Kingofwinter

Wait a second, i JUST realised something. The Plantar Family home Is literarily the marked endpoint/startpoint of the the(addmitedly terrible) official travel map of amphibia showing the way from the valley to the capital.

that means that the Farm(which is well over 1500 years old) was once the most important settlement in the valley, and it’s remained as such even after real settlements came into existence here, and so was grandfathered into any future maps, or Andrias knew about the Plantars being descendants of Leif for ages, and made certain that the official travel map showcased their map so his troops would always know where it was in case the day ever came he wanted to level it.

Alright, so “The Core and The King” revealed that Andrias big flashback scene of him sitting on the throne, in the prime of his life, with the full power of the Calamity gems behind him, and his friends by his side was actually what Andrias WISHED was what had happened, rather than what actually did.

That Part is clear enough.

But there is still one, remaining mystery about this flashback that hasn’t been explained.

What is the meaning of this brooch?

As we learned in “The Core and The King”, Leif did indeed have a brooch as part of her regular attire, but that brooch looks absolutely NOTHING like the orange brooch Leif has in Andrias ideal fantasy flashback.

Her regular Brooch is green, and shaped like a leaf, a sign of her proffession as the royal gardner, while the one in Andrias fantasy is either an orange gem, or a turtleshell.

Either way, the fact that Andrias in his dream of what SHOULD have been, remembers Leif and Barrel as they used to be to a Tee, yet misremembers this one, single detail seems very deliberate. This is Andrias dreaming of how he wishes that things SHOULD have been, and in his dream, Leif wears this thing, instead of her regular brooch.

The only question is then, what does it mean? well i have 3 theories.

1. This is him wishing to forget the part where Leif was a Gardner. After all, in this fantasy of his, she is his right hand, and the fact the gem power behind him is purple, means they have achieved the next step together with Barrel. And so, rather than accepting that part of her, Andrias wishes she left it behind and instead embraced becoming de-facto queen, with all the dignity that kind of station implies.

2. Instead of this being some misremembered detail, or something he imagines, this is actually how she looked at some point after the events of “The King and the Core”. After all, Leif must have returned back to Amphibia at some point to pass on that dance to the Plantar family(and all the comes with it), and it is fully possible that Leif and Andrias met each other again. If so, then this brooch would probably have been what she was wearing at that point in time, and Andrias remembers it, instead of the green one.

3. More wild mass guessing on my part, but the brooch might be an engagement trinket of somekind, and in this ideal fantasy of Andrias, she is his literal queen(judging by his reaction to her dance, he was clearly attracted to her after all.).

So Aldrich's design was apparently based Saruman possessed Theoden, while the way he wormed his way into his son's mind and corrupted him into what he became was inspired by those parasite from Princess Mononoke(I think, i have never watched that movie, but i think thats the reference pic).

Also reference pics with heights, showing that Andrias really did use to be a regularly small boi.

Also while I generally loved Darcy in "The Core and The King, I HATE that it lost the universal red scalera, golden pupils. It looks so much better to have all of them like that than the nonsense the redesign went with.

So now that we have the original trio's names, lets dive into them and what they mean.

Leif is a Scandinavian name, who's meaning of old is "Descendant" or "Heir", which seems to not refer to her, but rather the family who inherited her hunting dance.

Also, though it has nothing to do with it, English speakers usually butcher this name as "Leaf"(As happened in the show), when it would actually be pronounced similar to the english word "Life".

Either way, both those fit Leif quite well.

More interesting is that it is also the name of Leif Erikson, the legendary explorer who was the first European who ever set foot on American soil. And unlike Columbus, he did so without committing genocide on the locals, which mirrors Leifs arrival to Earth, which ended up saving the planet from Amphibia's warmachine.

As the only one of the trio with two names, Andrias Leviathan has two very different origins.

Andrias is the name of a certain kind of real life enormous Salamanders, which presumably is the Earth counterpart to his species.

Andrias is also an old scandinavian corruption of the name Andreas.

Andreas is an ancient greek name which means both "Man, warrior". As in, the name referred to the duty of a man in Ancient greek, first and foremost of which was to protect his home and family, hence the name becoming associated both with familial(Of the male variety) duty, and being a warrior, mixed into one.

Both of which fits Andrias very well, being the only son and heir of a king, and expected to continue it's imperial conquests as his duties, while also being a formidable warrior in his own right.

Meanwhile, Leviathan is an ancient, biblical, beast, the embodiment of the sheer power and chaos of the seas.

Fitting for a man who brought nothing but destruction and pain to his people, and wishes to do the same to every other world.

Also, Andrias is seemingly one of the last Salamanders in the world, which fits in well with the fact that according to Jewish tales, there was originally one male, and one female Leviathan, but after creating them, God realised that that if he let them multiply, they would go on to dominate all life in the sea, and so he killed the female one, leaving only the male Leviathan left, to forever swim the oceans alone and lonely.

A barrel is the container used to store things, and many of them have the same build and shape as the midsection of Amphibian's toads. Round, strong and Stocky.

As a word, it has several older meanings, such as "Of uncertain origin", "Bolt", "Bar", "Jug".

However, that is not to say that there isn't a deeper meaning to his connection to his namesake.

Though today we tend to think of Barrels as common things, in the old days, Barrels were very valuable and valued things, that required very skilled laborers to make, in order for them to be a sealed vessel for liquid.

In particularily, they were buried with the dead as grave goods.

And as it happens, Barrel's main contribution to modern Amphibian history, is his own grave good, his hammer, that marks where he died.

The of course there is the fact that Barrel(Which were necessary to store achohol such as beer) was known as "Barrel the Brave", and as anyone who has any knowledge of soldiers can tell you, there is a reason why "Liquid Courage" is a term.

So there was a lot of Andrias Anne Parallels this episode.

Both of them were betrayed by the pink girl they loved and trusted more than anyone else.

Both of them made the choice to end their relationships with said pink girls because of it.

Both of them responded to this betrayal by attacking the girl who betrayed them with a sword in anger, with the intent to kill, both certain they were in the right, while we know they were actually in the wrong at that moment.

Both of them ended up rejecting their green friend, leaving them in tears, with that conversation being the last thing they ever said to them before they died.

I like the fact that young Andrias, though he's clearly very interested in the sight ahead of him, has the decency to look away, rather than keep staring at Leif's... dance. Yes definitely her dance.

He was such a cute, shy boy back then.

Three Stars Burning Bright. 

Come From Beyond to Expel the Night.

Will They Fight

Or Embrace The Fall

Their Choice Will Determine

The Fate of All

So of all the things we learned in "The Core and The King", probably the second most interesting to me is that it changes the context of Andrias previous(Rather inaccurate) flashback.

The scenes with Andrias, fully grown, the throne and the city pulsating with the power of the combined gems power rather than just heart, and his friends by his side as he sits the throne never happened.

But that doesn't make this unimportant. It just changes the context from "What happened", to "What Andrias WISHES had happened".

Even now, a thousand years later, this is what Andrias dreams of, his greatest desire. Not conquest, but to just rule Amphibia with his friends at his side. The way it was meant to be. The way it SHOULD have been.

It is also a world that cannot be. No matter what he does, he cannot bring these two back to him.

It is very much in keeping with his character. Andrias is a man stuck in the past, which is why he's so stuck on recreating the Amphibian Empire that was his birthright.

It is much, much easier to do that, than to face the fact that he lost Barrel, not due to betrayal, but his own shitty actions, which ultimately lead to his death.

Andrias does not have the stones to admit that whatever happened with Leaf, he and he alone, was the one who fucked up in his relationship with Barrel and got him killed.

Andrias refuses to take personal responsibility for his own actions and mistakes as a person, Instead, he shirks the blame, and throws himself into "Redeeming" himself by recreating the Amphibian Empire that he blames himself for the destruction of.

In that regard, he is the complete and total opposite of Anne, who after having made the worst decision of her life, refused to deny her share of the responsibility.

Andrias needed to learn to accept his own faults in how the trio disintegrated, and then move on from there. Instead, he is still stuck where he was a thousand years ago when Leaf's betrayal was still fresh and raw.

Inside, he is still that teenager who in anger sent his remaining best friend to an assignment that lead to his death, and even now, all these years later he refuses to take responsibility for it.

Andrias needed to let go of the past, and embrace the future that was open to him. But he never did.