#scale of shiruakh

[xadianglyphs]

The Dragonscale Amulet: Theory

And finally... literally the reason I made this entire blog. Basically, back in March we had this:

Anyway, I dropped literally everything to catalog the entire breadth of writing, runes, glyphs, etc. in the series so far, all in order to figure out what the hell this means. One theory that has evolved in the meantime is that the symbol on the amulet represents an acorn or seed, but I would like to propose another.

First, let's look at the amulet and symbol, themselves.

The amulet is composed of a dragon scale (allegedly, at least... we haven't seen dragon scales separated from dragons anywhere else) that is red, highly reflective (whether naturally or polished after the fact), and about palm-sized. By that scale, it probably comes from a dragon about Pyrrah's size or a little larger, unless it was carved down to a smaller size when crafted into an amulet. The scale is anchored in a gold setting, with a shape and decorations that have a fair amount of similarity to the Staff of Ziard. (Maybe we should have anticipated an Aaravos/Startouch association.)

As for the symbol, accounting for perspective (to the best of my abilities), we have this:

The symbol is etched directly into the scale's surface. Its lines are less smooth than the ones decorating the setting, which could indicate that it was added at another time (earlier/later) with a less precise tool, or just that gouging designs into dragon scales is hard.

In terms of similarity to other symbols we've seen so far, it could come from a similar system as the symbols in Infantis Sanguine. It also has similarities to a primal rune, though the sharp, wide corners are unusual. Either way, I think this is a pictographic symbol representing an item or concept as a whole, not an alphabetic character—this isn't Laurelion personally going around with a blinged-out "L" necklace.

So what could it be? Well, I propose that it's a heart. Like so:

My initial impression had the horizontal top "crossbar" as the pulmonary arteries, and the vertical center line as the aorta/vena cava, but you could also look at the crossing vertical and diagonal lines as dividing the space into the four chambers of the heart. However, I think there's another direction to go with that diagonal, so let's put a pin in that for a moment.

Why a heart? Because there has a sizeable amount of fairly convincing speculation post-s4 that the dark space in Aaravos's chest is either figuratively or literally representing his heart having been removed. @raayllum's are a lot more coherent, but I've also done my share.

I'm sure someone had this thought before I did, if only because I was super late to the fandom. But I had it!

... okay right, back to the amulet.

Aaravos's heart is also a key part of the "Laurelion and Aaravos are the same person" theory, in part because Laurelion's heart is the center of everything we currently know about them.

Laurelion's heart was pierced by either the as-yet-unnamed Novablade itself or a piece of draconic ivory (i.e. a dragon's tooth) that was later forged into the Novablade, after which "immortal Laurelion was no more."

Aside from creating an additional connection between Laurelion and dragons, making the dragon scale of the amulet even more interesting, let's go back to the symbol in light of the whole "pierced" thing.

Now, TDP has a fair amount of Christian symbolism and imagery to it, some purely because of how deeply Christianity is embedded in western culture but some also definitely intentional. Aaravos was initially framed as a Prometheus figure, but it became progressively more clear that he's a Lucifer one—a tempter, a rebel angel, out to destroy creation. They absolutely know what they're doing with things like the *checks watch* 2019 Aaravos birthday post:

So don't think it's completely insane to take that, Laurelion's death[citation needed], and the amulet symbol, and think of this:

Depictions of the Sacred Heart don't seem to usually show the spear, just the wound, but I wasn't raised Catholic so work with me here. (If you want to get even more Catholic, there's also the Immaculate Heart of Mary, which is almost always depicted with a sword piercing it diagonally all the way through because she's... sad? Look, I don't know.) The idea is that it represents the boundless and fervent love of God expressed through the suffering of Jesus, which... whatever.

I do think it's interesting, however, that we are primed to question Laurelion's "death" and concepts of mortality/immortality, death of identity, etc. in the context of Startouch elves because while there's definitely a possibility that an immortal being stripped of their immortality is a punishment, there's also... a lot of cultural precedent for that as a willing gift of love to a mortal/mortals, whether you're looking at Jesus, Castor and Pollux, or Arwen and Aragorn. So we'll see how that plays out.

Anyway, that's my weird fringe theory: the amulet symbol represents Laurelion's pierced heart.

Probably time to worry about Claudia. (As if we weren't, already.)

Bonus:

[kradogsrats]

who's ready to watch me lose my mind in slow motion? because every single spell Claudia has cast with the corrupted Sun primal stone

including very specifically in s7

has not only been non-corruptive but also hasn't even involved the dark magic eye-glow, and then we have both Umbra Dolor and Pavimento Liquifactum

and then of course Petra Volare, which isn't even pretending to be a Sun spell, it literally just throws a damn rock

If there's one error here, I would say it's Umbra Dolor, because something something Claudia sucked the magic out of an entire beach of creatures so everything she casts in that scene is probably like 50% dark magic anyway??? look idek anymore

anyway this moment of string-pegboard insanity was brought to you by trying to parse out why the Scale of Shiruakh is de-corruptive

[xadianglyphs]

[xadianglyphs]

[xadianglyphs]

[xadianglyphs]

S7 Spoiler Blackout: Season 7 posts will begin on Saturday, January 4. All will be tagged with "#book seven: dark" for organization purposes.

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This is a repository of references for as many runes, symbols, and other writing as can be collected from The Dragon Prince and its supplemental materials. The intent is not to update very often unless new material is released, but please submit your own examples or requests!

TDP does not use a fantasy conlang alphabet, nor is linguistics (beyond ASL translation) a factor in designing the filler writing and decorative symbols used throughout the setting. However, because I am personally insane, I wanted a way to check if the various styles of glyphs could be grouped in any meaningful way. Which meant collecting and organizing every possible instance of writing in the entire show. So here we are.

By Appearance:

book one: moon, book two: sky, book three: sun, book four: earth, book five: ocean, book six: stars, book seven: dark, credits sketch

tales of xadia, through the moon, bloodmoon huntress, puzzle house, dreamer's nightmare, tdp: xadia

concept art

By Identified Family:

primal rune, sunforge runes, handwriting

By Culture:

human kingdoms, xadia, moonshadow elves, skywing elves, sunfire elves, earthblood elves, tidebound elves, startouch elves, order of the blood moon, celestial elves, draconic

moon nexus, sky nexus, sun nexus, earth nexus, ocean nexus, star nexus

By Primal Source:

primal sources, moon primal, sky primal, sun primal, earth primal, ocean primal, star primal

corrupted primal, dark magic, deep magic

By Surface Type/Location:

architecture, attire, books, handwriting, objects, weapons

book of aaravos, claudia's spellbook, cursed coin, scale of shiruakh, magic mirror, starscraper

Spells:

primal rune, unnamed spell

amor stella vitae, aquis spirare faucibus, arma virtutis, aspiro, aspiro frigis, eritque arcus ignis, fulgur mortifer, fulminis, historia viventem, infantis sanguine, lapis caeli, levare ventum, missilem ignem, mons aqueous, noctu igne, pluviam praesidium, sepultura caelo, stratum caligo, tenebris praesidium, terminus ad glacium, umbra chorum, ventum angulus, ventum circulo, ventus spiralis, ventus validus, venus frigoris

Meta:

meta

analysis, compilation, scene comparison

[kradogsrats]

late entry in the "I was right" category re: the Novablade and scale amulet being from the same dragon, and it being an archdragon, and apparently an archdragon of Sun

anyway I bet that Shiruakh was like... Sol Regem's mom

OKAY SO two things really:

THE NOVABLADE HAS A RED GEM???? So a new possibility I hadn't considered before is that the Laurelion/amulet connection is the "ivory draconic" of the Novablade coming from the same dragon as the scale for the amulet. Also something something "only an Archdragon's bite could harm me now" Aaravos, etc. anyway my prime suspect would be Aithne Solaire. Also NGL this raises Questions(tm) in my mind about the Novablade, just because of the apparent integration of the amulet with Claudia's dark magic, and that generally, like... making shit out of a magical being's bones that then has special properties is a bit of a dark magic thing.

EZRAN AND SWORDS JESUS CHRIST like I mentioned a while back how Ezran's relationship with Harrow's sword and with weapons in general is complicated, and we've only once seen him with a sword and that was while play-fighting with Callum during Harrow's flashback. But y'all, the Novablade isn't a sword like Harrow's sword was—a sword (particularly an inherited sword) can have a lot of baggage attached to it, but ultimately it can be wielded for both attack and defense. It can defend the weak or conquer them, act as a tool of justice or of oppression. The Novablade, however? The Novablade is specifically and solely an implement of killing. It has one purpose: to end mortal existence. Maybe Laurelion (Aaravos) needed (needs) to be removed from the world for the good of all. Ezran seems to be becoming very targeted in his anger with Sol Regem and Runaan, so maybe he's getting behind that idea—that surgical removal of evil from the world is not only necessary but sometimes the best course. BUT THAT'S SUCH A MOONSHADOW ASSASSIN THING OKAY I'M DYING. Like that's LITERALLY Runaan's justifying philosophy.

anyway SCREAMING