#kim'dael

It's not exactly... positive. Now, some of this is because of their mental states. Sol Regem lost his beloved mate a thousand years ago, lost his position as the king of the dragons, and been effectively cut off from Xadia's political sphere / the other archdragons for a long time. Rex Igneous is similarly isolated (though it seems more self-inflicted) and we know he had a previous falling out with Avizandum (presumably over Zubeia). We also see Zubeia grow increasingly listless both times she falls ill / almost loses her family (S3, 5x09) so it seems that despite being very rare and accordingly isolationist, Archdragons don't tend to do well alone and without families (understandably).

But the verdict seemingly from at least 2/4ish known archdragons is that

In this way, the Archdragons' view of their quasi-immortality isn't that different from how Aaravos views his literal one:

The stars have never smiled upon their creations. This world was made by cruel, unfeeling hands. It is an instrument of pain, of torment. To exist within this world is to suffer. Even death is no reprieve.

So what about the characters who disagree to the point of doing terrible things so that they can exist forever?

Kpp'ar and Kim'Dael (Crafted Immortality)

Although there's only two characters in the "dark magic induced immortality" category, they paint two such completely different pictures that, in many ways, it shows the full spectrum of just how one can achieve an unnatural immortality.

On the one hand, we have Kim'Dael, who takes dark magic's canonically to its long believed natural conclusion of cannibalism. Kim'Dael takes parts (blood) from magical creatures (in this case, elves) and consumes it to enhance her own abilities and her livelihood. This doesn't always mean fully killing and draining someone, but often can (Bloodmoon Huntress) with multiple individuals / sometimes whole families at a time as she must experience semi-regular rejuvenation; it is unknown if she needs to eat or consume anything else in her day-to-day life.

Her magic use was also confirmed to be a form of dark magic in this interview:

the way that she does, is beyond primal magic. She’s found ways through dark magic to extend her primal moon powers. It’s very evil how she is able to do what she does and extend her life

Despite the dragons who don't have to work to be immortal being far more despondent about their long, long lives, it's not hard to think of reasons why Kim'Dael would want to be immortal. Death is a scary unknown, she (like Finnegrin) is out of tune with her primal knowingness on a fundamental level, and she can do so without harm to herself. Like most dark mages we've seen, her dark magic use requires using and taking from the people around her more, accordingly, than it's taking from her. She takes from others to give herself power: dark magic 101.

Kpp'Ar's search for immortality is way fucking weirder, IMO. It's not necessarily that dark mages, or dark magic, never uses the caster's body for spells. It inherently saps energy (hence the white streaks, nosebleeds, collapsing, etc) and drains life from the body; each spell harms the caster in at least a small way. It's also not like we've never seen a dark mage use their own body parts for a spell; Claudia uses and drinks her own blood mixed into the pentapus ink in 5x09, and Viren mutilates his own heart in 6x08 rather than use someone else's.

It's just, that if Kim'Dael has a way to chase immortality that does mean using somebody else's body... why on earth would you use your own?

It seems that before his change of heart, Kpp'Ar was experimenting with one of the darkest of all magics. A way of extending life. Indefinitely. A horrible and strange kind of immortality. The ancient and disturbing practice of self-eating.

Now, some of this may come down to access or skillset. Presumably Kim'Dael could drink human blood and use it for her spells, since the arcanum of the elf she's drinking from doesn't seem to matter. However, even if you can use human blood, Kpp'Ar at this point was older and used a cane (if we assume this was a later in life pursuit, and not over decades); he likely wasn't going to be able to kidnap and haul back anyone but children back to Puzzle House, and while we know he's willing to sacrifice children (6x06) it's not canonically clear if he's willing to use them.

Either way, we know Kpp'Ar was pursuing immortality as well as the location of the Garden of Innocents concurrently. We don't know if this was interrelated, but we do know that unicorns are connected to the Star arcanum, which is presumably what makes First Elves immortal-ish so... maybe? It's not clear why Kpp'Ar would want immortality in general, especially that type of immortality, for himself, but clearly there will be a reason. It could be that he wanted to transfer it to someone else (Soren) and gave up, but that's not fundamentally different than what Kim'Dael does, so... again: why himself?

(Arc 3 come home to me)

Cannot Die

Last but not least, we have Aaravos + the other First Elves in the 'cannot die' category, except when they can (Leola). I've written more before about how... odd the info surrounding what the Cosmic Council can and cannot do and what we may be missing, for lack of a better term. Quick rundown:

The Cosmic Council can execute Startouch elves. Aaravos did not have enough power to stop them. (*At the time of Leola's death, as things may have changed since then)

Aaravos seems to be utterly unconcerned that the Cosmic Council conceivably could, if they became aware of his actions, execute him in the same manner. Aaravos does not seem to care if they notice, given that he asks, "Are you watching?" in 7x08.

When Aaravos' mortal form (like the one Leola had/used on earth) is destroyed in 7x09, there are noticeable visual differences to the destruction of his daughter's.

Aaravos seems to want to bring the First Elves into "this world" as it is an instrument of pain that begets only suffering, and "I want them to suffer."

We also know that Aaravos believes the First Elves don't care about / love their creations at all, so destroying the earth can't be the endgame goal. We also know that something is keeping Aaravos from accessing/attacking them, otherwise he would've done so before being imprisoned.

Presumably, something in the interim has changed with either 1) Aaravos is no longer able to die or 2) He has found a way to be able to kill the other First Elves if they went after him, rather than the other way around. Potentially dark magic is the road to get there, or a form of ancient magic the First Elves tried to keep hidden that became the basis for dark magic.

The provided answer on whether Kim'dael was involved intentionally muddies the waters by suggesting that we question whether Kim'dael and Luna Tenebris even had an adversarial relationship—something we just kind of assume because other Moonshadow elves clearly fear and hate her. However, we also know that the zeitgeist among primal elves doesn't necessarily always align with their archdragon, and can even diverge dramatically, as with the Sunfire elf monarchy and Sol Regem. For Kim'dael to have Luna Tenebris's blessing, even covertly, would reframe a lot of stuff about Luna, the archdragons, the dragon monarchy, and possibly even the primal sources themselves, but none of that makes it impossible.

I'm not going to devote a ton of thinking to "what if Kim'dael and Luna Tenebris were besties, actually" because there's a big hole in the way that's being framed for us... we're being asked to question whether replacing Luna with another archdragon would necessarily benefit Kim'dael. The obvious answer is that it probably wouldn't... but replacing her with no archdragon definitely could. Given that the aftermath of Luna's death is a succession crisis, which Aaravos exacerbates by removing Aditi before she can resolve it, "no archdragon" seems like a strong contender for the intended outcome. It's not clear whether Aaravos's plan at that point was the same "eternal night" as in s7, but if it was? I'm sure Kim'dael wouldn't say no to "eternal Blood Moon."

A far more interesting question that isn't being stated outright, but I think is the kind of thing it's being hinted at that TDK will make us ask, is what was in it for Avizandum to wipe out Kim'dael's cult?

It's outright stated that TDK is absolutely going to challenge what we know/assume about Avizandum's ascension—something that we really only know about through Zubeia's account of what happened, and that account completely skips how exactly it was decided that Avizandum would be king. All we actually know is that Luna Tenebris's death without a "suitable" heir caused conflict between the other archdragons over who would take the throne. (Honestly, I wouldn't be super surprised if we technically don't even know that.)

How long that conflict may have lasted is the sticking point of the whole situation with differing accounts about Kim'dael. In The Queen's Mercy, she goes to Aditi after her cult has already been purged, seeking protection from "the dragons." However, we know that Aditi's disappearance occurred before she was able to broker peace among the archdragons by determining which of them should take the throne. So if, as Karim states, Avizandum "seized" power and abolished the cult? Well, the logical conclusion is that the power Avizandum seized was, at that point, not actually the throne. Possibly only technically, but still... why target the Blood Moon cult? A few immediate possibilities occur to me:

What we initially kind of assumed is accurate: Kim'dael and the cult killed Luna, and Avizandum (even before coming out on top in the fight for the throne) destroyed them as retaliation or just to discourage people from thinking about killing dragon monarchs. Alternately, Kim'dael and the cult were framed for killing Luna by Aaravos, with the same aftermath.

The cult either killed Luna or was framed for it, and were also so hated among Moonshadow elves that Avizandum wiping it out would gain him their support as contender for king. This could still work if the cult was known to not be involved in Luna's death, if there was sufficient hatred of it and/or resentment of Luna having possibly tolerated it to some degree (if she did).

Whether or not the cult killed Luna, they're involved with Luna's heir in some way that was a threat to Avizandum (or any other archdragon) taking the throne. Like, maybe it was an egg at the time, and the cult could have hatched it when the other archdragons were content to leave it as-is.

Luna's heir was considered unsuitable because of involvement with the cult, possibly to the extent of killing or being credibly framed for killing Luna themselves. The succession crisis kicked off when the other archdragons exiled the heir and Avizandum wiped out the rest of the cult that might have supported them.

At this particular moment in time, my money is personally on some version of "Aaravos either manipulated Kim'dael into killing Luna, or else killed her himself and framed Kim'dael for it." If something came to light after all the Aaravos Fuckery(tm) suggesting that Kim'dael was framed (whether or not they discovered that Aaravos was responsible)... that's pretty shameful, whether from a "you got tricked, ha ha" or a "ooh, turns out you vigilante-justice murdered a bunch of people who were (if nothing else) innocent of the particular crime you vigilante-justice murdered them for" standpoint, and probably reason enough for everyone involved to just never speak of it again and say Luna "mysteriously died."