The Antagonists of the Dragon Prince — Aaravos
New video out now!
So, there’s a problem with the very premise of this video. I am, by nature, a very charitable reader. When an ongoing story makes a choice that concerns me, I like to assume that there was a good reason for it. As I hope I’ve shown by the fact that this is my fourth video on The Dragon Prince, I think this is a really smart show.
This is to say, I am making this video before season 6 comes out, and I am going to be presenting you with an interpretation of the character of Aaravos that I think is interesting! To do so, I will be assuming that the show is not in the process of making a fundamental mistake in its storytelling. But, I’m also a bit of a cynic, and I hate looking stupid. So in the interest of my enormous ego, I’m also going to explain why… the show might be in the process of a fundamental mistake in its storytelling.
Proceed with skepticism.
Aaravos was immediately compelling to me. I mean, obviously, I’m a misanthropic genderfuck: Aaravos is very much my aesthetic. But more than that, there is nothing more mesmerizing than a villain who plays it close to the chest. He’s obviously enormously powerful, but we only get little glimpses of that here and there. He’s not interested in conspicuous shows of power, he likes to play it cool.
Right after Viren officially accepts Aaravos’ help, he gets attacked by Opeli and a bunch of royal guard types. Aaravos is given no information to go off of, is blindsided by the assault because he didn’t know Viren was currently being hunted down, and oh yeah, he’s literally miles away and in jail. And even with all that going on, he’s still this calm, formidable force. He takes over Viren’s body, casting spells through him and his staff, and he’s just so sure of every move he makes, ugghhh it’s so cool! I was a bit disappointed by the way the fight ends: the fact that he doesn’t have a response for a couple of people with bows and arrows just didn’t feel right to me. But in season 3 he astral projects himself into Lux Aurea and dissolves a person’s body with a single touch. And you’re like, okay! Guy’s a fucking menace. That was cool.
But it’s more than his power that remains mysterious. His actions are also sort of inexplicable. Aaravos is pretty transparently a satanic figure. You know, the Morning Star, the Fallen Angel that incites rebellion in humankind. One that challenges the power of god with sheer infernal rage. And yet, he works by supplicating to humans: a humble serpent, or a twink who offers to s e r v e you at first meeting.
He is extremely concerned with the way power presents itself: that’s both his strategy and a sort of aesthetic sensibility. One of the first things he says to Viren is “How may I serve you?” He’s not embarrassed, because he’s not proud. He’s extremely confident in the knowledge that he’s stronger and smarter than everyone around him, so what need does he have to appear strong?
He hates ostentatiousness: of the little we know about his internal world, we can clearly see that he is revolted by what he repeatedly refers to as “arrogance.” The other star-touched elves are big-headed and self-aggrandizing. The Dragon King is an “arrogant monster.” He uses Khessa’s bigotry and pompousness over humans to destroy her kingdom and mocks her for it before, and I can’t say this enough, freaking dissolving her body. (Honestly, werk). Everyone in power is an arrogant fool, and when they get too big for their britches, Aaravos wants to see them get put in their place.
We still don’t know his entire reasoning for seducing humans the way he does. I certainly believe he has a genuine fixation with them. Maybe he respects and admires them, maybe he simply doesn’t fear them, but even before he gets locked away, he works through people. “Ripples” depicts Aaravos’ descent to earth, becoming the fallen star. “The sky opened its maw and spat from its black jaws a tiny star…. The falling star plummeted, down and down and down, until it struck the breathless world below. With its impact came a long and terrible night: The earth bled!…” With its impact, a sea forms where there was none, and when a human touches the surface of the water, ripples form and distort the dazzling reflections of the stars.
Literal or not, this is clearly Aaravos’ perception of the dichotomy between the humble and the hubristic. The stars and the humans. Gods and their subjects.
In another story, Aaravos vividly recalls the experience of eating an apple given to him by a human. Besides furthering the satanic imagery, at least in the minds of English-speakers, it also gives us a sense of his internal drive. The moments that stick with him are those of humble human actions and joys, as well as displays of ugly vanity on the part of magic-users.
This really sums up my fascination with Aaravos. He’s defined by these terrible, sublime stories and actions, but always with the vague understanding of himself as an underdog. And it’s not totally wrong, as powerful as he is, he has repeatedly aligned himself with David, humankind.
Aaravos commits acts of extreme violence with a blithe smile, never hesitating, but to me this isn’t indicative of an innate lack of empathy. It feels more like an expression of his commitment to his goals. Always with that fixation on arrogance. He has a firm understanding of how power works in his world, and every time he predicts someone’s actions correctly, he gets further confirmation that he’s in the right. And in a show that is thematically about investigating the reasons for violence, mainly the ways defense can be contorted into a need for aggression, it seems to me that the kind of violence Aaravos introduces into the story is something completely new. The assuredness, the aggression coming from a place of active hate rather than a more passive fear, is not something Viren or Claudia have any trace of. Whatever his motives are, he’s rooted in them.
So, let’s interrogate these motives. We haven’t gotten a good glimpse at his internal world yet, so we’re going to have to observe his actions and try to intuit his motives from there.
Most obviously, giving humans dark magic.
Now, I alluded to this in one of the previous videos I made for this series, but I’ll just say it again. I don’t really get what’s wrong with dark magic. I’m about 90% a vegetarian, I’m not great at it, but I understand the desire to not cause harm when unnecessary. So, killing magical beings isn’t my favorite thing, I’ll grant you that. But, it’s super clear that magic is a material necessity in Xadia. We know of at least one instance where magic saved 100,000 human lives. Imagine how many times they didn’t. Humans were given primal stones at some point, but clearly not enough to survive. Also, it seems as though there was some kind of concerted, systematic effort to convince humans they couldn’t use primal magic, because we know that at least one human can do primal magic. It’s all very good to preserve the natural world and protect creatures. But you can’t do that at the expense of eating and defending yourself. The contempt you have to hold for another being to deny them the right to continue living makes you a biased actor. You have no place to judge the worthiness of a person you don’t consider worthy of safety.
Listen to the language Khessa uses to show her contempt for Dark Magic: “Your kind couldn’t be satisfied with what you’ve been given.” Doesn’t that just make your blood boil? In this moment, I felt this weird solidarity with humanity, in their world and in mine. The history of our world is one of clawing our way out of the darkness, staggering with every step forward, and slipping as we’re dragged back into the mud. Because even on this amazing planet, life here has always been marked by misery and the desperate fight to escape misery. We have to eat lifeforms to survive, and I think our psychology is influenced by this innate cruelty that we are forced to live by. Being a human is not easy. And we weren’t given anything by anyone.
I feel that we are supposed to understand this statement as emblematic of the unique, anti-human bigotry Xadians are taught to believe. Consider, Sol Regem kills an entire city of humans in order to stop one guy from doing what is essentially hunting. The guy blinds him, again, in an effort to stop a genocide from occurring, but fails, and the people are burned alive. And the consequence of this is that humans get displaced. For the crime of being subjected to a holocaust. Look how devalued the lives of human beings are. Humans have been subjected to a deeply ingrained system of violence on the part of the powerful. This society was not equal in power, and so you can’t hold humanity equally culpable for doing dark magic as you hold a dragon for killing civilians en masse. So, Aaravos hands them a meal ticket and humans have to take it. Tell me what I’m missing, because that literally just seems like praxis to me.
There is some implication in “Ripples” that Aaravos somehow gave humans primal magic. Humans are said to have been given a gift they shouldn’t have had. Then, we’re told that “They nurtured their precious primal flames secretly… as cultivating its glow drew the eyes and ire of monsters. Eventually, for the audacity of their fire, they were hunted.” And that’s when Aaravos fell. So, it looks like Aaravos is punished for somehow giving humans primal magic, and having been cast down to earth, he begins giving them dark magic. It seems like he tried to do the right thing, and that got him exiled and made humans a target. What was left? He aligns himself with the beings he has more or less become responsible for at this point. He gives them new means of providing for themselves, but obscures himself. Doesn’t let on that he’s protecting them because that went very poorly for him before. In a way, this Goliath has found himself on the side of David. And they really need his help.
Like what you see? Watch the full video here.
