#blindfolded lady justice originated in the 1500s and was originally a satiric and critical commentary on injustices being ignored

[kradogsrats]

How can a skywing elf have oracle powers?

An interesting question, since we don't actually know what oracle powers entail.

We generally think of an oracle as someone or something that can supernaturally predict the future, but going back to its roots it's both a bit more specific and a bit more broad. An oracle receives messages, usually in the form of visions, directly from the divine. This is as opposed to a seer, who interprets messages from the divine conveyed in the flight of birds, the shape of entrails in a sacrifice, etc. You also had people who did both, presumably just to make things more confusing. The association with the future is because... that's generally what people want divine knowledge about.

(What's the difference between an oracle and a prophet? As far as I can tell, it's mostly the route an individual example has taken in translation through several ancient languages to modern English. "Prophet" comes from a Greek word used to translate a Hebrew one, while "oracle" comes from Latin.)

The only other reference to an oracle in TDP, as far as I'm aware, is the Oracles of Ophidia, an Elarion-era group who are described as the origin of the true-sight serum Viren (unsuccessfully) uses in an attempt to discover the nature of the mirror. The oracles used the serum, which was harvested from eyeless vipers in total darkness, and would be ruined by any exposure to moonlight (the Moon being the primal source associated with illusions, naturally), to "see through the illusions of the world."

Supernatural "sight" of the future or truth is frequently associated with blindness or the release of normal sight in mythology and (by extension) fantasy, and TDP carries that theme—the blindfold of justice allowing true equality, the mirror which can only be seen through in darkness, the film over Viren's eye that lets him see Aaravos's illusions but arguably impairs his reason. Now we have the blindfolded Celestial elves, an order of Skywing elves who are guardians of Star primal magic, which is the primal associated with destiny, truth, time, etc. as well as the stars and Startouch elves being associated with divinity. We have yet to learn whether they might be blindfolded in order to perceive the will and messages of the stars, or to see through them and not be deceived.

Because the Celestial elves are winged Skywing elves, and Plotice is a winged Skywing elf, he could very well be a part of or adjacent to that order. He's also characterized as not just an oracle, but a luminous oracle, which is not a very Sky primal-y description but a reasonable Star primal-y one. However, he lacks any of the other design characteristics we've seen of Celestial elves so far, most notably the blindfold. This could be indicative of his personal hubris—maybe he left the order or works at the fringes of it, enjoying a powerful and mystical reputation instead of anonymous secrecy, and is therefore spiritually blinded. It could also just indicate that he has no association with them at all.

The other thing about Plotice is that he discovers spells, presumably Sky primal spells. This is significant in that a) the full scope of primal rune magic has not been reached/explored, and b) spells are discovered, not invented. You could say that he's essentially receiving spells (knowledge or messages) from the primal source itself, and conveying them to the people. That's functionally being an oracle for the primal source as a divinity that only has very specific things to say. I think it would be interesting if the discovery of new rune spells was associated with divine knowledge granted to an otherwise largely unremarkable individual, rather than something achieved through the study and power of an archmage.

Anyway, it's not really a question of whether he can be described as an oracle, but that we have no idea what that means.

#primal magic #plotice #tales of xadia #blindfolded lady justice originated in the 1500s and was originally a satiric and critical commentary on injustices being ignored #in some sources the power that eventually went to the oracle at delphi was originally held by themis the goddess of justice #this makes a ton of sense when you pick out that she's the goddess of justice in the sense of divine order or 'rightness' #not fair application of the law #so yeah of course the goddess of the gods' plan has the power to see... the gods' plan lmao #anyway fun facts