#nrlb

Np! There's a few things

Katolis customs dictate seven days of mourning (seven sunsets - unclear if it's seen for royalty or for everyone) which is common to the Jewish mourning practice of Shiva

Jelly tarts are canonically based off a Jewish food eating during Purim called hamantaschen

Sarai and Ezra(n) are both Hebrew names, Sarai most notably being the Mother of 2/3 Abrahamic faiths (Judaism and Christianity at least, I think Islam is a little different)

The show typically prioritizes the worthiness of endurance and survival > glorifying martyrdom

Callum and Ezran's arcs of always questioning, and indeed the series' morality of interrogating "who is a Person" leaning towards everyone/everything being accordingly very Jewish in mind / How Kosher applies to treatment of animals and how we see tenets of it in series vs in opposition to dark magic

Some of the concepts from Chassidic Judaism remind me of how the series treats magic / magical words and concepts

The Great Ones / Startouch elves are seen as gods. The heroes are those who are directly opposing G-d (Aaravos) and there's an old phrase that being Jewish is like being in a fist fight with G-d

Publisher chooses to recognize union on the day ballots were to be sent for election, citing "the well-being and safety of our employees"

On Friday, June 24th, the United Works of Seven Seas Twitter page announced that manga and light novel publisher Seven Seas Entertainment has agreed to voluntarily recognize the union and engage in collective bargaining. This announcement makes the United Works of Seven Seas (UW7S) the first unionized manga and light novel publisher in North America.

The announcement read:

So Claudia's identity is a loaded concept, both in terms of how she sees it and in terms of how other people (particularly the princes, Viren, and Soren) see it as well. I forget whose tags it was, but I remember someone going off on a delightful tag tirade of how Claudia is someone who is absolutely, extremely attached to being able to see herself as a Good Person. (Which like, most people are - but if you're too attached to that idea, any failings to live up to that can easily be brushed off, particularly if you don't have the self awareness or self compassion to cope with the reality of what you've done - but a post/tangent for another day)

She's not bending her morals to do dark magic because she never sees anything wrong with dark magic in the first place. What she does or threatens to do to elves/dragons doesn't matter because they (as individuals tethered to a group association in her mind) aren't people (with Terry and Aaravos, conveniently the two elves who are helping her, as the exceptions) and they Deserve it.

This isn't how she sees things when she's a child, in The Puzzle House, around the ages of 5-7ish, and we see her struggle with aspects of identity: doubting whether she ever really knew Kpp'Ar ("I thought I knew who he was. And then he disappeared") and of herself: I’ve been messing things up, and everyone’s angry at me. What if they’re right? What if I’m… not good?"

Which gets us into the weeds of S1, in which the egg - motionless, voiceless - is not a person and not even a creature, but a thing and a weapon, and her dad took it to Protect them, so keeping it isn't evil. She's not evil. She's just trying to do the Right Thing and bring the princes home (where they'll be safe, as far as she knows). She just wants to keep her family together, therefore:

Which really just shows that Claudia can and does hold herself accountable for her actions ("I know this feels like a betrayal" to illusion Callum in 2x03 and "I'm so sorry" twice to Ezran in 2x09) but she is incapable of accepting any of the potential Consequences as justified, because she had a Good reason, didn't she?

The rigid, unwavering nature of her motivations - to keep her family, particularly centred around her father, Together - as well as her methods - dark magic and a certain amount of manipulation - are two of the reasons I've always said, Inherently, Claudia is the exact same person she was all way back in 1x02, suggesting the soul switching spell and having no capacity to fathom why it would make Harrow uncomfortable (unlike Viren). She very much is someone who is largely the same person as she always has been, but her circumstances have amplified many of her worst (and technical best) character traits because said circumstances have also become so extreme. She's just Worse - more of the Same.

Cause in a lot of ways, 2x03 isn't Callum seeing a brand new side of Claudia ("Now I feel like I don't know who she is" - Callum's Spellbook) even if that's what he believes is happening, but that he's seeing her clearly for the first time: a dangerous dark mage wiling to sever loyalties and do whatever it takes for her family/father. Mirrored, I think, by Viren having the same realization in 5x03, even if it's with horror and fear/love rather than betrayal and anger.

So I believe that Claudia wholeheartedly believes she's the same person, not solely because she says it outright, but also because of the consistent manifestation of her choices and motivations, and because believing she's the same - still believing that she's Good ("She kidnapped you and prince Ezran, how can she be good?" ask yourself that in an episode, Claudia) is crucial in how she justifies everything to herself.

She doesn't want Terry (or herself) to think of her as cruel. She's a good person. She's doing the Right Thing. She's on a righteous path. That's why:

Now, in regards to change, Soren has the most varied perspectives on his sister, which can and should be taken into account ("Claudia, you're changing too" / "I hope you're careful, Callum, cause [magic] can change people" / "It's not too late Claudia, I know you can change!"). So it's not that she hasn't changed at all as a person, it's just that her Fear of Change and Choice, and her adamant resistance to ever radically changing her worldview because of new information is like, dead on arrival, and we haven't had a turning point for that yet.

But yeah, if Claudia still has the scroll, it wouldn't surprise me if it wouldn't work for her post-killing the unicorn she found and/or would be extremely, extremely faint if it did show up for her anytime post-arc 1.

I think there's a few things to keep in mind with TDP, specifically

The type of worldbuilding that typically gets included in fantasy

The type of worldbuilding that gets included in similar shows of its ilk (Steven Universe, She-Ra, The Owl House, and other contemporary kids' shows)

For fantasy, I'd say that TDP's worldbuilding is probably more 'shallow' due to the fact its a TV show, and the two season novelizations notwithstanding (which are already packed full of plot and written for a younger audience), it is much, much easier to do detailed worldbuilding in narrative fiction than visual media. Visual media can get away with communicating visual worldbuilding and splendid visuals, but in order for us to learn history or culture or anything along those lines, it almost exclusively has to come with dialogue, which is time consuming and you have to make sure the scene is still engaging; you don't even have the room to info dump a paragraph or two the way you could get away with in a book

So TV show worldbuilding, I'd say TDP is doing its best, considering its runtime and that worldbuilding is absolutely a priority. The expanded look at Xadia and Sunfire elf culture was one of my favourite things about S4

But in comparison to other kids' shows out there that are airing, or have recently aired? TDP is on a whole other level I don't think will be matched anytime soon. ATLA probably has a leg up on cultural worldbuilding (which also makes sense given the run time and nature of bending) but even then, there are plenty of things we know in TDP that we don't know in ATLA, such as history that goes hundreds and thousands of years back, local laws and judicial systems outside of one Earth Kingdom town, what more than one type of culture conducts as a funeral rite, etc.

Of the three other examples given, I think SU has the best worldbuilding, but we still don't really know what the Gem colonization of other planets was like. TOH develops some worldbuilding ideas, but never really wholly takes them to fruition, and even when I was more favourable to She-Ra while it was airing, worldbuilding was never a strong suit or seemed to be a focus of the series. Which is fine, as not every fantasy show wants to prioritize worldbuilding, but damn if I don't love it when they do, since it's one of my favourite parts of the genre as a fantasy reader and writer

And there are definitely kings, queens, and generals who have fought on the front lines in the past; it was expected for them to be involved in warfare. Melodaisies and fart flowers aren't grounded in a worldbuilding need, but neither are our silly real world equivalents of something like say, kazoos and whoopee cushions, that exist for no real reason other than that they're Fun and can be made by human hands. (And there are flowers, and even stink bugs, that do emit smells in nature.)

She bends down to pick it up but gets distracted by Runaan's bow, so I would assume she picked it up afterwards off screen, but who knows? It's not someone she knows, even if she's probably inclined to think anyone who's an enemy of Viren's could at least be an ally of hers.

And yes, I absolutely think Kpp'Ar will be coming back to 1) contribute to Callum's arc regarding dark magic / morally dubious things, considering that Kpp'Ar was a dark mage who disavowed the practice, 2) reveal what Viren did to save Soren if Viren doesn't live to reveal it himself, as Viren presumably coined him because Kpp'Ar wouldn't let him go through with it (and Callum being tempted by said spell if someone he loves gets sick/injured in a similar manner?), and 3) Kpp'Ar likely knows something about Aaravos' prison (had a box that matched the one Aaravos has, and possibly the staff was his at first too) and/or is a descendent of the Jailer, given that he's also a master of puzzles.

I'm sure she'll use her blades when she's doing some up close fighting, but the bow is certainly being useful for long range stuff. Which, it might be interesting to see her and Callum swap for a season, with him doing more of the close range and her doing more of the long range for a change!

I'm assuming this is like "what if the assassination had never happened" which, admittedly, is something I've thought a great deal about (or, more precisely "what if the assassination with Harrow had happened and the boys had never found the egg," I suppose).

The main thing about Viren and Harrow is that, I think, they'd been broken beyond repair masquerading as a friendship for a long, long time. A lot of that fault is with Viren - he's typically the instigator, it's his morality that arguably needs to change more so, it's his pride and self importance that leads to the Discard being mutual, and he'd rather let Harrow die and/or sacrifice himself than just tell Harrow the truth about the egg (and the fact he kept the secret and Sarai's last breath at all). I think eventually Harrow would've reached a breaking point with Viren's willingness to lay other people down (especially given how Sarai died and the "It should've been me"). Maybe only as Ezran grew up and matured, and Harrow realized maybe Viren wasn't the sort of counsel he wanted his son to have, but I do think they were always going to inevitably turn out that way so long as Harrow was royalty and Viren was a dark mage. It was their natures and their occupations escalating those natures, I think, that made them fall apart.

For Claudia, this is trickier. I've gone on record saying before that in arc 1, largely, there was the Transformative Trio (Callum, Rayla, Soren) and the Static Trio (Viren, Claudia, Ezran)—the latter being characters who do not so much Radically Change so much as stay the same while their circumstances highlight certain characteristics. Ezran out of the three changes the most (with Viren's characterization swerve happening mostly within the first 3 eps, and post-1x03 he's extremely consistent and never really wavers) within those lines, mostly in actively choosing to be more mature (going back home to be king) rather than doing it more subconsciously (keeping his cool with Callum and Rayla).

All of this to say is that Claudia is still basically the same person in S4 she was in 1x01, but Worse. She's desperate in ways she wasn't before, her confidence having been shaken by failures, and she's far more willing to do terrible things (apologizing to baby deer vs smiling and "That can be arranged" regarding Ibis' dead body). Her view of elves has worsened but it already wasn't great, her morality has worsened but it wasn't already great, and her family has fractured further but it already wasn't great, pushing her deeper into batshit territory of what she's willing to do to keep them together, and — say it with me — IT WASN'T ALREADY THAT GREAT.

What this hinges on, then, if Claudia has no reason to get worse (and also no reason to get better) is if how other characters would respond to her would change. As Ezran got older and grew in his ability to communicate, if he was comfortable be open/honest about it, I could see him disapproving of dark magic more, and that possibly driving a wedge between them, particularly once Ezran is king and she presumably becomes his High Mage. I could see Callum becoming a dark mage in a world with no attack, and more likely becoming one in a world with a partially successful attack, but I still don't think he'd readily take to it, and being more knowledgable about it would lead more room for his discomfort with it to be known and informed.

Oh yeah, I actually think the main reason Lain and Tiadrin stayed behind was to keep the mirror from falling into the wrong hands, as they tried to convince the Skywing elf Dragonguard to take it with him even though they were still going to stay behind. But Callum says himself in 4x04 that he didn't know / didn't speak it together that it belonged here, although he probably guessed it was Xadian at least, given the runes.

So Callum has a good memory (especially for visual stuff) most of the time. This can get a little more wonky when he's in emotional distress, though (understandably) although not exclusively. For example, his "Who told you that?" "You did" from 2x07 about his first real conversation with Rayla ("Then it's a cycle") that she repeats back to him, as well as like, when he tends to tunnel vision, i.e. being so desperate to get to Rayla in 3x01 that he, I kid you not, literally forgets Sol Regem is right there until Rayla points him out. He holds his arms wrong for the wing spell at first in 3x09 in the morning (even though Ibis showed him in 3x08), but given the news Ibis had given him and the subsequent fight with Rayla, again, makes sense. He accepts Claudia's "she was trying to kidnap you" excuse even though he knows Claudia saw both the boys choose to go with Rayla, etc.