Your Animal Spirit didn't "beat" Slangg when Slangg's temple got destroyed. Instead it petitioned him.
A major rule in the setting is that gods don't interfere in other gods' temples. Upon answering the Impossible Question and asking for power; Slang started turning you to stone. So you prayed. What your Animal Spirit does is point out to Slangg how Slangg had been advertising that Impossible Question for a very long time. Slangg was proud of it. It wouldn't be very impressive if other gods heard that Slangg just killed the one who answered it. Slangg agreed, but destroyed his own temple in a fit of pique. Lorag the ghost is organizing the assassins against the other council members and his past alive self.
Sansas probably made Moulas into a zombie, and he admits (as the Goblin King) siccing the Harpies to blind Theetah. But if you eavesdrops on the assassins in the bathhouse in S2, they'll comment on how specific the fates of each Councilmember was, like turning Shinva into a ghost. They'll also suggest that these orders are recent, and Sansas has been gone for 2 months.- Lorag the ghost is, as he admits if you botch the North Gate, manipulating events so that the Goblins invade, Vik takes over, and you learn and use the Spell-lines for the gate at just the exact moment.
The Impossible Question is "Who started the downfall of the Council?"
The question that has never been asked. We know the answer is Sirisi; and she turned Sansas paranoid with a Phony Psychic foretelling that the others were conspiring against him. (Spoilers for the end of episode 4 of the digital version) The Archmage is either the King of Analand, or in a secret alliance with him and sharing the Crown
In the timeline where you talk to the Archmage, he claims that the King had the Crown all along, and used it on you to make you attack the Archmage. His arguments are surprisingly convincing: he points out the series' reliance on tropes like No Name Given, implying that the reason that the Analander's identity revolves solely around his/her mission is because the King used the Crown on him/her. This is seemingly disproved, however, when you find the Crown in the Archmage's possession; and indeed it's heavily implied that he was using the Crown on you while making those arguments. However, there are still several strange things that aren't properly explained. For a start, there's no counterargument given to the Archmage's claims, even after you're freed from the Crown's conditioning to not attack the Archmage. The Analander just seems to...forget about everything he said. There's no "reassure yourself that you can remember your backstory and it was just the Archmage's magic that made you forget" option or anything. Rather odd, but exactly as you'd expect if the Crown was still acting as it had been originally.
Secondly, at the start of the adventure you're sent off alone, into a dangerous land, with virtually nothing. Seriously, Analand couldn't spare you a cloth skullcap, or a pot of glue? And you're by no means the first to be sent out in this way; individual adventurers appear to be sent out at regular intervals. And it appears to be a completely unnecessary journey anyway; as is discussed in the "fly back to Analand" ending, the invisible eagles could at least have taken you up to near the gates of Mampang.
Flanker's situation is also strange; he was obviously affected by the Crown before reaching Mampang and having the exact nature of his mission confirmed, since he was picking up his "I'm sorry but I think I have to kill you" attitude from the point he first began to guess what he was going to be told to do, as opposed to "I may have to refuse this task after going all this way." Yet after you free him from the enchantment, it's clear that he'd never accept an assassination mission on you with his free will intact. Significantly, unlike in the books he was also traveling to Mampang from...well, either the Shamutanti Hills or Analand. And he doesn't doesn't seem like he belongs in the Hills. Thus it seems likely that he traveled from Analand, and the Crown was used on him before he entered Mampang - either it was used on him when he was "recruited" and began his journey, or the Archmage made a special trip to use the Crown's powers on him partway through the journey, and the latter is improbable.
Given the powers of the Crown in the digital adaptation, the premise that birdmen were able to steal the Crown without coming under its influence makes rather less sense than in the book.
These points are all resolved if we assume that the King and Archmage are either one person or working together and sharing the Crown between them. The Crown being stolen was staged, and the whole "try to retrieve the Crown" thing is a sham, intended to look like Analand is trying to retrieve the Crown without actually letting that happen. If they're one and the same, that explains why the Archmage never shows his face in public nowadays, and why no one is allowed to enter or leave Mampang: people who haven't been affected by the Crown would go "hey, that's the King of Analand!" and his game would be up. If not, then they're transferring the Crown from Analand to Mampang and back every now and then to use its powers on both of them. Note, incidentally, that transportation - either of the Archmage/King or of the Crown - is very little issue when one side has invisible golden eagles, and the other has an Archmage who presumably knows the long range teleport spells that occasionally get cast on you in the series. In either case, their motive for setting all this up is simple: according to the books, every civilised country (which includes Analand, but not Mampang) is supposed to get a turn at using the Crown. For the King, that's a lot of time when someone else has it, compared to sharing it with (at most) one other person. And for the Archmage, he doesn't get it at all (if he's a different person to the King). So they stage the Crown being stolen by Mampang, as an excuse for not passing it on. And they string it out, and Analand makes regular "attempts" to recover the Crown, but sadly none succeed.
That's why you're sent out, alone and under-equipped, to spend months on a journey which could have been made in hours in safety. The King didn't expect - or even want - you to survive or succeed. You agreed to go in the quest because the King used the Crown on you. Flanker was a last line of defense; a backup option in case you did somehow manage to reach the Archmage. As, indeed, he canonically was, but here it was the King who used the Crown on Flanker, rather than the Archmage. After Flanker had disabled you, the Archmage then calmly revealed just enough of what the King had done to make you doubt yourself and to change your orders temporarily, for long enough to lock you up and let you die so you couldn't tell anyone about it. What he/they could not predict was that you'd get the power to reverse time, learning from your mistakes until you found a way to complete your mission despite everything.
