#tdp discourse

[thatartiststudios]

Okay so, mini rant here

So, I've been able to spend some time recently rewatching TDP with my family, mostly in prep for season 6.

And because we're really on time we just started season 2 (sarcasm), but anyway. We just finished episode 3, and while we were watching it, my dad had a theory, and me being the nerd that I am asked what it was. The regret was immediate.

He was saying that it's a possibility that they could come back around to Callum/Claudia, if perhaps, he went too far into dark magic, driving everyone else away.

Now look, I'm a huge fan of ship and let ship, (I'm a fan of the canon crack quartet, I know) but like, as someone who's shipped Rayllum pretty early on, and doesn't ship either them with anybody else, I will admit I was kind of offended (Read: repulsed).

And especially during Rayllum month, like, dude

Anyway, and he was really passionate about it too, not that I don't like sharing the fandom with my family and we all enjoy it together, it was just a curve ball I was not expecting.

Like I said, ship whoever you want to ship, but in my personal opinion his idea is blasphemous.

So... yeah, that's how my evening went

[hikaaa-bi]

probably a hot take but i don't really like ezran. i don't dislike him, he just feels like such a 2d character. maybe it's his voice acting (i'm sorry but it's so.. soulless?) or maybe it's the fact that his personality has no depth. like i get it, he's a child but i've seen a lot more interesting characters who were around the same age as him.

[spop-romanticizes-abuse]

if you want a mutually toxic and messed up relationship that isn't romanticized by the narrative:

if you want a relationship where both people make mistakes, but they actually work through their issues together:

if you want an actually good enemies to lovers sapphic ship (with actual fighting and almost killing each other and everything):

you don't have to settle for cat/radora :)

[rymin4life]

Every time someone says that you can't ship a character with anyone else because they're already in a canon relationship, a piece of my soul is violently ripped from me

[self-spaghettification]

hmmm. you dooo make a good point, it is a very twisted definition of love that pertains more to ideals than people.

but im defense of him 💀 i think aaravos perceives everything on a more cosmic scale, and that certain things are justified be of what happened in the past (that we don’t fully know so this is just my faith in the show talking here). like possessing callum was a power play and a show of anger due to being brought back to the same place he had a view of for 300 years— he wanted to show them he wasn't in their power anymore, and show callum that despite how callum perceives dark magic as morally wrong, in the end it makes no difference, because he’s still reliant on dark magic in key moments just like other humans who see it as a good thing sometimes and not totally denouncible—basically pointing out their hypocrisy. like rayla would be hurt/dead twice without it. and to say aaravos is evil for helping humans and helping them discover dark magic and building a better world in their eyes is just a slap in the face to aaravos’s efforts (in his eyes). also there's a prevalent theme in the show that love is saying i would do anything for you. We will probably learn more about his s6 backstory to maybe justify this behavior and his lost love specifically (which i hope is humans) because something definitely broke him with how he was ugly sobbing in 6x01. I think Aaravos will be the top example of that theme

I am sorry, but I have a few problems trying to wrap my head around ‘Let’s conquer Xadia and kill everyone in our way’, ‘No problem with possessing Callums body and taunting his friends’,’fate worse than death’ ‘I swallowed her’ - Aaravos testing anyones ability to love. 

I mean with everything about him being a mystery we have yet to see a genuine comment on how he views his own actions but isn’t he supposed to be the xadian equivalent of the devil?

[venice-1987]

An annoying phenomenon I've noticed

Alternatively: Whatever you do, don't go onto the TDP reddit

(Alternatively, let people ship things)

[luniviravosshipper]

You know what? I know that The Dragon Prince has a lot of flaws, (trust me, I complain a lot about them myself,) but it is genuinely so annoying to see people complain about the supposed lack of nuance and underlying messages in the show when they deliberately try to ignore them. People will literally take things completely at face value and only examine the details in this series on a surface level and then say dumb shit like ���thEy MaKE eVErYthIng OUt tO Be BlaCk aNd wHiTE”. Like, of course it’s going to seem that way to you when you’re going out of your way to only try to see everything in the series as being black and white.

As much as I believe that many of the criticisms and critiques TDP receives are absolutely valid, the amount of discourse in this fandom over the same recycled rhetoric used against TDP is astonishingly ridiculous. Like, we should have already gone over this a thousand times. I don’t know how you guys are still so set in your misguided views of this show after 6 to 7 years and 6 seasons. I’m nearly 100% convinced that you guys are just purposely trying to misinterpret the themes of this series to fit your own narrative of how this series has apparently misrepresented the ideas that you personally wish it could portray. Even if those ideas aren’t actually good or make sense for the real focus points and intended takeaways. (Ahem. I’m looking at you guys on the TDP subreddit who somehow use the fact that TDP has trouble depicting the implied historical prejudice the elves have shown towards the humans and how unjust that is as a justification for how dark magic is actually “good” and totally “valid” for the humans to use against the elves in retaliation.)

I’m sorry that this might seem rather harsh. Again, I think a lot of the complaints that have been made already have plenty of value and reasoning behind them. But it is still frustrating to see just so many of the same complaints being made over and over again and not having anyone question their own takes and how there’s a chance that they might be inherently biased.

[thatartiststudios]

I need to settle a debate between my friends (my co-hosts today). We were discussing fallen angel!Callum, and I was saying that one of the main traits of fallen angels is that their wings turned from white to red, and that his wings are red. They clearly disagreed and now I need to settle this. Like, in the art book it shows it as brown but I swear it's red everywhere else. Anyway, don't mind me ranting.

[self-spaghettification]

‼️‼️📢 SAY IT LOUDER FOR THE PEOPLE IN THE BACK 🗣️🔥🔥

Callum/Viren parallels...Callum/Amaya parallels. There shouldn't be arguments on which we should take seriously and which are just coincidence. They can (and do) exist simultaneously for a purpose. It shows us that Callum can take after either of them. He is going to get to a point where he has to make a choice.

A) Follow in Viren's footsteps down that easy, but slippery, slope where the ends always justify the means, no matter how vile.

B) Follow Amaya's much more difficult path where he does what's necessary within the bounds of his morals.

[moondustgleam]

Everytime Karim comes on screen I legit say "not this bitch baby again". Not even kidding. I have witnesses.

No hate to Karim stans or whatever but I hate him as much as I think he's hot.

[jelzorz]

I for one can't wait to see Ezran lose his shit

[snail-speed]

Looking back on TDP, it's weird that they frame /pol/ Regem as the one singular Xadian that's let their bigotry consume them.

His supremacist beliefs weren't any less extreme before the incident that left him blind, he's not the only Xadian that has strongarmed humans into submission, and he's definitely not the only Xadian that thinks of humans as inherently lesser. If anything, the only thing that separates him from the rest of Xadia's problem with bigotry is that he's saying (and doing) the quiet part out loud.

The show could've pointed this out. How Regem gets frequently regarded as an "extremist" when his views and actions are near identical to that of other powerful elves and dragons. That could've led to really interesting scenes on-screen and served as a decent commentary of how bigotry is talked about IRL. But nope. /pol/ Regem is somehow the worst Xadia has to offer, even though other dragons have been shown mass murdering humans on-screen, and even though elves orchestrate assassination attempts and regularly torture human POWs.

[spop-romanticizes-abuse]

“catra is a complex poc” fuck that. here are some ACTUAL poc animated characters who are just as, if not more complex than catra. (pt. 2)

mako (the legend of korra) • mixed (japanese and chinese)

min-gi park (infinity train) • korean-canadian

zuko (avatar the last airbender) • japanese

caitlyn kiramman (arcane) • bi-racial (east asian and presumably scottish)

miles morales (spiderverse) • puerto rican, afro-latino

amaya (the dragon prince) • east asian (ambiguous)

marshal lee (fionna and cake) • half-black (technically, marceline is black too but i figured marshal would be considered better representation)

carmen sandiego (carmen sandiego) • hispanic (argentinean-mexican)

toph (avatar the last airbender) • chinese

callum (the dragon prince) • half asian (ambiguous)

[self-spaghettification]

@theredhairedmonkey as far as i can tell, it doesn’t have the deep magic symbol on it, but it’s covered by hair and hard to tell. i will say though, the elf on the right seems to also be astrid and that’s from s6 too. it’s just covered by hair i think

All sightings of this symbol so far

Aaravos’s hood (season 2)

both end credits from s5. left appears to be a celestial elf. (5x04) right is 5x09

the book with the infantis sanguine spells. “It’s one of the old spells.” (5x09)

mirror breaking in the same pattern. (4x04)

back side of the coins (5x01) (thank you @its-leethee !!)

this is the symbol for deep magic actually!

thank you! @ok12857

[astbestos]

im so deranged rn about a song of love and loss. im so deranged about terry killing ibis.

When Ezran says, "Violence, loss, pain, violence, loss, pain. More violence. Stop! I just want to yell stop. But that's not enough. It won't work. "I think about a positive vision. A faith we can all share, that we might build a future together in hope. A future where we can be safe with each other. But it's not that easy, or simple.

"Because people are still hurting, and they are still angry. We can't ignore that, or pretend it will go away. Somehow, we have to hold it all in our hearts at the same time. We have to acknowledge the weight of the pain and loss, but open our eyes and allow ourselves to hope and maybe forgive and love again." Ezran's entire speech is about how it is impossible to just ignore all the suffering and pain humans and elves have gone through in favor of peace, and it's really interesting to me, especially in the context of my own OC. For context ig Aspen has a lot of conflicting emotions towards violence and death. He is aware that he can hurt people, he is aware that he's hurt people. His complicated feelings towards violence, murder, and death are directly from experience, from having committed those acts with his bare hands, fully aware of himself, and it is specifically him perpetuating the cycle of violence, loss, and pain Ezran speaks about.

It is him taking the role of Claudia but also at the same time, it results in him being unable to take the role of Ibis; being terrified to do anything that would hurt others, even if for the sake of his own protection.

And because of that in a way I think he sort of embodies Terry? Cause Terry, right after killing Ibis for Claudia's sake immediately breaks down, he is clearly guilty and upset, even if it was to proect Claudia, and IT'S SO FUCKING SOMETHING TO ME because Terry and Claudia have these incredibly different feelings and views on violence but they also can boil down to committing the worst atrocities if it is for the sake of those they love, but their feelings during the aftermath are so different. This where I start to think about Aspen, and how honestly for a long time he has viewed himself as a liability but after committing murder, and killing another person for the first time, it got so much worse. And as a result, he cannot bring himself to do violence on another person, to the extent that if somebody is not there to protect him, he will take any attack, no matter who is the perpetrator. In a way, this can also be seen as Aspen perpetuating the cycle of violence Ezran talks about, because he is aware that people other than himself have also been hurt, are also experiencing pain, and he just ignores his own in favor of this positive vision, of having this sort of ingenuine hope because he is so terrified of proving himself to be a liability, but even then, that doesn't really stop anything, does it? Because he isn't enacting diplomacy, he isn't actually trying to stop this violence, he is just sitting there and taking it, and it's really interesting to think about.

[luniviravosshipper]

The most frustrating thing about liking complex and morally grey—maybe leaning a bit more towards morally black—characters is that you have to deal with both sides of people who try to simplify and reduce that character to a few superficial traits that either absolutely detest that character with all their being or worship them wholeheartedly as a result.

You can’t say you like a character because of their flaws or wrongdoings or else the side that hates that character will take your appreciation of those things as you trying to endorse them and will go out of their way to even suggest that those same flaws or wrongdoings must be reflected within your own life. Because how else could you endorse the actions or beliefs of such a terrible character? But the other side will also mistakenly perceive your appreciation of those imperfections in that character as you trying to justify them and will therefore use it to prove their own viewpoint. The viewpoint that the character wasn’t wrong in the first place and shouldn’t be seen as so complicated of a person because, in their mind, they never actually were. Anyone who sees them as complicated is “misunderstanding” or “misinterpreting” them and their intentions since their motivations were quite simple all along.

I, for whatever reason, am not allowed to like a character in media simply because they’re ambiguous. Because their nuance makes them feel more fleshed out, more real.

I must like them only because I see them as good, and I need to be able to argue why I see them as good.

That seems to be the overarching dispute between those who do and those who don’t like those types of characters. At least from what I’ve noticed.

The thing is, this isn’t even a case of whether or not a character is actually good. I mean, you can write one of the most vile, unarguably evil characters ever and they can still be seen as complex. And one character’s complexity shouldn’t undermine how “good” they might actually be.

I feel like people just hate characters that are written to be multi-dimensional because they themselves can’t as easily fit them into their black and white worldview of morality. It’s not so much of a matter of whether or not that character is actually right or good, it’s more about the fact that people can’t seem to be able to distinguish the difference between what makes a character complex and what ideals they uphold.

And, of course, the fact that people seem to think that you can only like things as long as they can fit within their own sense of morals and ethics. You can’t like something or someone that doesn’t reflect your own values according to them. And if you do, well… Apparently that must certainly say something about you.

Though, again, this is all just stuff I’ve picked up on overtime.