Fan Theories About High Fantasy TV Shows

From Redditor u/neilader:

We first learned in the episode “The Storm” that Zuko was banished because he spoke out of turn in a war meeting and then refused to duel his father, Ozai. By showing weakness, Zuko was forever banished unless he could capture the Avatar (which was considered impossible). But doesn’t that seem more than a little extreme? Banishing the crown prince for speaking out of turn and not dueling his own father? After rewatching the episode “Zuko Alone” on Netflix, I’ve come to the conclusion that the real reason Ozai banished Zuko was so that Azula could take his place as the heir to the throne.

We see in Zuko’s flashbacks that while Ursa favored Zuko, both Ozai and Azulon favored Azula and even seemed embarrassed by Zuko. When Ozai asked Azulon to revoke Iroh’s birthright, Azulon decided to punish him by demanding that he kill Zuko. Well, that’s an insanely ridiculous punishment. Why would Azulon have Zuko killed for something that Ozai said? Because with the death of Lu Ten, Azulon also wanted Azula to be the heir to the throne after Iroh.

Zuko was *always* going to be killed or banished for doing *anything* wrong because both Azulon and Ozai wanted Azula to take his place. Ozai went into the Agni Kai against Zuko intent on killing him if he fought back or banishing him if he did not. Would Ozai have treated Azula the same way if she spoke out of turn? No, absolutely not. He probably would have just said, “Azula, silence yourself!” as he said to her in Book 3, or maybe he would have even sided with her against the general. If Zuko were an only child or born after Azula, I really don’t think he would have been banished.

But what if Zuko never did anything wrong? What if he was the perfect prince who never gave Ozai any reason to banish him? Well, consider what Azula says to Zuko during Sozin’s Comet: “Let’s settle this, just you and me, brother, the showdown that was always meant to be: Agni Kai!” The showdown that was always meant to be? If Zuko weren’t banished, Ozai intended to orchestrate an Agni Kai between Zuko and Azula, and Azula was being prepared for this.

Zuko was never truly the crown prince (except for when Ozai believed that he killed the Avatar). It was always going to be Azula in Ozai’s mind. As an added bonus, banishing Zuko also took Iroh out of the picture, removing the only other claim to the throne. It was never really about honor or respect; it was always about power.

From Redditor u/double-positive:

TL;DR: The vital essence makes you younger while its effects are active, but once it wears off, you age at an accelerated rate.

I don’t have a ton of evidence for this theory, and it’s probably more of a headcanon than an actual theory, but here we go:

In The Dark Crystal, we see that the Skeksis drink the vital essence of other creatures to retain their youth. Specifically, only the Emperor of the Skeksis is allowed to drink the vital essence. However, when we meet the Emperor, he’s dying. He’s frail and falling apart, ultimately disintegrating into dust.

So, if he is drinking the vital essence, why is he much older and weaker than the other Skeksis? My theory is that while the vital essence provides temporary youth, the body rebounds hard after its effects wear off.

We see the General drink some of the life essence of a Podling, but he doesn’t stay young for very long (at most half a minute). He quickly reverts back to being old.

Additionally, the Scientist mentions that it worked better with Gelflings. So, my assumption is that as long as they could continuously consume vital essence, the Emperor stayed young and strong. However, when they could only rely on the lesser vital essence of Podlings, the rebound effects were significant. This caused the Emperor to become the broken shell we see in the movie.

There is also some evidence in some of the expanded works to suggest this. In the Creation Myths comics, the Skeksis are shown using all four hands like the Mystics. When Gelflings were abundant, all of the Skeksis partook in drinking vital essence. But when Gelflings became more scarce, only the Emperor could do so. In the movies, we can still see that the Skeksis have four arms (it can be seen when the Chamberlain gets disrobed). However, their second set of arms has atrophied to the point where they are shriveled up and unusable. I believe this deterioration may have been caused by drinking vital essence.

Lastly, it’s possible that the Skeksis realized that it was killing them faster. No doubt the Emperor noticed he was dying at an accelerated rate compared to the others. However, the Skeksis are so vain and short-sighted that I imagine they cared more about how they looked in the moment and would ignore any long-term effects the vital essence was having.

From Redditor u/BornRegrets:

This odd theory popped into my mind as I was doing research for a TTRPG (Avatar Legends: The RPG).

The theory: The entire map of the Avatar world known to the audience is just a piece of a larger world. Essentially, it’s a chunk about as big as North America (roughly, I’m just estimating). This means that there could be more landmass out there in its ocean!

In the Avatar universe, there is a global map that is shown in both the shows and comics. You can view the map here. According to the official lore, the world of Avatar exists as a globe - you can find that evidence here  as this is an image of the world from space during the Korra season. There was also an interview with the creators but I couldn’t quickly find it.

The odd part comes when you observe the Gaang’s journey in the flat map I linked - they hop all around the map but never around the other side of the globe. This issue rears its head again when I learned that the whole world experiences the same seasons *at the same time*. The screenshot from Korra’s season was the nail in the coffin as it shows that there is *another half of the world that is unexplored*, or at the very least unknown to the audience.

I’m planning to include this in my game, regardless of whether it’s canon because I think it’s pretty neat! It could be a really interesting way of including more ethnicities, and I’m going to include more variations of chimera animals/reptiles and spirits.

As I researched links for this post, I actually came across a post on Quora about the Avatar geography. It seems I might not be the only one who noticed these details…

From Redditor u/CaptainThirdWorld:

So, as we all know, in the Game of Thrones TV series, characters who are depicted as extremely smart in the beginning of the story, such as Tyrion, Littlefinger, Cersei, and Varys, become progressively more and more stupid in the latter seasons, reaching near-ridiculous levels of idiocy at the end of the story. They take unnecessary risks, plot treacherous schemes in the open, and forget important pieces of information. This is mostly regarded as bad writing, but I think I have discovered the real in-world reason why these characters become idiots in the end. Here we go:

In the medieval-type society where the story takes place, beverages are of great importance. Just like in medieval Europe, soldiers traditionally drink mead, peasants and most common folk drink ale, and the rich, clergy, and nobility drink wine. The books even mention the preference of the Lannisters (particularly Tyrion, Cersei, and Jaime) for sweet, spiced wine. Well, in the Middle Ages, before sugar was discovered in the New World, the only sources of sweetening available were honey and a type of wine reduction of Roman origin, similar to modern vermouth. This reduction was achieved by boiling wine for long periods, causing the lead from the cauldrons to dissolve into the wine, thus sweetening it. The wine sweetened with this additive became heavy in lead content, slowly poisoning the people drinking it. Lead poisoning, as we know, is cumulative and in the long term progressively reduces cognitive functions such as reasoning, critical thinking, and self-awareness. These are traits that the Game of Thrones characters progressively lose as the series goes on.

It is my belief that as betrayals and backstabbings become more common, all the characters in the story (who are mostly nobility or rich and mainly reside in palaces and castles, and therefore drink wine) tend to consume more wine due to stress. This accelerates the pace of lead poisoning. This theory makes even more sense when you think about certain characters who don’t experience this loss of cognitive abilities. For example, the Hound never becomes as dumb, and neither do any of the free folk. This is because they are commoners or soldiers and prefer ale or mead over wine. Jon Snow, for instance, starts becoming less intelligent at the moment he stops drinking mead as a member of the Night’s Watch and starts drinking wine as the Lord of Winterfell. There are many similar cases, as they can all be explained through this theory.

From Redditor u/TheMediocreCritic:

Tl;dr: We’ve already seen the One Ring in its form before it was forged by Sauron. The One Ring will eventually be forged from the broken hilt found by Theo. Sauron needs this incredibly evil item to enact his plan to enslave the people of Middle-earth.
And yes, the ring is gold, and the sword is black, but that also works perfectly in this theory.

A Dark History and a Dark Future
“The Dark Lord Sauron forged in secret a master ring to control all others. And into this ring, he poured all his cruelty, his malice, and his will to dominate all life. One ring to rule them.” 
So here’s my take. The broken sword hilt found by Theo under the floorboard once belonged to The Dark Lord Morgoth, Sauron’s predecessor. For those who aren’t well versed in the mythology of Middle-earth, Morgoth is essentially the Middle Earth version of Satan, and Sauron was his apprentice.
This sword will eventually be reclaimed by Sauron, and its essence will be reforged into the One Ring. This would make the One Ring even eviler. The One ring is evil built on evil. If the hilt belonged to Morgoth, then it is a devastating weapon designed by a god to enact his evil on the earth; Sauron then takes that evil object and adds his own malice and will to dominate.

Evil Disguised In Gold
The One Ring is an old evil combined with the new. Taking elements from Morgoth’s broken hilt,  Sauron adds his own malice and hatred, but true to his nature, Sauron uses deception. He combines the evil of Morgoth and himself with Gold. This mirrors how Sauron deceives the people of Middle-earth disguised as the beautiful Annatar. The ring is beautiful, but add fire, and the evil is revealed beneath the surface, written plain as day.
The One Ring is forged in gold, but it retains Morgoth’s evil and Sauron’s corruption at its core.

Why It Works
This theory also works well with the series’ storyline. The Orcs have descended on this peaceful countryside with a purpose. The Elf even states that they seem to be looking for something like a weapon. I believe that Sauron has sent his Orcs to retrieve the hilt of Morgoth’s sword because it is a truly evil item, a sword built by the elder god Morgoth to enslave Middle-earth and bend it to his will.
This would explain why we are following the characters in the countryside and their importance to the overall story. The Ring had to be forged from something, and I think this would be the perfect explanation of the origin of the One Ring.
Thanks for reading.

From Redditor u/TheRickiestMorty:

This is a detail that I noticed during my second viewing, but it may have been more obvious to others. Please let me know your thoughts.

In the episode where the Doppler is tasked with getting Ciri by disguising himself as Mousesack, he claims to have acquired all of Mousesack’s memories and knowledge, which would help him mimic Mousesack’s behavior when being around Ciri. However, there is one thing he is doing that Mousesack didn’t do. The doppler repeatedly touches Ciri’s hair whenever he has the opportunity.

I got the impression that Cahir promised Ciri’s hair, which is a well-known visual trait of hers, as payment so that the Doppler could add it to his collection of body parts.