Headscratchers / Tales from Earthsea

• Why did Arren kill his father in the first place?
  • Arren’s shadow says that his body was overtaken by darkness and fear, so he probably wasn’t entirely himself when he killed his father. The way it’s portrayed, his situation of trying to flee from a shadow sounds like what Sparrowhawk went through in the first of the original Earthsea books, but strangely in reverse. But that book isn't clear enough about what happens if the shadow overtakes you. Sparrowhawk also attributes Arren's behavior to Cob's actions, so it could be that he was either being influenced by Cob for some reason or was just particularly affected by the world being thrown out of balance, which was Cob's doing.
• Who's the woman with the cat at the beginning supposed to be? The one who tells off the servants for worrying about Arren? Is she supposed to be his wicked stepmother or something? She's framed as if she's someone important, but she never shows up again after the prologue.
  • She is probably Arren's mother, the Queen of Enlad. And if that was the case, then how would she have reacted to her husband being murdered by their own son?
  • The subtitles identify her as the “Queen”, and the cast list (on Wikipedia, at least) reads that she is Arren’s mother. One can imagine her being so strict would explain some of how Arren turned out, considering she was against treating him like a child when he obviously wasn’t coping well with whatever was happening. Whether she’ll realize her mistake in light of what happened is yet to be seen, though.