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co-creator interview transcription

Listen along here / full transcription is provided down below for anyone who needs and/or prefers it to audio. at 50 minutes it's decently long

R: Alright, welcome back to the WordswithDragons podcast. Today I am joined again by Dragon Prince co-creator Aaron Ehasz, as well as for the first time his fellow co-creator Justin Richmond. It’s lovely to have you both, thank you being here.

A: Thank you for having us. I just waved—we’re not on video—

R: I do that all the time.

A: We’re recording this—

J: Oh yeah. It’s audio, we’re an audio meeting.

A: Okay, cool. I just waved [Justin laughs]. Hello. [R laughs]

J: Hi.

R: Alright, so I guess I thought — cause I feel like we’re going to be looking back at some of the stuff season seven did, but also arc 2 in general, as the previous leg of the show. So season seven has a lot of pay off, was there anything that you guys were really excited to write this season, like “finally! We get to do this” for scenes, characters, plotlines?

A: Justin?

J: You want me to go? Okay. Let’s see. Uh, a lot of it [laughs] guessing, we’d been building towards you know, season seven for a long time, so it felt — finally getting to put all the stuff down, y’know, put all the stuff in the show we’d been planning for was pretty cool. We sort of knew a long time ago what was gonna happen with Aaravos and dragons and all that kind of stuff, so it was pretty cool to actually go in and get it into the show, and also just — I’m trying to think of any specific moments, but — no, it was a culmination of working on the show for so long, so getting it put in and done and down and rendered was was like, was really cool to finally get to a place where it was like, “Oh my God! Season seven! Here we go!” So yeah.

R: Yeah. I thought you were going to say the bird for sure. [Wheezes]

J: [Laughs] Oh, the bird payoff. Spoilers: if you have not watched the show, there’s some bird shenanigans that you might be able to guess. I guess statue of limitations, right? Like we can spoil stuff.

R: Oh, it’s been months, you guys can spoil away.

J: Yeah. So yeah, we’re — it’s fun to pay off some of the stuff like that. There’s more of those kinds of things coming, hopefully. But that was one of the good ones.

R: I thought it was also just really cool seeing more of like, um, Aaravos and Claudia’s dynamic, or like Rayla going home, the Ruthari reunion. All that stuff.

J: Oh yeah. The — that’s a good specific one. I know Devon had been on us for like four years [R chuckles] about the Ethari reunion. [Laughs] So getting to finally do that was fun.

R: Yeah.

A: How come no one ever asks if Pip is dead?

R: I’m kinda writing a fic about it, so don’t worry. [Laughs]

A: Okay. Just curious.

J: Yeah. Where’s the love for bird sentience? [Laughs]

R: I learned not to count my chickens — my eggs before they hatch, because I was like “Lain and Tiadrin, all of the parents are totally getting out of the coins,” and they didn’t, so until Harrow’s out of that bird, I’m not fully gonna be like, “Whoo!” but... [J laughs] But exciting, exciting either way.

R: Um, I think it was like an interview a while ago or maybe on Twitter, where I think Aaron mentioned there was a fan-favourite character whose fate got changed, they were gonna get killed off and then they were revived and somebody else died.

A: Yes.

R: Do you want to reveal who that is?

A: Sure. Well, there’s at least two instances. There was one universe where Viren died after season 5 and then he didn’t wake up. That was that, and — Claudia didn’t do the spell, he didn’t do the spell, he went to bed going “Aaravos lied to me” and then that was it. But there was something kind of like, not [clutches chest for ‘not right’] — anyway, we worked out obviously finding a different path. But yeah: Lujanne.

R: Okay. I-I thought.

A: Lujanne was gonna — we were gonna lose Lujanne and Akiyu, all these great, you know, elven mages, and uh — I can’t remember who pushed back or how it got [laughs] how she got saved. But someone was like, “No, Lujanne, we gotta keep Lujanne around, for Allen’s sake,” so...

R: Yeah.

A: That is who we were thinking of, right?

J: Yeah. That was that specific Twitter thought for sure.

R: Okay. I thought it might be her, and then I almost wondered if she got saved — this kind of goes into my next question, of — cause I realized on my like third rewatch of the season, I was like, “Hey, what happened to like, the Moon Nexus? Is it still inverted, is it fixed? Did she fix it?”

J: It’s a nightclub now. [J and A laugh]

R: With a disco ball.

A: Dance the night away.

J: Yeah.

A: Is it still inverted? I’m going to assume they had to go figure out some magic, and I don’t know if they had to go on some kind of quest and find something to fix it up, or — I dunno. Like — there’s some period of time where immediately after the season probably where there are some loose ends where the gang will have to tie up before the third arc really escalates in a significant way, so. But yeah, that’s a good question. What do you think?

R: Um...

A: How do you revert a Moon Nexus?

R: I don’t know. I think that’s for the theories. People are trying — we know more about primal stones.

A: [Overlapping] Yeah.

J: [Overlapping] You right click on it and you say revert file.

R: Yes.

J: That’s a stupid video game joke, so I... [R and J laugh]

R: I mean, I thought it was good, so.

J: [Laughs] Well thank you.

R: Okay, the next question is a bit of a geeky one, but I’ve always loved the poem “Ozymandias,” King of Kings, and it seems that’s where Zym’s name came from. Was that conscious, was that like a — oh, you guys were like “Oh, we want to invoke that poem?” at all, because it’s about power...

J: It’s definitely informed by it, and then it seemed fitting, but then it was like, “Well, it shouldn’t be exactly that,” and what would be the — I don’t remember how it got to Avizandum, Aaron, do you remember?

A: How it got to Azymondias?

J: How it got to Azymondias, I mean, sorry yeah.

A: We knew we wanted something that had like a cute nickname, but also a longer name—

J: Yeah.

A: And I don’t remember when we landed on Azymondias Ozymandias, but we did agree upon like yes, let’s do this, let’s make him Azymondias.

J: Yeah, at some point it was informed by, I just can’t remember exactly how we ended up with Zym / Azymondias.

A: Somewhere, we probably have a document of pitched names that we went through, like twenty different ideas.

J: Nate. Steven.

A: Pete.

R: Yeah. [Laughs] I mean it kind of sounds like Avizandum, you know, and Zubeia, so they all fit.

J: Yeah, it definitely has a familial ring to it, which is nice also, for sure.

A: Was Avizandum, was that a bookstore in Scotland, is that where that name — was it Avizandum books—? I feel like it might’ve been, but I don’t know for sure now. Anyway.

J: We have a Scottish writer Iain Hendry. You know, yeah you’re right, Avizandum Law Bookshop in Edinburgh, yeah.

R: Yeah. Cause I read the poem and did it in undergrad, and I remember reading it after season 3 and thinking “Huh, interesting,” and then I reread it after season seven, I feel like I got so much more out of applying it to the show with everything about power and permanence, or lack thereof, so it felt...

J: It’s funny, “Uncharted 3” also had not direct references to that poem, but we read — that was one of the poems that informed some of the stuff cause they’re similar — similar thematic stuff going on there. It’s interesting.

A: Yeah, and I like the idea that Zym is a little—

R: Oh no. We lost Aaron.

J: We lost ‘im. [R laughs] Hold on, I’m gonna message him on slack. He may have lost power.

R: Oh no.

J: Oh he’s back, okay.

R: Okay.

A: I clicked the wrong thing! I like that Zym is a little bit of a twist, right, it’s not Ozymandias, it’s Azymondias, and there’s more of a sense of optimism and creation than destruction and dismantling, right, so.

R: Yeah. Yeah. Okay, so for my next question, uh, what was it like getting to explore new sides to characters like Terry and Ezran? Cause I feel like they were big standouts to me in season seven.

J: You wanna go, Aaron, or do you want me to go?

A: Um. I always go to the performers on some of these things, which is to say like, you know, Ben and Sasha are amazing actors with a huge amount of heart and range and depth, and that as a writer, you find that well that’s an opportunity, right, to like — we can push these characters, we can do something more nuanced, we can — we can stretch their arcs and play with it more, and you know that the actors will be excited about that, right? So in particular, yes, seeing Ben — Ben has been incredible since the minute we started working with him and we were, we felt like he came into our universe like a whole being who was just like a main character on day one.

R: Oh yeah.

A: We didn’t have to ask. He’s just really — his Terry had been phenomenal and funny and emotional and wonderful. And Sasha’s someone who is so precocious and wonderful, which is perfect for Ezran, you know when we started, but we’ve seen her mature as a performer and her capabilities grow, and so we just felt that opportunity growing. And so we knew we had a chance to push both of those characters.

A: You know, Terry, we’ve also always kind of known there was a ticking bomb in his relationship with Claudia, which is like — and I often think of like Iroh and Zuko, and Terry and Claudia, as having a similar thing of which is that you have someone who has a really stronger moral core in some ways, a clearer compass pointed towards moral north, if that’s a thing, who fully unconditionally love this other person and is hoping to — to bring them toward that path, but knows you can’t force someone, you have to be by their side, you have to support them, you have to do what you can. The difference here became Terry seeing himself be used in the relationship, and having the strength and I think wisdom to say you know, like, “I can’t say in this in this way, and I love you” — I think he loves her and will always love her, but she kind of broke the core of a romantic relationship together, right? So I dunno, that’s kind of what I saw as where Terry needed to find the strength to move forward.

A: And then Ezran, I mean Ezran honestly like we’re just seeing... You know, season four, was meant to show like he’s this very idealistic king, which is wonderful. He’s challenging these notions that the world says you have to act a certain way and lead with power, not with love, and those sorts of things. He’s very idealistic and young people are very idealistic, and they get tested, right? And he’s being tested, and in season four there’s that speech he gives where he was gonna give that speech, and then it changes because of the vandalism that’s happened, and he’s starting to understand that there’s pain and flaws and things like that. He’s figuring out how to incorporate that into his optimism and idealism, right, but at the same time, it’s not getting easier, right? The challenges to the world, to his kingdom, to everything is getting harder. So he has this balance where he’s both growing his ability to create hope and optimism and idealism, but also incorporating more realism and a sense of jeopardy and reality into who he is. You know, you can look at a smaller version of this in the scene where he’s being asked to forgive Runaan, right? An easier Ezran would be like “Great, it’s done,” where he gets to is “I don’t know how I’m going to forgive you, but I’m gonna have to try”. It’s complicated, it’s still a little complicated. You know, he’s starting — he helps to found Evrkynd, right, this great city with hope and a future, but also I mean like, the thing you probably don’t see is that he’s sleeping next to the Nova Blade now, you know?

R: Yeah.

A: He’s — there’s seeds of an obsession that are planted for what’s coming next. Anyway, I’ve gone off quite a bit—

R: No, that was awesome.

A: I love those characters, I love those performers, and uh, there’s more, there’s more for both of them.

R: That was — it felt like in arc 2, you could see Terry and Ezran kind of doing a lot of damage control in their relationships or their choices and trying to fix things, and then realizing “Oh, I can’t actually fix this stuff” and season seven is then the fallout. And I was also always hoping that he’d get the Nova Blade, so I was thrilled... Okay, I asked the Moon Nexus question, okay, this was kind of a clarification one just cause I thought it was interesting, so early in the season Janai says to Karim to be pardoned he’d have to relinquish his name, and he’s like “oh I’ve already given up all my titles and stuff like that,” so I was just curious as to what would’ve meant to relinquish his name? If you can answer. Cause maybe it’s a spoiler.

A: I-I think she’s getting off his heirs.

R: Okay.

A: I think she’s—

J: Cutting him out of the family is what we sort of talked about. It’s a little bit of the Prince Harry thing on a bigger scale. [Laughs] Like Prince Harry chose to leave obviously, but I think it’s a similar thing where he’s totally out of the royal line of succession and all of that stuff.

R: Yeah.

A: I mean, I think she’s anticipating challenge in the future to the path that she’s trying to create from his potential family, right, I think. I-I can’t remember now, I think she asks for that, she already knows—?

R: She knows that Miyana’s pregnant, and then he figures out she is because of the request.

A: That’s right.

R: Which that also makes sense, cause I had it in my head of maybe it’s a magical Xadian thing of almost like erasing Aaravos’ name, maybe you know, overthinking it. But that makes sense.

A: Yup.

R: Okay, cool. Okay, then kind of moving into a little bit of the setup in this season, in season seven, um, Kpp’Ar and Laurelion stood out to me in like every time I learn something about them, they just get more interesting and setting up interesting stuff for the future. Is there anything you can comment there or another character that we hear about, like I think it’s Shiruakh?

J: I don’t know, should we — I’m trying to think if there’s anything we can say that’s not — I don’t know. [Laughs]

A: Well this had not occurred to me, but it’s interesting that Shiruakh’s scale is the armour that — is the magical armour that Claudia has, and and Shiruakh’s tooth is the freaking Nova Blade.

R: Yeah.

A: Right? There’s something interesting about the defense — I mean, I just hadn’t...

R: Mmhm. Like a matched set almost.

A: That’s interesting.

J: Take all my stuff! Make some things out of it. [R and J laugh] I’ll give you a tooth, a scale, and a pair of my boots.

A: Um, we will — there is more to know about what Kpp’Ar was doing, which was self-eating, and there will be some followup to that, which is a dark magic path to immortality, basically, or some version of immortality, so we’ll have some followup on that. Um. Can — can I hint about something, Justin, or no?

J: I don’t think we should.

A: No? Okay.

J: [Quietly] Should just leave it—

A: Let me just say [R laughs] he’s not the first self-eater, right? Which is a horrible term when you think about it, but like the idea that there’s dark magic where you can self-cannibalize and extend your life, you know. We may meet someone out there who’s been doing that, who’s quite ancient and strange.

R: Awesome. Um... So, what was the thought process behind giving Callum a white streak? Cause obviously that’s a big change to his character design.

J: I mean it, you know, obviously what he did [laughs]. Right? But I think it’s a reminder that every time he looks in the mirror, like “Oh my God, this is how far I went to do a thing, and to protect my family and to protect the people that I love, and I—” it’s a very slippery slope, and so I think it’s helpful for him to keep that. It’s a hint that like, you know, we saw what happened with Claudia, right? It got bigger and worse, so I think it’s interesting for him to be contemplating that anytime he — anytime he literally looks at himself, he’ll be reminded of what happened and what he did, and to not go down that path again, y’know? It’s dangerous, it’s — dark magic is easier and faster, right?

R: Yeah.

J: And so — but also just, it looks cool as hell. [Laughs]

R: It does! It — even the little wave.

J: Yeah! [Overlapping] Rule of cool a little bit.

R: [Overlapping] Cause he has the streak.

J: But no, it’s definitely — he did a big ass dark magic spell, right?

A: Well, did he? I mean he did.

J: Yes, he did. So.

A: Which, it’s also a signal of his vulnerability, right? I mean, he accepted some measure of significant vulnerability moving forward.

J & R: Yes.

R: Cause I was like, he has the streak, he has the Staff [of Ziard]. I’m intrigued for his arc in arc three. Especially cause Kosmo had said “Oh, if you ever do dark magic again, you’d be completely corrupted,” and it doesn’t seem like that happened, but maybe, you know, there’s multiple meanings or another way to look at it.

J: Also, it’s a little bit hyperbolic.

R: Yes.

A: Callum’s going to get more and more powerful, by significant measures.

R: Which is great, cause then it puts him in a place of like, okay you have this power, kind of like Ezran with the Nova Blade or any of them, what do you do with it, you know? You’re not kids anymore. The white streak also made me think about him and Claudia being like almost inverted, character design wise, and she has quite the arc this season. What was it like getting to write her in season seven as she continues with her choices?

J: You want me to go, or you wanna go?

A: You go.

J: Oh alright. Uh, it was awesome. [Laughs]

R: Yeah.

J: No, I super — she’s a super fun character to write and like Aaron was talking about before, Racquel is so good that she always brings something even more interesting than we put on the page, and so — so yeah, it was awesome to finally get the chance to put down all the things we had been talking about in the writer’s room and at coffees and breakfast and all that stuff, her vulnerability and especially the end when she’s like, “I’m nice,” that’s sort of a very strong ending statement by Claudia given what we’ve seen happen and what she’s done, of course, and so getting that done. And Claudia’s not done yet, there’s still a lot of really interesting stuff coming for Claudia. She’s a fascinating character and so like the more we kind of get to play with her and put her and push her to the limit, the more interesting she becomes, I think, given her family circumstances and what happened and you know, her brother’s still out there and on the other side of this, and now that Viren is gone, it’s interesting. There’s a lot I’m trying not to step on for the future, but there’s a lot of really cool developments coming for Claudia that you’ll see.

R: Even...

A: Do you think she’s already exceeded Viren’s power?

R: For me or Justin? [Chuckles]

A: You.

J: I know. [Laughs]

R: [Laughs] Uh, I would say yeah, I think you see even aspects of that even in season one, when it’s like she thinks of the soul switching plan, and she doesn’t understand Harrow’s reservation about it, but Viren can kind of be like “Oh yeah I can see that he won’t—”

A: That’s true.

R: “—really like it,” so it feels like she’s always steadily surpassed him, even in season four when she was taking on more animalistic forms, I was like “Huh, interesting.”

A: Yeah.

R: And then season seven she’s basically a human dragon at this point.

A: Yeah.

R: And that’s just so rich for her in terms of how much she hates dragons, and how dragons are so much of a villain in Dragon Prince with like Sol Regem, and the Archdragons’ decisions, but also like saviours, so I dunno, really interesting stuff with in particular. I always look forward to her.

A: Yeah. And not only with character, but in terms of power level, she’s got a lot more room to grow and she will, so yeah. There’s exciting stuff for Claudia.

R: So I loved getting to see more of Aanya in season six season seven, especially season seven of her being again good and bad influence on Ezran in some ways—

A: Right.

R: So she gets to be more complicated. Um, will we ever see the new kings and queens of the Pentarchy potentially again? Or figures like King Ahling, or I think years ago it was tossed out that Kasef has a younger sibling...?

J: Will we see them again?

R: Yeah. I guess more like Pentarchy leaders or politics in hypothetical — well not hypothetical, but in arc 3.

A: Yeah. I-I think so, and I think one of the curious questions is where does Evrkynd stand in respect to all of the kind of older order, right? Does it upset that order, does it just kind of live independently, like the Vatican, you know?

R: Who’s actually in charge?

J: Yeah! Yeah, I mean, like the whole order’s been flipped over, right? So it’ll be interesting to see the fallout of that for sure.

A: Has it been — what do you mean the whole order has been flipped around?

J: Oh just like the world has changed significantly in the sense that Aaravos came back and killed a bunch of stuff, and a lot of horrible bad thing magic happened, and so it’s just a lot of open questions about — all of the structures still exist, but what do they mean in a world is coming, and all of those things.

R: Who fills the power vacuums? Like I was even thinking of what is a Xadia without Archdragons? Other than Zym, like what does that mean, and what’s that going to do to everyone there, and—?

J: Yeah.

A: I mean, do you think humans want to move east? To Xadia?

R: Maybe!

A: What does that mean? I mean like, I would assume they’re allowed but what does that mean? Well they have, they’re in the [Sunfire camp], but like — I dunno, what does that mean? Humans are weird, right?

R: Humans are so weird.

A: That’s our high level theme, ultimately. What this boils down to is humans are weird.

J: Humans are weird, bro. [Laughs]

A: That’s The Dragon Prince.

R: Well I remember, I was trying to develop a theory for something, and then I was counting the fingers in the flashbacks, like oh, humans made the Nova Blade. And I was like, why are they making the Nova Blade, so humans are weird absolutely is a theme. [Chuckles] Okay, that also kind of follows into my next question, with Zubeia gone, obviously Zym is young and now voiced by Dante Basco—

A: Right. [Laughs]

R: Is he the future Dragon King? Kind of being like an almost child ruler?

A: Makes sense to me. I dunno, like... let me think. Can I say there is another? There may be another? Can I say that?

J: Yeah.

A: Okay.

R: Potential succession crisis?

A: Er, I dunno about that, but uh — it’s certainly... There’s some, there’s some other — we have mentioned it. Some of these things, you’ll know more before the end of the year about some of this stuff. Nothing is just from Comic Con stuff, we’re — I’m not announcing any releases. Just like we’re gonna talk about more of this stuff at Comic Con in July. That’s all.

R: Okay, cool. Awesome.

A: Sorry. Little too [R laughs]...

R: No, no, you’re good. That’s, I was even gonna — one of my questions is if there are any graphic novels you can tease for the future, so I was even thinking maybe it’s gonna be [in there] or the book three, the fabled book three novelization.

J: We definitely want to do more OGNs for sure. We don’t have anything to announce, but we definitely have plans for more of those, for sure.

R: Okay, awesome. Cause all the graphic novels have been so good and it’s very fun to like peel back like “oh, how’s this going to apply?” or you know, different stuff.

J: Yeah, and just getting to work with all the people on those things is awesome, like Peter, and Nicole, and Felia, and all those people are awesome.

R: Um, so — I did have some backup questions as well — so I thought Runaan’s speech to Ezran in the end about violence, and the belief in necessary violence, and like if there even can be such a thing? Was really interesting. What sort of things were you hoping to explore about those concepts or in that discussion? Like for them as characters, obviously Ezran kind of becomes a little bit of an assassin by the end, of wanting to kill Aaravos as well, but even just looking back at arc 2 or other characters as well.

A: Would you ask the question a little more pointedly, maybe?

R: What was it like getting to explore the idea of quote unquote “necessary” violence?

A: Right. So first of all, we don’t purport to know an answer, like [chuckles] but we understand that people do make those justifications and ideas that like, you know, and certainly Runaan would have. Like this was surgical, this is saving lives, ultimately by going and being assassins we’re going to save lives. He believes he is good, or part of some machinery that leans toward the good. But the thing we all know is like violence isn’t just the violence that’s done, it’s also the trauma and the seeds of pain and future violence that get planted, and how what happens with that. And one thing that I believe, I saw a wonderful speech by the Dalai Lama years ago. The whole speech was wonderful, but for some reason the thing that stayed with me is he was talking about — I don’t remember if he was saying karma, but he was saying like, it’s good to do good and when you do good and put positive energy into the world in some way, there’s an instant karma. It comes back to you. It’s like the psychics of when you throw a ball on a boat, equal and opposite, that energy comes back to you immediately, that’s instant karma. But there’s one magical thing — I don’t remember him saying magical — which is a kindness to a child plants a tree of kindness. Right? It grows a thousandfold, that energy.

A: And so that was a very positive way of saying it, the same idea, but I’ve always thought about that. I’ve always thought about the energy and ideas and positivity; if you can give it to, so... The — the reverse of that here is, you know, the potential for greater pain and furtherance of those cycles of violence that are created when Runaan engages in his, you know, surgical violence, is only stopped because Ezran is such a strong character and is able to kind of internalize and carry it and process it and can still lead with hope and kindness and those things. So, um, so that’s kind of what we thought about. Again, I don’t know — there wasn’t intended to be an answer, just an understanding of who Runaan was and why, but for him to also have a deeper understanding of why it’s not just as simple as “I killed one person to save many,” like... He understands there’s a more complicated long term impact of his violence as well, and that he understands it now. I dunno if that helps or answers the question a little bit.

R: No, it does. Justin, is there anything you want to add?

J: No. [Laughs]

R: You’re like ditto.

J: No, that was pretty good.

R: Yeah, I thought — I thought season seven was a really great illustration of how the cycle is so much about collateral damage and how even if Ezran is thinking, “Oh I can have Runaan be shot,” it’s like well that’s gonna hurt Rayla, and that’s going to maybe physically hurt Callum who’s now using himself as a shield, there is no way to just hurt the singular person who hurt you and not hurt anybody else, because everybody has people who love them, right? Or even you know, Claudia and Aaravos, if Aaravos died and he did, what does that do to Claudia now? And there’s no like one definitive answer, but I think the show has continued to do a great job at exploring the ins and outs of all the nuances, so.

A: Yeah. And it’s interesting, I think about characters trying to process the complications of their lives and you know, the injustices or evils that have been done to them, and maybe the things they’ve done as well, and I think about Ezran carrying so much and processing it, and figuring out how to process it. I think about, you know, Viren where he comes out as well, right, and like which is to say his point of revelation when he wakes up in the beginning of season six, which is a little like, “I can’t make up for the things I’ve done all the way, but I can be on a different path. I can stop creating whatever negative energy I’m creating,” and so we have — he has this distinction of what he can do and what he deserves, and it’s not necessarily the same, and he... You know, his goodbye to Claudia and he knows he’s causing her pain, but he loves her, he tells her he loves her, but he has to leave. And then in the end, his identification as a servant, right, which obviously reflects back on his conversations with Harrow but also about his whole life’s ego journey, which is to exceed that, to somehow aspire to be a leader or a king or high mage, right? Those things that he aspired to, and in the end, he really dies, I think content to have been a servant, to be a servant, and to me there’s something really interesting about his path and where he lands and how he’s processed everything to get to that point. Anyway, just went off on a side note.

R: No, well it’s funny, cause watching season seven obviously Viren’s not there for the first time, and it’s both very strange and I was well Aaravos is here so we’re acclimating, but I could like feel him haunting the narrative.

A: Mmhm.

R: Because I felt like so much of what [A chuckles] the main trio were wrestling with were their Viren-esque choices, you know? Of Ezran being like we have to be strong enough so they’ll never attack us like ohh, that’s so Viren; or Rayla having to again do the homecoming and be judged, and she can’t maybe make amends for everything that was like the fallout of her actions; or Callum with his dark magic, so I was like [Viren] still felt very present to me in a way that I thought was really fun and interesting, even if I do miss him, so. Um... So this is the last of my official questions. Obviously the fandom was very saddened when “Xadia” was pulled suddenly, are there any hopes or plans of finding the game a new home?

J: Never say never [chuckles] is what I will say. We don’t have anything, like we don’t have anything immediately, but we do still control it and control the rights, and all of those things, so hopefully someday fingers crossed. But there’s nothing like in the immediate future.

R: Yeah. Yeah, okay, that’s — I mean, that was my fingers crossed answer, I was like “they probably still own the IP, so maybe—?”

J: We do! So we own all the stuff [laughs] and we’re really proud of the game and so there might — God willing the video game industry recovers a little bit [laughs] comes back to what it was before someone, and there’s more spaces for it. But yeah, at some point we’d love to get it out there. Also, you know, who knows in the future maybe we’ll do other games or other experiences set in-universe, so.

R: That sounds awesome. Is there anything from the season or from arc 2 in general that we haven’t talked about already that you guys would really want to talk about? Of “nobody ever asks about this”, or?

J: Oh man, that’s a good question.

A: Probably, I’m just trying to think through, um...

R: There’s a lot that happened in arc 2, so [laughs].

A: I mean, there’s the — we meet the Crowlord finally at the end of the season for just a glimpse, an instant. [Overlapping] You know what, we had written a speech for the Crowlord.

J: Yes!

A: But we had to cut it for time. He had a speech in Evrkynd like, “Hello everyone!” We were trying to get — we were trying to cast Conan O’Brien as the Crowlord.

J: Yeah. Yes.

A: Which was like ridiculous, there’s no way, but we were like what if it was Conan, that would be great.

J: Aaron had run into Conan on an airplane—

A: It’s true. He’s a very nice man.

J: Very nice man.

A: Incredibly nice man.

J: But yeah, there was like a whole run of Crowlord’s been on vacation [laughs]. “What did I miss?”

A: What? I can’t—

J: The end of the day.

A: Oh he’s retiring!

J: He’s retiring.

A: He was going to retire, he’s announcing his retirement.

R: He’s like my job here is done and I didn’t do anything.

A: Anyway, I can’t remember but uh, that was fun. What else? Um... What else happened during the — the arc that we didn’t talk about? I don’t know.

R: We got Ezran’s nukes, for lack of a better term with Project Sunfire Ruby, um, Kim’Dael, Finnegrin, um, I thought all of Janai’s stuff with her brother was fantastic as well as like the betrayal — brother betrayal parallels.

A: Yeah.

J: I — oh sorry, go ahead.

A: You go, I was going to shout out Michal a little bit on...

J: No go for it, I’ll go after that.

A: Just a quick shout out to Michal Schick, one of our writers, who like on the arc for Karim, we were all getting to the end and were like “Does he redeem himself? How is his redemption?” and Michal was like “No! Have you listened to this guy? He’s not going to redeem himself! He’s gonna screw everyone in the end and hopefully get what he deserves!” And we were just like yeah, you’re right. He can’t do it. He just can’t bring himself to do it. Anyway: Michal’s great, Karim’s arc ended as it should’ve [laughs] I guess? I don’t wanna laugh, but kind of...

R: I loved — Karim’s actually one of my favourite characters in the whole show, precisely because he sucks so much, um, and I thought he was a great — you know Aaravos hates arrogance, and I feel like Karim was very Cosmic Order-esque of like, you know — and again, just not — in a show where like almost everyone’s a murderer, there’s not a lot that’s like irredeemable in Dragon Prince.

A: Yeah. Right.

R: But Karim forsaking his family, and not being able to come back from that, and that he’s the one who just doesn’t get anything, I was like yeah, that’s deserved. Cause even Viren is pulled back from that point, right, and then is able to grow and change, so I thought that was a really good, interesting facet of — of the themes and arcs.

J: I was going to tag onto that, what I was going to say was that Karim is one of my favourite characters in “Xadia” the game, and we built him pretty early because he’s a fire mage and he’s very cool, and then by the time we got to when the game was coming out, like “Oh no, he’s an asshole [laughs] are people going to want to play him as him?” They did, but it was funny, it was like — it was definitely a funny moment where it was like oh this guy’s awesome to play as but he’s kind of a jerk, which was fun.

A: Um. We see Miyana with the twins in the end.

R: Yeah. Very intrigued.

A: We’ll meet them, someday. We — we had versions where Miyana didn’t — died during childbirth, and the twins got adopted by their aunt. But then we had Miyana there at the end, so I dunno. Writing is funny. Like you have all these parallel universes where you made a different decision and you followed through a certain way, so I dunno. We try to do what’s right.

R: That’s why — I think that’s what’s fun about fandom is you can explore all the various ins and outs in as many different ways as you want, and then canon is the one that the writers picked, and it’s—

A: Right.

R: And it’s very good, but you can also get to explore all the other stuff, so I think that leaves us a lot of fun stuff to play with, I think.

A: Soren, we haven’t talked much about Soren.

R: Yeah. I thought he had a great arc. It was really interesting watching him in season three find this like certainty, and then over the course of arc 2 he just loses all of that [chuckles].

A: Yeah, we really did enjoy in season six him and Viren’s kind of crossing paths and what that meant, and what that felt like, and where they were able to get to. Funny that the flashback episode where Viren is writing the letter was not in our original plan. What happened, Justin, how did we end up having room to do that? Oh, I know how we had room! Because there was a universe where we were doing six and seven all in season six.

J: Yeah. That’s right.

A: And season seven was going to be the third arc. And then part way, for different reasons, we were like we didn’t have enough real estate in that seventh season to properly tell the third arc, and also some of the writers were advocating we didn’t have real estate in six to finish the second arc, that there was stuff we needed to do. And so there were things that were happening in the last episodes in season six that ended up becoming in the end of season seven, we had to move them forward. Then there was an episode, I can’t remember if it was split in two, it sort of grew, that was the — but one of the things that we ended up adding was the episode where Viren writes the letter with the story of... We thought this would be — would give some greater depth to. ‘Cause if you look at it, you could look at the episode right prior to that and go that’s some measure of closure on Viren and Soren. Done. Check. But it was nice that we were able to go one even deeper, so — but yeah. Process is funny, you know, and I know that fandom has reacted to some of that as well, like... At different times, we thought our ability to tell the arcs over different sets of episodes was — were different, and it’s evolved, we’ve let it evolve and we’ve tried to make the best choices we could to be able to tell the story right, but, you know, I know some people feel like “Why didn’t I get my like ending-ending? I thought I was banking on that,” and so hopefully that will be — that’s yet to come, and we’ll be satisfying when it does come.

R: I will say, after season six cause I’ve, uh, I’ve lost sleep the cube of Aaravos, the Key of Aaravos [A laughs] trying to figure it all out, and so I remember it was after season seven you guys released an interview of being like “Oh yeah, it’s a huge part of arc 3,” and I was just like “Of course it is [A laughs] of course it is!” I wasn’t gonna get it yet [laughing] but that’s okay. But I did have it in my head of I dunno, that’s so attached to Callum, that’s so attached to Aaravos, I was like I feel like that’s kind of a finale arc, you know? So I feel like it was a good way of like, arc 2, especially when we knew that oh no there is a planned arc 3 with season six and season seven, you can kind of think “Okay, as the second part of the story, this makes a lot of sense,” and I think season seven had to walk that balance of growing the characters, also have not quite like regression but things were getting more complicated, and you’re both resolving and leaving things for the future, which is not an easy line to walk whatsoever.

A: Yeah.

R: But I thought to your point on Viren’s letter episode, I thought that set up even Terry’s arc in season seven so well of you, you used me, you know? Of like “I would’ve helped you, but I got scared, or whatever, and then you treated me like a thing” you know, and so Lissa walks away, and Terry walks away, and I think Claudia even says the same line about both of them of “Well they had to leave for themselves” and I just thought that was so well done from a thematic standpoint of dehumanization and, yeah. Are there any — I think that’s everything, yeah, um — was, is there anything you want the fandom to ponder?

J: Uh, San Diego. Ponder San Diego. We’re going to be there, it’s going to be exciting, there is information coming, we can’t talk about it directly, but San Diego will be fun.

R: Okay. Okay, very cool.

A: Will you be there at any of these coming conventions? What’s your plan in the future?

R: Me?

A: Yeah. I know they’re expensive.

R: I’d like to go. I’d like to go eventually, just not — it’s not in the cards for me this year, but hopefully in the future I’d love to go. Maybe if we have an official arc 3 panel, I’ll be like “Okay, I got like two years of hiatus to save up and prepare and [laughs] I can be there.” So I think that’s everything, thank you so much for being—

A: Great!

J: Yeah.

R: For joining me, this was awesome.

J: It was nice to meet you in person. Or in video I guess.

R: Yeah.

A: I just wanna say like, first of all, you — I’ve said this before, you’re one of our — we love all the fans, you’re one of my favourite fans. [R gasps] You dig so deep, and you push so hard, and you — that’s, we want the writing and the story to be worth that, you know? So we work really hard to make sure that it has some depth and whatever, but I also want to add that even just in our conversation, you ask such great questions, that I feel like — it actually comes back and it’s going to affect the writing in arc 3 [R gasps louder].

R: [Softly, in disbelief] Oh my gosh.

A: That’s not to say you’re changing it, but there are questions that have occurred to me during our conversation that hadn’t occurred to me before this conversation that are worth exploring and diving into, so I think it’s so valuable talking with you, and I’m really grateful for our relationship with you as an uber-fan — a super fan, I guess not an uber-fan cause somehow uber versus lyft [R laughs] now that word is ruined, but anyway, just wanna say we’re grateful.

R: Oh! Thank you, that’s — that’s incredibly kind. I was even thinking about how grateful I was for our first interview, because there were parts of season seven I was watching where you guys had talked about sacrifice and all that stuff, and it was really coming back to mind in season seven, so I feel like it also makes the show — the show is so worth the deep dive, sometimes I feel like I’m still barely scratching the surface, um, so thank you guys so much for creating something that — you and everyone at Wonderstorm for making something that brings people together, and is such a source of joy and contemplation, I think for a lot of people so thank you, and yeah, I guess we can —

A: Amazing.

R: I guess we can sign off.

J: Thank you so much.

A: Thank you. And thank you for shouting out all of Wonderstorm cause yes, this is a—

J: A team effort.

A: The greatness of this show has been the creative effort of such an amazing team.

R: Oh yeah. Alright. Uh — bye everyone!

J: Bye,

A: Bye!

J: Thank you so much! Have a good one!

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