- "It's not murder when it happens in the midst of war."
- ―Lord Arrin to Siv, The First Collier, page 156
Lord Arrin was a Snowy Owl, Bubo scandiacus, who was a chieftain during the time of The Legends of Ga'Hoole. He was well known for the betrayal and murder of King H'rath during the invasion of the H'rathghar Glacier. He flies very loudly, as he has no plummel feathers, and his primaries are dark and ragged from consorting with hagsfiends.
History[]
The First Collier[]
Lord Arrin killed H'rath while he attacked the Hrathian troops with his army of vassals, hireclaws and hagsfiends, weakening the king enough for Penryck to decapitate him and fly shrieking with H'rath's head into the night. But unfortunately for him, Siv fled along with her and H'rath's egg, so Lord Arrin sent his hagsfiends in search of them both. The motivation behind this was both to claim the egg, but also for vengeance, as Arrin's own son had perished in the fighting.
At the end he succeeded in finding the iceberg where Siv had hidden, and went there to ask her to give him the egg. Siv gave him no answer, and he, a little fearful of the seawater of the firth, having become a little haggish, decided to return when the water would be frozen. So shortly after Lord Arrin came back asking always the same question to Siv, who was surrounded by his troops, though he still received no answer.
The Coming of Hoole[]
While Lord Arrin and his hagsfiends were putting pressure on Siv, her egg hatched at that moment. However, Siv managed to escape Arrin's troops with the help of Svenka.
Subsequently, while meeting with his troops in a cave in the H’rathghar Glacier, Lord Arrin, with the help of his adviser Penryck, devised a plan how to catch Siv and her chick. According to that plan Pleek and Ygryk, so eager for a chick of their own, would have traced Siv and her owlet, and then Arrin would have kept the former and gave them the chick. But what he didn’t say to the two was that he would planned to have them killed by Ullryck, once they reached the target. However, the plan didn’t succeed, because both Siv and her hatchling escaped.
Long after, Lord Arrin was informed by the wolf MacHeath about the arrival of Hoole and his friends in the Beyond the Beyond. So he went there with his army to kill him and win at least one battle. However, Hoole and his allies, who gathered in the Beyond through a network of information, defeated him in battle, so Lord Arrin was forced to retire, although he managed to kill Siv.
To Be a King[]
Lord Arrin and his troops fought against King Hoole and his Guardians in the last two great battles. In the Battle of Short Light his soldiers were effectively rejected, but not yet defeated. And while it isn’t reported exactly what happened to him in the Battle of Long Night, though he was probably defeated and beaten along with the hagsfiends.
Personality[]
Lord Arrin was arrogant and ambitious as well as vengeful, and preferred to surround himself with owls who would simply nod and agree with him. Despite this, however, it is implied that Arrin loved his son dearly, as he sought Hoole's egg partly as an act of vengeance for how H'rath's soldiers had robbed him of his son's life.
Trivia[]
- In the character introduction, Lord Arrin was said to be a Spotted Owl, yet in all his appearances in the book, he is classified as a Snowy. It might have caused some confusions, as Lord Arrin tried to take Siv and Emerilla as mates, and Lord Elgobad is his cousin, who was a Snowy Owl. Then again, Arrin might still have been a Spotted Owl and Elgobad was just his adoptive cousin.
- Since Grank confirms that Arrin was a father of at least one, but he was willing to take Siv and Emerilla as consorts, it is likely Arrin was a widower or conceived his son in an unmarried affair with another owl.