It's an interesting theory, but I don't think it sounds very plausible :-/
I mean, you don't actually
know that they created the beasts' prophecy, Elspeth has
theorised that, but for all we know, that was started by a different beast with futuretell ability or a beast speaker connected to Cassy or Hannah. Actually, given that we
know that the prophecy given to the vla-rei was started by Mornir-ma, we could argue that this is the more likely scenario.
We also don't know that they changed the layout of Maruman's mind. Maruman was a strange cat before they came a long and it has been theorised that he was a govermen experiment himself. We know that they made use of this to contact him, but we don't know how much Maruman was in on the quest before they met him. He did hang out with Cassy after all.
With regards to the Futuretellers, Elspeth hypothesising that the Agyllians sent them visions something doesn't make it gospel. If the futuretellers didn't have visions on their own, they wouldn't be futuretellers, so the Agyllians may or may not have anything to do with it.
As you said, we don't actually know the full interaction between the Agyllians and Cassie, but I don't think what we did see constitutes manipulation at all. We only have one proven example of them manipulating
anyone, being that's Elspeth herself and in the absence of other evidence, they're really only one factor among many.
I'm just concerned that most of your evidence is based on Elspeth's unconfirmed theories when her theories usually turn out to be wrong.
Also, assuming for a moment that the Agyllians
are the bad guys, what possible motivation could they have for chasing her on the dream trails? Catching her would be of no benefit to them. The only possible reason could be to scare her, in which case why not manipulate someone else into doing
that as well? If they were the bad guys and that good at manipulating people, it would make more sense for them to contact Elf themselves and have someone else do the chasing.
On the Cassy trying to warn Elf, I agree that flame birds is exactly what she would call them, but there's no
way they could be mistranslated. Certainly
dragon could be mistranslated as
flame bird, but not the other way around, it wouldn't make sense linguistically. Flame and Bird are both basic words that have equivalents in every language while dragon is a non basic word that doesn't appear in every language and is often expressed differently between languages that
do have a word for it. Fian didn't leave out alternate possible meanings of words, so if Cassy had said written flame bird, that
would come up as a possibility in Fian's translation.
Also, I don't really understand your point here;
But remember when all the animals hoped that Dragon was an animal because they were annoyed how humans assumed only humans can have great talents. Maybe this is a comment on how things can be complex, and you cannot just assume 'all animals are good'.
Lilac
Is it really relevant to discuss the morality of beasts? Aren't Galtha and Maruman are always going on about how right and wrong are funaga concepts? 'Good' is a judgement and can be subjective, making that judgement is a type of attempt at control.
Beasts just 'are'. The wild cat doesn't worry about whether it is right or not to kill a bear cub, it does it because that's what it does to survive. They aren't interested in anything beyond that. They have a problem with funaga because funaga cause pain and death and enslavement that they don't need to. This isn't a judgement, it can also be interpreted as a reaction to a threat. Do you think the mother of the bear cub won't try to stop the wild cat killing her cub just because the mother bear doesn't have a concept of morality?
I'm not trying to rob the animals of their autonomy, I just don't think its necessary for all sentient life forms to have or be relevant to a concept of morality and I think the way the beasts in Obernewtyn are written indicates that morality isn't relevant to them.
