#seriously y'all. tdp fans are the coolest and the smartest

[its-leethee]

What kind of magic does the Jailer use, and what is her connection to the Key of Aaravos?

I have thought for a while that perhaps the Jailer is neither a primal nor a dark magic user, and that she utilized the Key of Aaravos to serve an important role in his imprisonment. Now, there isn't a lot of overt evidence for my hypothesis here; this is a ramble of pure speculation. I'm going to do my best to present the dialogue and canon-consistent logic to support my thoughts. Here goes:

The prevailing opinion in Xadia is that "human magic" is akin to trickery and sleight of hand. When confronted with Callum's claim of being a primal mage in 5x07, Nyx dismisses his boast reflexively: “I’ve seen ‘human magic.’ Fake ropes, false doors, birds and rabbits stuffed into clothing.” To her, it's common knowledge that humans can't use real primal magic, and her derisive attitude shows she doesn't have much respect for human magic either. As for dark magic, Nyx doesn't even mention it at all; as Lujanne said in 2x01, "we do not call that practice magic. It's an atrocity."

But human magic has one more specialty: creating and solving puzzles. The mechanical devices and riddles guarding the secrets in Kpp'ar's labyrinthine house and the rock-stone puzzle hiding the staircase to Viren's dungeon are story-significant examples of the types of innovations created by human magic. In 1x03, Ezran solves the rock-stone puzzle to reveal the staircase hiding Viren's dungeon. Callum answers the riddle posed by Rex Igneous in 4x08, "having knowledge isn't knowing knowledge…. He has a map!"

So neither a primal mage nor a dark mage would resort to puzzles and riddles, the gimmicks used by magic-less humans. So let's now consider the Jailer.

During the post-season four Discord Q&A, Aaron Ehasz states that the Jailer is a "mastermind of prisons and puzzles."

In episode 5x05, Archmage Akiyu tells the story of how she met the Jailer and introduces her as "a human mage." Akiyu goes on to explain:

"The archdragons had given the Jailer a daunting task, to design a magical prison that could hold a Startouch Elf. She needed my powers to craft the prison itself." (emphasis mine).

It stands to reason that a competent dark mage, with the notoreity to catch the attention of the archdragons, could bring that kind of power into her grasp on her own. So why would the Jailer seek out the powers of primal archmage, unless she couldn't wield that power herself? Furthermore, knowing the prejudice that the archdragons hold against dark magic--all of humanity was driven out of Xadia for refusing to forswear its use--I don't believe the archdragons would ever condone cooperating with a dark mage, even to quell an existential crisis like a demi-god bent on world destruction.

Akiyu tells us one more intriguing thing that the Jailer said:

"'The puzzle is the real prison,' she told me with a proud smile," (again, emphasis mine)

There's another word besides "magic" that we can use to describe the practice of creating and solving puzzles: cryptography; the art and science of creating and breaking codes and ciphers. The terms code and cipher are often used interchangeably, but their meanings are technically different. Basically, a code uses arbitrary substitutions while a cipher uses an algorithm.

Now, if you wish to solve a puzzle, you're going to need all the pieces - and if you wish to solve a cipher or code, you're going to need a key.

More than one use has been hinted at for the Key of Aaravos. We've heard Rayla refer to it several times as a toy and a game piece (1x04, 2x07). In the book two novelization, Callum notices that the Key left marks on the ground that appeared to point toward Xadia (we get a glimpse of those lines in early episode 2x07). In 4x07, we get suspiciously up-close framing of the Key when Callum asks, "is there no primal gem for star magic?"

And a few months back, one of the TDP creators shared on Twitter about a season 6 scene that was eventually cut. In the scene, Callum holds the Key up to a symbol on a wall and says, "I'm gleaming the cube!" (if anyone remembers this twitter convo and can provide me a link to this, I would be so grateful)

This is the Key feature we're all most familiar with: its glow. When exposed to a source of magic, the corresponding primal magic symbol on the Key lights up. This is why I think one of the potential functions of the Key of Aaravos is as a cryptographic key. If it were held up to a magic-infused symbol, the glow effect would reveal the primal magic source - and in this way it could be used to decode a secret message.

In cryptography, a key is the series of words, symbols or phrases that contain all of the basic information you need to decode or understand a specific coded message. Both the sender and receiver of the coded message need to know the key in order to create the coded message or decode it into plaintext - to lock or unlock the meaning behind a cipher or code.

I can't speculate on the exact nature of the secrets that she encrypted with it, but the Key can literally shed light on the solution! It was a toy that was repurposed by a the Jailer, magicless human mage and mastermind of ciphers and codes, to protect the secrets of Aaravos and his prison.

Exactly what secrets it will be used to reveal remains part of the Mystery.

if you're interested in learning more about cryptography, this page has links to a lot of my favorite resources

Recommended reading for more Key of Aaravos and the Jailer theories:

the post that initially enabled my crazy train of thoughts, thank you @beautifulterriblequeen

super rad analysis of the Jailer's unique character design by @kradogsrats, who also authored one of my favorite alternative hypothesis for the real function of the Key of Aaravos

an amazing thorough and detailed Key analysis, by @raayllum and another very interesting conversation about the Key here

Special thanks to @raayllum for answering my random Akiyu and Jailer questions, and to @self-spaghettification for giving me the push I needed to bring this essay together!