#anti aaravos

[brynnsasha191]

lol how tf did the aaravos stans hurt your feelings?

Lol I'm literally such a cry baby about it. It wasn't even that deep. After I made an anti Aaravos post someone sent me an ask (that I didn't respond to) that was really snarky and sarcastic. I believe they said something like "wow, you're so smart for only being able to have the opinions the writers spoon fed you" and I was really upset by it, I pissed for the rest of the day ngl. Also I really don't think hating Aaravos was spoon fed to us but whatever.

Also a couple hours after I posted that particular post someone, I don't even remember who, but someone directly quoted my post on their account and said they hate it when people have my opinion and that my opinion was wrong. Btw they didn't directly name drop me but they pretty much quoted me word-for-word. And I encourage everyone to put whatever they're opinions on their accounts and I wouldn't want to police anyone for what they put on their accounts but I was still mildly offended by it because all the replies and reblogs were agreeing with them. It's also kind of a "say it to my face" kind of feeling??? Which is probably annoying of me but dang I can't control it.

[shiftingwithmars]

”Aaravos tried to avenger his daughter!! He’s not evil!!🥺”

Yeah, pretty sure trying to take over the entire world isn’t a very valid way of vengeance.

Also, no, he didn’t “try to avenge her”. That would imply that he targeted specifically the people who had her killed. Instead he chose to take out his anger on innocent people and drove many people into madness.

[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.

[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.

[themattress]

Here's some more Scumbag Terry for you, because it's morbidly hilarious to me.

Just remember, kids: lying to someone about a magical map and the true nature of the destination it leads to in order to manipulate someone into helping your cause is evil, but lying to someone about their long-lost mother who kick-started all of that person's abandonment issues (which you exacerbated by abandoning them earlier) coming back to apologize for it and seek reconciliation in order to manipulate that person into helping your cause is good!

[ultraericthered]

Mystery of Aaravos has me at here by the end. Gotta <3 the Girlboss Queen, awkwardly flat line reads and all.

I do still love Rayla and Claudia on the whole, mind you, but I think Aaron Ehasz's creative instincts and the writing on this show just made them into pale shadows of the characters they used to be.

[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]

To be fair, Aaravos clearly wasn't trying to shoot their relationship down. He thought he was helping: Terry was not on an equal level with Claudia due to his innocence and he needed to have it stripped away in order to be in a relationship with Claudia as an equal, without needing to be lied to by her. Unfortunately, Terry valued his innocence and self-regard more than his relationship with Claudia, and Aaravos was genuinely surprised when he left.

Tl;dr: Aaravos made a major Whoopsie, and Terry kind of sucks.

[themattress]

Terry, you are a lying little bitch. Friendship ended with you!

[mjbarrosart]

My Dragon Prince Boards season 7, episode 708: My Final Episode

Happy new year!!

Well, the day has arrived! It is time to talk about my last sequence on the last episode of The dragon Prince I worked: season 7, episode 8.

I can not explain you how much work went into the last 3 episodes of season 7. If you check the board artist credits for this episode, several artist worked on each one! Usually a SB unit has 3 artist, but for this last ones every unit was collaborating with each other. There was a lot of work to do.

I boarded the initial sequence of this episode. Or at least the bones of it. 2 things happened that made my input in this episode smaller that in the previous ones:

First, they removed a lot of things from this initial sequence as it was on the script, mostly to make it shorter, because episode 8 is incredible long (almost half an hour!) so they trimmed the beginning to give more space to other sequences that were more relevant. So a lot of the things I did are not there, haha.

Second, By the end of my time in Dragon Prince I got a really cool offer to go to Titmouse (another animation studio) to work on an amazing show (that sadly is still unannounced so I can not talk about it) so, as soon as I finished my boards for episode 8 I left, while most of the team stayed to keep working on revisions of the boards, so while normally I would do the revisions and changes on my own sequences in the past, for this one I was not in Bardel anymore, so some of my talented coworkers did that for me.

As I said the structure of the sequence is close to what I boarded but not the same. All the beats are there, mostly.

Anyway, there are still some shots that I would like to share with you:

Most of the sequence with the corrupted banthers was changed,. because certain things did not happened, so a lot of my shots got changed, but this one survived, and I like it, "Are you betraying us AGAIN, Karim?" hahaha lol

I like this two shots, they look cool.

Also, Karim is such an idiot. As I told before, i worked so much with him during all my seasons in the show, that i kinda like him, but also he is insufferable, lol.

I think that when I was boarding this parts, we were not set on how big Aaravos will be. We had a proxy to work with, but looks like at the end they made him slightly smaller.

And yeah, I had the privileged to Kill Karim, haha.

No regrets, tho. The part when Aaravos clean his hand on his chest was added later, so that was not me.

Its is not up to me to talk about the parts that were cut or changed. This is not my show at the end of the day, and that is something that only the people at Wondersotorm could share with you. I always try to respect how creators choose to tell their stories, and this is the same.

And yeah, a little anti-climatic after all the highs of episodes 702 and 705, but anyway was a privilege to work on this episode and on so many season of this amazing show.

I could write long about how important for me and my career this experience was, but i have the feeling that you already know that, haha.

Thank you for being part of this journey.

And feel free to ask if you have any questions, I always enjoy reading your comments and tags!!

[raayllum]

like as far as Claudia is concerned a dragon killed her father, she already hated elves and dragons (1x03, 2x03, 4x07), and Aaravos has been feeding her anti-elf/dragon sentients for years (4x07) about how he's the elven exception in regards to his treatment of humans, she was willing to sacrifice hundreds of human troops for what she believed was Viren's plan in 3x09... + Aaravos comparing his love for Leola with Viren's love for Claudia ("you do anything for your children") that already conflates well with her worldview of love, AND she's now loyal to Aaravos ("She loves me. I am her father now, and she is my daughter") the only person who's never, and in her mind literally cannot, leave her. Ofc she's going along with his revenge plan, particularly after he was 'honest' with her (immediately contrasted with Terry and Soren deceiving her). What else is there for her?

[stardustamaryllis78]

By taking out the Archdragons, Aaravos removes anyone from being able to contact the Cosmic Council. For example, there would be no one left to be able to tell them that Callum is a human Primal Mage.

Obviously, it would cause big issues for Callum if they were to find out he was a human Primal Mage. And with the Archdragons now dead, it gives way for humans to freely be able to learn Primal Magic again without fear.

You can't tell me that Rex wouldn't have dobbed in Callum had he had known he was a Primal Mage. He knew he had a Primal Stone and could therefore do magic, but he did not know he was a Primal Mage. Rex still refers to Aaravos as Betrayer for his work helping humans so he very much still has his anti human bias.

As for Domina, a reminder that she said this when first referring to Ezran.

Now yes, she does end up friendly with Ezran but she still looks down upon humans with this being her immediate reaction. (I can't be the only one who found it weird that she gave her life for them in the end.)

Now for Zubeia. Remember this:

If she somehow wasn't still somewhat pro Order, why would she say "First Elves"? Remember, these are still the same people who had Leola murdered for kindly giving magic to humans after Sol Regem dobbed her in. Why does Zubeia look upon them so fondly?

One thing I also found kind of weird is how Ezran says that Callum is the first human Primal Mage in centuries, whereas Callum says that he is the first human Primal Mage.

So which is the truth?

Well, this goes into theory territory but I believe at some point, there was a time that humans did learn and understand Primal Magic but they were killed by the Cosmic Council. I really don't believe Callum would be the first human to figure out Primal Magic after all this time, especially after Ezran's comment. That just really doesn't make any sense.

Aaravos is the creator of Dark Magic and the one who suffered most at the hand of the Cosmic Council. Does Dark Magic perhaps protect humans from the Cosmic Council at the cost of "compromise"? And Aaravos doesn't even really even control Dark Mages very often at all via this "compromise" because otherwise he could have easily just controlled Viren instead of working with him. Same with Callum in season 4 instead of just roasting the cast and then dipping.

Its an interesting topic I hope we get the answer to at some point. But ultimately, Aaravos has now made it so there are no more people that can dob Callum in as a Primal Mage. And human Primal Mages are now free to roam again.

[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]

EXACTLY. Terry's innocence should have already been lost!

Also, in a recent video interview, Aaron Ehasz and Justin Richmond outright admitted that it was not pre-planned for Terry to leave Claudia over this and that they did it because it "felt like what the character would do in the moment"...clearly showing that their "in the moment" thinking neglected to take into account all prior moments that showed that he wouldn't leave her over this, including his own words and actions! Poor Terry's character got fucked over.

in what world did terry have a true heart did the cosmic lawmakers of pure innocence just skip over his history of murder?

[russ14n-r0ul3tt3]

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uhhh hiya chat. redoing another intro bc fuck ya. im crow/roulette/plague/aaravos/nikolai/fukuchi... whatever else ya wanna call me.

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