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Sorceress Thaegan was a servant of the Shadow Lord who controlled the north of Deltora during the Shadow Lord's reign. She was also responsible for creating Soldeen and the Lake of Tears, the guardian and hiding place of the Ruby, respectively.
History
Early life
Thaegan was born to a sorceress named Tamm toward the end of the reign of Queen Elspeth. Bored by her life, she fled into the mountains separating Deltora from the Shadowlands. Seven years later, Thaegan returned,
Many of Thaegan's children
significantly more powerful than before. At some point, Thaegan had thirteen monstrous "children", though it is unclear exactly how they came to be. Her children were Hot, Tot, Jin, Jod, Fie, Fly, Zan, Zod, Pik, Snik, Lun, Lod, and Ichabod, and the thirteen of them prowled the north of Deltora with their mother.
Over a hundred years before the recovery of the ruby, Thaegan transformed the city of D'Or into the repulsive, dangerous Lake of Tears. She transfigured all of the city's inhabitants into horrific, writing sea creatures and forced the city's leader, Nanion, to serve her in the form of an enormous sea serpent, Soldeen. The Ralad people spoke against Thaegan's cruelty, but the sorceress retaliated by robbing the Ralads and all of their descendants of their voices.
A few years after the Shadow Lord's invasion of Deltora, Thaegan attacked and ate a nest of ravens. Only one member of the family, a newly hatched bird named Kree, escaped. Kree flew to the Forests of Silence and met Jasmine, also recently orphaned by the Shadow Lord's forces, and told the young girl about Thaegan.
At some point, an enormous bird deceived Thaegan to save a friend from death—presumably, this friend was another bird that Thaegan tried to eat—and in retaliation the sorceress bewitched the bird, transforming him into the Enigmatic Giant and forcing him to guard a bridge in her territory until truth and lies became one.
Over the years, many individuals tried to kill Thaegan, but all failed and were killed.
The Lake of Tears
Jasmine fiercely opposed travelling through the north of Deltora because she knew that Thaegan ruled the area. The group encountered the Enigmatic Giant at his bridge, where he told them of his curse. The Giant based one of his riddles entirely around Thaegan and her children. Lief failed to correctly answer the riddle, as he did not know of Thaegan's fondness for eating live ravens, but managed to break Thaegan's curse on the Giant by making "truth and lies one." Jasmine later explained to Lief and Barda that she was concerned for Kree's safety more than her own, because of what Thaegan had done to his family, before sending the raven back to the Forests of Silence for his own safety. Jasmine also told her companions about D'Or, a beautiful city that Thaegan cursed.
The trio were captured by two of Thaegan's children, Jin and Jod, but managed to slay the two with the help of Manus and Kree, the latter having returned to help Jasmine. Barda told Lief about the curse Thaegan had put on the Ralads before Manus led them to Raladin. The group feared that Thaegan would track them down, but she did not. Upon arriving in Raladin, the Ralads warned Lief, Barda, and Jasmine about the Lake of Tears and Soldeen. They also told the group that Thaegan was all but invincible due to her magic.
Despite the Ralads' warnings, Manus led Lief, Barda, and Jasmine to the Lake of Tears, where they faced Soldeen. Soldeen was moved by Manus' music and the power of the Topaz, which cleared his mind enough for Lief to reason with him. He convinced Soldeen to give them the ruby, but Thaegan appeared before they could get away.
Thaegan blasted Soldeen with her magic and dragged Lief through the Lake. Barda and Jasmine tried and failed to attack the witch, only to be blown back by her magic. As Thaegan prepared to transform the group into more monstrosities for the Lake of Tears, Kree pecked the finger that the sorceress used to cast her magic—the only part of her that was unprotected—and drew blood. Thaegan shrieked in pain and rage before violently dissipating, the only remaining trace of her being a yellow stain on the rocks.
Thaegan's death restored the voices of the Ralads, the city of D'Or, and the city's people. Nanion and Ethena, eternally grateful, presented the ruby to Lief.
City of the Rats
The Ralads celebrated the death of Thaegan, though Lief, Barda, and Jasmine knew that her death would not go unnoticed by the Shadow Lord and were cautious as they left the Ralad territory. They were attacked by Thaegan's remaining eleven children, but tricked them into fighting each other. They fled from Ichabod, the only survivor of the infighting, and eventually escaped into the Plains, finally exiting Thaegan's territory.
Return to Del
The last of Thaegan’s children, Ichabod, attacked the assembly of the seven tribes of Deltora and kidnapped Dain, the apparent heir to the Belt of Deltora. Ichabod remained in Del until Lief donned the completed Belt of Deltora and banished the Shadow Lord from the land. Ichabod was killed by the power of the Belt, effectively ending the last trace of Thaegan’s influence in Deltora.
Anime
After her death in the anime, the Shadow Lord revived Thaegan through her ring. It tasked her with killing the companions, or risk losing her eternal youth.
First Attempt
Thaegan recruited four of her children—Hot, Tot, Fie, and Fly—to pose as a girl named Francoise and lure Lief, Barda, and Jasmine to a house she had enchanted. After several minor setbacks, her children succeed. Thaegan at first pretended to be an old women, and asked the companions about how they killed Thaegan before revealing herself. She pursued the companions through the house, and onto the grounds when they escape through the chimney. She and her children corner them, and she prepared to kill the three.
However, a single star appeared in the night sky, activating the power of the Lapis Lazuli. It dispelled Thaegan's magic, causing her to age. Enraged, Thaegan tried to fire a spell at the three, but in her weakened state she was unable to control it. The spell ended up hitting all four of her children, killing them. Lief used the opportunity to cut off Thaegan's finger, killing her for the second time.
Second Attempt
Thaegan was revived again after the companions retrieved the Amethyst, and is told by the Shadow Lord that this is her final chance. For this try, she recruited all of her surviving children—Zan, Zod, Pik, Snik, Lun, Lod, and Ichabod. They succeed in capturing Lief, Barda, and Jasmine, and brought them to Thaegan. She traped them inside the Mirror of Fear, sending all of her children inside to torment and slowly kill them (with the exception of Ichabod, who she keeps by her side). Inside, Pik and Snik became a copy of Prandine who fought and tormented Barda about his dead mother; Lun and Lod became a dark version of Lief who wanted to replace him; and Zan and Zod suspended Jasmine over boiling water, where she is forced to solve a block puzzle to survive.
Lief, Barda, and Jasmine were able to withstand each of their challenges, so Thaegan changed her tactics. Pik, Snik, Zan, and Zod revealed themselves to Barda and Jasmine with an offer: if they surrendered themselves, Lief could live. Lief was forced to watch this from his chamber, realizing it's a vision from the Opal he'd gotten earlier. Refusing to let it come to pass, Lief smashed the mirror in his room, ejecting everyone from the Mirror of Fear.
Thaegan scolded her children for their failure and turn to Ichabod, telling him to succeed where his siblings failed. He fought Lief and nearly killed him, until Barda and Jasmine arrive—the latter stabbing Ichabod in the eye and knocking him out. Enraged at seeing her most powerful child defeated, Thaegan tried to kill the companions herself. Lief manages to block her spell with the Mirror of Fear, which projects Thaegan's own worst fear at her. She lost her youth and became a frail old woman.
Thaegan was unable to live with herself in this form. Cursing the companions, she prepared a suicide spell around herself. Her children realized what she was doing and ran towards her as the spell went off. She asked them why they did that, and they explain that they simply wanted to be with their mother. Thaegan was touched by their love, and entered the afterlife happily with her twelve children.
Physical appearance
Thaegan, as she appears in the anime
Thaegan was a tall, towering woman with green skin and long, grey hair. She had a beautiful face, her blood was dark red. Her magic was often accompanied by acrid, yellow smoke.
In the anime, Thaegan wore a long, form-fitting black dress with a plunging neckline and a small, diamond-shaped hole that exposed her navel. She wore pink earrings shaped like four-pointed stars, a third pink star on her sternum, and a red ring on her casting finger. She also wore violet-blue lipstick and nail polish and had yellow eyes.
Personality
Jasmine described Thaegan on multiple occasions as a monster, a title that Thaegan typically lived up to. She ruled the north of Deltora with an iron fist, tormenting its people however she pleased and destroying any beauty she found. Thaegan's extreme cruelty was not the result of the Shadow Lord’s influence as with most of the other antagonists in the series and she was a largely independent entity. She openly detested anything joyous, beautiful, or free and took every opportunity to stamp out such things during her reign. Thaegan had a particular hatred of birds, because of their ability to soar freely through the sky. Her hatred of birds can be traced back to her negative relationship with her mother, who could turn into a blackbird. Live ravens were Thaegan's favorite food, another spiteful reference to her mother.
Thaegan was offended by the thought of her curses being undone and insubordination by her minions and considered the deaths of Jin and Jod a personal insult. She took great pleasure in lording above her foes and demeaning those she was stronger than. Thaegan's curses were usually specifically designed to torment her victims in a personal way, such as binding a proud, free bird to one spot on the ground, robbing the musical Ralads of their voices, or turning the beautiful D’Or into a repulsive lake.
In the anime, she is similar in personality with a few changes. She is shown to be somewhat spiteful to the Shadow Lord but most of the time she keeps it to herself, focusing instead to focus her anger on Fallow whenever he snarks at her. She also shown to be very loving towards her children, moreso than the books although she has been shown to get frustrated with them sometimes.
Abilities
Thaegan was arguably the Shadow Lord’s most effective and powerful servant, and he trusted her with control over a significant section of Deltora before her death. She was a sorceress and, though her magic was not on par with that of the Shadow Lord, she was exceptionally powerful in her own right. In addition, she was not constrained to the Shadowlands like her master and could deal with matters in Deltora more directly than the Shadow Lord. Thaegan displayed the ability to teleport throughout her territory, telekinetically hurt people through the air, and levitate. Jasmine suggested that the Shadow Lord strengthened Thaegan's magic with his own.
Thaegan was infamous for her curses. Her curses varied wildly in their strength and effects, but seemed to be limited only by the sorceress' imagination and cruelty. Most notably, she struck the Ralad people and all of their children with muteness, bewitched the Enigmatic Giant, transformed the city of D'Or into the Lake of Tears, and turned the people of D'Or into horrific sea creatures. While the Giant's curse was undone by Lief, the spells on the Ralads and D’Or were only undone by Thaegan's death.
Thaegan apparently did not age, as she lived for well over a hundred years. She magically protected her entire body from harm with one exception; the tip of her left little finger, the finger she used to cast her spells. This was her one weakness, as a sorceress can be destroyed if even a single drop of their blood is spilled, as was Thaegan's fate.