#and Lloyd might still be having wolf mask related visions
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agenericplaceholdername · 1 month ago
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Without the Blood Moon, Ras would've succeeded
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"The Blood Moon rises once every few millennia in the Wyldness. And on this rarest of events, there is an arcane ritual that can be performed to resurrect... the Forbidden Five." -- Suetonius, Shattered Dreams
Coming out of Dragons Rising S2P1, it seemed like the Blood Moon's arrival was quite fortunate for Ras. It happens only once in thousands of years, and could have easily happened long before the Merge or long after. Instead, I will argue that if the Blood Moon was not happening soon, but Ras' overall goals remained the same, he would have succeeded.
Let's examine Ras' end goal in DR S2. He wants to bring the winner of the Tournament of Sources to the "Cauldron of Realms" (S2, E19) and from there, he can use the stolen elemental powers to create dragon icons. Then he can summon and capture Source Dragons (S2, E16). Working backwards, he wants to put together a team of elemental masters who will win the Tournament. In the canon timeline, since the Blood Moon is coming, he decides to try to free the Forbidden Five to use them as his Elemental champions.
(Side note: Given how threatening the Five have been described as, the equivalent to recruiting the most deadly Elemental Masters in history to win a tournament would be assembling the Ninja to defeat a single robber, or recruiting the Council of the Crystal King to defeat Dareth.)
However, let's say the Blood Moon isn't coming. Ras will have to put together his own team from the Elemental Masters he can recruit by himself. Cinder will work for Ras the same as he did originally. Through Jordana's source dragon energy, Ras can still open the Shadow Dojo and acquire the wolf masks, giving Cinder access to Shatterspin. While Cinder is easily bested by Rising Dragon (and even by Sora without it), given how easily Cinder defeated the Ninja in their first encounter, he might be able to handle the non-Ninja elemental masters at the Tournament with Shatterspin alone.
This does raise a question. If not for the Blood Moon, will the Ninja even learn Rising Dragon? After all, they only do so after Ras invades the Cloud Kingdom, Euphrasia goes to the Ninja and tells them what happened, they go to the Cloud Kingdom, witness Shatterspin, and then Lloyd calls on the Source Dragons and receives a vision directing the Ninja to Egalt and Rontu. But Ras only invades the Cloud Kingdom to translate the Theroxian scrolls for the Ritual of the Blood Moon, which he now no longer needs.
That being said, I'm still inclined to think Ras wants to learn the secrets of the Forbidden Five, if nothing else than to improve Cinder's Shatterspin and help Jordana learn sorcery. So the Cloud Kingdom is still invaded and the Ninja still end up seeking out Egalt and Rontu. It might be even harder to convince the Dragon Masters to teach the Ninja Rising Dragon, since the threat of the Forbidden Five is absent, but let's say the Ninja learn it. In fact, let's say that because the Blood Moon never happens and the Dragon Masters aren't turned to stone, all the Ninja learn Spinjitzu (if they didn't know it already) and Rising Dragon.
It doesn't matter.
Without Nokt and Rox being freed and killing various Arch-Dragons, the Source Dragon of Motion never directs the Ninja to the Tournament of Sources and Ras still works with Bleckt, who makes sure the Ninja don't receive their invitations. Thus, the Tournament occurs and Cinder and whatever other Elemental Masters Ras recruits -- probably Frak and maybe even Jay -- win. We don't know how Ras found Jay in the canon timeline, but he already didn't like working in the Administration. Ras can simply manipulate him whatever way he did originally. Ras now has the combined Elemental Powers, and his plan succeeds.
And to preemptively respond to a potential counterargument -- no, Ras didn't need the Ninja's elemental powers for his plan. Remember that originally, he tried to prevent the Ninja from showing up, tried to assassinate Lloyd, and then tried to get the Ninja kicked out of the Tournament.
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