#fablehaven meta

It seems like a good idea though since I'm actually posting about one fandom for once and my main blog has… a mishmash of assorted things.

Like. Kendra is a smart, badass, powerful young woman who is traumatized and anxious and carrying the weight of the world on her back when all she really wants is to keep her people safe, but because she's lawful and responsible and good she takes on all those burdens anyway- and oops, this was supposed to be about brackendra not a Kendra Marie Sorenson appreciation post my bad. Anyway

So, lots of us have noticed how young Raxtus seems, he honestly reminds me of my younger sister, if slightly more mature.

Well, going with the knowledge that interaction with mortals is what causes them to age, and the knowledge that Raxtus hasn’t really interacted with mortal beings much based on how he talks to them, his age is actually fairly young.

I’d say at the start, when we meet him, he’s around 13-14 mentally.

Brandon confirmed that he was a younger teenager mentally, but didn’t give me an exact age so that’s my closest estimate.

This is a good explanation for why he sticks so closely to his dad, even with how he’s been treated.

He’s effectively a child trying to get his dad’s approval, and no child really wants to fight their parents. The fact that he does in the end is so so brave, especially knowing how young he is mentally.

This also explains why he seems to have grown some (mentally), maturing and taking a stance. He’s interacting with Kendra fairly often now, a mortal being, so he would grow some from it. He’s probably still around the same age, if that much interaction was enough to age them then Bracken would be way older from the prison alone. But he’s growing and learning and understanding.

Ok, so we all know that Ronodin taking Seth is an “obstacle” part of the plot and drama and Ronodin’s probably gonna use him and manipulate him and Kendra but him it’s also a plot device for Seth to get a power-up.

He’s a shadowcharmer, but he barely scratched the surface of his abilities and it’s kind of important part of his character. 

In order to move on with character development and the plot, he and Kendra are probably going to train/learn/practice their abilities/statuses more. I don’t know if Kendra as fairykind can do more than we know fairykinds can do (besides understanding the magical languages of light creatures, seeing in dark, being a magical power source, being resistant to magical fear and mind manipulation, commanding fairies and generally being in fairies favour) but it’s known that shadowcharmers can have almost wizard-y abilities like dimming the light etc.

Seth resented demons and he would make another deal with any of them only as a last resort and in the moment his shadowcharmer abilities weren’t exactly nr one priority having the dragon crisis. Magical creatures “of light” probably can’t teach him any shadowcharmer skills - it’s likely that only the creatures of the dark and other shadowcharmers (unless they also count as creatures of the dark, as we know that dark doesn't mean evil). 

Nevertheless, Seth wouldn’t have trusted any of the demons or creatures of dark - for good reason - and he wouldn’t trust the only other shadowcharmer we know, Sphinx. Maybe if the Fablehaven Squad had more time and fewer problems, the would be able to find somebody to teach him, but that’s impossible at the moment. 

... so that leaves Seth without a teacher/master/chaperone of the shadowcharmer skills. Without losing his memory and Ronodin kidnapping him,   he wouldn’t learn any shadowcharmer tricks soon. 

Not only is he a hypocrite, he's a delusional, self assured, hypocrite.

"the best way to avoid being the slave is to be the master"

- The Sphinx, Keys to the Demon Prison

What I get from that is he's happy to enslave others, as long as he's the master.

"as master I will release the prisoners and create a world without slaves"

- The Sphinx, Keys to the Demon Prison

He says without slaves, but using the term master counters that.

The comments made about the different beings on the preserve also contradict it. He has the one being tied up and enslaved to him guarding the secret exit to the prison, he has the sphinx bound at the entrance to the fairy queens shrine.

He says preserves are bad, oh except when he's in charge, it's fine then.

His whole plan to *free* the demons seems less like he's trying to free them for real, and more like he's trying to create some sort of utopia, with him as the supreme ruler.

He's willing to turn away if the demons don't obey, is that not the same thing that the dragons faced to be put in preserves? They were defeated and their only choice was to be killed off or agree to the terms of their surrender.

It sounds like the sphinx is doing the same, the demons can stay imprisoned, or they can bow to him and swear themselves to what he wants.

He doesn't want the world destroyed, he wants to rule it. And he doesn't even really hide it.

He wants to be known, he wants a kingdom to leave behind, a legacy.

He's a filthy hypocrite that wants to rule and has twisted *morals* that he uses to justify what's really the slave turning around to be the master.

He admits to wanting to be the master.

Okay! So I talked to Brandon Mull, a while ago lol, and we got to the subject of dragons taking human form.

Dragons taking human form is apparently more like an advanced illusion, they cloak their dragon nature, thus appearing human.

Cloak is the word he uses, thus I’m basing the rest off of that.

As dragons can only cloak their appearance, theories on dragons having more draconic appearances make sense and are likely valid. The younger dragons especially are probably not that good at looking fully human, pointed ears, perhaps scattered scales, absurd hair colors, that sort of thing.

Then of course, that means that they could theoretically cloak their appearance half-way. Which opens up fun stuff like humans with dragon wings and horns, which would look awesome.

Now, onto Raxtus.

Raxtus is effectively half fairy due to them taking his egg to the shrine.

This means that while he can cloak his dragon half, he can’t (or doesn’t know how) to cloak his fairy half.

This explains why when he takes “human” form, he instead looks like a fairy. He’s only cloaking half of his power, if he want’s human form he’ll have to cloak the fairy half as well.

But fairies aren’t shown having that ability, unicorns are, but not fairies. So it might not be possible for Raxtus to cloak that part of himself, which is a bit sad cause he so badly wants to fit in. But it’s also amazing, he’s so unique and incredible!

I have some ideas about it.

Kendra gained her "magic" in the first book. Assuming that her ability comes from her magic (like how Seth had to use his to stand against the dragon in motpi) then it seems as simple as the fact that she's had her magic longer.

Think about it, the magic would change her over time. She's really not fully human at this point, such high quantities of fairy power has to to have changed her. And it would make sense for that to take time.

So by the time she's standing up to celebrant calling him out and telling him to slink back to his hole worm, she's had her power for three/four years.

And the stress of standing against celebrant would be a good motivator for her power to really give her that boost to be able to speak.

Seth has had his power for one/two years. It isn't surprising that he hasn't reached the same level of change from his power.

Ronodin helped teach him how to use the power, how to focus it, so Seth didn't have to wait for his power to reach the point of helping him be immune subconsciously.

Kendra has no one guiding her in her power, it's purely instinct, Seth does have someone guiding him. So Seth is figuring out his powers sooner than Kendra, it's just he got them after her so it seems like he's going slower.

Really Seth is ahead of her now, he knows how to do stuff with his power actively. Kendra can only let her power do what it does naturally. She needs a teacher like how Seth got taught by ronodin (even if ronodin didn't exactly ask permission first).