#its almost like the primary protagonist of the show is suffering from a massive mother wound

[rubyneo]

just blocked someone for having an opinion on salem that i disagreed with ❤️❤️

[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.

[its-just-like-the-movies]

Conviction (10, C+)

Why this film?: Because even people who weren’t psyched by Rockwell steamrolling the televised awards spoke fondly of this performance, and since I trusted those people, this seemed like the place to go.

The film: Conviction is the kind of film that makes you root for it, makes you want to root for it, even as you can’t help  noticing its flaws. For sure, the story of Betty Anne Waters spending sixteen years to almost single-handedly prove that her brother did not commit the first-degree murder of a neighbor is the kind of Herculean feat that deserves to be lauded. But, like headlines about kids making thousands of dollars to fund medical procedures or funerals for family members, it’s the kind of that invites loads of critique about the of the systems in place that would force such a massive effort on the parts of the people being celebrated. Director Tony Goldwyn is admirably in step with Betty Anne’s point of view, but to the degree that he doesn’t, perhaps can’t ever suggest that Kenny might be guilty and Betty is spending these years working to seal his fate rather than exonerate him. Nor does he step away far enough to interrogate a police force and legal system that would have allowed this mistake to happen, even skimping over the scene of Betty Anne confronting the officer who was responsible for framing her brother. The limited scope doesn’t hold up if you think about it for too long once it ends, or even during several sequences, but within those limitations Conviction is utterly compelling. If Goldwyn can be criticized for barely seeing a world outside his lead character’s head, he’s just as responsible for creating an environment that allows all of his actors to contribute sharp and specific characterizations that feel connected to the material. Conviction’s flaws and its assets point to a startling amount of sincerity towards doing this story justice instead of coming across solely as awards bait, and though it flirts heavily with being an acting showcase and an Erin Brockovich knock-off, it still emerges in its own, minor-key and palpably incomplete way as a tribute to one woman’s endless determination and a sibling bond that few people could ever dream of boasting.

In fact, the push-pull between Conviction’s best and worst elements is arguably it’s greatest source of tension. Because Goldwyn draws more momentum out of when Betty Anne will inevitably free her brother as opposed to if she will, and because that when is framed so optimistically, the long term narrative is never very suspenseful. The movies lives or dies on a scene-by-scene basis, and what’s surprising is that Conviction stays at about the same level of quality its entire run time. It lacks the palpable ups and downs that make The Black Dahlia such a vexing and hypnotic experience, instead operating on a slightly higher average and tinier but no less affecting changes in quality. The actors consistently elevate the script even as the questions the film isn’t asking keep poking through the seams, disrupting our viewing experience to make us wish the film was a little tougher.

So what questions are the film avoiding? For one, it absolutely refuses to consider the idea that Kenny might have actually killed Katharina Bow. Betty Anne is admirably unwavering in believing that her brother is innocent, but the film is too caught up in her head to even suggest that he might be guilty. Sam Rockwell’s performance is the only source of tension in this regard, playing scenes in court and in jail that could plausibly be prescribed to either a murderer who doesn’t want to shatter his sister’s hopes or a wronged man moved and saddened by the lengths his sister is going to free him. It’s enough for us to pause in the few scenes anyone pushes against Betty Anne’s tunnel vision, opening the possibility he might be guilty even if the film never really pretends that that’s possible. The idea that she can overcome such insurmountable odds is challenged more often than his guilt, but again, it’s never really in doubt that she will eventually emerge triumphant no matter how long it takes or how strong her opponents are.

The other big gap in Conviction’s portrayal of the case is a surprising lack of interrogation into the systems that falsely imprisoned Kenny and forced Betty Anne to take on a byzantine legal system with virtually no help from any originally involved in the case, and a lack of perspective on what prison life is like for Kenny. The film is mercifully devoid of a bad apple narrative surrounding the officer who framed Kenny for murder, focusing its attention on dismantling the false evidence and speaking with the witness threatened into testifying for the prosecution. But while the sequences allowing the two witnesses - Kenny’s wife and a mistress he had around the time of the murder - to release their own pain and cooperate as they see fit are affecting and contribute fully to the narrative, they never quite shake the feeling that Conviction should be focusing more of its attention at Officer Nancy Taylor instead of evoking her as an offscreen menace. Betty Anne confronts her only once in the present, after learning that Taylor had fabricated DNA evidence against her brother, and the scene is too short to function as anything except a rejoinder from a genuinely unreliable source trying to convince Betty Anne that she has wasted her life. There is no interrogation of this woman’s action beyond her own belief that Kenny is guilty, and no other officers involved in the case are given a voice despite both witnesses saying that Taylor had a deputy present when she threatened them. It’s one thing for a film to be bashfully unwilling to confront the forces that have altered its protagonist’s lives forever, and it’s another to keep the impact of that change on the most impacted character to such a peripheral degree. Aside from an early attempted suicide and a new way of trimming his hair, Kenny’s stay in prison almost seems to be in limbo, a princess in a tower whose time there isn’t illustrated. Crown Heights, another film that’s even more weirdly unwilling to indict the police for framing the wrong man - even going so far to ignore as to underplay the racial dynamics of the case - at least shows what almost twenty years in prison did to Colin Warner. Kenny Waters gets none of this consideration, instead treated as a constant that Betty Anne must strive to reunite with.

By underplaying the severity of all potential obstacles, the film occasionally has trouble getting across the enormity of Betty Anne’s actions and the siblings’ devotion to each other. The film goes to great lengths to capture the strength of Betty Anne and Kenny’s bonds to each other, as do Hilary Swank and Sam Rockwell in rendering their relationship, but Conviction spends too much time treating her plan of attack as something any sibling would do that the moments when it underscores that this isn’t the case come off as discordant, as if the film itself isn’t entirely aware of how much Betty Anne has sacrificed for her brother regardless of whether she’s doing the right thing. Again, this is mainly symptomatic of Goldwyn attaining his vision so fully to his protagonist’s perspective, but it’s still strange to see her campaign treated mostly as durrigur. A late-film scene where her sons eventually decide that they would do for each other what their mother did for Kenny winds up playing as truncated because the film has so little distance from its heroine. Especially after the youngest and most sympathetic son describes going to such actions as “throwing my life away” for his brother, a slip of the tongue that isn’t negatively framed in and of itself, but the look of concern on Betty Anne’s face is upsetting from a perspective of viewer sympathy and frankly underexplored after she asks her son if he really thinks she threw her life away before quickly accepting him saying he didn’t mean it. In the almost two decades it took for Betty Anne Waters to get a law degree and free her brother from prison she got a divorce, seemingly lost primary custody of her children, and suffered academic and professional setbacks, yet it’s almost hard to recall the scant amount of attention these storylines received compared to Betty’s work to becoming a lawyer and her investigation into Kenny’s case. Conviction itself seems as unmoored as Betty Anne does by her son’s remarks, so impressed and in awe of her that the film is completely terrified to consider the sacrifices she’s made. The omission of Kenny’s death roughly six months after being exonerated, dying from complications after hitting his head from a great fall further illustrates Conviction’s unwillingness to poke into the darker elements of its own narrative.

Still, for all that Conviction fails or refuses to see in the story it’s telling, it does an impressive job within the boundaries it’s imposed on itself. If the compliment sounds too backhanded to be sincere, it’s worth stressing what a watchable and impressive film Conviction is, building power as it progresses. Goldwyn’s style doesn’t impose a lot of visuals to latch on to, but he’s able to tell the story with a simplicity and economy that suits its characters and setting just fine, fully earning the optimism and belief that everything will work out in the end it shares with Betty Anne. There’s also an impressive grip on the passage of time, conveying the wear and tear of sixteen years as it skips over huge chunks of time with little fanfare. Early hopscotching between Betty in law school, Kenny’s trial, and the two as children aren’t as well-coordinated as they might be, but once the film stays in the present it’s able to move forward at a healthy clip, covering a lot of ground in short scenes with strong connective tissue to each other. If the film never really commits to the idea that Kenny is guilty, it still proves itself a remarkable character study of an unbreakable sibling bond that never wavers even in its darkest moments.

Best of all is that Goldwyn has fostered an incredibly hospitable environment for his actors, creating room for two truly great performances and allowing the whole cast to play and sustain multiple emotional beats in their scenes while carving out full and consistent characterizations. Hilary Swank and Sam Rockwell are completely convincing as brother and sister, conveying decades of history together and making clear what’s special about their relationship that would inspire her to go to the lengths that she does. The evocation of The Black Dahlia earlier on only serves to highlight how fully Swank has clicked into the role, wearing Betty Anne’s stubbornness and kindness and lapses in self-determination so easily without ever getting the sense that she’s begging for the audience for sympathy. You almost wonder if her performance would play even better if the film was more distanced from Betty Anne’s headspace, giving itself and us enough distance to grasp how much she is and isn’t considering about Kenny’s chances of being freed and her own odds of success. Rockwell is able to complicate our sense of Kenny without betraying his sister’s crusade or Conviction as a whole, and his absolute joy upon being exonerated is even more affecting for the purity of his emotion. He’s charismatic and likeable, wearing his more repellent traits with the same casual appeal as his affection for his sister and his family. Their bond is the heart of the movie, and it’s in their scenes that film achieves its loveliest and saddest moments. Bailee Madison and Tobias Campbell are equally impressive in the film’s flashbacks to their childhood, evoking the same kind of love, friendship, and co-dependence amidst harsh circumstances that Desreta Jackson and Akousa Busia achieved in the introductory scenes of The Color Purple. Elsewhere Minnie Driver, Juliette Lewis, Peter Gallagher, Ari Graynor, Melissa Leo, Clea Duvall, and Karen Young all contribute memorable performances orbiting Swank’s, making the film all the more specific and alive for the textures they bring. It’s because of the performers that Conviction is so engaging, making the stakes palpable without violating Goldwyn’s vision of how he wants to tell this story.

So yes, Conviction is the kind of lightweight film that doesn’t hold up powerfully to much pressure. One wonders if this is the kind of story that benefits much from being lightweight at all, or if it should look farther than its heroine’s nose. But within those sharply limited objectives Conviction winds up telling a powerful story about one woman’s determination to prove her brother innocent and celebrates the inherent goodness of that action, finding room to give all of its characters a perspective on what’s happening and allowing its actors to contribute fully to the script. It’s perhaps the very best version of a story that speaks as much to what it isn’t saying as what it is, disposable in some ways but valuable in others, and incredibly easy to root for. One hopes it eventually builds up a good life for itself on TNT, somewhere that it can be watched and rooted for without asking too much of your attention, although it’ll hopefully earn it. It’s got two great performances, a terrific ensemble, and the kind of little guy against the system victory that deserves to be recognized. Sure it could be deeper, but what’s not to like?