For this portion of my series about Ronodin, I am avoiding the topic of his back story. Because as of right now, we can only theorize what it is, and I am only using cannon facts for my conclusion. But there will be a part soon where I theorize about his backstory.
Morally grey?
Disclaimer! Morally grey is a broad concept, but there are a few things that a character needs to have to be morally grey.
I am just going off of the textbook definition. And many other sources and the most common morally grey defining qualities.
There are many morally grey characters, but I picked out the one I think most people feel Ronodin is.
Feel free to respectfully disagree in the comments, but anything mean or negative will be deleted. I will have all the sources I used for the research linked when they are mentioned.
I would also like to say that the research I did into understanding what morally grey is, is why this post took too long. So be respectful, I put a lot of time into this. And I know Ronodin is a topic people can get heated about.
I’ve seen some people refer to Ronodin as morally grey, and it always rubbed me the wrong way. I always thought to be morally grey you needed morals, which I do not see much proof of Ronodin having.
So I did some research and came up with this: a morally grey character is not someone who is mean but has a few redeemable qualities so, you like them or makes bad decisions but, they are hot so, it is okay. That is the Bad Boy trope, not morally grey. A morally grey character is not someone who doesn’t pick a side or switches sides often.
Morally grey characters often have a goal and a strict set of morals that they do not stray away from. They often think the end justifies the means and understand what they are doing is bad but feel they still need to do it for the greater good. A morally grey character is someone who has good intentions but does terrible things to fulfill their goals.
I read this article from Summit News:
I highly suggest you read if you want to understand morally grey characters more than what I will go into in this. From that article, there is this quote:
"A villain is someone who is purely, just purely evil. They’re probably selfish, in a way, with no good intentions. Whereas a morally gray character understands their flaws"
Ronodin does not think he has any flaws and always finds a way to justify his actions, even if they can not be truly justified. Ronodins actions speak more than his words in a lot of cases. And his actions show he only cares about himself. So there are not any good intentions there unless the fate of the world relies on him, it doesn’t.
When he says he cares about certain groups of people or beings it is only to manipulate people into thinking what he wants them to.
An example of this is in Master of the Phantom Isle,
[Excerpt from Mater of the Phantom Isle page 176-177]
“I don’t like the idea of anyone ruling over somebody else,” Ronodin answered. “No one should be oppressed.”
In the next book Ronodin becomes the Fairy King, ruling over an entire side of the magical community a little hypocritical, don’t you think?
Not to mention the being's light, which he is forcing to turn dark. Seems a little like oppression to me. And I am not saying dark creatures are not oppressed in ways, I’m just saying Ronodin is a hypocrite. It shows the “good intentions” people might point out are purely for show and manipulation.
So throughout the series, we see Ronodin claims he wants “freedom for all” (not an exact quote) but also throughout the series we've seen that isn’t true. Yes, Ronodin did free multiple beings of darkness that you could say were wrongfully imprisoned but then in Master of the Phantom Isle we see him turn the phantom Dezia is to a slave, does that sound like freedom? Truly we do not know anything about his motives. His actions always contradict his words. So, as I've said, Ronodin’s actions speak louder than his words.
I already mentioned Dezia so now let’s talk about the dragons. Ronodin says he wants the dragons to be free, and constantly calls the sanctuaries “prisons”. (The sanctuary topic is very complicated and I cover it completely in a different blog post, right now this is about Ronodin.) And we know he frequented Titian Valley, one of the worst sanctuaries. I would call Titian Valley a prison with the way the dragons are treated. And yet, we don’t see Ronodin do anything about the dragon's treatment. Even though we know he has considerable sway with the now-deceased Giant Queen. Yes, he was involved in the falling of multiple dragon sanctuaries, but was that for the sake of the dragon's? Or was it just the spreading of chaos? If a character is morally grey they have good intentions but evil ways of fulfilling them. I have yet to find Ronodin's good intentions.
Let’s take the Everbloom as an example, if Ronodin had been able to manipulate Seth into taking The Everbloom, the volcano Baga Loa would have been destabilized and many ecosystems would have been destroyed. Many of which I assume the small dragons that didn’t leave when the preserve fell still lived, and most likely dark beings as well. Ronodin did not care about them, he only cared about what he wanted.
This is why I call Ronodin a performative activist. In case you don’t know what performative activism is, here is the definition via google.
“Performative activism is a pejorative term referring to activism done to increase one's social capital rather than because of one's devotion to a cause. It is often associated with surface-level activism, referred to as slacktivism.”
Ronodin got a sort of allyship with Celebrant by helping with the dragons, but we know that Ronodin only helped them because Celebrant had information about one of his horns. And releasing the undead of the Blackwell was only to get another of his horns from The Underking, or at least information about it. So he doesn’t actually care about liberation, he cares about his interests. And saying he cares helped him get what he wanted. Performative activism at his finest. (In a fictional setting at least)
There is also this YouTube video that I watched it is a great video, so I HIGHLY suggest you watch it because a lot of what I would have said and what I do say is in there.
Video link:
Dear Authors... Morally Gray Characters [CC]
I think that video explains morally grey very well, and mentions another trope I think Ronodin fits, The Bad Boy trope. But you can look that up to find the definition because I’m not going to focus on that trope very much.
Morally grey isn’t someone who does terrible things but had a few redeeming qualities and is hot, so it’s fine. That’s the Bad Boy trope, not morally grey.
“Lean into the bad but, also lean into the good.”-Merphy Napier on YouYube (video linked above)
This is how I see morally grey characters, and I don’t see Ronodin leaning towards good anything. He says he is, but then why doesn’t he stick with it? Maybe if he was doing bad things to protect his family instead of throwing them in jail and handing them over to demon kings, but he’s not doing that, he’s actively harming his family and only protecting himself.
Most morally grey characters have a strict moral code they follow and won’t break. We don’t know if Ronodin does have a moral code, we only see that he’s going to look out for himself over all else. Even people he’s partnered with. We haven't seen him fighting towards a goal other than causing pain and chaos.
Morally grey characters have a strong moral code that deviates from the norm.
On a surface level, that fits Ronodin, but that’s only looking at what he says he cares about, what he says he wants. When if you think about it, all Ronodin wants is to gain power and cause chaos, that’s a villain not morally grey.
What other people said:
Quick disclaimer I don't think a lot of poeple have gone indepth
@/VanessaSantoroFanclub/Cayla said: I would say he isn’t morally grey but likes to be perceived that way.
@/eeveefgh/Fiona said: Yeah for me he doesn’t seem morally grey at all. He does what he wants even if it’s bad. He LIKES to cause harm and chaos for everyone. My opinion anyway. :)
This is something important I forgot to mention. More often than not morally grey characters don’t enjoy causing harm but feel they need to for the greater good. I don’t see that behavior with Ronodin.
After I asked a few of my friends I asked people who follow me on Instagram what they thought, here are some of the answers I got:
“Yes. He isn’t on a specific side, he’s on his side of the whole conflict and helps the side he thinks has more chances to win. Also, he’s a unicorn so he used to be a creature of light but became a creature of darkness. I believe it happened because he was somehow hurt and he didn’t want it to happen again, so he seeks the best possible ways to avoid it.”
“No. Ronodin has not values that hold interests in the lives of others. He’s just plain bad.”
“Yes. I think he’s morally grey because he doesn’t serve a particular side, he’s only really allied with himself. I feel like he has goodish intentions but he’s not very subjective and is only after power...but I love him for that!!”
“No. I feel like some of the fandom simps over him and makes him seem better than he really is.”
“No. He presents himself/his morals as somewhat like The Sphinx, but in truth, the real intent would probably be to rule the light kingdom, and he has helped the dragons but I don’t believe it’s with good intent.”
If you want to see me talk about these answers you can get out my youtube video about this blog post.
So no, I don’t think Ronodin is morally grey. Maybe if to books were from his POV I would see it differently but I don’t.
Have a magical day fabled friends! I’ll talk to you soon!
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