#the orphan queen

[raayllum]

Aaravos' Treachery: A Secret Third Thing

Because we still don't know what the Archdragons believed he betrayed them over, and I wanna talk about it. Let's go!

Aaravos' Crimes

So Aaravos has a lot of crimes in arc 2. In arc 1, he'd mostly been contained to felling Lux Aurea / corrupting the Sun Forge and helping to orchestrate a war, but arc 2 really rounds out his roster. We get canon confirmation he gave humans dark magic (4x07, 7x07), he burns Katolis to the ground, kills dozens of people either directly or indirectly, manipulates and lies to people, admits to cannibalism, aids in filicide, inverts the Moon Nexus and tries to permanently corrupt the Sun. Because it's all just another wipe out Wednesday to him, I guess.

However, we still don't arguably know what his most important crime is, which is what Zubeia calls his treachery. In fact, we know a lot more about what doesn't fall under that umbrella, so let's start first with what we know the Archdragons (minus Sol Regem) knew, and imprisoned him over.

4x04 Lore Dump

And yes, he was a Star. A startouch elf, one of the Great Ones, respected and loved by all until we uncovered long-hidden treachery. Hundreds of years ago, before Avizandum was King of the Dragons, the Dragon Queen Luna Tenebris mysteriously died. Luna lacked a suitable heir, and the Archdragons fought bitterly over who should ascend in her place. As the conflict swirled and escalated towards inevitable violence, the great leader of the Sunfire elves, Queen Aditi, stepped in to broker peace. The Archdragons trusted this wise and kind leader and agreed to abide by whatsoever she decided. But before she could bring peace to the world, Queen Aditi went missing. Chaos and confusion erupted, and war threatened to tear Xadia apart as now the elves suspect the dragons had killed their queen. But truth came from an unexpected source. A young human girl uncovered a great secret of history. A dangerous deceiver was revealed.

For a thousand years, Aaravos had been pulling invisible strings like a puppet master. Every great crisis the world faced seemed the work of some ingenious and powerful leader, but in each case it was secretly Aaravos, whispering in their ear.

The implicit messaging we also get is that Aaravos had primarily been manipulating humans, as we've only seen him directly whisper in the ears of humans and human leaders. That the Great Treachery cannot be that 1) Aaravos was likely involved in killing Luna Tenebris and 2) that he'd eaten/killed Aditi because as of the end of S7, the Archdragons still don't know these things. So if the Great Treachery had to do with humanity... why would the Archdragons care, especially when pre-Orphan Queen, humans had certainly never helped them before.

Well, 7x03 sheds some significant light on the topic.

The Mage Wars

A thousand years ago, humans were entirely expelled from the east and send on-masse to the west (1x01). The known treachery that the Archdragons discovered also spans a thousand years, aka everything post-exile. This matches up pretty perfectly timeline wise with what Aanya says in 7x03:

The West wasn't barren at all. Before the Mage Wars, the land was the same as all of Xadia, full of life, full of riches, full of magic. In the new lands, the humans who rose to power were those who knew how to its magic. The mages became warlords. The mage warlords waged bitter, bloody battles for control of the lands they claimed. Their armies scoured the land for magic and bled it dry, and they hunted the magical creatures to extinction. When one mage rose to power, another was quick to dethrone them.

The wars only stopped when there was nothing left to fight for. All the magical resources were consumed or destroyed, and magic all but disappeared from the West.

So the 1000 year timeline — the 'beginning' of Aaravos' treachery according to the Archdragons (even if we know it likely goes back even further) — lines up with the expulsion and the beginning of the Mage Wars in Xadia, which seemingly lasted centuries. If it lasted for 700 years, it'd us to the Orphan Queen, who would've grown up in the violence and possibly established Katolis having a hereditary monarchy (Harrow and Ezran's royal line) over the mage warlord system.

We also know thanks to 7x03 that the Staff of Ziard indicated power and passed from hand to hand in the violence. And we know thanks to 4x03 that Ibis and the Archdragons know something about the staff as well, as Ibis says things like, "I'm going to destroy it before it can do anymore harm," and "if you wish to return that staff to its true owner, you pose a greater danger to this world than I can allow."

I'm afraid this can only mean one thing.

I think most of us probably surmised that part of what was revealed to the Archdragons, though, was likely dark magic. It's something we know most Xadians to feel very negatively about, and had already wrecked havoc on Xadia historically pre-exile. We can also see that 4x04 and 3x01 ("It was a gift from one of the Great Ones") just with the Staff alone paints a pretty clear picture that this is what they learned. But I sat here like if this was all they learned, why not just say so? Feels like it'd be pretty easy to quickly communicate.

So there had to be something else, and I think that's

Aaravos was Encouraging Humanity to Attack Xadia

When we cut to the collection of human leaders, they've taken shape to resemble the Pentarchy formation. However, all their markers are entirely put on the Xadian side of the border, not the human side.

We also know that the Mage Warlords would have an incentive to go where there was magic. They'd consumed everything on their side of the continent, but the East still had plenty. Xadia was already weakened at this point too, thanks to infighting amongst the elves and Archdragons, and no clear appointed dragon monarch. It would've been ripe for the picking. Aaravos could've brought humanity together against their common enemy, stating that if they united their armies, they could take Xadia successfully (which would also make the archdragon killing spell make a lot more sense).

If not for Avizandum, maybe, which would also explain why he was chosen to be the new dragon monarch as opposed to any of the others.

That was always his favourite sport: stomping on ants and calling himself a conqueror. [...] Protect Xadia? Ha! Avizandum wants an endless war. He loves to provoke and destroy human armies, it makes him feel big and powerful.

defending the border alongside an army of elves in the 1x01 intro against an army of joint humans, in a place (the lava border) that looks exceedingly similar to the Mage Wars background. Hm.

As of S3, Xadia was likewise weakened: Avizandum was dead, Zubeia was sick and dying, Domina and Rex had retreated to their domains. Aaravos then found himself a human mage he could make a king and then turned Viren into a warlord, leading 4/5 human armies on war against their shared enemies.

And now, as of S7, Xadia finds itself in a similarly weakened state, with the Archdragons flat out gone, and little Zym set to inherit the monarchy. If Aanya's brother turns against her, wielding Project Sun Ruby rather than just dark magic to go to war against Xadia... History would be repeating itself. Again. (Cause the Cycle is going to cycle, am I right?)

Getting humanity into the place, mindset, and power in which to launch a full scale invasion would definitely count as betrayal to the Archdragons no matter which way it was sliced, after all. Depending on what the Orphan Queen discerned from the cube — its link to Elarion could've been it (+ the staff), even if she didn't find the book itself or hide it there — it might've been enough to worry her that the violence unfolding in the west would take the east, and she went to the warn them. Luckily they listened and managed to trap Aaravos, with the Orphan Queen stepping in to lead Katolis and dismantle the war effort from the other side of things, since Katolis is the largest kingdom and holds the border.

"Confusion and chaos erupted.... the first step in the long slow spiral to chaos."

None of this answers why, exactly, Aaravos wanted to conquer Xadia — or why he's wanted to at any real point, in terms of it tangibly helping him against the Cosmic Council — but I do think it's likely that this is why and what the Archdragons consider his hidden treachery to be, and why it concerned them so.

As always, thank you for reading and I hope you enjoyed.

[hazieash]

Canon TDP lore

[momentov1vere]

Blood and ash ⚔️

The new dragon prince poster has me freaking out so here’s something I drew bc I was thinking about how Ezran looks like he’s out for blood 😭

I’m so scared for s7 😁

[sthormiiii]

drew this for a school assignment but also an excuse to redraw it :D

[dumblefork]

So, the orphan queen is the main protagonist in the upcoming third arc and like- they better somehow have our favourite cutie patooties in the arc as protagonists too. I will shamelessly admit that if I don't see the OG gang in the third arc I will start crying.

[hiccupshypotheticalleftsock]

end credit images for tdp 7x07

[stardustamaryllis78]

*Coughs* I really hope The Orphan Queen story is in Season 7 because you know something that doesn't add up? Why is it that they (the Elves and Dragons) decided it was okay to work with her as a human but then still held extreme contempt for humans after that?

It makes no sense and is extremely suspicious.

There is a lot more to this story then we know and it would be so great if in Season 7, we could see Aaravos' side of everything 🙏

Zubeia and co obviously have a biased view. It be nice to hear from the person it most affected.

And you know what I would really like? A twist where TOQ actually wanted the throne of Katolis. Because where did that even come into it from imprisoning Aaravos in the first place? Did the Dragons really just say: "Hey, good work kid! You can have the throne to this random human kingdom as a reward!" Whats that all about?

TOQ being corrupt would also force Ezran to think about the start of his royal lineage and the corruption of how their line began. It would be so cool.

[triaelf9]

I haven't been able to watch a ton of animated things over the last few years for a multitude of reasons (reason 1 being they're VERY distracting while I work, but I jumped back on the TDP train today and HERE ARE SOME DOODLES.

Listen, Aaravos has no RIGHT being…that way with THAT character design and also being that terrible. Horrible little bastard man (affectionate). Anyway, these are the ones who jumped out to me after my watch through so, enjoy XD

It's been a long time, but wow, they really fit my style ahaha XD

[bisexualenbyblueberry]

It's not you it's the tdp characters who are most likely all dead by now that have the most insanely beautiful character design you've ever seen

[luniviravosshipper]

The idea that Aaravos and The Orphan Queen could have had some sort of mentor/mentee or father/daughter relationship makes me even more eager to see Ezran and Aaravos interact

[raayllum]

Damn, the Orphan Queen was just everywhere back in the day, huh?

[knuffi516]

Had the Ophran Queen used the very same fire crystals to weaken Aaravos like the modern day heroes?

[parroset]

Made this for @sthormiiii 's orphan queen movie! We're making this thing 😁

[sthormiiii]

villain and violent / infant and innocent 🍎

[aaravos-brainrot]

The Orphan Queen

I tried 💀

tysm @sthormiiii for all the help with the references and for letting me redraw your drawing of her (which was amazing, but that goes without saying)

[hiccupshypotheticalleftsock]

end credit images for tdp 7x08