#please always tag me for shannara discussion it's my favourite thing

[eventine-elessedill]

*pops out of the floor boards* I heard someone calling for me - here I am. And I do have some thoughts about Arion, actually, though I would say that I would have to agree with you in saying that Arion doesn’t really get a whole lot of significant “screen time” in the book to get a really great picture of him, but - 

Arion is what I would call your “standard high fantasy elf”. He’s snobby and proud and headstrong. He insists on formalities as a crown prince and on elevated respect from non-elves. He very much is the “elfs are better than people” type (this is pushed even farther in the computer game. He is distainful of “half-breeds” and insistant on the power of the elven armies, but how canon you consider that is up in the air). He’s even described as your traditional “tall and fair”, as opposed to Ander’s “short and dark”. Arion in book, I would argue, is the kind of elf that explains where elf stereotypes come from. 

He’s also the classic older sibling: dad’s favourite (according to Ander), athletic, handsome and “charismatic” (though I do wonder what Ander’s threshhold for charismatic is, since most of the time Arion speaks he’s kinda being a dick). He’s stubborn and set in stone and impatient and reckless. If he believes something to be true he cannot be moved, and this clouds any good sense he has.

I would say, though, that while Arion is more so on the haughty and generally mean spirited elf side, I think part of that has to do with his personality being generally proud, and the other part is that he’s even MORE like that now becausef of the death of Aine. Aine’s death scrambled a lot of things for the Elessedils and hurt a lot of feelings in different ways, but I feel like it may have hurt Arion the most because he - at the end - perhaps feels as though he lost the most (Because it cost him Amberle - she didn’t turn to him for comfort she turned to Ander, which then cost him Ander because he was jealous, etc.)

We get glimpses a softer Arion from time to time, but not in great detail. He checks in with his father and seems genuinely concerned after him. Aine was described as his “beloved brother” (extremely so - it seemed like Aine was most likely Arion’s favourite). He and Ander were apparently close before Aine had died, and he was fond of Amberle before she chose Ander over him. He also seems gentle towards Lessa - a guard who attempts to court him in the computer game - which kinda skews his looking down his nose at non-royalty thing. 

I think at the end of the day, Arion is a bitter person. Brooks says as much several times: 

“There was great bitterness within the Crown Prince, much of it caused by the obvious hurt that this girl had brought to the King”

Ander genuinely seems to want to make up with Arion and make him see reason, which to me suggests that he’s not completely irredeemable as a person and I feel like there’s more to explore about Arion pre-Aine death. 

I think really at the core of it all, Arion is a deeply hurt individual who - like his father and brother  - does not deal with his emotions in a healthy way. Unlike Ander and Eventine, though, he is incapable of letting his bitterness and hurt go. He keeps it festering inside of him and lashes out, driving the rest of his family away from him. I think, if nothing else, that makes for an interesting character that could be further explored. 

I feel like the show took these characteristics and amped them up to eleven, so much so that Arion came across as almost completely unlikable imo.  

Hi, I am very sorry to come out of the blue like this and I hope I am not bothering you but this came to my mind. Any thoughts on Arion Elessedil? I loved him in the book but I feel I am the only one

Hi!! You’re not bothering me at all, I adore getting asks! 

That said, I actually don’t have that many thoughts - it’s been a while since I reread teos and honestly I remember by biggest impression of Arion was that I just kinda...wanted to know more about him? When I get to teos on my reread I’ll  revisit this ask and pay closer attention to him (and if I don’t remember, feel free to remind me!) 

I’m also going to give a preliminary tag/open invite to comment to @ride-a-dromedary bc I know she has many thoughts abt the Elessedils