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lily-lilou · 5 years ago

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My little theory about all this:

When you look at the facts in the show and the novel, you notice several things.

1. in both, they keep Runaan’s thoughts silent. We never know, indeed, what he thinks about his daughter, even though we know he loves her very much (even in Callum’s spellsbook, it’s said he loves her)

2. In both again, they do not give explicitly the names of Lain and Tiadrin, they do not say it’s Rayla’s parents when Runaan see the coins. It’s strongly implied but not truly said.

3. In TDP, we have a whole speech about what true strengh is. But neither Runaan or Ethari know anything about « true strength » (neither any Moonshadow elf if not Rayla...). Runaan accuses Rayla to be weak when she wants to stop him, Ethari describes himself as «neither as strong as the others » most likely because he’s not someone who can kill easily « like the others ».

But letting things like this wouldn’t make sense, especially for a show where character development is the main priority. They spent the first arc developing Callum’s family, especially Harrow and Sarai who are already dead. As for Rayla, she’s one of the main characters and she has serious family issues too. They’re even worst than Callum and Ezran, when you think about it.

Think about all the potential for character development this family holds. The whole speech about strength and weakness and how he could change Runnan and Ethari world’s view. the way they all hurt Rayla (their beloved daughter, shall I repeat it? ^^), the fact Runaan killed Harrow, which will obviously affect Callum and Ezran and is related to another thema « forgiveness ». And talking about forgiveness, how will Rayla react about being ghosted, especially by Ethari who « always had faith in her », except when she truly needed it? How will she react when she will finally retrieve and face Runaan? Because she felt guilty for his fate, also for the rest of the team. She probably felt guilty for ghosting her parents too. How will they react, her four parents, when they will understand she pushes her guilt to the point of throwing her life away? Etc. Etc...

My point is: Everything about Runaan in the dungeon, or Rayla’s family generally speaking, has been kept silent if not for the strict minimum (like you said: Runaan’s interactions with Viren) because all of this will be brought out later in the show, probably in S4 and 5 (with the excerpt from the graphic novel, it’s likely the direction S4 will take; finding and freeing Rayla’s family from the coins). Because with so much potential for character development, there’s no chance the moonfam won’t get the spotlight at some point. (Plus, the lead writer at Wonderstorm describes Ethari as « her baby », if I remember that tweet correctly, she added something like «I’ve put all my heart into...». In other words, she spent a lot of time creating this character, I highly doubt he will only appear for two episodes and « ciao »)

And if not, I’ll be really disappointed, because *totally-biased-and-fangirl-mod ON* I need to see more of Ethari !!!! I need more of his voice , seriously ! Such a beautiful, soothing voice shouldn’t be given to a minor character !!!!

Could you imagine how frustrating it would be if Aaravos appeared for one episode only ? Huh?

Something that irks me about book one is how, after Runaan called Rayla a traitor and makes a petty jab about Rayla being "weak" like her parents, he never actually thinks about her again. He thinks about Ethari, and even Rayla's parents, but he never once thinks about her well-being.

I’ll tell you something from the other side of the book cover, anon. Part of an author’s job is deciding what to show, what not to show, what to hint at, and what to glide past because it’s not crucial to the plot. Plenty of details can be excellent for character development, and those can be the details the fans most want to know and think about on their own--gestures to fanfiction--but a book editor will mercilessly tell you to kill your darlings because it’s bogging down the story and murdering the pacing, and when the price of production goes up for every ten pages in the book, there’s a financial incentive to keep things short and sweet.

Time constraints and pacing are why the TDP fandom has so many eager questions about the characters regarding things we didn’t get to see, and it’s a true joy that the writers bless us with the actual details they have mulled over in the background of the work that we did get to see onscreen. The same kind of thing goes for published novels, really. An author can expand on any number of scenes that get cut in the final edit. Entire scenes may be trimmed out, just like they are in shows.

But if you’d like a happy thought, take this one: just because something isn’t explicitly mentioned as occurring doesn’t mean it didn’t happen. Novels are full of tiny little time skips! We didn’t ride around in Runaan’s head for all those days he was on his knees in Viren’s dungeon and read his every thought and see that he definitely did not ever think about Rayla again. His mind could have circled back to her any number of times--you don’t tell a child a thousand times that they’re genuinely special and then just. Forget they exist. We just didn’t get to read that part. We only got snippets of his time there, and they were focused on his interaction with Viren and his acceptance of the price he had to pay to keep Viren from learning anything about the mirror.

Runaan’s honorable sacrifice--his acceptance of his own fate being worse than death as long as he was protecting Xadia--speaks to Rayla’s upbringing and the beliefs he instilled in her, and it’s also foreshadowing for Rayla’s actions at the Storm Spire. He is the figure standing behind her, in the way that Harrow stands behind Callum, and Viren behind Claudia and Soren. He is his own character, but he’s got a big support role for who Rayla is now and who she’ll be as the story progresses. So with all this to consider, it does make sense that, at this early stage in the story, his role is focused on the practical nuts and bolts of moving the plot forward, for Viren and for Rayla.

It’ll be at least a couple more books before we probably get any more canon storyline novels that include Runaan’s perspective. But what I’m currently holding close to my heart is the idea of a canon Ruthari novel, about Runaan, Ethari, Lain, and Tiadrin in their younger years. That’s my OTP Holy Grail, guys.

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