i’ve been thinking about darkstalker a lot lately and i follow a bunch of wof blogs so i dont remember what your opinion on him is. To me, he was a character with a lot of potential that was badly written and kinda killed off at the end just because. He deserved better writing and a better ending imo.

dreamvisitors-archive:

my opinion on darkstalker is kind of… mixed, I guess. I can see what tui was trying to do with his character, but tbh it was poorly executed. he’s a tragic villain that was actually really well written at first. when reading moon rising, I was suspicious of the guy at first, and intimidated by his powers and potential, but the way he talked to moon made me like him and hope he turned out to be a better character. and you do sympathize with darkstalker a lot, such as in the winter turning epilogue and especially his own book which highlights his abuse, and you hope he’ll turn out to be alright. he cares about moon, whiteout, clearsight, his mom, fathom, and you can genuinely see that and how much he wants to be a good king with a beautiful future with clearsight and their dragonets, and how much he doesn’t want arctic to interfere with that. you can see how much he mourns this 2000 years later, for clearsight and the old tribe. you can see all of it, and you feel for the guy. you want him to have a happy ending.

and then talons of power happened.

I think what happened was, tui made him TOO sympathizing, so she made him act nonchalant about moon. he gives away her secret about her powers like it’s nothing, and while I do see the old darkstalker giving powers away and acting all smooth like he does in TOP and DOD, it feels… off, somehow. like whenever I read TOP I can’t help but feel like he’s being written differently, like tui is purposely trying to make him unsympathetic and rude, so that the audience will end up not liking him and want him to be taken out. you can interpret that as the animus magic taking over his soul (heck, my friend brought up a theory that the released animus magic from the scroll may be turning him evil) but overall it feels less like that and more like… bad writing.

it gets better in DOD for a bit, like you know he’s nearly taken over by the magic at this point. I can see a mostly corrupted darkstalker creating a new clearsight with a different dragon, tbh. but god, that ENDING. this has been said so, so many times I know, but DODs ending could’ve been so much better if darkstalker chose to become peacemaker. it would’ve been the perfect redemption for him, and it had so much potential. darkstalker is an abused dragon who was sent down a very dark path. the entire moral of wings of fire is that you can choose your destiny. darkstalker and clearsight always had their conflict about choosing the right future. darkstalker should, and would, have chosen to become a dragonet again, because he’s reflecting on everything that has happened, and what he has done. foeslayer and moon are there to help him make that choice. darkstalker would’ve redeemed himself with that choice, and boom, his plot is over.

but instead, tui kept treating him like he was a complete villain, even though she has established that he still has some good left in him. he acts like a brat in the ending, saying he doesn’t want to lose his powers or his kingdom, and nothing will change his mind, so the jade winglet FORCES him to become peacemaker. a little fucked up, wouldn’t you say? it’s just… so bad to do that to an abused character that had a chance to become good and heal. especially with wofs message.

so. basically. I guess my opinion is like everyone else’s. darkstalker’s a good character, just not a well written one.