#AND IF NEXT SEASON AARAVOS TELLS HER THE SAME THING ABOUT CALLUM BUT SHE REFUSES TO GIVE UP ON HIM

[raayllum]

Bloodmoon Huntress / 1x01 / 1x05 / 2x07 / 3x05 / 4x05

[violaswimmer]

Hopes for TDP Season 4

Yo! For those of you who don’t know I love the Dragon Prince on Netflix, I’m a huge fan of the show especially of this past season! There was so much that happened (Spoilers btw) and I have so much I want to see in season 4/future seasons! So here we go, some things I hope to see in season 4!

1. Rayla trying to understand and overcome taking a life. Whether we want to admit it or not, Rayla did kill Viren (even if he was brought back to life later). It was somewhat indirect, since Rayla tossed both of them over the tower’s edge. But she probably knew that it would be very unlike for either of them to survive, no matter how powerful Viren had become. I don’t think she will regret her actions, but I think she still feel the guilt of ending someone’s life. Especially knowing that Viren is Soren (now an ally, yay!) and Claudia’s father. 

Also that introduces a new dynamic between Soren and Rayla, who now that they are allies, will probably begin to develop some sort of friendship (hopefully). Soren would have taken his father’s life to stop him, and killed his illusion in front of Claudia without hesitation. Rayla however, actually did kill him. It will be interesting to see how that may help or hinder whatever relationship they will form. It could be that Soren will learn to respect her greatly, knowing that she will do the right thing no matter what (killing Viren to save Zym, knowing that her own life would be in danger). But he could also still view her as his father’s murderer as he deals with his own guilt at attacking his illusion. 

2. Our heroes meet the real threat, Aaravos. Everyone will know that something is up when they can’t locate Viren’s body at the bottom of the tower. I think the search for him will be spearheaded by Amaya who never trusted him and knows the danger he posses and Rayla who would want to retrieve the bag filled with coins, knowing that the bag somehow contains a collection of Moonshadow elves. Something big will definitely happen when Aaravos breaks free of his cocoon. I’m also sure that the Dragon Queen will grow concerned when she hears of the battle and someone describes to her the giant purple worm hanging onto Viren. I’m sure that will begin to jog her memory and our heroes will be introduced to the true villain of the series. 

Viren and Claudia will also be in trouble, the tide has turned and when the cocoon breaks, it’s likely that Viren will not be in control anymore. Aaravos will become the master and promise Viren (and by extension Claudia) what they want, the destruction of Xadia. Claudia may also turn towards the dark side even further, at the loss of her brother choosing Xadia over their family and at Rayla if she is to find out that Rayla was the one who sent Viren to his death. Rayla can also be blamed (at least by Claudia) for the reason that Ezran and Callum no longer trust her, and honestly being the source of the beginning to all of this. Rayla could easily become the object of her anger. 

3. Ezran becoming king, for real this time. Ezran came back to his thrown too early, being a bit naive in his attempts to be king of Katolis. I think he had good intentions which will translate to his true rule and I hope he maintains his ideals for peace having quite literally been the one (along with Callum and Rayla) to forge it. The new threat of Aaravos’s return will shake the unstable foundation of that peace, as a human (Viren) was the one to bring him back. With his new allies, and the battle solidifying his intent as king to maintain peace, Ezran will be the great child-king of Katolis. 

4. Callum and Rayla going on another journey. The Aaravos threat means that the world is going to need all the help it can get! As Ezran sits on the thrown, these two go on a journey to find answers while Callum learns more magic and Rayla helps him while maintain his safety as well as finding out what they can about Aaravos. We think that Callum is the only human to ever understand an arcanum, but perhaps he isn’t the only one. We will also hopefully see what exactly Aaravos did to deserve his imprisonment aside from using dark magic. 

5. Soren and Claudia solidifying sides. We saw Soren and Claudia make some pretty big decisions this past season. Soren knowing what wrong looks like and deciding to join the fight against his father and Claudia trying to please choosing to stay with Viren. Though this one fight did cause some big decisions it doesn’t mean that either of them won’t choose different sides later on. I think eventually everyone will be on the same side (at least briefly) when Aaravos comes into full power. He may try to manipulate Claudia and Viren into following him for a time, but I would find it hard to believe that either of them would allow themselves to be subjugated to him for too long. 

Although I love Claudia’s character, I think she’s going down a road that she can’t come back from (especially bringing her father back, presumably by sacrificing another life, and it probably isn’t another deer). She has consistently shown that she can’t adapt to the idea of elves not being monsters, and that her father may not be the person she thinks he is. He has seemed to treat her kindly (not always but better than he treated Soren) but manipulates her constantly. Making her believe that Soren is a fool (he can be but that doesn’t mean he is a fool, he has his great moments). She also seems to take his word as gospel, never challenging him even when Soren whom she cares for deeply, tried to tell her about the order to assassinate the princes. 

Soren on the other hand has to deal with losing both his sister and his father. Also he has to sit with the fact that when the moment counted, he chose to protect his king and was willing to kill (or severely injure) his father in order to do it. This is something that he will feel guilty over but I don’t think he will regret his actions. He gave every warning to illusion Viren that he wouldn’t stand by as Ezran was killed. That scene is pretty spot on in terms of Soren and Viren’s relationship. Viren has had every chance to be a better father to Soren and for some reason refuses to. He constantly demeans him and underestimates him, favoring Claudia much more. It’s hard to tell when Viren started treating Soren this way, since when their parents split it seemed like Soren liked his father a great deal, enough to want to stay with him instead of going with his mother. I also hope we get to hear about Claudia and Soren’s mother, what is her name and where did she go? It would be neat if Soren met with her again, and we got to see the opposite of the divorce. Soren with his mother and Claudia with her father. 

I’d also like to see Soren begin to learn his true value with his new group. Instead of having his ideas dismissed or mocked I’d like to see him become a really force of good will, seeing that he truly made the right decision by leaving his father. I want to see him develop more into a warrior and leader. 

6. Continuation of relationships development both romantic and platonic. Rayllum anyone? Yes, thank you for this blessing. Janai and Amaya? Beautiful, amazing, love it! Runaan and Ethari, so so good! I hope to see these relationship develop along with new friendships! Soren and Rayla, Soren and Ezran, Amaya and Rayla, so on and so forth! I hope we also get to learn even more about these character pasts, and see them grow as they encounter new challenges!

I think that might be it? For now at least! Let me know your thoughts on the season and what you hope to see next! 

[wortlby2]

Things I didn’t know I wanted in this season of The Dragon Prince

All the people to call Viren out/tell him no so far have been women and black men:  Including a salty old librarian lady.  Not strictly necessary, but surprisingly satisfying.   Amaya getting two swords wrecked  by Janai in as many days and being like “Screw it, Imma fight this bitch bare handed”: Like....how can one woman contain so much awesome.  Speaking of that, the looks on her soldiers’ faces when she shield bashed three elves and the realized they were actually going to get out of this alive. Amaya’s crew apparently all know at least some ASL and use it for stealth like Very Good Boys:  Also nice to see Sarai interpreting for her and having some private conversations.   Harrow continuing to be a Very Good Dad, even in dreams:  My heart y’all. Male characters allowed to cry, hug, show vulnerability and fear, and tell other characters “I love you”:   Well okay, I was expecting this, and always want it, but it’s still so refreshing to see. Corvus ready to throw down with Rayla again, but sees instantly that Ezran is more afraid of him than her, and backs down right away:  I knew I liked this guy.  And he’s got more sense than like 90% of the other characters. Amaya doesn’t trust her nephews to no fool.   Ezran calling Rayla out for refusing to use the words “killed” or “murdered”:  Seriously Rayla, he’s 10, not stupid. I’m also glad he referenced her assassin's bands because I honestly thought it was odd that neither he nor Callum noticed last season.  Everything about Callum’s dream sequence: Honestly hilarious and genuinely unsettling at the same time.  I give big props to the music especially for nailing the mood and the surrealism.   Soren accepting his paralysis: This really affected me more than I was expecting.  This season was making me dislike Soren, as is usually the case with characters that try to rationalize murdering small children, and he was being even dumber than last season.  But someone so physical, who revels in that physicality, accepting total paralysis with grace because “now I can’t do anything terrible”  was really moving.  His voice actor really sold the confusion as he tried to overwork his one brain cell to figure out his feelings towards his father.  A lot of people felt like his healing was too easy and that there are sure to be consequences, like Claudia having to continue slaughtering animals to keep him walking.  I agree it shouldn’t be so easy, and it would be interesting to see the consequences, but not of killing animals.  Honestly, if someone I loved were paralyzed and I could keep them walking by slaughtering a deer every week, I’d do it and so would you, and I doubt the patient would care either.  No, I think the interesting conflict would come from the effect doing that would have on Claudia given how badly doing it the first time affected her. It’s clear that intense dark magic damages the body and its implied to have a corrosive effect on the soul/personality of the wielder as well. I expect Soren to have some pretty conflicted feelings about her continuing to do that for him and I have a bad feeling that if this does happen and he protests she’s going to have inherited some of Viren’s “I know what’s best for you!” attitude and things will get...ugly.  Combat magic: Shady as they are, and unnecessary as it was (seriously Viren, you have a whole secret passage to escape down) that whole sequence of Viren and Aaravos using rapid-fire magic in combat was pretty awesome.  Ezran scaring the pants of Claudia with a huge banther then having a heart to heart with her: Weird king is the best  king, and I look forward to seeing him as ruler of Katolis in the next season.  His decision to leave the group was a  genuine surprise to me but it really made sense and showed some growth on his part.  I think his story in subsequent seasons will be really interesting because in addition to all the problems he’d have being a monarch at 10 anyway, it’s pretty clear that being in the woods on a journey talking to animals is more in his comfort zone than being in a castle and forced to deal with people.  This probably also goes for Corvus, who is stuck being his bodyguard (mentor?) now.  Looking forward to some awkward bonding moments as they try to fit in at court.  

[sage-nebula]

The reason why Rayllum works and avoids the pitfall of “the main boy and the main girl end up together because they’re the main boy and main girl” is because they genuinely like each other, pretty much from the start.

Of course, at the very beginning they weren’t each other’s biggest fan. Rayla entered the castle to kill Ezran, which understandably upset Callum, and Callum lied to Rayla about being Ezran, which understandably aggravated Rayla. But once they agreed to begin traveling together, and therefore gave each other a chance, we saw that they had easy camaraderie pretty much from the start. The very next morning after they set off, Rayla went out of her way to strike up a conversation with Callum:

And as we see when she sits down and lets him start talking about the Primal Stone, she didn’t initiate that conversation because she had anything in particular to talk to him about. She just wanted to talk to him.

Callum, likewise, feels comfortable enough to open up to Rayla about his insecurities (and his desperation to learn magic therefore) in that very same scene. Of course, part of it was because he was trying to convince her to let him take a detour to the Banther Lodge so that they could pick up the Key of Aaravos (not that he knew that’s what it was called at the time), but all the same, the fact that he didn’t hesitate to open up to Rayla says a lot about how much he was willing to trust her, even then.

This of course isn’t to say they trust each other completely at this point, or that they don’t have their fights. They fight, for instance, after Callum lies to Amaya about Rayla’s intentions, calling Rayla a “bloodthirsty monster” in the process (because Rayla is, more than understandably, hurt by that). They fight, too, when Callum can tell that Rayla is keeping something from them, but she refuses to share it, and even worse hurries them along the mountain (which was particularly hard on Ezran, which again, Callum didn’t appreciate one bit). But even amidst their arguments, we had moments that showed that they already wanted to be friends with one another, such as when Callum tried to cheer Rayla up on the boat:

Season two has only increased this. Their arguments have become much less frequent (and when they do happen, it’s similar to season one in which their arguments are reasonable and aren’t borne from a dislike of each other, but rather of a mistake or misunderstanding that they’re able to work through and clear up), and the times when they comfort or attempt to cheer each other up have become more frequent. Granted, most of these instances have been from Rayla to Callum so far, but I have a strong feeling that now that the two of them are in Xadia in season three (and that Rayla has some painful revelations heading her way as a result), that coin will flip and it will be Callum’s turn to be there for Rayla more in the coming episodes.

Nevertheless, one of the reasons why so many people are so tired of seeing the primary male character enter into a romance with the primary female character is that it’s very often difficult to understand how these two people can stand to even be around each other, with how much they dislike each other, much less actually be in love. Far too many writers to count rely on the audience expecting the primary boy ending up with the primary girl and accepting the relationship purely on that basis that they fail to develop even a friendship between the two characters, much less a believable romance. (And no, showing that the primary boy has the hots for the primary girl (or vice versa) does not count. That does not a friendship or believable romance make.) But the writers of The Dragon Prince are avoiding that with Rayla and Callum. Even those who do not ship them romantically believe in their friendship, because we’re seeing it developed on-screen in front of us. We see that they like each other as friends, that they trust one another, and why they like and trust one another. So if it develops into romance (and that’s still an “if” --- remember, nothing is guaranteed and no one has any right to send nasty things to the creators if it doesn’t happen), it’ll avoid the standard pitfall of “main boy ends up with main girl because they are the main boy and main girl.” Instead, it’ll be, “Callum and Rayla fell in love after establishing a solid foundation of (best) friendship.” Their relationship will be strong both in terms of the bond they share, and in terms of the writing behind each of them and the relationship itself. It works, despite the main boy/main girl cliché, because if their romance does happen, it happens for so many legitimate reasons that the main boy/main girl issue is barely noticeable.

And I, for one, really appreciate that.