Spoilers for non-textual authorial revelations, plus The Sending
So, apparently Carmody said somewhere that Ariel is not in fact the Destroyer, but is the equivalent of Maruman/Galtha in terms of the Destroyer’s plot.
A lot of people think that Matthew is then the Destroyer, perhaps not necessarily knowing what it is he does, and it does make a great deal of sense to me too. But here’s my fanon: Atthis is the Destroyer. Or there is no Destroyer as such and this is all some alternative plot where Elspeth has been fed a pack of lies. This is just me, not forgiving what Atthis did to Dragon, admittedly. But you have to admit that that kind of hiding in plain sight would make sense for a super-villain. (The “pack of lies” alternative would make a lousy series ending structually, but does a super-villain care?)
Leaf Litter 