#Panqua Palace

[starmi-designs]

#21 The Striga

I don't know this guy, I'm still halfway through the books (starting to read hoole's story), but here he is.

I made him because of a request on instagram btw

[woolybird]

HumanAU-comics-songfic based on the Legends of Hoole arc

Part 2✨

(The part 1 can be seen pinned by a post on my blog, it is better than the part 2 :D)

[curious-sootball]

Alright, some more GoG × TMA headcanons, part 5(i think)/?

This au has a playlist! By me. On youtube. It is a work in progress and it is mostly shanties now (becase of Ezylryb. He taught his chaw the shanties. This man knows so many shanties and you cannot change my mind). Song suggestions are very welcome!

Every time the collier/all-weather chaw has to camp out near the shores of Hoolemere after a training flight, there is a shanty singing session (temporarily abandoned during the Siege). Otulissa went from a miserable bundle of feathers tapping her foot to the beat to a shanty enjoyer - almost smacking Soren with a rare edition of "Shanties and somgs of the Northern Kingdoms" penned by Lyze of Kiel at one point because Soren is very dense and doesn't pick up that Ezylryb is prepairing him to take over as the new shantyowl.

"Hell's coming with me" by Poor man's poison but it is Striga and Coryn summoning Theo's ghost specifically to yell at him (may or may not spiral into Striga burning the Panqua palace down via Desolation powers)

"Pressure cracks", also by Poor man's poison, but it is Penryck and Ullryck going their separate ways. No, I don't ship them, I headcanon them as bi/ace solidarity friendship. I want to see ending friendship get the same gravity that romantic heartbreak gets in songs. Also, they both said a version of "Go ahead, make my day, punk!" at some point in my headcanon.

Thora Plonk lives. She's scarred and marked by The Slaughter, but she lives and kicks ass.

[justnoodlefishthings]

Also why was everyone in the Guardians of Ga'Hoole movie suddenly and inexplicably Australian Like I get that the animation studio is Australian but The books are implied to take place in North America, probably the Pacific Northwest since it's closest to Asia (them blue dragon owls at the panqua palace y'all)

[curious-sootball]

You know, sometimes I think about hagsfiends and the sheer amount of missed opportunities just baffles me. Who decided that an entire species of murderhobos is more interesting than letting owls and hagsfiends interact like the rest of the species in the series? (Also, the Panqua palace as a concept is a very messed up place. You want to make up for the terrible things that you've done in your past life? Well, your crimes had been so horrifying that the only way to make up for them is sitting flat on your ass and looking pretty.)

Even if we go with morbid aesthetic/vibes: why can't there be a hagsfiend deeply interested in medicine/anatomy/studying in general and becoming an apprentice of, let's say, a glauxian brother on a piligrimage? Their curiosity is insatiable, they study cadavers, their textbooks are filled with anatomical sketches, they cast spells to aid themselves and their patients and wear the nickname "witch doctor" like a badge of honour.

The series had done the partnership between different species before (owls of the Silver Mist and eagles against the st. Aeggie's). Even if we go with morbid aesthetic/vibes: why can't there be a hagsfiend deeply interested in medicine/anatomy/studying in general becoming an understudy of, let's say, a glauxian brother on a piligrimage? They study cadavers, their textbooks are filled with bird anatomy sketches, they cast spells to aid themselves and their patients and wear a nickname "witch doctor" like a badge of honour.

Another idea that stems from Lasky playing fast and loose with her owl flight research: a hagsfiend mercenary who relies on speed and stealth specifically to take down owl scouts/messengers. Owls are one of the slowest flying birds; crows and bigger birds of prey have no problem catching up to them irl. Cutting your enemies' communication off is a ruthlessly efficient move.

On a way less morbid note: cross-species adoption could've been both wholesome and hilarious. Lots and lots of exploration of the cultural differences on a silver platter even with the simplest options like an owlet taken in by a hagsfiend family, or the other way around *cough*Carrot Ironfoundersson*cough*. "Yes, this is my adopted sibling, they are three ounces of whoop-ass,please don't badger them"; "You say one more thing about my (adopted) kid/sibling and I'll sick all Hell on your sorry ass without using nachtmagen!".

Just hagsfiends acting like crows when they aren't in immediate danger. If something can be picked up and tinkered with, it would be picked up and tinkered with.

[curious-sootball]

Psst, y'all want some GoG theories? Well, you're getting them anyway

Spoilers for books 12-15, if people still care about that; also, generous use of tinfoil.

Why dragon owls are called dragon owls, apart from Lasky slapping a vaguely eastern aesthetic onto a whole location? We later learn that dragon owls are actually hagsfiends, heavily nerfed and kept in the Panqua palace as puppet royalty(which is its own can of worms). It is also said that Theo, the first blacksmith, left northern kingdoms, reached the Middle kingdom and led hagsfiends away with him.

Now, keeping in mind how long that journey is (based on how journey of Soren and Co is described), I really doubt that Theo was actively chased all the way across the ocean–based on how hagsfiends are described, they would've easily caught him(owls are one of the slowest flying birds irl); it is more likely that he was tracked, and his pursuers were roughly a day behind.

Onto the dragon owl thing: that's the name the owls of Middle kingdom came up with. Assuming no hagsfiends found their way to the Middle kingdom before Theo's little stunt, they have seen hagsfiends for the first time soon after Theo's arrival. Those hagsfiends most likely were a group of mercenaries or marauders; add in the fact that Theo was also a known royalist, one of the king's closest friends and a pretty famous owl at that point; survivor of the Battle of the short light, the first blacksmith, the inventor of battle claws, the list goes on.

Think about it: I'm pretty sure there was a hagsfiend who had a bone to pick with N'yrthgar royalty, had at least a bunch of mercenaries with him, was determined enough to track someone across a whole ass ocean, actively used the dragon aesthetic and kinda faded out of focus after the beginning of "To be a King". Yes, Penryck, the Sky Dragon. Since we have very little canon info about hagsfiends who weren't Kreeth and Lutta, a popular fan guess is that he died either during the events of "To be a King" or shortly after; but what if he survived and somehow learned that Theo left his position at Hoole's court(if he had one to begin with), and decided to make sure he would never be heard from again. (I have to admit, this sounds a bit dubious; he had beef with the royal family, not some random blacksmith; maybe he went after Theo since he had no military backup strong enough to take down the king again).

Now, the dates are pretty speculative here, but Tengshu mentioned that his mother had personally known Theo. Yeah, that very Theo. Tengshu is 325 years old, according to wiki; this means that hagsfiends "went extinct" in the northern and southern kingdoms at least four centuries before the main series events, most likely even more (since Tengshu speaks very calmly about dragon owls; this doesn't seem likely based on the descriptions of hagsfiends, even when we take the fact that owls hate them into consideration. After all, Theo got a bunch of mercenaries and a killer of the high king on his trail. Therefore, some time had passed before corvid-like and agressive hagsfiends turned into oversized blue floofs that we see in "River of wind".)

Why did I just go on that tangent about speculative history and timelines? Well, the idea is simple: hagsfiend mercenaries followed Theo and had conquered a good chunk of the Middle kingdom. However, being good at conquest doesn't make one good at ruling: their kingdom(or however it was called) took a nosedive after a generation or two, and they were gradually turned into puppet royalty, permanently inhabiting Panqua palace.

The main downside of this theory is the fact that a ridiculous amount of things get kicked into motion by a single character: Penryck already killed the high king and nearly conquered northern kingdoms, he is the de-facto antagonist of "The coming of Hoole", he's got a lot going on. This is what happens when you write only four characters with distinct personalities for your witch species, Kathryn

Also, if Panqua palace keeps accurate and long enough track of every dragon owl's family tree, there is a chance of tracking those all the way back to hagsfiends who tracked Theo from N'yrthgar, and this could've been a really neat worldbuilding detail. (This also raises a disturbing question – if we assume that there was relatively small population of hagsfiends that moved to the Middle kingdom, does that make those dragon owls horrifically inbred? They've been there for more than four centuries, and since hagsfiends and owls can't crossbreed, their gene pool was just getting devastated. Multiple migration waves make this situation look slightly better, but the implications are still there)

TL;DR: Dragon owls are nicknamed dragon owls after a character, and not only as a shallow reference to asian dragons.