Work Text:
Discord: TheTimeofIronFans
Channel: Theories and Discussion
TheIronMaid_67
Okay so I was thinking about how lineages and bloodlines are so important in TOI and how odd it is that the Cobra doesn’t have any. Like, all the other Titular Characters also have regular names and surnames and family, but then the Golden Cobra is in the midst of everything with none of that. I guess you could say Key also comes from nowhere/no one in book 1 but that's literally the point of his plot so... kind of different.
I don’t know who his parents would be, but there seems to be not much discussion on the subject. I was thinking maybe he’s related to the ice raiders somehow, could he have been a spy sent to the court to get information? Does anyone have any theories?
TheLastNope
Oh God.
TheBeautyDippedInCheese
Oh you sweet abyss foundling.
MouseMat
It’s nice that this forum has been around so long that people have forgotten the founding texts, the chaos that laid waste to the internet. Do you know why you haven’t seen much discussion? Because it has been /razed from the earth/.
EspeciaLia
He’s a Domitia. Obviously.
Plinch
Okay firstly there is nothing /obviously/ about Cobritia. Secondly this is the attitude that got you all banned last time.
CobraDoma
Hi newbie! Ignore all the trolls above, today you are one of the lucky thousand who gets to learn about how Mouse has been leaving us breadcrumbs for a Cobra Domitia reveal since book one! Ignore the wiki, it’s full of haters, but check out this primer from DDS: Cobra in the Viper's Nest
Think about it, his whole vibe is snake themed to match Rahela. He’s the only character who doesn’t go mooning after Lia, because Mouse is not GRRM and does not vibe with incest. And he appears from nowhere on the Domitia estate side of town, dropping from a tree aka a family tree
TheIronMaid_67
Mouse?
Plinch
Anonymous. Also known as Anon, Nony, Ani, Annie, Mouse, The One True Author, TOTA, because we love our characters with multiple names here.
GoldenCobraStan
He’s the only character not mooning after Lia because he’s madly in love with The Last Hope.
CobraDoma
And so the biphobia starts. You do realise it's possible to like both guys and girls, right?
MouseMat
This is why no one wants to argue with Cobritia truthers 🙄.
TheLastNope
Hi, we’re an ancient race of nobles going back to the formation of the abyss known for our pale skin and affinity for snakes. Oh yeah and once every thousand years we randomly have a black child and abandon it. Totally not racist, makes perfect sense. #ugh
OnceAnd4ever
Sorry I read this book a while back and I don’t have a copy anymore but I don’t understand why this matters since the Cobra dies in like book 2.
TheLastNope
🔔Ding Ding, we got a mandela affect over here!
GoldenCobraStan
That or someone read the books as a child and didn’t fully appreciate what ‘Marius skewered the Cobra with his mighty sword’ meant 😈.
TheIronMaid_67
Sorry, what’s a mandela effect?
Plinch
Collective delusion. Folks memory of the way something was when they were younger not matching up to the actual evidence, en mass. For whatever weird reason this franchise is full of them. Folks swearing the Cobra isn’t a character, or that Rahela dies in book 1.
There’s a theory that since TOI was a lot of people’s Big Introduction to Epic Fantasy as children they sort of mix it up with other classic fantasy. Like, you read Rumpelstiltskin and the Red Shoes and TOI and thirty years later you think the Beauty Dripped In Blood wore red hot shoes to her execution.
Isla_81
Hang on what??? The red shoes scene gave me nightmares for six months as a kid, you can’t show up and say that never happened. Pretty sure Rahela just survived it and went on to become TBDIB later. Isn’t that the whole thing where Key falls in love with her because of how beautiful she is when she screams?
KeyOfMyHeart
Okay so firstly /what the fuck/? The Once and Forever Emperor does not fall in love /because he sees a lady burning her feet off on red hot shoes/????? Sure he’s a bit insane and destructive but his devotion to Rahela is entirely adoring he would never (intentionally) hurt her.
IceQueen
Never heard someone refer to years of psychological scarring as ‘never intentionally hurting’ someone but I suppose you Emperor lovers will woobify anything 🙄
KeyOfMyHeart
Oh please, Rahela gives as good as she gets, Miss ‘Villains have more fun, nobody is real except you and me’. That's what makes them such a good match and why Emperor/Lia shippers are completely out of their minds.
EspeciaLia
Okay I admit I haven't been so into it on rereads but when I was a kid Emperia just seemed so perfect. And there's an amazing AU where Rahela dies in book 1 and Key falls for Lia instead that I swear reads like Anon wrote it themself.
Isla_81
THE RED SHOES IS A PIVOTAL SCENE I REMEMBER IT IN DETAIL
Plinch
You don’t, but have fun with that and then go reread pages 150-200 of book 1. No execution, no shoes. Rahela does her fake prophet shit (in case you’ve forgotten that too, turns out she knew the Cobra earlier and his spies gave her the heads up.)
IceQueen
Unconfirmed!! Mouse never specifies, Rahela could be a genuine prophet.
CobraDoma
Oh sure, because a genuine prophet wouldn’t have run screaming the second Octavious showed up with Key like ‘here’s your new bodyguard, this totally isn’t the start of a slippery slope that will end with your corpse propped up on a throne draped in rubies while the dead kiss your feet.’
KeyOfMyHeart
That’s devotion.
TheBeautyDippedinCheese
There's no way the Empress will stay dead though. In the last book the Emperor will take her down to the Abyss and demand his father resurrect her as well, and they can be immortal murder rulers together forever.
KeyOfMyHeart
Ooh iiiinteresting theory. I've always thought it'll be something about the Flower of Life and Death. Ani took so much care to tell us about it in book 1. Like, we literally saw Rahela trying to steal it and were never given a reason. That had to be foreshadowing for it being used to bring her back later.
TheLastNope
[This^]
Isla_81
This is insane. Did they reprint it? Since when was Rahela the Empress??? Lia was the beautiful maiden, the emperor falls in love with her, it’s all so innocent and beautiful.
EspeciaLia
Hah! My kickass scheming ace bitch did not create the Iron Maidens with Emer and slaughter her way through a city of ghouls at the head of a fey army to stand up for her sister to be called innocent and beautiful.
Plinch
/heavy sigh/
From the beginning then:
No, Rahela doesn’t die in book one.
Yes, she is a main character the whooole time.
No one wears red hot shoes at any point, and definitely not at the suggestion of Key.
Yes, the ice raiders show up in book 1.
Yes, Lia's whole thing is that she goes from a schemer to an ass-kicker and doesn't fall in love with anyone.
No, the Cobra doesn’t get stabbed by Marius (except metaphorically).
And no, everyone isn’t in love with Lia although that doesn’t stop Cobritia stans from using that as the entire basis of their nonsense theories.
CobraDoma
It’s not nonsense!! You literally pointed out that Rahela knew Cobra before the book starts, how would she know him if they weren’t secretly related?
TheBeautyDippedInCheese
How would a notoriously sexually adventurous lady know the very attractive owner of the biggest goldest brothel in town? Truly it’s a mystery. 🙄 Absolutely you must be correct in your wild reaching theory because nothing else could possibly explain that.
Plinch
*cough*Deluded*cough*
CobraDoma
Funny I thought this channel was called ‘theories and discussion’ not ‘insults and closemindedness’. @TheIronMaid_67 come over to [Server: TOIfanworks] if you want an actually friendly community.
TheLastNope
We love discussion about things that haven’t been talked to death by people who love being wrong and doubling down when they’re called out on it.
Plinch
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TimeofIrony [mod]
Rule #1: be nice guys
Plinch
Rule 1.5 get a fucking clue
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Golden_Asp
Okay but the Cobra and Rahela fucked, right? I’m not insane for this? He was like ‘I’ll whisper something, then Rahela can shut the door’ and that’s when they fucked. Mouse isn’t GRRM, I don’t think they’re out here writing incest.
CobraDoma
If any of you actually /clicked my link/ you’d remember that Lia and Rahela are only half sisters!! Cobra is blood related to Lia. But also, there's no evidence that they slept together alone in the room, they could have been talking about their shared childhood on the Domitia estate.
TheLastNope
Deluded.gif
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TimeofIrony [mod]
Last warning guys. We all know Cobritia is nonsense but try to be polite about it.
CobraDoma
Oh fuck this server anyway. @mods what the heck??
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KeyoftheDiscord [mod]
I swear to god I will shut down this channel if you all can’t behave.
MouseMat
And so history repeats itself. The discourse rises from the abyss and leaves corpses in its wake.
TheIronMaid_67
Um
So anyway what I was trying to suss out is whether it would be implausible to give the Cobra a brother in the ice kingdom running a Silver Brothel
But it was just a throwaway line in my 300k Final Book Rahela resurrection epic fic so you know what I can cut it.
Palace_on_the_Sledge
Why are you writing 300k about some minor character who dies in book 1?
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