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gregorygrim · 3 years

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Dragon Prince Hot Takes

!!! Full Spoiler For “The Dragon Prince” Seasons 1-3!!!

So I finally got around to watching The Dragon Prince. Timely, I know, but better late than never i guess. I’m not completely caught up yet as I only got as far as S3E7 “Hearts of Cinder” in this first sitting. Considering I haven’t binged any series in almost two years, I think that’s pretty respectable. This means I won’t discuss the last few episodes here, except for a couple of things I was unfortunately spoiled for already, hence full spoilers.

These are basically my first thoughts and opinions after the binge and a good night’s sleep. It’s gonna be a lot so if you don’t care or don’t want spoilers…

TL;DR: 7½/10. Generally enjoyable, there are some aspects I’m not exactly fan of, but no dealbreakers

Firstly to everyone who told me that this was the new ATLA: you all need to rewatch Avatar stat! Like seriously. There are definitely parallels and given the cast and crew I think that’s what they were going for too (which is why I think it’s fair to compare the two), but still, no.

Secondly I love most of the worldbuilding and love that the series at least tries to give it to us in a bit of a non-linear fashion, even if it is kind of clumsy at times. I know some people are put off by expository dialogue and flashbacks, but I’m an epic fantasy nerd, I need that sweet, sweet lore to live as much as you mortals need food.

I like that there was clearly an effort made to integrate the worldbuilding in more subtle ways. For example you may initially find it kind of weird that all these different human ethnicities are existing perfectly integrated in what looks like a medieval society, until you remember from the opening monologue that the Human Kingdoms are the result of a massive diaspora following the human exodus from Xadia, so obviously people got all mixed up everywhere. It’s representation with an excellent in-world reason and that just brings me joy.

I also love the magic system(s) even though we haven’t really gone into that just yet. it really feels like there was a genuine effort made to create underlying mechanics for the magic rather than just making each spell a vaguely elemental themed ability. I really hope we’ll dive deeper into that in coming seasons.

I also like the little nods to other works of fantasy: Ezran’s ability to talk with animals is a reference to Tolkien’s world where some royal bloodlines had the ability to speak with animals, specifically birds; Primal Magic and its spells being cast with Ancient Draconic runes and words might be reminiscent of the Ancient Language from the Inheritance Cycle etc.

Thirdly the main cast is great. Callum, Ezran and Rayla are all interesting and relatable characters in their own right and as a group. I’m not going into each of them individually here, but while I think the series as a whole falls short of ATLA, as protagonist parties go I dare say this one is nearly on nearly on par with the gAang.¹

And yes, I love Bait, which I really did not expect following the first few episodes. I love his weird pug-toad-chameleon design, I love that he works like a flashbang whenever somebody says a quote from Scarface (I wish they hadn’t dropped that later on) and I love how done he is with everything and everyone at all times. I’ve only had him for 25 episodes, but if anything happened to him I would kill all of my followers and then myself.

On top of that, and speaking as someone who god knows is really not into shipping, I love Rayla and Callum’s relationship. It’s believable, it’s refreshing and it brings out the best in both characters without changing basically anything about them. Just two good friends who fell in love. A++, maybe even S tier.

Unfortunately though I can’t sing the same kind of praises about the villains. None of them are terrible (as in terribly written, most of them are pretty awful people), but with one exception they just don’t stand up to the protagonists in quality.

I could simply not take Viren seriously. Even now that is probably the single most powerful magic user in the world, he just has such strong Karen energy, every time he finishes a speech I am overcome with the urge to say “Sir, this is a Wendy’s” and it does not help the mood. I’m not even sure why. It might’ve been the voice because the guy who did Viren (Jason Simpson) also does a lot of kinda slimy characters in various anime dubs, it might be that over-the-top walking stick, idk.

What I’m saying is that as a primary antagonist he simply did not work for me. Which is doubly a shame because this kind of tarnishes the real “Big Bad” of this story by proxy. Aaravos, even as an invisible ghost, with his voice coming out of a caterpillar and next to no info on his backstory, has more style and gravity than all the human antagonists combined. It helps that he is by far the best designed character and Erik Dellums has the voice of a young god, but I’d argue even without that unfair advantage he has the potential to be a top tier villain. While he is stuck as Viren’s “little bug-pal” though he is just being dragged down.

(I’m aware that as of the final episode the caterpillar familiar is undergoing metamorphosis, probably to create a new body for Aaravos’ spirit to inhabit outside of the magic mirror, so I’m definitely hyped for more of him in the coming seasons.)

As for Soren and Claudia, I’ve got mixed feelings. This was one more aspect of the show that a lot of people compared to Avatar and while I see the parallels to Zuko & Azula, they are still very different, at least where Claudia is concerned. I’d also just like to mention that a lot of people told me that they thought the direction in which their storylines went were really surprising and I can’t disagree more. I predicted that Soren would defect to the protagonists on episode 5 right after Viren told him to kill the princes and I knew Claudia was going to stick with her father from episode 12 onward. My point is, it didn’t feel like some kind of plot twist, the way some people made it out to be, and which I don’t think was the intent.

I definitely got the sense that Soren was at least a Zuko-type character, though still not a Zuko clone, and as with Zuko I was consistently able to empathise and sympathise with him and his predicaments. I also appreciated that his dilemma is the result of his convictions and not him being kind of dense, which would’ve been all to easy and probably would’ve ruined his character for me. As it stands he is extremely milktoast, but perfectly functional for his purpose in the story and I can definitely see him evolving further and getting more interesting as we go on.

Claudia is where it gets complicated. Again, I can see the Azula parallels. But unlike that character, who is her father’s animal 110%, Claudia doesn’t strike me as a victim of Viren’s manipulation the way Soren undoubtably is. The way she talks about and uses Dark Magic, how she talks down to Soren and how even Viren finds it difficult to communicate with her, tells me as an audience member that she is an independent person. Which tells me that the cruelty and enthusiasm for causing harm she regularly displays is her own will. And that was before she straight up leads Callum on to manipulate him.

On the other hand I can absolutely relate to her devotion to her family, her big sister role (even though she is younger than Soren) and the way both the separation of her parents before the story and Soren’s injury in episode 16 must’ve affected her because of this. I know that, if my brother had become paralysed from the neck down and I knew a way to heal him, I would not have hesitated to kill that fawn either. Then again her relationship with her father is very different from parental relationships I am familiar with, so I can’t really say I see why she is so devoted to him, other than she promised her mother to stay with him years ago? ¯\(o_Ō)/¯

So basically Claudia falls into an emotional grey space for me. I can’t really tell how to feel about her either way and I’ll just have to see where she goes from here, which, while fine, isn’t necessarily great for an end of season cliffhanger imo.

Seeing as I’ve already talked about some of the show’s shortcomings, I think it’s time to dive into some of the what I would consider flaws.

Firstly this show needed at least 12 episode seasons. I have never made a secret out of my dislike for the modern short seasons and while I recognise that in the current climate in the industry giving everything full 25 episode seasons isn’t really doable, the pacing of this show, especially for the first season is just outright bad at times. It works as of the second season, but the first season alternately feels like it’s either rushing through or crawling along the whole way through.

The believability of Rayla’s and the princes’ relationship really suffers from this the most. It comes a bit out of nowhere on the boat ride and is then taken for granted way to quickly. Like Callum, seriously, this girl tried to kill you and your brother not even a day ago and you are currently cut off from all allies you have ever had until now. A little skepticism isn’t misplaced here. I also wold’ve liked if we’d just gotten a bit more of a sense of movement with the characters. I get that this is not the kind of show where we can just make an entire episode about the characters travelling and camping, intercut with plots centred around a more expansive supporting cast, but still I really would’ve preferred if Xadia didn’t feel quite so around the corner.

Another issue is with setup and payoff, which I think is partially a consequence of the pacing as well. A lot of smaller plot points are set up within the same episode as the payoff just wreak havoc on the narrative structure. A good example is the episode where they ride down the river in a boat and Bait tires to go into the water, but is saved by Ezran, who then explains the story behind Glowtoads and how they are pefect bait for large water predators. Then Bait falls into the water and is attacked by a massive water monster. This happens within five minutes of one episode and never comes up again. To me that looks like sign of rushed editing, which is probably not entirely the crew’s fault, given that they are on a schedule from Netflix, but it’s still a point of critique.

It unfortunately also manifests in the occasional line of horribly forced dialogue, often for things we can literally see happening on screen. Again, this is mostly the case in the earlier episodes, but it never completely goes away.

Finally, and this is where i get into serious issues that made me want to write this, we gotta talk about representation in this show.

First: disabled representation, meaning Amaya. Why is Amaya deaf? Because it’s good to have disabled representation.

Why is Amaya deaf and a high-ranking military officer? Because they didn’t think it through.

I know this may be a contentious opinion, but it is my belief that the purpose of representation, particularly of disabilities characters may suffer from, in fiction is to, y’know, represent people as they are in life. That includes especially the struggles they face and have to overcome, sometimes their whole life. This is not just me talking out of my ass either. A couple years ago I discussed this with several people that are disabled, specifically blind or otherwise severely visually impaired, in a different context obviously, and the general consensus was that it’s better to have representation that shows their life and their abilities as they are, rather than how they might wish they could be.

A mute or deaf person cannot be a medieval fantasy army general, no matter how good they might be in melee combat or who’s sister they are, because at the end of the day, they’re not able to give commands while they are holding a sword and shield. That such a massive logical oversight, especially in comparison to the extremely well done example of representation I mentioned above, and has so little impact on the plot that it leads me to believe, this aspect of Amaya’s character was tacked on in the last minute without being given any thought for the sole reason of the story having a disabled person in it. All this does is necessitate the existence of two otherwise entirely unnecessary characters, Gren and Kazi, both of which achieve nothing, aside from sometimes being literal set dressing.

That is where representation ends and tokenism begins.

And unfortunately this generally lacklustre attitude also extends to the LGBT+ representation on the show.

As of S3E7 “Hearts of Cinder” we have had two onscreen gay couples on the show (onscreen in the sense that both partners were onscreen and they were somehow confirmed to be in a relationship on the show). One of these, the queens of Duren, literally die in the same flashback they are introduced in, which incidentally also features them invading a foreign nation to poach a rare animal and subsequently starting the conflict at the series’ core. Not a great look.

Aside from serving as a tragic backstory for their daughter, the most impact they had on my viewing experience was that they made wonder how the fuck royal succession works in Duren. (People who know me are rolling their eyes right now because I’m bringing anarchism into this Dragon Prince review, but I’m telling you, this why fantasy monarchies aren’t compatible with LGBT+ politics in the same setting. Dynastic governments are inherently bigoted, you can’t have it both ways.)

The other couple are Runaan and Ethari, Rayla’s caretakers, although if I’m being honest you wouldn’t be able tell based on Runaan’s treatment of Rayla in the first episode. By the time we actually meet Ethari and find out about their relationship with Rayla, Runaan is suffering “a fate worse than death” (direct quote from the show) trapped in a gold coin.

I mean come on. That’s about as “technically not ‘bury your gays’” as it gets.

I think I need to reiterate here that my point is not that this show or its creators are somehow malicious. As i stated in the TL;DR: I don’t think this is a dealbreaker for liking this show. But it does demonstrate that they are prone to slipping to some potentially harmful tropes and this needs to be criticised and pointed out to them.

In conclusion, I really love this show. It’s not ATLA, it never will be, nothing else will ever be ATLA no matter how badly (and terribly) Netflix tries. But it does and should not have to be.

What it has to do though is improve. A lot of the building blocks are already there, such as Aaravos or Claudia’s development, Callum’s father, the origin of Ezran’s ability, the purpose of the “Key of Aaravos”, the true fate of King Harrow (we all know his soul is in the bird, right?) etc. Some things like the treatment of Amaya’s disability unfortunately won’t be fixable as far as I can tell, but if they at least manage to fix the gay representation I can make my peace with that.

¹ I know I said I wouldn’t go into each of the characters individually, but a) you should never trust a stranger on the internet and b) I really want to talk a bit about Callum. Specifically the “mystery” of why the hell he is connected to the Sky Primal. I write “mystery” because I think it’s fairly obvious from whence this talent came: there is only one humanoid species we know of with innate access to the Sky Arcanum and one of Callum’s parent’s is unidentified, presumed dead. 2+2=4. Callum’s father was a Skywing Elf. That’s why he recognised Nyx’s boomerang weapon. He remembered one like it either from his very early childhood (remember that he has photographic memory) or Sarai kept one and he found it at some point.

On top of that the name “Callum” or at least the pronunciation is clearly derived from Latin “caelum” meaning “sky” or “weather” and I already mentioned that Ancient Draconic is just bad Latin. It’s not very subtle. Unless they pull a complete 180 concerning the lore about Primal Magic he’s definitely going to be a half-elf, which would also just so happen to make him the perfect mediator between the Human Kingdoms and Xadia. Hmm, it’s almost as if they are planning ahead.

My question: How the fuck did that happen? Or rather: how did that fuck happen? I don’t think even Harrow knew or he probably would’ve a) paid more attention when Sarai advised against poaching the Magma Titan, because obviously she’s gotten around Xadia more than him, if y’know what i’m sayin’ ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) or at least b) put it in his final letter to Callum. Unfortunately we know basically nothing about Sarai except that she was a soldier alongside Amaya and already had Callum before marrying Harrow. So does Amaya know? This is probably the most interesting plot thread in the whole story and as far as my friends told me it’s not going to be touched on anymore in the last two episodes than it already has thus far, which is basically not at all.

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sweetgloss · 7 years

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@veeraha

Before I begin this rebuttal I’d just like to make it known that I am good friends with Anu and that I have all the respect for her in the world, just in case someone gets the wrong idea. We just disagree on this and are having a respectful debate in order to understand each others’ points of view.

But alright. Time to plunge into the Discourse. I’m going to go through your replies one by one and answer each one as best as I can.

I’m afraid that I’m going to have to immediately disagree with you. I take your point that shipping in this instance is sometimes referring to people exploring the dynamic between them, but I’m not sure that it should be called “shipping” in that case, given the connotations and rather different meaning that shipping tends to have. The word “shipping” when applied here seems to give off fujioshi vibes, simply wanting to see the characters together somewhat inexplicably - because they look good together?? Because Sangwoo appears to have some sort of multiple personality disorder which tricks the reader and emotionally manipulates them during the romance scenes, into almost rooting for Sangwoo and Yoonbum’s relationship?

Because I think that that is the case. The author has so carefully and beautifully constructed Killing Stalking that during the romantic scenes, especially due to Sangwoo’s almost tender kisses, the reader almost forgets the nasty facet of him, in the blinding light of this new, vulnerable, gentle side. THE READER IS JUST AS DELUDED, IN THAT MOMENT, AS YOONBUM. And THAT is the genius of Killing Stalking, and why so many people, I believe, rabidly “ship” the two of them, because the construction of the storyline and the calculated fluctuations in Sangwoo’s personality delude and lull the reader into almost suppporting them in their twisted, sick relationship. I won’t pretend - I myself was invested and tense when they were about to kiss, much as I hated the fact that I was. This is entirely down to the clever writing and the manipulation of the reader’s emotions and perceptions, mirroring Sangwoo’s manipulation of Yoonbum’s emotions and perceptions.

[This is going to be long so I’ll spare those of you who don’t want a lengthy lecture on my thoughts]

As to an exploration of their dynamic and the twisted nature of their relationship, I’m down for that. I wouldn’t call that “shipping”, though. It’s more of a study of them. And as to the comment about condoning it in real life - I suppose that really differs from person to person. That argument would excuse pedophilic and incestuous ships, too, by that same reasoning. I personally could never endorse a fictional relationship that I would not realistically endorse due to reasons such as abuse or pedophilia, since I would feel very uncomfortable. That said, I do ship Lawlight, despite it also being fundamentally unhealthy and totally unrealistic - but it is not abusive, pedophilic (though I suppose that depends on the time frame you set their relationship in but let’s not get into that) or incestuous. But I suppose that you are less affected than I am by the nature of these relationships...I’m not sure if perhaps it is because I am quite a bit younger than you and am less experienced (I’m only sixteen and you are in your twenties, though I like to think I’m quite mature for my age!!) or if we simply have different values. This, I think, will be a point upon which we shall have to agree to disagree.

Okay, next, upon to the issue of representation. I understand your points and I fully agree that there needs to be a spectrum of “good” and “evil” LGBT characters, and only good representation is hardly representation at all, is it? Haha god forbid we only recieve “politically correct renditions” of characters. However, there is a distinct difference between an evil or morally corrupt LGBT character and the toxic, depraved relationship between Sangwoo and Yoonbum. I understand your point about women writing letters to serial killers, but that to me only seems to highlight the fetishization and romanticization of this whole torture, killing and stalking scenario, which some people, not necessarily just women, seem hellbent on.

I honestly think that people exploring the grotesqueness of the torture...etc and the effect it has on their relationship dynamic need to seperate themselves from the frankly disgusting fujioshis when it comes to Killing Stalking. I actually like the idea of the exploration of the disturbingness of the relationship and the strange dependence that both characters have on each other. It’s fascinating. I will admit that the LGBT factor took me off on a bit of a wild tangent - I was meant to be talking about the fact that tumblr sold it to me by pegging it as LGBT. I knew NOTHING about Killing Stalking when I started to read it, other than the facts that it was a disturbing psychological horror, that one of the character’s legs were fucked-up and that it was really gay and that people were associating it with other LGBT media from last year. The best part is the construction of the story and the careful emotional manipulation of reader and Yoonbum alike, and I’m rather sad that this aspect has remained largely undiscussed.

Yes, notably, Yuri On Ice (which I still have yet to watch somehow??). I know that you disliked the comparison, but it really was somewhat inevitable, given that YOI was one of the most prominent LGBT pieces of media last year. I however think that they cannot really be compared due to this gigantic genre gap, and for the fact that the YOI relationship is perhaps too stupidly glowing and perfect - particularly when reviewed side-by-side with the the warped nature of the obsessive, dependent, abusive relationship, dark and monster-esque in comparison, if Victuuri is an airbrushed and slightly rushed princess.

Also, with all due respect, I’ll tag my views with whatever I please. If they’re to do with Killing Stalking, I will use the Killing Stalking tag. Everyone is entitled to their own opinions. However, if you’re lacking in posts about the plot (honestly is everyone seriously just complaining about the ship??? The actual plot is so good, how come nobody’s praising it???), I’d be more than happy to discuss it with you!

And lastly, your very good point about it being fictional, after all. I...understand this and that fiction is the only place for this sort of twisted relationship to be explored, and that it could be interesting if done correctly. I disagree, however, with the enjoyment of it. It is intriguing and very very compelling as a relationship, but it is not intended to be enjoyable as a relationship. I would honestly be concerned if you found their relationship to be enjoyable. It’s absolutely chillingly disturbing, and I am positive that this strange dependence on each other combined with their own depravities is intended by the author to have this effect, and not to produce one of enjoyment, besides lulling the initially incredulous reader and Yoonbum into enjoying Sangwoo’s gentler facet. However, though I can see why the exploration of such a dark and volatile dynamic might be very interesting, I simply cannot in good conscience endorse the pairing. Perhaps it is a personal thing, but I feel as if it would be a slap in the face to true abductees, people in truly abusive relationships, people truly being tortured. It feels like romanticization to me, and I don’t think that any amount of attempting to convince me that it’s all just harmless fiction is going to change this view.

[I hope that I was clear and that I haven’t mortally offended you in the process of explaining myself]

#killing stalking #sangwoo #yoonbum

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