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blutopaz15 · 11 months

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rayllum week 2023

prompt: flowers

rated t, 2k

He probably doesn’t remember, and honestly…it’s okay.

She doesn’t blame him.

She’d decided that this morning, after the toppled pile of books and the rushed apology she’d woken up to.

“Sorry, Rayla! And, uh…morning!”

Callum’s steps had stuttered towards her, and even with sleep crusties and too much sunlight in her eyes, she’d still gotten a little swoony over that dorky-cute smile flashed in her direction, the bedhead he hadn’t even sorted out yet, that over-eager enthusiasm all over his everything…but then he’d turned away instead of coming closer. He’d jumped right back into sorting the books that he and Kazi had clearly been pulling off the shelves for at least an hour or two already, and she couldn’t deny she’d been a little disappointed—

“This pile’s for Aaravos, that one’s for the coins, and…let’s start a Sky magic stack, just because.”

—but she really couldn’t begrudge him that.

There were plenty of more important things to worry about besides her birthday, after all.

Anyway, she’d only mentioned it…what? Once? When they’d been sleep-deprived on the back of that ambler, pretending like they were listening to each other’s answers to five-, then twenty-questions, rather than just staring at each other’s lips, hardly keeping from kissing again?

But then, he’d mentioned it once too, on the road back to the Nexus, wondering aloud if—

If they’d be back to Katolis in time for their birthdays.

Even if he does remember…nothing is just about what she deserves anyway, as far as birthdays with Callum go, Rayla resolves when the morning passes without a word about it.

She spends the day stewing like that—excusing herself when Callum’s dumb, adorable face makes the regret too much to handle, trying to distract herself with patrolling and target practice, avoiding the reproachful looks from Amaya she’s been getting since they’d gotten here yesterday that she knows she deserves but really, really doesn’t need.

It’s dusk when she heads back inside, but research stretches on until nightfall, and she spends the difference talking herself out of the downward spiral that’d convinced her Callum was too hurt still to even bring up birthdays, let alone have any interest in acknowledging hers. Her head stops spinning—finally—once she and Stella retreat to their little corner of the abandoned Bookery, though.

Judging by the height of the pile that Callum had stacked there beside his bedroll—Sky magic books, she guesses—he’s been busy…and that’s all the reassurance she needs.

He just…doesn’t realize it’s her birthday, she tells herself again, like she had this morning. Clearly, he just has—they just have—a lot going on.

With the moon new, it’s dark enough that even she strains and squints to read the spines of the books, wondering to herself as she looks at the stack if she should tell him or not.…until familiar footsteps bring some firelight to their little not-quite camp.

“You have quite a collection going here, mage,” she chuckles, kneeling by his books, the light letting her confirm that, yes, this whole pile was Callum’s personal Sky magic stack. “Think you might need to send a few of these home to—oh.”

…and she doesn’t need to tell him, apparently, if the fistful of flowers and the smile on his face mean what she thinks they mean.

“It’s your birthday,” Callum starts, setting down the lantern to free a hand to hold out…and she exhales.

She thinks she hides the tingling wave of calm that comes with Callum reaching for her and knows she hides the relieved tears that prickle—just a bit—in her eyes, easily blinking them away before she even puts her hand in his.

“It is,” she says, just a hint of a snicker in her answer. Rayla smiles as she leans into his warm steady hand to stand…and that’s almost familiar again—the brief shows of support, the fleeting moments of comfort, the gentle reminders that he’s there for her. She almost leaves her hand there, covered completely by his, her thumb drifting to his wrist…but lingering like that was uncertain territory still since she’d been back. She remembers how surprised he’d been at her head on his shoulder and how stiff he’d been the whole time on her shadowpaw…so she pulls away and points to the flowers in his other hand instead, each bloom the same vibrant red. “What are these?”

“Uh…orchids, I think?” He examines them himself, peering down at the little bouquet held between them then tilting them to her, holding them out til the soft petals brush her hand. “I guess Sunfire elves do a lot of flowers, so when I told Kazi I needed a gift for you…”

“You told them?” she asks, fingertips brushing his as she takes the flowers by the stems, knowing no one else would’ve had a reason to know about her birthday if Callum didn’t mention it, wondering if anyone else had known all day.

“Just them. I asked them to keep it to themself.” Callum explains, haste in his voice, and Rayla looks up from fiddling with a leaf, realizing that her doubt might have read as displeasure. “You were…quiet this morning, so I thought maybe that was best?”

“We’re busy,” she nods. That’d been the right move, she thinks, even if she’d spent the day assuming the worst, and she squashes the urge to touch him as extra assurance that he’d done the right thing. A big deal about her birthday after what she’d done to him on his, would’ve been…not great. Her eyes fall back to the flowers, and she shuffles her weight to her other foot. “Plus, everyone’s kind of very not happy with me so—”

Rayla stops when his hand slips into hers, lifting her head and finding Callum staring at her sweet and sincere as ever—

“I’m happy with you,” he says, eyes half-lidded, smile sideways.

He’s leaning in, she thinks, paralyzed in place, knowing her mouth is hanging open, knowing she’s looking at his lips…but then the sideways smile there breaks to a wide grin and he repeats himself, squeezing her hand tight enough to snap her out of it.

“And it’s your birthday!” Callum exclaims, and then—

He starts singing, with his own special…Callum-ness that she’s sure isn’t actually a part of the Katolis birthday song.

Right out the gate, she has to bite her lip to stifle her laughter down to a giggle at the silly, dumb dance moves he’s clearly just making up to make her smile, and she almost loses it at the dramatic flourish he adds to the third birthday. Too quickly, the song is over, though, and she’s about to teasingly clap for him—

—but then his lips are on her cheek.

It takes longer than she cares to admit for her to grasp that it’d just been the wishes and kisses and laughter and love he’d just sung about that’d made him kiss her, and she covers the spot where his lips had been in the meantime, not quite knowing what else to do. There was no point in hiding her wide eyes or flushed cheeks, obviously, she realizes, especially seeing how satisfied Callum seemed with her response to his little performance.

“That…that was the—”

“Katolis birthday song,” Callum nods, grinning, and takes the flowers from her hands, leaving them on a table before cheerily pulling her to a spot without books underfoot, “and there’s a dance I’m supposed to learn, right?”

…and her pounding heart falls.

“Callum—” she starts, the words in her letter as fresh as the night she’d written them—for the both of them, apparently—and she swallows thickly, reminded again of all it had—how she had—ruined between them.

Callum shakes his head before she can say more, though, eyes soft and reassuring, and—

—it’s…okay, apparently.

“We’re not missing any more birthdays, alright?” he says, more unbothered than she can understand, easily putting a stop to the spiral she’d spent the day on with a final squeeze before he drops her hands and gestures to the open space around them.

It just takes a blink and a breath, and she follows suit, moving forward.

“Okay, well,” she starts, looking around, considering where to begin. “It works better with more people, but—”

“I can go get the others if you want?” Callum asks with a shrug, a thumb pointed over his shoulder…and she shakes her head in immediate answer, uninterested in spending her birthday with anyone but him.

“No, no, just—uh…just us is fine.” Showing him is obviously the answer, so Rayla presses on his shoulders to switch their spots. “The birthday elf—uhh, person—is supposed to be in the middle, and you kind of dance around them, so…belated birthday dance to demonstrate?”

Her proposition comes with an apologetic smile—she’d meant to make it back to the castle in time for his 17th—and he nods, everything about his answer soft, silent forgiveness.

She spends her first round humming music she hasn’t heard in ages, the second naming the steps as she goes, the third telling him the counts.

By her fourth, she hardly even blushes when the chain of turns at the end of the dance brings them nose-to-nose, close enough to kiss, which was kind of the point when your lover was a part of the dance, but…

She shouldn’t…so she doesn’t.

“Okay,” he says as she comes in close again. “I think I’ve got it.”

“Yeah?” She grins at the head-rush of his breath on her cheek before smoothly spinning away…except that she can’t, because Callum’s caught her hands again and uses her momentum to take her place.

“Eh…mostly?” he shrugs, before drawing a dramatic breath and setting himself up like she had at the start, his leg outstretched at something like the angle she’d shown him. She counts while he copies her, his memory accurate…even if the execution is a little off.

Really, though, considering the swaying in place that Katolis called dancing she’d seen those couple of weeks in the castle…he does pretty great, she thinks, tickled at him so attentive to learning something so familiar to her.

He starts that last series of turns that she knows will bring him in close, and she knows she shouldn’t kiss him kiss him…but he’d gotten her cheek earlier, hadn’t he?

“You’ve got it,” she nods after her lips leave his soft face, stomach fluttering at finding him almost as surprised and flushed as she’d been, then moves on just as quickly as he had. “Then usually you do it again—it’s supposed to be eighteen times for an eighteenth birthday—but kind of…rotate around? If there’s more than one dancer, that is.”

“Eighteen Moonshadow Birthday Dances, coming right up!” Callum says, determinedly setting up for another round. The steps flow, one into the next, a little better this second time, and she tells him so as he starts spinning in towards her again…but he pouts in answer instead of giving her another melty smile like the first time. “What…no kiss this time?”

And no way was she going to pass up that invitation.

Of course, she appeases him before grinning and sending him on his way, singing the tune now—on to a third, and fourth, and fifth repetition—each finished with her lips pressed to his cheek.

By his eighteenth time through, he has the pattern down pat. He hums along with her, even, and, of course, finishes the turns with his beaming face tilted to the side, welcoming her kiss like she’d worried he never would again.

…and she wonders about that last wish she’d had for Callum’s fifteenth birthday.

He’s done dancing now, and still just as close, still reaching for her.

“Happy birthday,” he says, leaning in again…and she’s just as still and speechless as before.

Her eyes flutter, her tongue wets her lips, her breath falls on his cheek, and he crashes into her, his arms locked around her waist, his heartbeat against her chest—

…his hug warm and tight and close.

…and that’s okay too.

#rayllum #rayllum fanfic #rayllum week 2023 #rayllum's bad vibes rodeo #the dragon prince #mild s5 trailer spoilers #aka happy birthday rayla!!!#there mayyyyy or may not be a follow up to come <3 #also theres a wholeeeeee lot of s5 speculation that i tried to get across without just dumping it all #might put this on ao3 but idk what the title is so #*shrug*

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numptypylon · 11 months

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“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing, just… I wish I remembered. It’s pretty unfair. All the many pinnacles of uncoolness in my life… the many, many pinnacles… I remember those. Perfectly. Forever. Forever and ever. And ever.” He winced. Remembered. Remembered being face down in his own pee-snow at age 6, having lost a literal pissing contest with Soren… and seriously, that really had to stay with him for life, perfectly preserved for posterity, and he didn’t get to remember punching a banther?!

“Sorry. Maybe it’ll come back to you?”

“Eh, it’s okay. Like you said… not that fun a moment, in the grand scheme of things. And we’re alive… you’re alive. Not remembering punching a banther seems like a pretty silly thing to be annoyed by.”

She smiled against his neck, a familiar sensation or... it used to be, sweet memories coming back to him. “But you are a little annoyed by it.”

“Yeah.”

Read the rest of this post-banther-punch-moment oneshot on Ao3 - Mild spoilers for the S5 trailer

#rayllum #rayla #the dragon prince #tdp #callum #numpty fic tag #tdp s5 spoilers

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twdmusicboxmystery · 6 years

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Fear 4x10: Analysis

Good morning! Who watched Fear last night? I have to say, I'm really enjoying this season, still. I thought last night’s episode was excellent! And, as a bonus, it had tons of relevant symbolism in it.

***Spoilers abound for Fear 4x10. Don’t read until you’ve watched! You’ve been warned!***

Let's first talk about the broad stuff. Alicia ends up at the cabin or house. It's very much like a lot of the places we've seen before. There are a lot of things that reminded me of the moonshine shack, and also the cabin Carol, Tyreese and the girls went to in 4x14.

Remember last week when I said it seemed like the group would be split up for the B part of the season and we’d have individual episodes about each group? Did I call that or what? This episode was about Alicia and Charlie, and the next episode will (based on the trailer for next week) be about Morgan.

If you want to see this as a repeat of Beth and Daryl at the moonshine shack (and you probably will as I go along) then Alicia would be Daryl and Charlie would be Beth. My reasoning on that is just that Alicia is the more angry, surly one, and Charlie is the more sad, weepy one. Between the two, Alicia is also the stronger and more capable. In a minute I'll show some dialogue but also supports this.

So, when she gets there, Alicia finds four walkers in the house. Two men and two women. This was meant to be the family that lived there. Father, mother, son, daughter. The son and daughter were at least teenagers, if not adult age. So, the family all died in the house together.

In terms of Alicia, that would've reminded her of her family a lot. Before the apocalypse happened, it was Madison, Travis, Alicia, and Nick. I think that's why she threw the pictures out. She couldn't stand the reminders of a family she once had and no longer does. But everything about this is symbolism we've seen before. There is a very obvious example of the Bethyl side-by-side walker theme.

In this case, there were two men and two women. I'm not sure what to make of that exactly, but it's interesting. I don't think we've ever seen an example of two men and two women side-by-side like this in regular TWD. But I'm wondering if the other couple (besides Bethyl) could be John Dorey and June. So maybe they're doing to show there are now two couples, one on each show, that are following the same symbolism? Just an idea.

The photos themselves reminded me of Sasha in 5B. Remember, she used the photographs as target practice? Even though what happened was a little different, in both cases these women (Sasha and Alicia) were in pain and couldn't stand to see pictures of happy families around them. Even what was in the pictures was mildly suspicious to me. A lot of them were taken at the beach, which plays into the beach theme of this episode. But I noticed one was the little boy playing baseball (Negan?) And there is also one at an amusement park, kinda like one Rick and Michonne went to in S7. And there were other ones that had water in them.

I will also say that there were several things in this that made me think Alicia was being somewhat paralleled with Rick as well. There was a part where she looked at herself in the mirror, which reminded me of Rick getting to Alexandria in 5B. We also saw her silhouette against the light several times, which they did with Rick S8.

Later in the episode, Alicia goes out to look at the four walkers she dragged out and Charlie has wrapped them in shrouds. I noticed that three of them were dark and one was white. I'm not sure exactly how to interpret that, but it's the black/white theme that we see around Beth and Daryl a lot (X). I wonder if it's something like three deaths and one resurrection? Or could be connected to the St. Nicholas/pickle story which is three resurrections. I'm not sure. But I thought it was super-interesting.

At one point, there's something dead in the fireplace. It had been stuck in the chimney and fell when Alicia was cleaning it out. I couldn’t tell what it was at first, but I’m fairly sure it was a dead bird. That’s kinda huge! 1) It’s literally a bird surrounded by ashes. So, Phoenix theme. 2) Even more than that, remember that in 4x11, Carl saw a dead bird in the pudding house.

I’ve ALWAYS thought that was a foreshadow of Beth. Dead bird = Beth before she’s resurrected. If that dead bird had just been about Carl’s death, it wouldn’t still be a thing now. (This shot from S4 also includes a bird cage. Remember the bird cage in Beth’s cell in 4x01.)

Alicia apologizes to it and says, "I'm trying." The trying theme was especially big in TWD S5. I’m not sure what to make of the fact that she’s apologizing to it, but I’m sure it’s symbolic in some way.

On TTD, they said the family was supposed to have asphyxiated because the fireplace was clocked. So the dead bird actually killed the family. Also highly symbolic. Think of it this way: Beth’s death “killed” Daryl emotionally. In other instances of the side-by-side theme, Karen’s death “killed” Tyreese emotionally. So it’s very interesting that this bird literally killed the family in this case

In TTD, they also talked about the bird Madison talked about in 4x08. That’s what it was about for Alicia. But it all goes back to the bird symbolism from S4. And remember, who is the song bird?

This is probably the thing that made my jaw dropped the most. When she's trying to start a fire, she burns something that says "Rottweiler" on it.

Remember that Emily was rumored to be filming scenes at that white cabin with a Rottweiler. Wouldn’t it be crazy if those missing scenes from season five showed up in fear instead of in TWD? That would be insane! But this does seem to be foreshadowing something with a Rottweiler on Fear and having to do with Alicia.

While we’re on the subject, there were at least two other dog symbols that I saw in the house. (Sirius/Dog Star theme). When Alicia first enters the house, there's this plaque that has a dog and a paw on it.

It was also featured on TTD. The fat that it says “Rotty” made me think of the fact that at Grady, they called walkers “Rotters.” Perhaps another rottweiller clue we totally missed?

Then here in the background, I think this might actually be a picture of two Rottweilers. It's unclear, so I can't be sure, but that's what it looks like to me. See why I’m excited?

This house also had a lot of canned food in it. That's similar to both the funeral home from Alone and also from Carol and Tyreese's cabin in the Grove. It also reminds me a lot of the cabin we saw on the Red Machete miniseries.

Just cans of food out on the counter.

Alicia picks a green one and a blue one. It doesn't show us the labels on either one of them, so obviously what’s in the cans isn’t terribly important for us to know. But the color scheme is there. I also noticed that in this part, there's a water bottle on the left that says Green Valley Springs.

When Alicia finds Charlie in the house, she tries to leave because she doesn't want to end up hurting Charlie.

The sequence with the car was really strange. Alicia had the keys and tried to open the car door, but for some reason, the door stuck. I watched it several times and I'm still unclear on why the door wouldn't open. There is what looks like some sort of strap on the inside of the door, and I thought maybe it was some sort of bungee cord holding the door shut. Looking more closely, I honestly think that might just be decoration on the door. The door randomly wouldn't open and as a result, Alicia ended up with a mild head injury.

It just smacks of Beth to me. I'm not sure if we should be interpreting it literally—like something about Beth being left behind in the car had to do with the door not opening—or if it's more just the "please associate cars with head injuries" kind of thing. I don't know, but that seemed really suspicious to me.

Of course the cabin has the Grady lighting, where the inside is dark but light is coming in from the outside. We also see pictures of plants in the laws, which I think we seen before in a few different places in TWD. (Btw, on TTD, Chris Hardwick said we should be looking at the lighting, the pictures and things in the background, the shots, etc. So we’re totally justified in reading into this stuff. ;D)

Onto the dialogue. Charlie wants to save the pictures. Alicia is against it. I thought this was a really interesting way to do this theme. Alicia keeps telling her that the people are gone. (“Just gone” theme) and saving the pictures won’t bring them back. To which Charlie replies, "You don't know that!"

Exactly what Beth said. So once again, Charlie equals Beth and Alicia equals Daryl. The Alicia later says, "No one's gone until they're gone. And "When they're gone, they're just gone." Another Daryl line.

Remember that the “just gone” line specifically means that someone is not dead, but just missing. Daryl said it about Beth in 4x16. Also, 4x08 of Fear where Madison “died” is called “No One’s Gone.” So we’re seeing this a lot and to me it always means that someone who is presumed dead is not truly dead and will return.

The candlelight dinner Alicia and Charlie share reminded me of both Beth and Daryl’s in Alone and Carol and Tyreese in 4x14. We’ve seen other similar candlelight dinners as well, but none quite as potent as those two.

The basement was flooded, which reminded me a lot of the food bank in 5x02. At one point, Alicia has flashbacks to Nick and Madison's deaths.

That reminds me a lot of Sasha in 5x13, when she flashed back to Bob, Tyreese, and Beth's deaths. But it occurred to me that we actually have kind of an opposite thing going on here from Sasha. I found this episode to be very powerful. Charlie and Alicia, much like Beth and Daryl, came out of it in a much healthier emotional place. They found forgiveness and healing.

That was not the case for Sasha. At least not when she had her flashbacks. She was a great deal of pain and having the flashbacks did not heal her. So, kind of an antiparallel there, but still similar to S5.

The walker in the tree. This is pretty huge too. There's a walker impaled on a tree outside the upper window of the house, which Charlie keeps looking at. We can only assume it got there because the wind picked it up and flew through the air and it ended up being impaled on the branches of the tree. I wondered while watching it, if perhaps we could relate that to Beth in some way. It occurred to me that this was a type of crucifixion. The walker was up on the tree, just hanging there. It's not uncommon for Christ's cross to be referred to simply as a tree because it was made of wood. But I also wondered if I was reaching. Looking at something that wasn't there.

Then, near the end of the episode, that walker fell out of the tree and onto the basement door. Apparently, that made it possible for Alicia to push the door open and for them to get out. Honestly, I'm not entirely sure how that was supposed to work. The door was chained from the outside, and I'm not sure how the walker falling on it actually freed them. It could be that it's weight, and possibly the weight of a tree branch simply broke the chain. Still a little unlikely if you ask me, bordering on unrealistic. It doesn't actually bother me, though. I think the whole point is the symbolism.

Because Christ is seen as the Christian savior, I think it's important that this walker was hanging on a tree, and then ended up being the thing that saved them. There are some major Christian themes in this episode. And does this point it Beth? I don't know. It might. We have the Rottweiler references and now a reference to someone who was crucified. (Remember that Beth wore the cross bracelet at Grady to show that it was her crucifixion and Father Gabriel talked about how one of their own was “sacrificed”) will save them. I hope it refers to Beth. It may be more of a Christian theme than anything else, but Beth has also been set up as the Christ figure in TWD. So either way, it makes me pretty excited.

It's also worth noting that when Alicia shot the crucifixion walker, she shot it exactly where Beth was shot.

A look! A bunch of burials. Alicia buried a bunch of walkers that nobody actually knew or cared about. And who that we did know and care about didn't get the burial?

This brings me to another theme that we saw both in 4x13 and 4x14. Charlie said she wanted to leave the photos for anyone who might come later. That theme really came together for me at the end. After burying the walkers, Alicia said she done it for the people who might come later. I mean, this cabin could BE the cabin that Carol and Tyreese went to. It's not, but in that case someone else came before them and buried the people they found there. So when Ty and Carol got there, there were already graves on the property. Alicia’s set up was like a prequel to that. She stayed in the house, and ended up bearing the people she found there

This theme was also in 4x13 because Beth wanted to leave the thank you note in case anyone came back. It's a theme about doing something, leaving a message for anyone who might come after them.

I think it's a really interesting and powerful theme. Oh, and there's the “friends and family” sign behind the graves. Almost as if to show that friends and family always get burials.(Sorry this pic is a little blurry. My internet connection was being a chump at the time.)

Alicia passes the weapon her signature weapon to Charlie. Kind of reminded me of Daryl giving Beth his crossbow.

Alicia and Charlie are now looking for the others. Just as Beth and Daryl did in 4B.

I’m not going to say too much about the beach theme. It does suggest something about the coast, and possibly Oceanside, but I'll leave it at that.

Alicia drives back to Strand’s mansion but everybody is gone. I did notice one thing that I didn't notice last week. I don't know if we never got this angle or if I just missed it, but there is a black and white horse artwork over the mantle.

The school bus is now on its side. We know from last episode that nobody was actually there when that happened. John and Strand are out looking for someone and Luciana went chasing after Charlie. Meanwhile June and Al are in Al’s truck. But the overturned truck reminded me a lot of 5x05 when the short bus crashes. Even in 4x10, Inmates, the bus wasn't on its side, but Maggie, Sasha, and Bob did find the bus wrecked on the side of the road.

And back to the “just gone” theory. At the end, Alicia tells Charlie that the others are “gone.” Once again, this is an example where we (the audience) KNOW the other characters are still alive. Alicia and Charlie don’t know it, but we do. And they’re being described as “gone.”

I think that's all I have for now. This is structurally REALLY feeling like a mirror of TWD 4b, and that’s where Bethyl first happened, so it gives me tons of hope. I really loved this episode and Fear is really given me the TD tingles lately. How did everyone else like the episode?

#beth greene #beth greene lives #beth is alive #beth is coming #td theory #td theories #team delusional #team defiance #beth is almost here

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jamesholden · 3 years

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Did you hear the news from The Last Kingdom panel at MCM Comic Con? It's posted to TLK's instagram account. Also, if you stop by @lauwrite1225 she actually watched the whole panel and posted some mild spoilers from Alex, Mark & Eliza. Looks like Eadith is going to have more than a blink and you'll miss it role in S5!

I heard about the movie! but i had work so i planned to check back in on the tag, especially since I heard Mark was a bit cagey on details. I'll have to take a look! I just wish they'd give us a trailer already

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linctavia · 6 years

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Clarke Griffin and the Ancient Mariner (A S5 Meta)

WARNING: Mild Spoilers for 5x01 ahead!

So, from the live tweets from Wonder Con we learned that the season 5 premiere begins with Clarke being lost in the wreckage of Praimfaya. Eventually, a bird leads her out and to Eden and then Clarke shoots the bird and eat it.

When I heard of this my mind instantly went to The Rime of the Ancient Mariner. For those of you who are unfamiliar with this story, click this link to find a full synopsis. What follows will be my very rough summary of what happens and how it could relate to Clarke’s journey in Season 5.

The Rime of the Ancient Mariner begins when a ship departs on a voyage and encounters a storm which drives them into icy water. They think all hope is lost until an albatross appears in the sky and guides them to safe water. The crew all praises the albatross but the captain shoots it down. They are all mad at the captain until the weather shifts and becomes good so they forgive him. But then spirits come and set the ship astray again. The sailors all become angry and thirsty so they make the captain wear the dead albatross around his neck. Then everyone on the crew dies but the Mariner lives on, suffering a fate worse than death and living as all his friends die. He is tormented by seeing the crew members’ corpses and remains in this state of suffering until eventually he realizes the beauty of the sea creatures he once found sickening. The bodies of the crew are possessed by good spirits which steer the ship home. His curse is lifted and the albatross falls off and his ship is guided home.

So that’s the most basic summary of the plot but let’s jump into the importance to Clarke.

First the beginning is the most obvious parallel. Similarly to how the Mariner is guided to safety by an albatross, a bird guides Clarke to her own safe haven of Eden. They both choose to shoot down the bird, although the motive’s of the Mariner are less obvious then Clarke’s they can be presumed to be similar to Clarke’s: the basic human instinct to hunt and survive.

Now the rest of the narrative is not as directly paralleled to Clarke but it still has many interesting similarities. Although the majority of Clarke’s suffering comes before shooting the bird, she still experiences many of the same difficulties. She has to live alone in a world full of nothingness, being cursed to exist in a world where her loved ones are gone or dead. We see her struggle in the pilot with the loss of Jasper. She also attempts to save her mother and the others from the bunker. However, like the Mariner’s crew these people are too far gone, and she must continue to exist alone. We also know theses struggles continue even after she reaches Eden, missing her friends and feeling truly alone. The albatross around Clarke’s neck in this case is the loss of her friends.

Clarke’s guilt also may be a part of her albatross burden. The Mariner is plagued by the guilt of killing the albatross. Although we have less directly seen the role guilt will play in Clarke this season it can still be assumed to be something that haunts her. We see her speaking about the Commander of Death in the Serpent Trailer, which implies that Clarke is still haunted by the many lives she has had to take. The quote “What becomes of the commander of death when there is no one else to kill?” could imply that Clarke feels as if her lonely existence may be punishment for the things she’s done. Or at the bare minimum it shows that there is a connection between her past actions and her current state.

Finally, let’s discuss how the Mariner is finally freed from his curse. He fins the beauty in what he once viewed as so awful. I believe this is in direct correlation to the discovery of Eden and Madi. Clarke believes the Earth is a desolate wasteland however, she discovers the beauty when she discovers Eden. More importantly she finds Madi. Madi helps her see the good that remains even after Praimfaya. She helps free her from her curse of loneliness and guilt and helps her, in a way, feel home again.

The spirits of her fallen crew members also have an interesting role as we have seen Clarke honoring those who have fallen, in her rifle strap, her journal, and her stories to Madi. She keeps the good memories of these people alive. And similarly to how the crew guides the Mariner home, her friends are what keep her going. Sending messages to Bellamy every day is what keeps her going.

Overall, I don’t believe this story reveals anything new about what to expect from this season but it’s very interesting to consider how Clarke’s journey parallels that of the Ancient Mariner and what this means for her character and journey.

#the 100 #the 100 spec #the 100 speculation #the 100 spoilers #clarke griffin #s5 #mine #hope you all enjoyed this #i needed to write it out #wonkrunet

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