History WesternAnimation / RayaAndTheLastDragon

* VillainHasAPoint: Zig-zagged. After Raya defeats Namaari, the creative team tries to invoke this trope when Namaari says "I don't care if you believe me. Sisu did. But you didn't trust her. That's why we're here. Do whatever you want. [[spoiler:But you're as much to blame for Sisu's death as I am". However, the scene where Sisu is shot does not support Namaari's accusation. When Namaari draws her cross-bow, Raya moves to respond but is stopped by Sisu who says "I got this" and Raya stands down removing her hand from her sword.]] Although Sisu has gotten in trouble before by trusting the wrong person, Raya is willing to let her try. She watches cautiously but doesn't take any action until she sees Namaari's finger actually pulling on the trigger and only then does Raya lash out with her whip-sword making it hard to build a case that Raya didn't trust Sisu or that she jumped the gun with her defensive action.

* DismantledMacGuffin: The Dragon Gem has been broken into five pieces across the five tribes, and Raya [[GottaCatchEmAll has to find them all]].

** Zig-zagged. With all the dragon stones [[spoiler: in her possession, Namaari initially tries to escape. She does choose to come back and reassemble the dragon stones and her DueToTheDead moment near the beginning of the film shows that she has genuine reverence for the dragons and is not completely evil. However her motivations at this moment are unclear. Is she responding to the trust Raya and the others put on her and is acting out of altruism or guilt to try and make amends? Or did she come back because she realized she has nothing to escape to. Her mother is petrified and her city is overrun by Druun. With nothing left to lose, she decides to reassemble the gem stones because it's the only viable option she has left?]]

* WorldHealingWave: [[spoiler:When the Dragon Gem unleashes its potential to destroy the Druun, it unleashes a wave across all of Kumandra that destroy them all and calls forth a rainstorm that restores all their victims.]]

** When teaching his daughter the importance of what the other tribes have to contribute to make Kumandra, Chief Benja shows Raya a recipe made by the different ingredients from all five tribes [[note]] bamboo shoots from Spine, shrimp paste from Tail, lemon grass from Talon, peppers from Fang, and palm sugar from Heart [[/note]]. After the six year timeskip, Raya relies on eating jackfruit jerky, showing that she doesn't trust the other four tribes' philosophy, and [[TookALevelInCynic has even abandoned Heart's philosphy]]. Later on, she applies her father's recipe and shares it with her friends, showing she's begun to [[RestoredMyFaithInHumanity have faith in her father's belief about the five tribes becoming Kumandra again]].

** The gem just happened to break into exactly five chunks, allowing each tribe to get their own piece, forcing Raya and Sisu to travel to each tribe's land to get each part of the gem and forming a heroic group along the way where each member represents their home land.

* FantasyCounterpartCulture: The world of Kumandra mixes various Southeast Asian cultures with fantasy touches like dragons and MixAndMatchCritters. The aestethics of the "Nations" of this world are even based on real historical countries.

** Spine is apparently based off Indonesian and Myanmar mountain cultures with Laos and Indonesia-based architecture, but they more heavily draw from non-Southeast Asian Asian cultures like Mongolia and China.

Enter Raya, the princess of Heart and the guardian of the Dragon Gem. After an incident causes the gem to break into five and revive the Druun, Raya strives to find Sisu and fix the world.

-->'''Boun''': How hot do you want it? We have hot, really hot and "BOUN goes the dynamite!

** Zig-zagged. Namaari gives one to Raya by saying that she's equally to blame for [[spoiler:Sisu's death]] because of her lack of trust. The creative team wants Namaari to have a VillainHasAPoint moment with her accusation however the scene where [[spoiler:Sisu is shot]] does not support Namaari's claim.

** Despite having no incentive to help out the Fang Tribe considering their reputation and it was their fault they're in this mess, [[spoiler:Boun decides in the climax to evacuate them during the DarkestHour, at a great personal risk. Tong, Noi and Raya then follow his lead and do the same thing, using their gem shards to ward off the Druun]].
** Zig-zagged. With all the dragon stones [[spoiler:in her possession, Namaari initially tries to escape. She does choose to come back and reassemble the dragon stones and her DueTheDead moment near the beginning of the film shows that she has genuine reverence for the dragons and is not completely evil. However her motivations at this moment are unclear. Is she responding to the trust Raya and the others put on her and is acting out of altruism or guilt to try and make amends? Or did she come back because she realized she has nothing to escape to. Her mother is petrified and her city is overrun by Druun. With nothing left to lose, she decides to reassemble the gem stones because it's the only viable option she has left?]]

* AdultFear:
** In the present of Kumandra, many people have been petrified by the Druun, orphaning survivors or otherwise eliminating their families. In Talon, Raya meets a toddler named Noi, living on the streets as a con artist to get by.
** Tong's "chief hut" [[spoiler:has an empty crib with a forlorn toy. Raya realizes what this means and decides to trust him since he actually wasn't the chief who got her father killed and has lost loved ones to the Druun like Raya herself]].

** Swallow your pride and admit your fault when you have done something wrong rather than going NeverMyFault. Namaari's refusal to do so led to the conflict dragging out more than necessary by [[spoiler: bringing her crossbow, which resulted in Sisu's DisneyDeath]]. It takes [[spoiler: finding her mother being turned to stone and seeing the Fang city being swallowed by quakes for her to admit she was wrong [[SubvertedTrope (though not without also blaming Raya)]], leading to Raya sparing her life]].

** Raya finding Boun's boat, which is the perfect vessel to sail the long river and gaining protection from the Drunn for the rest of her trip to get the rest of the Dragon Gem shards.

* ContrivedCoincidence: The gem just happened to break into exactly five chunks, allowing each tribe to get their own piece, forcing Raya and Sisu to travel to each tribe's land to get each part of the gem and forming a heroic group along the way where each member represents their home land.

** Swallow your pride and admit your fault when you have done something wrong rather than going NeverMyFault. Namaari's refusal to do so led to the conflict dragging out more than necessary by [[spoiler: bringing her crossbow, which resulted in Sisu's DisneyDeath]]. It takes [[spoiler: finding her mother being turned to stone and seeing the Fang city being swallowed by quakes for her to admit she was wrong, leading to Raya sparing her life]].

!!Provides examples of:

** You can't ever hope to improve the world if you are unwilling to have faith in its people to work with you. Distrust will only make things worse for everyone. However, there is a distinction in this trust. Chief Benja believed that one should not with old trust from someone just because they are from another tribe or another land. This is very different from withholding trust from someone who has intentionally and deliberately betrayed you and doesn't acknowledge the hurt they caused or ever apologize for their actions.

** The film wants us to believe that Raya needs to learn to trust in order to save the world, but if anything the world was broken because she trusted ''too much.'' Then when she extends an olive branch to the one who betrayed her, she gets betrayed ''again.'' Namaari's barb about Raya being responsible [[spoiler:for Sisu's death]] rings a bit hollow, to say the least.

* {{Foreshadowing}}: During her narration about the history of the Dragon Gem, Raya tells how humanity threw away a chance to unite and fought over the gem, "people being people". [[spoiler: Turns out, Raya is speaking from experience, as she's witnessed "[[HumansAreBastards People being people]]" first-hand when the four other tribes [[HistoryRepeats fought over the Dragon Gem]], to the point of breaking it.]]
** In Talon, Sisu is in a pinch when her little shopping spree lands her in trouble, only for an old woman to inexplicably take interest in Sisu when she [[FreudianExcuse accidentally spills]] about the Dragon Gem shards and disperse the crowd as quickly as it formed. [[spoiler: The fact she took notice in Sisu's mention of shards and influenced the crowd so easily hints she may not only have greedy intentions, but also be the current Chief of Talon.]]

** Talon is based on the Majapahit, which was located in today's Indonesia and Brunei, as well as on the floating markets of Thailand, Indonesia and Vietnam.

** Talon is based on the Majapahit, which was located in today's Indonesia and Brunei.

** Spine is apparently based off Indonesian and Myanmar mountain cultures, but they more heavily draw from non-Southeast Asian Asian cultures like Mongolia and China.

** Spine is based on the Nordics, but the culture and the people resembles the Mongolian's Khantanates

** Heart is based primarily of Vietnam and Malaysia, with interior architecture being mostly Thai and Indonesian.

** Heart is based primarily of Vietnam and Malaysia.