Kingofwinter

Same energy.

So another huge parallel between Anne and Andrias, is that both of them had parents who expected the world out of their children. Putting huge expectations on their shoulders.

However, While Anne for Better or worse seems to have been a rebellious child pre Amphibia, Andrias always immediatly folded the moment his dad turned his gaze towards him.

Andrias was originally NOT on board with the Core, and probably would have done something to get ridd of it after having become king, or at least not been as subservient to it as his dad was... But becuase his dad became a part of it, he always folded to it’s demands like cheap tissue paper.

Andrias fall as a person can all be traced back to the fact that he never managed to grow a backbone to stand up to his dad, and as such he never was able to grow beyond the teenager he was in his youth, because his dad was always there, always watching over his shoulder, and Andrias simply does not have the moral backbone to ignore him, even when he knows in his heart that what he’s doing is wrong.

Andrias was fine with conquest, but drew the line at genocide... Until his dad told to shut up and do the job. He begged his dad not to take Marcy as his host, because he genuinely liked the girl, but when push came to shove, he folded like he always did.

This isn’t to say that all the blame for Andrias sins can be laid at his Dad’s feet, but it’s important to recognize that it’s here where it all started, and after Leif betrayed him, it just snowballed over the centuries.

Andrias is stuck in limbo.

By contrast, Anne was the opposite.

Anne also was a teenager with a good heart, and with parental expectations, and bad influences, but unlike Andrias, she was put into a position where she became separated from ALL of it, for good or bad. during season 1, Anne lost her parents, and with them both their love, but also their expectations that clashed with who she was. She lost both Sasha and Marcy, and with them their love and support, but also Sasha’s domineering attitude, and having to constantly make sacrifices for Marcy’s sake.

All of that was stripped away from her.

And so, she was able to grow. Able to mature, able to become the best version she could become. Even if she made big and small mistakes along the way.

She refused to shirk her share of blame, because addmitting to your own shortcomings is the only way to truly grow as a person. To take the next step, and become better. And that is the only way to truly take responsibility.

And when she came home, she had grown. Not only in the sense that she had become a much, much more responsible person, but also in the sense that she was ultimately able to be honest with her parents.

And so, she was able to ultimately reach a compromise with them. Not just fold when her parents accused her of being the same irresponsible girl she had always been. She accepted that she made mistakes, and addmited to it, but also was able to just talk to them about the reality of the situation, while in turn showing them that yes, she had grown.

Wheter Andrias might have done something similar with Aldrich is doubtfull, but the important part, is that he did not even try. Andrias knew that genocide was wrong, but he refused to actually stand up for that belief when push came to shove, even if he had all the power to do so as Aldrich’s one and only heir.

There were other paths Andrias could have suggested. He could have argued for a much less brutal conquest and subjugation(which while still evil, would have been INFINTLY less evil than genocide on the entire human race) of Earth, to fold the entire planet into their Empire, Roman style. He could have suggested they instead refocus their expansion into dead planets with plenty of iron, which would be far, far less expensive, if less glorious. Or he could have pointed out that maybe an empire that was built on constant expansion was built on sand, and they needed internal reforms at the core to make their nation last, rather than just endless, mindless expansion.

He suggested none of these. Instead, he folded. Like he always did. Because he never had the opportunity or the social enviornment he needed to grow beyond the boy that was ever fearfull of displeasing his father. His father was king, and his word was law. End of Discussion.

You can pinpoint the moment where Anne surpassed Andrias as a person. And it was right here, at the top of this tower, where she refused to accept those words just because they were spoken by someone she both deeply loved, feared, and respected.

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 the most interesting part of "The core and the King" for me, was the implications it has for the ending of the series.

So Anne and Sasha are going to level Newtopia it seems like.

Then after that, the fucking moon is somehow gonna drop and wipe out all life on the planet. Most likely as a final fuck you from Darcy to Anne.

Assuming this vision cannot be avoided, my guess is that the series is going to end with a return to Earth after all, as the Frogs, Newts, Olms, Axolotls and salamanders become surviving refugees from a dead planet.

The final symphony of the Amphibian Empire. The world that wiped out other worlds, now experienced the same happening to it.

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.

I love how we can tell just by looking at him in "the core and the King", that Andrias upon seeing the Core's actual personality is starting to realize that he's made a horrible mistake at some point.

Like... This is the entity he effectively sold his soul to, and now that he sees it in action, he's as unimpressed with it, as Darcy was with him at the end of "Little Froggy Christmas".

However in the end, he still makes the choice to continue on this path, even when he has the absolute golden opportunity to kill the core and take his place as the only leader as the Core is rebooting.

Instead he decides to commit himself to this terrible path even more by burning his picture from happier days.