#tdp 7x04

[halyasgirl]

Guys… I think we got the canon depiction of Runaan and Ethari’s wedding.

From the Hot Brown Morning Potion Podcast Episode 5 - The Deluxe Elf Interview with Devon Giehl and Iain Hendry:

[raayllum]

That wicked monster ruined our lives. Killed my daughter. / You killed my son!

6x09 / 7x04 / 7x06 / 7x09

[ftvs-cm45]

Ruthari Reunion

[its-leethee]

4x07 // 7x04

Devastating parallel, yes; but I want to elaborate on that conversation in 4x07 between Claudia and Terry, because it exposes Claudia's fundamental misunderstanding of the nature of healthy loving relationships.

Claudia sees the plants moving because of Terry's magic, and the conclusion she jumps to is that he's controlling them. Given the coercive nature of dark magic, I'm not surprised that Claudia would think that. Terry corrects her misconception, explaining: "I have a very good relationship with plants. When I need something, I can depend on them."

It's a core theme of the show, love and trust; stronger together; we need each other.

Love and trust build a kind of strength that is much bigger than we each possess. To have that kind of strength, it's not enough to love someone. You have to trust them to share the burdens you carry.

This kind of reliance is something that Claudia struggles with, because when has Claudia ever been able to depend on others to respond to her needs?** Claudia knows, despite how desperately she needs someone, no matter how deeply she loves them, it doesn't mean they'll stay with her. It's a cruel truth that she learned when she was very young:

Biscuit had been the oldest of Barius’ collection of strays, all of them named after things in his kitchen, and Claudia’s favorite. It wasn’t fair that she’d died. She hadn’t even been that old. All her kittens still needed her, didn’t they?

For Claudia, love means never leaving. She doesn't can't won't trust that people who leave will come back to her, because she's been betrayed too many times before:

“Aaravos left me too, huh? Like dad and Soren, and my mo—" Claudia’s throat closed around the word. Lissa had left her years ago, but the space she had owned in Claudia’s heart remained. It was a dark place now, hard and hateful, its edges raw as a wound that had forgotten to heal.

She'll accept other's trust in her, but she won't reciprocate on it. She uses trust as a tool for control. Just like Aaravos. Just like dark magic.

And that's why her relationship with Terry failed the way it did.

Claudia used Terry's trust. To protect him? No. To control him. To protect herself.

Deep down, she's afraid that there's something wrong with her, that she keeps failing to keep the people she loves in her life because they can see--

I've been messing things up, and everyone's been angry with me. What if they're right? What if I'm... not good?

Would allowing herself to share this vulnerability have kept every one of her loved ones in her life? No, of course not; but in the end, love alone wasn't strong enough to keep him by her side.

**What about Aaravos? shhh This isn't about him--

--4x07 // 7x04 // 5x04 // Rise Again // 2x02 // Lost Child // 6x01 // Puzzle House // 3x07 // 6x08 // 7x01 // 7x09

[hiccupshypotheticalleftsock]

end credit images for tdp 7x04

[halyasgirl]

This little shared eyeroll was everything to me.

[halyasgirl]

One thing I loved in season 7 is the reexamination of the Moonshadow Assassins’ oaths, culminating in Rayla preparing to give her heart (Callum) for Xadia, both of them with full understanding of the compromise and sacrifice they’re willing to make to save their world.

But I also want to highlight the reexamination of Runaan’s oath. During the original bloodribbon binding in season 1, the assassins offer up vital parts of themselves for the ideals they believe they kill for, the self-sacrifice element clear in their pledges. At first, Runaan does not appear to swear an oath himself, only officiate the ritual. But at second glance, his oath is actually the most severe: "Tonight we bind our lives to justice." Symbolically, Runaan has given up his life, and the lives of every participant in his ritual, until their mission is completed. If they cannot secure (vengeful, bloody) justice, their lives are forfeit.

But Runaan’s view of justice, and his own life, shifts with his character development. What kind of justice requires its executor to give up all they are and symbolically enter into a state of death? And what have they done, when they completely dissociate from their moral compass in service of their mission? When Runaan comes face to face with the harm he’s done, for the first time, he’s shocked. But after he reflects, realizes all the pain he’s caused, he’s remorseful, and with the support of his loved ones, he tries to make amends.

Runaan returns to Katolis not because he had to, but because he chose to. Justice will not be denied and Runaan never breaks his promises. But this is a different justice than he brought before. He offers his life, not as an agent of death, but a living, breathing person who loves and is loved. And that offer means so much more now that both he and Ezran truly understand how valuable life is.

[halyasgirl]

Live footage of me watching “Unfinished Business”

[raayllum]

All I see is parts.

6x06 / 7x04

[raayllum]

Rayllum and Ruthari parallels

[raayllum]

Wherever

4x01 / 7x04

[raayllum]

7x04 / 7x06

[raayllum]

Love and trust build a kind of strength that is much bigger than we each possess.

5x01 / 7x05 / 7x09

[raayllum]

Can you explain why Claudia is so upset with Terry when they reunite after he leaves? And why Terry, of all people, looks so guilty with her that he can't even look her in the eye? It's one of those things where you know this should all be reversed, but isn't. Why? Why is the betrayer so hostile to the betrayed?

God I loved the messy as fuck whatever they had going on Claudia and Terry dynamic in S7, and I think there's a few reasons why

One of the cruxes of Claudia's character is that she is attached to seeing herself as a good person, and others as not-good by comparison. This means that she can engage in the exact same behaviour and justify it while assuming that others' reasonings couldn't possibly measure up.

This cognitive dissonance is not exclusive to Claudia (Callum and Rayla in particular have a tendency to justify each other's choices in ways they don't with other characters, i.e. Rayla viewing dark magic use being 'evil' except when Callum is using it and he's the 'goodest' person she knows) but the focus on 'my view of myself' largely is. Most other characters in TDP are focused on "I still view this other person as a good person," not being focused on "I view myself as a good person". But Claudia is, and it's this core desire being increasingly pitted against "I will do vile, awful things to keep my family together" that are constantly duking it out.

When Claudia finds Soren and Terry waiting for her, it's clear that not only has Terry joined her brother, but has turned against her (as he could've left and then just fucked off somewhere else). This association with Soren, I think, is one of the things that gets her haunches raised, since Soren made it very clear what he thinks the last time they saw one another in 4x07:

SOREN: You have to stop trying to release the greatest evil this world has ever known. CLAUDIA: I knew you wouldn't understand.

All Claudia hears is "there's something wrong with you." That she's the bad guy and on the Wrong side (which, to be fair, Soren also calls her and Viren bad humans when trying to wake Rex Igneous in 4x09). And, by extension, that Soren is better than her. More correct, more moral, more Right.

And Claudia cannot stand feeling judged. She cannot stand being treated like 'the bad guy' (because of course from her perspective, everything she does is right) and she struggles to hold a conception of "I did something genuinely wrong and can still be a good person" (see: "We're not going to the dungeons Soren, we didn't do anything wrong") usually leaning into one or the other, and normally the latter.

So Terry being with Soren is also "you think I'm wrong, you think I'm bad, and you think you're Better than me" (vs Aaravos' "believed we could be better, so he gave us magic"). She thinks the pair are there to stop her, and she's not wrong, on a certain level.

So when Soren makes a gesture of good will, openly contingent on Terry wanting to spare her ("You're here to save me? How generous [...] I can change, and you will help me. Did I get everything?" Karim vibes), it's just seen as "you're showing off how/why you think you're Better than me" and was, quite frankly, never going to work.

Soren setting down his sword came closer, as it's more reciprocal, and it also symbolizes Soren setting down his mantle/duty (the same sword that killed Viren the first time, presumably). But Soren makes another mistake; the same mistake he made in 4x07:

Dad is dead, Claudia. You don't have to do what he wants anymore.

Set down your staff, Claudia. Dad's staff.

But while Claudia has been doing stuff for Viren, she hasn't done what he wanted in a long time. She's been doing what she wants ("You are not letting go, Dad!") for a hot second, and now alongside Aaravos. (I need to write a scene on her and Aaravos' talk in 7x06, but that's for another day.) And that has included taking down elves and dragons as a whole (and any elf that doesn't help her) for a while.

The dragons and the elves, all the arrogant fools blinded by the searing light of their own self-righteousness.

They are wrong, and she and Aaravos are right ("So much we can make right"). This is a very black-and-white viewpoint in many ways, one that some characters are faster as dismantling than others, but I have no doubt that Arc 3 will push it to its breaking point for all of them. Soren and Terry have thrown in their loyalties with the elves and dragons, since Terry was previously a "good elf Exception" alongside Aaravos because they were both helping her and, as previously discussed, Terry has now turned against her, and all the baggage Claudia carries about such a thing is now dumped onto him by proxy (which Terry doesn't necessarily know or understand).

So what does he look so guilty over?

Honestly? The illusion plan. I'm sure he's worried that Claudia might get hurt, and that things might escalate / go south, but he is ultimately there with a plan that is not what he wanted. What Terry wanted was to find the real Lissa and give Claudia a real chance to connect with her mother and maybe change her ways. But it's not real. It's deception, and he knows it.

TERRY: You lied to me! AARAVOS: I never lie. I simply said we needed a big feather and a very small feather. That is all. TERRY: No. You say you never lie, what you do is worse. You tell people half-truths and let people fill in the rest. You make people lie to themselves. It's deception. It's manipulation, and it's wrong.

She betrayed him, and now in his own way he's betraying her.

So what makes him decide to turn around and do something... similar, shall we say? There's a few things. The first is that they're on a time limit and have no way to reach Lissa. The second is that it's plausible the others were going to do it anyway, and Terry accompanied them because 1) he couldn't stop them, 2) he felt responsible, and 3) hoped that his presence would make a positive difference to Claudia.

The second is the other half of what Aaravos says to Terry, I think.

TERRY: I'll tell Claudia. AARAVOS: Oh, it will change nothing. She loves me. [...] And what of Claudia, then? She knows so much more than she tells you, and she keeps it that way to protect you.

Now, Terry rightfully understands that Claudia wasn't keep things from him to protect him; she did it to use him and to keep him from leaving ("I knew he'd leave once he found out"). However, Terry being willing to live in a half-truth and employ one on Claudia because he genuinely believes it will help her, because he thinks it's a truth he needs to withhold to protect her ("You have to promise me that no harm will come to Claudia" is most easily kept if she backs down)... that I can believe, especially since it lets him believe that she's capable of change/quitting. He wants to Save her, not use her.

That doesn't mean he thinks it won't Hurt.

[raayllum]

5x01 / 7x04

[raayllum]

4x07 / 7x04