#tdp discourse

[thatartiststudios]

Okay so, mini rant here

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

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

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

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

And especially during Rayllum month, like, dude

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

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

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

[hikaaa-bi]

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

[mad-not-disappointed]

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

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

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

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

[azulasdefenseattorney]

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

[self-spaghettification]

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

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

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

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

[venice-1987]

An annoying phenomenon I've noticed

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

(Alternatively, let people ship things)

[luniviravosshipper]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[thatartiststudios]

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

[self-spaghettification]

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

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

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

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

[moondustgleam]

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

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

[rickktish]

I think the foundation for a really good straight ship is one person who knows that they are capable and powerful and has excellent self-worth but struggles with viewing themself as worthy of love because even though their worth isn't tied to how loved they are it still hurts how many times they've been rejected/let down, while the other person has experienced true unconditional love and has at least one person in their life who they know will never stop loving them no matter what but still struggles with having any kind of self-worth because they've had enough experiences with people telling them that they're worthless or flawed or failing in some way that their ability to be loved is never in question for them but whether they have any personal value as an individual always will be

Essentially

"I am a valuable person who is nonetheless not worthy of love"

+

"I am a person who is loved but who has little to no value"

=

a straight ship for the gays

is this anything

[mad-not-disappointed]

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

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

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

zuko (avatar the last airbender) • japanese

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

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

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

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

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

toph (avatar the last airbender) • chinese

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

[self-spaghettification]

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

All sightings of this symbol so far

Aaravos’s hood (season 2)

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

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

mirror breaking in the same pattern. (4x04)

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

this is the symbol for deep magic actually!

thank you! @ok12857

[astbestos]

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

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

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

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

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

[luniviravosshipper]

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

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

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

[sorinethemastermind]

On fandom-

I usually try to avoid the darker sides of fandom. I spend years in the Star Wars fandom, and it can be a pretty toxic place, especially as an AFAB queer person. But I never really let that get to me. There were always enough safe, wonderful spaces full of open-minded, wonderful people to make up for all the shitty ones who make their home on the internet.

The Dragon Prince is the first fandom I've been in that I've really been aware of the discourse. And I think that's because it's the first one I've been in that seems to be majority open-minded and wonderful. It's definitely my favorite fandom I've been in so far, but being that enmeshed in it has had some drawbacks. Season Seven highlighted a big one to me. Because [I'm paraphrasing here but] there's a portion of the fandom that seems to think that the season was "wrong".

As a writer, this really irks me. Is constructive criticism important? Yes. Of course it is. But often times the people saying this aren’t offering constructive feedback, they’re just treating their personal opinions as fact. Just because a story doesn’t go in the direction you would have taken it doesn’t mean it went in the wrong direction. You can disagree with the choices the writers made without them being the wrong choices.

At the end of the day, the writers are telling a story. Their story.

Let’s say I wrote a book, and in it, the main character’s best friend has a negative character arc and becomes the villain. There will be people that think the main character and their best friend had good chemistry, and say it actually should have been a friends to lovers arc. There will be people who think that the best friend’s negative character arc doesn’t match their personality, and it’s unrealistic and only there for drama’s sake. There will be people who think that the best friend is a boring character and shouldn’t have had that much attention paid to them.

Does that mean that what I did was wrong? No, of course not! It’s my story!

All of those people are totally entitled to their opinions, but I’m entitled to tell the story that I’m telling.

So hearing people say that the TDP writers’ messed up the story or did something wrong just because what they did didn’t align with that person’s personal opinion bugs me.

You are entitled to your opinion. But in the same way they can’t force you to like what they did with the story, you can’t force them to tell a different story than the one that they are.

I've also seen people say that they wish that, since Arc Three is still up in the air, the writers had just consolidated things and wrapped it up with Season Seven. But that's still asking them to tell a different story than the one they have in their head! I would personally rather have the ending we had in Season Seven, which aligns with the writers' plan for the story, than a rushed, modified one that doesn't actually align with the story then wanted to tell.

But I guess that's just my personal opinion.

And that's where this gets confusing, and tricky. All of this that I'm writing, right here? This is my personal opinion. And here I am, complaining about people's personal opinions.

So I guess it's not that I think people can't have opinions - you can, and you should - but it's all about how you package them. I can disagree with a storytelling decision someone made, but that doesn't mean I assume they did it wrong. If I disagree with it, that just means it wasn't to my personal taste. And it's totally okay that my personal taste and that writer's taste differ. I assume that the writers know what they're doing, rather than the other way around.

Like, for example, in Season Four, when Soren encountered Claudia and Viren for the first time since Arc One, I was bummed that we didn't get more between him and Viren. But I decided to assume that the writer's knew what they were doing. And boy was I rewarded. Season Six, when Soren and Viren finally have their moment? One of my favorite scenes of all time! The writers took their time and they knew what they were doing. And even if that scene hadn't of been to my taste, it still would have been the story that they wanted to tell! And therefore, not wrong!

I don't really know what I'm trying to say here, I guess just that you shouldn't assume the writers are fucking up. It's their story. They probably know it better than you do. So maybe give them the benefit of the doubt. And who knows? You might even be rewarded for it.

[I know I'm posting this after the Season Seven discourse has sort of died down, but I think I needed some time to figure out why what people were saying was bugging me]