#cable rant

Right off the bat, what I noticed immediately: This is a different punch than we’ve seen in the other Lloyd vision where Beatrix punches him (right). The lighting and background are different. Maybe this could be an indication that Beatrix is close to coming back? Either way, that sure is a way to start a teaser (I will be addressing the other part of that vision later)

Yay! Roby! By that selfie stick bit I am PRAYING that he *actually* has the personality that he does in that set promo video, because it now seems ever more like that. Also, hey! That’s one of the Explorer’s Club members! I’m assuming that he managed to find work in this Temple City after the Merge (good for him honestly tho he doesn’t look too thrilled)

Okay, this. We’ve already had this image as per the IMDB thing and we already assumed that it was Roby welcoming the ninja into the temple city, and through that I am going to assume that that image comes right after this one:

Which implies what I had already kind of guessed, and it’s that the ninja will have difficulty getting into the Temple City/ there will be some force trying to stop them. I actually first assumed this was the Imperium Hunters, but it seems like those are actually the Temple Guards.

Now, as per what I thought before and what I see here, I’m going to assume that this is a challenge already. In a sec I’ll talk about all the different kinds of challenges we see, because I think they’re quite interesting in of themselves, but because of that giant screen we see projecting the ninja (Lloyd and Nya) on Jiro behind Roby, this basically confirms to me that these Temple Guards aren’t there because they want to particularity stop the ninja from entering, but that they are just a sort of obstacle that any potential participant has to overcome in order to get into the city.

So, yay, the lizards aren’t being hurt just for the sake of it! How nice.

Then we’ve got this and. Uhm. Well first off what the fuck

But now to actually be serious, other people have already been saying this, and it’s the idea that the person sitting down (in what looks like almost a throne? Idk) is Nokt, and he’s sort of… half and half between the two worlds, which could bring about all sorts of things.

Edit: I have been made aware that this, in fact, probably isn’t Nokt (neither his body nor soul)

So what do I think this is? I have no fucking clue. I could say that this was my idea about Jordana getting mildly possessed by another FF that may have gotten out (because the way she acted at the end of p1), and honestly that seems to be the most plausible answer right now. Either way, to me, it looks like the other FF are either praying/ casting, or perhaps having some sort of meeting together? No matter what, it looks ominous as fuck, and something Kai and Bonzle (who we see walk up behind Kai) should probably not be walking into for their own safety.

*THIS* I find a very curious screenshot. Because yay Lloyd in his master robe HEWLL YEARH but also. He didn’t wear that before. In that IMBD picture we see him on the screen, and he is in fact wearing the green tournament suit.

I think what this implies is that THIS is actually for the The Feast episode, wherein I think they gave this sort of formal robe to Lloyd as a way to… I guess make him stand out as the leader of the group? Not to mention that they seem to be coming from a building and going into a new building and looking at something rather grand, which I can thus only assume is a big dining hall. I know people are saying that Arin looks too happy for it to be an episode farther in, but I honestly think it could be a facade. The fact that he’s holding open the door could imply that he feels the need to do something useful, at least.

However, the fact that Lloyd is wearing his robe also makes me think of another clip that we see:

I am going to say that I’m directly assuming these two things happen within the same episode. I haven’t seen anyone talk about how Lloyd is wearing the same outfit, and I think that’s with the assumption that he’s wearing this for the entire tournament which, as said, I don’t think is true.

What everyone IS talking about tho is the cloaked figure. Which, yk, is a cloaked figure. Of course I want to know who it is, but I have attempted my best at cross referencing any of the villain’s suits, and none of them match (A further post about that here). Which brings me to…

Something that I find very curious is that we don’t see any of Ras’ crew, except for Cinder. He’s the only elemental master they’ve got, and we don’t know whether Jay is *actually* gonna be there at all now, considering we didn’t see him whatsoever. Could this cloaked figure be Jay? Sure. But the suit doesn’t match up, either. Which made me realize that we don’t see any of the other fighters at all, really, which is… interesting, to say the least. Perhaps they’re just waiting to reveal what kinds of others powers there will be present at the tournament.

And since I was already talking about Cinder, let’s look at these screenshots, shall we?

What I get from the first one is that HORRAH Wyld vs Cinder rematch!! (Which means we can’t fully trust those fighting promo cards from a while ago because the fights don’t seem to completely match up). What else I get from it is that Shatterspin is allowed in the tournament, and by extension Rising Dragon! Which means that this is likely a tournament with rules similar to the Tournament of Elements, where the rules were basically that you could do whatever you wanted.

And for the second one. Good lord, I don’t even know. It just scares me, that’s all.

No, but, fr, what is happening. Why does he suddenly have Wyld’s power. Someone said this could be also like in the TOE, but instead of the loser’s element going to one person they go to the winner, which, yk, isn’t terrifying at all. You know what else isn’t terrifying at all? This bit:

I have much thoughts about this image, but I’m just gonna say what my first thought was, and it’s that this is Wyld accidentally setting something on fire, and then not being able to control it. Maybe even IN the Cinder fight. Maybe this is someone else causing it and Wyld gets blamed.

Either way, what I think is going to happen here is exactly that: WF gets blamed, and she will have to show that she’s grown as a person and wouldn’t just set things on fire anymore without reason, that she can help. Whether that works, or whether other people even believe her, is yet to be seen, I suppose.

(On a lighter note, I fucking love the little face of the flame on her back. The second letter seems to be a F, and the first one perhaps an R? I’m not quite sure. Anyways, it’s adorable.)

And speaking of adorable things:

GEO. HE’S HERE!!! He’s here and he’s cheering and I am going to selfishly believe that he’s cheering on Cole because GAH I need Geode to become real by the end of this season. God I hope no one at that Tournament is racist to Geo I would punch my screen

Ahem. Anyways. I guess what we can get from this is that those outfits seem to be spectator outfits rather than what the participants wear! And what we can get from that is that Geo will sadly probably not participate in the tournament. To be fair, it seems like only trained fighters will be attending, and despite Geo being able to kick ass, I don’t think he would be particularity good at it against people who have been training for who knows how long.

This also might imply he left the finder kids at the monastery in Mr. Frohicky’s care— which, yk, still leaves the question of how he gets to this tournament in the first place, as we do not see him in any of the screenshots where the ninja are still outside Temply City.

What I also realised from this is that we don’t see Euphrasia anywhere in this trailer. I’m still holding onto hope, so we’ll wait and see.

Then we’ve got all the Sora centric bits (which there seem to a lot of, which kinda tells me that she’s gonna be a focus and YES this will cause issues for Arin no one can convince me otherwise)

Anyways, as I said before, these images demonstrate to me what kind of challenges there will actually be within this tournament: Not just fights, but also what looks like a parkour and a race! Oh what joys. The first one actually kind makes me think that this is a challenge about ingenuity (due to that pole Sora is holding), but I might be reaching with that.

I didn’t get a screenshot of that lil Cole we see in that third clip as well, but I think that means we can safely assume that they're driving that combo vehicle we already have a set of, for which Cole gets the white and orange wedding suit! (Why? I don’t know. In my heart I'm choosing to believe everyone gets a similar outfit to that one.)

And that fuckass little dragon? I've got no idea. It kinda reminds me of Vania's dragon, Chompy, but also of those little Source Dragons Lloyd saw floating around his head right before he had the Master Dragon vision. Idk, it confuses me, so I'm choosing to ignore it lmao

And now the screenshots that I’ve been wanting to hold off on the longest… ho boy. Okay, there’s a lot here.

First off: This is before the tournament, and the next two images that I will be looking at are also before the tournament (the one with Lloyd falling), due to the fact that they are wearing their normal suits.

Second: The Matriarch. In the Kingdom of Madness area. As many people have already been guessing, this is likely where she thought to settle next after getting forced out of their previous home. But also, she looks… bigger? Idk maybe that’s just me. I also keep thinking that it’s the Energy, the Source Dragon that was imprisoned, or that it kinda looks like a bigger Zanth, but I’m probably wrong with that, as that doesn’t make much sense.

Either way, the kids seem to have to help her with something. And, to me, she almost seems… hurt? Like she didn’t call them there to chat or catch up with Riyu, but that she desperately needs help, perhaps something about her horde. Anyways, it concerns me deeply, especially with the next image in mind, which I cannot imagine being before that first one.

Other’s have been saying it and we all know it: that in the background looks like an Administration computer. The problem is that… it’s not the usual color (which was I think green? Berate me if I’m wrong)

So, what do I think happened here? I think the pictures directly correlate. I think what’s gonna be happening here is that the Matriarch wanted to move to this place within the Kingdom of Madness, the Administration was notified of the wrong kind of dragon activity, and is then trying to get them back out, most likely by capturing and deporting them, but maybe also something worse— who knows at this point. Somehow, the Matriarch got hurt, that’s for sure. Maybe she fought them, who knows. What I think will then happen is that either the kids attempt to find where they took the dragons, or they, too, will be captured and brought back.

What happens after this is entirely illusive to me. Of course they could be seeing Jay in that second screenshot, but somehow I doubt it (if this prediction comes true I’m gonna lose my fucking marbles). Either way they are seeing something that’s not normal, which has got to be something extreme, considering Arin has been in that place and has most likely told Sora about it. Maybe they just set off an alarm and that’s why it’s blaring red? Who knows. I sure don’t.

And these screencaps are just as a mystery (as said, these are very likely pre-Tournament, as Lloyd is still in his climber suit)

But what I haven’t seen a lot of people say yet is that we do know who that dragon is, as it appears to be Heatwave (you can see his face in that split second, in the first screenshot). It looks to me as if Lloyd was either deliberately jumping to one place and Heatwave caught him as to prevent that (for whatever reason?), or Lloyd somehow ended up in this falling situation, and HW is saving him (for whatever reason???). Either explanation scares me.

And last, but oh my god definitely not least, we have this clip of Motion. She is so gorgeous I don’t know what to say.

So I’ll just repeat what others have been saying, which is that this is likely in the first episode and the way that the ninja actually get their invitation.

Also I lied I do have smth to say: I feel like this could correlate to that one part at the beginning with Lloyd’s nightmare, where he also sees Motion. Perhaps Lloyd will be convinced that following this invitation will be a bad thing, since he saw it in relation to the other bad things (such as Beatrix punching him for a second time), but the others will convince him, for better or for worse.

Either way, this means that the invitation is personal. We can assume that this will not be some sort of trick by others, but that this is really Motion, inviting them to the tournament, as she was also one of the SDs that was up for helping Lloyd. This makes me ever more so believe that whatever the prize of the Tournament is could potentially result in Kai’s return.

So I think we all know the theory that Mr. E is/was actually Echo, and I’ve considered the actual reasons of why it would have been a perfect plot device.

We haven’t seen Echo since season 6, and besides all the one of jokes about it from Nya and Jay, we get no other talk about it. Tying in a loose end with a season that was literally forgotten by every character except for two, into a season that was already taking care to go back to so many past seasons and event would have fit the bill pretty perfectly. I think I speak for all when I say that bringing back Echo would have allowed for a greater expansion into his character and allowing him to actually become an entirely different character from Zane, giving him his own autonomy.

The way I would have done this is to not actually have a whole backstory flashback thing, since Mr. E never talked— keep that. Make people interpret whatever they want, and the rest other SOG members can give exposition; Something maybe about Echo almost getting scrapped but then being brought to the SOG for parts instead, but Harumi had a better idea. She reprogrammed him to go against what his father wanted to create and what his brother had become: No more protecting those who cannot protect themselves, only a soulless fighting machine that will see things to their end, no matter the opponent.

And that’s what I think would have really made this work so well— that contrast. Showing the differences between essentially the same person but put into two completely opposite circumstances. One went to a loving home with supportive friends, while the other went to a ruthless gang with adapting being the only option. Having Zane face this “alternative” version of himself, while not even being aware of it? Him trying to sway Mr. E into realising his humanity and not knowing it was literally programmed out of him for the sake of helping a crazy girl achieve her goals? Mr. E having a weird connection to Zane and actually being able to sparingly communicate with him for seemingly no reason? The eventual reveal of this being Zane’s “brother” and the realisation that there is no fixing this unless Echo was rebuilt from the ground up? None of this ever being able to happen because Emperor G destroys him? Zane trying to find him again only to realised he’s failed to do his duty for this last piece of family he didn’t even know he had? Yeah, that’s what I was thinking of seeing when I first heard the name Mr. E.

And about Crystalised: honestly, the reveal could have been all the way in this season, as long as they would have already been dropping hints since in season 8 or 9– and no I don’t just mean the gears dropping to the ground when Emperor G destroys Mr. E, I mean things like the aforementioned strange connection between Zane and Mr. E, or at the very least some other gears being scattered about. Emperor G destroyed a body made of metal and mechanics, it’s kind of expected that a gear or two would fall out.