Hey everyone, it’s been a hot minute since I have done a theory video, but this is Hailey!
I have no self control so my first theory video for the Dragon Prince Season 3 is going
to be about Aaravos!
Viren and his little bug pal did some very, very evil things, and I am excited to see
where things take him next.
I mean especially with Aaravos as it seems there are some big changes for him on the
horizon.
This is going to be a huge theory video, and I have a ton to explain.
But first if you are not already subscribed to the channel and want to be here for whenever
I release more Dragon Prince content, please consider doing so!
Long story short, guess who was totally wrong about the poem I mentioned in my last Aaravos
video?
Me!
To be fair, how were we supposed to guess Elarion was actually a city and not just some
human Aaravos met in the past!
So yeah, a lot has changed since my last video.
Not just because of Season 3, which told us surprisingly little about Aaravos, but because
of interviews and panels.
And I wanted to finally formally share all this information this with you in this video.
I had to dig up a ton of info, a lot of which came from my own accounts such as the San
Diego Comic Con 2019 panel, as well as interviews I have done in the past year.
And because of the nature of all this, it is very much possible I will forget to include
some details for this video.
I will do my best to cite each of my sources, however.
First, I think it would be really helpful to go over the entire timeline we were given
at the SDCC Panel.
Thankfully I did a pretty good job of recording this information down, so this should be correct.
After that I will often mention specific events referenced in this timeline, so make sure
to pay attention!
Unfortunately, I am not able to get high resolution photos of this timeline, so my pictures from
the convention will have to suffice.
To begin, let’s travel back 5000 years ago to The Era of the First elves.
These were the earliest days of Xadia, and it was before distinct primal elves existed
and the elves and dragons were not allied.
In this time humans suffered and struggled.
The Rise of Elarion is the era 2000 years prior to the current era.
This era marks the turning point in history for humanity.
They find their way to magic.
A point was made that this was not the same thing as it being discovered by humans.
So humans begin building great civilizations, developing the arts, thriving and growing.
The Era of Sol Regem is the era 1200 years prior to the current era.
Sol Regem, the Archdragon of the Sun, is king of the dragons during this era.
At this time, dark magic has become an issue and creates conflict between the elves and
dragons, and humans.
Human dark mages poach and kill powerful magical creatures for their parts.
The era 1000 years prior to the current era goes by two names depending on location: In
the east, it is the Era of Luna Tenebris (Ten-uh-briss).
Luna Tenebris, the Archdragon of the Moon, is Queen of the Dragons during this time.
She began ruling after Sol Regem, which as we see in Season 3 episode 1, was probably
soon after he became blinded due to Ziard.
She makes the decision to spare humans but banish them to the west for all their misdeeds
on a day that would become known as Judgement Under the Half-Moon.
This is depicted in episode 1, where at this same time we see Aaravos, as well as a few
other types of elves.
In the west, it is an era known as The Mage Wars, where humans begin settling the western
side of the continent.
Powerful mages begin rising as warlords, battling for resources and land.
This goes on for centuries until eventually the 5 Human Kingdoms begin taking shape over
the decades and centuries.
The era 300 years prior to the current era is the Era of Avizandum, which is when a few
key events take place.
Avizandum is Thunder’s real name.
He is Archdragon of the Sky and King of the Dragons during this era.
This era is depicted with the humans and elves at war, with Thunder guarding the border.
We can also see Queen Aditi, who I will talk about more later.
The first key event in this era is The Fallen Star and we are left to speculate on that.
The other key event is The Orphan Queen, referring to the first royal ancestor of Harrow and
Ezran.
It is the story of a young human girl who starts from nothing, and has grown up without
parents, but takes a dangerous journey to Xadia and ends up saving the world.
The era the show’s timeline currently take place in will one day to history be known
as The Return of Aaravos.
We also learn more about a man by the name of Sir Phineas Cursed, who lived during the
Era of Sol Regem.
He traveled the world with a young elven professor named Delilah Geel.
Delilah Geel published the Lost Secrets of Xadia.
Phineas was known to be one of the unluckiest humans ever, but always stayed positive and
resilient.
So that was everything from SDCC, and that was a lot of new info to take in at once.
So feel free to jump back to this part of the video if I say something that doesn’t
make sense later on.
But oh man, where to begin!
Perhaps it would be best to tackle all this chronologically, and talk about what Aaravos
has planned for the future last.
To me it makes the most sense that Aaravos didn’t start really impacting human lives
until 1,200 years ago, since that is about when the first dark mage came to be.
While humans seemed to have some sort of magic that wasn’t dark magic before this that
allowed them to thrive and build great cities (which honestly could’ve also been discovered
because of Aaravos), apparently it wasn’t enough.
As depicted in the poem, the Midnight Star, Elarion was on the brink of death until Aaravos
helped them.
He gave them dark magic and turned its pure whiteness into what is described as black
eyes, which is something dark mages obtain momentarily after casting a powerful spell.
But it helped bring Elarion out of a tight spot, and humans became such a threat within
200 years that the dragons and elves had to force them out of the east.
Since we can see Aaravos in this first picture, it appears the rest of the elves did not know
the part he played in giving humans this new source of power.
It is unclear how he felt about humans being pushed out, but for the time being we don’t
know of anything else he did in the 700 years between the rules of Luna Tenebris and Sol
Regem.
But then it is 300 years ago from the current time that he once again has a huge part to
play.
While it was denoted as two separate events that took place in this era, I think they
could be intertwined in some way.
First, we have the Orphan Queen, who we know journeys into Xadia for some reason or another.
Maybe she was looking for something that would help her people.
Then again, she was an orphan, so I am unsure if she really had ‘people’.
But either way it is becoming pretty likely that she will meet the Sunfire Queen, whose
name was Queen Aditi, and was mentioned in Season 3.
This is backed up by the sunfire symbol we see in the Orphan Queen logo.
Perhaps the sunfire Queen taught the Orphan how to become a great leader.
Both of them also likely come into contact with Aaravos, who it seems killed Aditi.
In season 3, he says something to Queen Khessa, her granddaughter, right before he kills her.
Obviously, we don’t know what he said yet.
Something very similar may have happened with Aditi as it did with Khessa, since Aaravos
calls Khessa’s situation ironic.
Or her arrogance is what caused her to slip up as well.
But I’m excited to learn about what he said.
So anyways, one thing leads to another, and the Orphan becomes the Queen of Katolis, and
is the reason why only orphans can ascend to the throne.
But her saving the world and the likely death of Queen Aditi probably did not please the
elves, and this time they knew Aaravos was to blame.
This leads to the Fallen Star, and Aaravos being put into the mirror by Thunder.
Oh and I should note that it was recently confirmed in a recent AMA with the creators
that Sunfire elves can live a very long time, explaining how Janai and Khessa are only the
granddaughters of Queen Aditi, despite this event taking place over 300 years ago.
Perhaps the ones with healing powers help all the elves of their type age much slower.
But we can actually make a claim for Aaravos befriending the Orphan.
On Aaravos’s birthday, we got some new information about him!
On the website it said: Aaravos does not count the passage of time
in minutes, nor hours, not even days — he counts candles, one after the other, burning
themselves down to the wick and a puddle of hot wax.
He would run out of candles if it weren’t so easy to reform them with a wave of his
hand, as though the burn had never happened.
He thinks sometimes about the way humans count their years: one day every year marks a precious
point in their short life spans.
They celebrate.
They feast.
He thinks that if he cared for the idea, he’d like to remember the taste of a smooth red
fruit a human had plucked from a tree for him, once.
It had been so crisp, and so sweet.
Besides more confirmation that Aaravos is ancient, we learn that he did in fact have
a human friend, and they gave him an apple.
This human could have been the Orphan Queen, and another piece of fruit from that tree
may have been used to create the tree we see in episode 1 of the series, which we learn
to be 300 years old.
This matches up exactly to when the Orphan Queen event took place.
And finally, the Orphan Queen is likely the ancestor that first obtained the Key of Aaravos
when he gave it to her.
The creators told me it was passed down through the generations, which is how Harrow had it,
so this lines up.
I still have no idea what it does though.
When the Orphan queen gave Aaravos an apple, it could have been seen as a symbol of accepting
him, just as Ziard did hundreds of years before.
Although with the track record Ezran and his ancestors have on being just and very intelligent,
the Orphan Queen might have seen through Aaravos’s games and ultimately could have been the one,
with the help of Avizandum and some other elves, to imprison him.
Surely her getting Aaravos locked up would qualify as saving the world.
But all of that is in the past, and now it is time to speculate on what Aaravos has in
store for the future.
Which honestly has a lot of references to the past so there are really some things you
can’t escape.
From what we can gleam off of what he said in Season 3, Aaravos wants to conquer Xadia.
And when I say wants to, I mean REALLY wants to.
Like he didn’t really give Viren an option of what the plan was.
But what will this get him?
Well, the creators told me that he wants to be worshipped by humanity.
So that may be his end goal, and he thinks the only way to do that is through getting
rid of the elf problem.
And for a long time the elves and the dragons have been allied, and together they make an
almost unstoppable force.
Which is why I am going to present the radical idea that Aaravos may have actually wanted
the humans to get banished to the west.
There may have been less magical creatures over there, but it would give them time to
become more powerful as they would have a lot less competition with elves.
Although I don’t know how successful that was as this resulted in the mage wars which
seemingly got rid of most dark mages.
We know from that same AMA that there are a few left still besides Viren and Claudia,
but they are very rare.
Then the second time around with the Orphan Queen it resulted in him getting imprisoned
in a mirror, which he got really lucky that somehow Viren, a dark mage, was able to drag
that out of the dragon’s lair.
However, there is also the idea that everything we have ever seen in the show and almost everything
in the timeline was planned out by Aaravos.
From the Judgement Under the Half Moon, to the Mage Wars, to the famine that drove Duren
to ask for help and eventually what killed Sarai and made Harrow and Viren seek revenge,
to finally Viren finding the mirror that is holding him.
Star magic has to do with divination, which means seeing into the future.
Combine that with the fact that he can almost live forever, and we have the potential for
Aaravos to be a master planner of unmatched skill.
I would like to believe that Aaravos isn’t quite that perfect enough for all of this
to be planned out so well, but the show is painting him out to be some sort of god-like
figure, so I can see this being the case.
And even then, I would like to think that humans wouldn’t immediately go on to worshiping
him again if he tries to make it seem like he is helping them out by getting rid of the
elf problem.
Sure, Viren is playing right into his hands, but I would like to think most of the other
main characters are smarter than that.
Of course, none of our main characters know about Aaravos yet, so maybe he could get them
on his side if he plays his cards right and ultimately, they will end up freeing him from
his prison.
But I mean, he might come out of that cocoon as some freaky looking moth or butterfly,
so it’s hard to say.
Or maybe this cocoon is his way of escaping the prison.
Aaravos in the mirror was a fun time, but despite being a beautifully decorated place,
it is still a prison.
Either way, the human kingdoms are severely weakened after that big battle at the end
of the third season.
If Aaravos manages to take control of Xadia, who says he won’t try and conquer the humans
next?
Perhaps the only reason he sided with the humans is because he wanted to get as much
power as possible, and humans are much easier to exploit, and have so much potential waiting
to be unlocked.
But we do also know there is a kind side to Aaravos, so it is hard for me to be totally
certain he would go that far and not just be satisfied with humanity obtaining the power
he thinks it deserves.
I do think that there is a possibility that Aaravos will no longer need Viren after emerging
from the cocoon, or he will be able to do a lot more on his own now.
With that in mind, I can see Viren snapping out of the trance Aaravos had him in, and
Viren can try and make things right.
Do I think Viren will get a redemption?
Not necessarily, as I don’t see the things he did in season 3, from the way he treated
Soren, to turning men into monsters and killing many others, to be redeemable.
Now as for Claudia getting redemption, that is a whole other video topic I hope to get
into eventually.
As for Aaravos though, I am definitely fearing whatever comes next with him.
I’m sure it’s going to be a fun time, but he is certainly a force to be reckoned
with.
He never lies, but can he be trusted?
Only time will tell.
But I am curious, what you think about Aaravos after season 3?
What do you think his ultimate goal is, and how will he achieve it?
What the heck is going to emerge from that cocoon?
Would you be seduced by him?
The answer to that last one is most likely yes, but let me know your thoughts in the
comments!
Many thanks to Leonandia, Kuno, and Zach, who helped me form ideas for this theory video.
Links to their social media will be in the description!
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I am so excited to talk about Dragon Prince some more as we begin this long hiatus.
Thank you for watching and have an animated day!