#i wonder ...

Bats nursing their young could be a giveaway, but if in such a world the platypus was also misclassified as a bird prior to the milk being discovered, then it might be assumed they were both lactating birds 

Some beaks have ridges inside that look kind of like teeth, and there are feather tufts which resemble ears, and bat fur could be excused as unusually-formed feathers. 

Basically I think that, if bats laid eggs, people would assume they were birds, and confirmation bias would keep that theory going up until genetic testing became a thing, so we’d confirm they were mammals around the same time we found out cetaceans were ungulates. 

And it finally jumped out at me how Odette and Rothbart both refer to the kingdom he’s trying to take over as her father’s kingdom, rather than her kingdom. 

“Now, look, Odette. This sort of thing [cursing her to turn into a swan by day] doesn’t give me any pleasure - well, maybe a teensy bit, but - but what I really want, is your father’s kingdom.”  “Take it, then. You have enough power.”  “Nah - tried that already. You see, once you steal something, you spend your whole life fighting to keep it. But ... if I marry the only heir to the throne ... we’ll rule your father’s kingdom, together! Legally! King ... and Queen. You know.”  “Never!” 

“Your knight in shining armour has come to set you free. All it takes is one little word. Will you ... marry me?”  “Every night, you ask the same question.”  “No, no -”  “And every night, I give you the same answer.”  “Don’t!”  “I’ll die first.”  “... You’re really starting to bug me.”  “I should think you’d be used to it by now.”  “That’s it! Just keep pushing it! But one day, I’m gonna boil over!”  “Go ahead then! But I’ll never give you my father’s kingdom!” 

I can see Rothbart using that term because of his specific beef with King William. (“Someday, I’ll get my power back! And when I do, everything you own, everything you love ... will be mine.”) 

It could also be a power dynamic thing, trying to keep Odette from thinking of the kingdom as ‘hers’, to make her more willing to cede power to him by naming Rothbart as King instead of Prince Consort if she accepts his proposal of marriage. 

But it’s weird Odette also called the kingdom her father’s rather than hers. 

Until it occurred to me to wonder - when does Odette learn that her father died? Because King William was still alive, if mortally wounded, when she was kidnapped. 

Odette is possibly under the impression, for the duration of her curse, that King William is still alive and ruling, rather than her kingdom being left without a monarch while she’s missing. (I presume her kingdom had a regent in place who took care of things during summers William and Odette were in Derek’s kingdom, and that's who was running things until she came back.) 

So Odette is turning down Rothbart’s proposals on the assumption Rothbart is talking about an eventual plan to take over her father’s kingdom someday, not an immediate plan to take over her kingdom as soon as she says “I do”. She might even think her refusals are working as a delay tactic to protect her father from assassination. 

Based on how fierce Odette was when she was younger, and how dangerous swans can be, I’m pretty sure she did not find out King William died until after her curse was broken, because I’m pretty sure she would have physically attacked Rothbart over that. 

Plus she would’ve, you know, grieved her father’s death, and that would maybe have been more important to her emotionally than pining for her love interest. 

Protected it from what, exactly? 

We’ve heard about Queen Coranda and King Fialkov taking a super-weapon off-planet after the (most recent) time that mercenaries tried to steal it; choosing to fortify planetary defenses instead of sending their army on a vengeance-hunt against the Zerons after a major bombing, according to Vex; and arguably ‘preserving the resources and interplanetary political interests of their own planet’ by withdrawing aid from another planet that was tearing itself apart through warfare. Also sacrificing their lives to power a laser cannon fired at the guy who stole their throne and turned himself into a ‘god’.

“Voltar? That planet still exists?” “Barely. It’s been mostly reduced to rubble after a keltons-long war.” s2e4, Mother’s Day “When my planet was besieged by war, we begged House Tarron for help. When we needed help the most, they left Voltar to burn.” s2e5, Ill-Gotten Gains 

I mean, we don’t know a ton about what happened with Voltar, but I assume Coranda and Fialkov had some way of justifying that decision to themselves, and from how the Heirs To The Throne hadn’t heard about it, it sounds like withdrawing aid from Voltar did not have a large-scale negative impact on Akiridion-5′s interplanetary reputation. It certainly didn’t affect House Tarron’s on-planet reputation, considering their citizens seem to worship the royal family. 

(Really. It’s literally described as ‘worship’ when some of Morando’s soldiers bust up a shrine to the missing royal family. 

“The royals are dead. Public worship of royals is forbidden by order of King Morando.” s1e13, Bad Omen)

The first episode also implies that the formation of House Tarron stopped a long-running civil war on their own planet. 

“For hundreds of keltons, Akiridion-5 stood divided between two houses; the House Akrom, of my ancestors, and House Ventis, of my husband's. Today, we celebrate the joining of these two great houses into House Tarron.” s1e1, Terra Incognita Part 1 

This means House Tarron has only been around for a short time, depending on the lifespans of Akiridions and how long Coranda and Fialkov have been married. Unless Krel and Aja have a sibling we never met, or relatives who symbolically left their ancestral houses to join the new one, House Tarron has only had four members.

Morando accuses the royals of ‘holding back’ Akiridion-5′s tech and weapons development. 

“For too long, the technological advancement of our planet has been repressed by the hollow virtues of House Tarron. But under my leadership, the brilliant minds of Akiridion-5 have been liberated. We can now finally guarantee the everlasting security of our people. From here unto eternity, our enemies will surrender, or they will die at the hands of this Ocular Mechanically Engineered Neutralizer.” s1e9, Lightning In A Bottle 

This was at least partially an excuse to justify his own construction of a robot army after taking power, but if he really expected that justification to be accepted, it raises the question: 

What, exactly, do the Akiridions believe they are in danger from, against which they need a royal family to ‘protect’ them?

Is it just ... general protection? Like, does the royal family act as a security team for the planet, like the Trollhunter does for Trollmarket? 

“If this Omen-Blank is as dangerous as you say, we need the royals now more than ever.” s1e11, Truth Be Told

That would explain why Krel was expected to spar during his coronation, and why Coranda and Fialkov took an active role in defending Galen’s Core from the Zeron Brotherhood ... but in that case it makes Absolutely No Sense that Aja, as a Princess, wasn’t supposed to be taught to fight. 

(I’d been ‘justifying’ that as House Ventis having different traditions and Krel getting the same coronation ritual his father had when he was recognized as Heir, while Aja would’ve undertaken whatever the ritual was for the Heir to House Akrom; except that flashback about the time the Zerons nearly stole Galen’s Core showed Coranda was a fighter as well. Maybe she, like Aja, trained despite tradition against it. I don’t know.)

Or is it an abstract, imagined protection, possibly something that Akiridion-5′s "great houses” have used to claim and retain their power? “We protect you, so you don’t have to be afraid!” “Afraid of what?” “Exactly. You’re welcome.” 

Or is it a metaphor carried over from the legend of Seklos and Galen? Seklos had four arms, which Vex tells Blinky is a ‘royal’ characteristic. The fact the cannon that killed Morando needed to be powered by two royal cores, rather than, say, Vex’s and one of the royals’, suggests the cores of the various Akiridions have different physical properties and/or energy wavelengths. 

(Also, if the cannon needed two cores for its power source, how did Seklos beat Galen on her own? Did she have a double-core? Akiridion equivalent of a parasitic twin? Was she pregnant? Was she of similar ‘godly’ power as Galen and just needed the cannon to give her an edge in a fight?) 

Anyway, the legend as the Tarron siblings knew it said Seklos protected the universe from Galen, and if that legend is well-known and four arms are an uncommon trait, I could see a belief developing in their culture that four-armed people are good protectors and leaders. 

But, tie that into the bit about Galen’s Core originating on Earth, and Krel choosing to stay on Earth, and ... 

"Why aren’t you at practice?” Coach Lawrence demands in the first episode, confirming Steve does play on at least one of the Arcadia Oaks High sports teams. 

But which sport? 

We see Steve playing soccer one-on-one a couple of episodes later. 

In the novel (the original book the show is based on, the one where Steve is revealed as a Changeling at the end), he’s constantly dribbling a basketball, and also on the football team. 

I’ve seen multiple fics writing him as being on the football team, but that seems to be more due to ‘high school fiction’ tropes than hard evidence presented in the series.