It's kind of funny to me that there are people who seem to be surprised when Claudia does things like depersonalize Rayla by referring to her as "[Callum and Ezran's] elf" in the Reflections short story when it's been clear from the very first episodes of season one that Claudia doesn't really see elves as people—or at least, not people worthy of basic rights or dignity.
When Runaan was cornered om the balcony and Soren was about to kill him, Claudia protested. Not because of any mercy, but rather the opposite. "We have more practical uses for this one," she said. "Tie him up!"
Earlier, Viren describes dark magic as "practical," so it's obvious what Claudia is referring to here. Runaan will be tied up and harvested for dark magic ingredients. Viren has slightly different plans, of course, but Runaan still ends up coined in the end. A fate arguably worse than death, by his own estimation.
Silly, goofy Claudia at her happiest saw an entire person as dark magic ingredients. There was no reason for that; she still had her father and brother, Runaan was dead to rights, Soren could have ended him with a single blow. But Claudia saw this person and thought, no, lets squeeze the magic out of him instead.
Claudia's actions have become more overtly brutal over time, yes. But she has always been like this. She has always had the same cruelty in her that led her to pretend to hand over Rayla's family, only for it to be a trick instead. Claudia does love Terry, but she says she loves him in the very same season that she tells Soren that elves are actually terrible and are just using him. For Claudia, Terry is the exception. One of "the good ones."
She has always been like this. Desperation has just driven those traits out more often. And it's part of what makes her so interesting.
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as cool as their design is im really starting to dislike the sonau in general, aside from their stuff suddendly being everywhere and everything being about them and how cool(tm) they are now with the mystery stone turning people into dragons and the similarities between the sonau and the three dragons (naydra, eldra, farodra) its actually not an impossibility that they used to be sonaus as alot of people have been theorizing about ..but ...... idk that would very much ruin their otherwordly yet ethereal mystery to me
i probably sound like some hater whos trying to find something more to dislike about totk all the time but i promise im not!!
the three dragons being some unexplained mystery, beings that are there yet few can see them, timeless, nigh untouchable, they dont act on anything, they dont talk, something about them has always made me look at them in awe; if it turned out they were just yet another cool(tm) sonau guy that ate a stone ... :/
not a fan of that one lads, but dont worry, i will keep my thoughts to myself from now on, i dont want to ruin other peoples fun nor seem like i just hate everything ... the three dragons are just really important to me so i had to say something
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in honour of this post, tags on another of mine i cannot remember that talked briefly about Rayla's issues, and that I've talked about Claudia and Callum's moments of being hypocritical, now I want to actually talk about Rayla's hypocritical tendencies cause it's something S4 and S5 made a fun little consistency - let's dive in
Rayla can sometimes ignore (or react indignantly to) other people possibly having their own reasons/justifications because she's tunnel visioned into only thinking about her own justifications as uniquely warranted
Let me explain
The first time I noticed this was in 2x03, mostly because it was one of those moments that made me laugh even though it's not trying to be funny because
Cause Rayla, honey, you know you lied to them too ("lying and hiding the truth aren't that different") - and Callum forgave you for that and is still your friend. Why would Claudia and Soren be any different to him? (And they are, but not the point of this point).
Now, unlike Soren (who is the person they're primarily discussing), Rayla didn't lie outright, but she did lie by omission - much the same way Claudia did. And Rayla has known her own motivations all along - probably worried they might give up on their mission if they knew (especially at the start), and she doesn't want them to hate her, and most of all by this point in the show, she didn't want to hurt them ("I'm afraid of hurting him" / "when you care about someone, it's hard to hurt them").
This made sense to me in terms of Rayla being good at being initially (often times rightfully, sometimes not so) indignant on her own behalf. She is able to justify herself and does so often, both angrily - as the next examples will show - and more neutrally ("How could I take his life?"). She defends herself both physically and personally to Corvus ("I didn't kill anyone"), she smarts at Callum when he (rightfully) tries to push at her ("I don't have to explain anything to you"), and is mad at Ethari when they initially talk ("Yeah, it's me. Surprised to see my face?"). This initial defense of herself doesn't usually persist and typically gives way to self loathing ("I can fix this" / "I don't deserve your trust, not yet" / "They're right to reject me") but it is there at first and is usually her first reaction, which is very fun.
However, this coupled together with the other two instances arc 2 brings up in terms of her being kind of a hypocrite makes it a pattern, beginning in early season four. (Callum also isn't at his best in early season four, saying he doesn't want to talk about stuff and then bringing it up the next episode to take a jab at her - but he's still dealing with the fallout of the problems she caused, so he absolutely gets more of a pass. As always, see my In Defense of Callum's Narrative Lens from way back in the day if you're interested in more of how his perspectives are portrayed.)
Because gee, Rayla, I wonder whose fault that is? And again, it does make sense that she's angry - she's spent two years just wanting to be with him with none of the messy complex heartbreak he had to go through because she was the one who made the choice to leave. She expected him to at least shout at her, not ice her out completely. And again, we see that initial indignant streak fade when he reiterates he wants to go, and she looks down disappointed, but accepting of it (and puts whether she'll stay or not in his hands, too).
Since she had a good reason for leaving, and it's what her parents did, while she expected anger, she also wants affection and love. Isn't her justification enough, in some ways? Shouldn't it be? And while Rayla wrestled back and forth with this, it's clear she does think that it should be (even if both seasons show she's starting to realize just why she was wrong).
But we do see this hypocritical tendency of hers perhaps pop up most prominently in S5 with Nyx
Again, in Rayla's head, lying and stealing the key wasn't perhaps the right thing to do, but the better thing to do than burden Callum with what she was going through / to be open and vulnerable. It makes sense why she'd do so - and her shot at Nyx gets a tiny pass cause she's technically sticking up for Ezran - but it still falls back on Rayla leaning too heavily on her logic / independent streak to justify actions that are actually counterproductive to having healthy, wilfully open relationships.
And this is something I love about TDP. Even when the characters are genuinely making the worst possible fucking decisions they ever could (hi arc 1 Viren, Claudia and Karim constantly in particular) you completely understand how and why they're justifying those decisions, and Rayla is no different. Doesn't mean they're right, doesn't mean it's not logically stupid or fair or whatever, but it's emotionally consistent, and that's what matters most in the end. And now we have a fun little consistency to add to the pile
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I recently (ahem, yesterday-ish) started reading httyd fics, and i'm noticing there are a lot of Hiccup Runs Before The Final Exam, or he wasn't there to begin with (feral Hiccup ✨) but what if he doesn't start dragon training at all? Like, The Raid was his final opportunity to show that he isn't completely useless at Dragon Killing, and he butched it, snd he was close to dying again or smthng and Stoick stops hoping for Hiccup to be a Beefy Viking Killing Machine, and when they 'talk' on the stairs when Hiccup comes back from freeing Toothless, he tells him that Gobber needs some help in the smithy and that he might learn how to properly make the weapons or tools and that, yeah, there are enough vikings who fight dragons but there aren't enough weapons when they're used viciously on an almost daily basis against Tough Skin
TL;DR: Hiccup becomes a smith, doesn't do the dragon training at all, and he has a bit more time to spend with Toothless bc Gobber thinks he might feel bad about not getting a chance to Beef Out so he cuts him some slack for a little bit, and also the prosthetic might be better/go along faster bc now he's /supposed to/ use the forge, but also might not bc now he has an official job/apprenticeship
He falls further apart from the other teens, who half-think (mainly the twins say) that he died a brutal death or smthg bc now they barely see him, and only to give/get back their weapons/shields/armor when they need fixing; and he gets ever-closer to the Nightfury on his proverbial backyard
He gets good at Smithing, blablabla, meets the Mad Queen, blablabla, gets increasingly stressed thinking abt how to save his best friend, soul-brother, partner-in-crime, adoptive-dragon-parent from the Mad Queen, and Astrid starts noticing him bc he's smoother when he isn't paying attention to others at all and he really is better at smithing than anyone ever thought he'd be good at, well, anything
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agent-jaselin replied to your post: "jnksakdfjn one of these days I'm going to make a..."
The dp thing is more cause it has a lot of potential for horror and things. XD i think about thirty % of the phandom haven’t even watched the show.
asjkndfsd yeah that's a v fair point and I'm also amused by your estimate of how many people haven't watched the show yet participate in the fandom surrounding it
my roommate also suggested a while back when I complained about it (bc this is actually an ongoing thing with me lmao) that maybe more people of Tumblr age watched DP than ADJL when it came out, which I suppose is fair as well.
but idk man the lore in American Dragon: Jake Long is absolutely BUCK WILD. they went HAM with the urban fantasy and they did NOT need to go half as hard as they did with the worldbuilding. I personally feel like it's PERFECT material for fandom engagement
and YET
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