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thehappyspaceman · 5 years ago

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Assorted Thoughts on The Dragon Prince Book Three

Hey guys, TheHappySpaceman here. The Dragon Prince. What more do I need to say about it other than what I’ve already covered in my first two reviews? Well, a lot actually.

I was impressed with the show’s improvement from Book One to Book Two and was super excited for where it was set to go in the future. Since then, I have joined the TDP fanbase and supported the show by making memes, reactions, AMVs, oneshots, and plenty of fanart. However, when info dropped last month about Aaron Ehasz and the workplace environment at Wonderstorm potentially not being so good, I didn’t know what to make of it, and as more and more info came out, I became even more confused. Though the fanbase was becoming incredibly toxic due to the near-constant infighting, I promised myself that I would still stick around for Book Three, seeing how excited I had been for it before the controversy, but I almost wondered if it would be worth it.

So, after so many accusations and hollow words thrown around, and after nine months of anticipation… how does it hold up?

…Oh! Okay, wow, this season was a ton of fun. And yes, it’s exactly as good as I figured it would be after seeing Book Two. Everything I could have hoped for from this series really goes full-force here and it rarely if ever lets off the brakes.

The Story

After a brief intro as exposition, the plot starts immediately after the events of the Book Two finale where Callum and Rayla have entered Xadia and have to face many challenges along the way, including archdragon Sol Regem, Rayla’s hometown, and a rogueish elf thief. All the while, Ezran arrives back to Katolis and has to face the challenges of dealing with being king of a country that he finds in chaos, being pressured to enter war and be the king that Harrow was, while Soren and Claudia are confronted with the decision between helping their own father wage war against Xadia or joining their friends.

The Characters

This season introduced a number of interesting new characters. We got to meet some more dragons, for one thing, and while hearing them speak was pretty jarring at first (they talk normal English, which is strange since we’ve never heard them speak before), it turned out to be pretty awesome in establishing the characters. Most notably, we meet Sol Regem, the dragon who appeared in the opening of the series and was on many of the posters, and I’m surprised how he kind of turns out to be a major dick. Since was on so much of the promo materials for the show, I wasn’t figuring this, but he wound up being a racist jackass who was willing to kill our protagonists, including the young dragon prince Zym, all because of his hatred of humans.

He’s not the only dragon we meet. We also meet Avizandum, otherwise known as Thunder, the late King of the dragons, in flashbacks, and we get to see just how he died. As well, we get Zubeia, Zym’s mom, and Pyrrha, a dragon who Ezran had met in the prior season and befriends. My favorite one might be a nameless dragon who is unchained by Soren and nuzzles him. That’s a really cute scene.

We also meet a lot of new elves this season. Of particular note is Ethari, the Moonshadow elf blacksmith who had been seen in the end credits for Book One and had previously been given the fan name “Tinker.” There was a lot of fan speculation that Ethari was Runaan’s boyfriend and that the two of them raised Rayla together while her parents were gone. Well, this season proves that theory entirely false. No, Ethari is Runaan’s husband. Again, way to go with LGBT+ rep, Wonderstorm (especially since the episode that introduces Ethari was written by a woman in the LGBT+ community)! Ethari’s dynamic with Rayla is also very interesting and shows that he truly does care about her even after her town essentially banished her.

This season officially introduces us to Janai, the Sunfire elf that Amaya was battling in Book Two. I find it interesting how, in many ways, the two characters perfectly mirror each other: Both women are highly dedicated to their duty of their respective countries, and both of them are sisters of royalty, with Janai’s elder sister being the Sunfire Queen. This gives them an interesting dynamic with their interactions. Also of note is Kazi, Amaya’s translator this season who kind of gives off C-3PO vibes. Every scene with them is very funny.

Additionally, this season introduces us to a whole new race of elf: Skywing elves! It only makes sense, since we’ve already met Moonshadow, Sunfire, and Startouch elves; that only leaves two more to go. The two Skywing elves we meet are Ibis, a mage who works directly for the dragon queen Zubeia; and my personal favorite, Nyx, a loveable rogue type of character who our heroes meet when crossing the midnight desert. Man, I love Nyx, and yet, I feel like this season doesn’t do enough with her. I mean, they introduce her in episode four, and then she just kind of disappears after episode six. I was hoping that she’d play a bigger role, especially seeing how hyped up she was in the trailers for this season. Still, maybe she’ll appear again. She played an interesting part as an antagonist and I’d like to see her come back.

Speaking of antagonists, how about this guy? Prince Kasef. Man, the writers wanted to make a real jerk type of character and they succeeded. He’s the warmongering son of King Ahling who takes over after his dad’s injuries from last season. Outside of a cool design, there is nothing redeemable about this character. I’m not faulting the show for this, for the record. It seems like it was the writers’ intention to make him a complete asshole, very comparable to Viren in a lot of ways. Kasef is taken down in a pretty spectacular way, for the record, and it’s hard to say he’ll be missed.

But of all the new characters introduced, to me the real standout character of the season is one of the main leads from all the way back in Book One. Man… Soren is just great this season. After breaking his spine in Book Two, we get to see him go through so much character development beyond just being the dumb comic relief. He starts to question what is right, what side he should be on, and he is put through so much hell in the process, but he comes out better for it in the end. Leave it to the head writer of Avatar: The Last Airbender to make me feel sympathetic for a character like this.

The Animation

Holy crap, the animation in this season is so damn impressive! Bardel Entertainment already fixed the animation in a major way between Book One and Book Two, but this season gives us some seriously amazing moments that I never would have expected from this show after watching Book One. Everything feels so much more fluid this season, even more improved than Book Two in that respect. The backgrounds are downright stunning, too. They feel so real, like you could actually be there with the characters. One of the major gripes I did have with the first two seasons was the facial animation, and how the mouths kind of looked derpy and unexpressive, perhaps due to the CGI medium the characters were animated in. But here, everyone is so emotive and expressive that you can watch the season without audio and still understand what’s going on. There’s a particular scene with Amaya and Janai that I’ll get into later that perfectly shows this. This isn’t only in the mouths, either; we also see little details like characters’ pupils dilating, or the elves’ ears slumping down or perking up depending on the mood. These were little touches that they didn’t have to include, but the fact that they did makes it so much more of an enjoyable watch, because you notice new little details each time you watch it.

The Relationships

I don’t usually have a separate section in my previous season reviews about this, but this season was heavily based on character relationships as much as individual characters, whether they be relationships between family members, friends, comrades in battle, or romantic partners. Just a warning: This section will get into spoiler territory. If you have not watched the season before reading this, I strongly advise you to stop reading and go do that.

The first relationship I’d like to talk about returns to Soren. During the course of this season, he starts to question the morals of his father, Viren, and Soren has to struggle between his duties to his father and his duties to his country as a member of the crownguard. We get the sense that Claudia has always been Viren’s favorite, and that the abuse and gaslighting Soren has to deal with in this season is nothing new and Viren’s contempt for his son has been building up a long time. Soren’s relationship with Claudia strains in this season until, when not wanting to make his sister choose between him or Viren, Soren cuts ties with her. The scene where he says goodbye and leaves is genuinely a heartbreaking one, and in general, you can feel the emotions all the characters are going through.

With Amaya and Janai, the two form a mutual respect over the course of the season. Amaya defeats Janai at the breach, but when seeing that the Sunfire general is hanging for her life, she ultimately saves Janai from dying. As the days go on and Amaya becomes a prisoner, Janai defends her against the Sunfire queen and they soon form a friendship that hints that it might lead to something more. But the scene that really increases the characters’ development is when Aaravos straight-up murders the Sunfire Queen. This sends Janai into a rage and she runs in, willing to risk her own life to avenge the death of her sister, but Amaya tackles her to the ground and gives her a solemn look of understanding, of knowing how it feels to lose her own sister. This little exchange is very powerful. I’ve always said that a scene is effective if it manages to give you chills without any dialogue, just letting the music and animation speak on its own, and, well, this scene passes that test. (Major shout-out to Frederik Wiedmann’s score, by the way; it really shines in this entire season.)

And… well, okay, there’s no use dodging it anymore. Let’s talk about these two.

Rayla and Callum. Oh boy. So, remember in my last review how I said it was likely that Rayla and Callum were going to get together by the end of the show? Well, since this show has a planned seven-season run, I was expecting it to happen way later, like in Book Six, or more likely for them to pull the Last Minute Hookup thing where they confess their love and finally kiss at the end of the last season. That trope always frustrates me, but it’s a good way of stretching out the romantic tension for as long as possible to keep fans interested, so I figured that’s what was going to happen, right? Well…

Yeah, I went into this season expecting a slow burn, but instead we got a freaking forest fire. Holy crap, I was not expecting them to hook up this early in the show. And it didn’t happen in the last episode, either; no, they shared their first kiss in episode four, smack in the middle of the season. And you know what? I’m all for that. The writers handled their relationship really well and it felt surprisingly believable and not rushed despite happening so soon. It hasn’t been confirmed how long Callum and Rayla have known each other for, but I’ve calculated that it’s been anywhere between 20-30 days since they first met, which is more than enough time to fall in love. Part of why it works is that the dynamic didn’t really change much. They already had a beautiful friendship, and the only thing that has changed between them is that there’s now more kissing. I wouldn’t have depicted their relationship any other way if I had made it canon. This does open up the question of where they’re going to go with it in future seasons, but as usual, I trust the writers not to screw it up. I may honestly dedicate a whole post to why Rayla and Callum’s relationship works, but we’ll see if I have time for that.

Other Stuff (incl. spoilers)

For the most part, the humor in this season is on point. With the exception of an oddly-placed fart joke in episode two, I found myself laughing at most of the scenes where I was supposed to laugh. Highlights include Soren putting stacking three pieces of bread to make a “bread sandwich,” Callum seeing a boomerang and finding it “oddly familiar” (hi, Sokka), and Nyx taking the dragang (Callum, Rayla, and Zym) past a magical forcefield protecting an oasis, saying, “Anyway, here’s the wonderwall.” I had to do a double take with that because I was laughing so hard. Though I think my personal favorite may be when Ibis laughs at Callum because “humans can’t do magic” and Callum does this.

Just, the look on his face. He’s so done and it’s hilarious.

One thing I was surprised by in this season was the sheer amount of violence. This one really does feel like an all-out war. Apparently, the violence was enough to get it rated TV 13 in some countries (though it’s still listed as TV Y-7 here) and honestly, I can see why. There’s an all-out battle scene in the last episode that could be compared to the climax of Return of the King. Everyone is fighting each other; even the Baker from Book One gets a few punches in there! Not only that, but there are a huge number of onscreen deaths in this season. As previously mentioned, we get to see the Sunfire Queen be Thanos’d. Prince Kasef gets a pretty spectacular death when Queen Aanya has a Big Damn Heroes moment and shoots an arrow through his head. Not to mention that we get to see Viren die not once, but twice! Even though Claudia resurrects him using dark magic, it’s still pretty great to see because he’s a turd. (No offense to Jason Simpson, though—love ya.)

By far the hardest death scene to watch, however, is the death of Avizandum, the Dragon King. In the flashbacks, we get to see how Harrow and Viren killed him, and, well… it’s really painful. The death, by way of petrification, is shown to be slow and agonizing, and Avizandum is shown tearing off his wings in a futile attempt to survive just to make it back to Zubeia. Even Harrow is mortified, with a look of “Oh god, what have I done?” on his face. In his last moments, Avizandum sheds a tear knowing that he will never be able to see his son grow up, and we as the audience are given a grim reminder that everyone… is a person. Even our enemies have families they care about. Avizandum may have been a gigantic, powerful dragon who hated humans, but at the end of the day he was still a dad who wanted to protect his son.

My One Complaint

Okay, so I’ve talked about everything I love about this season, and how it has significantly increased the show’s potential. With all that said, why can’t I give this season my full props? Well… I’ll be honest, it’s because of the pacing. Remember how I said this season rarely if ever lets off the brakes? Yeah, that’s both a blessing and a curse. There are a lot of people online who believe that Rayla and Callum’s relationship was rushed, and I somewhat agree with them, but only to the same end that everything in this season felt rushed. Nine episodes just isn’t enough time for each season. This has been a problem I’ve had with previous seasons, too, but here, it felt especially rushed because so much happened in this season that it felt like we couldn’t dedicate enough time to everything. I’m not saying that every season needs to be twenty episodes long like Avatar—especially since, with four more proposed seasons, we’re already supposed to be getting more episodes than Avatar if all goes according to plan—but 10-13 episodes per season would probably be beneficial for future ones, especially since future arcs of the show are overall going to be shorter (only two seasons each instead of three). Or hell, maybe make the episodes longer. Of course, if that’s my biggest gripe with this season, then we still have it pretty good, let’s be honest.

Where Do We Go from Here?

So, the question remains, where does the show go from here? There are supposed to be four more seasons, but the final episode of Book Three, titled “The Final Battle,” honestly feels like a series finale in a lot of ways: There’s a big epic climax, Rayla and Callum are together, Zym is reunited with his mom, and the elves and humans have formed an alliance, if only temporary. It all seems too easy, doesn’t it? My guess is that this was meant as a pseudo-series finale just in case Netflix doesn’t renew the show for a fourth season.

However, as I’ve rewatched the season, I noticed that they still leave a lot of loose ends. Most notably, Aaravos is seeming to metamorphize and grow outside of his mirror. Judging by how Aaravos really let loose in this series, I can’t wait to see more of him as a villain and find out about his backstory. Also, Rayla was ghosted—or banished—from her hometown after failing her mission in Book One. Will she ever be able to go home again? On a related note, what did happen to her parents? Are we to assume they were trapped in coins like Runaan (and speaking of which, will Runaan ever get out)? There are also other unresolved plot points, like Claudia’s path down the road of dark magic, Viren’s ex-wife, and Callum’s dad. The last one is especially interesting to me, since it would be cool to know if Callum is secretly half-elf, which is why he knows how to do primal magic. Oh, and my question from last season about whether Harrow’s soul is in Pip’s body still remains. So it seems like they left enough open-ended so that they could continue with a new season.

I do hope to see how Rayla and Callum’s relationship develops in the future, though that may just be the shipper in me talking. But in all seriousness, this does open up some potential. As far as we know, Rayla and Callum are the first human/elf couple, so how is that received? Will they be judged by others? Will certain problems arise from this? I hope the upcoming seasons explore this and don’t just pull the usual romance clichés, though the writers have been pretty good at avoiding those so far.

I also have to wonder: When interviewed, the creators of The Dragon Prince said that there would be a time skip between Book Three and Book Four, since each of them is part of a separate story arc. How much of a time skip will it be? I can’t imagine that it will be over a year, but if it is, I hope they don’t do one of those things where since the main cast is too old now, they replace all the main characters with new ones and expect the audience to get invested in them. I highly doubt they will do that, though. It would be too jarring.

Conclusion

If you have been sleeping on The Dragon Prince, I highly urge you to check it out. Book Three is everything I had hoped the first two seasons would be, and more. With fantastic animation, likable characters that go through unique development, and a downright beautiful score (seriously, major props to Frederik Wiedmann), it wonderfully wraps up the first major arc of this series. I hope Netflix renews the show for all seven seasons, because this one has left me wanting more.

~Spaceman

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