I’m writing this to put my thoughts into some kind of order so I’m going to ramble a bit. I’m going to divide this in what we know for sure, what is very probable, and speculations.
- Erika and Leiftan sacrificed themselves, entered the Crystal and saved Eldarya making the Crystal whole again. Eldarya has never been so healthy, in fact they are even able to grow their own food.
- Valkyon died killed by Lance.
These two events fulfilled two prophecies: the one that the Oracle showed Erika, and the one Fafnir told his nephews. Now, there are two important details to consider:
The dragons’ prophecy is all about the two brothers: “Two warring brothers, one from the cold, the other from the flames... will face off one day in the sky. One must defeat the other to find peace. One must defeat the other and lose is soul.” This has nothing to do with Eldarya if not for the fact that, once Lance kills his brother, he immediately regrets it questioning everything he’d done that far and stops the fight. He lost his soul which seems to mean his path, what drove him, and he didn’t die, Erika only KO him.
The Oracle’s prophecy has everything to do with Eldarya’s fate, it’s the culmination of the Blue Sacrifice where Erika and Leiftan willingly take the place of the previous Aengels. This prophecy tells us another thing
which presumably represent Valkyon.
It’s important because this means that Valkyon did sacrifice himself, but not as part of the Blue Sacrifice. Only Erika and Leiftan did.
What happened to Erika? We know she enters the Crystal and when she comes back she wakes up in the Crystal room hitting the floor, so seemingly coming out of the Crystal. Can we assume that Erika has been in the Crystal all this time? This is what Ezarel implies when he says that he wasn’t able to visit her in the Crystal room, but also what Lance has always believed, i.e. that all his ancestors’ souls were trapped inside the Crystal. This is one of the main factors that drove him mad, the thoughts that his family was trapped and couldn’t move on. And, in fact, Fafnir is very sad when he thinks about Tia, Erika says that it’s evident that the thought of Tia weights on him, he is not able to see her. We have not been able to see the dragons’ parents because they sacrificed themselves and their spirits are part of the Crystal, but we see Valkyon, and not inside the Crystal, but outside, when Erika takes a stroll to say goodbye.
And let’s be clear about one thing, when this happens we are not in purgatory. Erika is able to touch things, Miiko senses her, she sees everyone without using Mery’s mirror. No, that’s the real, living plane. This makes sense because Erika is not exactly dead, but with Valkyon? This means that Valkyon is not in purgatory either.
Because this, combined with the fact that Valkyon was not part of the Blue Sacrifice, means that he is not in the Crystal nor in the purgatory that eventually leads to heaven or whatever there is afterwards.
So, here is my point, is Valkyon in Memoria?
Who has the same blue ethereal form, is dead but is able to stay in the living world?
There is one main difference, Fafnir explicitly mentions that he is not at peace because his mission was to look after his family even after death, while the whole point of Valkyon’s prophecy is that he is now at peace. But what does being at peace mean? He could just be in the Dragons’ realm in Memoria, which we should remember, is just under Eldarya’s surface. We have seen other spirits who are not Fafnir being there. Like this guy
Also the term “being at peace” is used very loosely. It’s used for example when Tia and her husband come back after giving birth to the brothers and leaving them, Fafnir say they were at peace. So it may just mean that Vlakyon had accepted his fate and was not struggling anymore trying to figure out what to do with his brother, like Tia who was struggling to figure out if she should sacrifice her sons. They are at peace because they finally know they have done the right thing.
And this is the important final point that I want to make.
“Know that I will always watch over you.”
Valkyon vanished without me being able to ask him for more details.
If this were Valkyon’s route, I would think that this is just a sentimental phrase he said to his beloved, but no, he says this on every route.
One, it means that he is close enough to watch over Erika.
Two, this is clearly implying that there is more to this sentence, Erika is surprised and wants to ask for more details, but she doesn’t have the time.
Also, if you are on his route he says “If our path won’t cross again, know that...”
So, this is my hypothesis: Valkyon is not completely gone. He is around watching over his brother and Erika and he will probably be part of Lance’s redemption arc.
I see him as season 2 Leiftan, the secret crush we will probably unlock some hidden illustrations with from time to time, and that will completely come back mid-game, which may be a few months to two years depending on what S2 release pace is.
The guy from support clearly said that he is not from the writing team so he can’t say more probably because he doesn’t know. It’s not unthinkable that costumer service doesn’t know about the secret crush that will come in the future.
This is all very annoying because BV will keep us hoping and waiting as long as they can, they have done the same thing with Lance so this is exactly their mo.
This may all be just me being in denial, but if any of this is true this might become my favourite route ever because I’m a sucker for these true love wins all even death, space and time, type of stories.