#Viren & Claudia have the most interesting relationship in this show and it just keeps getting better and better

[sarasade]

Claudia, Viren & The Very Real Parent-Child Dynamics of The Dragon Prince

Sometimes I wonder if I come across like I try to defend Claudia too much. That's not my intent at all. I just think she deserves more and better critique.

The Point I guess

Personally, I really connect with Claudia's brand of messy, unflattering and even pathetic rage and grief much more than the dignified and mature ways Callum and Ezran handle things (More on that later). Maybe this sounds unflattering but Claudia being also kind of an asshole really speaks to me. Like that's the kind of teenage girl I'm the most familiar with and we don't have enough media that has nuanced takes on this sort of troubled character. Exploring negative or even anti-social traits and impulses in fiction, especially in women, is kind of undervalued in my opinion. Those are part of humanity and therefore part of us and this impulse to completely reject them doesn't benefit anyone really.

Finally, some wholesome father-daughter relationship rep in media!

My way to view fantasy media is about how it can artistically portray something true to real life. That's why I'm the most invested in this kind of reading of the text. Fantasy media is often dismissed as mere escapism even by the fantasy fans themselves (*side eyes the dude bro Witcher fandom*) which ignores the emotional depths it can reach by approaching difficult subject matter more metaphorically.

Inject Viren & Claudia's Father-Daughter Dynamic Straight into My Veins

There is something viscerally real about Claudia and Viren's relationship. I've seen this kind of father-daughter dynamic play out in real life many times where the child gives and gives and gives yet the parent takes it all for granted until it's too late and the parent-child relationship is just a mangled corpse of its former self, way too damaged to ever be truly repaired.

Like if you've had a difficult relationship with your parents it can feel similar to how s4-5 Claudia struggles to keep Viren alive while Viren hesitates. The child is the one who tries to fix things in the relationship while the parent is in denial or completely oblivious. Viren doesn't really try to connect with Claudia further in s4-5. It almost seems like he's completely emotionally unprepared to have that conversation and oh boy if you know any boomer parents that's pretty damn realistic. He just sort of gives up and acts completely passive because he's so out of touch with his emotions.

There is also this aspect of your parent aging and then one day you realise that you, the child, are the one who has more power in the relationship. It's a universal experience. These are just some of the ways I can see Viren and Claudia's relationship in seasons 4 and 5 metaphorically portray real life parent-child dynamics. There is a lot of emotional truth to how TDP approaches these relationships even when the story itself is an over the top fantasy romp.

How much Viren relies on Claudia is revealed little by little: She got the unicorn horn for the spell that killed Avizandum, she got the dragon horn that helped them cross the lava to Xadia in s3. It's set up really subtly how there is almost this parentification of Claudia like she's the one who took her mother's place as the emotional center and caregiver of the family after Viren and Lissa divorced. It's a lot of pressure to put one a child to say the least. This extends to Soren and how he is treated as the scapegoat of the family when Claudia is the Golden Child. This sort of treatment of Claudia and Soren by Viren is probably the most common analysis of their family dynamic as far as I can tell.

You ever heard of the thing called "eldest daughter syndrome"?

Eventually Claudia's most admirable and positive traits get corrupted (insert here an analysis of the corruptive nature of the dark magic as a plot device). It's like this perversion of feminine nurturing instinct society values and enforces in girls. Claudia's love is not domesticated but something that's so all consuming it destroys everything in its way. In s 4 she insists Viren has to live. She does everything in her power to keep her family together even against the wishes of her loved ones; first it was healing Soren in and then it was bringing Viren back to life in s3. Claudia has fully internalised her role as the caregiver to the point of self-imposed victimhood.

All The Characters Have a Part to Play

Since TDP is meant for an all-age audience (And later for teens and up since they hiked up the age rating) all the younger characters Callum, Ezran, Rayla, Claudia and Soren collectively represent the kind of different and difficult feelings parental abandonment and neglect can cause. A real person most likely feels all of these emotions at some point of their life but in fiction they need to be spread out among different characters or the story wouldn't work as, well, a story.

"she was a mage girl committing warcrimes, he was an elf boy vibing in the woods, can I make it anymore obvious"

I'd gladly read some more critical takes on Claudia's character. There is something very interesting there about Claudia and Terry's relationship for example. Terry is clearly very enamored with Claudia whom he perceives as someone very vulnerable and in need of help. Terry isn't wrong exactly but it does get problematic when he goes to great lengths to protect Claudia to the detriment of his own wellbeing. While TDP itself doesn't draw attention to it there are also the racial and gendered elements, both implicit and explicit, because of Claudia's fantasy racism and because of Terry being a non-white trans boy character as well. Claudia is the most powerful dark mage in Xadia when Terry is just a normal guy. Given the context of the show there is a power imbalance there.

tHÖ END

Why I'm laying this all out is that I think the Internet would be a better place if people didn't try to constantly find an objective "right" way to view a piece of media but instead were somewhat transparent about what they personally got out of it. I think this Viravos meta is the most popular thing I've written so far and I tried to explain my approach in detail because I don't want people to go "look this person says Viravos is canon!". Jokes are fine of course but taking it too objectively ignores the fact that analysing subtext is valuable on its own.

Idk how to end this. Here, have this meme.

[platinumrosetail]

i’ve read the rules and i shall confidently ask, could you pretty please with sugar on top (if it makes you feel comfortable and you aren’t burnt out/ have a writer’s block/ uncomfortable) do a yandere callum x elf! reader (and maybe also a yandere rayla too 👀) where the reader is just trying to get back to Xadia but dear yandere is like “mmmm nope, you’re stuck here now, i will use the power of magic to keep you here” or reader tries to escape and fails but gets like a really bad punishment cause she tried to escape on like a special day or something along those lines

i never thought i’d see this kind of writing ask so THANK YOU and have some digital food! 🎂🍿🍭🍩🍪🍬🍫🥛🧃🧋🍎🍉🍓🥯🍟🍣🍤🍝🍜🍦🍡🥠

Oooh interesting, I’ll definitely do this, thank you for the requesting 😁 also I’ll be genderbending rayla (ray in this) as I don’t do female x reader so I asked if that’s ok with them and they said yea so here we are lol anyway hope yall like it!

Characters: callum, male!rayla.

Warnings: noob author, female reader, yandere characters, aged up characters, and others.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

you had met callum and ray when they were on their mission with callum's little half brother; ezran, to take the dragon prince egg to his mother you decided to join them not thinking of how you shouldn't as it lead to a bad future, at least for you.

while on that journey you had gained a crush on both callum and ray of course you didn't know at the time that that would be your downfall in the future.

after the journey and everything was at peace for now you, callum and ray got in a poly relationship which in the past would have made you happy as you got to b with the two you loved but now it all seemed like a big mistake.

ray had unexpectedly leave, looking for viren and claudia which made callum paranoid that you would leave next if he didn't imprison you in the your room most of the time, only letting you out when he felt like he could trust you to be out even if he was by your side; watching, to make sure you never left.

you had succeed in escaping by pure luck, only getting about 2 days away when ray decided to finally show up after 2 years on his search for viren and claudia. ray learned the news pretty quick on how you had escaped 2 days before he returned and immediately went to search for you with callum; the two ad to go after you as the royal guards couldn't find you what with you being elf but since callum is a mage and ray is also a elf they were abl to find you much quicker than if callum went by himself.

once the three of you returned to the castle you had been given a punishment; the punishment being grounded to your room with only them coming in and out, so that you would only have to rely on them for food, water and entertainment.

you had slowly started accepting that you would never be able to escape them. they were happy with you accepting them as they had loved you since the 2 had met you as well as each other. but what they didn't know was that they would soon have a problem, not from you but rom your father, who had longed to find you as he had lost you a long time ago, thinking you were dead.

(A/n: so i hoped y'all liked it! i decided to add a little something at the end because i thought it be a interesting idea to add, i want y'all to guess who the father is as well, i would think it be pretty easy to guess so i won't be giving hints so comment who and i'll answer who is correct! anyway i think that's it so i hope y'all have a wonderful day/evening/night!!)

[sir-phineas-lost]

TDP Book 5: Water

So this apparently dropped almost a week earlier than what was announced and I binged all of it at once as usual. Since I only just finished it I can’t quite tell if I like it better or worse than previous seasons (for summary: I loved the first 2 because it looked like they were heading somewhere really interesting, I hated season 3 because it completely dropped the ball and season 4 was starting to head back in the right direction). I feel like I should write a few things down to sort them out. Lots of spoilers below.

I think it was the right decision to split the party up more than they were last season because it no longer feels like Ezran is just hanging around for the sake of it and gives Rayla and Callum more time to interact and rebuild their relationship. I still don’t care one iota about said relationship because they are boring MC-shipping, but at least it doesn’t feel like it is actively eating up others’ screen-time.

The detour to Lux Aurea feel superfluous. It is very disconnected from the other subplot involving Karim and Kim’dael and the one lasting consequence (Zubeia’s wound) is apparently healed by the end of the season with absolutely no input from the main cast. Obviously this is setup for next season and this mysterious mushroom-mage but I can’t help but feel that there had to be a more convenient way to get there.

As usual, Claudia remains the very best part of the show and I will not hear a bad word about her. Her worry for Viren is so absolutely palpable it hurts and for once I think they dodged all the pitfalls of framing it as a sin. Having Terry around proves to be the best change to the show as a whole since the timeskip and he keeps being a positive influence on Claudia without being judgemental about it.

This also makes it pretty jarring when we get to Claudia’s final confrontation with the gang and after a full season of humanizing her and proving that she will listen to reason instead of going for the kill, she goes into full villain-mode from the start with crazy ranting and “I will destroy you all” speeches. All so that the gang can feel uncomplicated in dealing out the most graphic violence in the show so far. I used to joke that I would be ok with Claudia reducing elven cities to ash, I now think I would be fine with her ripping out Ezran’s spine while making Callum watch. As a treat.

Side-note: I am very ok with the trend of Claudia transforming into monster-ladies for big fights.

Please keep that up.

Viren also continues his positive development from last season, but unfortunately it is the exact kind of “redemption” I didn’t want for him and Claudia. The kind where it is all about him agreeing with everyone else that everything he ever does sucks and that dark magic is unambiguously evil. Sorry to people who like this development but I don’t see a lot of moral complexity in doing a 180.

Callum actually has a pretty interesting arc this season. After being convinced last season that it was his curiosity that would make him susceptible to Aaravos’ influence it instead draws direct parallells between him and Claudia by having love for his friends and especially Rayla be the reason he breaks his own moral code. It still relies heavily on the show’s nonsensical policy on dark magic for his guilt to make sense but it is something.

Unfortunately the show seems committed to its policy of character-centric morality. Ezran can make a speech to Callum about how they should focus on containing Aaravos instead of killing him because violence should be a last resort, and yet make no attempt at anything but violence when stopping Claudia.

Overall I just find it ironic how a book called “Ocean” manages to drive home how shallow this whole show is. It paints its main thesis on its forehead but has absolutely nothing of interest to say about it. “It is bad to do bad things for good reasons”. No shit Sherlock. Come back when you actually have something to say about what makes something bad in the first place or how to deal with the things that made someone think the bad thing was necessary.

[raayllum]

like i have not spent ages thinking about how far i can push rayllum to be borderline unhealthy while also giving them room to walk back from the brink and still have a healthy relationship with each other to Not be excited the show is exploring the exact same thing - Could you please explain the above with regards to your fic? Like maybe some scenarios we can expect? Especially around the whole unhealthy relationship traits :) Love messy relationships in stories :)

re: this post

So one of my favourite things about TDP is that they emphasize, time and time again, that you can deeply love someone and they can deeply love you, and yet that doesn't mean 1) the relationship can't be or cannot become unhealthy and 2) that genuine love can be precisely what destroys the relationship / the people in it anyway. Ex: Harrow and Viren's entire decades long fuckery, Rayla and Runaan (re: he loved her too much to see she wasn't fit to be an assassin), Harrow's love for Sarai being so warped he does something she would never want or approve of to assuage his own rage and grief/guilt (and Viren pushing Harrow to take revenge for similar reasons), even Callum and Claudia to a degree, etc. Even the healthiest of relationships have periods or patterns of unhealthiness and in a series all about breaking harmful cycles, it’s particularly apt, tragic, and interesting

I always figured we saw the beginnings of this in TTM / that Rayla's tendency to go off on her own (and self-sacrifice) was going to be, in many ways, their biggest hurdle to face. Callum also has self destructive tendencies when it comes to magical desperation (2x04 and 2x07) but he also has self-preservation and optimism, even as he verges closer to where Rayla stands in S4.

Basically: the fundamental misunderstanding of TTM, in which Rayla chooses Callum by leaving, and Callum views her as choosing the mission over him by staying away, is undeniably tragic with both of them being right and both of them being wrong, and we see that follow through into S4 (Callum asking Rayla to kill him and thinking it's something she would viably do in the first place). This relationship between love as transformation (positive change), salvation (life), and destruction (death) and the razor's edge between all of them is something I've thought a lot about within Rayllum's bond in general, since it's also a big theme in the show that we come back to time and time again, and theirs is the relationship it probably manifests in the most every season:

Will this thing help me or hurt me? Will it save me or kill me?

“Wow. So they look identical, but they might kill you or they might save you,” Callum said.

“Exactly. Just like me…” Rayla smiled.

It's a level of symbolic and interpersonal intensity I just can't get enough, as well as the inherent risk in it: Callum, reckless, driven, relentless, barreling towards what might be his own destruction because he just can't resist. Rayla, more cautious and more aware, so scared of pulling others down with her and cognizant that she'll go down with the ship (Callum's ship) to the very end. This was all present to me and one of my favourite ideas to explore pre-S4's release, so I think it's very unsurprising that the "I need you to kill me" scene from 4x07 ended up being my favourite scene in the season, because it's thematically richer than beyond anything I ever dreamed of going in.

"Desperate Measures," now firmly canon divergent, focuses on Rayla going undercover in a Xadian dark mage guild when Callum stumbles across her and gets entwined in the lie, as he refuses to just leave her there. The emotional toll of the increasingly unethical and awful things they have to do, the anger and hurt and love they still hold for one another that they can't reveal to anyone else, and their increasing resentment towards one another (Rayla is trying to spare him, Callum is trying to keep her safe at expense to himself) understandably pushes them to their limits and makes them resort to, well, some desperate measures in order to keep the other person Safe, if deeply unhappy.

This includes having to 1) downplay their connection and history together, omitting massive chunks of it, 2) going along on some dark magic hunts and both participating in ingredient collection, 3) increasingly losing a sense of self, etc. Again, all things we see little peeks of in S4, in terms of Rayla being far more jaded, both of them being pretty lost without the other, not talking about their relationship as much because of everything going on, being frustrated and hurt but refusing to / being unable to walk away from each other or let go.

However, one of my favourite things about pushing an otherwise healthy relationship to that extreme is keeping it together enough that it can be healthy again, and what that journey would look like. So it's a pretty bleak fic, I think, but not devoid of hope and affection - just a lot of anguish, too.

Overall I think this line sums up the analysis and the fic quite well:

“I can’t!” Callum burst, his chest heaving. “I can’t stop caring—I don’t fucking hate you―that’s the problem!”

When you love someone so much they destroy you, just a little (or a lot)? Yeah

[shiramoonshadow]

Hi! The vip panel with Jason Simpson, Luc Roderique and Adrian Petriw lasts longer that the first one, so I've transcribed the first 30 minutes and I'll try to have the last half hour left by tomorrow. Sorry to keep you waiting!

Luc, favorite king Harrow scene? (This was mine)

Luc: That’s a really tough one. I think my favorite scene to watch... pretty much anything in “heart of a titan” are my favorite scenes to watch. I literally just re-watched “heart of a titan” before doing this and it gets me every single time...Um..from the scenes of watching I love those scenes where Harrow is just standing on the balcony watching his sons, watching Callum draw a little picture in the dirt of Harrow and realizing that Harrow means something to him or where he's talking about making history a narrative of love instead of a narrative of strength and watching Callum and Ezran have a little wooden sword fight, and then Callum hits a little too hard and accidentally hurts Ezran and he can see that and immediately drops his sword to make sure that his little brother's all right. Those scenes always get me. My favorite one to act was probably...episode three; his goodbye to Callum. It was pretty early in the process of recording and I just remembered the feeling in the room like every other actor in the room was so amazing and really gave us the space to play that scene, and it’s the most emotional moment I’ve ever had in a recording booth in an animated session.

What did you do in that moment where you broke Viren’s heart forever and it never recovered? So Viren’s resigned himself to do the right thing, he’s come to terms with the fact that King Harrow is right and he’s in the wrong and he’s got to be a better person, a different person, and he goes in to kind of walk side by side and king Harrow says “get on your knees b****, you are my subject and you’re going to get in line and you’re going to shut your mouth”, and then it broke Viren’s heart forever. Tell me your process.

Luc: That’s an interesting one for Harrow because it’s very counter-intuitive to I think how he normally operates, but I think they have such a long-standing friendship in relationship, like I have those friendships in my own life where you know a person so well and you know all of the things you love about them and the reason that you’re still their friend, but the things that just...they are like family, right? Viren will just not get off of this dark magic thing and I have seen the harm that dark magic can do in the past and it just like Harrow lets his emotions get the better of him. I said it before, it’s like Achilles heel and I think in that moment he was just “I need to show him who’s in charge here. I need to show him what’s going to happen and he knows that the only way to do that is a show of strength and a show of authority.

What do you think Jason? Is that the moment where we lose Viren for good?

Jason: No, I don’t think we’ve lost him for good. I mean, I have high hopes and as an actor I have...Um..you know, you want to progress and grow and I think there’s a whole lot of growth potential and hopefully it’s coming because the guy’s got a long way to go to redemption, but you don’t need someone else’s approval to find redemption but it certainly helps when you’ve hurt other people and you want their forgiveness and that’s not going to come easy at all, but I want it to be there because, you know, he’s such a great character and he’s...we’ve got Claudia in the mix and their relationship is going to grow and there’s going to be struggles and so; no, Viren is not long gone but that definitely was the catalyst for him...maybe not the catalyst, one of them. For him..Um...going forward with what he was doing, I think he always had plans but now his friend is gone...is he?

What’s your favorite scene Jason?

Jason: Favorite scene overall...There’s a couple of things that get me excited…

Other than Harrow?

Jason: I do love the...it’s very very short but it’s a moment where...well no, actually my favorite scene is Amaya and Janai at the helms deep there, oh wrong show, um... just that full action sequence, it's so exciting, it gives me goosebumps every time I watch it, it’s so exciting, and the sword and she grabs her and she pulls her up and… My favorite scene to work on was just a very short scene with the mirror and Viren trying so hard to figure it out and he puts the crap in his eyes and it was a really raw emotional moment for me, the most emotional I’ve been on the show as an actor. He is clearly screaming at himself, “you’re worthless, why did I waste my time?” It really touched a nerve in me. I’ve had those moments staring into the mirror myself, so that was a very touching moment.

Adrian, what’s your favorite scene?

Adrian: My favorite scene to voice is...maybe not a scene but a sequence, was doing the whole in the first season, the whole sort of the banther lodge sequence when we come and Callum is there and Rayla's hiding. That was one of the first sort of times as Gren, as an actor, I really had to play with this dichotomy that the character has? I don’t know if dichotomy is quite the right term, but where Gren has his own voice as his own character but then when he speaks for Amaya there has to be this shift and you know, he has to sort of take on this sort of confidence and poise that she has, so having to play the shift between speaking to Amaya and to Callum as Gren and speaking for Amaya, making that transition was really interesting. Favorite scene overall is really tough...I don’t know if I can pick an absolute favorite but one that always comes up, I just really love the moment in s1 with Amaya at her sister's grave, when she's signing to her sister and there's no captions. It's such a powerful scene all thanks to the animators and it’s honestly one of the most common scenes that people bring up to me when we’re chatting at cons and stuff like that and, you know, I thought there was a lot of brave choices there and it was also just something I just had never seen in a cartoon before. That’s always stuck with me and that was one moment when I was first watching the first season that really hit me, that I was like “wow I’m really proud to be a part of this thing”.

What relationship changes more from this point on from s4 forward, Jason what changes more, Viren and Claudia or Viren and Aaravos?

Jason: I think it’s gonna...this is me speculating, this is not-

Yeah, yeah. Of course, nobody knows anything.

Jason: Yeah (Wink). I think his relationship with Claudia is going to be strained because she is going to be moving forward in the path that he might move forward, but he is going to be seeing things in a whole different light and I think that has to do with the way he will be treated, maybe cast aside by Aaravos. Um... I think he's gonna be fighting for his daughter's life.

[About conquering Xadia] maybe it’s just Aaravos hiding intentions, but it felt very like, what are we doing bro? Like is there a plan? Like can I, can you give me something? Like, to me it felt very much like Viren was in charge and you’re saying at that point Aaravos knows everything?

Jason: It certainly can feel like Viren is in charge and it can certainly look like it. It does not mean for one second, in my opinion, that Aaravos is pulling all the strings. Let me use a very very very terrible analogy. A smart person decides to use a drug because it heightens them and they figure I’m smart enough, I know when to stop, I can control this, but it gives me more. They lose control, it sucks them in and no matter how smart they are, no matter what their plans are. That’s a terrible way to put that...I can see that exact thing happening with Viren and Aaravos. The beautiful thing about this is we all watch the same thing, we all see the same visuals, we all hear the same dialogue but we can have completely opposing opinions. You and I could have a complete argument and never convince each other, . That's awesome.

[beautifulterriblequeen]

B2:S - Chapter 4

Much of this series will be about the differences and additions in the novel version, and how they contribute to my understanding of story canon. But there will be character appreciation, the odd theory and headcanon, and suchlike as well.

Here be Viren being villainous, Rayla, Claudia, Soren, and Callum, and tons of culture clash themey stuff

and a tw: animal death, Claudia why

Spoilers for Book Two: Sky below.

Viren's scenes in Book Two: Sky are all amazing because they're full of worldbuilding and character building details. I love to study the word choices used from his perspective. They're so tasty. Like how he forced a servant, and also Soren, to carry his messages to the rookery, so that he never had to go himself. I'm really curious why Viren is forcing a servant, whose job is literally to serve, here. He really only has to ask. Maybe he was mean about it on purpose, or maybe he picked a servant who was afraid of birds just to flex on them. Whatever the reason for the word choice, Viren doesn't seem to like servants' jobs, it seems, especially when they take him somewhere with poop on the floor. It makes it all the more ironic that he sweeps Runaan's cell clean himself, then, humbling himself before he finally figures out the mirror.

Viren's secretive, right down to his very carefully chosen words to those around him, but his true thoughts shine through even more clearly in the book than in the show. He knows he's been sneaking and hiding stuff, and he knows that some of those actions would be called treachery. Stealing the king's seal to forge royal documents is up there on the treacherous list, but it's apparently not there alone. Ah, Viren, such a villainous delight. What have you gotten up to?

The way he thinks of and treats Crow Master is ageist and classist, but certain lines also hint that Viren has spent a lot of time memorizing the finer points of proper courtesy, and he expects others to have done the same. There are many reasons someone might put forth such effort: a commoner trying to better himself to be noticed by a kind prince is a nice version. A sociopath learning to fake caring about rich people so he can blend in with them is less nice. Superconveniently, the skills a young, earnest Viren might use to feel worthy of Harrow's attention will serve him just as well when dark magic ravages his empathy and he has to lie to everyone about how dead he is inside in order to keep his position of power. Until he's not lying anymore and he straight up threatens poor Crow Master with death unless he sends illegal mail for him. There's the Viren we know and uhhhhhh

Rayla and the blue rose! It's so fun to see inside her head here. She acted swiftly in the last chapter to save herself from Claudia's sleep spell, but now that she has to lie there, that thorn really hurts! She wishes she maybe had a different plan instead of playing asleep.

I hope Rayla only calls Claudia's voice "awful" because of association. I love Claudia's raspy voice! It's so neat! Rayla immediately recognizes it as Claudia's, from the castle and identifies her as a dark mage, with a clanky-metal warrior beside her. She gets mad at Soren for apparently calling killing a sport, even though that's not what he said at all. Soren's using an unfamiliar, maybe old-fashioned term, and Rayla's taking it very literally. It's like Viren and Runaan are arguing through them. A fun little example of culture clash.

Also digging the fact that Rayla knows what sleeping breathing looks like, as opposed to awake breathing, for the purposes of faking someone out. Did she just. Perch in a tree over Runaan and Ethari as they napped after a picnic and watched them sleep, or did Runaan help her sneak around the Silvergrove to spy on sleeping elves for training purposes? Also, raise your hand if you've faked sleep breathing to fool someone. that's not just me right

Rayla's sass is a constant delight. Whenever she's up against an enemy, she is outwardly fearless and full of witty taunts and comments, and I love her so much. where could she have learned this from I also love that she can't help but flex on Soren about her technique. It seems that her attitude is part "never show fear" and part "humans are liars."

Claudia and Soren were trying to kill Rayla to save the princes from her. But Rayla was also intent on killing both of them right back. And she wasn't ever gonna tell Callum and Ez about that. Woah. First Harrow, now this. That whole "death and secrets" thing really sank in with her, didn't it? Crack voice in the back of my brain: Ethari does know Runaan stabs people, right, he does know that?

Interesting change of detail from show to book: in the show, Claudia overheats Rayla's swords with some green splattery goo from a little glass jar. In the book, uhhh. She grabs a live bird and squishes it to cast the spell. Eew. Really making a point of dark magic's inherent violence today, I see. Got it.

"Rayla, pipe down." Callum still has a ways to go on how to win friends and influence people here. Everyone's shouting, he's interrupted to save Rayla's life (or so he thinks), and when Rayla shouts that his friends tried to kill her, he tells her--and no one else--to pipe down. Followed soon by "but a 'good' elf." Ahgod. He doesn't think he's taking sides, but he's got two humans versus one elf, and he's a human himself, and his underlying biases are showing. He's 14, and he's willing to learn, though--and he really does learn and grow over time. But this version of this scene was just. So. Painfully. Awkward.

I feel like this version was part of a larger theme I'm seeing throughout the first half of the book, emphasizing that Callum comes from years of having a crush on Claudia, and it takes many scenes with Claudia and with Rayla to shift through several gears with each of them in order to facilitate the possibility of breaking with Claudia and then also of falling for Rayla, in a way that feels organic within the structure of the story being told.

Also Callum super has a type and it's Girls Who Will Commit Murder. I don't make the rules.

Rayla's defense just attacks Callum's word choice: "What do you mean, 'but a good elf'? Do you know any bad elves?" And I just. Rayla, honey. You're not in any better of a spot than Callum right now. Your mentor literally stabs people to death. You're both literally assassins. Some humans could accept most elves, but they might draw the line at assassins.

But this tiny clash in the midst of this war, this single exchange of words, is such a great microcosm, the war made personal. It's early enough in their adventure and their growth that they're still sounding a lot like their parents. And that includes Claudia! She demands to know how an elf can be good, and Callum allows that it's possible for good elves to exist, but he has to be the one to say it, not the actual elf behind him. And the actual elf behind him insists that her kind are all good, thank you very much, and implying otherwise skirts very close to "humans are liars."

It's quite a tangle, but having the main characters tangled up like this shows us that as they untangle themselves in their own personal situations, they're learning things about human and elven hearts, about relationships and family, and those things are universal truths which they can use to help them understand other people's troubles, as well as the larger issues involved in the war they're trying to stop.

Callum assessing--and then reassessing--his confidence level. It's adorable, and it serves to show that his first scrambling attempt to make peace, in which he messed up a little but at least no one died--won't be his last. He's not really sure how this is gonna go. Everything is new. But he's dedicated to peace, and he's not giving up. He did just run in between Soren and his target while Soren was holding a sword.

He keeps doing that. Standing in front of people who have their weapons raised in his direction. And he does it with a ridiculous amount of chill. Is this Sarai's influence on him? Considering that Harrow has kept his distance, maybe so! I'd love that.

This chapter ends with some fun relationship drama when Callum gets butterflies in his stomach at being around Claudia again. She tucks a strand of hair behind his ear, and he forgets all about telling her about smashing her primal stone. He instantly worries that Rayla saw her gesture, which of course she did. Callum's nervousness and Rayla's glare feel to me like they're supposed to fit into a tactical box instead of a romantic box, but I can see how it could be interpreted the other way. Callum just intervened in a fight that Rayla completely intended to end by secretly killing Claudia and Soren, so in Rayla's mind, she's probably convinced that Callum intervened to save his girlfriend's life, while he's sure that he just saved Rayla's. She's probably angry because Claudia's gesture is making her think that Callum only seemed to be trying to save Rayla when his true intention was to save Claudia all along.

Dun dun dunnnnnnn.

[starsoverxadia]

I’m wondering what Aaravos’s relationship with Claudia and Viren will be going forward, especially if wormavos emerges from its cocoon as Aaravos’s new body. One thing I’m certain of is it’ll be built on manipulation. Also, just like at the start of season 3, Aaravos will be Viren’s, and now Claudia’s, only lifeline. They’ve lost. Their army is gone, they have no allies, and there’s whole lot of people who’d either imprison or kill them on sight. They’re cornered in a hostile land, all alone besides each other, and Aaravos is seemingly the only person with the power and desire to help them.

Aaravos has already shown interest in Claudia and given how powerful she’s grown, I’m sure that interest will only deepen. And, sure, Aaravos may have the power to force her to work for him, but brute force isn’t his style. Most likely he exploit her desire to keep her family together and devotion to her father. After Soren breaking away from them and Viren’s death, the world probably seems like a cruel place determined to destroy her family. But maybe Aaravos has a way to make it all better; a plan that’ll bring Soren back into the fold (or punish him for “betraying” them), ensure nothing to can harm her beloved father again, and keep them together forever.

As for Viren, I don’t think Aaravos is going to discard him, at least not immediately. For one, mistreating or killing Viren won’t exactly endear Aaravos to Claudia. Still, Viren’s usefulness to Aaravos is likely considerably reduced. For one, Viren’s staff was left at the top of the Storm Spire, limiting his power. And who knows what affect his death and resurrection might have on his body and powers, if any. We also don’t know how Aaravos feels about Viren on a personal level. Is /was he just another asset or does Aaravos have any real fondness for him? As much as I’d like Aaravos to genuinely care about Viren (and come to care about Claudia), I doubt that’s the case with the way his character has been presented thus far. I suspect that if he has any fondness for Viren, it’s the some way one is fond of a favorite toy or pet. Basically, something that exists solely for his amusement, pleasure, and/or benefit, and not a full person.

Then there’s the whole master/servant dynamic of Aaravos and Viren’s relationship. Aaravos presents himself as Viren’s devoted servant, but we all know who’s really in charge. It’s almost inevitable that’ll change and Viren will get a rude wake up call about who’s really the servant. And when that happens it won’t be pretty. It’s obvious from Viren’s final exchange with Harrow that being treated like a servant is painful for him, and Aaravos treating him like one will also hurt, especially if Viren views Aaravos as a friend or companion. Now, I do think while Viren likes power and status, he doesn’t actually, deep down, want to be in charge. He wants to follow and that’s part of the reason he went along with everything Aaravos said. But he wants whoever he’s following to see him as an equal, as special somehow, and treat him as such. But Aaravos is probably going to give him the old “You really thought you were special? Tsk, tsk!” talk and it’ll hurt.

Also, even if Viren somehow fails to recognize how Aaravos is playing him, that doesn’t mean he won’t notice Aaravos’s manipulation of Claudia. It’s not like Aaravos hasn’t already given Viren good reason to be suspicious of his intentions towards her with the whole “She’ll be a valuable asset” line. So even if Aaravos’s treatment of Viren himself doesn’t become an issue, his treatment of Claudia very well could. Viren may even have to save her from his influence.

If I had my way they’d become a beautiful little family and the show would become about them but, alas, some things only happen in dreams.

[abidos]

Tdp, season 3 (I)

So now that I’ve had a night to sleep on it, I’m ready to write down my main impressions of season 3. Overall, I’m happy with it even though it is too often predictable and there are several plotholes. It’s evident that the writers were trying to get the narrative to a particular point and character consistency and nuance be damned. However, there are still a lot of things to be happy about, and I do believe, the way the season ends, next season gives them the chance to go back to treating the characters with the attention to detail and complexity they deserve.

So now on to a more detailed review. Also, note that I’ve just seen the season once, so I might change my mind about things in the future. This also turned out a lot longer than I had expected, so I’m dividing it up in several posts.

Viren

My favourite character from season 1 and still my favourite character, up to the point that my interest in the show would severely wane if he were to disappear. Overall the plot of the show is fairly run-of-the-mill fantasy, with not that much innovation. For me, it’s mostly Viren and the effect he has on the other character and the plot, that makes it interesting.

I was unhappy with Viren during the first few episodes where he seemed to be reduced to a 2D evil villain who goes around doing evil things and generally acting sketchy just for the sake of it. There is too much of this throughout the entire season for my taste. But I am very happy that halfway thorough, despite what Soren later claims, Viren´s motivation is his desire to give humanity a bright future, as he has been saying all along, despite the mockery of others. Aaravos really has to drag the plan to attack the elves out of him, this is not his primary goal. And he doesn’t hesitate to put his own life on the line for his ideals. When Aaravos tells him he has to risk his life, he merely seems resigned. There are few tropes I dislike more than the villain who chickens out when they are expected to risk something for their goals, I’m delighted that the authors keep showing that this is not Viren.

Harrow and Viren

I’m thrilled with what we further learn about Harrow and his relationship with Viren. I’ve already pointed out I like complex and nuanced characters, so the more we are shown that Harrow isn’t a Good Guy™ the more I love him. Specifically, we see that despite blaming Viren for Thunder’s death and the egg, these things are ultimately Harrow’s responsibility. He gives Viren the go-ahead to go take the egg, and he is the one who decides that they are going to kill Thunder. And later, when he realises his mistake and feels guilty about it, he shifts all the blame onto Viren. It’s such a human reaction. And the fact that Viren doesn’t even react to it, doesn’t point out Harrow’s hypocrisy, tells us that this is not the first time Viren is used as a scapegoat for Harrow’s guilt.

Besides, we see that Harrow knows, and apparently doesn’t care, about the corruption Viren’s body suffers when he performs prodigious feats of dark magic. Back in season 1 I actually believed Harrow’s non sequitur about dark magic having a price referred to the price Viren pays, and that he doesn’t want to save his own life at the cost of his friend’s wellbeing. Ha. Now I’m even more interested in what went on between the two of them after Harrow made him kneel.

Aaravos and Viren

Aaravos is fantastic, he’s still as mysterious, with now additional helpings of being unnecessarily extra. Yet I find it very surprising that Viren seems to trust him so completely. One of the first things Aaravos does is enchant Viren so he can’t read any information on him and he absolutely refuses to give even the most straightforward explanation as to why he is helping Viren. Aaravos couldn’t be sketchier unless he went off every now and then to look out into the distance and went “BWHAHAHAHAHAAA, YOU FOOLS!”.  In the second season, I thought it was because Viren was desperate. He didn’t care if Aaravos betrayed him and killed him because he thought humanity was doomed either way. But in the third season his situation is considerably less dire, and yet, Viren doesn’t hesitate to trust Aaravos with his life and humanity’s future. I’m starting to believe that maybe Aaravos is using magic to get Viren’s compliance. I think the best proof for this is that Viren led the army into Xadia without knowing why. This seems to go entirely against Viren’s nature, who always has at least five plans, who always want’s to be in control. I’d be astonished if there wasn’t something going on there.

I liked the fact that Aaravos got some blowback over Claudia, and now that it is the three of them, I suspect Aaravos is going to have a much harder time controlling Viren.

Second part here.

[lairofsentinel]

Beware of the Narrator III - Viren tells the story to Aaravos [Probably this analysis has been done dozens of times, but I need to do it myself to keep it fresh when future seasons come]

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

Viren full analysis [part one] [part two] [part three] and its Summary [here]

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

What I found interesting is that Viren truly was always focused in destroying the dragons. To me, he sees in Dragons the true threat against humanity. The elves are something that doesn’t concern him much. Maybe because Dragons, as it is said in the series, have “god-like” powers, and for some reason, I think Viren has always too present the confrontation of Ziard with Sol Regem when it comes to perceive Dragon’s true intentions. 

So, in the previous narration led by Viren, we know he “took Sarai’s last breath”, just in case [just in case!] the opportunity to do “something else” would appear. And that appeared years later when Claudia [he said that, we don’t know if it was him] found a unicorn horn. 

Viren introduces the matter saying that he had found a powerful spell that would allow him to kill a god-like Dragon. Which needed the last breath of a person and the blood tinged with anger of a loved one of such person. Viren had always planned this from the moment he stole Sarai’s last breath... One can infer that just by watching the ingredients of the spell.

This scene is so focused on Viren’s narration. Neither Harrow nor us [the watchers of the show] truly know if it’s true, if he could have done something to save her or not. We only have his word. The scene we saw was a black screen. We only got the sounds.

so... in the same scene, he doesn’t imply that the spell was not “discovered” recently, but he knew about it [maybe] even back then, when he took Sarai’s last breath.

The more I focus on watching Viren’s scenes, the more I see Aaravos Mastermind way of speaking in a human. And to me is obvious. Viren has done with Harrow exactly what Aaravos is doing with him now. They have particular agendas that do not always focused on gathering power. Viren in Season 1 is not thirsty for power at all. He is not taking any power-related reward in most of the situations he interferes. His reward  is knowing that “humanity is safer” with each of his actions. He thinks of himself as the only one who truly sees the danger that Xadia in general, and in particular the Dragons, represent to humanity. So he wants to destroy them. That’s the main aim in all his personal suggestions. He doesn’t care about avenging Sarai, but he needs that excuse to get the last compound of the spell to have a “weapon” that can kill a Dragon.

And he got what he wanted. Viren does exactly what Aravos did to him in season 3:

This conversation is pretty close to this one [below] in which we see Aaravos asking him if he wants to conquer Xadia, and Viren says three times that his main goal has always been protecting Humanity, not conquering power. But somehow, Aaravos convinces him to believe otherwise. Yes, Viren took the throne, and made alliances but not because the power itself, but because he wants to be “the Humanity’s Saviour”. He knows he is “the only one seeing the danger of Xadia”, the unique human who knows what is needed to do in order to have that safety.

So, finally... Viren crafts the Weapon of Vengeance:

When they face Avizandum, Viren infers through the Dragon’s cryptic words [such “today is a day of life” and all that] that he has an egg. Once again, to Viren, that’s a bigger danger because Zym “will be destined to destroy humanity”. He thinks about all Dragons as if they were Sol Regem. During all those flashbacks he has been consistent enough, he only cares about destroying Dragons. 

He still believes deeply in Harrow, he doesn’t want his power [in fact, he loves him as a brother], so that he defends him against Avizandum [if this weren’t the case, It would have been a unique opportunity to kill him] and collapses later due to the big demand of energy that Dark Magic means for a human

When they see Avizandum dying... Viren gets his reward: one less dragon in the world, a bit more of safety to Humanity.

Viren is enjoying the death of a Dragon,while Harrow is just tasting the bitter vengeance.

Now, Viren uses once again the same technique he has been using with Harrow, with Soren, and with Claudia: convinces them that they are doing the right thing, that’s a needed evil because it’s the only choice they have. 

[Beautiful concept that Zym’s destiny was supposed to be the destruction of Humanity, The destiny of Callum was going to be the use of Dark Magic, the Destiny of Rayla was going to become an assassin, and all of them broke it. As Harrow said in his letter to Callum: They are free and can chose without being chained by the past.]

It’s always the same with Viren. He doesn’t see another way with Dragons.... probably because he is a Dark Mage and must have learnt about Ziard’s teachings [there must be a reason why he has Ziard’s staff, maybe his relationship with Ziard is deeper than just Historical studies of the Past]. The interaction between Ziard and Sol Regem was incredible unfair to humans, and Sol Regem used continuously that same argument: “There is not other choice, abandon Dark Magic or die”. So, from that situation in the past, Viren may have acknowledged that humans have no many choices against Dragons, because Dragons never gave any to them. I suppose Viren was raised submerged in that History event and understand that the Dragons are the true bad boys in this world. So, he has been protecting Humanity all the time during Harrow’s life. At all cost. 

And by the end of the story, a story in which Viren presented himself as the means to satisfy Harrow’s apparent wishes, Aaravos takes the present narrative showing that now it’s he who took that place as a giver of wishes, while Viren seems to have taking Harrow’s place of listener:

I love that scene because it’s not one, but two masterminds playing one against the other.  It can be understood in many ways, and I never can choose which is the true one. Viren did exactly this with Harrow, telling him that he always had creative solutions for all his wishes and whims in order to became a “just” King, the “servant King”. But in convincing him so, Viren was performing his own goals: removing Sarai from the picture to have a better grip around Harrow so he could suggest him when and how to destroy Dragons. 

Aaravos tells him the first moment he can speaks, that he is there to serve him, to help him in acquire his wishes. Viren’s wish is a humanity safe and sound, but Aaravos is guiding him to “conquer Xadia”. In this scene, he convinced him that he needs to conquer Xadia to be “sure” that humans will flourish.

The inflexion point is when Aaravos asks Viren to go to the Sunfire Forge. Viren doesn’t like elves, but they are not a threat in his way of seeing this world. He is all the time aiming against Dragons [again, because maybe his relationship with Ziard is deeper than a mere historical tale]. But he is starting to be more and more manipulated by Aaravos. 

Once he stole the power of the Sunfires, he stops putting humanity first in his speeches, as he has been doing during all the seasons , instead, he asks about conquering Xadia. His goal shifted. 

Humanity comes second. And that’s the effect of Aaravos mastermind around him. He stops caring about humanity at all when he turns the soldiers into those monsters. I thinks that metamorphosis is not just a resource that Authors uses in order to prevent our heroes [Callum and Rayla] “could kill humans” in the final battle. It’s the symptom that Viren stopped being the Viren we knew in Season 1, the one who always, ALWAYS put humanity first: first than his Queen, First than his King and brother, First than his kids, First than himself [he is a dark mage, accepting a progressive decay, and he had accepted to change body with Harrow in order to save him because he was a good king even though more often than not it was Viren who fixed his naive promises.]

However, it’s true that maybe it’s not such symbol, since all of them are expendable. All of them are soldiers, like Soren. He didn’t ask Claudia to change, because she is valuable. But the rest.... they are too easy to replace.

And I think that no one explains us Viren’s nature better than Soren:

Fitting description of Viren. And Aaravos. 

[pokeblader3]

TDP Meta: rewriting some flaws and missed opportunities

(I won't be talking about anything related to a. Viren, b. Dark Magic, or c. the history of Elven supremacy and oppression and the show’s wack conception of morality sometimes) because those are a can of worms larger than the scope of this small rewrite, and also we don't know how the show will portray them fully in the future.

I would say that in Books 1-3, Claudia and Rayla are the best written characters, with Soren having a good arc muddied by a few poor writing decisions, and Callum and Ezran being rather bland and uninteresting(and also having a few poor writing moments).

-Claudia is the golden child of Viren, and was raised almost as a pawn to him, with her having an unhealthy view of family coming before all else, including morality, and when her family is threatened, she does horrible things in order to keep it together. 

-Rayla was groomed to be an assassin, something she just didn't have the heart to do, and spent her life internalizing shame from her parents being deserters and her own inability to be a good assassin to her adoptive father, and how she "failed" her mission and was ghosted by even Ethari. She puts on a facade of aggressiveness and being hot-tempered to distance herself from being emotionally open(which assassins can't be), and when that mask comes off with Callum we see just how little she thinks of herself. 

-Soren was the one Viren took out his anger on, yet Soren always wanted to prove himself to him and get his approval like Claudia did. He eventually sees that Viren is gaslighting and manipulating everyone, and doesn't let Claudia stop him from leaving Viren before their final battle. 

-Callum and Ezran are... interesting, but they don't have real apparent flaws or weaknesses to their character like the others do. They have some good moments and strong characterization, but aren’t as interesting as the others in my opinion.

1. Callum's arc

Callum has a fairly generic arc about bravery and learning magic, but he also has an important character trait in valuing his family and trying to be a good older brother for Ezran.

Callum is someone who was(or should have been) greatly effected by the conflicts between Katolis and Xadia. He never knew his birth father, lost his mother at a young age, and lived with a distant but loving relationship to his step-dad and his younger brother, his only family left, only to see his home attacked in an attack that killed his father and intended to kill Ezran and him as well.

He should have been allowed to make mistakes or hold flawed beliefs, such as expressing anger or grief to Xadians for being involved in the killing of his parents(especially since he's traveling with the daughter of his parent's killer), but this is only ever addressed in one near throwaway line when he sees Avizandum's statue in Xadia.

It would also have made sense for Callum to be overprotective of Ezran, and stop at nothing to make sure that he won't lose his only family left.

For example, in Book 1 when the egg falls into the lake, it's uncharacteristic that Callum let's Ezran, his tiny 10 year old brother, dive into a frozen lake when he could have done it instead(especially given he's likely still emotionally turbulent and on-edge from having just watched his family get attacked and living on the run). In a rewrite, Callum should be unable to dive into the lake for some reason, but also freak out when Ezran says he’ll dive into the frozen lake, because he doesn’t want to lose him. When Ezran does go into the lake and isn't heard from for a few seconds, Callum would begin to freak out thinking his brother might be in danger and he just let him do it.

Come Book 2, when Callum decides to trust Ezran to return home alone, this decision would hold a lot more weight, as it's a change Callum went through as he overcame a flaw he developed from his past. Also in Book 2, this would add a deeper context to Callum's talk with Ezran about how life sometimes hits you hard unexpectedly, since he is older than Ezran and would be speaking with the experience of someone who's dealt with the war for longer than Ezran, and want to shelter and guide him through growing up in such a tumultuous time.

It makes sense that Book 3 would be about Rayla in Xadia, but there should have been at least a few scenes about how Callum is doing now that Ezran is gone and he truly is alone, far away from family and home. As is, Callum doesn't really have an arc outside of Rayla in Book 3. Callum should have been allowed to hold grievances or react "wrongly" to his parents being killed by Xadians, especially when visiting Avizandum's lair, meeting Zubeia(the one who ordered the hit on his father), and the home of the Moonshadow elves that killed his father. 

2. Soren's arc

Soren's character and arc is complicated and built on a moral dilemma: he is told by his father(who we later learn is abusive) to kill Callum and Ezran, for his father's own personal gain. The problem is that the most important parts of this arc, his debating over and “attempting” to kill Ezran, are completely played as a joke. Because of this, we never get to see how he could have convinced himself that murdering children(who are also his friends) could be justified by himself, because that is not something any normal good-hearted person would even “haphazardly” try, and a considerable amount of his arc falls flat because they made a joke out of what should have been a key character moment.

To a lesser extent, Viren isn’t shown as abusive to Soren until Book 3, which makes his actions and why he’s so on board with killing children confusing and not make sense until we learn how he was gaslit and manipulated by Viren an entire season later, with little to no foreshadowing in the 2 seasons beforehand.

3. Ezran, Zubeia and the ending to Book 3

Ezran's arc is about the burden of ruling and navigating conflict with pacifism. Ezran believes that every death in a war, even if fighting for the wrong side, is still a father, son, lover, family member, etc., who just had their life taken from them. But then by the end, the entire army the protagonists fight against are dehumanized and turned into literal monsters, with it being portrayed as heroic when they kill thousands of them. The show also treats Kasef as a generic bad guy needing to be killed, instead of a tragic figure who chose poorly when his family was killed and his country was threatened(like, say, Claudia and Harrow are).

And now, for the worst part of Book 3: Zubeia. Zubeia is a huge sour note to end what's otherwise an amazing season on.

She ordered the hit against Harrow. She tried to kill the royal family of Katolis, after her husband killed Ezran and Callum's mom. She is over 1000 years old and was the regent of Xadia for the last 300 years along with her husband, and the two of them no doubt committed horrible acts against the humans. It is a complete asspull that she gave a "humans and elves? together :0? how beautiful :0:0:0" speech at the end of the season, and on a larger scale, how fast elf-human relationships instantly heal. Amaya's sister was killed by Zubeia's husband. Zubeia ordered her niece and nephew to be killed. Ezran and Callum were staring at the dragon who ordered their parents(and THEM) to be killed, and then was acting like humans and elves together was the most beautiful thing in the world. Amaya and Janai getting together also should have happened in Season 4, Katolis and the Sunfire Elves were at war literally a day prior, and Amaya was being kept as a prisoner by Janai and put through a torturous pain by her sister a week ago, and all that time she was worried about whether or not her niece and nephew were alive and the war that was going on they were embroiled in. Janaya and Rayllum are my favorite ships but they could have been handled better.

And now for the massive missed opportunity that would have also solved that issue above: Zubeia should have died(aka, what I thought was happening before the final scene when she suddenly recovered). It's thematically consistent with how the other 3 families of main characters experience a tragedy because of the Human-Xadian war, lose their parents at the hands of other families' parents, and have to work past it and choose forgiveness over vengeance. It would have given Zym and the Xadians a more tenuous relationship with the humans since Zym lost his mother to the war, and provide drama for Books 4 and 5, and it would also have shown how sometimes, relations between groups are not easy to heal, and history is not easy to right.

[onyour-right]

I just finished with season 2 of The Dragon Prince and lemme tell you, I was not expecting half the shit that happened.

- Ezran. My sweet baby boy. My strong, caring baby King. I love him, he’s utterly precious and I’m so proud of the person he’s becoming. He’s just such a gift and it was nice to see his interaction with the older characters, it just reinstated how much of a lovable character he is that everybody can’t help but to adore him. His close bond with Zym is the sweetest thing ever, and at the end when he decided to go back my heart was actually breaking at Zym’s reaction. But I’m just so glad that even though they’re not physically with each other they both still have that mental connection. I think it’ll be incredibly useful in the future if a war does start. Also, I know we only saw a little bit of Ezran with Corvus but their dynamic already kills me and I can’t wait to see where it goes next season. I love Corvus so much. Ok.

- Callum. I really enjoyed the journey that he went on this season; how he knew deep in his heart that magic was what he was called to do and so never gave up from that. I also found it so touching how he recited the words King Harrow had used when his mother had died, to try and explain it to Ezran :’) It was the sweetest. I also enjoyed his scenes with Claudia and how loyal he was to her friendship, but not blindly loyal that he wasn’t at least partly listening to what Rayla was saying. I’m excited to see where he goes from here.

- Rayla. My little sarcastic warrior daughter. I love her? How protective she is of BOTH boys even though it’s quite clear she’s crushing on Callum. I thought it was really sweet how even though she didn’t agree with the fact that Callum had used dark magic, she was still right there making sure he was okay and trying to reassure him. (Kinda reminded me of king Harrow and Queen Sarai - WINK WINK). I can’t wait to see her journey next season.

- Claudia and Soren. Listen. I was really conflicted with these two during this season, I didn’t know whether I could fully trust them not to carry out their mission. Soren also really annoyed me with his whole “act first, think later” motto, which ended up fucking him over. However I did enjoy seeing their struggle with it, because it’s clear they both genuinely are fond of the princes and don’t want any harm to come to them, but at the same time they want to impress their dad. Even after Soren reveals what his dad told him to do Claudia still doesn’t quite believe it, which I think is very interesting considering that her father was the one who basically told her to prioritise the egg over her own brother’s life. They both failed in their mission. It’s complicated. I’m still rooting for them to break away from the evilness that is their father. I’m also wondering whether Soren is completely healed now or if it’ll have some effects they didn’t think about? Or will Claudia have to keep on killing? If so, will she?

- Zym! My good boy, my precious boy. I’ve only had him for a few hours but if anything ever happened to him I’d kill everyone and then myself. He is such a sweetheart. Him listening to Ezran and trying to block out the sun, whew, I loved to see it. I just... I just want one. My reaction to him is legit the same as Claudia’s when she first saw him. He’s just too adorable. I’m interested in seeing what will happen now that he’s going to be reunited with his mother. Will it be a good reunion or nah?

- Queen Sarai. Goddamn. It’s criminal that we can’t see more of her, but in all the scenes we did see of her I just fell so completely in love. She’s badass, brave, soft, so caring, such a great mother! Ughhh, her death was so heartbreaking. I loved seeing the relationship she had with King Harrow (when they were fighting and the guards were placing bets - I just loved it. It spoke so much of their relationship and the type of atmosphere they created.)

- Mage Lujanne. What I really love about this show is that it portrays women of all ages as strong, powerful women and it doesn’t at all feel forced. Lujanne had me CACKLING. That line about her 3 husbands. Yo. Amazing. A woman after my own heart tbh. When she was giving Rayla advice but was so bad at it, I just had to laugh. She’s goofy but she’s not one to be played around with and I respect her for it. I hope we see more of her next season as well.

- Queen Aanya. YAAAAAS. That wit. The strength of her character. She reminds me so much of Lyanna Mormont because she doesn’t take any shit from anyone. She can damn right hold her own so if people are gonna come at her they better come correct and with FACTS @ Viren. What was it she said? “I’m a crown without an adult, and you’re an adult without a crown” LISTEENNNNNN. You better tell him Aanya, he ain’t shit!!!

- Aaravos.... Heh. HOW DARE HIS VOICE BE THAT DEEP AND THAT RICH. HOW DARE HE BE SO GOOD LOOKING AND SO MYSTERIOUS. HOW DARE HE LOOK SO DELICIOUS. “How may I serve you?” How about you [redacted] in my [redacted] and [redacted] [redacted]. The thing is I know he’s shady and he most likely will fuck everything up, but I really just enjoy watching him so much. He plays with us the audience and draws us into him and I just.... whew.

- Lord Viren. He can be offed now please. I’m tired of him. No wonder his “best friend” dumped him, his wife left him, people don’t wanna listen to him. Does he have good intentions? Hard to tell. He’s going about everything the wrong way. Queen Sarai gave her life to save him, and he honours both her and King Harrow by trying to have their sons killed??? Really??? I ain’t with it.

Anyways. Season 2 was dope. I loved TDP even more if that’s possible? I’m excited for season 3. I hope we get Runaan back because I really miss my husband. Also, more Captain Amaya because the lack of her was just sad. I also just wanna add, because I can’t not add my other good boy, but Bait is also the purest thing and I’ll defend him until the end <3 that is all.

[canvaswolfdoll]

CanvasWatches: The Dragon Prince (Season 3)

And we’re back! Since the last batch of episodes… my life has changed very little. Dog’s still adorable. D&D campaigns keep stalling due to lack of time or interest of others. Not producing any of my own epic projects.

Yup.

The third season continues its trends of subverting tropes with kind of a lackluster pay off, while playing other tropes benignly straight. We finally get into Xadia, which has some interesting fauna. But even the character writing is starting to wear a bit thin. Everyone’s been settled into their roles and personalities, and few characters get to interact with others they hadn’t previously.

So, same recommendation level as last time: watch it if you have time and/or have been following it, but it’s not a major tragedy if you don’t.

We open the season with backstory for the inventor of Dark Magic, Ziard, and a former Dragon King, Sol Regem. Sol Regem wants Ziard to stop with the dark magic. Ziard is like ‘we humans don’t have naturally occurring magic, this is literally our only way to defend ourselves from you magical folk.’ to which Sol Regem responds “Stop it or I’ll raze your home city.”

So Ziard sacrifices himself and a few birds to blind Sol Regem and saved the city.

Which means the founder of Dark Magic is a good guy, and Dark Magic may not be inherently bad, and this is what I wanted and I’m sure I’ll be deprived of the conclusion once the series actually ends.

So, what are the arcs for the various teams?

Well, Team Escort lost Ezran, so it’s just Callum and Rayla making googly eyes at one another and becoming an official couple about half way through the season. I appreciate them not dragging the romantic subplot any further than necessary, and even granting us half a season to watch them be love birds, but it also smoothed out their dynamic, cutting down on the banter they once had. I miss their quips.

Team King (Ezran, Opeli, Corvus) are dealing with Ezran’s new authority and Viren being Viren. It’s nice to watch Ehran’s morals being tested, and showing that doing the right thing can be more difficult than just going to war. There’s political maneuvering that, in a more complex show, would’ve had more grey areas, but it’s mostly just Team King versus Team Viren.

Speaking of Team Viren, he picked up Aaravos and Prince Kasef, so Viren in no longer alone! He is also no longer in charge, as without King Harrow to set goals, Viren lets Aaravos call the shots. Viren is remarkably easy to lead. Viren’s actual goals also seem murkier than previous seasons. He clearly wants power, but I no longer know to what end. Is he avenging Ziard? Does he want world domination? To bring Humanity to greater heights? Or is he just a more active Lord Ozai? Regardless, his moral ambiguity is out, and I miss it.

Finally, Team Dark (Claudia and Soren). Turns out, I got their meta roles backwards in the first season review! Claudia is the loyal Azula to Viren’s Ozai, while Soren is the Zuko. I am disappointed by this arrangement, because watching Claudia’s descent into evil means she gets less funny moments, and I don’t think Soren can shoulder the full Zuko arc. Also, fear of making big changes prevents the narrative from doing anything really interesting.

The third season has a heavy case of fast travel. What took Team Escort three seasons to cover is now done by full armies in three episodes. There’s a giant sea in the way, remember? And a lava flow? Characters travel back and forth with remarkable ease for people without Rheairds.

After Viren’s rather drastic actions last season lands him in a cell after sending out magically created assassins with only the voice of a mysterious Startouch Elf named Aaravos, who is such an obvious example of what Viren would be if he were totally self-motivated that I’m astounded that Viren hasn’t ditched him, Ezran has kind of a mess to handle upon assuming the throne. The other four human kingdoms want to avenge their murdered/injured rulers, but Ezra doesn’t want to continue the cycle of violence, which is good in theory, but Prince Kasef is pushy and is willing to wage war of Ezran’s kingdom if necessary.

Also, Ezran spares Claudia and Soren from sharing their father’s fate, because that would be a jerk move. Team Dark confronts Viren about his secret missions, and Viren elects to burn his relationship with Soren to maintain the loyalty of Claudia.[1]

All this ends with Viren taking the throne (again) and Ezran taking a bird to rejoin Team Escort.

Now in charge, Viren’s like ‘I’m in charge of all the human armies now!’ and all the human armies are like “Checks out.”

But first, he needs to keep his end of the trade he made with Ezran, and lets soldiers opt out if they’d like. But they have to wear a broken chain patch to mark their cowardice. You’d think this would lead to a subplot about those who abandon the mission being shunned, but that would require more than nine episodes worth of time, so it’ll pay off at the very end instead.

What about Team Escort? Well, Callum and Rayla are finally being forced to confront their unresolved romantic tension as they keep walking towards their goal.

Initially, Rayla’s trauma of being unpersoned by her hometown acts as a nice distraction. I mean, sure, you sent a literal child to kill another younger child, and used a vague sort of magic tracking to decide she abandoned the mission as opposed to unforeseen events transpiring, but, sure, Night Elf knock-offs, make her a ghost in her own home town. You jerks.

Rayla eventually gets to talk with her Uncle’s husband, who only offers to send an advance message to the Dragon Queen and not, you know, telling the rest of town Rayla’s on an even better and less murdery mission and maybe we should reperson her?

Does anyone think of ways to resolve more than one problem at a time? Or think laterally? Is… is that why this fictional history is the way it is? Literally only three kids are able to conceive of consequences of their actions? That should be the adults jobs!

Mirroring the inland sea from last season, Xadia has a giant black sand desert with deadly zombifying snakes and hot sand. So that’s fun.

Luckily, a Skywing elf named Nyx has a giant lumbering camel to transport them over two days. She’s here to kidnap Zym under the theory of a reward, but I love her design and character so she better come back!

Maybe throw her into the Teen Girl Rogue Squad I want. She’d play off Amaya well.

Anyways, the trip is enough for Callum and Rayla to finally decide to be an item. So they’re an item with half the season to go.

Which, cool, we get to actually watch a relationship develop beyond the ‘We’re dating now’ point, but there isn’t actually down time to dig into that, so instead Callum and Rayla bicker less and it’s lame.

But Ezran took a moon phoenix, so he’s caught up. Time to climb a mountain!

Oh, by the way, Amaya got taken prisoner by Sunfire elves, acquires an elf girlfriend abruptly, and escapes with her to join Team Escort. Whoo.[2]

Team Viren plus Dark lead their army to the Sunfire Capital so Viren can steal a staff to forcibly upgrade his forces, and Soren finally decides enough is enough, and flees to join Team Escort while Claudia converts fully to Team Viren. Now, Claudia doubling down on her loyalty to her father is disappointing for a number of reasons, but, again, a later thought.

Anyways, Team Escort has gotten to the Dragon Queen, but she’s in a despair coma, and they get information an army is coming, so guess it’s time to prepare for war?

War ensues. It looks bad for our heroes for a bit, but then reinforcements bearing the banner of the broken link appears to flip off Viren specifically.

Good guys win the battle. During clean up, Ezra stumbles upon Viren, who threatens to kill him, but Soren shows up to defend Ezra. Then Cluaida shows up to make this tragedy even more Shakespearan.

Soren stabs his father, but it’s just an illusion.

Which is the first major missed opportunity. Yes, Viren[3] has a confrontation to have with Rayla and Callum in the Dragon Queen’s lair, but I think this confrontation didn’t add much. Having Soren kill his own father and having to face the emotional consequences of that instead of disappointing Claudia…

Actually, what was the point of illusion Viren? Could it have killed Ezran? Why would Claudia be okay with killing Ezran? Why kill Ezran at this point?

Anyways, Soren should’ve killed Viren, and Claudia could’ve still necromancied him back to life.

Instead, Viren falls off a mountain. It’s meh.

With all that done, the Dragon Queen wakes up and is pleased to have her son back (reasonable) and there’s two human/elf couples present (weird). I mean, she’s the first dragon shown not to be deeply anti-human, and I’m not sure that tracks? Shouldn’t she be in favor of the separation, or were there a bunch of bedroom arguments between her and her husband about racial politics?

Anyways, if we didn’t have three more schools of magic to get through, this would be the point we get the ‘where are they now’ epilogue, as all conflicts are resolved.

Except Claudia resurrects her father, and…

Wait. Viren had an elf prisoner. He could’ve resurrected Harrow. What is his deal? What are his motivations.

Anyways, the grub that was acting as the speakerphone between Viren and Aaravos went to pupate and it’s scary to our dark mages.

Which finally brings me to what I really wanted to see happen: Aaravos should’ve traded puppets. What would’ve been a better power move than him setting Viren up for failure so he could use the more gullible (and powerful?) Claudia instead. They’ve been slow rolling his deal, but what better way to firmly plant Aaravos as the most Machevallian Jerk than to out ‘for the greater good’ Viren himself? There’s an inevitable conflict between the two, as Viren hates elves despite being too trusting of Aaravos, so why not have Aaravos shrug off Viren getting stabbed by Soren and send his grub to Claudia’s ear?

Heck, why not have him teach her the wrong spell and use Viren’s body as a vessel?

Come on, this is one of the few times I’m actually advocating killing someone off. I never do that. But the story potential we’re now missing is tremendous!

Anyways, despite my snark and notes, I did enjoy the season. Not as much as the second season, as it got too locked into the myth arc to have as much fun as the last season, but the show’s maintaining what strengths it does have. However, I can easily predict it falling from grace sooner than later. Story-heavy shows struggle to maintain momentum past three seasons, and research indicates there’s four more planned.

Still, I’m excited to see what happens now the main quest has been completed.

If you enjoyed this review and what more, please use the tags below to explore my other writings, as well supporting my patreon (for early access and regular support) or my ko-fi (for a quick tip). I want to do more fun things.

Kataal kataal.

-

[1] Which had the potential for a much, much better pay off than we got. [2] Just once, I want the person whose confident the other is too stubborn to admit their crush to be wrong. I would love that dynamic. [3] Wearing some nice pajamas.

[sir-phineas-lost]

The Dragon Prince S.3

I have some feelings I need to get off my chest. Warning for spoilers as usual.

I love that the opening sequence is the same as the one from season 1, but from a new perspective. Suddenly that big dark spell Ziard did has a new context, and Sol Regem is the new top-contender for most hatable character.

Yup, definitely the undefeated champion. “Filthy human”, humph.

I do love how Callum thinks in terms of how to unlock more arcanums.

Ok, the silverhenge is a pretty cool location with the illusion and the ritual to get in. And “ghosting” someone is a pretty creative and interesting punishment.

More LGBQT representation AND confirmation that Runaan is alive, sorta. This makes me happy.

“It’s something oddly familliar.....Boomerang?” Ok, this show is a bit too clever for its own good sometimes.

I really love how Callum admits that he still can’t stop hating Avizandum, even as he is looking at his corpse and realizes that this used to be his friend’s dad. That is an impressive level of nuance.

Aaaand with all the positive stuff out of the way...

On a much less happy romantic note: I do not care for the Raylum shipping...at all. I think it has all the tropes of every bland and forced main boy/main girl relationship rolled into one. They have zero in common outside of their mission and all of their romantic moments are literally forced on them. This ritual needs them to hold hands and that plan requires Reyla to wear Callum’s scarf. I just don’t see them having any chemistry once there is peace. They are mainly bonding over how gosh-darn good the other one is and how they keep having to touch each other.

Um, so what was Ezran’s plan exactly? The other kingdoms threaten to go to war so he abdicates the throne and basically lets Viren have the war Ezran originally wanted to prevent? What happened to his positive development from the end of season 2?

I am sad to see that they apparently decided to throw out Viren’s sympathetic angle and go full dictator and gaslighting with him.

On the bright side, I do like that Soren is finally out of the grey zone.

But then it comes at the cost of Claudia moving in the other direction.

And BOY did they double down on the “garden of Eden” theme in the third act. If you thought Sol Regem meant they were going to finally shine a light on Xadia’s bigotry over the humans you are in for a disappointment.

Instead we get Xadia being the underdogs, against an army of humans who are conveniently dehumanized so that we won’t feel bad when they are mowed down by arrows and a character we have gotten to know for a while gets shot in the eye and dies horribly.

What really gets me is the sheer hypocricy of it all. From the very start of the show, they have said over and over again that this was about stopping a war from breaking out. To end the cycle of violence on both sides. I already had a problem with that since Xadia is obviously in a much more powerful position compared to the humans and it makes no sense that humans even could inflict anything on the scale that Xadia did to humanity with just their banishment. But they went so many steps beyond that.

That war they wanted to stop so badly? It came anyway, and our heroes picked a side. Just like they did when the dragon attacked a town full of people last season. And this is apparently a good thing because somehow the country that is the size of all the others combined and has magic coursing through its very dirt, can barely muster up any forces at all and humans are able to walk all over them.

Oh, and remember how everyone was soooo in love with Aanya for being such a wise and peaceful ruler who wouldn’t draw her people into war? Well, turns out she is quite happy to send out her armies, against other humans. But that’s ok, because the humans are literal monsters now.

Not only does the overly optimistic plan to return Zym work, the Dragon Queen seems almost extatic about humans and elves working together. Like she has secretly been wishing for this the entire time. There is no systematic predjudice from anyone in Xadia. Elves are perfectly fine whenever they see Callum and happily break bread with human soldiers after the battle. I guess all it took was for humans to finally redeem themselves in the eyes of their betters.

(Sigh) I am just...so disappointed with this show. It had such an amazing setup that promised to do so many subversive things for a fantasy story. To finally deconstruct the “humans ruin everything” trope or the idea that any power that looks icky must be evil. When I heard about what was going on at Wonderstorm I got worried. Aside from the obvious problems with abuse I feared for the show because they were leaking talent and what we were told about Aaron painted a picture of someone who fundamentally does not understand the dynamics of power and predjudice. Turns out my fears were right on the money. 

The Dragon Prince is good for what it is, and the text certainly has more than a few positive themes to it, but the future of the story is up in the air right now and honestly, I’m not sure I want another season. If it comes I will probably watch it, but I would be equally happy if the fanfic community wrote plenty of AUs instead. And I do hope that the fandom remains active.

[raayllum]

Hi I was the anon the asked about parallels. If you didn’t get that ask just forget about I wanted to add a question about how do separate fictional relationships romantic or otherwise with real life ones. I’m asking how to take your fandom glasses off( for lack of a better term?

I know this is probably obvious but it’s healthy to outgrow a show right and realize it was holding you back

Re: this ask a little while ago

Well, fanon/canon romantic relationships vs real ones are very different things (I am assuming that some of those are like, celebrity based, but that is an assumption so it may not make all my advice/thoughts accordingly accurate to what you're looking for, depending on your circumstances).

Characters in a story do not have legitimate agency, as they are not real. They cannot decide to have feelings for another character, nor can they decide to be with them. The writer(s) or fans must realize the potential and, by virtue of being real while the characters are not, can engage with said potential in a variety of ways. This is especially true when it comes to ascribing/projecting versus recognizing our experiences in characters. For example, I very much read and interpret Rayllum as an aspec dynamic (Callum as demiromantic, Rayla as demisexual) and Ezran (among various other characters in TDP) as Autistic as an aspec and Autistic person, but those are ultimately headcanons. At most I might argue there's coding, whether intentionally on behalf of the creative team or not, not is anyone else Wrong for not headcanoning those characters the same way. They're not real, and the wellbeing of real people always takes priority over the wellbeing of fictional characters.

Secondly, there's a wide range of shipping and what it means out there. This is because shipping doesn't always mean "these two characters live happily ever after with babies" (or even if that is the end goal, is not where the root of interest lies). I have characters I ship as in "they didn't even really date and are now longstanding divorced from one another" (Viren/Harrow), "this would never be canon but I like it anyway, and possibly ship either or both halves with other characters in canon anyway" (Terry/Corvus), or "I only ship this 10-15+ years later when they're in very different stages of their lives" (aged up Soren/Opeli or Claudia/Ezran, for example).

This also means learning to read shipping signs even if 1) the ship isn't your cup of tea and 2) how to recognize a lack of shipping signs even if the ship is your cup of tea. Just because I like a ship doesn't mean I think it is, or should be, canon, and just because a ship doesn't work for me as much personally doesn't mean it's 1) a bad ship or 2) isn't happening.

Now, in real life, most of us don't necessarily choose who we develop feelings for (although I know that can vary for people who are on the aromantic spectrum sometimes, myself included) but like

In a fic, or a book, or a show, often times we are privy to characters' direct thought processes. We'll see scenes where they are alone or not with each other. This allows us often to get a very personalized peek inside their head, to really definitively know what they're thinking (and why).

There is no real world equivalent to that; all we have is taking people at their word or at their writing, and trusting that they mean what they say. And maybe we trust that because of consistency, or time frame, or said words being supported by actions, but it is trust. It takes a long, long time for trust to turn into knowledge, in relationships.

A good example of keeping heads screwed on straight (ironically for a queer couple) might be me and my partner. We're both big Rayllum fans and ended up seeing a lot of ourselves in them as people and as a couple. I relate most heavily to Callum but Rayla is my favourite; they relate most heavily to Rayla and Callum is their favourite. And while the similarities are sometimes useful and often times funny, we are decidedly not Rayllum and they are decidedly not us.

More than out growing a show, I think (although that can happen too) it might be more useful to frame it as outgrowing a mindset. If we make any given thing - particularly fictional concepts we do not own and thereby don't have any ultimate control over, and that going a certain way - or anything, really, too much a part of our self-perception/identity, we will undoubtedly have a very hard time if/when those things don't go our way, and inevitably at least one of them. Self hood needs to be grounded in meaningful relationships with art, hobbies, trusted people, and selfhood. Ships and shows can be reflections of that, but probably shouldn't be much more - and never taken that personally

[moonshxdows]

book 2 trailer analysis

ill be posting some screencaps of the trailer sometime tomorrow as well so keep an eye out!

AAAAAAAAAAA ITS HERE!!!!!!

okay so a quick rewatch before I go through it frame by frame and just. god im so excited i love this show so much

anyways everything's gonna be under the cut bc its long and spoilery if u havent seen the trailer yet

okay so the opening clip looks like its in a human town. dragang is being chased across the bridge by some angry humans with pitchforks. raylas wearing the human cape. they got caught?

some clips from s1

okay. ezran ellis and zym are outside this white building. its shaped similarly to the star elf buildings we see later on. did they have to sit out some stuff that rayla and callum got to see? or is this like. lujanne's house or something

the fire (?) dragon is coming down on "a town of katolis" that soren is in. im assuming this isnt near the castle and claudia is there but out of frame, so did they get caught up in something on accident or were the dragons drawn to them because of the spell? lujanne recognized it, the dragons might too

wife (sunfire knight)

if my blog wasnt more cool toned that would be my new header oh my god

in the upper left corner of the screen theres a castle. there aren't any human kingdoms that are on the banks of a lava waterfall so is that an elf castle? or is this the place where all the royals got that fire background?

im dumb thats probably a halfway castle and the lava river is the border i forgot they said border over this

fuck off vitriol

elves attacking amaya and her squadron. these are likely the sunfire elves at the border, since amaya is also at the border. the castle in the last shot is probably more of a fortress

wife kicking ass! w her cool ass sword

something i noticed about the sunfire elves, or at least the warriors. the headdresses they wear are actually armor to protect their horns! they also have markings/tattoos like moonshadow elves, but they seem less elaborate (at least on their face)

does this mean horns are as important in all elf races or just sunfire elf races?

opeli ur the only bitch in this house i trust. is viren keeping the missions w the brodigies under wraps or does opeli think that's not enough?

boat! are they on their way to evenere?

awe

star elf bitch there u are u sexy bastard. zi @moonxadia made a fantastic theory on that elf here, but tl;dr that's elarion being shady (as much as ive liked the aaravos theories i dont think thats him)

viren being shady (spell had similar look as star elf from last clip)

RAYLA I MISSED YOU

zym i would die for you

the background to that looks interesting- are they having a big dinner of some sort?

ik other people have said this but that's definetly runaans strike crew from early s1. the very dead strike crew. zombie elves!

also if they touch a hair on aanyas head i Will Cry she looks so small in that throne...

(altho they dont really seem to be attacking her at all?)

okay so i know people have been saying the on fire shot are elves but i really dont think so. none of them have horns or the sunfire headdresses. i think that's a human army

AZYMONDIAS THE FUTURE MOST POWERFUL BEING IN THE WORLD I WOULD TAKE A BULLET FOR YOU IN A HEARTBEAT

(its another moon moth. same one as from earlier in the trailer?)

so in the shot of dragang on The Bird, callum looks really upset. like, seriously upset. this might be part of a joke bc hes holding bait, but im worried

ezran baby boy. hes so worried

zym!!!! i love you!!!!!!!

these pillars look real cool. is this a magic place?

okay so runaans deceased elf crew again, but pre-zombification (or post?) did lujanne summon them? is it a moon elf thing? why are they stars? is it a star elf clearing?

so zoom out, theyre in these... gazebos? made of starlight? nothing to comment it just looks real cool

hey claudia maybe... not.

im very concerned that when claudia said "you take creatures that are born with magic inside and squeeze it out of them" it panned over zym briefly

callum looked concerned so im hoping its a flashback of some sort? but they look like theyre in an elf place... idk. im worried about him this season

i know i said what i said but dark magic claudia is hot

wtf was that thing tho

rayla is suspicious™ (and she should be tbh)

sword fight!! im both excited and scared

callum is having a rough time and i want to hug him

thankfully raylas there

so a lot of people have said this but i do think thats because of harrow, not the dark magic. idk why i think that but. shrug

so i wanna talk about the audio playing over these last few bullets real quick. rayla says they cant trust soren and claudia, followed immediately by lujanne saying "real trust is about accepting the dark parts we will never know" which makes me curious. did brodigies and catch up with dragang while they were still with lujanne? since the group splits sometime during the season

if it is the case im curious how theyre gonna go from hating elves to being in a traveling party with 2 of them and a baby dragon

and if thats not the case, what is lujanne talking about?

wait i just had a really horrible thought what if they lied to win dragang's trust and rayla is the only one that's suspicious

moving on,

rayla and callum both look Real Concerned wtf are they talking about

so it looks like lujanne is leading callum to some Elf Thing; maybe its right before she shows him the star elf ghosts? it does look to be around sunset

DRAGON QUEEN???

even if its not tHATS THE POSTER DRAGON HELLO!!!!

rayla i will never not love you

EZRAN I WILL NEVER NOT LOVE YOU

sarai Hes Not Worth It

im excited about flashbacks though 👀

hello lord voltron. perish.

okay so thats the same fire dragon from earlier, but w its face all cut up. soren was prepared to go sword vs dragon and i think he won

"watch yo fuckin dog bitch" "he dont bite" "yES HE DO"

thats the vibe coming from that wolf/badger thing. also that guy screaming at the cat in his backyard

but fr what is that

thunder kinda looks like voldemort from this angle ngl

okay. okay. dark magic callum is a go

buddy what the FUCK do you think youre doing

ive seen some things saying that he's being controlled but i dont think so. i think he listened to claudia and im very curious to see how this affects his relationship with rayla

i think he was missing being the mage? which is why he tried to learn primal magic from lujanne but failed ultimately

depending on the theory, i wonder how people will spin half-elf!callum for this

i dont actually know if elves can even use dark magic fjnshfk like i assume they can but?? who knows

fire golem?? and who has the sword

my bad theres soren v dragon i thought it was earlier

mr fire dragon sir how the fuck did you lose. you have teeth? claws? wings? presumably fire powers?

AAAAAAAAAA TWO WEEKS!!!!!!!

[shanastoryteller]

shana’s thoughts on the dragon prince

now, i did like it overall, but there are a bunch of negative opinions i have about the show, so if you don’t want to read someone saying mean things about your new favorite show, that’s totally fair! but then this post isn’t for you

i’m putting this under a cut, and if the cut doesn’t work bc you’re on mobile ... scroll really fast? i can’t help you.

1. first and foremost, what the FUCK was that frame rate?? i’m sorry, i’ve seen smoother motion in early 2000s video games. that was literally painful to watch at times. i get they’re trying to save money, but please ... the two different animation styles are distracting enough, especially what the people are animated to be so flat. the animation, while beautiful in parts, is definitely not the strongest part of the show, but could be infinitely improved by a higher fps

2. so many “jokes” that just aren’t funny. they’re trying for everyone to be wry and it actually very rarely works. or even when the line is funny, it disrupts the flow of the story. “say hello to my little friend” as the trigger word for bait completely took me out of the story, but they didn’t even keep it as a trigger phrase, so it was pointless. rayla pausing to say goodbye to the ground before climbing the tree could have been very funny - but she paused!! people are in danger, this is time sensitive, why are you stopping to say something funny to no one? this thing in particular happened multiple times, where the line was funny, the delivery was funny, but the way everything stops so they can say the funny thing ruins it. i’m certain people can walk and talk at the same time, so let them.

3. holy shit there’s so much exposition. like straight up, that whole intro scene? worthless. everything gets covered again later on. it defs shouldn’t have been more than 30 seconds. there’s a lot of explainy moments where characters talk about things they should already know. there are also lots of clever moments where information is conveyed deftly and well, so more of that, less hitting the audience over the head with it. i found the first 2 episodes to be pretty boring because of this, and it wasn’t until 3 episodes in i was like, oh good, something interesting is happening. because of the long explanation in the beginning, the opening scene of reyla sparing the guard had less weight for me, because i was still trying to figure out what the fuck was going on, instead of accepting a fairly straightforward scene between rayla and the guard that would have been a fantastic starting point for the show

4. on a similar note, please some exposition about how magic works. what are its rules, its limits, how does it work?? we know about the six sources of magic, but that’s pretty much it. there’s laughably little information about how the rules of magic work in this world, and because nothing is ever explained, we have no idea how impressive something is, or what the stakes are, and its very frustrating

5. there was an awful lot of hype for how moon shadow elves were unstoppable only for them to be ... kind of invisible and really strong and fast? but like clearly very stoppable. 

6. lots of “plot twists” were incredibly obvious, but this is a kids show, so i’ll let that one slide. but it does mean that as an adult viewer i’m less surprised by a big reveal than i am just waiting for it to happen so something else can happen

7. ezran’s animal speaking came out of almost nowhere, and it definitely should have come up like, 4 episodes in, not in the last episode when convenient. wtf. also, like, if this is a thing the king can do too, which would make sense with his bird and all, why is it a secret? why didn’t ezran just find a better way to prove it to callum before this whole thing started, instead of oh i tried with the raccoons now i’m done? his brother clearly listens to him at least sometimes. 

8. rayla’s hand. oh my fucking god, her hand. she should have lost it you cowards. the line about her not understanding sacrifice in the beginning, having to take responsibility for bad decisions like the king said, the whole subplot with the giant wolf only having three legs and how he was just fine that way, literally like ten minutes before. and absolutely no mention about dragons being able to bite away the binding, or about royalty being able to break the binding. just oh good the dragon has bitten the binding off in the last two minutes of the show, all that set up and overarching themes we set up? pointless and worthless. 

now for thing i like

1. the characters are genuinely likable and multi dimensional (excluding viren who’s pretty cookie cutter). they all have flaws and doubts and are all badasses in their own way. it’s 100% how i like to see characters written, and so rarely do, and it’s absolute pleasure that this show is full of them. it makes all the things i dislike about it so much easier to swallow

2. callum and his conflicted relationship about being in the palace and being the step prince are so incredibly obvious and real and wonderful, and i can already tell i’m going to write a fic, because it was done so well and i adore it. his conversation with the king was a masterpiece. definitely a high point of the show

3. callum’s relationship with ezran is so pure and loving and good. he loves his little brother so much, with no bitterness or resentment or anything at all. he just loves him. and he gets irritated by him, because they’re brothers, but it’s clearly a very good relationship.

4. claudia and soren get the runner up for best sibling relationship. they also clearly care about each other and get on each others nerves and make fun of each other. 

5. soren is surprise fave. he’s a big dumb idiot who’s kind of a jerk but i love him. like one second he’s making fun of callum for being a step prince, and the next he’s pretending to get beaten by him so callum can impress his sister. it would have been so easy for him to make fun of callum instead, or to humiliate him for his crush on claudia, but instead he’s like “yeah i’ll help you look cool in front of my sister, even though you ruined my fun and didn’t let her walk into a tree” he’s dumb and a jerk and a good person. he’s great. 

6. reyla’s internal struggle and her relationship with runaan is fantastic, and i wish we’d gotten to see more of it. she’s trying so hard all the time to do the right thing and make everyone proud and i love it. 

7. amaya is fucking iconic. “breakfast is the most important meal of the day.” i love her. shes’s amazing and wonderful in every way. also the way she refuses to take the throne is badass.

8. the show is clearly trying so hard to be diverse and inclusive, and it really is like a breath of fresh air to see. there’s so much obvious care going on here, and the clear love in which all of it was done is another thing that blunts the edges of the many things i dislike about the show. 

9. the landscape and background animation is very well done, and often beautiful. 

look, i watched the whole first season in one sitting when i wasn’t planning to, so obviously it’s a net positive. i liked, i’ll watch a second season, but there are things which i really dislike about the show, and to be completely honest, if the characters weren’t written so incredibly well, i would probably drop it. but they are, and while there are other, smaller things about the show that make it good, the well written characters alone make it worth watching