࣪𖤐.ᐟ

this is just one reason, but, as a person w bpd, Peril is SO bpd coded. i haven’t gotten to her book yet, but even from the first few scenes i saw her in it was so clear to me!!! the abuse queen scarlet puts her through and the trauma she goes through as a newborn dragonet, believing she is inherently a monster, everyone seeing Peril as dangerous and a threat even though her circumstances and upbringing aren’t her fault, her attatchment to Clay and how she views other dragons that are close to him, her not knowing exactly the right way to interact w other dragons due to the affects of how Scarlet treated her—i could go on, and probably will in another post when i get to her book. There is a lot of amazing representation in WOF regarding the effects of trauma, specifically traumatic childhoods, but Peril stands out to me so much. i’ve read a snippet of her book already (but there’s a lot in the scenes in ‘the dragonet prophecy’ and ‘the brightest night’ too!!) and even the way Tui writes Peril’s internal dialogue is just so accurate to my own experience w bpd. when i get to her book i know i’ll have so much more evidence and a TON more to say, but i just wanted to get this out bc i can’t stop thinking about her.

Why did she choose to challenge Queen Coral when she was only 7 years old? we don’t really know what type of relationship Orca and Coral had, or why Orca decided to challenge Coral when she did. at first i thought it was because the queen was going to try to use her animus powers in the same way she is using Anemone, but Orca hid her powers from the queen. was it because she hated queen coral and wanted to be queen so badly that she couldn’t wait longer?

clearly she thought she would win the challenge, her statue in the nursery being already enchanted to kill future heirs BEFORE she entered the fight proves that. But Queen Coral ended up winning, and as she was dying Orca said “I did this all wrong. you’re going to rule forever, aren’t you, mother? you should thank me…” … but if Orca was an animus dragon could she not have won the fight easily using her powers? she probably wanted to keep her powers hidden, but because nobody knew she had magic, could she not have quietly used magic to assist her and make it look like it was a natural kill instead of a magical one? she would have saved her own life and secured her win by doing that. did she care about it being a fair win enough to not use her powers? or was there another reason?

if she was concerned about her soul turning evil from using her powers to kill Queen Coral, i’d understand not wanting to use them during the fight. HOWEVER … isn’t the concept of her statue pretty dark? it implies that—if Orca had won—she would have just been completely fine with every single one of her female eggs being smashed. now that could be just how Orca was; just kind of ruthless and power hungry (ig ?), and willing to see her eggs die if it meant she wouldn’t have competition for the throne. but, could it also have been partly because of her soul beginning to turn due to the use of her Animus powers? we don’t really know how much she used them or what she was using them for. though the statue would lead us to believe she used them—at least sometimes—for selfish reasons, which could mean that her soul had begun to turn slightly.

if Orca had enchanted the statue as she was dying as a way to take revenge on queen coral, her whole situation would have made more sense. but based on the fact that she chose to challenge the queen so young, AND she wanted to ensure all her own dragonets would be murdered just so she could remain queen, it kind of seems like her soul was already being corrupted by her powers. but if she had been corrupted, did nobody notice any changes in her behavior or thinking? even if they were subtle changes.

Because even when queens plan ahead and think about how to keep themselves from being challenged for the throne, they usually have at least one dragonet who’s a direct heir, even if they take measures to keep control over them. because longevity of your own kingdom and species is obviously (or, at least most likely) important to every type of queen, even if it’s for selfish reasons, because every clear-thinking dragon knows they won’t live forever. unless it was Orcas plan to win the queen challenge and then secretly enchant herself to live forever like Jerboa I?? would she have kept her animus powers a secret as queen??