#harrow brings out the best in viren and aaravos brings out the worst

[self-spaghettification]

cant fuckin believe that tdp writers said “oh yeah we intended viren as a straight man when we first wrote him” and then have this

in the same breath

[raayllum]

by the end of s5, what do you think separates claudia and callum (if anything) from being a villain vs a hero?

Oh, there's plenty that differentiates them! This may not be as articulate as I want it to be as I've spent most of the past 3+ years pointing out / trying to convince people of Callum's similarities to Claudia and Viren (which S5 finally cinched for me, beautifully) than having to describe their differences, but I'll do my best!

Callum very much has both the best and worst of Viren and Claudia when it comes to dark magic, where he kind of borrows from each of them in distinct ways to be the most.... reasonable 'dark mage' in a lot of ways, due to 1) his views on dark magic and 2) his motivations for using it. So let's dig into it.

1) Views on dark magic

Unlike Claudia, to Callum dark magic isn't something frivolous (hi dark magic pancakes) or something to aspire after. He's far more like Viren (and even then I don't think Callum would ever consider dark magic "brilliant and clever" even if it is very much practical) in terms of seeing dark magic solely as a last resort since, as I've laid out before, Callum knows it's wrong. That it's a dangerous, slippery slope, for him in particular. Callum is also just willing to do something he Knows is wrong and see it to fruition anyway.

(Now, this also plays into the series' theme of how it's always Easier to play into / perpetuate the Cycle than it is to take the harder path of breaking it, but post for another day.)

Claudia has come closer to this viewpoint in some ways in S4 (crying as she explains what she had to do to bring Viren back) but ultimately, she doesn't think/see/know Aaravos is 'evil'. She doesn't think she's doing anything Wrong But Justified because she doesn't see anything wrong with what she's doing in the first place ("Humans were born with nothing, but we still found a way to do amazing things. That's what dark magic is really all about" / "The elves and the dragons did nothing. They judged us. They pitied us" / "All through history dragons have had the power while humans lived in fear. Well times are changing"). Callum is not that, at all, hence the guilt (even if I think more of it stems now in S4/S5 from what he knows dark magic allows - Aaravos' possession that then in turn also puts his immediate loved ones in danger).

Therefore, Callum's views on dark magic are far more akin to Viren's - powerful, dangerous, a necessity that chips away at you and you alone if you do it right, if you can successfully spare other people. Viren's comfort with dark magic goes further than that, and Callum's comfort with it is lesser than that, but they are more similar I think in their views of dark magic than either of their views are to Claudia's.

Like, regardless, Callum fundamentally disagrees with dark magic - he doesn't like or want to hurt innocent people/creatures if he can help it (again, big difference between him and other two mages, even if there are definitely areas where who Callum views as 'innocent' could be improved). It's a Last Resort, but it's a Resort. His aversion, those reservations, those lines, those morals? They exist (which is a distinction) but ultimately do not matter when Ezran or Rayla are threatened.

Which is, I suppose, as good a time as any to talk about

2) Motivations

Viren's hierarchy is the 1) the world (which his family is a part of), 2) himself, usually (because he believes he is uniquely positioned to be able to help the world & make the right choices) and 3) his family. We see this hierarchy play out pretty succinctly in 1x02-1x03 with Harrow, almost beat for beat. As Viren says there (and in S5) Harrow is his family and means everything to him... but Viren is not willing to reveal or relinquish the dragon egg in hopes of stopping the assassination, because he would rather have himself or Harrow die rather than put a weapon into Xadia's hands. This is also why he's willing to warp Soren into a cinder beast in 3x07. Not only is he personally pretty far gone at that point, but he is willing to sacrifice his family (gaslighting Soren to keep Claudia tethered in 3x03, for example + "I would've asked you to choose the egg over my own life, if it came to it"). In some ways, S5 is showing that he lost that part of himself and is now reclaiming it, making it true in ways it hasn't always been. Love is what made him Lose Himself but also how he ultimately Found Himself again (which bodes very well for Callum's S6 arc, but anyway...)

Alternatively... Callum says "I value those close to me more than Anyone or Anything" (Tales of Xadia bio) and he unequivocally means it.

Callum loves Harrow dearly, but he still knows the safest place for Ezran in 1x03 is to get the fuck away from the castle, so he goes. He breaks the primal stone after watching Rayla and Ezran mutually cry and console each other as Rayla blames herself for Zym's imminent death. As discussed, he'll do dark magic in 2x07 even though he knows it's wrong because it's Rayla's life on the line. He'll jump off the mountain for her. He'll threaten and demand answers from Soren before and after learning that Ez could be in danger, and run right into a trap. He'll do literally everything he did in 5x08 for Rayla, as we know.

In this way, he is very similar to Claudia, who would likewise Do Anything for her family and always mean it, particularly her father (after all, Soren 'walked out' on her, not the other way around; she was still trying to keep them all together). It is worth noting now, though, that Viren has now circled back, so arguably all three of them are sharing in this Motivation, and prime for Aaravos' manipulation if Viren still has a further role to play (although his curtain may have closed lmao). After all:

But yeah, Callum and Claudia are two characters who have always had a steady flow of parallels and a particularly brutal slant toward each other (because their selective loyalty is not and never has been to each other) and the easiest way to have an audience still remain sympathetic to an antagonist is to draw parallels between them and a protagonist, so...

Obviously in TDP there are 'good' guys and 'bad' guys but I don't think the series is that interested in a pure black-white good vs evil dichotomy. Almost every antagonist character is still sympathetic, developed, interesting, and we can understand where they're coming from. The protagonists make plenty of mistakes and have plenty of their own biases and contradictions; it's what makes them interesting too! People aren't necessarily Villains or Heroes so much as they are people stuck in cycles of grief and violence, and the series being an exploration of how and where and why they do or don't (or can't) break those cycles. At least, that's what I find is most useful from a meta perspective.

I think ultimately what differentiates Callum and Claudia in my head is, as mentioned, the different ways they view dark magic even if they have exceedingly similar motivations for using it, as well as Callum striking me more as the type to fight so hard to save his loved ones while they're still alive, but not quite as inclined to go as far as Claudia did and follow through on a resurrection spell the way she did. He's better at emotionally processing (although it's a low bar to clear for her) and better at letting things go, and more respectful of his loved ones' wants (most of the time). If Ez and Rayla both died in tragic/traumatic ways, I think that could (understandably) really warp him to something close to Claudia, but so long as one lived, I think they could keep him from going off the rails.

Claudia left the train station a Long time ago.

More metas that may be of interest (written before S4 and S5):

How Viren and Callum stack up flaws wise (S1-S4, screencap S5 update)

How Callum's initial view of Zym differs from Ez and Rayla (S1-S3)

Callum's morality (S1-S4)

TDP's Perpetual Trolley Problem, or How the Show Frames / Deals with Sacrifice and Exchange (S1-S4)

The Interlocking of the Cycle's Wheel with Viren, Claudia, Callum, and Rayla (S1-S4)

[ecoamerica]

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[kazisgirlfriend]

Snake Girl Rayla?

The TDP fandom has always had headcanons that didn't really work out (such as Soren rather than Claudia staying loyal to his father), but the idea of Callum being some sort of "Snake Boi" seems to have stuck around despite having basically no support in canon.

This isn't to discourage people who like the aesthetic. People who think it would be cool if Callum was That Way. By all means, keep writing those stories, making those fanarts! Many of them are downright inspired, and represents a really interesting direction the story could have taken.

But "could have taken" is the operative term here. The traits that are associated with "Snake Boi" Callum (listed below) barely represent what his defining traits really are:

Obsession

Ambition

Temper

Ruthlessness

Selective Loyalty

There are, of course, shades of the above that ring true with Callum, as they ring true for most of the main cast. But it seems odd to single out Callum as the one who most exhibits these traits. Other characters who better exhibit, say, selective loyalty (such as Sarai taking a stance against hunting the Titan but ultimately sides with Harrow), are never recognized as such, let alone singled out to the extent Callum is.

Or they're based on interpretations that are dubious at best (Callum "turning against" Viren, a man he's never shown a particular liking to), or false at worst (Callum being the only one to actually want to kill Aaravos, despite the fact that killing him was originally Rayla's idea). So given all this, it's curious as to why "Snake Boi" Callum as an actual theory of who Callum is stuck around for as long as it did.

Then it hit me: much of this is really a projection, because there is a character who does exhibit these traits far better than Callum - Rayla.

Obsession

Rayla's obsession brings out the best and worst in her. She would obsess over what the right thing to do is ("I hesitate, think too much, get confused about the right thing to do"), but then also become obsessed over specific goals, first over killing Viren, then over the coins.

Ambition

All of the main character display some forms of ambition from time to time, but Rayla seems to have dispalyed hers at a much younger age:

At an age when most of the other main characters were just having fun and getting to be children, Rayla already chose her path. She wanted to be trained day and night by her mentor, despite her parents wishing that she have fun and grow up. To set aside a normal childhood and deciding on a career at that age, that takes ambition.

Temper

It should go without saying that it doesn't take much to set Rayla off:

So whether it's being mistrusted, being lied to, being rejected, being called weak, or just plain hungry, Rayla has a history of getting pretty angry.

Ruthlessness

I mean, c'mon, look at that smirk...

Or that death glare...

If that's not enough, here is what Rayla was planning to do with Claudia and Soren at the Cursed Caldera according to the novelization:

Selective Loyalty

Last but not least - selective loyalty. I think this is best exhibited by Rayla being willing to scuttle a two-year mission to kill Viren by saving her family instead:

But also by her insistence that "we can't save anyone," typically hinting at the belief they have to look out for themselves and their in-group before others:

But this is also hinted at throughout the series. She goes to save Pyrrah from Soren and Claudia, but doesn't express similar empathy for the humans in the nearby town that the dragon burnt down. Evidently, the bonds of loyalty are a strong influence on her actions.

So much so that in ToX this is Rayla's defining trait:

So on the one hand it's curious that Rayla's "most important value" is often assigned to Callum in some headcanons, but on the other I do get it. People want Callum to be selectively loyal, because that would mean he is selecting Rayla. That he's more loyal to her than he is to any pesky moral principles, that she's his ultimate value. What's more romantic than that?

But this does have the uncomfortable nature of being wrong: the truth is Rayla is the more selectively loyal one. She ultimately chose Callum over her quest to find Viren - doesn't get more loyal than that.

Conclusion

I don't write this to disparage anyone's theories or beliefs, but merely to point out what I think should be clear by this point: every single trait Callum is thought of having - temper, obsession, ambition, and especially ruthlessness - better describe Rayla. I'm sure people don't mean to project Rayla's traits onto Callum. It does seem to be done so in order to let Rayla be an uncomplicated hero with no moral issues, but in doing so I think people unintentionally ignore Rayla's best side.

Her obsession lets her stay on task. Her ambition shaped her into a great warrior. Her temper means no one can run roughshod on her. Her ruthlessness means she has what it takes to get the job done. And her selective loyalty means that when she says...

...she means it.

[juice-thief-frog]

Hypothesis: Rejecting Dark Magic Could Save Viren's Life? Season 5-6 Theory!

This theory/speculation/thought experiment won't leave me alone so I'm gonna officially shout it out into the world!

There's a chance that Viren could maybe have unfucked saved himself.

We're all wondering - did Viren survive season 5? Has he kicked the bucket for good this time? Or is he like that cockroach you just can't get rid of?

I have some unfortunate (or maybe fortunate) news! Viren could definitely be alive!

And it's about dark magic, power, and fever dreams!

Those dark magic dreams Viren had all season had to mean something more! A push for Claudia to go full baddie? Yeah, most likely. We've all seen the Season 6 teaser.

But what if those fever dreams meant something... more?

What if it leads up to more than just Viren's ultimate end?

tl;dr - What if by rejecting dark magic, Viren unknowingly saved his own life? AKA: I dive into Viren's mind, and try to decipher his character arc a teeny bit.

Let's goooooo-

I have little evidence to back up this 'what if'. But I have something, however small.

So, to start this off:

"Tomorrow, the sun will rise, and you will not."

At first this sounds pretty clear - and it might still be! Viren could be sleepin' with the Xadian fishes. But when has Aaravos ever been perfectly clear? Mr 'I Swallowed Her' speaks in riddles and rhymes, and does he even know what the fuck he's talking about? (of course he knows, he's Aaravos, what am I thinking-)

One alternative take on this cryptic little message could be that the old Viren can't come to the phone right now. Because he's dead.

Viren rejected dark magic for the first time ever! He finally sees what Harrow has been seeing all along - dark magic twists you, twists everything around you, into corruption. We can see this with the corrupted Banthers - and Viren's face.

The sun will rise, and the old Viren will be dead.

But perhaps in his place will come a new man - one with a new goal, a new purpose, new motivations. In writing-terms, this means Viren will basically be a whole new character.

Characters are defined by their goals and motivations.

Since the beginning, Viren's goal has been somewhat the same (a bright future for humanity by using dark magic and overthrowing Xadia). But things have changed for Viren, especially during Seasons 4-5. Viren is completely powerless for the first time since Arc One.

Lord Viren has always been a character defined by his power. Even without using dark magic, he can still influence others to bend to his will.

Example image: Lord Viren threatening the young Crowmaster to summon the Pentarchy.

Lord Viren also takes Gren off the mission to find the missing princes, effortlessly placing Soren and Claudia in charge seconds after Amaya left. Viren convinced Soren to go and kill the princes on this mission.

Whenever his power and authority is threatened, Viren keeps pushing forward. Like the dark mage he was, Lord Viren keeps pushing until he gets the desired outcome. Soren said it best:

So, the truth is, someone who wants you to do horrible things, and convinces you that they're good, that's a villain. My dad... is a villain. And he's only gonna get more powerful, and the more powerful he gets, the more people will listen to him, and believe him, and follow him.

Meeting Aaravos is a pivotal moment in Viren's further pursuit of more power. Aaravos promises Viren more power and influence than ever before. Aaravos guides Viren to send the smoke assassins after the other kingdoms to motivate them by fear. Aaravos brings out the worst in Viren by targeting this fatal weakness.

Ultimately, Aaravos guides Viren to further pursue his hunger for more power. Viren convinced Claudia that Soren misunderstood the assignment of 'kill the princes' (dick move, Viren).

Then they march into Xadia, and take down the Sunfire Kingdom. And Aaravos takes Viren to the top of the Storm Spire to capture every essence of magic from baby Zym.

Power, power, and more power. Take a sip of water every time I write 'power', honestly.

So Viren falls to his death, and Claudia brings him back 2 years later. The fourth season begins, and Viren is already different. He is powerless. He isn't even wearing his High Mage attire, instead he's in bloodied and dirty prisoner clothes.

He's travelling with an elf, and he doesn't have his staff. He realises he doesn't even want his staff anymore. He's suddenly horribly afraid of heights, and is obviously frustrated about how he's losing power over everything.

His own mind and body are warring against him. He's going to die in 30 days, and he's experiencing panic attacks. Viren is falling apart worse than his tattered clothes.

And after he finally uses dark magic? He ends up passing out, and missing out on his last few days alive. Instead he's thrust into visions for days on end. Interesting to note that Callum didn't suffer from his own visions as long as Viren did. (perhaps because Viren does indeed have a long history of dark magic?)

These visions take Viren into his past, makes him look at everything in a new way. He sees the harm he caused, sees every scar he left on the world. In his pursuit of power, he ripped everything he loved apart. Including his own children. Soren hates him, and Claudia is diving deeper and further than Viren had ever gone.

It is the vision of Claudia that seems to shake Viren the most. To see what corrupted path he has laid out for his children horrifies him. To see Claudia follow this path so eagerly puts the final nail in the coffin.

No dark magic, never again.

Viren is done with dark magic, and he's done with Aaravos. He's done with his pursuit of power. He's ready to be free.

Interesting to note is that his past self is the one reaching out and holding on here. Reconnecting with his roots, his oldest beliefs.

--

At the end of the season, Viren is the most powerless he has ever been.

Laying under the stars, he cannot even find comfort in their shine. They remind him of Aaravos, and of all the mistakes Lord Viren has made. He certainly doesn't feel free.

He's chosen not to kill The Being, he's chosen to align himself with his roots. His roots as a young man dreaming of things far bigger than himself. He turns his eyes away from the stars, no longer reaching for them. Instead he closes his eyes, and awaits death's embrace.

What happens next?

Well, maybe the rejection of his old life leads him to find a new path. Maybe rejecting the call of dark magic puts him out of Aaravos' reach, and he can finally become someone better.

But I guess we won't know for certain until Season 6. So pls share your own thoughts and observations! I'd love to see what you all come up with!

[eirianerisdar]

Sins of the Father, Part 1

Summary: What if Claudia hadn’t managed to heal Soren and brought him back to the castle, still paralysed? Viren hears the news from the depths of his cell, and comes to terms with what he has done to his son.

More TDP fanfic! This will probably be a four or five-parter!

>In the end, they didn’t even have the decency to tell him in person.

Viren was sitting perfectly still, head tilted back against the grimy wall with his chains pooling around his wrists and ankles, when he heard it: the careless, too-loud whisper of a guard come to relieve the previous shift. Guards lined the corridor every five paces, Viren knew.

“Did you hear? His children have returned.”

Viren’s next inhale caught in his chest, and he very nearly tilted too far forward in his haste to catch the next words; his chains clinked softly against each other, and he held his breath for one long moment, fearful that the sound might alert the guards that he was listening.

For a moment, the two helmeted shadows slanted along the faint candlelight outside the bars of his darkened cell were still.

Then, the sound of spittle hitting stone. “Pah! Weren’t they sent out to seek the princes? What use was that? King Ezran was found and safely returned by General Amaya’s soldier yesterday.”

Viren ground his teeth. The guards had fairly flung that latter piece of information in his face a day previous as they slammed down his tray of food.

One of the shadows leaned closer towards the other, conspiratorially. “That’s beside the point right now - scuttlebutt is fairly on fire up in the barracks. Rumour has it his lordship’s children didn’t come back...whole.”

And just like that, Viren forgot how to breathe.

Not whole.

Not whole like he was, drained with magic and without access to the creatures he used to rejuvenate his appearance, or not whole as in...

And even as his heart paused before its next beat as though considering whether to go on, as the chains around his wrists and ankles grew instantly heavier - the question appeared before him.

The only question that mattered.

Claudia or Soren?

And perhaps, at this moment, if Viren had been allowed time to think, he might have shamed himself by entertaining the fleetest idea of a preference - but the guard had not stopped speaking, and the answer to the question was there.

“They made quite the scene, apparently. I have it on the authority of the guard at the gate that the Lady Claudia galloped in like there were demons at her heels and didn’t even dismount before she started screaming for her father.”

The second guard snorted. “Fair chance of that coming to any use. What was she screaming for?”

The next words would remain carved into Viren’s memory forever - beyond the image of his wife’s straight-backed form as she rode away to her homeland, beyond the horror in his heart when Queen Sarai’s breath halted right before his helpless eyes.

“Her brother. He took a dragon-tail to the chest and fractured his spine four days ago. He’s paralysed. Can’t even raise his head to drink.”

Viren jerked.

His chains clattered in an echoing cacophony across the grime-stained floor; there was a flurry of motion outside.

Viren halted, chest rising and falling in rapid, uneven breaths.

A moment of silence.

“Do you think he-”

“Shh! Go, go. It’s my shift.”

In the half-shadow of his windowless cell, Viren began to shake.

There was a roaring in his ears that was louder than the memory of Thunder’s gaping maw descending on him and the late Queen; the grey-purple backs of his hands in the darkness, still blanched with the marks of dark magic, shivered in his gaze.

Soren was-

His son was-

Claudia’s lighthearted voice tumbled out of memory, a conversation in Viren’s study which had taken place only a fortnight previous but seemed an age ago now, here in the dank shadows of this solitary cell. “Let’s say we’re attacked by giant bumble-scorps and they’re all like bzzz! Bzzz! and flailing their scorps at us like bzzz! - and I’m forced to choose between saving the egg and saving Soren. What should I do?”

Then, Viren had found himself momentarily speechless - he had looked from Claudia’s dancing, joke-filled green eyes (his former wife’s eyes) and down to the carpeted floor, because she had, in the unassumingly brilliant way of hers, voiced the question he had refused to ask himself.

Claudia had laughed and poked fun at him for not recognising a joke when he heard it, but she had been only a dozen steps to the door when he spoke.

He had taken the guilt and the shame and compressed it into a sphere so tight beneath his sternum it burned, and made the decision for the good of Katolis.

Just as he had made the decision regarding Harrow’s life, and later, to abandon the princes.

For the good of Katolis, and for mankind.

“The egg,” he had said, with that firm, unyielding authority that he knew his daughter would understand. “If you have to choose, choose the egg.”

What horror and sorrow had now bred from his words then?

What had he done?

What had he done?

Viren’s blood flared to fire in his veins, and he scrambled forwards on his hands and knees even as a deep, warning hiss from the worm in his left ear whispered, “Be still!”

Four days ago he would have listened without question. Now, Viren raised his head and shouted with the barking, staccato voice of a throat completely dry:

“Guards!”

The clang of a spear against the bars of his cell. Contempt from the shadows of a guard’s helmet. “Quiet, prisoner.”

“Still yourself and listen to me!” Aaravos’s sly murmur hissed urgently in his ear. “If you do not-”

Viren wet his cracked lips with a tongue so dry it hurt. “Guards!” he snarled, voice snapping like his son’s back must have, out in the wilderness against a dragon he was not equipped to fight. “I need to speak to Opeli!”

A guard’s laugh reverberated down the half-light of the corridor. “Mere prisoners have no right to summon a member of the High Council at whim, no matter their station before their crimes, traitor.”

Of all the words the guards could have chosen, that was the worst.

Traitor. Traitor, he who loved Katolis best - had sacrificed anything for his country and his people, and now had even sacrificed the happiness of his firstborn son.

Viren’s snarl turned into a roar.

“BRING HER TO ME!”

He had no magic here with him, and the voice in his ear would not give it - but the words lashed out of him with such desperate power that for a moment he fancied that the walls shook and the flames of the torches wavered in the corridor.

A muffled curse outside the cell. The rasp of swords being drawn, steel-toed footsteps on the flagstones. A figure in the armour of the citadel guard, silhouetted before the bars of the cell.

“Lord Viren! This is your last warning! Quiet down or we will-”

Viren was straining at the very end of his chains now, and cared not that the taste of iron coated the back of his throat and that steel carved into his wrists and ankles.

“I NEED TO SEE MY SON!”

Whatever the guard did next Viren did not know. The world was spinning before his vision, and the drum of his heart in his head had drowned out all else.

Half-blind with desperation and shivering from unspeakable emotion, Viren laid down the last treasure he had reserved, even bound in the depths of the castle’s deepest dungeons - his pride.

His head lowered to press into his hands, fisted in the grime of the sawdust floor.

The worm was still and silent in his ear.

“I need to see my son,” Viren whispered, with none of the fire of moments previous. “Please. Let me see my son.”

Soren.

And there, curled in his uttermost fall from grace, Viren could only wait.

To be continued

This is part 1! I’m cross-posting this to FFN and I’ll continue with it when I have time. I’ve been pretty busy studying and I only started writing this an hour ago because I couldn’t study any more. For more TDP fic go to my masterlist on my blog, especially His Father’s Back, a look at Soren’s search for his father’s love since his youth.

Viren’s a very intriguing antagonist in the sense that he truly believes what he’s doing is right; I’m not defending him in any way, but I loved what tdp season 2 did for explaining the relationship between him and his children, and I couldn’t help but examine it. Credit to @wafflesrisa, my twin, for giving me the plot bunny in the first place.

I’ll also put some links in the replies since tumblr isn’t working with links so well! Thanks for reading and I welcome feedback!

[sage-nebula]

TDP - Like Father, Like Daughter

If there’s one thing season two hammered home, it’s that Claudia is so much like her father.

On the surface, there aren’t too many similarities. Claudia is usually upbeat and cheerful, whereas Viren is usually more serious and short-tempered. Claudia is quirky, whereas Viren is reserved. There are plenty of differences between them on the surface, which makes it understandable that many people who latched onto Claudia were the same people who wanted to kick Viren to the curb pretty much immediately. But while there were already similarities between them beneath the surface in season one, season two has highlighted the fact that Claudia has truly taken after her father in ways that run far deeper than just their shared passion for dark magic.

(Spoilers for the entirety of season two under the cut!)

1.) They are not motivated by a sense of Right and Wrong; instead, they’re more “practical.”

It can be said that on a broad, general scale, there are two ways of looking at the world: abstract, and people-oriented. Abstract motivations are ones like Right or Wrong, True or Not. They’re “big picture” frameworks that both motivate some people, as well as inform how those same people view and interact with the world around them. People-oriented motivations, meanwhile, are more focused on, well, people; they see no point in looking at abstract frameworks of morality or logic when they could instead focus on the people around them, whether those people are people in one’s community, or even just the precious few important to the individual. Of course, most human beings have a mixture of abstract and people-oriented drives within them, but when push comes to shove they’re going to lean more heavily to one side than the other. They’ll leave their family to do what’s Right, or they’ll stay with their family no matter what, and so on.

As far as Viren and Claudia go, they both fall far more heavily toward the people-oriented, concrete side of things.

Bear in mind, this doesn’t mean that they don’t (or can’t) have big picture ideas. Viren particularly tends to try to look at the big picture when figuring out a situation, but he does so in such a way that doesn’t take what is morally Right or Wrong into mind. Instead, he focuses on what is best for the people of Katolis (or, if the situation grows more dire, all of humanity), and picks the solution that he feels will best serve them. It doesn’t matter to him if that solution is Right or Wrong; in fact, his arguments with Harrow show that he actively looks down on such abstract morality:

This is further exemplified by when their argument moves to discussion of Azymondias’ egg a few seconds later:

Harrow takes issue with dark magic because dark magic requires killing and sacrifice (the “blood price”) in order to work. Further, he resents Viren for destroying the dragon prince’s egg because, as he points out, it was an egg. It was harmless, there was no reason to destroy it, and yet Viren did so and kickstarted this entire war. In other words, Harrow sees these actions as morally corrupt and Wrong. But Viren doesn’t think that way. Viren thinks that Harrow focusing on morality like this is him being “stubborn” and “ungrateful.” Viren thinks in terms of Harrow, thinks in terms of the people of Katolis; whether or not it’s morally Right to crush (or steal) a dragon egg or kill magical creatures for the sake of dark magic doesn’t concern him at all. He’s instead only focused on what will benefit the people in his community, or those he immediately cares about. (Though I would argue that he values the community of Katolis / humanity more than individuals, which would explain why he’s able to ultimately turn on Harrow . . . but that’s a discussion for another time.)

And this is not the only time we see this behavior and attitude from Viren, either. Viren is all right with ordering the murders of Callum and Ezran, two children, because he thinks that having an adult take the throne will ultimately be better for the people of Katolis. Viren is fine with committing treason and lying to the other royals of the pentarchy because, again, he feels that it’s better for humanity if he can get them on his side, regardless of how he has to go about doing it. He wants to turn down the request for aid from Duren because he feels that will put the people of Katolis at risk of starvation, and later he argues against staying behind to help the wounded because that will put those who are not wounded in danger. Time and again we see that Viren doesn’t operate on a sense of moral ethics, on what is Right or Wrong. We also see that he doesn’t necessarily operate on a basis of what is True or Not, as he’s constantly pushing for reality to mold to what he wants it to be, rather than accepting the Truth that is right in front of his eyes. Viren sees focus on such abstract concepts to be impractical at best, and dangerous at worst. He instead focuses on the people in his community and what they need (or at least what he thinks they need, and the best way to provide that).

His daughter Claudia is very, very similar.

Claudia doesn’t focus on community so much as she focuses on individuals. Rather than feeling loyalty to the community at large as Viren does, Claudia instead feels a very intense, personal loyalty to those that are within her inner circle. This doesn’t mean that she doesn’t care for people at all, because if she has to choose we’ve blatantly seen that she will value the life of a human over the life of a magical being (see: briefly panicking when she thought Soren was going to kill Corvus, versus cheerfully saying they’ll chop up the red dragon and take her back to Katolis in pieces). But it is to say that Claudia favors those within her inner circle far more than those outside of it, and that she favors loyalty toward those people more than anything else, and certainly over a sense of Right or Wrong. The truest example of this comes from her reaction to Callum’s dislike of dark magic, which isn’t very dissimilar from the disagreements and arguments we see Viren and Harrow have over it:

And then, after Claudia has her infamous “take creatures that are born with magic and squeeze it out of ‘em” line, and Callum looks disturbed:

Callum takes issue with “squeezing” magic out of living creatures. He doesn’t want to do that, he feels it’s Wrong. But Claudia isn’t concerned with Right or Wrong. In fact, she’s irritated by the fact that Callum is judging her for something that she thinks shows the potential and ingenuity of humanity. Similarly to how Viren disliked when he felt Harrow was stubbornly pulling the morality card over something he saw as being “clever, brilliant, and practical,” Claudia grows irritated with Callum for judging her over finding a way to do magic despite not being born with an arcanum inside her.

The disagreement she has with Soren earlier in the episode also reflects where her morality lies:

Claudia does pull the “it’s wrong” card against Soren, but she does so not because he lied, exactly, but because he lied to their friends. When Soren counters that Claudia “squashes innocent creatures to make magic pancakes,” her reaction is to shrug. It doesn’t matter that magical creatures are not required to make pancakes. She doesn’t see anything wrong with taking the shortcut. But she does take issue with lying to her friends, because those are people she cares about. This comes to a much bigger head later in the season when she chooses to save Soren over securing Azymondias, because at the end of the day her loyalty lies more to her brother than it does to her mission (or, one could say, more to her father, but that’s a discussion for another time). Nonetheless, what we see time and again is that Claudia is not concerned with morality, with Right or Wrong. When she does bring up the concepts, it’s in relation to those she cares about (she sees bringing the princes home as being “right” because it’s what her father, Viren, wanted her to do; she sees lying to them as being “wrong” because they’re her friends, and so on). Instead, she’s motivated by people. Her friendships with the princes, her love for her father, her love for her brother. Everything else is secondary, and this is something she certainly has in common with her father.

2.) Temper, temper.

Though this similarity is on a smaller scale than the above, both Viren and Claudia have tempers that range from little snaps when they’re prodded at while frustrated, and full on tantrums that rage when they feel backed into a corner.

We see that both of them are prone to snapping when irritated in season one. For example, when Viren has his first argument with Harrow and Claudia rushes up to him afterward, tapping her nose, he takes his frustration out on her with an irritated snap, despite her having nothing to do with it:

Likewise, Claudia snaps at Soren when they’ve reached an impasse trying to find the princes, even though he was asking a perfectly logical question:

But their tempers are best showcased in season two, when each of them has reached their limits. After a spell that required injecting potion into his eyes to let him see the truth of Aaravos’ mirror doesn’t work, Viren has a tantrum that results in him destroying his secret chamber:

Similarly, when she grows frustrated that there is seemingly no way to cure Soren’s paralysis, Claudia has a tantrum that results in her destroying the hospital room before she’s “escorted” from the premises: 

While it’s true that Claudia was once again motivated by her loyalty toward a loved one, whereas Viren’s tantrum was motivated by a sense of his own failure, both are still prone to room-shattering, violent tantrums when they don’t achieve their desired ends.

3.) They believe they know what’s best, for everyone.

One of Viren’s most defining qualities is his pride. Despite his scornful assessment of Harrow’s own pride back in season one, the fact remains that Viren is very convinced that he alone knows what’s best, and that everyone else is stubbornly wrong when they disagree with him. He believes he knows what’s best for Katolis, what’s best for humanity, and if Harrow disagrees, then Harrow is being stubborn and prideful; if the council disagrees, they’re being stubborn and short-sighted; if Aanya disagrees, it’s because she’s an inexperienced child, and so on. It doesn’t matter if others give Viren reasons for their disagreements; he still believes that he knows what’s best and refuses to listen to what others want if it goes against what he thinks is best for them. 

And though we haven’t seen as much of it yet, we saw enough in season two to see that Claudia is very much the same way.

After Soren is paralyzed, he comes to terms with it. In fact, he tells Claudia that in a way, he’s relieved this happened, because now he doesn’t have to follow Viren’s order to kill the princes. But although Soren has come to peace with his newfound disability, and though he tells Claudia that he has aspirations to be a poet, she’s not having it:

She ends up slaughtering a fawn to use in a dark magic spell to restore Soren’s mobility, despite the fact that not only was he at peace with his disability, but he was actively screaming in pain while she was doing the spell:

She didn’t ask him if this was what he wanted, she didn’t ask him if it was all right for her to do it. Despite his fear, despite his screams, she continued. And yes, he ended up being thankful for the ability to move again . . . but his feelings weren’t really a factor in Claudia’s decision making:

Much like how Ava didn’t need four legs to be okay, but rather for others to be okay, Soren didn’t need his mobility back to be okay. Claudia needed him to have it back for her to be okay. And if Viren really did put Harrow’s soul in Pip’s body, then he did not do that for Harrow’s sake. He did it for his own.

While these are three primary similarities that I picked up on between Viren and Claudia, I’m certain there are more bubbling beneath the surface as well, that will rise to the top as conflict increases in future seasons. Despite Soren being the one to make the choice to stay with Viren, it’s Claudia who truly takes after him, in more ways than simply their shared love of dark magic (which they love, it should be noted, for the same reasons). One thing is very clear to me: If Claudia does decide to rebel against Viren, it’s not going to be because she feels that what he’s doing is Wrong on a morality scale. Instead, it’s going to be because her loyalty to others (namely, Soren) is greater than her loyalty to Viren, as we’ve already seen this season. And though Viren loves Claudia, if he feels that she’s a danger to humanity, he’ll treat her with the same “respect” he treated Harrow and the others. Conflict between them will not come down to a question of Right or Wrong on a morality scale, because neither of them care about that. It’ll all come down to which people they view as being more important. But nonetheless, Viren’s favorite child is like him in more ways than one, and I’m very interested to see where these similarities between them lead in the future.