History WesternAnimation / Visionaries

* AnAesop: Quite a few:
** We are stronger together as a team than on our own.
** Slavery is wrong.
** Aging isn't bad and gives you wisdom.
** You are not worthless, despite what you think.
** Don't let one bad day lead you to make a decision you'll regret.
** Not all Magic Users are bad.
** Help others and show kindness, and they will help you.
** Act selfishly and try to take advantage of others and they ''won't'' help you.
** BeYourself.
** Good and Evil must put aside their differences to battle Greater Evil (or Greater Chaos).

* TransformationConventions: Justified. Merklynn awards each knight their animal totems based on the abilities and personality traits they displayed during his quest.

[[caption-width-right:325:Fan art of the main cast by Leanne Hannah.]]

* EvilIsEasy: Invoked by Darkstorm in the first episode after he makes a fake peace treaty with Leoric. Once Leoric and his followers have left, Cindarr asks Darkstorm if the Darkling Lords are really going to honor the treaty, to which Darkstorm replies:
-->Of course not and Leoric knows it. But he is bound to honor his commitments. I am not. (Laughs) It is ''so'' much easier to be evil.

* WhipItGood: Leoric's weapon of choice is a whip.

* PteroSoarer: The Phylot (Cravex's totem animal) is similar to a pterosaur.

* WeaksauceWeakness: One episode has Merklynn rewarding the Spectral Knights with a magic crystal that will detect incoming threats. Its powers can only be evaded by a "cloak of concealment", but in practice this means "any polyster garment".

* ComicBookAdaptation: There was a comic book tie-in published by Star Comics (a kid-oriented imprint of Creator/MarvelComics) that lasted six issues.

* EverythingsEvenWorseWithSharks: Virulina's totem.

* AnAxeToGrind: WeaponOfChoice for Darkstorm, Cravex and Virulina.

* AnimationBump: Compared to either ''WesternAnimation/TheTransformers'' or ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyAndFriends'' (both also Sunbow produced); or most action cartoon at that time, thanks in part to TMS' involvement. It still holds up fairly well at that.

* BewareTheSillyOnes: The Sun Imps, who certainly don't look like the massive evil Merklynn tried to warn the knights about to make sure they don't escape. The imps prove to have ''extremely'' troublesome magic powers once they escape, though.

* EnhancedArchaicWeapon: Feryl's two-pronged dagger generates a spark that can be fired as a projectile, is capable of producing fire, and acts as a taser.[[note]]Feryl uses it as the latter in the first episode ''before'' he gains his magical powers, in order to move a large spider away while navigating a labyrinth.[[/note]]

* EvilIsEasy: Invoked by Darkstorm in the first episode after he makes a fake peace treaty with Leoric. Once Leoric and his followers have left, Cindarr asks Darkstorm if the Darkling Lords are really going to honour the treaty, to which Darkstorm replies:
-->Of course not and Leoric knows it. But he is bound to honour his commitments. I am not. (Laughs) It is ''so'' much easier to be evil.

* InformedAbility: Supposedly all the Visionaries can pilot the magical vehicles once Ectar, Feryl, Mortdredd and Reekon have activated them. However, apart from when Virulina takes the controls of the Sky Claw in "The Power of the Wise", this is never shown onscreen.

* ShipOutOfWater: The opening scene of "Feryl Steps Out" features a pirate ship that travels on land. Complete, of course, with {{pirates}} who [[TalkLikeAPirate talk]] and [[DressedToPlunder dress]] as such and try to [[RapePillageAndBurn plunder]] a village. They attack Feryl before Leoric singlehandedly wipes the floor with them, which sets up the episode's plot, as the incident causes Feryl to lose faith in himself.

* TheSmurfettePrinciple: Galadria and Virulina. They're also the only two who have aquatic animal forms. That said, they sometimes ''did'' fight the male cast members, and didn't do a half-bad job.

* WhatKindOfLamePowerIsHeartAnyway: Of all the totems Merklynn could have chosen for Galadria and Virulina, they get stuck with aquatic animals. They also do not have staffs of their own (until the comic book series) nor vehicle-based powers.[[note]]However, Virulina is seen piloting the Sky Claw in one episode, implying that they have vehicle-based powers, but no personal vehicles.[[/note]]

** Late in the comic series, Galadria and Virulina received, after a well-deserved dressing-down of Merklynn for shortchanging them, magical shields with the powers of Healing and Disease, respectively.
* WeWillUseManualLaborInTheFuture: One episode revolves around a settlement that depended on robot slaves to perform physical labor during the last Age of Science, and which is now desperate since the Age of Magic rendered their robots inoperative. The Darkling Lords are able to temporarily lure them into servitude by promising to give them the denizens of New Valarak as human slaves, although by the episode's ends they've come to their senses.

%%* YesMan: Mortdredd.

* YesMan: Mortdredd.

* AnimationBump: Compared to either ''WesternAnimation/TheTransformers'' or ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyAndFriends'' (both also Sunbow produced); or any action cartoon at that time[[note]]largely due to TMS' involvement[[/note]]. It still holds up fairly well too.

** Arzon is against hunting and killing animals "for sport". He is also hesitant to kill a dragon for a single claw despite its requirement for concocting a cure for a magical plague, and even tends its wounds when it is injured. In another episode, he (along with Cryotek) travels outside New Valarak to remove heavy spires that fell onto an eagle nest.

* ShipOutOfWater: The opening scene of "Feryl Steps Out" features a pirate ship that travels on land.
** Complete, of course, with {{pirates}} who [[TalkLikeAPirate talk]] and [[DressedToPlunder dress]] as such and try to [[RapePillageAndBurn plunder]] a village. They attack Feryl before Leoric singlehandedly wipes the floor with them, which sets up the episode's plot.

* SuperDrowningSkills: Darkstorm can't swim. Virulina saves him once from drowning by swallowing him in shark form. In another instance, he panics after falling into his own moat but Mortdredd points out that the water therein is only waist-deep.