woah sixty notifications anyways,
to preface arctic is my favorite character but narratively not in a “wow he’s a good person” way so let that shape your opinion of my opinion
giant fucking essay under cut i’m sorry
can anyone hear me. why is arctic portrayed in the fandom as tragic and had a negative character arc after killing those icewings with his magic. when he’s been horrible the entire time, just more subtly. he found everything in his life to be utterly tragic and boring and it all to be a big drag. he was a prince and he was expected for the animus powers he held and the offspring he’d have. arctic saw himself as an extension of diamond— which all princes are to their queens, basically— and he hated it. he had no authority over his own life and this was also enforced by the ranking system and general icewing culture.
…except that he never had any ill thoughts about that. it was always about what power his mother held over him. interesting! he didn’t care for the system and the hierarchy enforced by it, because by being an animus prince he was naturally at the top all the time and he didn’t have to care about how he treated other dragons because he was his mother’s favorite little dragon.
he detested THAT. his MOTHER was the one deciding everything for him. and he was powerless to do anything about that! how could a prince stand up to his queen and mother, animus or not, and live past that conversation. so he lashed out outside of that. he hated and ignored snowflake because she was just an extension of his mother. he describes her as “sparkly and boring the way mother likes” because he never bothered to see past what role she served in his life. she’s actually deeply complex as we can tell by runaway winglet where she’s her own pov, with an intricate and dark mind and more motivations than arctic ever had in his life.
arctic does not care, because he considers her lower than him. his mother can exercise her power on him through other dragons all he wants, but he still knows that he is severely more powerful and more important than any other dragon except her in his life. …and also, i think he has a weird complex about female dragons. hear me out,
when arctic meets foeslayer, it’s the first time he meets a nightwing. he expects them all to be boring and not of any interest to him in the slightest, but foeslayer just happens to overhear his conversation with snowflake and finds it hilarious. she laughs in his face, makes fun of him for forgetting his betrothed’s name. this is interesting to arctic. nobody has dared to make fun of him in his entire life because of his status. instead of being upset, like most icewings would, his situation with diamond shaped him to respond with amusement. what does he have to gain from laughing at himself with a nightwing? well, he gets a bit of freedom. room to stretch his wings and see beyond his mother’s (and the icewing rankings, but mostly he thinks of it as his mother) suffocation on him and every opinion he dares to hold.
arctic barely sees foeslayer as a romantic interest because because she’s charming, funny, pretty. he sees her as a way to piss off his mom. look at this dragon who doesn’t follow rules, who is starkly not an icewing noble with pretty glittery scales, who is not at all someone diamond could ever see her precious animus son with. foeslayer is crass and doesn’t think before she speaks and clumsy and not at all caring of how other dragons think of her and arctic likes that. he even gives her one of his earrings and enchants it, dares to defend her in the meeting hall by saying that she hadn’t actually stolen it and that he had given it, because he knows it’d get to his mother. he’s spitting at the ground in front of her feet, saying, “i can do more than you want me to”, “i am my own dragon”, and “you don’t decide my life”.
to arctic, female dragons in his life are a tool more than they’d ever be individuals.
obviously arctic’s rash decision to fall in love with a random nightwing is not the narrative’s favorite choices. obviously.
let’s skip forward a lot and, almost at the end here i promise, look at how he treats his offspring.
by the very start he meets darkstalker with contempt. he doesn’t like his name (because it’s creepy, and because foeslayer chose it and not him) and he doesn’t like how much attention foeslayer gives him. let me restate. arctic, the grown, married, ADULT MAN. Is jealous of his newborn son for taking up more time in foeslayer’s life. how interesting.
he detests darkstalker because he also looks more like a nightwing than whiteout. we don’t see whiteout hatch (because darkstalker is off running around and being the most self absorbed guy ever, even if he pretends he’s not) but we know this about her and arctic. arctic named her, and arctic doesn’t think of her as much of a dragon and more of a pretty thing he can flaunt around until he’s done. darkstalker points this out, which is means to scrutiny because darkstalker himself is a very unreliable and rose tinted narrator, but i think it makes sense based on arctic’s track record, honestly.
female dragons are NOT anything he cares about as individuals. Loud and clear. this is not a trait that is recently developed after he finds out foeslayer ‘betrayed’ him. He has been like this the entire time.
he wants to bring whiteout to the icewing kingdom not because he cares about her, but because he wants to use her and make his mother like him again. arctic wants to go back and grovel to his mother using his daughter as a bargaining chip, because he doesn’t want to kill his offspring, that’s a bit too much for him. but he does want his mother’s attention back, because foeslayer has stopped serving the role of a surrogate caretaker to him. now that she knows better. arctic by this point has learned loud and clear that the nightwings (against foeslayer’s wishes and hidden from her but he doesn’t really care by this point) wanted to steal him for his animus powers.
that’s.. not what he wanted. in the unwilling prisoner sense AND in his fantasy of sticking it up to his mother and spitting in the face of her power over him. now he’s in the power of another queen that he doesn’t like. isn’t that great, it’s all looped back on itself and arctic realizes that he receives consequences for his actions of being a complete asshole and misogynist!
anyways yeah. he’s one of my favorites because he’s deeply complex, at least in my brain if the complexity i’ve outlined here was unintentional on tui’s part and was just a big fumble that ended up being GOLDEN. also this essay doesn’t exist to try and convert anyone into my way of thinking and as a big brainwashing scheme to make you like arctic, no, i just wanted to get my thoughts out clearly before i got cancelled for the thought crime of liking a fictional dragon misogynist.
anyways cheers if you’ve made it this far, thanks for listening to my insanity.
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discworld dashboard simulator
❓ ankhmorporkpolls
🧙🏻 blackalisstan
This is like that tsortian guy who had to pick between goddesses and started a war and then died. Or like paying the assassin's guild to kill you
🔪 treefroghousealumni follow
*inhume
🧙🏻 blackalisstan
piss off you posh knob
🍴 priestessofanoia
tbf I don't think the watch is wasting its time on this blue hellsite so ur probably safe there. the POSTMASTER however...
#sometimes I think only bloody stupid johnson could have come up with this fucking site
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🪻watchofficial follow
ALL'S WELL!
🍴 priestessofanoia
nvm lmao 😭
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☕ klatchmeifyoucan follow
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#ppl on here are actually sooooo ankh morpork centric it's insane #'EVERYONE knows webblethorpe the unconscious' who??? why the fuck should I??? #like HELLO there's other places on the disc? #and klatch is NICER like omg
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unseenuniconfessions reblogged:
🦧 unseenuniversitylibrary
Ook
#SO TRUE KING
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Anonymous asked:
Is lord vetinari gay
🪄ramtopswitches answered:
Why would you ask us, a ramtops witches blog, this
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CALLOUT: @ /spanglersal (deactivated)
• started a Kickstarter to crowdfund a click of Captain Vimes & Errol then disappeared with the money and has gone completely ghost on everyone
• apparently stole over 100k
• cringe
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Anonymous asked:
Blessings be upon this askbox
🌷queen-of-lancre answered:
I don't know if this is nanny pretending to be granny, or if it's actually granny, and I think I'm too scared to find out
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cmot-dibbler-enterprises sponsored
SAUSAGES INNA BUN ‼️‼️‼️‼️🌭🌭🌭🌭
🏚️ throwingshades
Gonna go skating on the frozen river ankh!!
💀 nojusticejustus
HAVE FUN
🏚️ throwingshades
Thanks man!
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🐸 bursaaaaaaaaar
is. is the post office posting crab rave bc reacher gilt just turned up dead
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🧳 agateantravels follow
The Crumley's Hogswatch grotto is being advertised again but somehow I just don't think they can top last year's... like idk where they got the budget from but the real pigs?? CRAZY. my little sister asked for a pony and there was just one in the house when we got back like?? My mum was PISSED but yes talk abt Hogswatch magic. Still wonder how they pulled it off
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💖 angelofmusic
It's literally SO unfunny to be making jokes about the Opera Ghost when you all KNOW I saw so many of my friends DIE last year??? I literally have so much PTSD from it... like it's so insensitive you're all actually the WORST
#vent #don't rb #some of you will say ANYTHING for a cheap laugh :(
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🐊 genuablogging
My dealer: got some straight gas 🔥😛 this strain is called “narrative causality” 😳 you’ll be zonked out of your gourd 💯
Me: yeah whatever. I don’t feel shit.
5 minutes later: dude I swear I just saw the Duc turn into a frog
My buddy Mrs Pleasant, pacing: Lilith de Tempscire is lying to us
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