Netflix's The Dragon Prince

??? I don't have a lack of sympathy for the Elves. I want to know their point of view. If anything, I feel that the humans don't look all that well currently. They are the ones who don't respect the balance of nature and trample all over holy places without even asking if it is okay to show sacred places to dark magicians. And decide to attack dragons just because they are there.

Edited by Swanpride on Feb 16th 2019 at 10:49:38 AM

If a dragon is flying in human territory just to scare humans, then yeah, I’m not surprised that everyone cheered with the enchanted bolt struck it down. Because so far, except the little bugger Zym, all the dragons are shown as complete unrepentant assholes.

I am really hoping Season 3 gives this some nuance because like I said, I’m glad Thunder’s dead.

Edited by Beatman1 on Feb 16th 2019 at 2:19:15 PM

It's entirely possible it will, like, immediately, depending on how Sol Regem goes down.

I feel that overall both sides tend to make mistakes and escalate things, to put some of what happened in season 2. Let's think about a comparable real world context. When Amayya's troops set up a base on the Xadian side of the border, how do you think the Iranian's would react if they found a secret US Forward operation base running commando missions in their country.

And with the dragon in episode 7. How do you think the US would react if a russian fighter plane was flying over New York practising strafing runs without firing, clearly violating your territory, would people understand if the US shot that plane down

I can tell you how Finland reacts to Russia doing exactly that: NOT by shooting anything down, but by focussing on fighting Russian propaganda instead.

Look, I get that having the dragons in the cloud is worrisome. But why does nobody ever make an attempt to talk?

Either way, it implies dragon had a reason to keep flying around the town for three days and be intimidating <_< I mean presumably it wasn't for showing their military prowess

Whatever is the case, I kinda feel like Claudia's hair might work as her corruption meter since it seems to change color when she uses dark magic more drastically :p

Edited by SpookyMask on Feb 16th 2019 at 11:16:36 AM

I'm still kinda shocked that LDR Elf turned out to be a dude.

Virens literally jumped headlong first into villainy. Hes instigating false flags and fear construction that will attack the other nations next season, actively wanted the princes killed to consolidate power around, tries to manipulate a girls memory of her dead parents to his advantage, and acted like a child throwing a tantrum when it didn't work.

And also quick to turn to an elf for all his answers while seeking to genocide elves. Im already loving Xaravoss, who even uses dark magic so it isn't just humans.

I do feel the hate towards dark magic is portrayed too strong, because Callum was right to use Dark Magic to save the dragon, and it was precisely because of that he learned how to tap into primal sources. Power is only as good as the one who uses, and sometimes there are no fixable solutions to a situation. Soren was left crippled for life and Claudia was right to do what she did in a situation that wouldn'f be fixable otherwise. Much like her father had his Heel Realization but Harrows speech made him Ignore Epiphany when he was going to switch bodies to save him.

Which if we take both princes abilities into consideration and I honestly think Aanya has something as well, humans probably did have the ability to use normal magic if they worked for it but chose nothing but Dark Magic because it was easier.

Edited by OmegaRadiance on Feb 16th 2019 at 3:33:41 AM

I think it's less that Dark Magic is easy and more the fact it requires you to suck the life out of other creatures to use it. It's shown that magic animals and even parts of non-magic ones will suffice but it's heavily implied that sapient magical beings like elves and dragons yeld the most power and you can bet there'd be alot of people willing to kill for that.

Its both. Dark Magic is easy for quick solutions, and it drains the life out of every magical creature possible.

But like in Claudia or Callums case there are times when theres no other solution.

Edited by OmegaRadiance on Feb 16th 2019 at 4:00:57 AM

Finished the season! Thoughts:

• I always roll my eyes at fiction when adults are portrayed as bad for not trusting well-bred nine-year-olds as heads of state. In general, the whole series is way more pro-classism than I'd like, what with the constantly punishing that uppity Viren for not knowing his place and trusting his less competent/experienced betters.
• Harrow was a good person, but a shitty king.
• Horrible Pope Woman would be less horrible if she was ever shown making her own plan of defense, or actually making an effort to find the princes, or doing literally anything but constantly whining about how Viren isn't well-born enough.
• The romance between Rayla and Callum is proceeding surprisingly well.
• I find myself much more inclined to like Claudia after seeing that the show completely intended the main flaw I picked up in the first season: she's kind and protective to those she loves, and doesn't care about anyone outside of that category. It's very interesting that Soren is shown as a complete dumbass, but is much more introspective and cognizant of his own flaws than his sister. That's the main reason I suspect that she will soon be Jumping Off the Slippery Slope like her dad, but he won't.
• That elf has the sexiest voice I've ever heard.
• It's very clear that the head writer is an Avatar veteran, because the parts where Callum was trying to get struck by lightning and having a nightmare personifying the two sides of his conflict just screamed "Zuko."
• Amaya is awesome.

That elf is voiced by the same guy who provided the voive of Koh the face stealer.

The problem is that Viren is quite clearly trying to breed Fear and Paranoia to try to bring the kingdoms under him for his goal. His engaging in the fearmongering tactics that are genrally meant to rally people into a bloodthirsty frenzy, and he even goes further to construct said fear when emotional manipulation and his magic tricks didn't work.

He doesn't come off as her better, but a Manchild who throws a tantrum when things don't go his way, and those kinds of folk transcend class.

TBH, I didn't really mind her. It's just that preteen rulers who are so much wiser and better than all the adults are a Pet-Peeve Trope of mine. Especially since she was the only one of the monarchs who was actually able to make a decision.

I do agree one other ruler objecting would work, and hed try to get the child into submitting to force conformity from the entire group.

I think it would work if one agreed, one disagreed, one said they'd follow the majority, and then he'd gone after Anya. Not having any of the other rulers give an opinion just made them seem very weak, especially since they were immediately convinced by Anya's words just after she talked about how one story wasn't enough to convince her.

I agree on that.

On the priest lady, I think Viren did mention sending out folks to retrieve the kids, so she was essentislly telling him to do more of that than try to play king, especially when his previous attemtp to play king was foiled by Amaya revealing the princes were alive.

Edited by OmegaRadiance on Feb 16th 2019 at 8:40:08 AM

I would buy that, except that the ending demonstrates that she has enough authority to command guards on her own, so logically she should have no issue increasing the search. And IIRC she outright states that nothing is to be done about the border crisis without Ezran's say-so, which just seems irresponsible.

Likely meant to show how much faith they have in Amaya, who we see handling things at the border and their hidden base.

I don't think she had proper authority to remove him until he did something that blatantly broke the Law ie pretending the kingdom gave him the authority to unite the kingdoms for a meeting using the kings sigil and pretending the princes were there and gave him rule as Regent. Then she gathered troops to arrest him.

Given that her Establishing Character Moment was complaining that they were having Harrow's funeral too early, I'm more inclined to believe that she's just obsessed with tradition. Just my read on her, though, until she actually interacts with someone besides Viren.

Tradition and rules can go hand in hand. Virens all about being "pragmatic" and stamping over everthing to try to get what he wants.

The problem is that I can't lose the modern idea that a law forcing a nine-year-old to spend the rest of their life shouldering the burdens of a nation is inherently awful and should be trampled over. Especially when Harrow himself was questioning it, and Sarai's response was just to reassure him that it was fine because he was a good person (but again, not a very good ruler.)

Thats true if the kid in question didn't want to rule. Aanya had a Regent from what I understood for a time and eventually took the throne herself.

While Ez choses to be King rather than continue on the journey. Basically its all about choice, which Harrow made clear with Callum in the letter. If they want to change things then they need to change the rules themselves based on their own choices and not the past.

Edited by OmegaRadiance on Feb 16th 2019 at 9:19:22 AM

Aanya and Ez also had to dodge multiple assassins before they decided to take the throne.

Im betting her Regent was trying to usurp her. Probably why shes distrustful of Viren.

Edited by OmegaRadiance on Feb 16th 2019 at 9:31:16 AM