#watch the dragon prince

[echoisquiet]

“Love is dead” then explain to me to why Terry stayed even when Claudia was covered in blood and told him she was leaving him first, Why he made her a prosthetic leg and helped wash all the blood and dirt off of her and brushed her hair and took care of her?

[hazieash]

Everyone cheered (Ruthari reunion)

[soviet-furries]

The Frog Princess (Царевна-лягушка)

Soyuzmultfilm, 1954

[eng sub] [HD on vk]

[pepoboyz]

the stars, the moon, they have all been blown out

you’ve left me in the dark

[id: a digital portrait of leola from the dragon prince. a young elven girl with purple and blue skin with stars as freckles. she has long white hair with a magenta galaxy-like underside and small braids framing her face. she has magenta eyes and a single purple horn, like a unicorn’s, coming from her forehead. she wears a sleeveless high-necked deep purple top with a star in the middle of her chest, glowing. she is looking up, the background around her featuring tendrils of smoke and a burst of lines behind her. end id]

[m4rs-ex3]

OK HOW HAVE I NOT SEEN ANYONE TALK ABOUT THIS STELLA WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK 😭🤚

[sizzling-eggs]

Do you ever watch a show or a movie or any piece of media meant for kids and just think about how the story or character or that one scene or whatever just spoke to your heart and soul, or just how profound it made you happy or break your heart. And just sit their thinking that this is for literal children, who probably still couldn't 100% understand the gravity of what they are consuming or probably couldn't articulate how they felt about it other than say they liked it or they dont, or it made them happy or sad, and you, a grown ass person is just thinking about how this thing meant for kids is just so simple yet complex with so many layers of emotions and plot and etc. That explores themes and subject better than media meant for your age, in a way that is simple yet incredible done.

[sapphoismymuse]

a faithful re-enactment of me watching the dragon prince s7 ep 8:

“and of fucking course Karim betrayed them… and of course he’s monologuing again… why are you monologuing right now… dude stop monologuing… wouldn’t it be funny if Aaravos just squishes him mid- OH MY GOD”

[chubis]

My HC is that the dark Callum apppears edgy but inside is still a cinnamon roll.

That is, Callum being Callum.

[elcoffin]

nobody talk to me, i’ll never recover from that scene

💔🍼🫦🪽

[apogean-tides]

Viren:

[echoisquiet]

God I love the characterization of Claudia and Soren. Their arcs are so interesting to me, they’re both family and have similar motivations but end up on very different paths.

Soren grew up wanting his father’s attention and approval and so when his mom left, he chose to stay with his dad, only to be neglected in favor of his sister, he’s not a mage like his father so he tries to be the best guard he can, in hopes his father will be proud. Claudia was devastated when her mom left, Viren and Soren were all she had left, so she’d do anything for them, training to become a powerful mage like her father, they were very close, unlike Soren and Viren.

Soren eventually realizes how morally corrupt his father’s choices are and how he values his found family (Ezran, Callum, Rayla, Corvus, Ect) more than Viren, because they actually care for him and he doesn’t have to try to win their approval, they unconditionally love him. For Claudia, her father is everything, she even gives up Soren for him, she doesn’t care what she has to do for him, she’ll do anything to not lose him like her mother.

In early concepts for the show, these two were the same character, and I’m so glad they were split, it’s a lot more interesting to see how two children from a ‘broken’ family can go down such different paths.

I also find myself wondering if Terry will be able to show Claudia that she has others who love her and that there are other paths for her or if she’ll eventually choose Viren over him.

I also wonder if we’ll ever get to see Claudia and Soren reunite with their mother and how that would affect them.

[lithuiwen2016]

Still cannot get over the fact that we all were laughing ourselves silly over Aaravos's old man crying when the clip first dropped...

Then we get hit by Stardust, and the entire fandom collectively goes: Understandable, sir, let us shelter you to grieve whilst we demolish those who wronged you.

I have never witnessed a turnaround that quick in a fandom before, it was glorious.

[greatstrangerdinosaur]

They're cute

[madethisjusttobrowse]

Okay but can you imagine if one day Rayla catches a thief or something at the castle because she's experienced at breaking in and in that awkward silence in the conversation Ezran just goes, "Rayla, would you like a job?"

And Rayla ends up as counter security by repeatedly breaking into and out of the castle and finding weak points, and is halfway to a spymaster, and she has a life direction to go in and can use her assassin training to not kill people, and now she has an official position in the court but by the nature of her job it's better if people don't know about it.

People who don't know: Rayla is in the High Council because she's an elven diplomat

People who think they know: Rayla is in the High Council because she's the High Mage's girlfriend

People who actually know: Rayla is the castle rat

[oddbardling]

kind of super fucked up of aaravos to have a second child for the purpose of sacrificing them when all of this is happening because of the horribly unjust death of his first child actually. justice for sir sparklepuff. leola would have loved sir sparklepuff. what the fuck man

[raayllum]

I get that in general a lot of kids shows do utilize the protagonists ('good guys') in ways where they're supposed to be role models, particularly because some do have a "lesson of the week" where the character does bad things, then clearly learns and explains what they should've done instead by the end of the episode.

That has just... never been how TDP has operated, and I don't get how and why people think we're supposed to take what anyone does in the show as being unilaterally good or evil. Particularly in arc 2; any moral simplicity that was hanging on by a thread in arc 1 has been taken out back and shot numerous times by now.

TDP very rarely calls anything Evil or Good, and when it does, it's always filtered through the characters' biases, and rarely does more then 2-3 characters ever have the same opinion on something for the same reasons. Soren and Rayla, who have inverted character arcs, are some of the only characters to ever use the term villain / good guys or bad guys, and are two of the most staunchly black-and-white thinking characters, heavily to their detriment, I might add, in terms of coping with the increasing complexity of their lives. They have cognitive biases. They're not always right, and are frequently wrong. This is true for everyone in the show.

The show refuses to condemn murder, indirectly and directly condemns the expulsion of humans from Xadia routinely (Evrkynd being a city for everyone, Ezran arguing with Karim, who is the most wrong about the most things), and shows a variety of viewpoints on all things.

The show understands that the choices people make—whether the same character trait is a flaw or a strength—as well as 'moral' choices are all circumstantial.

Are you wrong to burn people alive? Mostly yes (2x07, 6x08) but also no (3x09). Are you wrong to kill people? Sometimes yes, sometimes no, sometimes whether it's 'wrong' or 'right' doesn't even factor in. Are you wrong to use dark magic, or use the dangerous Staff of Ziard, or coin someone and condemn them to a 'fate worse than death'? Sometimes yes, sometimes no. Is lying or hiding the truth to protect someone wrong? Sometimes yes (1x06, 2x03, 3x03, 5x01, 7x04, 7x06) sometimes no (1x02, 2x03, 6x06, 5x08, 7x08).

Are you doing the right thing?

Do you have no choice? Is that true, or is that just what you think, or how you rationalize it yourself?

When is it right or cowardly to leave (Viren, Lissa, Rayla, Callum, Ezran, the Cosmic Council, the offer made to Karim's troops)? When should you stay? When do you decide to share resources (2x05) to your potential detriment or withhold them in the name of protecting yourself and your own people (Xadia and magic)? At what point(s) do you prioritize your own pain and grief, or someone else's (i.e. the Keeper vs Callum vs Ezran)? At what point is someone too dangerous or 'too far gone' to keep alive (Runaan about Harrow, Ezran about Aaravos)? At what point do you decide someone cannot change? When do you refuse to change (Karim, Terry) who you are no matter what happens, and when do you decide that you must (Ezran, Soren)? When is it wrong to use illusions to trick someone (3x09 and 7x06) and when is it more reasonable (2x03)? When should you be willing to sacrifice others (Rayla with her family, Runaan and Rayla with Callum, Soren with Viren) and when should you refuse? When should you sacrifice yourself, and when it is wrong to? Did you betray them, or did they betray you, or both (usually both)? When should you betray or stay loyal to your family? What is the right thing to do?

The show, tbh, doesn't know, at least 90% of the time. It's not interested in knowing. It's interested in exploring. That's the whole point. At most, it says you should work towards harm reduction, but what constitutes harm, and what peace looks like, is also something that greatly differs for all the characters.

Rayla is willing to sacrifice the love of her life, Ezran is willing to create weapons of mass destruction and wield one, and Callum used a torture spell on someone when he absolutely did not have to. The idea that any of the protagonists are meant to be paragons of unblemished virtue who are always 100% right, or that any of the antagonists do not canonically have a good point of contention with anything that's happened and are always 100% wrong, is reductive to everything the show is and explores, because it is Quite Literally not what the show does, ever tbh.

They literally spelled it out this past season as a core theme; I don't think they needed to have a character directly point it out every time a main character did something that was Kinda Fucked Up or Complicated But Understandable to know that the show knows it was Canonically Fucked Up or Complicated But Understandable.

There is not a single character or action in TDP that is always right, and there is not a singular character or action in TDP that is always wrong. Hell, even narrowing it down to "this is 'right' or 'wrong'" feels counterintuitive because it's so subjective within the narrative.

Every choice the characters make is often well reasoned, aligns with their values and world views, and fits into how they work through problems. Every choice has benefits and consequences, for them or for others. That doesn't mean it's Right for everyone involved. That doesn't mean it's Wrong for everyone involved. That's what makes the show interesting. Everything has nuance. Everything has Complexity. I'm not interested in a simplified version of TDP. I'm interested in the show as is.

I hope you are, too.