#staff of ziard

[wheretwofacesmeet]

[felixisbannedfromwalmart]

The staff and the Nova Blade side by side

There are clear similarities too, with the blade hidden in plain sight a place where not many would think of looking. Also, when Ziard was asked where he got it he said it was powerful artifact

[stardustamaryllis78]

The Staff of Ziard

I know a lot of people think Aaravos stole the staff from the Starscraper, but may I turn your attention back to a scene in Season 4 where during the scene where Claudia and Ibis are fighting over the staff, Ibis says "If you wish to return the staff to it's true owner" (then he'll have to kill her). This evidence is further proven when he sends his "I'm murdered" message to the main team where he says "The Staff of Ziard has been stolen, this can only mean one thing, The Fallen Star has returned." So this means Aaravos was indeed the staves true owner, not the Celestial Elves.

But then we're now introduced to a new block in the road, well Aaravos only needs The Staff of Ziard and if he's the owner of that staff and presumably made that one then surely he made the others right? Well yes, but obviously the others would not be as powerful as the staff with the Quasar Diamond in it.

Well, why do the Celestial Elves have the other staves then you ask? My guess is because they worship everything to do with the Startouch elves, they somehow got ahold of most of them and kept them within the Starscaper. They probably just couldn't locate the last one or they knew the Staff of Ziard was in use.

Now I want to talk about the staves and Elarion. So Ziard was given the staff with the Quasar Diamond I'm guessing because he was the leader of the mages within Elarion. But we now know there are staves for the other Primal, so were they given to 5 other mages in Elarion?

I have questions and need answers.

But yes ultimately, Aaravos couldn't have stolen something if he was the true owner. Well, unless he stole his own original property.

[amber-in-the-rough]

and yeah, now we know what the s6 poem meant by "eight in a line". It still could mean those stars from the opening but it's much more likely those multicoloured staffs.

maybeee like i said before, they represent 6 primal sources + dark magic + deep magic.

or, i would still take it if it turns out to be 8 types of deep magic staffs. after all, we DO know there are more than one. there's Power, there could be Love and some more. after all, Callum's spellbook mentions it also more than once - that Love Is Magic :3

.

u can definitely say that im very happy rn

[kradogsrats]

not me getting distracted tracking the configurations of the Staff of Ziard over like five seasons, that definitely doesn't sound like something I would do

anyway, specifically thinking about this:

What's confusing about this scene and line is that Claudia demonstrates what could be two separate behaviors of the staff that we have (at that point) never seen before:

We have the open-front configuration, and then we have the... gem pop-out, for lack of a better description. It's not clear if Viren is referring to one over the other, and I had kind of assumed by default that it was the entire open-front concept he was unfamiliar with. Y'know, seeing as it was also unknown to the audience until this scene.

But then???????

"I didn't even know it could do that." Sure, Mr. Selective Memory.

However, it's still tough to get a good read of this simply because the staff doesn't actually see much of any use in the second arc. My first thought was that maybe we should consider it as a soft retcon for the staff's prior behavior, and the "open-front" configuration is supposed to be read as the standard "extended" state. Except that's demonstrated to be very conclusively not the case:

My next thought, which is slightly more credible, is that it's linked with the staff's unique abilities. Not to beat my own stupid drum again, but while the staff is capable of empowering basic dark magic spells, it has an otherwise-unique ability to move around "essence," i.e. souls. Viren doesn't actually use the staff much at all until mid-late s3 (where he goes hog-wild) and all of those uses are closed-front. Even what could be considered the staff's signature arc 1 spell, the spell that explicitly links a thousand years of dark magic together and to Aaravos, is cast closed-front:

(Remember when we were all debating whether the significantly smaller gem in the staff during Ziard's time was intentional, meaning the gem must have been replaced? Good times.)

Similarly, in the second arc, Claudia uses it for opening the chrysalis, and then it isn't used at all until s6e8. Literally not a single spell is actually cast with the staff in the time span between between opening the chrysalis and Hearts of Cinder, round two.

(This one I'm counting as "not cast with the staff" because, look... we've never see the staff do anything when it's not at least extended, and it very specifically is not:)

Now, we do see the staff used an additional two times in the second arc, during visions/flashbacks... and in both of those cases, it's being used for the coin spell, i.e. to suck out someone's soul and trap it.

(Note how with Harrow, we have the gem... recessed, for lack of a better word, but in the scene with Viren and Kpp'Ar it's "extended." I will not be exploring this further because I'm already, y'know, insane. And also because the staff is already both phallic and yonic enough that I cannot fucking handle this train of thought while still taking myself even remotely seriously. THIS IS WHAT AN ART DEGREE DOES TO YOU.)

If you're not keeping track, this means that all of the times we have seen the staff used with the open-front configuration, it has been taking (coins) or giving (Sir Sparklepuff) a soul. Now, someone would have noticed this being the case with with Runaan in s1 if it was actually consistent, but just for the sake of due diligence:

Closed-front, of course. Even so, I'm more inclined to place this scene as a outlier that can be discounted, just because it already has a number of irregularities relative to the rest of the show.

which still leaves us with goddammit Viren why did you fucking say that it doesn't make any fucking sense at all

[fynnlink]

Why: Because Aaravos manipulated the Dragons, Elves and Humans which was uncovered by the Orphan Queen, Zubeia explained it in Season 4 during the ride back to the storm spire. [S4 E4]

How: With the Arch Dragons "beating [Aaravos] at his own game" and then probably similar to Callum's plan only with Akiyu and the Jailer imprisoning Aaravos in the pearl. [S4 E4]

Anak Arao/Anak Arow (Sol Regem is his royal name) told the Cosmic Order (the Startouch Elves' Council) about Leola thus dooming her. Aaravos hated Sol Regem for this and the other Arch Dragons for imprisoning him.

Hasn't been explored yet but at some point she had or found the key of Aaravos

Ziard is the first or was one of the first human's to learn dark magic from Aaravos. Aaravos also gave him the Staff (later known as the Staff of Ziard) which Aaravos stole from the Starscraper "It was a gift from one of the Great Ones" (paraphrased) [S3 E1]. Ziard was Aaravos' first domino to ruin the order his daughter was murdered for. Elarion was the first great human city due to it's citizens' use of (dark) magic.

DID THEY JUST KILL HIM WITH ABSOLUTELY NO EXPLANATION?

Aaravos explained early in the season that Startouch Elves (Laurelion) can die to an Archdragon's bite. The Novablade is forged from Shiruakh's tooth so either it or Avizandum's bite are enough to kill Aaravos.

Also this isn't the end of his story he literally won. He defeated his greatest enemies and wiped the board of any threat and now just has to wait a few years.

wait a fucking minute...

We still don't know why and how Aaravos was imprisoned.

And what exactly his beef with Sol Reg and the other archdragons was about.

And what his relationship was with the Orphan Queen.

Oh yeah! And also his relationship with Ziard... and city of Elarion...

DID THEY JUST KILL HIM WITH ABSOLUTELY NO EXPLANATION?

I'M SO PISSED OFF

[raayllum]

If you love her, you'll be the you that can save her. You'll do what you must. However dangerous. However vile.

6x08 / 7x09

[its-leethee]

-- 7x06 // 4x04

i think about these two mirrors every day. gnawing my arm off

...metaphorically. these two might've been doing it literally tho

[spicyviren]

Those staves are so yonic.

[fynnlink]

He did the reverse with Viren back in S2 after Viren sent out the shadow assasins. Aaravos casts runes throug the mirror while Viren channels them through the Staff of Ziard

Interesting: Claudia is drawing the rune and speaking the words, but Aaravos is the one holding the staff with the primal stone. Didn't know casting a spell like that is possible.

[wheretwofacesmeet]

Terry x Claudia cheek kiss (#2, Part 2)

[inamindfarfaraway]

“Our family was shattered forever.” Let’s delve into the two images accompanying this line, shall we?

Before the shattering:

Soren is looking up at Viren, who saved his life and he chose to stay with, for comfort, guidance or connection. Viren doesn’t reciprocate, fixated on the loss of his wife. The staff of Ziard, which Viren used to imprison K’ppar and Aaravos crafted for his pawns, is a barrier dividing them that Viren actively holds in place.

Viren and Soren are framed inside the arch furthest away and Claudia to a lesser degree inside the nearer arch, enclosed in the wall, the structure of their family home. They are trapped. Lissa is free. She even blocks part of the wall and archway, visually overpowering it.

Lissa has an arm raised to her chest defensively, no longer feeling safe around Viren; Soren’s arms hang passively at his sides; Viren’s posture is stiff, one hand on his staff and the other behind his back (as he’s becoming a more emotionally repressed and manipulative person who doesn’t always want to show his hand, so to speak); and Claudia’s are desperately, futilely reaching out to Lissa.

The children are both between their parents. Claudia is closer to Lissa, alone in her section of the frame. Soren is right next to Viren, making their height difference and power dynamic more obvious.

Claudia is in Viren’s shadow, which is framed as a bridge between Viren and Lissa in this brief instant before Lissa takes another step - darkness connects to her to her family. As with Soren, Viren doesn’t show any interest in her. Unlike Soren, her distance from him is her choice. She’s running ahead of him in the direction he’s facing, like in his dark magic dream where she follows in his footsteps and then surpasses him.

Claudia’s left leg is barely visible under her dress, looking almost like the stump it will eventually be reduced to.

Only Lissa and Claudia are crying. A link has recently been established between tears and dark magic, and while Lissa had a bodily fluid harvested for a spell against her will, Claudia will volunteer her blood when a spell demands it.

The light is literally behind the family with shadow surrounding them, indicating sunrise or sunset. Sunset would be most thematically appropriate for the last memory of the whole family, but it would make sense for Lissa to start her long journey at dawn in a time and place with such limited artificial illumination (especially without the use of dark magic). It is a new dawn for her as an independent woman, after all.

After the shattering:

The point of origin is Lissa, as her decisions to divorce Viren and let the children choose who to live with, leading to Viren raising them on his own, define the new state of the family. All the cracks radiate outward from her forehead, her mind, and she’s by far the most fractured. That’s a worrying picture of her mental health. The cracks break and distort her family and their home, but she cannot see this and clearly doesn’t intend it.

The same crack crosses through Soren and Viren and another vertical one descends part of the way between them as well. It hasn’t fully divided them yet, but it will.

Soren is gone except for his legs and head. His head - still searching for something in his father - is even lower and further away from Viren. None of the others are diminished like this. The imagery of a severed head and missing torso full of vital organs ironically evokes death, despite his preserved life and perfect health. Viren doesn’t kill him, but he will destroy much of his spirit.

Viren is almost completely duplicated, in contrast to Soren being eclipsed. His copy is fainter, shorter and overlaps partly with Soren’s legs, as if he’s replacing his son and the man he might grow into with a vision of himself. Perhaps he’s in two minds about the path he’s chosen? Or beside himself with grief under that cold exterior? He takes up more space, but is also broken and trapped more tightly in the fractures. Like Soren, part of him is lost; he’s the only one to have what appears to be a missing shard interrupt his depiction with a slice of nothingness, reflecting the piece of his soul that he’s turned into a black void. The head of his staff being above Soren’s legs represents dark magic replacing Viren’s relationship with his son in his life.

Claudia is actually intact, but a duplication of one of her legs is cut off. This may reference how she will duplicate her lower limbs into five tentacles and then have one of those cut off, Rayla probably thinking it was an extra that wouldn’t correlate to her human leg. Like Viren, she’s boxed in by the cracks, which draw lines between her and the rest of her family on all sides. Viren and Soren share a shard with Lissa, but Claudia doesn’t. Her indecisiveness has left her even more isolated.

[herwrittenuniverse]

Just sitting here thinking about how Aaravos committed atrocities to avenge his murdered daughter, and Viren's mantra S1-S3 was to do anything to protect his family, "however dangerous, however vile."

Two parents wiling to to risk whatever it takes for their kids.

And then there's Kpp'Ar, who we can assume has no family or kids because he's by himself in his weird Puzzle House. And when Viren comes to beg for the Staff of Ziard so he can save Soren's life, Kpp'ar refuses. Viren accuses, "A child will die!"

And what's Kpp'Ar's response?

A cold "Yes."

This show is becoming a very interesting commentary on what lengths parents will go through to protect their kids.

[self-spaghettification]

both staffs were a gift from aaravos!!

and the parallels continuing into season 5!!

hopefully girlie does not get incinerated for the greater good too 🙏 bc i could see that with how much she’s sacrificed so far

Claudia really just tied a skull to the corrupted Sun staff to make it MORE edgy and goth 😂

I mean, I stan the aesthetic, but also wonder if the skull has a purpose?

[stardustamaryllis78]

Aaravos' face when he sees Ziard come out of the Nexus portal is everything.

I love those Elarion emo boyfriends 💖

Listen, he could have entrusted the resurrecting Avizandum mission to any ghost but he chose Ziard. Handing him a staff just like he had in the past.

I want more of them.

[kradogsrats]

Why, Exactly, Did Aaravos's Prison Fail?

Okay, so in order to understand the answer to that question, we first need to understand why it was expected to succeed. For that, we need to rewind a bit and examine the actual design and setup of the prison and its secrets.

When Aaravos was imprisoned, the Jailer split up necessary information about her design between "all" the archdragons, by which we mean it was split three ways, between Rex Igneous, Domina Profundis, and Avizandum/Zubeia:

Except... Avizandum wasn't actually given information about the prison, he was given a way to verify that Aaravos was still inside it:

So there are really only two clues about the prison: it's location (the center of the Sea of the Castout) and it's nature (a pearl).

That wouldn't exactly be a very complicated puzzle, except it takes into account the archdragons' natures and their dynamic with each other. The prison doesn't need to be opened in order to check whether Aaravos is still there, so the archdragons as a whole can't be tricked into opening the prison by making them doubt whether or not he's still safely confined. However, with the mirror as the only way Aaravos could conceivably communicate with the outside world, it's also the main weak point. If Avizandum or Zubeia were somehow compromised by his manipulations, they could conceivably get the other parts of the puzzle and open the prison—except for the fact that (even if they weren't all rivals for the same throne) Avizandum and Rex Igneous have beef, and Zubeia and Domina Profundis have (a much smaller amount) of beef. The trust isn't there for either of them to just hand their key over.

Additionally, it's set up so Rex Igneous physically has the information, but doesn't know it in a way that he can divulge it, and Domina Profundis knows the information, but doesn't have it in a way that can be taken from her. Rex Igneous is a beefy hothead susceptible to manipulation, but he can't tell you the prison's location. You have to kill/incapacitate him and find it. Domina Profundis appears to be more of a talker and is probably a good bit less powerful outside of her element, but killing or incapacitating her means she can't tell you the prison's nature. She has to be convinced.

Then, they erased Aaravos from history, meaning that once he's forgotten, no one can just stumble upon his story and decide to free him. The only way he's getting out is if he can convince and instruct someone through the mirror.

This was actually a pretty dang good plan. It just... didn't work.

Both teams wind up with two of the three clues: Team Stop Aaravos (Callum, Rayla, Ezran, etc.) has the mirror (with Aaravos helpfully confirming for them that he's actively on his way to escape) and the prison's nature. Team Free Aaravos (Claudia, Terry, Viren) has the mirror (and Aaravos's instructions) and the prison's location. Team Stop Aaravos gets the prison's location thanks to Akiyu's security breach, but Team Free Aaravos is able to go straight for the finish line.

Why does Sir Sparklepuff go straight from "lizard in a hat" to "blood of child," with no stop at "lizard with a party tooter"? Well, because there has been a second security breach, all along:

At the time Aaravos was imprisoned, no one knew he was connected to dark mages.

Yes, mages were his prey... but everything Zubeia describes is in terms of psychological manipulation. Despite having "strong minds and strong hearts":

Not "particularly dark mages," or even "particularly humans." Zubeia never even suggests that Aaravos wasn't working both sides of the Border at once (he was).

So this? Completely unanticipated:

Now, presumably that kind of direct, hostile-takeover possession is limited by, say... line-of-sight. (Unless there's an alternate connection, i.e. The Worm.) If Aaravos was able to possess any dark mage at any time, he would not have been in that prison for 300 years.

But there's also this:

and this:

and, of course, this:

Now, Aaravos can obviously also communicate with people within range who aren't dark mages, like Terry. However, because Aaravos himself doesn't know the nature of his prison, he still can't just tell them directly how to find it... except that with a dark mage, he can also sense and influence them. Claudia doesn't need to know the nature of the prison, she just has to get close enough to play Hot-and-Cold with Aaravos until he gets her hands on it.

The prison was, of course, designed by a human mage:

No one has ever said the Jailer was a dark mage, but come on. Presumably she also didn't know about Aaravos's connection to dark magic. Her designing the prison also didn't alert him to the betrayal, so she's unlikely to have been in league with or influenced by him at that point.

I do have to wonder if that's entirely accurate, though... because there's actually a a fourth piece of the puzzle, or at least an element considered as important as the others:

It's unclear exactly what role the staff is expected to play in Aaravos's return, beyond that it needs to be kept away from him and his followers. Presumably if it could be destroyed, it would have been... but given that it survived a direct hit of archdragon fire without even a scorch mark, it seems safe to say that there's no known way to get rid of it.

It's also unclear whether the staff was somehow at play in the events leading up to Aaravos's imprisonment, but where does it eventually turn up after his defeat and the Orphan Queen establishing a new royal line in Katolis? Somewhere that means it has been in the hands of Katolis's high mages for at least three generations, 300-odd years later.

After Viren is defeated at the Storm Spire, however, the staff doesn't go back to Katolis's new high mage—even though Callum is a primal mage, Ezran's brother, and a key participant in returning Zym and defending him and Zubeia. You'd think that, if there had ever been any intent to keep the staff in Katolis, he'd be considered pretty trustworthy. (Aside from being like... fourteen years old.) The Orphan Queen kept the Novablade, after all, and no one seems all that fussed about that. But instead, Zubeia secures the staff in her own hoard at the Storm Spire. This could be just a precaution, with the mirror's location unknown... but it could also be that the staff wasn't meant to stay in human hands.

(Though, I mean... you'd think it would be pretty easy to put together that whoever "killed" the dragon prince probably also took the mirror, and they already know enough about who killed Avizandum to target Harrow and Ezran. I really don't know why Zubeia wasn't like "hey, you don't happen to have recently acquired a weird mirror, have you?" at some point during those two years. Unless we're going to go the route that Ezran didn't realize Callum had the mirror, which would be... something.)

We've also seen that the staff may have an effect similar to, say, the One Ring—influencing whoever possesses it to keep and protect it, even kill and die for it. It does, after all, contain Aaravos's contingency plan (or one of them) for escaping a situation where his spirit is imprisoned in a way that prevents it from returning to the heavens for another alignment cycle. It makes sense that he'd find some way to keep it easily accessible if/when it's needed.

Whether this effect happens for all humans, only for dark mages, or under some other, even more specific criteria isn't totally clear. There are two instances where I think Viren is specifically influenced to take the staff—in Umber Tor, and when he decides to return to Katolis. However, he has to pick it up in Umber Tor because Claudia just kind of... left it? Possibly whatever is exerting the influence, whether it's Aaravos or something about the staff itself (or the quasar diamond), it's smart enough not to make Claudia and Viren go all Smeagol and Deagol on each other. Similarly, Claudia completely abandons the staff with Callum when she escapes after their fight—whether because the staff, without its quasar diamond and importance for freeing Aaravos from his prison, is no longer of particular use to Aaravos, or because he wants Callum to have it.

Anyway, with the Novablade going to Katolis with the Orphan Queen for safekeeping after Aaravos is imprisoned, it seems reasonable enough to assume that's also when the staff made its way there (if it wasn't there already, in the hands of the king or mages Aaravos was manipulating at the time). It also makes sense that if she trusted the Jailer, she would, y'know... let the mage handle the magic shit, like dealing with the staff. Meanwhile, if Aaravos was able to exert just the smallest amount of influence on the Jailer without being found out? Keep the staff would be a very good start to his eventual escape.

Keep it secret, keep it safe. All without realizing who you're keeping it safe for, rather than from. One day, he'll call.