YMMV / The Dragon Prince

A-C

• Abandon Shipping:
  • Harrow/Viren shippers abandoned ship after Viren said to him that he sees them as brothers. Also, when their relationship quickly went from Like an Old Married Couple to sour and toxic, even more people jumped ship.
  • To a lesser degree some slash fans were preemptively shipping Runaan/Soren. Many dropped the ship when the age difference between the two came to light, and when implications that Runaan has an actual male romantic partner waiting for him in Xadia came to surface.
  • A somewhat popular pairing during Books 1 and 2 was Gren/Amaya. After Book 3 heavily implied that Amaya was a lesbian and that she would hook up with Janai, and especially after Book 4 canonized it and had them get engaged, a not insignificant number of fans jumped ship.
• Accidental Innuendo:
  • During their argument in "Moonrise", in Harrow's bedroom, Harrow demands Viren to start acting like the former is a real king, and tells him that "he is needed here" — to kneel to him like the servant he is. Not satisfied with that, the whole scene is shot at a suggestive angle when Viren does take a knee.
    Harrow: [Your place is] right here. (points down) On your knees.
  • In "Rebirthday", Janai proposes to Amaya in sign language, but accidentally swaps "marry" for "wrestle".
• Adorkable: Pretty much all of the characters shown have had at least one moment of adorkableness, from Claudia's hyperactive personality to King Harrow's idea of Dirtmen (Snowmen made out of dirt) and Mud Sledding.
• Alternative Character Interpretation:
  • Did Viren actually love Harrow like a brother and wants what is best for him and the kingdom or is he just out for himself and wants to secretly seize power? Did he make a grab for power after Harrow's death out of revenge for Harrow cruelly rejecting his efforts to save him, or does he genuinely believe the country needs an adult ruler to be safe — and now that the damage is done, the princes are just a dangerous rallying point for everyone who might disagree with the new rule, so for the sake of peace, they have to disappear... He seems to jump at the opportunity of replacing Harrow after his death, but then offers the throne to Amaya to serve as the Queen Regent with him as her advisor. Does he truly not want to rule, or is he being a Pragmatic Villain, knowing that the guard would more willingly follow Amaya and he could work in the shadows?
  • Harrow. Is he The Good King, who was rightfully angry with Viren constantly being careless with dark magic and coming up with "creative solutions" that were often worse than the initial problem? Or is he a classist Jerkass whose pride caused him to put his arbitrary sense of moral rectitude above the welfare of his kingdom and his family?
  • Did Claudia really have feelings for Callum or was she just telling him what he wanted to hear as a way to manipulate him and make him return to the kingdom?
  • Harrow's strained relationship with Viren. Is it truly because he regrets the role they played in killing Thunder and the Dragon Prince and viewing his dark magic related solutions as problematic as opposed to helpful? Or is it out of resentment that his wife died saving him?
  • How trustworthy is Opeli, really? Is she loyal to Ezran? Or is she more loyal to the Realm and the established order rather that the young king himself? Was her suggestion to Ezran to step aside in favor of a Regent made out of sympathy for his youth and inexperience? Or was it to get someone in a place of power who's actually capable of making decisions?
  • Runaan's expression when he realizes that Rayla is stalling him during their fight, and ready to die so that Callum has time to tell Harrow about the Dragon Prince. He then jumps past her to reach the throne room, saying her punishment will come later. Runaan bluntly says that they just can't call off a mission, and we find out that it's because the penalty is permanent shunning. Was it a case of Not Worth Killing, or the realization that he couldn't kill his foster daughter and believed it was Cruel to Be Kind to complete the assassination and save them both?
  • Did Harrow care about Viren as a friend, or was he just using Viren as pawn and fall guy? Did truly believe himself a servant of the people, or was it all lip service to hide how little he cared for his subjects?
  • Is Aaravos telling the truth about Viren's resurrection spell expiring in thirty days and that the Being is really their child? If he is, then why does he try to convince Viren to sacrifice the Being to make his resurrection permanent? Is it because he cares for Viren in his own twisted way, or because he wants to live up to his own statement of never telling lies, or just because he wants to continue using Viren as a paw, or all three at once?
  • Did Miyana truly betray Janai in favor of Karim, or did she just made it look like it to help Janai get the upper hand in Karim?
• Anvilicious: Harrow's speech in "Breaking the Seal" might as well be a lecture ot the audience. He tells us about how a just system should be fair to everyone regardless of the circumstance of their birth, whether they are born wealthy or poor, the color of their skin, or the cultures and practices of their family. The problem being: the speech is incredibly heavy-handed.
• Ass Pull: While audiences aren't complaining about the outcome, the conclusion to Rayla's assassin binding subplot comes out of nowhere with no foreshadowing. Zym, upon hatching, just... bites the binding off with no indication he would be able to do so before it happens. It's a useful scene for establishing that Zym is inherently powerful and has abilities like nothing no one has seen, but that doesn't change the fact it isn't set up beforehand.
• Base-Breaking Character:
  • Rayla became this after the events of Through the Moon. Some fans still love her and think she's heroic (albeit slightly misguided) for bravely going after Viren, while others have begun to intensely dislike her due to her betraying Callum's trust and possibly bringing everyone into danger through her reckless actions. This worsens in the fourth season where it is revealed that she abandoned Callum for two years to search for Viren on her own, her fans love how she tries to reconnect with Callum while her detractors feel that she returned to the starting point of the first three seasons of having to relearn how to work as a team and trust Callum.
  • Runaan. On the one hand, many fans took an instant liking to him, casting him as a loving father figure for Rayla and a good man trying to secure justice for his people. Often these fans focus on a potential backstory that could show Runaan's nobler qualities. On the other, fans see him as intensely bigoted, with an overt racism toward humans that rival the racism that the angry mob that chases Rayla show her. He's sees nothing fundamentally wrong with trying to kill Ezran even when it turned out he was wrong about the death of the dragon prince, and takes aim at Callum simply for standing up to him.
  • King Harrow, on the one hand, is set up as The Good King and shows a surprising level of humility for a monarch while being a loving father to both his sons — including Callum, who is only his step-son. However, his Honor Before Reason issues and treatment of Viren, all of which essentially spiral many of the conflicts of the show, earn him plenty of detractors as well.
  • Claudia has become this since the third season with some unhappy with her threatening to kill Ezran as it undid the goodwill she had in the first two seasons as a sympathetic Jerkass Woobie antagonist to make way for her shift into being a darker character, while other fans feel it works well with her character arc.
  • Terry has been this since his introduction, with some considering him to be one of the best new additions to the show following the three-year hiatus between season 3 and 4, while others find him to be uninteresting and contributing little to the overall plot.
  • Ezran became this since the fourth season, with some not happy with him abandoning his kingdom to risk his life to help Callum and Rayla, while others feel him doing so would fall under the Royals Who Actually Do Something trope.
    • There are also those who have defended Ezran for being a kid though others point out while it’s okay for him to make mistakes they aren’t happy that he isn’t being called out for it or learning from his mistakes, for example it’s understandable why he’d save the glowtoads because it’s in his character, but he doesn’t apologise or anyone confronts him how Callum being tortured along with Rayla and Soren is his fault.
  • Opeli. While she is well liked by fans due to her being a honest and respected member of the High Council, some fans don't like her due to her attitude, especially towards Viren, to the point that she's seen as Unintentionally Unsympathetic.
• Broken Base:
  • There is recurring disagreement in the fanbase regarding the morality of dark magic. The show provides many reasons for why the use of it is wrong, both in that to use it requires draining life force from living creatures (particularly magical ones, including sentient creatures such as dragons), that it has a corruptive and addictive effect on the user (as seen with both Viren and Claudia's changing physical appearances, as well as causing painful withdrawal-like symptoms to Callum after using it once), and with Callum proving humans are capable of learning Primal Magic the same way elves learnt if they just put in the work, Dark Magic is a wholly unnecessary practice that casts dark magic as an easy short-cut. However, some fans disagree with the show's stance on it, believing the practice is realistically no more abhorrent than killing animals for food and leather, arguing that the show fails to showcase its supposed negative effects beyond being scary looking, and noting that humans were said to be suffering prior to adopting it and its use helped to balance the scales between them and elves/dragons.
  • Harrow's decision to share the famine with Duren has fuelled debates of its own. Some agree with Harrow, viewing his choice as empathetic and the least bad way to deal with a bad situation. Others see him as just acting foolishly and arrogantly, dooming thousands of his people to death over an abstract point of morality.
  • Rayla's accent^note for those unaware, her voice actress Paula Burrows, who is Canadian, does a Scottish accent for Rayla based off the accents of her two Scottish parents.. It essentially boils down to some people saying it doesn't fit, some saying it's perfectly fine, others saying it fits but is still annoying, and some criticising the quality of the accent itself regardless of how it fits. Both fans and detractors note that it's very different from how elves are normally portrayed and voiced in fiction; whether that's a good thing or not depends who you ask.
  • Reception to Book Four has been this. Many fans enjoy the darker tone and the character development of the season, while others were put off by the season falling back on humor and regressing some characters to the status quo. Admittedly, after being in production for three years, along with the departure of Giancarlo Volpe as head writer resulting in Devon Giehl taking over as his replacement, it would have been hard to follow Book Three in any case.
  • The supplemental material for the show (as in video games, comics, web stories etc) has divided fans with those finding necessary to expand the show's story while others not happy with the story elements occuring offscreen in other media (see They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot below), especially there are fans who would've wanted Soren and Claudia's mother Lissa to appear in the show on screen than being relegated to said material and mentions in the show, not helped by co-creator Aaron Ehasz once saying that a story involving Soren and Viren wouldn't be visually interesting before it happened in form of a short story.
• Catharsis Factor:
  • Warlon suffering from humiliating defeats once by Soren and later by the rest of Team Zym can be very satisfying when you consider how he beat up dragons for fun and had no problem in trying to have Soren fed to a dragon.
  • For those who still can't forgive Rayla for abandoning Callum for two years on his birthday, it will be gratifying to see Amaya threatening her for breaking her nephew's heart.
  • Just about everything bad that happens to Finnegrin is extremely satisfying, from being punched by Callum, to being thrown to a sea leviathan by Elmer.
• Character Perception Evolution: Rayla went from being a fan favorite to a Base-Breaking Character after the events of Through the Moon, where she lies to Callum about hunting Viren together, then leaves while he's asleep on his birthday. While some fans think Rayla was being selfless and heroic by protecting Callum from getting hurt by Viren, others claimed that Rayla was being selfish, hypocritical, and prioritizing her feelings and fears over Callum's own feelings and agency. Also, many people are of the opinion that Rayla abandoning Callum for two years without bothering to communicate with him and then suddenly returning without giving him a proper apology is Unintentionally Unsympathetic at best and Wangsty at worst.
• Common Knowledge: Most fans tend to see Callum as a bookish nerd, despite the fact that he admits to being pretty bad at studying, and is consistently portrayed as Book Dumb (especially in comparison to Claudia and Viren). Ironically, post-time skip in season 4, now that Callum is the High Mage he does appear to have become more studious.
  • Most fans also commonly believed that Callum was bad at combat generally, rather than just being bad at swordplay specifically, and that he needs to cast spells from a safe distance in order to be useful in a fight. It turns out that, once Callum had studied a bit, he was no slouch at close quarters combat, as demonstrated by the fact that he took down a large animal with a magically enhanced punch.
  • Related to the above, many fans seem to regard mages as Squishy Wizard types whose spellcraft takes time to perform which leaves them vulnerable to attack at close range. The truth is that mages are by and large pretty athletic, durable, and just as deadly up close as they are from a distance.
• Complete Monster (includes Bloodmoon Huntress comic & "The Queen's Mercy"): The wicked and treacherous Kim'dael is an ancient Moonshadow elf who has survived with her youth for centuries by murdering innocents and drinking their blood during the Blood Moon. Thought to be just a myth, a young Rayla witnesses her trying to kill a family of elves with no compunction at killing children. Upon her plan being foiled, Kim'dael tries to murder Rayla as well. Kim'dael is later recruited by the renegade Sun Elf prince Karim to kill Queen Janai under promise of freeing her from bondage. Kim'dael proceeds to massacre Janai's guards and attempts to deliver Janai to execution, with Janai protesting her brother's plot to unleash such a monster on the world.
• Crazy Is Cool: Captain Villads. An eccentric, blind pirate who's a very competent sailor who trained his parrot to a ludicrous degree.
• Crossover Ship:
  • Rayla is paired with Catra from She-Ra and the Princesses of Power, though more as friends than lovers. This is likely partly due to The Dragon Prince writers Tweeting that they would be friends if they met.
  • Callum often gets paired with Sokka (due to both of them sharing the same voice actor in the original dub), and with Aang (due to both of them having an affinity for air-themed magic).
  • And a very tiny portion of fans ship Soren with Azula as a Himbo and Defrosting Ice Queen Huge Guy, Tiny Girl couple.
• Cry for the Devil: Despite how much of a misanthropic monster he is, it is suprisingly hard not to pity Sol Regem during his appearance in Season 5. He is left a pathetic husk of his former self, suffering from depression, and refusing Karim's offer to return to being the new ruler of Xadia, saying that he had lost his hope long before he had lost his sight, and that he would never be the same being he was before his encounter with Ziard.

D-H

• Diagnosed by the Audience:
  • Claudia appears to have some difficulty understanding and telling jokes and once was so absorbed in a book, she nearly walked into a tree. She also seems to have trouble with certain social cues and subtleties, such as assuming others will understand what her gestures mean. She also doesn't seem to have much restraint when it comes to sacrificing living creatures for her dark magic, something Callum thought was creepy about her even before their relationship got destroyed. The book situation and her sometimes chaotic, quirky interactions and impulsive responses to Callum and Rayla's braids are symptoms of Attention Deficit... Ooh, Shiny! (aka ADHD). Technically, her miscommunicating certain social cues could also be a symptom of autism spectrum, but these disorders can overlap and often co-occur.
  • While he lacks the overt quirks his daughter has, it's clear that Viren doesn't quite understand the feelings of others all that well either. When Harrow rejects his soul-swap plan to save Harrow's life at the start of the show, Viren puts it down to stubbornness, since to him the plan is brilliant. Likewise, during their attempt to get the heart of the magma titan across the Xadian border, Viren suggests that they leave the wounded behind and Harrow says no, which Viren angrily presumes is simply because Harrow's sister-in-law is among the wounded. It never seems to dawn on him that his friend's objections were due to moral issues.
• Draco in Leather Pants:
  • Aaravos, of course, due to his sexy portrayal. While early on he was more Ambiguously Evil, the third season had him cross the Moral Event Horizon multiple times with his popularity unabated. It doesn't help that his status as the most powerful Startouch Elf ever to live means that he may or not possess an Omniscient Morality License. It also doesn't help that Word of God says "He's disliked; that's not the same as *bad*."
  • Runaan as well. Despite his bigotry and willingness to murder any human who so much as stands in his way (literally, in Callum's case), he seems to have many fans who overlook his darker nature because of how attractive he looks.
  • Viren, the ongoing main antagonist of the first three seasons, tends to get this from time to time. As said before, his ideals weren't exactly "wrong" at first, but when he gets desperate, he jumps to conclusions that would make him do things that are absolutely vile, including trying to get his son to kill his friends just so he can usurp the throne. Some fans tend to remember his more understanding opinions that could technically be more "right" than even what certain heroes would think, but that hardly matters when his actions only spur the war and he completely ignores the option to make peace when the opportunity arises.
  • Despite being the most unambiguously evil in comparison to the first three, Kim'dael ironically receives it the most. Some go as far as to call her innocent or wish that she got to become a member of Team Zym. This is despite the fact that it was made clear she takes joy in killing people of her own kind to maintain her youth and gain power, and the one member of Team Zym she met so far she almost drowned.
• Dry Docked Ship: Soon after Aaravos' introduction, some people started believing that, somehow, he's Runaan's ex-boyfriend and that they ended in bad terms. Another of the same type is that he is Ethari's ex, and that Runaan hates him because he treated Ethari poorly, or even out of pure jealousy of someone else having been with Ethari besides him.
• Ensemble Dark Horse: The minor characters of this series have a tendency to become quite popular, regardless of how little screentime or few lines they have.
  • Gren, Amaya's Number Two also got quite some fans despite his limited appearances due to his adorkable looks and funny dialogue whenever given the chance.
  • The Crow Master (which is different from the "Crow Lord") was an instant hit for the fans due to his adorkable nature.
  • Nyx is a charismatic Loveable Rogue with moral standards. It helps that she is sincerely grateful when Rayla saves her live and she genuinely helps Rayla and Callum on their journey afterwards.
  • Despite her young age Queen, Aanya is a very wise regent who is not fooled or intimidated by Viren. She even leads her army into battle and kills Kasef when he tries to kill Callum.
  • Ethari and Rayla's parents have amassed a very passionate fanbase despite collectively appearing in only a few episodes. This has risen to the point that such fans have shelved the main plot to focus solely on these characters' alleged return.
  • Ellis is also popular with fans despite only appearing in the first season finale and the second season premiere, with those feeling she could have been the Sixth Ranger to the main trio.
• Epileptic Trees:
  • There's a theory among fans that Viren was the one to invent Dark Magic, either managing somehow to stop aging through the use of it or possibly staying alive through the use of soulfang serpents to transfer his soul into new bodies. Some people point out the similarities between his cane and the staff used by the mage in the opening sequence (not to mention the resemblance between the two characters themselves) as evidence. Jossed by the opening of Season 3, which shows that original Dark Mage being incinerated by Sol Regem in the past.
  • That Viren actually did use the soulfang serpents to switch Harrow and Pip's bodies, due to the lack of a conclusion to what happened after their argument, Viren sarcastically asking Pip why he's so quiet after Harrow was announced dead, and Ezran's ability to talk to animals possibly being a Chekhov's Gun if he were to reunite with "Pip".
  • Aaravos invited this very quickly. A popular theory that gathered believers is the one that he is the true creator of dark magic and merely taught humans, as a way for them to defend themselves against elves and thus was banned into another dimension by the elves that found this out. In his relationship with Elarion, many people have started suspecting that Elarion isn't really a character, but actually an allegorical figure for dark magic itself. Season 3 ends up supporting that theory when the mage who was credited with the invention of Dark Magic says that his magic staff was a gift from one of the great ones, though Elarion turned out to be a city, not a person. Season 4 confirms that Aavaros was the one who taught humans dark magic, but he did it as one of his schemes to spread chaos and hatred throughout the world rather than any altruistic motive.
  • A theory that gained traction following the reveal of the first episode of the (at the time) not yet released fourth season in which Rayla was still absent following the events of Through the Moon, and was still completely MIA from any promotional materials, is that new character Terry, Claudia's Earthblood Elf boyfriend who she met during the Time Skip, was actually Rayla in disguise. The evidence is a bit flimsy, the main point being that Terry introduced himself with the phrase "Trees to meet you", which Callum used in a prior episode, while disguised as an earthblood elf himself, and the fact that Rayla was completely absent from any promotional material released regarding the fourth season. This one was severely Jossed come season 4, where the two are firmly separate characters and that "Trees to meet you" was actually genuinely the way Earthblood elves greet others, something lampshaded in the next scene by a similar circumstance.
• Estrogen Brigade: Despite the fact that the show is aimed at boys in their preteens and young teens (given that there are only two female characters in the main ensemble, one of whom is an antagonist), characters such as Soren, Viren, Callum, and Harrow have garnered a sizable fangirl base. Aaravos in particular has garnered a massive following for this reason.
• Evil Is Cool:
  • When someone who is not his children is around him, Viren definetly gets this. He can be a very dangerous threat capable of performing great magic spells and manipulate others with ease.
  • Aaravos fits this to a T. He is incredibly charismatic, powerful, manipulative, atractive, and has some of the shows' greatest moments. Being voiced by Erik Dellums certanly helps.
  • Sol Regem is an extremely powerful dragon with a very deep voice that he uses to make people fear him and treat him with respect. It's no suprise that he was once the king of the dragons.
• Fandom Rivalry:
  • Not so much a rivalry as much as a distaste and disdain toward the fans of Voltron: Legendary Defender. Many The Dragon Prince fans are members of the Voltron fandom that grew tired of the latter's toxicity, ship wars, and in-fighting, wanting their new fandom to have nothing to do with these traits and keep all of those at an arm's length.
  • Parts of this have also extended to She-Ra and the Princesses of Power, with both fandoms branching off from Voltron and worrying which side got the shippers that dragged Voltron down to begin with. TDP fans claim that She Ra fandom absorbed most of the so-called antis, while She Ra fans accuse TDP fandom of sheltering No Yay fans.
• Fandom-Specific Plot:
  • So far, one of the most popular fanfiction ideas are stories where Callum turns out to be the Dragon Prince, usually due to Lord Viren using his magic to transform him from a dragon (or rather, a dragon egg) into a human.
  • Stories involving Callum's biological father being an elf have become rather popular.
  • A third one involving Callum has him somehow meeting Aaravos and becoming his apprentice.
• Fan Nickname:
  • "Broyals" for Callum and Ezran, a nickname which has been acknowledged by the show's official social media.
  • "Brodigies" for Soren and Claudia because they're both considered prodigies in their respective fields.
  • The then-unnamed elf making jewelry in the credits (who many fans guessed is Runaan's significant other) has been dubbed "Tinker" or "Tinker Elf", after a tweet from Giancarlo Volpe. His name was revealed to be Ethari in Season 3.
  • Gren is often called a strawberry.
  • The "Dragang" for the main character group. This became Ascended Fanon in season 4 when Soren declares them such, and the Dragon Queen herself seems fond of the name.
  • Rayla and her extended parental group of Runaan and Ethari and Lain and Tiadrin are often referred to as the "moonfam."
• Fanon:
  • It's generally believed that Runaan and Gren had some interactions between them while they were both in the dungeon. For the most part, it's imagined that Gren tried to interact and play some kind of game together, to take their minds off of the dungeon, but Runaan saw him as more bothersome than any torture he could go through.
  • Gren doesn't like to curse. This is due to the scene where it looks like he, when interpreting for Amaya, substituted bull-droppings for bullshit (The reality of the matter is that Amaya actually did sign bull-droppings, rather than bullshit, which apparently surprised Gren. Her smug smile means that this was probably intentional.)
  • With Queen Sarai's response to Harrow's "boring dream" with Lady Justice, many fans have concluded that she is bisexual.
  • Although Gren and Amaya appear to be truly close friends, their relationship with Corvus exists, in the mind of fans, in the same level as theirs. It's often believed that Corvus was with them through many battles and the three are close friends while in their time off.
• Foe Yay Shipping: Many have started shipping Amaya with Janai, due to the taunting nature of their fight scenes. This is implied to have advanced to Ascended Fanon in Season 3, and has fully become Ascended Fanon in Season 4.
• Friendly Fandoms:
  • Due to all the shared talent, it's no surprise that The Dragon Prince has quite a lot of old school Avatar fans. Blogs analyzing the similarities between themes and character dynamics abound, and The Dragon Prince had its first episodes premiere at its panel right after the Avatar Legacy fan panel at San Diego Comic Con.
  • There's some fanbase overlap with Fire Emblem, since FE is constantly described as a major influence for the plot and aesthetics of this show.
  • While it's sometimes overshadowed by the Fandom Rivalry between the two, quite a few Voltron fans do get along with this fandom. Fans of Aaravos and Lotor tend to get along in particular, for obvious reasons.
  • With She-Ra and the Princesses of Power, another show that attracted former Voltron: Legendary Defender fans that were disillusioned with the fandom of that show. This was helped when the Twitter account for The Dragon Prince released crossover sketches made by their artists of the characters of both shows interacting, specifically, Catra and Rayla befriending each other, as well as Soren and Sea Hawk arm wrestling.
• Genius Bonus:
  • Amaya using sign language. Also, when Gren interprets one of her signing as "bull-droppings", Amaya actually did sign "bull" and "drop", as the sign for "bullshit" is something else.
  • In Episode 4, when Amaya and Gren are interrogating Rayla because the former thinks she captured the princes, Rayla turns her head when she denies that there are other elves with her. This causes Amaya grabs Rayla's face, turns it back to her, and strictly tells her through sign language not to look away from her. While it may seem like Amaya being in interrogation mode on the surface, there's also an underlying reason for this. In the Deaf Community, a hearing person turning away from a Deaf/Hard-Of-Hearing person when the former is speaking to the latter is considered rude, especially when the hearing-impaired person has the ability to read lips. This means that Rayla was unintentionally committing a social faux-pas.
  • In season 2, the fundamental part of the primal sources that needs to be understood is called "arcanum". This is the Latin word for secret.
  • Similarly, Sol Regem is given the title of "the sun king", as he's the archdragon of the sun. "Sol Regem" is latin for, of course, sun king. Likewise, Rex Igneous, the name of the archdragon of earth, roughly means "King of Molten Rock". And Domina Profundis, the name of the ocean dragon met at the start of Season 5, translates to "Lady of the Depths."
  • Harrow's dream of Lady Justice in "Breaking the Seal" is similar to philosopher John Rawls's concept of the original position, in which impartial people behind a "veil of ignorance" would design a just society without knowing what their place in that society would be.
• Growing the Beard: Season 2 has been considered an improvement over Season 1, from both a story standpoint and an animation standpoint. Season 3 takes this a step further — the animation is downright spectacular, and the story fleshes out a wider variety of characters and sites than ever before.
• Harsher in Hindsight:
  • Callum using dark magic to save Rayla and Pyrrha becomes this after it's revealed in Season 4 that this made Aaravos able to posess him and later try to make Callum serve him.
  • Karim lashing out at Amaya for joking about a Sunfire ritual getting ruined becomes a lot harsher after the release of the After Darkness short story, where it's revealed that Karim almost attacked a human soldier because she made a joke to lighten the mood in a mission to reclaim Lux Aurea. The fact that it was that soldier killing his friend Osato after the latter got corrupted by the Sunforge's infection that caused Karim to hate humans doesn't help.
• Heartwarming in Hindsight: Callum's eventual romance with Rayla — he's voiced by Jack DeSena, the voice actor of Sokka from Avatar: The Last Airbender. Sokka's two love interests were Princess Yue and Suki; Rayla resembles both with her design and moon aesthetic (Yue) and Action Girl qualities and personality (Suki). In a sense, Sokka was able to have his two loves at the same time.
• He's Just Hiding: Many within the show's fandom doubt that King Harrow really died, with the most popular theory being that Viren put his soul inside Pip, Harrow's pet bird. Whether this is true or not remains to be seen.
• He Really Can Act:
  • Sasha Rojen as Ezran has some great moments, such as Ezran's reaction to his father's death, and his speech in the episode "Breathtaking". The latter caused her to be nominated for Best Performance in an Animated Series.
  • Jason Simpson as Viren has many moments of it as well, manly his talk with Claudia in "Fallen Stars", which, like Sasha Rojen above, caused Jason to be nominated for Best Performance.
• Ho Yay:
  • Harrow and Viren's interactions can come off like this. They argue Like an Old Married Couple, Viren goes into Harrow's bedroom to wake him up, and Harrow ordering him to get on his knees (in his bedroom again, no less) after giving a "The Reason You Suck" Speech (pun (purportedly) not intended...) later.
  • In the credits of "Echoes of Thunder" and "Cursed Caldera", a male moonshadow elf appears making necklaces and later crying respectively. Subtle hints led many to believe he is Runaan's romantic partner due to both of them wearing the same amulet. Season 3 reveals his name as Ethari and confirms that the two of them are married.
  • Viren and Aaravos' interactions through the mirror have some serious romantic undertones. This only increases when it's revealed that, from a certain point of view, they canonically have a son together in Sir Sparklepuff/The Being.
  • Amaya and Janai give off quite a few sparks when they get to spend real time together, in Season 3: Episode 8, Amaya signs to Callum that Janai thinks she's cute and just won't admit it yet after Janai denied they were friends while blushing, and in the final scene of Season 3 they hold hands along with Official Couple Callum and Rayla. In Season 4, it turns out the two formed a relationship during the Time Skip as Janai successfully proposes to Amaya.

I-R

• I Knew It!:
  • That Elarion was a place, not an actual person.
  • As mentioned above, the elf who had been given the Fan Nickname "Tinker elf" had long been speculated to be Runaan's romantic partner ever since he appeared in credits to Season 1. Season 3 reveals his name to be Ethari and that he is Runaan's husband.
  • That Rayla's parents had also been trapped in coins like Runaan was.
• Iron Woobie: Ezran. He lost his mother when he was an infant, lost his father when he was ten years old, was manipulated and lied to about his father's fate for weeks until he found out about it and that he was planned to become king at a young age, and is rarely taken seriously by anyone around him. Despite this, he is able to go through all the bad things that happened in his life and still maintain an idealistic view of the world.
• Jerkass Woobie:
  • Soren. He may be rude, snarky, and arrogant, but it's pretty easy to feel bad for him. His mother left him at a young age, he was constantly emotionaly abused and gaslighted by his father, got crippled by a dragon, was tricked into thinking he had killed his father, and when he sees that his father was alive after two years, Soren suffers from a mental breakdown. It's also revealed that he is haunted by the memory of him "killing" his father. However, after his redemption, Soren slowly turns into a regular Woobie.
  • Prince Kasef. Yes, he's a Royal Brat who cruelly insulted Ezran and then plotted against the new Katolis King, but the circumstances behind his jerkassery is understandable. His father was nearly killed by constructs created by Viren, who then manipulated the young prince into siding with him, and then turned him into a monster.
  • Karim, he may be a misanthropic fanatic willing to kill his own sister, but his reasons for why he became this are understandable to say the least. He lost his sister, watched as he could do nothing as countless of his kin were either killed or turned into sunfire monsters, and his childhood friend died in front of him. He then had to leave the city he grew up in due to how it became too dangerous to live in. Overall, all Karim wants is bring the place he grew up in back and prevent any more changes because he simply cannot lose anything else.
  • After Book 3, Claudia becomes this, as while she still maintains her sympathetic traits, she also starts being more prideful, cruel, sadistic, and xenophobic towards Xadian creatures.
• LGBT Fanbase: The show has slowly but surely garnered the approval of LGBT fans, since the show's twitter had promised LGBT representation in the show. Soren became popular with gay fans, as well as Viren and Harrow's Like an Old Married Couple dynamics. Sparking theories that Runaan has a canon male romantic partner somewhere were also intensifying this. Approval has skyrocketed as of season 2 with the reveal of two lesbian queens Annika and Neha, and even more so after they showed another explicit gay relationship in season 3. Also, characters like Amaya and Janai seem to be rather popular with lesbians, especially once Season 4 has the two becoming engaged.
  • Season 4 introduces Terry, a female-to-male trans character.
• Love to Hate: Finnegrin is a sadistic, smug, and power-hungry pirate who is extremely verbally abusive to his bodyguard Elmer and tries to have Rayla killed out of spite against Callum. Despite this, he is often liked for his cool and threatening presence, as well as Tariq Leslie's performance, with fans admitting that he and the pirate story arc are some of the best things about Book 5.
• Magnificent Bastard: Once a beloved figure, the Startouch elf Aaravos is now a prisoner in a magical realm and will stop at nothing to escape. A powerful mage who taught countless others magic, Aaravos was once discovered to be manipulating all the conflicts of the world for a purpose only he knew. Aaravos was then defeated and sealed away for centuries. Reaching out to the mage Viren, Aaravos uses him to plot the seeds of his return. Guiding Viren to the kingdom of the Sunfire elves, Aaravos then reveals himself and kills their queen before taking over the elves' own holiest places. Later guiding Viren's daughter Claudia back to life, Aaravos then takes over the hero himself before releasing him with promises of inevitable return.
• Memetic Molester:
  • After Book 3 released Viren started getting this treatment by fans, mostly because of the scene where he tries to extract Zym's life force, with the sounds he makes while trying to do so being joked by fans as Viren having an orgasm.
  • Aaravos gets this treatment after the reveal that Sir Sparklepuff was created as the biological child of Viren and Aaravos, especially considering that Viren didn't even realize the creature was his child until Aaravos told him so that Viren could sacrifice Sparklepuff to complete the resurrection spell.
• Memetic Mutation:
  • Depicting Soren in Ouran High School Host Club poses. It has even earned the approval of his voice actor.
  • Changing Lord Viren's name to similar sounding words like Lord Vitamin, Lord Virus and even Lord Voltron, most often as a form of Malicious Misnaming.
  • Hot brown morning potion ^note  In an episode, Claudia seems to have invented coffee, but she calls it "hot brown morning potion". The fandom has run with it and called coffee that.
  • "You know your place. On your knees." ^note King Harrow giving Lord Viren "The Reason You Suck" Speech after the latter tries to convince him on a personal level to use Dark Magic to save his life. The two already had Ho Yay, this scene takes place in Harrow's bedroom, and the camera is framed in a suggestive way, making the scene an Accidental Innuendo. What’s even funnier is that Soren and a bunch of Crownguards were right outside the room when this happened.
  • The adults' ages ^note The crew behind the show are often vague about the adult characters' ages, using words such as Dad-ish, Uncle-ish, Aunt-ish, etc. to describe their ages. The oldest character with a confirmed age is Gren, who is 24 years old.
  • Rayla Naruto runs. ^note Rayla often runs in a fashion similar to that of the shinobi from Naruto. It didn't take the Fandom long to notice this.
    • The fact that she grew up in a literal hidden village in the forest probably counts, too.
  • What's with this sassy lost child? ^note The Child Queen Aanya doesn't fall for Viren's attempts to deceive the other monarchs into uniting Humanity against Xadia, responding to his attempts with sassy remarks.
  • Dark magic is a shortcut. ^note Characters in-universe usually talk about dark magic as being Evil Is Easy, decrying it as a destructive "shortcut" as opposed to the more "honest" paths of either primal magic or seeking out non-magical solutions. However, many fans have noticed◊ that dark magic usually involves incredibly complicated rituals requiring exotic, hard-to-find materials and remote locations, which makes it seem much harder than primal magic.
  • The aarpod ^note Alternatively, "aarapod". The worm Aaravos uses to speak to Viren received this nickname due to functioning like airpods and is frequently referred to as such, particularly with concurrent memes and jokes about airpods.
  • Scottish Rayla ^note Paula Burrows gives Rayla an exaggerated Scottish accent, so people on Reddit took to posting pictures of Rayla alongside phonetically-written near-undecipherable (to a non-Scot) tweets or other posts, especially the variety popular in places like the subreddit Scottish People Twitter.
  • NEW THEORY: HARROW IS BIRD ^note  It's become something of a running joke on fan communities for new viewers to rush in claiming to have "discovered" that Harrow's soul was swapped with Pip's, when this is one of the most common theories about the king's fate.
  • Lujanne's ex-husband ^note  After Lujanne's admission to having three ex husbands, a lot of fans are making jokes about who those husbands are, ranging from Aaravos and Viren to Sol Regem.
  • Rayla! Is! Taller! Than! Callum!^note As easily seen in both the show itself and in official guidebooks, in Arc 1 Rayla is slightly taller than Callum even without her horns, but fanart of the couple has a tendency to show Callum as taller. This irks purists, who are prone to reminding artists about the height situation in various fan communities. Ironically enough, the official storyboards produced by Wonderstorm also show Callum as taller than Rayla, as do the end credits of episode 9 of Season 3, not to mention Season 4's time skip also shows that Callum is now a few inches taller than her now.
  • Soren Lannister ^note A great many fans have drawn parallels between Soren's character/redemption arc in Season 3 with Jaime Lannister's in the latter seasons of Game of Thrones, even down to both of them growing a Beard of Sorrow to show their change of heart (and starting out as an elite soldier tasked with guarding a monarch). Given that many Go T fans were displeased how Jaime's character actually ended up in the show, people took to saying that Soren "is now Jamie," redirecting all their admiration for redemption towards Soren instead.
  • Boomer Dragon ^note A reference to Sol Regem being the old racist grandpa of Xadia, influenced by the trending "OK Boomer" response.
  • Tidepod elves ^note When it was revealed that ocean elves are actually called Tidebound elves, many people started calling them Tidepod elves instead because of how similar they sound
  • Callum's hands are rated E for everyone ^note A reference to how Callum would occasionally just punch people and enemies rather than use a ranged spell.
  • Sir Sparklepuff is a child of divorce ^note  The scene where Viren refuses to sacrifice his and Aaravos's biological child, Sparklepuff, has been compared to a custody battle between parents who split on bad terms. This same scene also led to a number of mpreg jokes.
• Memetic Psychopath: Due to the somewhat sinister lighting in the trailer that first showed her, as well as her connection to Star magic— Aaravos' arcanum— a number of memes and theories depicting Rayla's pet Cuddlemonkey, Stella, as nefarious sprung up within the fandom just prior to season 4's release.
• Misaimed Fandom:
  • Despite the fact that Runaan's actions are portrayed as outright villainous, many fans see him as heroic or misunderstood. This is despite the fact that he kills the father of two of the protagonists, tries to kill Callum despite knowing the latter is not a target nor means him any harm, and tries to carry out his assassination against Ezran despite knowing the dragon egg is alive. Runaan embodies the cycle of violence and prejudice that the main characters are trying to stop.
  • Viren has quite a number of defenders who insist he's an anti-villain or even the hero of the story, and that his evil actions in Season 3 came out of nowhere and were an attempt by writers to make him less sympathetic. Except... Viren has done unquestionably terrible things before, most notably when he imprisoned Gren to keep him from leading a rescue mission for the princes, and instead tried to have his son murder them. While it was certainly more obvious that he was a villain in later episodes, it was always clear that he was someone you shouldn't be rooting for.
  • Dark Magic as a whole gets a lot of arguments for how its not really as grim as it's framed as, comparing it to the practice of using animals for food, clothing, and tool making and insisting it was needed for humans to even the playing field. However, this ignores a lot of the negative aspects of Dark Magic on its users (who are shown being physically effected by its usage), the addictive qualities, the fact it often uses sentient creatures and humans were evidently actively harvesting dragons for their parts, and that humans are shown to have been capable of learning Primal Magic themselves if they actually tried, indicating that they resorted to dark magic because it was easier to learn.
  • The Human-Xadia conflict seems to invite this on both sides. There's a visible tendency for fans who are human-centric to vilify the Xadians, arguing that humans are entirely justified in their hatred of elves and the aforementioned whitewashing of dark magic, especially as humans receive a lot of bigotry from elves and dragons. On the inverse, because elves and dragons are naturally cool, some take the other extreme overly idealise the elves and dragons of Xadia, while noting that humans are commonly very bigoted towards non-humans. The show, however, doesn't subscribe to either, and it's pretty clear both sides are meant to have equal guilt for the conflicts of the past, with elves and dragons evidently ignoring human suffering while humans resorted to a horrifying practice to equalise things, both sides being equally prone to callous bigotry, and the Cycle of Revenge being a major discussed plot point.
  • Despite one of the main themes of the series being letting go of past grudges and learning to understand one another and forgive, a number of fans have been very unforgiving when certain characters make decision they don't like, even going as far as wishing to see them suffer more because of it. The biggest example being the reception to Rayla leaving Callum behind to hunt down Viren to avoid endangering him. Though the show does have characters repeat how wrong Rayla was for leaving him at several points allowing her to explain her reasons, even if they are considered misguided, that still hasn't quite calmed tempers among her detractors.
• Moral Event Horizon:
  • Aaravos's morality stops being ambiguous when he helps Viren corrupt the Sunfire Forge, and cruelly taunts the queen about her grandmother before killing her.
  • Sol Regem crosses it when he threatens (and immediately after attempts to) destroy an entire city of innocent humans in order to pressure Ziard into forsaking Dark Magic, with no effort to negotiate. By that point it's no surprise that in the present day he makes it clear he's willing to go so far as to kill the Dragon Prince rather than let Callum escape.
  • Kasef crosses it when he holds Katolis hostage to make Ezran surrender the throne, and is willing to let Viren usurp the kingdom to have an army to invade Xadia. While before he was grieving, it's when he Would Hurt a Child that you realize he's nuts.
  • Karim crosses it when he rejects his sister's plan to rebuild the Sunfire kingdom over generations and begins conspiring to have her deposed so he can take over, all due to his resentment that humans have become a part of their society.
  • Finnegrin crosses it when he tortures Rayla by slowly freezing her blood, and reveals that he did the same to his crew to make them his servants.
• Narm:
  • Callum's arms becoming wings and flying while kissing Rayla in season 3 comes off as this to some.
  • Barius fighting off opponents with his rolling pin at the Battle of the Storm Spire can be hard to take seriously.
  • Aaravos revealing to Viren in season 5 that Sir Sparklepuff is the biological child of the two men felt hilarious and unhinged to many viewers. Viren's distressed reaction and Aaravos's needlessly dramatic delivery of the news when he could have simply told Viren to sacrifice the purple creature without going through all the theatrics of explaining how Sparklepuff was their son further adds to the hilarity.
• One-Scene Wonder:
  • Marcos the Crownguard got fans after first appearing in the trailer. It was clarified that he was only a minor character, but he was still popular enough to get his own character reveal and age/height/birthday (later put on the official site).
  • The elven representatives in the opening narration, which stroke a chord with many fans due to their varied, exotic and interesting designs.
• One True Pairing: Rayllum is the most popular couple within various sectors of the fandom.
• One True Threesome:
  • Viren/Harrow/Sarai due to both Viren and Sarai being available romantic options for Harrow in the eyes of some but very few of fandom.
  • Amaya/Gren/Corvus, due to the trio being introduced together, some fans see them as a bit of a Band of Brothers.
  • Amaya/Gren/Janai, is another variation of a threesome with Amaya and Gren, only the Sunfire Elf General is added in the place of Corvus.
  • Callum/Rayla/Claudia. While Callum/Rayla is still the show's One True Pairing, the first few episodes of Season 2 gave the audience some adorable interactions between Callum and Claudia, so some fans have solved the shipping dilemma by pairing all three of them together.
• Portmanteau Couple Name:
  • Callum/Rayla is called Rayllum or Raylum.
  • Rayla/Claudia is called Raydia.
  • Callum/Claudia is called Caldia.
  • Callum/Soren is called Sollum or Calren.
  • Viren/Harrow is called Varrow or Virrow.
  • Harrow/Sarai is called Harrai.
  • Amaya/Gren is called Gremaya.
  • Viren/Aaravos is called Viravos or Virravos.
  • Amaya/Janai is called Janaya.
  • Soren/Marcos is called Sorcos.
  • Corvus/Crow Master is called Crowvus.
  • Gren/Aaravos is called Grenavos.
  • Soren/Corvus is called Sorvus.
  • Aaravos/Kim'dael is called Aa'dael.
• Preemptive Shipping: Many fans leapt to shipping Rayla and Claudia the second the first promotional material came out. This quickly died off and became a rather niche ship when it became clear what Claudia thought of elves, among other factors.
• Protagonist Title Fallacy: Despite the show’s name, the show is not focused primarily on Zym (ie the titular dragon prince), but the characters who are either protecting or pursuing him.
• Ron the Death Eater:
  • Soren started receiving this in Season 2. Following him being rather open to the idea of killing the princes or kidnapping them, as ordered by his father, often ignoring Claudia's ideas of trying to convince them or using their words and ultimately instigating a dragon attack that sparks off much of the events of season 2's second half due to firing on it. This is ignoring how he was still very uncomfortable with the idea of harming them and that in the end he was glad to have failed and was even glad to have become quadraplegic, since it would mean he just can't harm anyone anymore. He has a full Heel–Face Turn in Season 3.
  • As a result of Viren's Rooting for the Empire status, King Harrow is given this heavily. While the show demonstrates him to be a Nice Guy who was beloved by his kingdom, many single out his demonstrative flaws and exaggerate his frustrations with Viren to portray him as a classist, elitist Jerkass with Never My Fault issues. This ignores that, not only is he firmly not classist and elitist (in fact, he's greatly troubled by his noble status), and how much he clearly blames himself for actions that Viren undeniably and willingly both encouraged and played a large part in but the show doesn't pretend he's flawless or above criticism, with many of the sympathetic POV characters, including his own sons, coming to believe he was a good man but a flawed ruler.
  • Although Callum's second use of dark magic and willingness to give Finnegrin a dragon-killing spell is portrayed as a failing and a defeat, some fans have reinterpreted Callum's other actions as more morally questionable, ambiguous, and even cruel than his character actually suggests. This ignores that, while Callum has made mistakes, the show has him repeatedly demonstrate principled behavior and establishes Callum as someone who tries to do the right thing and will only resort to more extreme measures when he has no other choice.
• Rooting for the Empire: Due to Lord Viren having a better point than the writers intended about the current threat Xadia is to humanity and some of his opponents coming off as foolish and/or unsympathetic, a few viewers have wished for Viren to take the throne of Katolis and conquer the lands of Xadia. Viren actually succeeds in the former goal in The Midnight Desert after forcing Ezran to surrender his throne to prevent Prince Kasef's siege though he is only able to ravage the Sunfire Elves queendom before his conquest is ultimately stopped in The Final Battle.

S-W

• Salvaged Story:
  • The flashback in season 2 to the early days of Harrow's rule and the circumstances surrounding Queen Sarai's death goes a long way to explain Harrow's actions before his death, particularly his hatred for dark magic as an "easy solution," his use of the term "servant of Katolis", the rift between him and Viren, and that he never truly recovered from losing Sarai and looks forward to being Together in Death with her.
  • While Amaya and Janai's subplot in Season 4 was considered rather disconnected from the overarching story, Season 5 would rectify this and grant the subplot more importance by linking up the subplot with Callum's team's story, introducing Kim'dael from Bloodmoon Huntress into the show to further this subplot and link up the show's lore with said graphic novel, and setting up more potential plot points to play later down the line that could easily play into the overall story.
• Seasonal Rot
  • Season 4 is regarded by some as being a step down from Season 3, with complaints being aimed at pivotal character and plot moments happening off-screen, that the new arc has too many storylines competing for the audience's attention, resulting in all of them feeling underdeveloped, a much Lighter and Softer tone which doesn't mesh well with the higher stakes of the main plot, and an indulgence in childish Toilet Humor which is thankfully brief.
  • Season 5 is for the most part considered a big improvement over Season 4, with the final two episodes being rated as some of the best in the series, though its critics still maintain that it's not quite up to par with the first three seasons, and still suffers from some of the same problems like being narratively unfocused and not spending enough time fleshing out the world.
• Shipping: Coming from former Voltron: Legendary Defender, many fans are wary of shipping and try to be welcoming of all ships in the show in an attempt to avoid re-starting the ship wars that haunted (and for many, ruined) the previous fandom. Overall, Callum/Rayla, Rayla/Claudia, Harrow/Viren and Runaan/Ethari are the most popular ships. Season 2 saw an increase in the amount of shipping going all around and started a tradition of shipping characters that never even interacted in the first place, but tensions have been low all around.
• Ships That Pass in the Night:
  • Claudia and Rayla were this before season 2. They were shipped with each other since before the show even aired, and were one of the most popular ships in the fandom when all they'd had was a single scene together in season 1 (plus a scene where Claudia calls one of Rayla's braids cute).
  • Soren/Marcos is a somewhat popular ship, despite having no hints that these two characters even know about each other aside from the fact that both are part of their country's military forces.
  • Corvus/Crow Master a.k.a. Crowvus. The two characters were shipped from the moment the latter was introduced simply because they are both crow-themed Ensemble Darkhorses and many fans look forward for them to interact.
  • Gren/Aaravos has a following despite neither knowing about the other's even existence, though some fans wonder whether Gren heard anything during his time at the dungeon. This is a ship that was born basically as a counter alternative to Viren/Aaravos, for people who don't like Viren enough to ship him with the now extremely popular Startouch elf.
• Shocking Moments: The final episodes of Season 2 became these after a quick succession of revelations and alterations to the status quo of the show that kept viewers on the edge of their seat waiting for Season 3. The most notable moments include Ezran learning about his father's death from Corvus and later deciding to leave the team and return to Katolis to become the king, Callum using dark magic and later learning about the sky arcanum, Soren going paraplegic and then being healed because Claudia decided to sacrifice a young fawn to cast a dark spell and Viren being arrested after sending fake Moonshadow Elves to kill the other human rulers. The second half of Season 3 is even more intense.
• So Okay, It's Average: The animation. Even people who enjoyed the show have admitted that the very stuttered frame rate is... distracting. This isn’t an isolated nitpick either, as both favorable and unfavorable reviews point out the animation as a major negative. Interviews with the animators claim this is a stylistic choice meant to resemble traditional animation more (particularly concerning frame rate), but most viewers aren’t buying it, blaming budget issues and a lack of skill instead. The backlash eventually reached a point where Aaron Ehasz apologized for it in an interview and promised that the second season would address people’s complaints. In Season 2, the framerate was upped and the change was largely well received.
  • The general consensus for seasons four and five as while they're not outright bad, they're not on par with the first three seasons, especially with the inconsistent tone, writing and characterisation, not helped by a change of showrunners during the three-year gap between season three and four.
• Spiritual Successor: To Avatar: The Last Airbender. It's written by some of the ATLA staff, there's a system of partially-hereditary, partially-spiritual Elemental Powers, and a group of heroes helping a chosen messiah fix a Gray-and-Grey Morality conflict. To top it off, each season is a "Book" named after one of the elements of Xadia.
• Strangled by the Red String: A lot of fans and critics found Callum and Rayla's Relationship Upgrade in Season 3 very rushed, seeming to happen largely because it's what's supposed to happen between the male and female leads of a story like this. It's popularly suspected that the crew having no idea if it would be the show's final season played a role in this.
• Strawman Has a Point: Has its own page.
• Suspiciously Similar Song: In the Actor Allusion to Avatar: The Last Airbender, the score briefly changes to a song unusually similar to Tsungi Horn, a song from that show.
• Tainted by the Preview: Unfortunately, many fans who were otherwise highly excited about the series' announcement were disappointed by the first official trailer, criticizing its inexplicably choppy framerate (especially given how the actual art direction of the series, and some of the landscape shots, look absolutely gorgeous, there's no real reason for it to look that stuttered) and comparing it to the similarly received Star Wars Resistance, whose trailer premiered around the same time, or even the notorious Berserk (2016). While some have been able to put their distaste for the animation aside and watch the show on its own merits, just as many have written it off entirely because they found the animation (especially in the dramatic scenes) too distracting.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character:
  • Many fans were underwhelmed by Runaan's lack of presence in the first season and were upset again when he did not return for the second season at all, feeling that since he was promised to be a main character, he should have more to do and hoping that he returns in the third season with a larger role. He doesn't, but his husband is introduced as a character and his return is foreshadowed, such as when a flower-shaped lantern on a pond that would sink if he died is shown only half-submerged and still glowing.
  • Kasef was introduced as a fairly interesting counterpoint to Ezran, Soren, and Callum, as despite being antagonistic he genuinely believed his actions were a justified retaliation and for the good of his kingdom and humanity. Facing off against him would have challenged the beliefs of each of the above, and persuading Kasef to abandon his crusade would have shown the power of reason and compassion over violence. Instead, Kasef is portrayed as a Jerk with a Heart of Jerk who gets turned into a mindless brute and killed off without much fanfare by a minor character.
  • Aaravos suffers accusations of this in seasons 4 and 5. With the reveal that season 4 would be the start of an arc titled 'The Mystery of Aaravos', many fans were hoping to learn more about Aaravos's motivations and the lore surrounding Startouch elves. Instead, Aaravos gets three brief appearances and takes a far less active role in the plot compared to season 2 or 3. Several of the hints regarding his backstory are relegated to web stories that many fans who weren't on social media weren't aware of.
  • There are fans who felt either Ellis, Aanya or N'than or all of the above could've been regular characters and serving as the Sixth Ranger to the main trio.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot:
  • In season 2, while battling a dragon Soren gets flung against a rock and paralyzed from the neck down. He's like this for two episodes, before Claudia heals him with Dark Magic. While it's understandable that keeping it would have limited his purpose and ability in the story, it was resolved a bit too quickly and conveniently, as if it never happened at all. Time will tell if any lingering consequences from it start happening over the course of the show.
  • Many fans are disappointed that Ezran's reign as king in Season 3 only lasted a short while before he ended up back with Callum and Rayla in Xadia, making his trip back home seem fairly pointless.
  • Also from Season 3: the reveal that humans first used dark magic due to abuse inflicted on them by the elves and dragons offers up an interesting little wrinkle to the overarching conflict. But, it’s limited to a flashback that’s purely for the benefit of the audience and is never so much as alluded to again the whole season.
  • Post-Season 3: many fans were disappointed that Rayla's time as a Dragonguard ended immediately after the battle and that she returned to Katolis, despite it being foreshadowed since Season One that she would be following her parents' footsteps. Given the conflict between Rayla and Callum in season 4 stems from Rayla leaving him to hunt Viren, something that is only detailed in a piece of side media that made her appear unsympathetic, it would have added more balance and understanding to her leaving if it was instead due to her serving as dragon guard for Zym, forcing her and Callum to split for their respective duties.
  • In the lead-up to Season 4, it was heavily implied that Aaravos was setting his sights on Callum as his next Unwitting Pawn. During Season 4, Callum is portrayed as having become similar to Viren—more emotionally closed off, more aggressive, and even more violent at times—while also getting very close to unlocking the mirror and making contact with Aaravos... only for Callum to never have a chance before learning that Aaravos is bad news anyway. Then, instead of manipulating Callum like he did with Viren, he just takes over his body and taunts that he'll play right into his hands.
• Tough Act to Follow: While the show does have a few rough edges that even fans agree with, Avatar: The Last Airbender and Star Wars: The Clone Wars was very this to Ehasz and Volpe. A few criticisms of the first few seasons relate a bit to fans feeling a bit let down considering that some of its Invisible Advertising really played up the presence of talent from these two shows.
• Trapped by Mountain Lions: General Amaya's subplot at the Sunfire Elves camp in Season 4 has no ties to the main plot which makes one want to skip over the scenes and return to the other two subplots that actually push the narrative forward. Her storyline deals with her Maligned Mixed Marriage with the Sunfire elf Queen Janai as well the Culture Clash between Humans and Sunfire elves after a human desecrated an elf's burying ritual in an attempt to uphold fire safety regulations in the camp. Meanwhile, in the other two subplots characters risks their lives to save the world. While this is rectified in Season 5 and the subplot is given more importance to the overarching story, those uninterested in the subplot wouldn't have been aware of this ahead of time.
• Unintentional Uncanny Valley: The Four-Fingered Hands of the elves look a bit unsettling, as they have very humanlike proportions otherwise. At moments, it can look like they had one finger cut off.
• Unintentionally Sympathetic:
  • Even in season 2, Viren still has supporters, despite having become the villain, since he is still the only one trying to do something to protect the humans and take back their original lands.
  • Claudia's murder of a baby deer for use as fuel in black magic in season 2 seems to be intended as a Moral Event Horizon, but many have argued it's really not different from using animals as food. However, the end of season three flips this on its head, having her literally resurrect Viren after supporting him through his own Moral Event Horizon throughout the season, implying she used an elf's life force.
  • Runaan is definitely not winning any Dad of the Year awards for the way he treats Rayla and kills Harrow despite seeing the Dragon Prince and hope for the war to end. Of course, we later learn that if he hadn't completed the mission, he would have been shunned by his village for running away, and never allowed to talk to his husband Ethari again. Given how he refuses to kill Rayla when he realizes that she's stalling him from completing the assassination, and the way he orders the guards to kill him, Runaan comes off as more desperate to not lose what was familiar to him, considering Rayla had a breakdown on realizing she lost her home.
• Unintentionally Unsympathetic:
  • King Harrow comes off as this in "Moonrise", when he gives Viren a "The Reason You Suck" Speech that many see as uncalled for. Even with the flashback detailing it in season 3 and showing he's not wrong to be angry with Viren, his callous treatment of someone he views as a friend can still make him this.
    • There’s also the matter of Harrow being willing to condemn thousands of his own people to death by starvation in order to make a grand gesture of friendship to the Queens of Duren. The viewer is clearly supposed to see this as a noble act, but Harrow was condemning people who trusted him with their welfare to a horrible death without consulting them. It would have been one thing if Katolis had had enough extra food to offer aid while also keeping its own people alive through rationing, but as Viren notes, the net loss of life would have been exactly the same. Also bear in mind that Harrow’s own family would probably not have been in any danger of starving, so he’s asking others to die so that he can feel like he’s done the right thing. If he’d actually gone through with this plan, then there's a decent chance that his castle would have been besieged by hungry peasants with torches and pitchforks.
  • Queen Sarai taking a stance against killing the titan for its heart to grow food during the famine also is hard to agree with. The first half of her argument has some merit, as she argues the titan might be a person with emotions and loved ones rather than a monster that can be slain without a qualm, but that can be countered with it's better to kill one person than let thousands die. The second half of her argument, however, is that using dark magic is too easy and there are no shortcuts to building a better world. Like with Harrow above, it is not Sarai and her family that will starve and die when the food stores run low. She was advocating that Harrow let his subjects suffer because life is supposed to be difficult, which seems all the more callous when Viren's spell works as advertised and the titan's heart is used to save thousands from the famine with no downsides other than the difficulty in acquiring it.
  • The Queens themselves are supposed to be seen as heroic women committing heroic sacrifices for their people, but the whole reason they have soldiers with them is so they don't end up dead on their mission. There was no reason for them to die except misplaced heroism. Their deaths cause great harm to their daughter, who was ruled over by regents who often tried to assassinate her, making her have to grow up much too soon.
  • Lady Opeli. She's supposed to be seen as the Good Counterpart to the ambitious and ruthless Viren, opposing most of his decisions and trying to prevent his attempts at grabbing power. However, in line with Viren's multiple mentions in Strawman Has a Point above, she often comes off more as an Obstructive Bureaucrat who opposes Viren less because he's untrustworthy, which admittedly he is, but more so because of how several of his suggestions and ideas breach the kingdom's traditions and simply because she doesn't like him, often ignoring the very valid reasons he has behind wanting to ally with the other Kingdoms to combat Xadia and for wanting a regent in charge of Katolis "until the princes return". This doesn't get any better after Ezran becomes King and she takes the role as his advisor, with one of the first decisions she wants him to make being to punish Claudia and Soren just on the grounds that they're Viren's children and could be involved in his plans, which again while true, are accusations that she makes without any formal proof and she seemingly didn't even suspect that Viren ordered them to kill the princes until Claudia's poor attempts at defending herself and Soren brings the possibility to light, making this come off more as an attempt at spiting Viren using Ezran as a means to this end. Her suggestion that Ezran choose someone to act as regent in his stead when he starts having difficulties ruling, while well-intentioned, can also come off as Hypocritical considering that she previously opposed putting a regent in place (which to be fair, could be because the only option at the time was Viren) when he and Callum were missing, which is arguably when one was really needed considering the fact that the King just died.
• Viewer Gender Confusion: Before he spoke anything, a few fans actually thought that the Elfeminate Aaravos was a woman.
• What Do You Mean, It's for Kids?: For a show that was originally fully rated Y-7, it REALLY pushes the rating to and possibly past its limit. With rather mature themes in place, several realistic injuries that would normally be brushed off in other animated shows, onscreen deaths, and even noticeable amounts of blood in a few moments, it's a surprise this show had that rating. Reasonably, as of Season 4, the rating for the more darker episodes got pushed up to PG with Netflix adding a notice on them for gore as well.
• The Woobie:
  • Callum. He lost his mother and father at a young age, had to leave his step-father when he was about to be killed in order to achieve his goal of peace between the Human Kingdoms and Xadia, his girlfriend abandoned him on his birthday and didn't see her again for two years, and was possessed by Aaravos, which made him so afraid of it happening again that he asked to be killed if it did. This would only get worse after getting captured by Finnegrin, who tortured him, tried to force him to choose which one of his friends would have their hands cut off, saw his girlfriend get tortured in front of him, and was forced to do dark magic to save her, which clearly took a toll on him.
  • Rayla. She had her parents leave her when she was a child, is implied to have never had many friends in her village because of how she spent a lot of time with Adoraburrs, came to believe that her parents were cowards who abandoned her for apparently no reason, was banished from her village because of the group of moonshadow assassins were killed in their plan to assassinate Harrow and Ezran while she decided to try to stop them and find a way for peace, with one of her two father figures coldly refusing to talk to her and blaming her for her other father figure's presumed death before he found out a about the truth, suffered from constant nightmares after finding out that her parents suffered from Fate Worse than Death, reluctantly left her boyfriend out of fear he would suffer the same fate her parents and Runaan were put through, got tricked by Claudia into thinking that she had finaly be able to find her parents and Runaan only for it to be a trick, which lead to Rayla having a breakdown, and was tortured by Finnegrin and almost eaten hy a sea leviathan.
  • Azymondias. His father died before he could even know him, he was kidnapped and taken away from his mother before he was even born, he is constantly getting captured by people who want to use him for their needs, he was tortured and almost killed by Viren, lost a great friend Ibis, and was emotionaly mocked by Rex Igneous because the latter believed that his father was a coward and was unaware of him being dead.
  • Claudia, despite being loyal to her father no matter how heinous his actions are, truly wants to keep her family together. Her mother left her at a young age and she was forced to make a decision to stay with her mother or her father, was ignored by her brother for her attempts to reanimate a cat that she was deeply attached to, was manipulated by her father (who, despite caring for her, is a very negative influence), was forced to make a similar choice to that of her past where she had to choose between going with Soren or staying with her father, and ended up performing actions so horrific that she can't stop herself from crying when remembering them. However, after Book 3, she develops into a Jerkass Woobie.
  • Aanya. She lost both of her mothers before she could even remember them, was forced to become queen at a young age, and by the time she was 11, she had sufffered from others trying to usurp her, as well as coups, conspiracies and assassination attempts, forcing her to mature quickly and become a master at archery at a young age. Viren even attempts to manipulate her by using his memory of her mothers to convince her to help him in his plans of genocide, although she is able to see through them and refuses to join in his goals.
  • Terrestrius/Terry was seen as a girl by the members of his village, was put in a situation where he had to kill someone in order to save his girlfriend's life, and was coldly mocked by Viren for crying over it.
• Woolseyism: Aaravos's name changes in the greek dub to Erebos (the name of the greek god of darkness and husband of Nyx in case anyone was wondering, quite fitting considering he created dark magic).

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