#aether analyzes

Although he says he knows very little about the Twilight Realm, it is likely that this is a lie of omission. In Log 24 in Dawnlight, he mentions that he was told a lot of propaganda by the End, so it is likely that he was lied to about the Twilight Realm. With that being said, those lies are likely justifications for conflict or downplaying the End’s actions towards the Twilight Realm rather than information that would actively help Rythian know if he is there or not. It is also possible that he does have more information that about the Twilight Realm that he is omitting because it could lead to questions about his past that he is not ready to answer.

Furthermore, It is also worth noting that in episode 8 of Blackrock Rising, after it cuts back to Rythian he is staring at the sky/stars of the Twilight realm before saying “holy hell, where are we?” implying that he is familiar enough with the constellations of the Brightlands to be able to notice the difference. Being able to notice the difference, but not being able to recognize what the new constellations are shows his lack of general information about the Twilight realm. 

Additionally we know that he has “...heard stories of a lot of different places, but as far as [he] know-” and then he cuts himself off. Although we don’t know the last half of that sentence, perhaps it was something like ‘this doesn’t quite fit any of them’. He then lists the different realms as the Brightlands, the Nether, the End, and the Realm of Twilight. This could imply that those are the only realms, and if this is true then even with some false information, one would expect Rythian to realize where he is faster. That is unless practically everything he knows about the realm is wildly inaccurate - likely for the purposes of vilifying the enemies of the Twilight Realm to justify, and stop criticism of, the war. This would, then, require his statement about the endermen being the only contradictory piece of evidence he has to be untrue, or at least a lie of omission.

There are several reasons why he could have been given both false information about the Twilight realm and (seemingly) less information about it than one would expect from a warlord/someone important to the End’s plans. 

Option 1: Multi-Realm War

In case 1 the End is at war with everyone/many different realms (potentially beyond what Rythian named previously) independently and Rythian was only ever intended to conquer the Brightlands. This would either require there to be additional realms that Rythian does not mention in S3E9, or an invasion of the Nether. Although there isn’t much evidence for that in Blackrock, the presence of Enderman in the Nether and the comments Rythian makes about it in Dawnlight Chapter 4 could suggest that they had been repelled from the Nether. This could suggest that their previous presence was part of an invasion.

In this situation, he would not need to know much about the other realms they are at war with beyond nationalistic propaganda/justifications for the war. This could imply that there are other individuals with the same role as Rythian for the other realm(s) which does not directly have textual evidence that I can find, although we know very little about the specifics of the Enderborn as a concept. In S2E10 when Zoey is talking to John about the death of King Barry, she mentions that he was "slain at the hands of the Enderborn”. The specific usage of “the” and not “an” when describing the Enderborn implies that it is a specific position or something that only refers to one person (Rythian). 

It is important to note that Rythian initially seemed confused when Zoey mentioned the term “Enderborn” so it could be a term the Twilight Realm uses to describe Rythian specifically and in that case the usage of “the” only necessarily reflects that the Twilight realm cares about keeping track of Rythian specifically and the existence of others like him is up in the air.

Additionally, there could be endermen with more or less important roles in the invasion of different realms, but again we don’t have clear evidence for that, so in this scenario there would need to be something specific about the Brightlands that would require a general/warlord. It could just be that the presence of the other Yogs would warrant needing a more coordinated invasion. Although thematically I think a war against every realm fits well for the End/Ender Dragon, there are some issues with (existing) direct evidence for that idea. If certain things are fleshed out a bit more it is definitely a possibility, but not the most likely option at the moment - in my personal opinion.

As a final note Rythian taking a while to recognize the twilight realm, however, could also support the idea that there are many other inhabited realms (even if he didn’t mention them to Zoey in S3E9), with the delay in realizing where he is partially being due to a large number of options (maybe not mentioned because they were ruled out or he didn’t have much information on them). 

Option 2: The Brightlands as a Stepping Stone

In this situation, End’s war is primarily against the Twilight realm, but with the global anti-endmagic field, it is unable to fight them directly anymore. Rythian’s purpose, then, would be to conquer the Brightlands and raise an army to invade the Twilight Realm and disable the anti-endmagic field so that the full scale invasion can take place. In log 24 in Dawnlight episode 6, Rythian refers to himself as a "dutiful soldier” when talking about all of the things he had to unlearn. 

Using the term ‘soldier’ rather than something more specific, or even using the term ‘warlord’ or ‘general’ as in the end of series lore post, suggests that Rythian was not treated as someone who held a high rank, or that his relationship with the Ender dragon was that of a soldier and not of a general regardless of his eventual purpose. A soldier listens to orders while a general gives them. Even if the end goal was for Rythian to manage the occupation of the Brightlands, with where the plan was at the time he defected, he was not treated that way. With that in mind, it is very common for soldiers to only know the bare minimum necessary to complete their objective. If Rythian’s relationship with his role was that of a soldier, regardless of his future purpose, it would explain his lack of knowledge about the Twilight Realm. Considering that Rythian was raised on propaganda and “lies to make [him] a dutiful soldier”, keeping information about the Twilight realm to a minimum reduces the likelihood that he comes across contradictory information - potentially causing him to question the End and its war - while invading the Brightlands.

Option 3: “Deffensive” War

In S3E9 Rythian questions “what are [the endermen] after” in the Twilight realm. This is initially confusing for a few reasons because he understands that they should be blocked from existing in the realm but he does not seem to understand what they would want from the realm even if they could exist there. This implies that he does not see the Twilight Forest as a military target for the End. This combined with the high likelihood that some of his information about the Twilight Realm was false/based in propaganda (and the lack of information he has overall), it is possible that Rythian believes that the war the End is fighting is defensive rather than offensive. 

Endermen existing in the Twilight realm is confusing to him because the End is supposed to be on their back foot. His realization that it actually “makes a lot of sense” would then mirror his realization that the End is the aggressor (which tracks with the behavior of Endermen as well as the attack of Blackrock by the Ender Dragon herself in season 2). The conversation is somewhat cut short by the discovery of the labyrinth, so the direct evidence for this from season 3 ends there. Although this option does not have a lot of direct evidence for it, it also does not have much if any directly contradictory evidence, so it remains a distinct possibility. We will have to see if Dawnlight makes this scenario more or less likely. 

In any of these situations, the question of the End’s goal is still up in the air, so what do we know about the Ender dragon? 

We know from this post that the thought process in creating the character was someone who started out with good intentions but is now “too far gone to really be seen as anything but evil” as well as being “Maybe more a destructive force of nature, driven by a forces she can't really control, rather than an insidious manipulative malicious mind.”.

With her as the Ender Dragon kidnapping and raising a child soldier, it is clear that she - perhaps out of desperation - has grown to be more calculating than just a raw destructive force. 

In her backstory, the death of her father is “...the first time in her life she didn’t get what she wanted” and that she was “furious” that death “had taken something from her” and that “...even more so than grief, the Princess felt anger”. The combination of the wording around her father’s death being not getting ‘what’ she wanted (although a common phrase) and having had “something” taken from her shows that her grief for her father, although genuine, was less about losing a parent and more about losing an object. That in some ways she saw his death as a slight against her, a hit against her ego and her prowess as a sorcerer. After all, she had “She had surpassed them all” so why shouldn’t she be able to conquer death? 

It is additionally important that her reaction was to “[delve] deeper into her studies – on her own now” because although she was the most knowledgeable with magic, she did not seek to have peers. She, seemingly, only saw other mages as ways to get more information and that they had lost their value to her after teaching her all they knew. This further speaks to her ego because it suggests that she believed that she alone could defeat death and that (at the very least) others could not help her - if not that they would slow her down. 

Her thoughts about the ritual were that ”She would be immortal, as would her mother, and as many of the people in the kingdom as she could save”. The order here is important. First and foremost she cared about securing her own immortality, her personal victory over death. Although this was started due to the death of her father, the immortality of her mother comes second to her own. Only after her mother does she look to save her own people, and not even all of them, just (seemingly) as many as the ritual could handle. This speaks to her extreme selfishness and reflects that her many years of helping the people of her nation were likely because she enjoyed the praise that came along with it rather than out of a genuine drive to better the lives of those she is responsible for. 

Her selfishness also shines through in the structure of the ritual, she used herself as a “guiding beacon for all the magic in the world”, funneling it all through herself - taking magic from the world itself and cramming it where she can use it for her own personal goals. We know very powerful magical artifacts exist in the world of Blackrock (with a chalice of immortality originally being planned to exist in the Cabertown B plot), so the choice of using herself as a conduit is a power seeking move rather than a practical one. If she has the magic, then that secures her role as the strongest for the rest of time.

What, then, is her goal?

Well we know that it is unclear “How much of the Princess remained behind those terrifying eyes” but even before her transformation, she was no longer the young girl who spent her days helping her people. 

If she is waging a war against all other realms, then it is likely a broad scramble for power, seeking it wherever she can find it without much unique reasoning for each front of the war. The only thing special about the Twilight Realm, then, is its relationship to Zoey (and potentially the anti-endmagic field). She could be seeking more power to return herself to her human form, or she could be trying to find another realm to rule over now that her own is desolate and barren. Perhaps her mind has been so corrupted that she does not see the horror in the transformation of her people and seeks to spread her warped version of immortality to others. There are a lot less restraints on her possible motivations in a broader conflict, but each possibility has something compelling about it.

If the war is mostly against the Twilight realm, however, then much more information about the Ender Dragon’s mental state/plans can be extrapolated. This applies regardless of if Rythian believes the war was defensive or not. With the existence of (and seeming exclusion of) the Nether, and assuming the Brightlands is being used as a stepping stone for an invasion to bypass the anti-endmagic field, then there must be something specific about the Twilight realm for her to focus on it. Although we don’t know much about the Twilight realm, from log 24 we know that “The throne has a lot of power”. Assuming that this isn’t a plot twist where the physical throne holds the power, then the ruler of the Twilight realm (Zoey) holds an immense amount of the realm’s power and does not suffer the same kind of physical transformation that the Ender Dragon endured.

With many of the Princess’ later actions stemming from a place of ego, it is not a stretch to say that she likely interpreted the physical changes to her (and to a lesser extent her citizens) as a slight against herself, especially upon finding out that it doesn’t happen to the ruler of the Twilight realm. She could then be seeking that power as a way to return herself to her previous physical form so that she can live immortality as she had imagined it. 

So far in Dawnlight, Rythian has not been put in any situations where the combination of his coping mechanisms and support system have been overwhelmed, so we don’t have much information about how this version of the character would react differently to Blackrock!Rythian. From how he has reacted to the memory flashes in his dreams and with log 24, he still retains the impulse to obsess over a problem until he has a solution to the point of forgoing his own wellbeing (in the former case). Unlike his predecessor, he has always had others around him to help pull him out of the spiral and encourage him to take care of himself. Because this tendency to spiral still exists, it is reasonable to assume that he would react similarly to Blackrock!Rythian if the support system was removed.

Blackrock is full of negative feedback loops of interacting coping mechanisms. So far, the Dawnlight crew seems to be relatively well balanced. Now that Kirsty is more trusting of Rythian, she is rather level headed and strategic when faced with a problem, and Briony excels in keeping the tension in the group down so that no one is overwhelmed - and that no one retreats to unhealthy and conflict-inducing coping mechanisms. Out of the three, Rythian is the largest source of instability, likely a combination of the deep lack of control amnesia leaves him with and the feeling/knowledge that whatever is happening is (in part) directly his fault. 

All of this leaves two major types of situations that would lead to the emotional dam overtopping: 1) the gang gets split up and each person no longer has the others to rely on, with Rythian is left to spiral, Kirsty is not given the time to process and assess threats, and Briony is not able to avoid direct conflict or 2) the plot moves in a direction that hits Kirsty or Brony’s weak points *hard*. This could be Kirsty needing to face what happened in Peony either directly or through feeling that it (whatever ‘it’ is) is happening again. Rythian’s tendency to spiral combined with an overtaxed Kirsty adding fuel to the fire either by regressing in their trust of Rythian/others or even two members of the group being so stressed that they refuse Briony’s attempts to lower the emotional temperature.

The case where Briony is the other domino to fall is a little more difficult to try and predict, but we do know that she has been lying about her pilgrimage. There could be more that she is lying about/hiding from the group and that being revealed at an inopportune time could easily lead to her breaking down, especially if her attempts to cool the situation are interpreted by the others as attempts at deflection. Alternatively, as the scale of things continues to get bigger and bigger and the threat of TEEF becomes harder and harder to ignore, Briony (as someone from a seemingly idyllic small community) could easily be overwhelmed by the scale of the threat/destruction. 

It is, of course, possible (although perhaps less likely) that Rythian is the one attempting to be level-headed while the others are overwhelmed and that would likely be due to a similar situation. Kirsty and Briony get overwhelmed by everything that is happening and perhaps Rythian has gained more control of the large stores of magic within him, giving him confidence in the moment that the others lack. They could want to abandon the quest because, at the end of the day, it is way beyond what they signed up for.