As Much As I Know, Andragoras And Tahamine Adopted Arslan Because Tahamine Gave Birth To A Baby Girl,

As much as I know, Andragoras and Tahamine adopted Arslan because Tahamine gave birth to a baby girl, and after that she can't have baby anymore. But why Andragoras didn't try to have other babies with other women? Is there any explanation?

Okay, warning for novel spoilers.

First, the truth about the child born to Andragoras and Tahamenay. The baby was a son rather than a daughter, but unfortunately it was stillborn. This is revealed by Zahhak in Book 16:

'"If Tahamenay had given birth to the child without mishap, things would have turned out differently. Since the son born to that woman was stillborn, Andragoras panicked and staged a foolish charade. No only did he bring in someone else's son, but he also bought three baby girls, gave them the appropriate silver bracelets and sent them off to separate parts of the country. This was all for the sake of preventing the infertile Tahamenay from committing suicide."' (Book 16, Chapter Five, Part ii)

You're right that Tahamenay was left infertile after giving birth. I assume the birth itself must have been pretty traumatic for those who attended her to know this was the case right away, as if Andragoras had believed she was able to give him more children, I doubt he would have gone to all this effort.

As for why he didn't father children with anyone else, as far as I know there are no details about this, but we can make some guesses.

Andragoras doesn't seem to particularly care about the continuation of the royal line. He sees it for what it is, and in all honestly I think he gets a grim sense of satisfaction from hinting at the unpleasant truth while never revealing it in full, and was fully prepared to let the line die out after his death. I'm sure that in an ideal world he'd have liked to have his son inherit, but when that's not possible (specifically, when it's not possible for him to have another child with Tahamenay), from his point of view, a substitute will do.

He needed an heir in order to maintain stability in his rule, which is likely a big motivation for taking Arslan. By the time Arslan is named Crown Prince and officially designated as his heir, five years have passed. During that time, perhaps he held on to some hope that Tahamenay would somehow conceive again, but after five years it must have been apparent that it truly was impossible.

I do think, in the absence of a biological child with Tahamenay, he fully intended for Arslan to become Shah after his death, but was more interested in preserving his own power during his lifetime than he was in setting Arslan up for success.

For Andragoras, I think his biggest motivation was "having". The throne. The wealth and power that came with it. Pars itself. And Tahamenay as his queen. He wanted more than anything to possess her, and he did it by controlling her since he couldn't force her to love him and he knew that without believing she had a living child out there somewhere, she would find a way to escape by killing herself. Perhaps he was even so obsessed with her that no other woman would do. I believe all of this mattered more to him than thinking about what would happen to the country after his own death. He's a very selfish person, especially compared to Arslan.

Unlike Andragoras, Arslan has no personal desire for power and does not wish to be Shah for his own sake, but rather views it as his duty. He spends his whole life wondering what an ideal ruler is like and worries about not living up to that ideal. He is conscientious and puts the future of his people before all else. He doesn't care about riches or treasure. And he does not want to marry or have an heir of his own. They are total opposites in every way.

(That last bit was a digression; I just find it interesting. Hopefully this has answered your question!)

If you have any headcanons to share about ArSen characters (either canon or your OCs) and singing, I'd love to hear! :)

Aaaaaaaa I think I got a couple! Hold up lemme try to recall them:

When Isfan is doing something, he tends to hum soft lil tunes absently. Is it a particular song? Ehh, not really. Literally just no thoughts head empty just random tunes.

Zaravant whistles a lot. I don’t know why I hc him that way.

Shapur has sung lullabies to soothe a smol Isfan countless times. Perhaps even every night. It helps little Isfan sleep, and calm down after nightmares.

I somehow can’t get the mental image of Daryun singing something with an evil grin and Narsus trying to shut it out being all “STOOOOP YOU MONSTER”. I don’t know what Daryun would be singing to get Narsus to react like that, but it’s clear he’s doing it on purpose to mess with Narsus.

Isfan tends to find a melody in nature— like say, the slow pitter-patter of raindrops, some frog croaking in the distance, stuff like that. His innate connection with nature also meant that he can feel out its melody. He thinks everyone else can do it too though. Oh and sometimes his humming can be influenced by whatever he hears out there in nature.

Merlaine appreciates a good singing voice. Maybe he’d prefer softer, quieter songs, perhaps to contrast his father’s (very bad) loud boisterous singing voice?

Alfarīd likes to sing, and dance too. If there’s a celebration or something she’d be one of the people dancing to the joy. I think she’d make quite a merry dancer, can’t tell you why though.

I think Arslan would like to sing and dance too, but is too shy to do it, afraid people might think it’s improper. Somebody should push him to do it.

Sam has a nice voice, but he often doesn’t know what to sing so he just doesn’t. What a waste!

It’s been a very long time since Hilmes sang. He last did it for Irina, perhaps under the excuse of teaching her about Parsian music or something, lol. I think a smol Hilmes before the fire may have expressed interest in picking up an instrument or something. It’s just the vibes I got.

Irina looooooves music. She sings and hums a lot too, and makes cute lil noises. She always asks Militsa to sing for her, and who’d say no to a face like that?

Ayyar always pesters his grandpa to sing for him. And he always sings along too.

In Winds of Wolfsong, the clan has so. many. things. centered around song and dance. Solstices and equinoxes? Let’s sing and dance! Many of their history and myths? Songs! Celebration? Song! Funeral? Song! There are games played by families or just bored colleagues where they piece random songs together or come up with lyrics on the fly or stuff like that. Just… songs.

On that note, music is thought to be the bridge between worlds, the language of all languages that transcend barriers. It’s used as a medium to communicate with spirits, and they have traditional dances— dances to old and ancient melodies endeavoring to sync up the body and soul to what the song is conveying, if that makes sense? It’s also a form of magic. Not every clan member is a dancer, though.

Kazai’s a dancer. Arslan is too. Gieve sings, and plays the oud as in canon, but with a magical twist of course. Maybe he too uses it to ask spirits questions. Ayunnen and Kashi used to sing together under the moonlight. In this AU too Farangis sings and chants melodic prayers— just not to the Parsian gods. Isfan sings a lot more in this AU too.

Ayunnen had the gentlest, most soothing voice you’ve probably ever heard. Kashi’s voice was… hm, how do I describe it— stronger? firmer? Something like that.

Shapur seems like someone who’d sing for his beloved.

So this seems to be all I can recall at the top of my head for now! I hope you enjoyed it!!

3.10

Concept: A witch cat that’s too fat to fly

Feels very heartwarming to go and look for what the Japanese fans thought of the latest chapter and see multiple people now hoping for / theorising about a happy ending for Hilmes and Irina in Maryam, and two of them even mentioned Zandeh as well!

I am laughing so hard about this 😂

I can already see the two coffe shops in a barista battle 😅

Tumblr informing me against my will (I never click on 'Explore'! But again and again there it is instead of my dashboard...) that it's National Coffee Day today so I'm taking that as a sign to share ArSen Coffee Shop AU bullet points.

As an ex-cafe worker I am so not into this as a setting (and not generally into modern AUs for this series at all) but the idea of Zandeh totally failing at his job as barista is both amusing and cute

I don't know what Don Ricardo drinks, probably whatever flavoured-syrup concoction is being promoted at the time (so yeah, pumpkin spice latte right now) but even though his Lusitanian co-workers tell him he should complain he can see Zandeh is trying his best and doesn't think it would be fair to ask for the manager

(The manager is Sam, btw)

Hilmes owns the shop. Zandeh still has a massive crush on him and gets really flustered when he's around

Gurgin's order is the only one Zandeh gets right because it's just black coffee and he's honestly not that fussy as long as it's strong

Kharlan is an accountant who oversees the finances of both the shop where Zandeh works and the rival coffee shop across the road which is staffed by Team Arslan. He's the one who got Zandeh the job (it's his first).

I don't know what this place is called, Cafe Rukhnabad maybe

I'm sure if I thought about this for long enough it would feature a developing Zandeh/Gurgin relationship because of course it would, they are the OTP (hmm let's say maybe Gurgin used to work in a fancy coffee shop but he quit, he's seen enough of Zandeh's misadventures in the background while he's working to know that he is struggling, so one night when Zandeh is closing up and he and Gurgin are the only ones there, he shows him how to do latte art. Zandeh: "Wow, it's like magic!")

Yeah that's it. I will never write this.