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Evidence 1: the Heterodynes are a Royal Bloodline
- Mechanicsburg is a sovereign city-state founded almost a millennia ago
- It also acts like a reverse Switzerland, instead of remaing completely independent while trying to avoid war with any of its neighbors, it remains completely independent while deliberately starting wars with its neighbors
- The Heterodyne family has ruled without any interruptions to the Bloodline since it's founding
- While Ht'rok-din is credited as the origin of the family surname, it could also originate as a bastardization of a title in Old Mechan i.e. "Ruler of the Dyne" or "Highest of the Dyne"
- This is supported by the way outsiders call the valley's ruler Lord Heterodyne, but subjects simply call him or her The Heterodyne as if the name is already a title
- If that's truly the case Mechanicsburg boasts a royal family that has a direct line of succession a minimum of 600 years old when The Storm King first rose to power
Evidence 2:
Andronicus Valois Needed to Legitimize his Reign
- While present day Europa has a couple centuries to cement the Storm King as a mythical rightful ruler, Andronicus was originally a conqueror
- He was, however, very politically savvy and managed to declare himself head of the Shining Coalition by making alliances with the various noble families
- (Possibly helped by seducing their daughters)
- He was also savvy enough to recognize that his empire would quickly fall to pieces without a legitimate heir
- Whomever he chose as queen would need to be from a distinguished Bloodline while also furthering his political goals
- Mechanicsburg was an unconquerable sore spot smack dab in the middle of his empire
- It also boasts a devoted population and a very old ruling family
- What better way to cement his status and deal with the Mechanicsburg issue than marrying into the oldest royal family in Europa
Speculation: Euphrosynia may have had a child with Andronicus
- There is a high probability that Euphrosynia, a rare and treasured Heterodyne Princess, reacted poorly to her fiancée having so many affairs
- The resulting conflicts between the couple resulted in Jenka's maiming and Otilia being made her new guard
- Andronicus was most certainly fertile and didn't appear to have any regard for contraceptive use, and Heterodynes are not known for denying themselves pleasure
- It's possible that, after she realized she was pregnant, Euphrosynia escaped Paris before Andronicus found out
- She may have even convinced Otilia to help her as the pregnancy put her in a great deal of danger from those at court
- Euphrosynia died in childbirth (or was murdered shortly after by Otilia) and her son, Gradok, was adopted by Bloodtharst and raised alongside his son
- While Gradok doesn't have a name meaning I could find, the variant spelling, Gradock seems to originate as German slang term for greedy
- Gradok's name could be Bloodtharst Heterodyne I commenting on his almost brother-in-law's Greed
- His other potential name, Dante, means enduring which could refer to surviving his mother's death
More information: trying to straighten out the Heterodyne Lineage
- I think there were two Bloodtharst Heterodynes. Bloodtharst Heterodyne I was Euphrosynia's brother and Bloodtharst Heterodyne II was his son and Gradok's adoptive elder brother
- •Bloodtharst II was probably Heterodyne for a only a brief time and historians outside of Mechanicsburg would later conflate his rule with that of his father
- Bloodtharst II and Gradok are most likely the Black and Red Heterodynes as one of the likely time periods for those two individuals to exist is shortly after the Shining Coalition fell apart
- Their nicknames could have originally referred to their hair colors: Bloodtharst with Heterodyne black and Gradok with Sturmvoraus red
- It was noted that the Black and Red Heterodynes had philosophical differences that led to conflicts between the two, and quite possibly lead to the Black Heterodyne's death/vampirism
- After his brother's death, Gradok tried to live up to his family's reputation as "Da Goot Heterodyne" while simultaneously trying to build a relationship with his half brother, Prince Vadim Sturmvoraus, by constructing the Red Cathedral
- The current Heterodyne Main Line is directly descendant from Gradok which is part of the reason why many of the Heterodynes after him all have shades of red in their hair
- The other reason is that the Castle, being in charge of maintaining the family line and probably angry about what happened to Euphrosynia, has spent the past 3 centuries nudging the Heterodynes towards spouses from Andronicus's distaff line
- Teodora Vodenicharova, Agatha's grandmother, is likely Tarvek's Great Aunt
- This means that Agatha is the direct descendent of the closest thing Andronicus had to a legitimate heir and has a distaff pedigree similar to Tarvek
TDLR: Marrying Agatha IS the fastest way to claiming the lightning throne but only because Castle Heterodyne pulled an uno reverse card on Andronicus's attempted line theft .