#tdp 2x06

[lunanightriderofthecove]

Little Callum drawing Harrow with a stick in the courtyard, prompting Harrow to give him the sketchbook 🥺

[raayllum]

Growing up

[its-leethee]

season 6 trailer footage/2x06

[thethiefandtheairbender]

as a lifelong ATLA fan who narrowly had ATLA dethroned as my top show by The Dragon Prince steadily over the past 5 years, the similarities between the two have very little to do with the surface level parallels that get regularly drawn between them.

Like ATLA, TDP has Books for seasons and chapters for episodes, but unlike ATLA, which only touched on storytelling sparingly as a theme, TDP is obsessed with interrogating storytelling and history and the presence of unreliable, biased narrators throughout many of its episodes (most notably 2x05, 2x06, 3x06, 4x04, and 4x07 among them). Half of what you learn in the 1x01 intro ends up being a lie once you reach S3, with more being steadily deciphered.

Yes, TDP has different magics with people living under those umbrella terms... for the elves. Humans are coming culturally at things from a completely different angle, and the elves' connection to their primal sources are discussed philosophically in detail, informing their practices and their culture first hand, including the way they chafe against humans, who are arcanum-less. Many animals in the world are also connected to magic, which influences both their design and which ones get hunted for humans' more 'clever' solution in dark magic, including each other.

The core issue of the Puppetmaster, down to being a coercive magic formed by someone deeply resentful of their imprisonment? Said puppetmaster is the main endgame antagonist of the entire show with all of S4 onwards being exploring the ethics of controlling people against their will in various methods, and the entire show itself being a thematic battleground of fate (imprisonment) vs free will for virtually every single character.

Where ATLA mostly concerns itself timeline wise with ending the war, very little thought is shown by any of the characters as to what they'll do after the war. This isn't a problem (as it reflects the sheer domineering scope of the conflict) but even Zuko being firelord is only ever really addressed with 2.5 episodes left till the finale. TDP, meanwhile, ends its 'war' in s3 and s4 opens up with dealing with the old wounds festering between people with centuries of history, the struggles that come when people aren't able to let go and believe they're safe or mourn in a healthy manner, and the religious/cultural clashes that may occur when trying to integrate different groups of people.

TDP also has an evil father with a devoted daughter and a brother who eventually defects, but it explores the reality of an abusive parent who loves/will sacrifice for you and your right to leave regardless, even if that means leaving the sibling you truly deeply love and who loves you in turn. Which means that when you and your sibling are on opposite sides of a deep ideological conflict, it actually really fucking hurts bc we've seen first hand just how much they love each other and also how and why everything fell apart not in spite of that love necessarily, but also because of it.

Is this to say that TDP is a 1:1 with ATLA or that it's better? No, not at all, and the latter is subjective. I prefer TDP, but I think they're about on equal ground when you look at each show currently as a whole (although TDP has two seasons left to go).

But TDP takes a lot of what ATLA was doing thematically with some of its most interesting beats and then builds or expands upon them further. It talks further and more consistently about the cycles of violence; in many ways, Jack De Sena's character, Callum, begins the series largely where Sokka had ended (and he's not the most like Sokka anyway; very much his own thing); we get Faustian bargains and centuries' long grief and fucked up people who are trying both succeeding and failing at not doing fucked up things. There are antagonists, but it is very hard to actually label anyone at this point a straight up villain. Moral greyness is where the show starts, and it just continues from there.

That's not to say the show is nothing but dark and depressing - like ATLA, there's a steady thread of hope and humour even as the show gets steadily closer and closer to its 11th hour point - but the show is usually emotionally heavier. There's more blood and potentially disturbing imagery with body horror and on screen death. There's so much foreshadowing you basically can't go more than 5 minutes into any episode without having something that's going to come back around or be referenced again like 3-5 seasons later.

Just to be clear - TDP is like ATLA, but it's like ATLA in interesting ways beyond the more shallow surface level that usually gets attributed to it, while still very much being its own show and its own thing. And that is why I tend to recommend it to people who like ATLA.

Thank you and goodnight

(Also, the fandom doesn't have any ship wars, and the show is queer as fuck)

[imminent-danger-came]

𝒯𝒽𝑒 𝓉𝓇𝒶𝑔𝑒𝒹𝓎 𝑜𝒻 𝓁𝑜𝓋𝑒.

Dear Callum, Michal Schick // TDP 4x03 // TDP 1x02 // TDP 2x09 // TDP 4x03 // TDP 2x06 // TDP 4x04 // All Storms End, Kris James // TDP 3x03 // TDP 2x03 // TDP 3x08 // Lost Child, Michal Schick // TDP 3x06 // TDP 2x06 // The Dragon Prince | Season 5 Official Trailer

[rayllurn]

i know you're busy doing your lovely best rayllum kisses / fave tdp episode series but if/when you get the chance & are taking gif requests i'd love a comparison lil baby 2x06 callum being so happy to get his sketchbook from harrow vs angsty lil teenage callum throwing it down bc he's so worried about rayla in 2x07 <3 (it's one of my fave parallels but it's hard to capture in screencaps y'know?) thank u

Oh yes, of course...I love this parallel! It's posted. Thanks for the request...I hope it's what you're looking for! :)

[mimosaeyes]

TDP timeline

aka I skimmed the (first) three TDP seasons, counting the days, so you don’t have to. Not that you would.

Here’s the TLDR:

Season 1 takes place over 5 days

2 days pass offscreen, between 1x09 and 2x01

Season 2 takes place over 8 days

3x01 picks up right after 2x09

Season 3 takes place over 7 days

So from 1x01 to 3x09, it’s been just 22 days

‘But the moon looks full in 1x01 and in 3x09!’ I hear you protest. ‘Shouldn’t it be a full month?’

Explanation, details, evidence, ambiguities, and milestone events under the cut. My count is based on the colour of the sky, specific time references (thanks Callum), and phases of the moon.

Harrow was King of Katolis for 9 years. Viren gives us the exact time reference in 2x05.

That checks out, because look how small Ezran and Callum are when posing for the official portrait, a few days after Harrow’s coronation.

It’s unclear exactly how long Harrow serves as King before Sarai is killed by Thunder. We know it’s not very long, though, because kid Callum’s character model is the same. (I focus on that, because young adults Harrow and Amaya will look the same for longer than a child who’s still growing.) 

Yes, this could be a budget thing. But I still wouldn’t put the period between Harrow’s coronation and Sarai’s death beyond, off the top of my head, two years. It may be even shorter than that.

Harrow doesn’t take revenge for Sarai’s death until years pass. He and Viren kill Thunder just four months before 1x01.

And now, to count the days.

Day 1 spans 1x01, 1x02, and 1x03. From dawn to night. Note the full moon on Day 1, in 1x03. It’ll become important later when I scrutinise lunar phases.

1x04 is Day 2. And 1x05 is Day 3.

Now, 1x05 ends in the evening of Day 3, and when 1x06 opens, it’s morning. Since there’s no time skip in the rest of season 1, it’s probably just one night’s difference. 

That’s a bit weird, though, since Rayla’s wrist ribbon tightens a lot in that time.

I’ll come back to this question of whether 1x06 starts the day after 1x05, in a moment.

1x06 spans Day 4.

Day 4, at nighttime, carries on in 1x07, then Day 5 starts.

1x08 continues Day 5, into the night. That same night continues into 1x09.

So: season 1 takes place over just 5 days, assuming the time between 1x05 and 1x06 is just one night.

Where do we get confirmation that this is the case? In 2x01, Callum says that they’ve spent 2 days with Lujanne, and that it’s been a week (7 days) since they left home.

We also know it’s been a week because it’s a full moon in 1x03, and a half moon in 2x02.

2x01 spans Day 8.

The night of Day 8 goes on into 2x02, and then Day 9 begins in that episode.

2x03 is the night of Day 9, into Day 10.

2x04 spans Day 11, and begins Day 12.

Day 12 continues into 2x05. A lot of 2x05 and 2x06 is flashbacks, so Day 12 actually lasts through both episodes.

Then we have our first significant time skip within a season! 2x06 ends with a dragon sighting while it’s still light out on Day 12. Then 2x07 opens at night in a cave, and Callum says:

So we know that the rest of Day 12, and all the sunlit hours of Day 13, pass offscreen between 2x06 and 2x07.

2x07 therefore opens on the night of Day 13. Then it goes on to Day 14.

The nighttime of Day 14, continues in 2x08. Day 15 begins in that episode.

Day 15 continues into 2x09. And finally, the sun rises on Day 16 while Callum, Rayla, and Zym are crossing into Xadia.

(I’ve made sure not to double-count Day 16. I count it as part of the season 3 time span, since most of it is in 3x01, not 2x09.)

3x01 picks up right where 2x09 left off. We know this because they still have to get past Sol Regem. So 3x01 takes place on Day 16.

Day 17 begins in 3x02, and continues into 3x03 for evening and nighttime.

3x04 opens on Day 18. This is explicitly timestamped, as Callum refers to the events of 3x03 as happening yesterday.

Day 18 spans the whole of 3x04, and then some of 3x05. Then Day 19 starts during 3x05, and goes into nighttime within that same episode. Thus we end 3x05 on a moon shot:

That’s a waxing crescent moon in 3x05, on Day 19, which checks out. I’m pretty sure. I stared at charts for a while.

3x06 opens on the morning of Day 20. And Day 20 continues into 3x07, going into the night.

3x08 continues the night of Day 20, and goes on to Day 21.

3x09 spans the entirety of Day 22, into night.

Now for the thing I anticipated above the cut: doesn’t season 3 end on a full moon, like how season 1 begins on a full moon? 

Well, no.

Here is the moon on Day 20:

...on Day 21:

...and on Day 22:

They look deceptively full, don’t they? But they aren’t. They’re waxing gibbous moons. That basically means they’re getting fuller, but aren’t quite there yet.

Gibbous moons can look full. My source is Neil deGrasse Tyson himself:

That’s page 28 of his book, Merlin’s Tour of the Universe: A Skywatcher’s Guide to Everything from Mars and Quasars to Comets, Planets, Blue Moons, and Werewolves.

So, final bit of evidence to the contrary refuted, and now I can rest easy knowing I have no life.

[notanathleteslungs]

The Dragon Prince and Siblings

As a little sister, I’m really happy, but probably have no special reason to be, with how many siblings are featured in the show.  They’re showing all aspects of siblings, not just Tumblr’s favorite--you know, the ‘I can beat on my sibling but if you do you go through the seven levels of hell’ relationships.  This got pretty long, so if you’re interested in how I see sibling dynamics in TDP, click the Read More.

TLDR; the sibling dynamics in The Dragon Prince are amazing and I’m living for them.

Thick-As-Thieves Siblings

I’ll organize this a bit more from the original rant.  The first pair we’ll go over is Amaya and Sarai.  Yes, we only saw one episode of interaction, but that one episode was enough for me to see parallels between Amaya and Sarai and me and my older sister.

Amaya and Sarai probably had Tumblr’s favorite dynamic as kids.  They seem close enough in age that they probably ran rampant around the house fighting.  They were probably like Sour Patch Kids to each other--throwing fists and insults one minute and the next they’re hugging and playing together like nothing ever happened.  This probably developed into an incredibly close relationship where they’re almost one person, able to read each other super well.  There are probably little to no barriers between the sisters, if the signed conversation between them is anything to go by in 2x06 and 2x07 with the Magma Titan.

This is the kind of relationship I have with my sister now.  We snipe and snap at each other, yes, but those snipes and snaps are outweighed by comfortable silences and cuddles on the couch.  We talk and we laugh and we quote movies at each other.  We talk about what books to read and what books to buy and what band we’re going to see live.  We are super close despite, or maybe because of, our fights when we were younger.

Holier-Than-Thou Older Sibling

Next we’ll tackle Janai and her sister, Queen Khessa.  Khessa seems to me to have a holier-than-thou attitude toward her little sister.  She seems to think that, because she is queen and Janai is a soldier, Khessa is better than Janai, like she’s on a higher level.  I get the feeling that Janai might be sick of this attitude, but she still loves her sister anyway.  The knee-jerk reaction to go fight Aaravos when he kills Khessa speaks to this undying love, along with her agonized wails when Amaya stops her.

This is another dynamic I’m familiar with.  When we were little, my sister went through this phase where she didn’t really want anything to do with me.  Younger than that, she would tell me to walk single file on the walk to school and insist that she walk in front of me.  My sister is four years older than me.  She knows a little of what it’s like to be an only child, but also can barely remember that.  There’s a bit of that only child feeling lingering in the back of her mind, but she is a sister, so that only child feeling translated to a holier-than-thou attitude when we were young.  But we still love each other so much we’d want to do something if the other got hurt or bullied or something.

I remember one day I came home from school and I just started bawling.  My sister grabbed my favorite stuffed animal and put on my favorite movie at the time, Zeus and Roxanne.  She did everything she could to get me to stop crying.  I remember another time where I just got my license.  I was a senior in high school and for some reason the car had to go to the shop.  We just got it back and I went to park the car so I could run in the pharmacy.  I ended up ramming the passenger headlight into a phone pole.  I called my mom, frantic, and said I just wrecked the car.  She comes and gets me, calls the car to be towed, and takes me home where my sister’s waiting.  I’m just on the edge of tears and my sister says, “I think I have something to cheer you up.  I never thought you’d one-up me,” talking about how she put the same car in the ditch on my grandparents’ road (and spawning a perpetual paranoia of driving with her on that road but that’s not the point).  I broke down and she didn’t let me go until my breathing steadied.  One last example is when my mom and sis were dropping me off for my first move-in weekend of college.  I’d never been so far away from home before for any extended length of time on my own without anyone I knew.  We walked up the hill (not so fondly nicknamed Cardiac) to the parking lot and I started crying on Mom and sister’s shoulders.  This time, they let me cry, but stayed there the whole time until they had to leave.

My sister may act better than me sometimes, but I know she loves me and I love her just as much.  If something happened to either of us, we’d act just like Janai.

We’re Not Close But I Still Love You So Much And Don’t Want To Hurt You

Soren and Claudia’s relationship is one I’m not as familiar with, but I still appreciate TDP showing because it’s a very real relationship that I can see in my roommate and her brother.

Soren and Claudia are not as close as Sarai and Amaya, or even Khessa and Janai.  They aren’t very alike in attitudes, senses of humor, or even interests.  Soren is a fighter, willing to protect what he loves with his fists.  That’s why he’s a soldier.  He also makes bad jokes that people get but no one appreciates.  He has an idea of right and wrong.  Claudia is not as strong.  You can tell she’s not a physical fighter.  She’s more intellectual, choosing to read books instead of play fighting dragons.  Dark magic is perfectly suited to this.  She is quirkier, not getting her brother’s jokes really at all and makes jokes that no one seems to understand.  Because of the dark magic, her idea of right and wrong are a little fuzzier.  You can tell that Viren has also played a part in Soren and Claudia’s relationship as he seems to favor Claudia over Soren.  He has more patience for Claudia, who practices dark magic like him, and less for Soren, who is more focused on physical appearance (mentioning he likes the workout from jogging up to high meeting places) and serving the king (asking what to do if he finds the princes alive).

It’s easy to see that these siblings aren’t as close in season 1; but season 2 does a lot to expand on their relationship, showing that although they may not be close, they do love each other a lot.  Claudia mentions in 2x08 or 2x09 that their mother gave her the choice of staying with Soren and Viren or leaving with her to go back to Del Bar.  She then takes back that choice at the obvious grief it’s putting Claudia through.  She takes back that choice because Claudia can’t bear to choose in her family.  In season 3, we see the clear differences between Soren and Claudia’s thinking.  Soren is a soldier, honor and duty bound to serve the king.  He also has a conscience and knows that what Viren is doing is wrong.  So he leaves.  Claudia sees him leave and wonders why.  She doesn’t see what Viren is doing as explicitly wrong; she’s a dark mage, she knows that dark magic can do things that would horrify others.  She still loves her father and is probably a little blinded to his darker side by that love.  So when Soren sees what his offer of leaving is doing to Claudia, he takes it back just like their mother.  They may not be as close as even Khessa and Janai, but he still doesn’t want to hurt his sister, and making her choose between him or Viren would hurt her.  This is a dynamic that is all too real along with hating your siblings or just feeling ambivalent toward them, and it’s one that I can appreciate TDP showing.

Pride and Protection

Callum has a fierce protective streak when it comes to his brother and he’s also super proud of him, probably for his maturity and also his abilities.

I actually had to look up the ages between Callum and Ezran because Callum acts like he’s so much older than Ezran.  Callum is only fourteen (and three quarters) and he is protective of his brother like Ezran is younger than ten years old.  This fierce protectiveness is something I’d expect from someone at least seven years older than their sibling.  However, it might have something to do with the fact that Callum is common-born while Ezran is born a prince.  Callum is more aware of his brother’s position than Ezran, so he knows that he needs to protect him.  Exhibit A: he claims to be Ezran when Rayla comes to assassinate him.  Callum knows that in the eyes of the kingdom, Ezran’s life is more valuable than his own, so when someone threaten’s Ezran’s life, it’s Callum’s job, as his older brother and as not-really-a-prince, to make sure Ezran grows up to be king.  Exhibit B: at some point, Ezran and Callum are separated and when they’re reunited, Callum asks if he’s okay and does a check similar to a parent looking over their kid for open wounds and broken bones.  This kind of care is something I’d expect from a large age gap, not less than five years.  My own sister (four years older) didn’t really act like this with me.  Now she might, but now when we were fifteen and eleven.  When we were eleven and fifteen, my sister would push me to the inside of the sidewalk so she was closer to the road.  She was self-sacrificing, yes, but not parental.

Callum is also extremely proud of his brother.  I think, despite the circumstances, he’s proud that Ezran was able to make the choice to go back to Katolis and take the throne, giving up on the exciting adventure of journeying across the continent into a different country to take care of their people.  This shows a maturity many ten year olds don’t have.  The fact that Ezran, at ten years old, was able to make this decision has to be a point of pride for Callum.  It may have been a joke, but in 3x08 when Ezran goes off with the dragon to find more reptilian backup, Callum says, “Look at my brother, all grown up and riding dragons.”  It probably was a joke, but you know he’s immensely proud of his brother and what he can do.  Ezran is willing to cross a tentative and tense peace and act together with magical creatures that could kill him in an instant to protect Xadia, Zym, and the dragon queen.  Again, for a ten year old, that is bravery beyond imagination.  Callum is almost bursting with pride for his brother.  My sister has told me, only once but that was enough, how proud, but also jealous, she is that I’m going off and getting my degree.  She didn’t bother getting a degree because she’s an animal groomer.  My cousin got her degree, two technically, in business management and culinary; however she stayed at home and went to a local school.  I’m a hundred and twenty-five miles away from home getting a degree in my passion.  My sister is jealous that I was technically the first to leave home but also proud of me for having the courage and determination to do that.  She has the same pride in me that Callum has in Ezran.

In Conclusion the sibling relationships in The Dragon Prince are something I have a huge admiration for in how they’re portrayed and how each one is a slightly different side of real siblings that I can relate to.  I can’t wait to see how this plays out in the future.

[lunanightriderofthecove]

Is it ok that I just blame Viren for everything?

He came up with the idea of titan's heart. He's at least partially responsible for Avizandum killing the queens of Duren. Because he's injured Sarai goes to save him, only to be killed herself. He convinces Harrow to avenge his wife. He takes Zym's egg and keeps it a secret from everyone but Claudia, which results in Zubeia sending assassins to avenge her family.

And this is only what happens before the show even starts.

[lunanightriderofthecove]

I love all the sibling relationships in the show so much. But Sarai and Amaya are something special. They're these two grown women and fierce soldiers but they also still trade inside jokes and just have fun together 🥰

(I wish I had the words to make this sound more eloquent)

[lunanightriderofthecove]

Will they ever tell us how much Callum actually remembers of his bio dad? Because right now it doesn't seem like he remembers anything really. 🤔

[lunanightriderofthecove]

Wasn't there some cave they could've hidden in during the day and then continue the journey the next night?

[lunanightriderofthecove]

I'm 100% certain that Villads has known that Rayla is an elf from the day they met. And he just doesn't care about that.

All the emphasis on the word human might have acted as a little pointer as well

[lunanightriderofthecove]

I saw someone point out that, technically, Callum was Harrow's first child, and to be honest, I never really thought about that until then.

[lunanightriderofthecove]

Villads subtly drawing attention to his blindness is amazing 😍

[lunanightriderofthecove]

Little Callum looks tiny in the gigantic throne room 🥺