept:  Trollan blood is not only purple, but sparkly/galaxy-esque from the amount of magic in it

[cyndalyssa]

On a bit of a lighter note after that last post... I am working on a spreadsheet to sort out my ideas on the Trollan language and even some history that frankly is only applicable to my AU so you can ignore that page.

Basic concept is that I start by making a word backwards, and then tweaking as needed to make it sound like an actual word. There are exceptions, with He = Power, Or = Light, and Ko = Dark, among a few others for various reasons, but otherwise I’m trying to be consistent with this.

If anybody else has any ideas for this thing and how to improve it, feel free to let me know!

[cyndalyssa]

Alright, who wants to hear about a kind of dark Trollan-related thought that’s been running through my mind the past several weeks?

Nobody? Too bad, I’m talking about this anyway. 

(Okay, so I had a post about this earlier, but I thought about it some more and decided it should be reworded, so the original’s gone now. Hey, got nothing to lose, the thing didn’t have notes anyway.)

My view on Trollans are that they’re generally kind-hearted, whimsical people that are very deep in their magic-related beliefs, sort of a middle ground between the goofiness of the ‘83 versions and those mysterious, god-like Overlords from Classics. Despite them being generally good, well, like just about everything, there are dark elements that slip through the cracks, and in a magical society, there’s bound to be spells and curses that are forbidden for any Trollan to use.

I came up with one based on how Trollans view their faces as private and sacred things that should never be shown to anyone save their true love...

The Trollan Face Snatching Spell.

Basically, it’s when a Trollan steals your face.

That’s already horrific in of itself (if you’ve watched Avatar: The Last Airbender... well, you remember Koh the Face Stealer), but to a Trollan it’s beyond horrific--it’s violating, it’s blasphemous! Only a complete monster would use such a spell!

If the facelessness wasn’t enough, victims of the spell tend to end up as soulless puppets controlled by the caster of the spell. The body may be alive, but that person is dead. Oftentimes, since the face is destroyed after removal and cannot be restored, the victims would have to be mercy killed. 

Naturally it’s one of those things where the Overlords and their various councils (i.e. Crimson Council), would shut that information away into some ‘Forbidden Spells’ vault, so that no one may ever use it. Nobody wants a Trollan that would steal the faces of their enemies willy-nilly and end up creating an army of faceless and mindless zombies. 

(Actually that’s just the sort of thing I’d have the Unnamed One do if I was writing a MOTU story, and it’d be the thing that’d keep his minions in line-- “You like your face, don’t you? It’d be such a shame if you lost it.”)

It’d be one of the few spells that Orko would never want to learn. Especially after hearing about the time that Uncle Montork witnessed it in action. 

And thus, that’s my weird thought. 

[relatable-pictures-of-orko]

So it was never actually technically confirmed if the trolla we saw in episode four was real or not but I don't really think it matters. Trolla's screwed either way. If the little magic left fades as you get further from the swords, then trolla, an entire planet in a different dimension, is going to run out of magic VERY quickly. Trollans are also all seemingly reliant on a good amount of magic to live. Orko was having enough trouble even with his closer location, lack of competition (eternians can at least seemingly survive longer without it and thus aren't as desperate), marginal supply of magic water, and someone to take care of him. What about literally everyone on Trolla, who wouldn't have those advantages? Society would collapse within a month. And unless they had a way to preserve magic, or were able to selectively transfer magic to one another, they don't have much of a chance :(

[relatable-pictures-of-orko]

Idk why I keep thinking about the whole "you only show your face to your one true love" thing. I guess it's because I'm aro-aspec or because I've been writing a side-fic where these questions came up while writing and made me pause, but we really just don't get enough information to how it works?

Like sure, exchanging faces is a show of romance to the highest degree or something. But why? Is it a trust thing? Vulnerability? A way of enforcing to not judge folk by their looks? Even if it does not hold a deeper meaning in the modern era, the tradition had to start somewhere, and for a reason.

Is it purely a romantic gesture? What if you're aroace? While there might be trollans who consider that a part of romance they'd rather not partake in woth anyone, what about those in, say, queer platonic relationships? What about polyamory?

Related to history, why is Karadania a region that doesn't practice this? How did their culture split off to form this difference?

Trollan babies are most likely not born with face coverings. At what age are they expected to wear it full time? Yukkers is a child shown covering his face so it's at least that age. What about toddlers, if they're feeling fussy does the family just not go out? Is there a spell that forces them to keep on their face garments? I don't think they even specified anything about familial relationships at all in the entire course of the show.

For the most part you could theoretically just go with rules in already established cultures irl. However, the main problem with this is that trollans are also super magic and can circumvent a lot these irl limits. Like in a medical emergency, they likely don't need to remove a scarf, they can just use healing magic.

Actually, this ties back to my last post about Orko being screwed if he gets seriously injured or sick on Eternia. What if he gets a head injury? Heat exhaustion? Breathing problems? What do they do, just take it off and hope he understands how necessary it was when he wakes up? I read ONE fic that addressed this back in my first run with this fandom in 2013, and it's deleted now but iirc they just kinda brushed it off in the end.

Anyways yeah. Really wished they established this more. Not a huge fan of just headcanoning blindly and hoping for the best.

[relatable-pictures-of-orko]

Ok so i know this is only sort of canon since they never go this far to enforce it in later iterations of the franchise but this snippet from one of the tie in stories is hilarious.

Like I get it, water probably messes with magic a bit and those robes look like an absolute hassle to swim in, so I always had a casual headcanon that trollans generally are very terrible at swimming, but to see it supported to this extreme is wild.

Good to know the easiest way to defeat a trollan is to just throw it into your average backyard swimming pool.  

[relatable-pictures-of-orko]

math time

ok so remember when i posted this image

Anyways i thought too deeply about it and now i’ve done some math to figure out trollan lifespans.

If we go with the common consensus headcanon that Orko is around 19-20 years old, we can assume that 500 in this instance would be 18, since it’s a nice even starting point that I don’t have to think too hard about.  Then use that, adding 18 until we get to either 5 (90) or 6 (108).  If each 18 were a 500, this would put the trollan lifespan at around 2500-3000 years!!!  :O

Each 100 years would be about 3.6 years, and each trollan year would be about 27.8 years long

The only wrench in this whole situation is how do children work, as this whole logic kinda screws over the idea of everyone’s fan children interacting with the main cast, and a 20 year gestation period does not sound fun.  Maybe they just age quicker to a certain point?  Hmm.  

[relatable-pictures-of-orko]

Do Trollans have legs? Or do we assume they've got a stump under there?

Ehhhh, I know there's a few episodes where it's implied that they have legs from what we can see when they're standing on ground for any length of time. I'm pretty sure they just keep their legs invisible.