#clavius

The Sorcery Trio - The Swan Princess 🦢

"Magnificent desolation" // Enda Kelly

Click below to see a few craters identified and some info about them!

“Cute new places keep on popping up around Clavius, it's all getting gentrified”

Clavius is a lunar crater located in the southern hemisphere of the Moon. In "2001: A Space Odyssey," (One of Alex’s favourite films) Clavius Base is a fictional lunar outpost where significant events occur in the storyline.

As many of you know, I absolutely ADORE The Swan Princess, its hand drawn sequels, and the fandom in general. Being a MASSIVE fan, I’ve heard criticism about the original trilogy even before the CGI sequels came into in existence. That’s something I either counter with correcting things they got wrong (Because people very frequently get things wrong about these movies) or just taking it with a grain of salt. However, one thing people point to is how the magic in The Swan Princess movies is confusing. Well, I’m here to explain how I think the magic works in the world of The Swan Princess. First of all, I’m only taking into account the hand drawn movies because the third movie was originally supposed to be the last movie and it really shows because of how there is a lot of continuity errors in the CGI movies. Now lets dive in.

Lets start with the original movie and how Derek’s vow of everlasting love didn’t work, despite that he said it was for Odette. It’s stated in the movie that he has to make a vow of everlasting love and prove it to the world. That is a statement that is vague enough to have plenty of grey area to mean anything. Odette wasn’t even sure how Derek would be able to prove it to the world. While Derek believed that proclaiming his love to Odette at the ball would be enough, it really wasn’t. What I interpret as proving it to the world is that Derek has to prove it to Odette, who is his entire world, as your true love is meant to be. At this point, Derek still hadn’t proven his love to Odette beyond just her beauty and as Odette said to her father, “I need to know that he loves me, for just being me.” While Odette does love Derek, she needs to know for sure he loves her for who she is and not just for her appearance. One might argue that the fact that he has been searching for her for a year, which the makers of the film confirmed is how long Odette was under Rothbart’s captivity, without giving up would be enough to prove it.

Skip to 2:26 to see the confirmation on how long Odette was in Rothbart’s captivity

However, Odette still needed to hear what he loves about her beyond just her beauty. Derek clearly does but had a hard time expressing himself, so he thought proclaiming his words of love at the ball will be enough. If you pay attention to his vow, it’s rather vague and doesn’t really say anything about who Odette is as a person, so it made Odette doubt that he could tell the difference between her and someone who just looks like her. Derek is skeptical of The Black Swan but still proclaimed his love, believing her to be the real Odette. However, since his vow was vague and didn’t really express his feelings for Odette, it wasn’t really specific enough to apply to the real Odette. He didn’t prove his love to the real Odette, so his vow not working because it was to the wrong girl makes sense when you think about it, despite that he said it was for Odette.

“Kings and queens! Ladies and Gentlemen!... Mother... I have an announcement to make. Today, I have found my bride. I present her to you as the future queen of our fair kingdom. And as proof of my love for her, I make a vow to break all vows. A vow stronger than all the powers of the Earth. Before you and before the whole world, I make a vow of everlasting love to Odette.”

Some have also questioned why the vow to the wrong girl would kill Odette, likely because it was stated much later in the film. However, it makes perfect sense when you think about it. A vow of everlasting love from the man she loves is what would free her from the spell she’s under, so it only makes sense that her true love proclaiming his love to someone who isn’t her would be what killed her. True love will set her free but the failure of true love will be her undoing. It also made sense for Rothbart to cast a spell that had these consequences because he probably believed it would pressure her into marrying him because if Derek moved onto someone else, she would die. Rothbart had the power to remove the spell permanently and he would’ve done so had she agreed to marry him in order for him to obtain her father’s kingdom. What he didn’t count on was that Odette wasn’t so easily submissive and had too strong a will for him to break. Odette even stated that she’d die before she’d marry Rothbart.

People have also questioned how Odette was brought back to life both in the original movie and in the third movie. I can explain both because while they are different, they have similar explanations. Odette’s death in the third movie was explained by the makers of The Swan Princess in the Q&A section of their monthly Chamberg Daily, which was actually a question that I asked. They explained that since it was magic that killed Odette, with both the magic user dead and the magic source destroyed, all the damaged caused by the magic was reversed.

Skip to 2:34 to hear their explanation

Since in the third movie, Odette was brought back to life once both Zelda and The Forbidden Arts were destroyed, it fits in with explaining how Odette was brought back to life in the original movie. Derek had killed Rothbart but Odette was still unconscious and didn’t immediately wake up once Rothbart was defeated. There is a reason for that, which goes along with what they said. Rothbart was destroyed but the source of his magic, The Forbidden Arts, wasn’t. As we learn in the second movie, The Forbidden Arts were hidden away deep in the castle at Swan Lake. After Rothbart had lost his power before by not keeping his magic hidden well enough, he wasn’t about to make the same mistake twice. The only ones that knew where they were hidden were Rothbart, Bridget (Also known as The Hag), Clavius, and Zelda.

Anyway, since the source of Rothbart’s power still existed, the magic still had a hold over Odette enough to where she was still under the spell and the consequences of Derek’s actions were still present. However, Odette was no longer dead but rather in a coma where she hung between the balance of life and death. Since she was now merely in a coma, she could hear everything going on around her, so she could hear Derek proclaim his love of everlasting love to her. But this time, he wasn’t as vague and was more personal in his declaration of love by stating that he had always loved her for her kindness and courage. He thought he had lost her forever and when someone loses someone they love, they are able to say all the things they couldn’t say before but now with regret for not saying it while the one they loved was alive. Derek was lucky enough to get that second chance because his vow of everlasting love was heard by the woman he loved and considered to be his entire world, which was enough to break the spell and awake her from her coma. Puffin even said, “Well, there you have it. Everlasting love,” so that is the movie acknowledging that everlasting love is what saved Odette.

In a way, this logic also applies to how Odette was able to turn back into a human in the second movie. While there wasn’t really a magic user that turned Odette into a swan but rather just Bridget, who didn’t actually absorb the magic like the villains did, using the orb. If Bridget had actually absorbed the magic, she would’ve used it on Clavius in order to keep him from getting the orb. So there wasn’t a magic user until Clavius absorbed the magic. However, once the orb and Clavius were destroyed, Odette still remained a swan. Why? Because The Forbidden Arts still weren’t gone. Rothbart’s notes, which were the formula for The Forbidden Arts, still existed. So this meant that there was still a flicker of magic left that kept her as a swan. However, since the powers were much weaker now, it meant that the moonlight could change Odette back into a human again and it wasn’t strong enough to change her back into a swan again when the moonlight left the lake.

This brings us back to the third movie where it was magic that killed Odette, which is much different from how her father was killed by Rothbart, which wasn’t really by magic, other than Rothbart using his magic to change himself into The Great Animal. Her father remained dead because his death wasn’t caused by magic, where as both times that Odette died, it was because of magic (Jean Bob’s death in the second movie was, I guess caused by magic, so Odette’s transformation managed to bring him back as well). However, once Zelda, the orb, and Rothbart’s notes were destroyed, it meant there was absolutely no source of magic left. This allowed Odette to arise from the ashes of what killed her and return to life in her human form because there was nothing to keep her dead or to keep her in her swan form after coming back to life.

Well, thank you guys for taking the time to read this. I hope you guys like it, reblog, and comment letting me know what you think. Also, did you know that The Swan Princess has an OFFICIAL Youtube, Facebook, Tumblr, and Instagram? They even interact with fans A LOT! Take a look!

https://www.instagram.com/swanprincessofficial/

@theswanprincessofficial

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCm_Q3k32sEVQbrANS7-vSjA

10. Tzekel-Kan (Road to El-Dorado)

9. Hexxus (FernGully)

8. ZigZag (The Thief and the Cobbler)

7. Mok Swagger (Rock and Rule)

6. Clavius (The Swan Princess 2: Escape from Castle Mountain)

5. Red (All Dogs Go to Heaven 2)

4. Ben Ravencroft (Scooby-Doo and the Witch’s Ghost)

3. Simone Lenoir (Scooby-Doo on Zombie Island)

2. Rasputin (Anastasia)

1. Eris (Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas)