Thinking About My Tdp Epic Au Where Harrow Takes Place Of Odysseus Because I Needed To Combine My Interests

Something I find interesting is that in every form Aaravos takes in episode 2 of season 7 we see all his elf forms showing some of his skin other than his face. For Skywing he’s literally wearing a crop top (or something of the sort) with his arms bare, Sunfire has his hands shown, Earthblood has his entire chest is unclothed, Tidebound has his waist and arms shown, and Moonshadow has his midsection and arms unclothed from what I remember.

The only form he takes where he’s not showing any skin other than his face of course, is his human one. He’s literally wearing gloves with belts practically trapping him in. I thought maybe it was to show the difference between his human disguise and his Startouch form since Startouch elves tend to have their main star showing from their clothes and tend to dress in more flowing fabrics. But it could just be overthinking from watching this episode too many times.

A missed opportunity was definitely decoining Kpp’ar and letting him and Aaravos have an interaction because it would’ve been such a fun dynamic plus Aaravos looked so ecstatic to see that Kpp’ar was practicing self-eating magic that I’m sure that would’ve been a topic that led to a very interesting conversation

I haven’t seen many people talk about how Aaravos had isolated Claudia from Terry (her really good and healthy boyfriend who was her emotional support system) to lowkey make her dependent on him

Like Aaravos not only was the one who convinced Claudia not to tell Terry the truth about the Garden of Innocence which led to their breakup even though Claudia had clearly wanted to tell him and would’ve had Aaravos not interfered but he also told Terry about her not telling him (leaving out the fact that he TOLD HER not to) so he WOULD leave because he knew Terry wouldn’t have wanted that situation for him or Claudia even though Aaravos did not need to tell him for any other reason other then getting him to leave

"How does Aaravos care about Claudia when he’s manipulating her?" The thing is that Aaravos, for as much as he clearly does care about her and views her like a daughter, is way too blinded in his revenge for Leola to not continue having Claudia as his pawn in his grand scheme of things like he does care for her but his vengeance for Leola will always be his topmost priority.

Aaravos has even said that Claudia is his only light in this world and I do think that since he was trapped in a mirror for THREE CENTURIES without anyone nor knowing when anyone would come and find him plus his clear longing for wanting his daughter back plus the fact that everyone else hates him and fears him would make him desperate enough to the point that he literally drove Terry away from Claudia to make her dependent on him so she– really the only person he has left– wouldn’t leave both because he’s genuinely attached to her and because she’s an important pawn besides it’s clear that the father daughter dynamic had caught him by surprise/wasn’t planned and you can tell from the early seasons that she was always meant to be a pawn that he can’t afford to lose.

I was pondering a lot recently on why arc one Aaravos and arc two Aaravos had such different vibes (disregarding the fact that we as the viewers have tended to view him with more sympathy and pity since his backstory dropped because that can tend to make us think vibes have changed when it’s just our point of view that’s changed) and it literally just hit me. The entire point is that the vibes ARE different because Aaravos is focused on manipulating a whole new person in arc two.

In arc one Aaravos is manipulating Viren, a man who wants power. In this case, Aaravos doesn’t have to rely too much on trust (even stating that Viren shouldn’t trust him just yet at the very beginning) and needs to focus more on showing the power he has and the power he has to offer. And because of that, we see him as a very graceful and powerful man, someone who exudes extreme mystery because why wouldn’t he when there’s no reason to tell a man who doesn’t trust him anything super important/personal about himself and therefore we, as the viewers who know as much as Viren does, also view him the same way as Viren: a powerful Startouch archmage who’s knowledge is extreme and is immensely shrouded in mystery.

And because Viren doesn’t require a whole lot of trust for Aaravos to manipulate him, they never actually form a friendly bond together that’s more than just a few jokes and respect and you can tell that Viren doesn’t hold much of an emotional bond towards him at all when he gets annoyed at the "has our relationship truly escalated to this new height?” line because Viren does not feel that their relationship is more than acquaintanceship with how little trust is required amongst them.

But in arc two however, Aaravos is manipulating Claudia, an entirely different person who is so love-driven (and therefore so much more emotion-driven than Viren was) and has been alone (her dad dying and being dead for two years, assuming Claudia didn’t meet Terry till around the like one year of Viren being dead mark) for so long that Aaravos needs to rely on trust and emotional bonds more than just power (although that’s important too because he got introduced to her when Viren died) to manipulate her. And because of that, he has been so much more 'soft' and caring towards her that we no longer just see the all powerful and mysterious archmage, we see a man who has formed a bond with Claudia that goes past acquaintanceship that we never got to see with him and Viren.

That’s what made everything click for me, because I had asked myself 'why would Aaravos tell Claudia his backstory and not Viren when they have so many similarities with them both being fathers who would do anything for their kid(s) and it would make Viren trust him more?' It’s because Viren and Aaravos’ relationship never relied too heavily on trust and emotions while Claudia and his did because she’s a character who is so loving that she can’t seek out power (subsequently not follow anything Aaravos had said during his manipulation) without it being for love.

So in arc one, we only see one side of Aaravos, one that’s powerful and mysterious. In arc two, we see another side of Aaravos, one that’s caring and can be trusted by Claudia. The only times we really see arc one Aaravos in arc two is his conversation with Viren, his talk with Ezran, and the final battle because he’s no longer with people who are so emotion and love driven.

Something I’ve been thinking about lately is the fact that the Cosmic Council had said something along the lines of "Leola teaching magic to humans would plunge the world into chaos" and the fact that the chaos could very well have been Aaravos??

Like the (I forgot what it’s actually called, my apologies) future vision that comes from the star primal seems to come in more of a prophetic riddle than a play by play scene of what happens so maybe when they were looking at the future of what would happen they didn’t realize the chaos was Aaravos taking his revenge and they realized too late which is why they didn’t stop him because the chaos had become the Cosmic Order after the event of Leola’s death?? Just a thought that’s probably way off mark though

Since Aaravos went back to the heavens when he died and the other Startouch Elves up there can watch all the life on earth, I’m assuming Aaravos can do the same so like do you think he keeps an eye on Claudia from up there till the seven years are up?

I have nowhere else to post these actually so they will go here for now because I love aarastrid :3

This acc is slowly getting off track from my analyses but I genuinely do not know where to put these so deceitfuljest posting I cheered

They’re so funny to me

I wish we got more interactions of Terry and Aaravos because they were so funny to me and their dynamic was so amusing and interesting