#AND GOD viren is such an interesting character and his monologue was so !!!! like what if claudia let him??? but she DIDNT bc she’s trying

[jaanii]

okay i only had time to watch the first episode now but AHHHHHHH

[gregorygrim]

Dragon Prince Hot Takes

!!! Full Spoiler For “The Dragon Prince” Seasons 1-3!!!

So I finally got around to watching The Dragon Prince. Timely, I know, but better late than never i guess. I’m not completely caught up yet as I only got as far as S3E7 “Hearts of Cinder” in this first sitting. Considering I haven’t binged any series in almost two years, I think that’s pretty respectable. This means I won’t discuss the last few episodes here, except for a couple of things I was unfortunately spoiled for already, hence full spoilers.

These are basically my first thoughts and opinions after the binge and a good night’s sleep. It’s gonna be a lot so if you don’t care or don’t want spoilers…

TL;DR: 7½/10. Generally enjoyable, there are some aspects I’m not exactly fan of, but no dealbreakers

Firstly to everyone who told me that this was the new ATLA: you all need to rewatch Avatar stat! Like seriously. There are definitely parallels and given the cast and crew I think that’s what they were going for too (which is why I think it’s fair to compare the two), but still, no.

Secondly I love most of the worldbuilding and love that the series at least tries to give it to us in a bit of a non-linear fashion, even if it is kind of clumsy at times. I know some people are put off by expository dialogue and flashbacks, but I’m an epic fantasy nerd, I need that sweet, sweet lore to live as much as you mortals need food.

I like that there was clearly an effort made to integrate the worldbuilding in more subtle ways. For example you may initially find it kind of weird that all these different human ethnicities are existing perfectly integrated in what looks like a medieval society, until you remember from the opening monologue that the Human Kingdoms are the result of a massive diaspora following the human exodus from Xadia, so obviously people got all mixed up everywhere. It’s representation with an excellent in-world reason and that just brings me joy.

I also love the magic system(s) even though we haven’t really gone into that just yet. it really feels like there was a genuine effort made to create underlying mechanics for the magic rather than just making each spell a vaguely elemental themed ability. I really hope we’ll dive deeper into that in coming seasons.

I also like the little nods to other works of fantasy: Ezran’s ability to talk with animals is a reference to Tolkien’s world where some royal bloodlines had the ability to speak with animals, specifically birds; Primal Magic and its spells being cast with Ancient Draconic runes and words might be reminiscent of the Ancient Language from the Inheritance Cycle etc.

Thirdly the main cast is great. Callum, Ezran and Rayla are all interesting and relatable characters in their own right and as a group. I’m not going into each of them individually here, but while I think the series as a whole falls short of ATLA, as protagonist parties go I dare say this one is nearly on nearly on par with the gAang.¹

And yes, I love Bait, which I really did not expect following the first few episodes. I love his weird pug-toad-chameleon design, I love that he works like a flashbang whenever somebody says a quote from Scarface (I wish they hadn’t dropped that later on) and I love how done he is with everything and everyone at all times. I’ve only had him for 25 episodes, but if anything happened to him I would kill all of my followers and then myself.

On top of that, and speaking as someone who god knows is really not into shipping, I love Rayla and Callum’s relationship. It’s believable, it’s refreshing and it brings out the best in both characters without changing basically anything about them. Just two good friends who fell in love. A++, maybe even S tier.

Unfortunately though I can’t sing the same kind of praises about the villains. None of them are terrible (as in terribly written, most of them are pretty awful people), but with one exception they just don’t stand up to the protagonists in quality.

I could simply not take Viren seriously. Even now that is probably the single most powerful magic user in the world, he just has such strong Karen energy, every time he finishes a speech I am overcome with the urge to say “Sir, this is a Wendy’s” and it does not help the mood. I’m not even sure why. It might’ve been the voice because the guy who did Viren (Jason Simpson) also does a lot of kinda slimy characters in various anime dubs, it might be that over-the-top walking stick, idk.

What I’m saying is that as a primary antagonist he simply did not work for me. Which is doubly a shame because this kind of tarnishes the real “Big Bad” of this story by proxy. Aaravos, even as an invisible ghost, with his voice coming out of a caterpillar and next to no info on his backstory, has more style and gravity than all the human antagonists combined. It helps that he is by far the best designed character and Erik Dellums has the voice of a young god, but I’d argue even without that unfair advantage he has the potential to be a top tier villain. While he is stuck as Viren’s “little bug-pal” though he is just being dragged down.

(I’m aware that as of the final episode the caterpillar familiar is undergoing metamorphosis, probably to create a new body for Aaravos’ spirit to inhabit outside of the magic mirror, so I’m definitely hyped for more of him in the coming seasons.)

As for Soren and Claudia, I’ve got mixed feelings. This was one more aspect of the show that a lot of people compared to Avatar and while I see the parallels to Zuko & Azula, they are still very different, at least where Claudia is concerned. I’d also just like to mention that a lot of people told me that they thought the direction in which their storylines went were really surprising and I can’t disagree more. I predicted that Soren would defect to the protagonists on episode 5 right after Viren told him to kill the princes and I knew Claudia was going to stick with her father from episode 12 onward. My point is, it didn’t feel like some kind of plot twist, the way some people made it out to be, and which I don’t think was the intent.

I definitely got the sense that Soren was at least a Zuko-type character, though still not a Zuko clone, and as with Zuko I was consistently able to empathise and sympathise with him and his predicaments. I also appreciated that his dilemma is the result of his convictions and not him being kind of dense, which would’ve been all to easy and probably would’ve ruined his character for me. As it stands he is extremely milktoast, but perfectly functional for his purpose in the story and I can definitely see him evolving further and getting more interesting as we go on.

Claudia is where it gets complicated. Again, I can see the Azula parallels. But unlike that character, who is her father’s animal 110%, Claudia doesn’t strike me as a victim of Viren’s manipulation the way Soren undoubtably is. The way she talks about and uses Dark Magic, how she talks down to Soren and how even Viren finds it difficult to communicate with her, tells me as an audience member that she is an independent person. Which tells me that the cruelty and enthusiasm for causing harm she regularly displays is her own will. And that was before she straight up leads Callum on to manipulate him.

On the other hand I can absolutely relate to her devotion to her family, her big sister role (even though she is younger than Soren) and the way both the separation of her parents before the story and Soren’s injury in episode 16 must’ve affected her because of this. I know that, if my brother had become paralysed from the neck down and I knew a way to heal him, I would not have hesitated to kill that fawn either. Then again her relationship with her father is very different from parental relationships I am familiar with, so I can’t really say I see why she is so devoted to him, other than she promised her mother to stay with him years ago? ¯\(o_Ō)/¯

So basically Claudia falls into an emotional grey space for me. I can’t really tell how to feel about her either way and I’ll just have to see where she goes from here, which, while fine, isn’t necessarily great for an end of season cliffhanger imo.

Seeing as I’ve already talked about some of the show’s shortcomings, I think it’s time to dive into some of the what I would consider flaws.

Firstly this show needed at least 12 episode seasons. I have never made a secret out of my dislike for the modern short seasons and while I recognise that in the current climate in the industry giving everything full 25 episode seasons isn’t really doable, the pacing of this show, especially for the first season is just outright bad at times. It works as of the second season, but the first season alternately feels like it’s either rushing through or crawling along the whole way through.

The believability of Rayla’s and the princes’ relationship really suffers from this the most. It comes a bit out of nowhere on the boat ride and is then taken for granted way to quickly. Like Callum, seriously, this girl tried to kill you and your brother not even a day ago and you are currently cut off from all allies you have ever had until now. A little skepticism isn’t misplaced here. I also wold’ve liked if we’d just gotten a bit more of a sense of movement with the characters. I get that this is not the kind of show where we can just make an entire episode about the characters travelling and camping, intercut with plots centred around a more expansive supporting cast, but still I really would’ve preferred if Xadia didn’t feel quite so around the corner.

Another issue is with setup and payoff, which I think is partially a consequence of the pacing as well. A lot of smaller plot points are set up within the same episode as the payoff just wreak havoc on the narrative structure. A good example is the episode where they ride down the river in a boat and Bait tires to go into the water, but is saved by Ezran, who then explains the story behind Glowtoads and how they are pefect bait for large water predators. Then Bait falls into the water and is attacked by a massive water monster. This happens within five minutes of one episode and never comes up again. To me that looks like sign of rushed editing, which is probably not entirely the crew’s fault, given that they are on a schedule from Netflix, but it’s still a point of critique.

It unfortunately also manifests in the occasional line of horribly forced dialogue, often for things we can literally see happening on screen. Again, this is mostly the case in the earlier episodes, but it never completely goes away.

Finally, and this is where i get into serious issues that made me want to write this, we gotta talk about representation in this show.

First: disabled representation, meaning Amaya. Why is Amaya deaf? Because it’s good to have disabled representation.

Why is Amaya deaf and a high-ranking military officer? Because they didn’t think it through.

I know this may be a contentious opinion, but it is my belief that the purpose of representation, particularly of disabilities characters may suffer from, in fiction is to, y’know, represent people as they are in life. That includes especially the struggles they face and have to overcome, sometimes their whole life. This is not just me talking out of my ass either. A couple years ago I discussed this with several people that are disabled, specifically blind or otherwise severely visually impaired, in a different context obviously, and the general consensus was that it’s better to have representation that shows their life and their abilities as they are, rather than how they might wish they could be.

A mute or deaf person cannot be a medieval fantasy army general, no matter how good they might be in melee combat or who’s sister they are, because at the end of the day, they’re not able to give commands while they are holding a sword and shield. That such a massive logical oversight, especially in comparison to the extremely well done example of representation I mentioned above, and has so little impact on the plot that it leads me to believe, this aspect of Amaya’s character was tacked on in the last minute without being given any thought for the sole reason of the story having a disabled person in it. All this does is necessitate the existence of two otherwise entirely unnecessary characters, Gren and Kazi, both of which achieve nothing, aside from sometimes being literal set dressing.

That is where representation ends and tokenism begins.

And unfortunately this generally lacklustre attitude also extends to the LGBT+ representation on the show.

As of S3E7 “Hearts of Cinder” we have had two onscreen gay couples on the show (onscreen in the sense that both partners were onscreen and they were somehow confirmed to be in a relationship on the show). One of these, the queens of Duren, literally die in the same flashback they are introduced in, which incidentally also features them invading a foreign nation to poach a rare animal and subsequently starting the conflict at the series’ core. Not a great look.

Aside from serving as a tragic backstory for their daughter, the most impact they had on my viewing experience was that they made wonder how the fuck royal succession works in Duren. (People who know me are rolling their eyes right now because I’m bringing anarchism into this Dragon Prince review, but I’m telling you, this why fantasy monarchies aren’t compatible with LGBT+ politics in the same setting. Dynastic governments are inherently bigoted, you can’t have it both ways.)

The other couple are Runaan and Ethari, Rayla’s caretakers, although if I’m being honest you wouldn’t be able tell based on Runaan’s treatment of Rayla in the first episode. By the time we actually meet Ethari and find out about their relationship with Rayla, Runaan is suffering “a fate worse than death” (direct quote from the show) trapped in a gold coin.

I mean come on. That’s about as “technically not ‘bury your gays’” as it gets.

I think I need to reiterate here that my point is not that this show or its creators are somehow malicious. As i stated in the TL;DR: I don’t think this is a dealbreaker for liking this show. But it does demonstrate that they are prone to slipping to some potentially harmful tropes and this needs to be criticised and pointed out to them.

In conclusion, I really love this show. It’s not ATLA, it never will be, nothing else will ever be ATLA no matter how badly (and terribly) Netflix tries. But it does and should not have to be.

What it has to do though is improve. A lot of the building blocks are already there, such as Aaravos or Claudia’s development, Callum’s father, the origin of Ezran’s ability, the purpose of the “Key of Aaravos”, the true fate of King Harrow (we all know his soul is in the bird, right?) etc. Some things like the treatment of Amaya’s disability unfortunately won’t be fixable as far as I can tell, but if they at least manage to fix the gay representation I can make my peace with that.

¹ I know I said I wouldn’t go into each of the characters individually, but a) you should never trust a stranger on the internet and b) I really want to talk a bit about Callum. Specifically the “mystery” of why the hell he is connected to the Sky Primal. I write “mystery” because I think it’s fairly obvious from whence this talent came: there is only one humanoid species we know of with innate access to the Sky Arcanum and one of Callum’s parent’s is unidentified, presumed dead. 2+2=4. Callum’s father was a Skywing Elf. That’s why he recognised Nyx’s boomerang weapon. He remembered one like it either from his very early childhood (remember that he has photographic memory) or Sarai kept one and he found it at some point.

On top of that the name “Callum” or at least the pronunciation is clearly derived from Latin “caelum” meaning “sky” or “weather” and I already mentioned that Ancient Draconic is just bad Latin. It’s not very subtle. Unless they pull a complete 180 concerning the lore about Primal Magic he’s definitely going to be a half-elf, which would also just so happen to make him the perfect mediator between the Human Kingdoms and Xadia. Hmm, it’s almost as if they are planning ahead.

My question: How the fuck did that happen? Or rather: how did that fuck happen? I don’t think even Harrow knew or he probably would’ve a) paid more attention when Sarai advised against poaching the Magma Titan, because obviously she’s gotten around Xadia more than him, if y’know what i’m sayin’ ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) or at least b) put it in his final letter to Callum. Unfortunately we know basically nothing about Sarai except that she was a soldier alongside Amaya and already had Callum before marrying Harrow. So does Amaya know? This is probably the most interesting plot thread in the whole story and as far as my friends told me it’s not going to be touched on anymore in the last two episodes than it already has thus far, which is basically not at all.

[thecartoonuniverse]

The Truth about Aaravos: The Dragon Prince Theory

(This script will soon be turned into a video. Let me know if you spot any factual errors so I can fix that for the final video!)

Not only will I be discussing the future of Aaravos, but also what we know about his past and how that shaped him into the elf he is today.

So, let me cover my bases if you can’t really remember what went down in season 2. Bad dad Lord Viren had long been trying to figure out what made the mirror he found in the layer of the Dragon King so special. He tried a ton of spells to get it to reveal its secrets, but it wasn’t until he got rid of all the light in the room that he was able to discover that he could view into a completely different room.

After waiting long enough, an elf appeared! But this elf could not see Viren at first. Eventually the elf was able to see Viren as well, and made him do a series of tasks to be able to speak to him. We learn his name is Aaravos and he promises he can provide knowledge and power. Of course, Viren agrees to work with him, which eventually leads to Viren getting captured, but Aaravos promises to stay with him.

At first glance we really don’t know much about him. Aaravos was able to enchant all books that mentioned his name, so before Viren could get a good look at them the words turned into a jumbled mess.

I will get to what we do know about those texts in a minute but we do actually know a few more things about him.

As is pretty clear, he is a Startouched elf. This type of elf is very rare and are associated with the heavens. While they don’t live forever they live a very long time, as it was compared to the time scale stars experience... Which honestly is pretty close to immortal if that is the parallel they are drawing. The type of magic star elves can do is also quite mysterious and involves divination, cosmic vision, and seeing into the beyond.

However, Aarvos is said to be different than other Startouched elves, and it’s not only because he is stuck in a magic mirror. In episode 6 of Season 2, we learn that the cube Callum found at the Banther Lodge was called the Key of Aaravos and is said to unlock something of great power in Xadia.  As is probably obvious, we learn that Aaravos originally owned the cube. He is called an Archmage, and he even mastered all six primal sources. Definitely getting some more Avatar the Last Airbender vibes here.

Combine all this with the fact that Runaan said that whatever was in the mirror was worth than death, and we already have many reasons not to trust this good-looking elf.

To learn more about his past, we need to look at things that were not said, but shown in season 2.  

In the eighth episode of season 2, the book of destiny, Viren takes a look at a few books to find out more information about Aaravos after he learns his name. But as I mentioned before, we only get a quick glance at them before they get blurred and they are not in English.

Luckily, they are translatable! So, the translations I am about to show you are a combination of a few sources, all of which I will link at the bottom.

The first passage we have is in Danish. It is cut off at the end but there is quite a lot to gather from this.

It says: “Finally, he told me his name. I had never heard a name like his, but neither had I imagined an elf like him either. He is stronger, older, and wiser than any other magical creature in Xadia. Yet he is a friend to all humans. Where others look down on us, call us inferior, he sees great potential in us. When we receive the gifts Aaravos promised us, they will pay for their conceit and become forced to see us as equals. And when we are equals, we can take our destiny into our own hands and build our future. I can see it before me-”

So that was quite intriguing! We can see here that this isn’t the first time Aaravos has befriended a human, and a long time ago he gave them a gift that allowed them to become more powerful than the elves and dragons. But just what that gift was is something I will get to later.

The second piece we got about Aaravos is a poem written in Arabic. The Dragon Prince social media accounts actually confirmed a single stanza of this, but the rest is up to interpretation. And once again Viren’s hand gets in the way and makes it hard to translate the whole thing.  

She cried when the stars of the sky turned black

They donned their masks

They turned their backs on her

And left Elarion to die.

Elarion, while her vessel fought death

Withered and suffered in darkness

Until the last star

Communicated from afar

She touched it: A fire, a gift, a spark

Elarion, with her pure whiteness

Embraced the night’s great dark flame

And when she bowed

She declared her faith

A whisper. His name was Aaravos.

Elarion, black-eyed child,

Her twisted roots spread deep and far,

The humans’ might

Sparked by the light

Of Aaravos, her midnight star.

Elarion, shaking to her core,

Laid on the ground on an icy night

And in the cold

Pulled her roots close

Daring winter’s deadly bite

The rest of the poem is obscured but some more lines from the poem include:

Her flowers blossomed

Fears withering and darkness

Has searched

For

It lit with flames

A spark

The eyes of a hungry dragon

So this is quite confusing as it focuses on a totally new character named Elarion. I have a couple of interpretations, which I will share.

It could be that Elarion was a human that did something where the rest of the humans turned their backs on her and left her for dead during a cold winter night. But just before all was lost, she saw a star shining above her and it told her it would save her if she pledged allegiance to it. She did, and we learn the star’s name is Aaravos. From there it seemed she lived once again, and she was gifted with the power to do dark magic, as denoted by her black eyes. Or perhaps Elarion was already a dark mage to begin with and that is why the other humans abandoned her.

Or maybe Elarion may have also been another Star elf, since they have black eyes. The rest of the elves banished her and  

But I am seeing it more likely that Elarion was a human.

I have a feeling that the rest of the poem might discuss how Elarion got revenge on those that turned their backs on her once she got her powers.

In addition, the poem calls Aaravos Elarion’s midnight star. I feel like this could be taken that they could have been in love, which if this was love between a human and an elf it would be extremely taboo.

I do find it interesting how it seems that Aaravos literally came from the sky as a star, meanings Star elves are literally born from stars and that’s why they live so long.

With all this said and done, it is clear that Aaravos is a gift giver. He not only gave powers to Viren, but also to Elarion and to many more humans in the first passage.

And for the former two, it’s pretty easy to see that the gift they got was the power to wield dark magic. From there the first dark mage used it, which scared the elves enough to cast the humans out of Xadia.

How this knowledge of who gifted humans dark magic became completely lost is a mystery.  Perhaps once the elves forced the humans out, they no longer wanted to remember Aaravos, even though his gift to them was passed on through the generations.

Or, since Aaravos is the one who narrated the opening scene of the show, he made sure this secret was covered up. Any passages containing his name are unable to be read, after all.

I realized that this is also what happened in the show RWBY, with the big bad narrating the beginning monologue. But this time around Aaravos is turning out to be an unreliable narrator.

But of course, whatever he had planned the first time around with humans did not work out, as they were sent away from their home and later split into 5 kingdoms. Now he is back, and by teaching Viren his secrets he may be giving his plan another shot. This time the forces in Xadia are weaker since the Dragon King has been killed. Obviously, I don’t know his plan, but as a preliminary guess I think maybe he is trying to get rid of all elves by teaching humans dark magic. They probably did not like his quest to seek out as much power as possible, and punished him for it.

Or maybe I’m making our Aaravos out to be a worser elf than he actually is. Perhaps he also saw how unfair it was that humans were treated as weak by the elves and dragons when they had so much potential, and felt the need to level the playing field.

While not confirmed, there are already a lot of parallels between Aaravos and the Greek Myth Prometheus. One of the creators of the show, Aaron Ehasz, already stated that this is his favorite greek myth so it’s really no surprised it is showing up in TDP.

As he mentions, the myth is about Prometheus, a titan that stole fire and gave it to humans, elevating them. But he was punished by the gods for this. He was a divine messenger who shared these gifts with humanity, and from there the humans have to choose what to do once they obtained these gifts.

That definitely sounds like what we learned about Aaravos from these passages.

Star elves seem pretty close to god-like with how long they live and their powers. And Aaravos may have been the most powerful Startouched elf ever. Meaning, if he gets out the mirror, we have a lot to worry about.

Before I end this I would like to give a small guess about the cube that Callum has. The Key of Aaravos is something only a master of all six primal sources can unlock. The only one that is currently able to do that is Aaravos. But as some people have been speculating, Callum may be next on that list.

While I am not the biggest fan of the theory currently, since Callum just seemed so in tune with Sky magic, there is a definite possibility this will happen. It is likely that only a mage that also wields all six elements will be able to defeat Aaravos. So yeah, once again... Avatar.

Or if six different creatures with all six arcana touch the cube, it can also unlock something. I am hoping another elf joins Callum and Rayla on their adventure next season, so maybe this will happen!

I also wrote a smaller theory about this image we got in the end credits for one of the S2 episodes. There may be some parallels between Aaravos’s story and that of the Great Gatsby. Check it out here.

So that pretty much wraps up everything I wanted to say about Aaravos, and I want to know what you guys think! Do you think he’s just plain evil, or is there more to him than that? Let me know!

Sources: [x][x][x][x][x][x]