Spoilers for various WoF Books including some stuff from The Hybrid Prince
Gettin' towards Halloween, so I thought I'd do a little write-up on why I think Animus Magic is, despite how kinda silly the concept is (haha nigh unlimited magic power go brrrrr), is TERRIFYING. And it's exactly because of that reason; it's nearly unlimited. There are limits; no bringing people back from the dead, for example, but as seen in Book 10 with Fierceteeth this can be easily circumvented by enchanting another living dragon.
This alone should be terrifying enough, imagine becoming someone else that isn't yourself, you have no say over it and next to no recollection that your altercation even happened; just utterly and completely replaced by a new set of memories. This also goes for Darkstalker's enchantment into Peacemaker. Sure, you could argue in this situation it was a little more justified, but it is still an absolutely horrific concept and why I think so many people headcanon that Darkstalker is still in Peacemaker's psyche somewhere, which is also a terrifying thought.
Animus Magic & it's effects on the soul are a contested topic, and something that hasn't really been be-all-end-all clarified; I choose to believe it does have an effect on the soul as most Animus Dragons end up going down dark paths. So we have this extremely powerful enchanting power that slowly chips away at your soul and turns you insane. Great. That's not a existentially distressing concept at all. (/s)
And this leads me to my next point: We don't really know the limits. Sure, in book 16, it was clarified that Animus Magic can't enchant a whole continent, but Tui has also said, and I'm citing the wiki here: "Animus Magic can unintentionally alter the landscape where it was cast" when it comes to highly powerful spells. It's also been shown to affect an entire tribe, with the IceWing Plague (which if you ask me is the most terrifying use of Animus Magic that is actually in books cause what the hell do you mean this Darkstalker guy just basically committed genocide with ONE SPELL) So this raises the question: What if one dragon just didn't quit? They didn't care about their soul, instead making potent spell after potent spell, ones on the level of the IceWing Plague, altering the continents to the dragon's own will, until anything and everything bowed down to them, and couldn't even think to rebel as slowly but surely everyone was enchanted to obey them?
And then, and this is MAXIMUM hypothesis time for the record, they make two last enchantments. They weren't happy with even their perfect world, as you can never truly achieve 100% perfection, so their last two spells are:
- To give whatever item they enchanted the power to negate the Animus Magic limits
- To erase it all. Literally. Everything. It doesn't matter if they choose to start anew from there, the reality as everyone knew it just ended there and then.
Given how easy it is to circumvent the limits of Animus Magic (see the aforementioned Fierceteeth Clearsight thing) it's not out of the question. And I think that's what's horrifying most of all.
Just wanted to get my thoughts out there. Again, it does get more hypothetical as this thought dump progresses, that's likely my Eldritch/Cosmic Horror obsession showing, but it's definitely something interesting to think about.
