#Tmae overanalyses DCA

[tmae3114]

The Mystery of Dareth Woodrow

*kicks down a door* HEY WHO WANTS TO HEAR A THEORY???

Okay, honestly, this is less of a case of Here Is A Thing That I Think Is Going To Happen In Canon and more of a case of me wanting to stretch my theorist muscles and “how well can I argue the validity of this possibility that I thought of?” Like, this is just. This is just for fun. This was practically a writing exercise, which is why it’s been sitting completely finished and unposted for months now, it was just fun to write but I didn’t know if I was ever going to actually share it, except maybe with friends.

So since this is just for fun, it’s waaay less timestamped than my last DCA theory (the “Diath Has A History With The Waterdeep Underground” one, which I am still giddy about having been so close with, that’s a good feeling) because I am currently A Very Tired University Student With A Lot Of Work To Do. Also it’s definitely far less grounded, mostly because the thing it’s about hasn’t really come up much and, unlike Diath’s backstory, there haven’t been many hints dropped. So, it’s also much shorter.

I’m going to keep with the format I went with for the previous theory  – a statement of the theory itself and then presentation of my evidence – though because it’s a format that works and also I already typed it up that way so here goes:

I think that maybe Dareth really was one of Diath’s descendants.

Dareth is a figure that we don’t know much of anything about. She’s been mentioned by name only once and not even alluded to since. We know that she’s related to Diath and that Gutter was forged for her and that’s it. We don’t even know if she was a Woodrow, though the fact that Gutter “wants to be with the Woodrows” certainly implies so.

The first and only time that we hear anything about her, Shemeshka states that she was “one of [Diath’s] descendants, I believe.” The general assumption, as far as I’m aware, is that that line was the result of Chris misspeaking and that Dareth is actually Diath’s ancestor. This does seem like a very likely possibility, as everybody makes mistakes and Chris has misspoken before and since, and the past tense means that it makes far more sense for Dareth to have been Diath’s ancestor rather than his descendant.However, this occasion stands out from other times that Chris has misspoken. Every other time that I can think of where Chris has used the wrong word or phrase, he has either corrected himself or acknowledged someone else’s correction – such as when he referred to Strahd as Paultin’s grandfather in Episode 78 and then quickly appended “well, great-great-great-”. As far as I’m aware, that hasn’t happened in regards to the statement about Dareth, which could be an indication that he wasn’t misspeaking and really did mean to call her Diath’s descendant.

If the circumstances surrounding the Last Lorcatha soul are such that it continually reincarnates, this is a situation which is entirely possible. Diath - or whoever he was before, if his name and identity change each time, which seems likely as evidence seems to point to him reincarnating without memories, given his displayed complete lack of memories of anything before being Diath Woodrow – would have lived quite a few lives, given that the Lorcatha-Skizziks conflict and the subsequent Ashtown Concordance occurred centuries ago as of the time of canon; if he returns as a human each time, that is roughly an absolute minimum of one life per century passed, provided he never died of anything but old age. During any given one of those lives, he could have fallen in love and had at least one child, who could have then gone on to have their own children, thus leading to Diath having descendants, thus, Dareth.

But why even consider this possibility, instead of just accepting the far more possible likelihood that Chris meant to call her one of Diath’s ancestors?

I’ve got a few things fuelling my suspicions.

Firstly, Shemeshka states to Diath that Gutter was forged as a gift for Dareth. Given what we know of Shemeshka, for her to simply freely give something – let alone freely create something specifically to give it freely – is very out of character. If she does something, there’s something that she can get out of it. So there must have been something that she wanted, which she stood a good chance of getting through giving Gutter to Dareth. It’s not difficult to guess what – Gutter was designed to use Diath’s keys, after all. It was likely created for the express purpose of obtaining those keys.

But why give it to Dareth? And why make Gutter with the desire to be with the Woodrows? What exactly makes the Woodrows special? Diath is our only metric for the Woodrow bloodline and anything which may be unique about it but all of the things thus far revealed to be ‘‘special’’ about him can ultimately be traced back to the Lorcatha – the only one that can’t for certain be is his ring of keys, but the presence of the aasimar in Sigil heavily implies that they are in some way linked to the Lorcatha. Even Shemeshka’s interest in him links back to them, with her role as an arbiter of the Ashtown Concordance and the fact that she currently owns part of his soul.

So, what if what was special about the Woodrows was Diath?

Again working on the basis of the Last Lorcatha reincarnating, what if Diath had reincarnated into the Woodrow family before? Or had displayed a pattern, when reincarnating, of recurring in families where he had been before?

If this were the case, as someone who had been present since the signing of the Ashtown Concordance and someone who has apparent reasons to keep an eye on him, Shemeshka would have noticed. We’ve seen in canon that she has no problem playing the long game when it comes to whatever she wants from Diath - such as saying “Well, I suppose I won’t lose anything in the long run,” in Episode 80, shortly before sending Diath back to face the Halruuan force bomb, with the very real possibility that this would result in his death - and so, the possibility of making a sword for a member of a family that she knows he’ll crop up in sooner or later with the intent that it would eventually fall into his hands seems like a plan she would potentially come up with.

Secondly, Shemeshka has, in the past, referenced things about Diath that he himself does not know - such as in Episode 61, where she said “So bright, that light in you Lorcatha,” - and seems to be amused when he does not recall or outright rejects these things. Thus, obliquely referring to Dareth as one of his descendants when he has no context to make that sentence make sense would fall perfectly in character.

This is my evidence as stands for this possibility.

However, I would be a poor theorist if I did not acknowledge the existence of counter-evidence for my theory. In Idle Champions of the Forgotten Realms, the flavour text for Diath’s “Gutter” item reads “A magical short sword forged for one of my ancestors”. This could stand as evidence that Dareth is, indeed, canonically one of Diath’s ancestors.

However, arguing in favour of this theory, the Diath content in Idle Champions was created with Jared’s input and there is the possibility that he made the same assumption that the fandom has made about Chris having misspoke when calling Dareth “one of [Diath’s] descendants”. This is just speculation, though, and it is also possible that Jared has, in private, asked Chris about said statement and received actual clarification.

The latter of these two situations would disprove this theory, as that would stand as canonical confirmation that Chris did intend to say ancestor, but as stands with the information that we have, we do not know, and this theory is still viable.