#anti aaravos

[inflammatoryfandomblog]

Tbh that Aaravos being responsible for every conflict in the last millenia gives me major degenerate cospiracy theory vibes and of this quote of a show that I am not a fan of https://youtu.be/Mq1EphvZGMg

I like how the greatest danger coming from him is implied to continue rickrolling and "trust me bro" some mages (which he already does?) rather than possessing magnificent cosmic powers?

The main characters get dragged along with the plot of stopping him without stopping and reflecting for a moment, you could literally ask them why he needs to be stopped and it'll be something like, "because he is making stoopid humans do war against xadia, duh"

And Apparently Ezran's ancestor/dynasty founder from 300 years ago betrayed him? And humans, elves and drakes worked together to imprison him? Yet their relationship still didn't improve at all??

Yeah I prefer reading dnd's filled to the brim complicated lore over what that is, a villain whose motives you do not know until this point isn't interesting and I yet haven't seen anything morally gray about him and I don't think he should be near women for some reason. His ruthless actions make sense in the situation he is in, I guess, but he is still an asshole?

Like what does he want? Become an Archon with his mindslave mages?

Lmfao the Diamonds from Steven Universe were more menacing

i wouldn't lob that at the showrunners; i mean obviously conspiracy theories like the illuminati have been pretty far-right in recent years, which has made some plots that involve them a bit uncomfortable in retrospect. but the far-right aren't the only people to fall for them, and for fiction they're an attractive way to have the focus on the characters rather than writing a societal treatise or whatever. dealing with Issues that require consideration is hard, writing wise; it's much simpler to have a final boss.

i think it's just sort of easy to show that a character is an mastermind by having them be responsible for literally everything. aaravos is more like lucifer than an expy of any group of people, i mean he's a fallen star and seems to have heavenly brothers/people, you can't really get more on the nose than that.

which like, the concept isn't *inherently* bad even if i hate it, like aaravos could just be successful because maybe he exploits faults that were already there in society in the first place or he's a metaphor for something, or whatever. it could work in theory, but this sort of plotline is so botched like a good 99.99% of the time (so much so that just the use of this trope is a pretty big red flag) and without a lot of work it really DOES undermine the "cycle of violence" theme completely if everything is the fault of one guy.

the dragon prince is just not good at showing the different sides of any issue with any depth of consideration, especially when it comes to the human side, so i'm not really holding my breath.

as for his motivation, idk the fact that the dragons are so afraid of him and that he could solo them means that he has a lot of power, he just wants to fuck about for some other issue other than just to gain power, like maybe revenge against somebody else (or to gain power over bigger fish than the dragons/elves and fucking about lets him do that), probably because he wants to stick it to his former star-people or whatever. who knows, there are literally no hints in the show as to why he might do this. it doesn't really matter to our characters or literally any other conflict that has emotional weight behind it, so i don't really care.

yeah the fact that a human was the one to bring to light aaravos's deception is... kind of weird, that the relations didn't improve at all. on one hand it probably explains why the dragons have been more ambivalent about humans than the "kill on sight" border patrolling policy they have would suggest (though at least one, rex igeneous, seems to disagree with it.) on the other hand... there's that "kill on sight" border patrolling policy they have, and also you'd think the existence of a primal human mage wouldn't be unknown for the first few season if she was literally buddies with a queen pivotal to the history of katolis. but the whole “callum is the only person ever to have wanted to be a primal mage badly enough” is not as compelling as the writers think it is.

"i don't think he should be near women for some reason." yeah. in his interactions with the female characters there's this very harass-y element to how he's portrayed (for example, khessa's death--not the obliteration itself, how he handles it just before). he also uses the word "ravishing" unironically, which... lmao. tryhard reddit vocabulary.

[t-n-c]

@saraptor

"Yeah I remember getting this vibe (as in it hit me like a truck) when Aaravos made that move on the Sunfire Queen, and then again with his comment to Zubeia. He's slimy in a way that's deeply uncomfortable. I always thought I was just looking into it too much tho (or being overly sensitive.) Like, i was making a load of jokes about sparklepuff but the "our child" comments kind of drive it home ajdhwhsjfhs"

I don't think you were looking too much into it or being overly sensitive. Further, I agree with you, Aaravos is slimy in those scenes--and that's one of the problems I have with him.

To be clear, him being slimy it's necessarily an issue for me by itself (there are plenty of good villains who're depicted as creeps, after all). My problem lies with the impression that we as the audience were supposed to see those scenes as him being "Cool, Powerful, and Sexy" and not anything negative--something that doesn't really fit if the writers' goal is to tell a complex and progressive story.

Another issue I have is that it feels like his sleaziness makes up his whole personality at this point. I can think of only two instances in the show where he seemed to express genuine, non-schemey emotions (i.e. the confusion he had when he admitted to Viren he didn't know where he was imprisoned and the rage he showed when he recounted to Viren how Avizandum/Thunder helped imprison him). Every other time he's present he's depicted as a Smirking Seductor (TM) or The Great Evil (TM)--neither of which are bad if you're writing a simple good vs evil story, but tdp keeps trying to be nuanced so having that kind of villain doesn't really work.

More tdp s5 spoilers under the cut

(TW: acts of coercion/violation will be mentioned)

With how imbalanced their relationship is and my prior concerns regarding Aaravos' history of coercive/violating behavior towards Viren, Sir Sparklepuff being established as Viren and Aaravos's child makes me reeeeeally uncomfortable.

[wishesofeternity]

My problem with The Dragon Prince is that while it preaches about "breaking the cycle" and "choosing love", it repeatedly does so in a way that echoes the age-old idea of telling victims to passively accept their lot in life and the injustices inflicted upon them while their perpetrators never have to acknowledge their wrongs or face consequences for their actions. This is the kind of narrative they follow on both a personal and systematic axis, and it's exactly why the show will always frustrate me.

[hotdoghottakes]

Ok, so finally got around to watching The Dragon Prince, three and a half seasons so far before having to take a break from the binge, and...I don't...love it. I mean it's good, the characters and story are solid, it's just...

I'm not going to go into detail about this, not until I've watched the whole thing at least, so no one @ me about how I "don't get it" or "well of you actually watched the whole thing".

I'll get to it when I get to it, alright?

[self-spaghettification]

I had a lot of analysis on s4/5 after rewatching and there was some good thematic stuff in 6 too but I honestly don’t even want to post it anymore after that 😔

[themattress]

What's fucked up is that Claudia had a chance to deny this success to Rayla at the end of S4; she could have taken the coins. But Terry talked sense into her and so she gave them back. And in return, she gets this outcome - plus her leg cut off by Rayla. It's a bad joke of cosmic injustice; the exact opposite karma that you'd expect from a good deed. If Claudia ever ends up killing Rayla, I'd find it difficult to be angry at her for it. Bitch'd have it coming.

Thinking about how the season started with Viren leaving Claudia in order to atone for his wrongdoings and Claudia unsuccessfully begging him to stay. And then later on never getting to say goodbye.

And the season ended with Rayla getting the chance to see Lain and Tiadrin one final time before letting them go and then succeeding in convincing Runaan to come back and stay with her.

Both these young women desperately wanted and needed their fathers, and yet only 1 succeeded in their mission to reunite with them.

[raayllum]

So I always meant to do a little meta about Rayla and sleep (aka sleeps sitting up in S4, lying down but fully dressed + with her weapons in S5 — and now in PJs without weapons in s6) and it never happened (to my memory), but it did make me think about how I wanted to talk about Callum's whole thing with sleep in S6, namely how bad it is, as well as a bit about Viren and Rayla by proxy.

So in S6 we see Callum have two nightmares (the pearl sleepwalking nightmare and dark magic nightmare, shall we see) in 6x01 and 6x03. He wakes up once in 6x01 and then stays awake all night coming up with the decoy plan and sewing the anti magic blanket. He's still seemingly catching up on sleep days later in 6x03, with Rayla letting him just as she did before, and he has his second nightmare. In the Frozen Ship he struggles to sleep at first because of the cold, as he won't share the blanket, and then wakes up again naturally in the night, but won't let himself kiss Rayla. All except the cold is ultimately rooted in Callum's concerns over Aaravos and his susceptibility to Aaravos because of dark magic.

We see this sleeplessness and concern return in 6x06 as well, before it's 'resolved' (for the season). This nightmare and restlessness is something Viren experienced a bit of in S4 (namely 4x07), but we see it more consistently in S6, specifically with nightmares and fears of Aaravos using him as well, him waking up fitfully twice in 6x05:

Most of this fits with other aspects of the series. Dark magic causes you to fall into a coma-like state that persisted even once Viren 'woke up,' the comas themselves involve nightmares / tormented dreams, and Janai directly cites Aaravos' influence over them (5x03, 5x09): "Aaravos taunts me in my dreams with visions of destruction and despair" (6x02). Dark magic and sleep can both be associated with death, and are both interwoven with passing out, the actual possession, Aaravos' hold over you being a canonical fate worse than death (restful eternal sleep), hence why both Viren and Callum choose it over continued control.

The thing that I thought was interesting that was not only how frequent is Callum's lack of rest in S6, after seasons of routinely sleeping fairly well, as an overarching consequence leftover from 5x08 and everything going on... but also that his insomnia isn't exclusively because of Aaravos or dark magic guilt either, as in Viren's case, but also (more positively) because of his bond with Rayla.

Of course to begin, there's the subtext that Callum feels safe sleeping beside / around her (your partner should give you rest from the horrors of the world, etc etc, particularly with her continued opposition to Aaravos' hold on Callum that S6 is going to make direct text after seasons of subtext). But in the vein of Rayla's hold on Callum being 1) equally powerful and 2) can overlap with more circumstantial qualities (sometimes good, sometimes bad) for his.

For example, Callum is sleepless in 6x05 because he's trying to figure out the ice heart spell in order to defeat the 'behemoth':

We later learn (though myself and many others already suspected) that his fixation on it through the night was because he knew the reward for defeating the 'monster' would be quasar diamonds, and he wanted them for Rayla's family.

Then, just as 6x06 opens with Callum being sleepless, the episode also closes in a similar manner. Whereas before it was anxiety and Aaravos keeping him awake, this time it's Rayla and the promise of full reconciliation. A redo.

What does this all mean, though? Well:

Sleep (+ nightmares) are used to further link Viren and Callum in S6 with mirrored fears of being used by Aaravos

It strengthens the connection between Aaravos, dark magic, and dreams/nightmares, as well as bringing Janai into the loop

Like Callum and Rayla, Janai is also sleepless in 6x02, but is seeking Amaya's story, and lets her partner in. Callum does the same with and for Rayla throughout S6

Callum's relationship with sleep being influenced in a negative manner by Aaravos (anxiety, insomnia, nightmares, puppetting) and a positive manner by Rayla (comfort, thoughtfulness, love, mutual devotion) is another way the two elves are put in opposition to each other for Callum's fate and wellbeing without making them complete opposites

and I think that's all pretty cool

[stardustamaryllis78]

Hey, Dragon Prince fans, let's play a game! Season 7 is (kinda near ish) so how about for season 7, we post 7 things we want to see!

I'll start:

Laurelion - I've been curious about them for so long now. I would really like to know more about them. It's a shame the necklace Claudia found of theirs didn't come with a backstory note.

Elarion - Probably one of my most wanted things to see, Elarion has intrigued me, like Laurelion, for a long time but longer. I want to know what happened there. I want to know the full relationship between Ziard and Aaravos. Were they friends? Acquaintances? Did Aaravos help with building the city? He gifted them Dark Magic so he had to be there for a while right? I need to know more.

Hot take here but I don't want a storyline where Ezran is mad at Runaan for killing Harrow. Why? Well because Zubeia was the one who called the attack. Runaan was doing his job. If Ezran is upset with Runaan, he should be upset with Zubeia too. I don't want it to take up unnecessary screen time when this is the last season of this arc and maybe (but hopefully not) of this show.

Another thing I don't want is for Aaravos to be coined. I know it's a popular theory on how he's going to be defeated but he literally just got out of his prison. I feel it would be super anti-climatic just to imprison him again, especially after waiting for him to get out after 6 seasons. And he's supposed to be one of the most powerful beings alive, coining him after him only being out for one season would be kind of a joke tbh. And for him as someone who has been betrayed in the past, he wouldn't let his guard down a second time so it wouldn't make sense.

Leola flashbacks. I just want to see her.

I want to know why Stella has been yeeting stuff in the background. I actually hope it has juicy relevance.

Last but not least, Aaravos is finally out man! I want to see him just do things! And I am especially looking forward to seeing what his relationship with Claudia will be like. We know they spent 2 years DMing each other via a magic sparkle catapiller so now he's free, it'll be more hectic and I'm here for it.

How about you guys? What are you hoping to see in season 7?

[bittrlys]

I have heard some people saying that the show is going to address the issues of humans being discriminated against will be addressed in season 7 dark. What do you think about that?

Personally, I think it might be a bit too late for them to properly address it and do it in a satisfactory way especially because the main ship rayllum had rayla being prejudice against humans but her actions don't get called compared to Callum so i doubt her actions will be called out next season as both the fandom and the narrative love to frame her in the right when she can sometimes be quite hypocritical and in the wrong.

Also, I want zubeia to be called out for her actions and zyms father but I doubt that will happen either.

Another question I also don't like the series framing of dark magic. Now in season 6 (took us 6 seasons) to learn that dark magic creates a hole in your spirit and it corrupts you to aaravos but that feels like the writers adding it in there so people don't bring up the whole arguement that dark magic is bad because the narrative says so. Also the show doesn't convince me dark magic is so bad that viren SHOULDN'T of used it to save soren or that Callum SHOULDN'T of used it to save rayla.

Idk to be honest the handling of dark magic within the narrative is so confusing and bad.

Anyway sorry this got so long

My very upfront opinion is that there is clearly some dissonance, and perhaps even conflict, in the writer's room about Viren and Claudia, dark magic, the cost of it, and the intended take away from these characters and their actions.

Now, when writing, there's no particular requirement to be honest with your audience or to not accurately represent how history can be muddled and shift. "Humans learned dark magic" to "Unicorns taught humans magic and were slaughtered in thanks" to "Aaravos is implied to have taught humans dark magic" to "Aaravos's daughter Leola (a uni-horned elf) taught humans magic and was killed" is cohesive enough, even considering the writers are on record saying they may be changing things as they go, as happens with writing. (With dark magic being the main sticking point of anti-human sentiments, how and why it occurred matters.) I also don't think the show has never wanted us to sympathize with humans or not see their discrimination -- the sight of them in tears as they're exiled, evoking the Trail of Tears (still bonkers), or Ziard's bitterness over how humans starved or his terror when Sol Regem tricks him in hopes to destroy Elarion are moments of raw feeling where the camera centres humans and their pain. Most of our protagonists are humans, and Callum, though occasionally punished for his ambitions, is a character who wants magic who is heroic.

The ultimate problem, however, is that the show wants to have its cake and eat it too, which goes back to my earliest complaints in how they 'meta write' from what we expect of fantasy and muddle their own messages. Certainly this show could be a long-form exercise in tricking people into rooting for ethnic cleansing racists but like, it's a show for kids. Sol Regem is a bad dragon and he is obviously bad. Zubeia is a good dragon and she is obviously good. We're supposed to understand Sol Regem kinda had it coming and understand that Zubeia being hurt is allegedly sad. There's no deceit to this straightforward presentation. Viren, Claudia, and now Aaravos are sympathetic villains, but they're still villains. And when your villains come in two main flavours of Team Anti-Human (arising after humans wronged Xadians initially, natch) or Team Human (or adjacent) and every hero is Team Xadia because humans fighting against the disparity of their world is Causing Trouble while humans who extend the hand of friendship to Xadians are Bringing Peace, it ultimately teaches us that "Maybe humans had a hard time of it, but it's time they suck it up." I don't think there was anything more explicit to this than having our Out Of The Mouth Of Babes protagonist Ezran's Zubeia-backed speech at the Many Thunder Victims Memorial Valley.

A lot of writers like villains who have a point, because they feel it adds depth to them, but they often jump straight to "the villain is a marginalized person who is fighting for change in the Wrong Way" and this creates an implication that Fighting For Change At All is wrong because our heroes are never passionate champions for equality. They may like equality, but they say "Not now -- not like this --" and it isn't central to their beliefs. Team Xadia are not nominally Anti Equality or Anti Humanity, but their framing vis a vis our villains makes this lack of investment in the liberation of humanity quite clear.

All of this is to say that I agree, it would be too little, too late, and that the fact the show has *already established* humans as being victims of discrimination makes the narratives around them all the more galling and difficult to untangle. I absolutely would like to have the show deliver one of its extremely straightforward, directly to the camera-type messages on how humans were discriminated against, yes, but it doesn't fix six seasons of presenting all anger on behalf of humanity as something that is ultimately morally unsound and in need of changing. And how much further can they take it? Can they portray Xadians as a whole as privileged beings who have benefited from the mistreatment of humans? Not just a few bad apples -- can they actually, truly acknowledge Xadians as less than idealized? Can they take seasons upon seasons of trying to make us love Xadians and turn it around with frank questions about things like "reparations" and "acknowledging generational trauma without both-sides-ing it"? Can they give us a purely heroic human protagonist who is firmly Team Human and centres human interests? I don't think so. They prefer keeping to their "Callum and Amaya and Ezran constantly apologizing and putting down humanity in favour of their Xadian betters" agenda. (So bonkers they do this with three characters of colour, sidenote.)

Rayla is interesting because I think they have a fundamental disinterest in her inner world. She's so defined by her relationships with others and traumatic things that happen to her personally are ignored (her feelings on her banishment getting sidelined into Callum stuff, or her overcoming her fear of water to save Callum and Ezran happening off screen.) Her prejudice is a standard result of her upbringing but it's another thing that hasn't really come up in a while. I don't know if they so much want her as a character to be right, or prejudiced, or whatever, so much as they use her as a mouthpiece for particular opinions they need stated. She was learning about humans as much as Callum and Ezran were learning about elves and now she's learned she's just chilling being another one of Ezran's inexplicably pro-monarchy shooters.

Onto the second half of your ask about dark magic -- this season has firmly shifted the dark magic usage into an addiction metaphor, and so we get the "hole in your soul" (the anti-Birdhouse In Your Soul.) I do think this makes sense with earlier seasons. Dark magic has always been shown as corrupting the user (hence the monstrosity, and hence Viren being likely to die if purified of it, because it's become so entwined with his inner core) and this destruction of the self has been a reason to avoid it. I'll even be generous and say it's not entirely "Evil People Are Ugly" but instead a lot of "Self-Destruction Is Terrifying." However, I've been obsessed with this since I saw it:

"He shouldn't be monstrous in his final moments of heroism" is very funny. The writers are aware they have thoroughly codified Ugly, Monstrous = Bad and would try to bend themselves over backwards to let a Good Act be done via Evil Means in a way that minimizes the evidence of the evil means. This is why you have to put that "inherent evil" in quotation marks because real inherent evils don't tend to get a pass. And because they want dark magic to still exist in the show and still be used by sympathetic characters like Callum and Claudia without rendering them utterly reprehensible they have to make it the hole-in-your-soul addiction metaphor and say it costs the user as much as, if not more than, it costs the world around them.

Which is, like, fine, but at a certain point it is like -- Yeah, if we can see times where dark magic is basically a necessity because your choice is either "dark magic, or let your child die" or "dark magic, or let a dragon flambé your people" -- which many of us would consider non-choices -- then you have to respect that people maybe will have to make that choice. And if the cost is more on them, then ...? It's practically a noble sacrifice. To oppose it for reasons of Aaravos is a non-argument. Viren was mainlining dark magic for decades and it wasn't until he got that mirror that Aaravos became a problem and Aaravos isn't always going to be around ... not to mention that now that he's free I think he has abilities that go well beyond "souljacking." Aaravos in this case represents more the 'spiritual death' associated with this internal corruption. So can we find reasons to oppose it that go beyond The Harm It Causes To An Individual, Who Should Be Allowed their Autonomy?

They still throw half-hearted nods to the previous seasons much more heavy-handed "omg the beautiful butterfly" "omg the baby deer" (single crying tear) "stop hurting the environment" "magical beings are superior to you" type anti-dark magic rhetoric (see Claudia and the cat thing) but it seems the writers have come to realize they need dark magic to exist as much as the people in universe need it to exist, and so they're trying to focus more on the internal cost. Personally, I think this is a fine place to take it and if the intent is to return the discussion to how humans have been discriminated against, it's a wise thing to do. So I won't protest it much, although we can discuss villainizing addicts and so forth and why Rayla's lack of compassion in approaching Callum's dark magic use is difficult to watch.

It's funny, because I wouldn't even call myself "pro dark magic" as I do see it as harmful, but the hypocritical and condescending treatment of dark magic users in the narrative is something I take issue with more than the use of dark magic itself. This is why, if they are leaning into this more sympathetic reason for rejecting dark magic, I hope we see increased sympathy as to why dark magic is used and why, until humans are liberated (i.e. given equal access to magic and Xadian resources) it's pretty much essential.

Thank you very much for the ask! ♥ Don't apologize for the length, as you can see I love to ramble away myself. Also yeah didn't fit this in anywhere else but fuck that narrative deadweight Zubeia. Thunder at least got shaded by Rex Igneous even if Rex Igneous was Mean and Scary.

[themattress]

This is where I'm at too. After two and a half seasons the show is finally good again but in a way that makes you root for the villains and not the heroes so I'm not sure if it's successful.

TDP Season 6

Well, I think I might be fully on-board with this show again.

Well, maybe not fully, but certainly more than I have been since season 2. The ever-present problem is the refusal to actually deal with the generational trauma and prejudice aspects of the story in a way that isn't wholly one-sided or shallow. Along with the usual amount of protagonist-centered morality.

Spoilers under the cut.

But! It has some of the best characterization of Claudia and Viren in the show so far. I especially love how they utterly subverted the preview scene that made me a little worried. I really wish there was more of Claudia here because I feel like we needed more scenes of her trying this new path before settling on her final decision for it to really land, but it still works.

Sidenote: The Rayllum-hater in me really likes "The Frozen Ship" but for all the reasons I doubt were intended. An episode that shows just how much this ship is built on fandom-expectations that the main boy and main girl are going to get together. Really obnoxious meta-jokes about how popular the ship is? Check! Reading a completely different love-story to spell out how the characters are feeling? Check! Literal stand-ins for the fandom moving them around like dolls going "Now kiss!"?? Check check check! And all the while it is juxtaposed with scenes of Claudia and Terry that are nuanced, somber, haunting and really intimate yet tasteful, all without a single word of dialogue? And you want me to care about that other garbage?!

And Soren in the final 3 episodes is at his absolute best. His anger and grief are all equally justified and he is more mature and grown-up than ever. And we got some really nice vindication for that mess of a season-3 finale. Not that I expect it to lead anywhere regarding Ezran reevaluating his decision. As awesome as it would be for him to get home to a ruined Katolis and be greeted by his people who now look exactly like the soldiers he triumphantly fought off before and get hit with the realization "huh, maybe that wasn't such a black and white conflict after all".

The final episode is all about Aaravos and it hits just about every note it needed to, without giving away every detail. But it certainly does the trick in explaining his motivation. And the reveal of what a Startouch elf actually looks like is so well done that it hits you like a truck to realize "Oh, they already gave that away long ago and we just didn't notice".

Only problem is that it is going to be even harder for me to not root against the main cast now that I know they will be working against the person who is trying to overthrow the entire unfair order of the world, which is the part of the story I am invested in.

Still. I am looking forward to seeing how this ends and while I doubt it will ever live up to the better version of this that lives in my head, or in some excellent fanfics, I hope it will be good.

[httyddragonfox]

The Horror of Callum's possession: Season 6 ed.

This has a different tone than season 4, and I'm more talking about the one he doesn't know about. Let's go back to the beginning:

Callum is super worried about Aaravos using him again, so he's gung ho on getting that pearl destroyed so Aaravos will no longer be a threat. Of course, no one is taking precedence on this like he is; Thinking it's better just to keep it safe in the secret dungeon. Callum cannot sleep, thinking about Aaravos controlling him again, seeing as they're technically in the same building now. Of course, Aaravos decides to confirm Callum's worries and controls him. He gets him to access the pearl, and gives him a vision of him being inside the prison while Aaravos smashes it. That's a blatant cue to Callum that Aaravos is going to use him to get out. Callum wakes up and sees that he's holding the pearl, which he knew he didn't go to sleep holding.

I'm surprised he didn't freak out all the way to Rayla's room. Rayla of course doesn't think it's anything serious, while Callum is scared now. He quickly hatches a plan to get Aaravos away from the people he cares about. He has Barius make some candy that looks like the pearl to act as a decoy while the real pearl is taken far away to the icy north, (hopefully to be destroyed), whilst covered with an anti-magic blanket so that Aaravos can't try anything.

[I.E. that must've been some plan of Callum's if Aaravos didn't want it enacted]

They make their way to the star-scraper, after telling the king the plan, assuring him he has nothing to worry about; the pearl will be far away from the kingdom.

Once at the Star-scraper, they discuss on how to destroy Aaravos/the pearl safely. They are told Aaravos cannot be killed. Rayla reacts with a simple, "Oh, that's why they imprisoned him." Meanwhile, Callum is devastated. He really wanted to be rid of this potential threat that would use him and hurt his loved ones. Now he knows he will always somewhat be around. This means that Callum will never be safe. Later on they get a prophecy saying "all I see for you is darkness."

Earlier on, Callum had a fight with Rayla. He admitted he did dark magic again, he knows how vulnerable he is to Aaravos' manipulations and he hates that fact. Now after that prophecy, he can't help but think about how Aaravos told him he'll be his one day. According to Callum, he can't sleep because he's too anxious. As Callum said, "he's ruined;" Callum thinks he's doomed to be Aaravos' puppet, knowing that there's no way to kill him, and he has darkness inside of him. Callum knows he's a threat to his friends and family.

Rayla tries to assure him that maybe they can just leave the pearl there, as at least it would be out of the way. They ask the celestial elves to help them, and this is where the horror part comes into play.

In the alternate future, Kosmo tells them that the pearl is actually fake. When Callum hears this, he realizes many things.

No one at Katollis knows the real prison is there, so they're no on guard in case someone comes for it.

Even if they had found a way to kill Aaravos, he wouldn't have been there to deal with. He escaped.

They went all this way to keep him far away from everyone, and that didn't work.

Thanks to Rayla (but I think he already knew), Aaravos controlled him again! Not only that...but he didn't even notice!

That's like being hacked but not even noticing until your friends start getting weird messages you never sent. Callum would feel he'd have no control, not even being sure when he does have control. Seeing as he can't notice when it's happening anymore.

They try to tell him about a ritual to cleanse the darkness from him so he won't be controlled anymore, but Callum would feel so violated and helpless that nothing could save him from being Aaravos' pawn. I'd feel like I'd mess that up too (maybe Aaravos would control me in the middle of it to keep me as his pawn or worse kill me).

Whelp...Kosmo decides not to tell Callum, because the better course of action would be to cleanse him to avoid Aaravos controlling him again.

Still it's terrifying knowing Aaravos could control him at any moment and Callum wouldn't even be aware of it.

If you want to read about how one might feel about the rest of the episode Link here

[beautifulterriblequeen]

All that's Left is Aaravos

I realized allasudden that I haven't rolled around in Callum's left-handed possession motif yet, so let's poke it with a stick!

First off, I wrote this meta post about how Viren goes left-handed when Aaravos is directly controlling him some while ago. This is going to be Callum's version.

Let's start way back in the beginning, with the first time Callum cast a dark magic spell:

Callum is right handed - we see him sketching with his right hand - but when he does this dark magic spell, he uses his left. I don't see this as any sort of hard indicator of possession that far back, but he could've cast this spell with either hand, and they chose to animate him doing it with his left. A light bit of foreshadowing about handedness.

The next time this becomes an issue is in S4, when Callum gets possessed by Aaravos, which is only possible because he did cast that spell above. There's some very deliberate mirroring with Callum's and Aaravos's stances and reflections, where right = left. We get to see Aaravos, who is left-handed, deliberately using his right hand so that Callum's left hand is the one that gets used:

Later in S4, Callum tries to drop the Key of Aaravos in the lava with his left hand, but he can't manage it.

Once the Pearl is back in Katolis in S6, Callum has a One Ring-esque staring contest with it and seems to lose:

he immediately starts doing left-handed things near the Pearl:

There's even another left-handed cube moment that gets pretty blatant with its Aaravos coding:

In the moment, it's lighting up because Stella is present. But it's also foreshadowing for Aaravos's trickery with the Pearl switcheroo plan - he's already watching and listening to Callum's secret plan.

When Callum sleepwalks to the dark magic dungeon and picks up the pearl, he reaches to open the painting left handed too:

The shock of being overtaken in his sleep forces Callum to make a new plan for the Pearl, and when he says this line out loud, Aaravos sees some wiggle room for himself:

Aaravos needs the Pearl unswaddled by Callum's anti-magic blankie - which tells me that those stitched spells would have worked, if Callum had the real deal. And he also needs the Pearl defenseless in Katolis. He already has a Pharos-shaped pawn, a blind, human-hating dragon who's about to get his wings healed, and a devastated daughter in need of a new father figure.

All Aaravos needs to do to get his Pearl into Claudia's hands and get free is to trick Callum about which pearl he's really holding. The rest will fall into place like clockwork.

And when the dust of Katolis Castle settles, along with the scorched bones of Sol Regem... all that's left is Aaravos.

[starry-skies-writes]

The way Callum was looking at the coin in the end…

He knows they can’t kill Aaravos, especially now that he’s out and a fucking giant with limitless powers.

Is he going to try and trap him again? And since you’d need a Quasar diamond to free him, he could just use the last one for smth else.

Either he’s gonna perform Dark Magic to trap Aaravos (and sacrifice himself in the process)

Or—OR

Hopefully he needs to use the diamond to do that in the first place

(Trapping Aaravos in a coin just seems so anti climatic though… I hope that doesn’t happen)

[ultraericthered]

Live by dark magic, die by dark magic, I guess? It all goes back to what I said here. If Aaron and the writing team just stopped beating around the bush and established firmly and clearly "No, dark magic itself is not inherently pure evil, and neither is Aaravos who created it and gave it to humans", we'd not be having conversations like this.

It's a nice sequence.

Just. One thing. Why is Viren's last moment using dark magic again?

If dark magic is so wrong and evil, why is this shown as heroic for him? Why is Aaravos not taking over him?

I'm guessing that maybe sacrificing something of oneself is an acceptable way of doing dark magic? Or alternatively: something another person offered? Maybe?

Anyway, this is overall a good farewell to the character, and while it's not quite what I was hoping for (aiding the heroes more directly against Aaravos), I'm still pretty happy with it.

[theredhairedmonkey]

Something that annoys me, and probably will alway annoy me, is how some people point out that Callum and Viren and foils and go “see? Callum is just like him, he’ll sacrifice his morals and principles at the drop of a hat.”

Guys, that's-that’s the point. That’s the tea. The unifying theme in modern storytelling is that the main villain and the main hero are Not So Different. Harry and Voldemort. Spider-Man and Green Goblin. Luke and Vader. The whole point is that the hero has every trait and every opportunity to follow the same dark path that the villain did, but choose not to.

That last part is the special sauce to what makes a heroic protagonist so compelling. They could so easily go the other way, but they pull through anyway. By choice.

And this is why trying to force Callum to be an anti-hero won’t work. This just isn’t the journey he’s on. He’ll be faced with the same dark choices that Viren and Claudia were faced with, that every mage preyed upon by Aaravos was faced with…and he’ll choose differently. That’s the story you’re watching unfold.

[colonelpancakes]

Watching The Dragon Prince Season Six Part Six! Moment of Truth. Under the cut as per the usual! This episode will reveal my habit of using more pet names for characters the more distressed I become!

I’d just like to say that every time the intro plays, I experience a few seconds of intense fear as I wait to see if it’s Callum again. They've done it twice now I am fully expecting them to do it again.

Oh dang, that is a beautiful opening shot of the sunrise. Absolutely stunning.

Ohh, Callum honey. I know the feeling, it sucks.

Aww, Raylaaaa. I love her trying to cheer Callum up with the crown, it's so sweet…

Ohh... poor Callum... Yeah, that would be a blow to anyone’s self esteem. Especially when we know from The Frozen Ship that Callum's been struggling with the idea that he had already permanently ruined himself by using dark magic.

(Also again, the voice acting is amazing.)

Oh, you know, that’s a good idea! Since they don’t really need to kill Aaravos they just need to stop him from being freed and the main threats to his status as imprisoned are Claudia finding the pearl or Callum getting possessed. If it’s in the Starscraper being guarded by Celestial Elves, then that’s both problems solved! Claudia doesn’t know where it is and it’d be pretty difficult for a possessed Callum to go get it, especially not before anyone could stop him. Good thinking Rayla!

OH GOD.

...On the one hand that’s really bad and a serious problem but on the other hand that is so fucking funny. The magic prison you've been carrying wrapped in an anti-magic blanket through the freezing cold is a giant M&M. Sorry. There is no good way to deliver the news, huh.

Oh, Callum… The way his voice shakes and he sounds so out of breath like he’s having a panic attack. Poor baby.... 🥺

Oh, Honey…

And of course it makes him feel worse because to him, if it really was Aaravos influencing Callum without him knowing, then it’s confirming that, not only is there the possibility that he could one day become a threat to his friends safety, he actively is a threat to them. And if it was simply an accident, at the very least, there’s something he can do to prevent another accident. If it's an accident, then it's something that he did and something that he can make an effort to not let it happen again in the future. Whereas if it’s Aaravos, there’s nothing he can do. The thing he could have done to prevent Aaravos possessing him is not use dark magic but that ship has sailed. He’d be entirely helpless and it’d be his own fault.

Also, it goes without saying but I’m going to say it anyways: Give Callum’s VA an award, the voice-acting is so good, the franticness, the hyperventilation. It’s so good.

Ooh, I love this style of flashback. I love the way that it’s the same artstyle as the credits and how it makes perfect sense since in-universe, Viren’s writing all this down on a piece of parchment. Also, I think that this is first time we’ve heard Lissa’s name in the actual show! I love how you can already see that Claudia got her hair-texture from Lissa while Soren got his from Viren.

Soren with his little dragon plushy!!!! I'm going to start crying...

Hmm. I know it’s probably just coincidence, but the fact that Soren seemingly had a terminal respiratory disease makes me wonder if maybe he had the same condition as Callum’s father, since Callum said that Damian had “some sort of terrible breathing sickness.”

THE QUOTE FROM HARROW!!!! OUGH! “Claudia and I are still searching for a creative solution." "Call it what it is. Dark magic." vs "I found a creative solution. I suppose I should call it what it is, dark magic." The growth.

Oh?? I’ve always been curious what it is about the staff that enhances dark magic since it doesn’t come from a specific primal source. Usually, it comes from taking the life force of living things, but how does a staff help with that? Hmm…

Okay, I’ve questioned this before but. What is up with Kpp’Ar’s arm? It’s clearly injured… Is he using his own blood for spells? It feels like such a random detail to add without explanation. I wonder if we’ll find out...

Ah, so Harrow isn’t king yet. Interesting… I guess that makes sense since Kpp’Ar doesn’t appear in any of the Magma Titan flashbacks.

I think I remember Kpp’Ar having given up dark magic from The Puzzle House (please forgive me if I'm wrong my memory is shit), but I wonder what could have happened to make him veer away from dark magic and the staff to the point where he won’t consider using them to save a child… The royal family doesn’t have Aaravos’s mirror yet so I don’t think it could be that. I am so curious about this man...

KPP’AR MAN, COME ON! I get that you’ve seen some things but you could at the bare minimum be a LITTLE more tactful than that! If there’s some reason that the staff can’t be used, you could, I don’t know, EXPLAIN IT to Viren? Instead of just leaving him sobbing in the room with no explanation as to why you are letting his son die? ...I see where Viren gets it from.

Sksfjalkjslkf  I forgot about the monochrome so when the scene switched back to the Starscraper I was like wait what the hell is happening?

Kosmo, man, I’m not sure this is helping, but also, Callum petting Sneezles for emotional support… I love themm…

Callum, honey… Ough... I am going to cry I love Callum so much. Sweetie…

Ssakljfsalkfj Rayla trying gently elbow Kosmo away from Callum.

Callum, honey, sweetie, darling, sweetheart, love… The fact that he’s just utterly given up on himself and on his ability to continue. That he thinks he’s just too far gone, that there’s nothing left so there’s no point in even trying… Ough. And the implications of refusing to get rid of Aaravos’s control considering the fact that he made Rayla promise to kill him if he ever got controlled again and she did. Oh, honey… Callum’s arc this season is repeatedly punching me directly in the stomach.

Plus the voice acting, again. The way he sounds so dead and empty and almost apathetic, like it’s already over, like there’s just no point to anything anymore. AHG.

Once a dumb sibling always a dumb sibling.

“Truth is everything. But before you give it to another, ask yourself, are you giving them clarity, light, and purpose? Or are you shifting a burden to someone who needs all their strength?” I really like Astrid and I like how they're not going the "lying is always bad, telling the truth is always good in every situation no matter the context" route and instead acknowledging that it requires more nuance! Also, I love how Astrid is animated here, her body language is very expressive and fun.

OH? Oh that explains why it was monotone I had been thinking that it was just like, a sudden style change to portray the emotions or something skjfaslkj. That make a lot more sense.

Also, I like the clarification of how the future-sight works! It seems kind of like Clearsight’s ability in Wings of Fire where she can see all of the possible futures that diverge from her decision. Kosmo can see the possibilities that arise from his decision of whether to tell the truth or not and then pick the best option once he’s seen the diverging paths. It’s probably my favorite form of “prophetic” ability and I especially appreciate it being used here since it lets Timeblind elves like Kosmo exist while still holding true to the themes in the show about the nonexistence of destiny and how the choices you make impact the future.

Okay, I still feel like being Timeblind would suck. I can only imagine Kosmo feeling super awkward repeating what he said in the vision and like. I don’t know but I feel like it’d be creepy to have the people around you constantly parrot what you’ve already heard them say like they’re reading from scripts and you know what they’re about to say and the exact tone they’ll say it in a second before the words come out of their mouths. That would entirely creep me out.

Self confidence restored!!

Continued in reblogs, curse the tumblr image limit