Drowtales/Fridge

Fridge Brilliance

• The reason why no one seems to question Liriel's appearance makes a lot more sense when you consider that the Jaal'darya are running around and are best known for making themselves tails and wings, so a girl with drow eyes but dark elf coloring isn't all that unusual in comparison.
  • Later on, when we see the Balvhakara Matriarch with two dark elf children in Nuqrah'shareh it makes even more sense, especially since it's Kyo'nne who points out Liriel's appearance and inquires about buying her. Dark elf servants or children might very well be a status symbol to them.
  • Oops, turns out they weren't dark elves after all, just Emberi slaves with ear decorations. But this still applies since Kyo'nne would be even more interested in a genuine dark elf.
• So you've got Ariel and Faen, and they have some similarities, but there's another that's not so obvious until you get into spoilers. One of their parents is a dark elf, meaning they're both second generation drow on at least one side of their family.
  • Ariel and Chirinide also have similar backgrounds, both being second generation drow on their fathers' sides, and both having one drow and one surface-born elven parent.
• Ariel's reaction to finding out Mel is her mother at first looks like just another case of naivety or refusing to believe it, but considering that she's a shapeshifter it's not that far fetched, especially since she's never actually seen Mel and Quain standing next to each other.
• Sillice's decision to ask Liriel / Diva to become the "ice twins" playmate, and Diva's decision to accept. From Sillice's point of view, what better playmate than a palace insider still loyal to her mother, and from Diva's, she's building a network of children with a high probability of becoming important politically one day.
• The fact that Balsii stabs Nega'fanea in the throat is actually even more of an insult when you think about it. The sword went through Nega's tongue, so even though it didn't work the plan likely was to take her spellsong away if it didn't kill her, and given that it's the Illhar'dro's signature ability it's even more of a diss to Nega.
• Some might see Nega'fanae's pacifist ways as being Lawful Stupid, but the fridge brilliance comes from the fact that you find out she was actually born in Val'Raveran, a multi-ethnic, merchant city of free peoples, as opposed to Chel'el'sussuloth or Nuqrah'shareh which are both drowolath-dominated and freely accepting of slavery. Growing up in Val'Raveran may have exposed her to attitudes more liberal than what is seen in Chel and probably living amongst non-drow cultures peacefully helped to shape her pacifist ideals.
• Some fans on the forum noted that Quain'tana is a rather brutal mercenary who may be loved as a hero in-story but that in the human world, Quaint'tana would be seen as an extreme Jerkass, particularly in the way she treats her children. Some go as far as to call her a Karma Houdini as in-story she appears to have received no comeuppance for her actions. HOWEVER, the fridge brilliance comes when you note that Quain'tana has already been hit hard by karma. How? See below.
  • To count it off, the warrior queen who wishes for nothing but to be free of the system of nobles and commoners has found herself a noble, unable to take the field of battle, and has lost her chosen heir to demons, and left barren and thus unable to make a new one. Her remaining heirs are a daughter who hates her guts, another who lacked the killer instinct Quain desires in an heir who betrays her to the Sharen, an overly ambitious advisor's daughter, and Ariel her granddaughter. In Drowtales motherhood is very important and Quain'tana's barrenness makes her even more of an outsider to other nobles.
• Kalki's hair looks like a combination of Snadhya'rune's and Mel'arnach's which makes perfect sense since they're her parents. It might even been an Invoked Trope since she's implied to naturally have white hair given what we see of her as a baby.
• While it may seem odd that the Vloz have a human woman like Nainai hanging around, keep in mind that humans don't have auras, so she's probably the only person in the fortress who is completely immune to the demons, especially those around Kharla, and therefore the perfect person to have around her in case her powers get out of control.
• The fact that the inside of the Sullisin'rune dome looks like the Surface makes a lot more sense in light of the fact that Ash'waren was born there. Add to that the fact that the naga servants look like Dark Elves and you start to get the sense that there's a lot more to her than we thought, and chapter 36 pretty much confirms this.
• Lulianne's wardrobe change after the timeskip from full armor to low riding pants with a Cleavage Window thanks to Khaless' possession actually makes a lot of sense. She's a demon, she doesn't need armor anymore. The fact that immediately after Khaless initially possesses her Lulianne starts shedding her armor may in fact be symbolic of Khaless taking her over.
• Zala'ess' Expository Hairstyle change after the timeskip has her with plain white hair, i.e. she looks more like a drow instead of a dark elf. And Snadhya'rune's goal is to have drow ruled by drow, so it's probably not a coincidence that Zala's styling her hair that way.
• Snadhya and Quain are actually a lot more similar than Mel either realizes or acknowledges. Which is kind of sad in a way, since she's ultimately fallen in love with someone who's quite a bit like the person she hates, and this pattern crops up with real life people as well. Because really, when you think about it:

1. 1. Wants to make a new order where people are ruled by their own people
   2. Dislikes Diva'ratrika and enjoys seeing her rage at their unwillingness to follow her plans
   3. Willing to go to extreme lengths to have a child of her own blood, including outright deception and theft^[1]
   4. Willing to use family members and discard them when they're no longer needed
   5. Indoctrinates people into her way of thinking and makes obedient drones, as Mel puts it.

• • Now did I just describe Snadhya'rune or Quain'tana? The answer is I just described both of them.
  • Additionally, Mel's reaction here to Snadhya revealing that she tricked Mel into giving one of her eggs to make Kalki suggests that Mel recognizes on some level how similar they are, but is choosing to ignore it, especially the line about how she "doesn't want to hate anymore" indicating that she realizes that she should be upset about it, but is choosing not to be. It also explains why she flipped out as much as she did when Snadhya told her that Kalki's "father" was a Sarghress, when just a few pages before she was thrilled to hear that Snadhya had a daughter of her own. Her complete 180 in mood as soon as she finds out that Snadhya kept it a secret from her suggests that what Snadhya did hit a little too close to home for poor Mel.
• And a Fridge Crowning Moment of Funny in this page: Now that we know that Kalki's Mel's daughter this scene becomes especially hilarious if you notice how big the dress Kalki (barely) has on is on her, so it's very likely that it's actually Mel's old dress, meaning that Mel walked in on Kalki playing dressup with one of mommy's dresses.
  • Also if you take one Day Dream story as canon, those dresses actually belonged to Snadhya'rune in the first place -before she passed them onto Mel'arnach- making it a double Crowning Moment of Funny. No wonder Mel states that she was surprised that Snadhya'rune had "kept some of her old clothes". It's probably an in-joke between them.
• Quain's slight pause before she tells Ariel that she makes her proud is a bit of Fridge Sadness, since the last time she likely said that was back when Laelle'aell was still alive, in other words, it might've been the better part of a century since she's said that.

Fridge Horror

• A discussion on the Headscratchers page pointed out that Faen's attack on Nihi'liir was probably done using the same method as her healing powers, only attacking the nerves, and that the teacher probably died from having her brain overloaded. Now think about Ash'waren does to hide that she's a Dark Elf combined with how the Kyorl use Empaths to "cleanse (i.e. brainwash) people and let it sink in that she's basically hacking your brain. No wonder Quain'tana told her to stop doing it as soon as they were alone.
• Syphile's suicide attack on Quain'tana. Think about what we now know about Snadhya's faulty seeds. Syphile was tainted while she was at Orthorbbae, and Snadhya was there. It's not hard to imagine that Snadhya gave Syphile an intentionally faulty seed, hoping she'd take out some of the Sarghress when it went haywire, and later on Zala just exploited this by loosening it further. So more or less Quain'tana actually gave her a Mercy Kill, since she was doomed anyway.
  • Additionally, the recipients of Snadhya's faulty seeds are stated to only have twenty five to fifty years, if they're lucky, before their seed overtakes them. Syphile was tainted right before Ariel was born, so about 15-16 years. There's about to be a 15 year time skip in the story. Syphile probably wouldn't have survived past the time skip had she lived. Poor girl was doomed no matter what.
    • Also, even her name has a level of either Harsher in Hindsight or Hilarious in Hindsight when you think about it, considering that her name originates from Syphilis, an STD, and tainting has several similarities to an STD especially now that we know that most taints are intentionally designed to kill the recipient and hell, even the word tainting has, as Snadhya put it, a "delicious depravity." When you think about it that way Snadhya'rune becomes even more of a Complete Monster since she's doing the equivalent of intentionally infecting children with AIDS. The troper who realized this was rocking back and forth in shock for a few minutes after making this connection.
  • Relatedly, that teacher whose seed went haywire and took out most of the Beldrobbaen girls and tainted Naal? Probably an early test case for those faulty seeds.
• How does Khaless feed as a demon? If she still needed to eat then the question is What or WHO? Maybe students who accidentally stumbled across things that they shouldn't have... like possibly poor Sael
• Someone pointed out on the forums that Snadhya's ambitions to be Orthorbbae's headmistress has a level of Fridge Horror when you think about it. She was said to have hid in Orthorbbae during the Nidraa'chal War and invited the children of many of the clans to take shelter with her, and there's a very good chance she did this specifically as a backup plan in case things went south and needed few hundred human shields and/or people to turn into demons. Given what else we know about her, it's a safe bet that she Would Hurt a Child if she had to, and in fact probably has.
  • Nishi'kanta seems to support the latter statement here and to add more support to this theory, one suspects that Snadhya'runes was the one who summoned Sate'ja to confront Chry'stel and her gang in the freezer. (Granted, she may not have known exactly who was prying in the school basement but she probably just gave Sate'ja orders to kill any trespassers on sight).
• Look closely at the last panel of this page. What's Taisei doing? He's funneling off extra nether from Chrys'tel. The last time we saw someone do that was when Snadhya did that to Naal. And what happened later in that chapter? Naal's seed took her over. The Fridge Horror kicks in when you realize that Taisei doing that to Chrys suggests that Chrys' seed was about to go haywire, so we very possibly witnessed her almost dying, and she probably didn't even know! This is especially horrifying after the faulty seeds revelation.
• The statement that Nishi'kanta "went to live as a hermit" has Tear Jerker qualities to it when you think about it. According to the worldsetting, despite being independent-minded creatures, all drow HAVE to live in large communities due to mana-(aka their lifeforce), only being generated and maintained when in large groups. This may very well mean that Nishi'kanta committed suicide after the Nidraa'chal War and this is why other characters, such as Chrys'tel never refer to her in the present tense.
  • Thankfully, this is not the case as this has apparently been retconned, with the line referencing her being a hermit removed in the updated chapter 9, and it's stated she's alive and well after the timeskip... but has gone missing.
• The fact that we haven't yet seen Sabbror after the timeskip is pretty worrying, as is the fact that the last time we saw him was the same page where Sha'sana described the faulty seeds and Zala looks very concerned in that page.

1. ↑ I'm counting Wiam taking Mel's egg as theft since it was taken under false pretenses, which come to think of it has a disturbing parallel to rape