How far can a person bend before they break and how long can the broken be wielded before they turn double edged?
This season was so devastatingly beautiful, but ironically, the metaphorical crown wouldn't be heavy if the gemstones didn't dig into the head of the wearer.
Sometimes, the line between mercy and cruelty can be thin.
The reason WHY Claudia resonates so deeply with Aaravos' story is because it's a mirror that she finds herself in. She IS the daughter in the story but not the one who pays the price. No, that was paid by her father... her father, who was brave enough to do what Aaravos couldn't. What's heartbreaking is that she doesn't even realize what she's discarding is the same thing Viren chose to embrace in death; his humanity.
The loss portrayed was so unsettling...
To even the loss we felt as the audience, seeing what made Viren who he was... his own son, to seeing what he made himself and the loss of what could've been and how his death proved the one thing we didn't want him to show... him having a human heart. And that's what this show did magnificently... it made this audience root for people against our will.
From the unfinished story of the lovers forever frozen in time to the mournful ballad rayla sang to console the stormbringer.
The only thing left to see is how these weapons charecters are to be utilized.
How callum will embrace his darkness and if Rayla will be able to kill him if need be. Or if promises will not be the only things to be broken next time.
Okay, but notice that when Viren turns into a statue, he has a tear rolling down from his eye, similar to The Dragon King (Not even going to try to spell out his name.)
That + The ‘She is not an asset, she is my daughter’ line from the previous season makes me think that there might be some delicious dramatic irony centering around Viren’s killing of The Dragon King. (Perhaps with Aaravos taking up Claudia as his assistant in Viren’s place? Who knows?)
That’s just me reading a little deep into a random line and the imagery in this teaser being so similar to The Dragon Kings, so I could be way wrong though, lol.
Either way, I’m big hyped for this, holy shit-
the brain got thinking…
s4 rayla said something about all of them making it out or being safe and just being super worried about everyone’s well being (been a hot minute since i’ve watched s4) and it just sounded — and i thought i read somewhere from another user with a similar theory — like it came from personal experience. and how stella was found alone and she just adopted the lil thing. and for some reason i got thinking…
okay, hear me out
rayla’s venturing through xadia or wherever and she comes across a(n elf?) girl not too much younger than herself. they just kinda run into each other in the wild — elf girl is running from undisclosed reasons and rayla’s is obvious — and elf girl is like “hey! let’s stick together!” and it’s like golden retriever/black cat duo.
but of course, as they journey they become super tight and along the way the elf girl finds stella and is like “LET’S ADOPT HER. I SHALL NAME YOU STELLA.” anyway they’re venturing, something something somethinggg, and then suddenly they’re ambushed by elves hunting down elf girl. elf girl is frantic and like “we gotta go” and rayla is confused/concerned. as the three are fleeing from the elves, an arrow hits elf girl to the point rayla is supporting her as they flee. but the ambushers are closing in and she’s slowing rayla and stella down so elf girl looks at rayla straight in the eyes and says “you need to unal1ve me.”
of course, rayla’s like “fuck no!” but elf girl starts telling her that she’s only slowing them down. the ambushers are after her because she knows too much, is too much — descended from the first ones (but she doesn’t say that) — and it’s better for her to d1e then and there than for the ambushers to find her and do something so much worse. she’s begging her to, forcing her to promise her she’ll go back to that human mage she knows rayla’s absolutely smitten with, promise to take care of stella, promise to end her now before something worse comes for her.
and rayla keeps that promise.
elf girl is bleeding out to death and rayla and stella are gone in the foresty expanse of xadia or whatever. it haunts rayla in the back of her mind, and then at full force in season six when suddenly dots start connecting like stars in a constellation and she’s forced to admit what happened. to callum. to her friends. to the new city of elven folk they encounter up in that new location where the nova blade is (memory is fading i’m sorry).
everything begins to make so much sense now.