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Janaya (mostly Janai, some Amaya) scenes in S5

Chapter 7: Sea Legs part 5

Janai was taken

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Can you explain why Claudia is so upset with Terry when they reunite after he leaves? And why Terry, of all people, looks so guilty with her that he can't even look her in the eye? It's one of those things where you know this should all be reversed, but isn't. Why? Why is the betrayer so hostile to the betrayed?

God I loved the messy as fuck whatever they had going on Claudia and Terry dynamic in S7, and I think there's a few reasons why

One of the cruxes of Claudia's character is that she is attached to seeing herself as a good person, and others as not-good by comparison. This means that she can engage in the exact same behaviour and justify it while assuming that others' reasonings couldn't possibly measure up.

This cognitive dissonance is not exclusive to Claudia (Callum and Rayla in particular have a tendency to justify each other's choices in ways they don't with other characters, i.e. Rayla viewing dark magic use being 'evil' except when Callum is using it and he's the 'goodest' person she knows) but the focus on 'my view of myself' largely is. Most other characters in TDP are focused on "I still view this other person as a good person," not being focused on "I view myself as a good person". But Claudia is, and it's this core desire being increasingly pitted against "I will do vile, awful things to keep my family together" that are constantly duking it out.

When Claudia finds Soren and Terry waiting for her, it's clear that not only has Terry joined her brother, but has turned against her (as he could've left and then just fucked off somewhere else). This association with Soren, I think, is one of the things that gets her haunches raised, since Soren made it very clear what he thinks the last time they saw one another in 4x07:

SOREN: You have to stop trying to release the greatest evil this world has ever known. CLAUDIA: I knew you wouldn't understand.

All Claudia hears is "there's something wrong with you." That she's the bad guy and on the Wrong side (which, to be fair, Soren also calls her and Viren bad humans when trying to wake Rex Igneous in 4x09). And, by extension, that Soren is better than her. More correct, more moral, more Right.

And Claudia cannot stand feeling judged. She cannot stand being treated like 'the bad guy' (because of course from her perspective, everything she does is right) and she struggles to hold a conception of "I did something genuinely wrong and can still be a good person" (see: "We're not going to the dungeons Soren, we didn't do anything wrong") usually leaning into one or the other, and normally the latter.

So Terry being with Soren is also "you think I'm wrong, you think I'm bad, and you think you're Better than me" (vs Aaravos' "believed we could be better, so he gave us magic"). She thinks the pair are there to stop her, and she's not wrong, on a certain level.

So when Soren makes a gesture of good will, openly contingent on Terry wanting to spare her ("You're here to save me? How generous [...] I can change, and you will help me. Did I get everything?" Karim vibes), it's just seen as "you're showing off how/why you think you're Better than me" and was, quite frankly, never going to work.

Soren setting down his sword came closer, as it's more reciprocal, and it also symbolizes Soren setting down his mantle/duty (the same sword that killed Viren the first time, presumably). But Soren makes another mistake; the same mistake he made in 4x07:

Dad is dead, Claudia. You don't have to do what he wants anymore.

Set down your staff, Claudia. Dad's staff.

But while Claudia has been doing stuff for Viren, she hasn't done what he wanted in a long time. She's been doing what she wants ("You are not letting go, Dad!") for a hot second, and now alongside Aaravos. (I need to write a scene on her and Aaravos' talk in 7x06, but that's for another day.) And that has included taking down elves and dragons as a whole (and any elf that doesn't help her) for a while.

The dragons and the elves, all the arrogant fools blinded by the searing light of their own self-righteousness.

They are wrong, and she and Aaravos are right ("So much we can make right"). This is a very black-and-white viewpoint in many ways, one that some characters are faster as dismantling than others, but I have no doubt that Arc 3 will push it to its breaking point for all of them. Soren and Terry have thrown in their loyalties with the elves and dragons, since Terry was previously a "good elf Exception" alongside Aaravos because they were both helping her and, as previously discussed, Terry has now turned against her, and all the baggage Claudia carries about such a thing is now dumped onto him by proxy (which Terry doesn't necessarily know or understand).

So what does he look so guilty over?

Honestly? The illusion plan. I'm sure he's worried that Claudia might get hurt, and that things might escalate / go south, but he is ultimately there with a plan that is not what he wanted. What Terry wanted was to find the real Lissa and give Claudia a real chance to connect with her mother and maybe change her ways. But it's not real. It's deception, and he knows it.

TERRY: You lied to me! AARAVOS: I never lie. I simply said we needed a big feather and a very small feather. That is all. TERRY: No. You say you never lie, what you do is worse. You tell people half-truths and let people fill in the rest. You make people lie to themselves. It's deception. It's manipulation, and it's wrong.

She betrayed him, and now in his own way he's betraying her.

So what makes him decide to turn around and do something... similar, shall we say? There's a few things. The first is that they're on a time limit and have no way to reach Lissa. The second is that it's plausible the others were going to do it anyway, and Terry accompanied them because 1) he couldn't stop them, 2) he felt responsible, and 3) hoped that his presence would make a positive difference to Claudia.

The second is the other half of what Aaravos says to Terry, I think.

TERRY: I'll tell Claudia. AARAVOS: Oh, it will change nothing. She loves me. [...] And what of Claudia, then? She knows so much more than she tells you, and she keeps it that way to protect you.

Now, Terry rightfully understands that Claudia wasn't keep things from him to protect him; she did it to use him and to keep him from leaving ("I knew he'd leave once he found out"). However, Terry being willing to live in a half-truth and employ one on Claudia because he genuinely believes it will help her, because he thinks it's a truth he needs to withhold to protect her ("You have to promise me that no harm will come to Claudia" is most easily kept if she backs down)... that I can believe, especially since it lets him believe that she's capable of change/quitting. He wants to Save her, not use her.

That doesn't mean he thinks it won't Hurt.

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She lives in you

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Obviously we’ve got the hoped for extra three seasons and the threads left hanging waiting for that but, honestly I’m kinda surprised they haven’t addressed/explored why Ezran can talk to animals yet. that’s a very not normal skill to just have. and not something we’ve seen any other human character do anything like. I had always just assumed he had connected to idk the earth arcanum or something and just not realised it yet, aka something like Terry’s I don’t control plants I just have a good relationship with them thing. but with animals instead. I had very much expected upon Terry showing Ezran his bird babies and Ezran proceeding to just have a little chat with them, like that’s a normal thing for totally non magic humans to do, for Terry to casually go “cool! you’ve connected to an arcanum as a human just like your brother! good to meet another earth guy outside of the drakewood!” and for Ezran to be all “whaaat??” but hey, that’s just me. anyone else got any theories on why Ezran can talk to animals?

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But I feel something when I see you now I feel something when I see you

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Dragons + Cat Behaviors (Annoyed tail flick and biiiiiigggggggg stretch)

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also aaravos and claudia make me insane because it's not even that they're trying to force the other to be the person they've lost. claudia knows aaravos isn't viren and aaravos knows claudia isn't leola, but they still want to have that father/daughter relationship with each other. aaravos calling her "another daughter" when he says he can't watch her die, because he loves claudia, she's not just a replacement leola to him. god they make me so unwell

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I am not the same as when you met me I have changed because you forced me to

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King Harrow x birdsrightsactivist

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Pylades: I’ll take care of you. Orestes: It’s rotten work. Pylades: Not to me. Not if it’s you.”  ― Anne Carson, Euripides

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We need a Arc 3 because if Janai and Amaya do decide to have a kid I want for Ezran and Callum to be like this with their cousin

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I do genuinely adore the nuances of why what happens this season pushes Terry over the edge, with the way that’s he’s gone along with lots of terrible things, but he doesn’t like being tricked into going along with terrible things, particularly with the way this interacts with the deception he (along with the others) practises on Claudia in s7 ep6. “You didn’t trust me to make that choice for myself,” he tells Claudia in ep4, and in his mind, what he does with fake Lissa is not in opposition to this; he frames it to himself as an opportunity for Claudia to “see something lost inside your heart, and that you would stop yourself.” He thinks he’s giving her the chance to think about what she’s doing and why she’s doing it, and make a different choice. But it’s still deception, still manipulation; it’s still wrong, and tricking Claudia into thinking she has an opportunity she doesn’t really have isn’t really a pro agency move. Either he knows this and accepts it as the lesser of two evils to try and get her to stop, or he’s desperate enough that he’s deluding himself. Either way it’s very messy, and a fascinating complication to his character

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Rayllum + tropes: Everyone can see it

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Day 14 of the January siblings challenge! My sister asked me to draw Callum and Ezran because she's a big fan of the dragon prince (I like it a lot as well)

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@stuck-in-jelly your tags are so beautiful. there’s just so much to love about these two, we were truly blessed 😌

This rewatch has made me more emotional than ever about how Janai knows her people are looking to her for “strength and protection”, that relationship of mutual trust and guidance, and how Janai is looking to Amaya for the self same; in the way the people are looking to their queen, so is Janai looking to hers

Time and again, we see how Janai doubts herself, and always, Amaya is there to support her. Time and again, we see Amaya fiercely protective, and we see Janai take strength from Amaya’s love and presence. and we see that it works the other way around too, with Janai doing everything she can to protect her love, and Amaya drawing strength from that love:

All the strength, protection, and reassurance their people are looking for in their monarch, they are looking for in each other; drawing strength from each other, reassuring each other, leaning on each other, reminding each other that they can have faith in the new day; there’s so much respect, love, kindness and support between them, as they build a future together; they are truly each others queen

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Janaya scenes in S5

Chapter 8: Finnegrin’s Wake part 1