I just finished binge-watching The Dragon Prince S4 and I thought I’d share my thoughts as a show-only fan.

Warnings—spoilers for TDP S4, long post

*I’VE NEVER READ ANY OTHER MATERIAL

**I remember hearing from Wonderstorm (the animation studio) that it wasn’t necessary to read TTM (Through the Moon) to understand the story, so I never bothered with it—but boy I’m assuming it’d be helpful

Out of every season, I thought it was ok, however, definitely the weakest of the seasons so far. I’ve seen people make excuses, the most popular one is that ‘it’s just setting up the arc, it’s not supposed to wrap everything up’. To those that use the ‘it’s not finished’ excuse, may I point to you S1??? The first season of any show is hard to pull off b/c of world building and introducing the story. I’d say that TDP’s 1st season is much better than season 4. Yes S1 had wonky animation, but the story was great! It kept me engaged and that’s the goal of every story: to be interesting.

So here’s what I liked/enjoyed:

By S4, the animation has improved and looks amazing. The music is also not bad. S1 I thought did just a bit better with the music (ep3!), but definitely still good. There’s a 2yr timeskip so Callum is about 17 and Ezran is 11-12. Loved everyone’s new look (though Ez’s voice threw me but I understand a lot of boys don’t start puberty until about 13–my 12yr old brother is just starting/and the VA is female so dunno if they’d just pitch her down or what).

I know a lot of you didn’t like that the pastry chef guy was made like an official member of the royal council or whatever, but I actually loved it. It’s a refreshing take compared to having solely important people on the council. Adding people who seem like ‘normal/everyday’ kind of people to a high position (yes, it’s cooking/food, but he can be in charge of feeding the needy in Katolis or something) isn’t something that’s normally seen in fantasy stories imo.

Also know that some of you didn’t like that Igneous Rex was swayed by a pastry. His explanation though really made sense. He wanted to try something new (think Isabella from Encanto). It made total sense and I loved it. Also immediately knew it was chocolate. Never once did I think it was like cinnamon or something. Chef man is gonna bring world peace w/ chocolate calling it now.

The bond between Zym/Ezran reminds me of Eragon (especially w/ Ez being able to see through Zym’s eyes) and I’m absolutely living for that.

The new characters introduced are ok. Definitely love Terry. Honestly, I was wondering why he wasn’t freaking out when Claudia would do dark magic (since he’s an elf), but after thinking on it, I realized Terry’s probably never seen anything bad happen for using dark magic. For being so smitten w/ Claudia, I assume they’ve known each other for maybe a year or so. Enough time to get to know her but to not know everything about her. And even though Claudia is clearly traumatized by what she had to do to bring Viren back, she brought someone back from the dead. That’s gotta be amazing from a bystander POV.

I also loved Viren’s brutal talk with him and how Terry chooses not to follow that advice. I hope their relationship grows. I wonder if he’ll start to see Terry in a different light. Assuming it’s just been Soren, Claudia and Viren for years, having a stranger come in and say that he loves Claudia has got to be weird/foreign for Viren. Speaking of…I loved how Viren and Claudia’s relationship now has pretty much flipped, with her being the one in control and he just kinda has to do what she says. Really mirrors their S1 relationship. I’m sure she wasn’t forced, but I’m sure Viren’s words sway her to do what he wants. I hope that Viren and Claudia’s relationship is explored more cuz when she was forcing him up the spire, she really didn’t seem to see anything was wrong (that he was freaking out).

I also kind of like the fact that I can’t really tell if Claudia is really having feelings for Terry or not. He clearly loves her no question, but we haven’t really heard Claudia talk about Terry in the way he does about her. I’m worried that she’s using him in some way/will betray/leave him (especially considering that speech she gave Soren when they reunited. Like ??? Girl, you’re dating an elf??)

I ABSOLUTELY LOVE THAT FIGHT SCENE BETWEEN IBIS AND CLAUDIA with Ez’s speech narrating over it. From what I remember, I don’t think we’ve seen a mage vs mage (magic v magic) fight before. It’s interesting because a lot of the sword fighting shown isn’t really dangerous or anything because anytime someone loses their sword, it’s considered that they lost. I think how sword fighting is typically portrayed though there are exceptions, but especially within children shows (obviously). The fight starts out with magic until they both disarm each other and it switches to a free-for-all, doing anything they can to get the upper hand. This is truly a fight for their lives. Ibis manages to stab Claudia’s leg and she kills him, leaving him on top of the spire. More fights like this please!!

I love how we were all expecting Aaravos with beautiful wings or something to come out of the cocoon and we get Gollum with wings that Claudia names sir sparkle puff. Perfection. They made the ‘winter is coming’ joke in S1 for GoT, is this their version of Gollum for Lord of the Rings? Also loved the callbacks to Avatar the Last Airbender (Soren saying yip yip and the shot of Igneous Rex’s treasure hoard that has Aang’s glider and Sokka’s boomerang).

I liked that Aaravos has targeted Callum and while possessing him, calls out everyone’s ‘flaws’/insecurities. I haven’t really seen anyone mention this but while Aaravos basically confirmed that he targets mages, I believe Callum won’t be like any other mage Aaravos encountered because Callum is the only human known to use magic w/o help. He uses the primal stone at first, but he quickly starts using magic all by himself, simply recalling spells he’s seen/heard. I always thought that was weird and hopefully will be explained in future seasons, but I definitely think that will play a role with the whole Callum/Aaravos relationship.

The last thing I enjoyed was Janai and Amaya’s relationship (but thought the story there was a little underwhelming/predictable).

Now that I’ve gone over things that I enjoyed out of this season, here are things I didn’t quite enjoy personally:

I think the most obvious and one that I’ve seen most people talk about so far is Callum/Rayla’s relationship. As stated before, if you haven’t read Through the Moon, like me, S4 is super confusing for their relationship. I did like that Callum didn’t forgive Rayla immediately and was pretty icy towards her. He’s been hurting immensely since she left, which I think is part of why he asked her to kill him if he became Aaravos’ pawn. She’s hurt him before, she can do it again, at least in Callum’s mind. What bugs me is that even though Rayla said she was so focused on getting revenge for what happened, she just..gives up? After 2 years? She left Callum, obviously knowing how deeply it’d hurt him, and didn’t see it through to the end (something her character arc wrapped up in S3 becoming a dragon guard). In S1, she didn’t finish killing the Katolis guard, putting her friends in danger. S2, she didn’t finish finding her identity/who she wants to be (the pirate ep and the ep where she chooses to save the dragon). S3 finally wrapped her character arc up by her choosing to pick up where her parents left off, in becoming the last dragon guard.

Now w/ S4 out we find out Rayla has given up her search for Viren after only 2yrs. And the worst part? She doesn’t even seem to realize what she did was hurtful to Callum. Rayla expects to pick things up right where they left off when Callum is still clearly hurting. Neither of them are the same after the 2yrs but she expects things to go back to ‘normal’ when that can never be the case. Causing that kind of emotional pain can’t be repaired with just time, or even with apologies. It’s frustrating that Rayla doesn’t acknowledge that she hurt Callum or even apologized. Callum clearly has some choice words for her and he’s just…deflecting and rejecting her any time they see each other because he doesn’t wanna talk about it. I get it, Big Feelings, I know, but this talk clearly needs to happen.

Honestly I could go on about their relationship, but I don’t want this post to get too long.

Next, I really didn’t care for the humor/jokes. Honestly even in S2 and 3, the humor seemed to be dipping/going down hill. The cringe-iest one was obviously the fart joke. Like…really?? It seems like kid shows have been putting those in more (even in Legend of Korra-Meelo). AtLA had 0 fart jokes. Humor can be more than fart jokes in kid shows! The other really cringey joke was Soren’s pajamas and stinky feet waking Rayla up. I know a lot of you guys also think this too so I’m glad I’m not alone.

Also I felt that adding ‘Stella’ the purple cuddle monkey thing Rayla has as a companion was too much. We already have Bait and Zym, this is just too much. Also the portal thing Stella can do is too OP for an animal imho. Like it’s cool for animals to do stuff that’s helpful (Bait glows, Zym fights), but this just felt…tacky/too unreal? Yes dragons are a thing and yes it’s a fantasy show, but Stella doing the portal thing seemed really out of place for me. Stella really just felt like a ‘marketable creature’ inserted to make money as toys. Also she interrupted Callum!!! HE WAS GONNA TALK UNTIL SHE SCARED THE SHIT OUTTA HIM AND HE CLOSED BACK UP!!!!

If I’m being completely honest, I didn’t really like Ezran’s development (or lack of) this season either. He’s always portrayed as the innocent/naive kid and even though he’s king now, he’s still the same (despite everything he’s gone through). He’s the pure character for the sake of being pure and is incorruptible. His whole deal of trying to get the humans and dragons to get along was ok, it made sense for this animal-loving boy king, but we’re in the 4th season, over the half-way point. Ezran has to have more to his character by now. I wanna see him struggle like Dany in GoT when that guy brought his daughter’s burnt corpse to her and she had to lock up her dragons. Let’s see Ez wrestle with a horrible accident caused by Zym or another dragon.

Also didn’t really like that they sidelined Soren and Viren. There’s so much trauma to explore there and I’m surprised we haven’t seen anything from Soren’s POV like a nightmare of him killing Viren or something.

And as I said earlier, the whole Janai struggling w/ ruling her people and the whole humans vs elves thing was a little…basic. And Janai’s brother Karim was so predictable. I knew he wasn’t gonna win that fight. I did like that he didn’t try and break up Janai and Amaya cuz of their species and instead wanted for them to live a humble, peaceful life somewhere else and he would rule instead. I think it would’ve been better writing, story-wise, had Janai listened to Karim, given up her crown, then regretted that decision, and have to fight Karim to get it back as the rightful ruler.

The only thing that I can take or leave is Claudia and Viren’s redemption. At this point, I see Viren folding/wavering slightly, especially when he talked about just living out the time he has left with Claudia, despite that ending of him transforming back with the all black eyes/gray skin. If done well, I’d like to see both of them being redeemed, though at this point, the way Claudia describes bringing back Viren, I’m not sure if redemption is possible for her (though Terry seemed to really get through to her w/the coins and Rayla, so maybe Terry can help). Either way, I think their relationship/story is the most interesting at this point (especially since Claudia has the power now in their relationship).

I haven’t seen anyone mention this but I hope Sir Sparklepuff isn’t killed when Aaravos finally does arrive. He’s been somewhat helpful so far and I wonder if, being related/conjured/created by Aaravos, Sir Sparklepuff would be able to find/make the key (the star diamond things). Something is definitely gonna happen to that map Terry made out of the goop stuff, I can feel it.

Well I think that pretty much all my thoughts on Dragon Prince season 4. After watching, I definitely would recommend reading Through the Moon to understand Callum/Rayla’s relationship cuz I was confused af (even though Wonderstorm said ‘don’t worry about it’/not needed). I definitely think it’s the weakest season so far, but the animation is gorgeous and everything with Aaravos is just interesting enough to keep me engaged. S1 arguably had a harder time to find its footing with the story, but I think it did a better job than S4. We essentially start of with a rocky relationship between humans/dragons and humans/elves, and we are still there by the end of S4. I would think, being past the half way point, at least one of those would have been resolved by now (considering how built up of a villain Aaravos is—I would assume everyone-humans, dragons and elves would need to pitch in).

Big thanks to all of you that made it through this whole post. Can’t wait to see what happens next. Lemme know what you thought of The Dragon Prince’s S4.

❤️

PS—I know I keep saying this, but I promise I’ll be back with a fic/chapter soon. I’m currently trying to write Chapter 4 of Older Sister, a Bad Batch fic and am writing 2 different versions before deciding which one I like (I made a post about this here so if you have a preference lemme know).

Oh god please no more movies where a stubborn child forces themselves to be in a dangerous situation after the adult that cares about them says no

"the life of an artist: gifted kid to burnout-" girl idk about you but there was Something Very Wrong With Me from the start!

Tuvok & Neelix are both cringe but only Neelix is free

You ever see a piece of media that is very blatantly meant for adult consumption but for some reason, the fan base around it is ultimately comprised of packs of rabid 12 year olds who shouldn't be indulging in the media in the first place and utterly lack critical thinking or comprehension and couldn't understand nuance or perspective if you gave them baby's first homework assignment on it?

Biting the bars of my enclosure about autistic ford tonight. There's something about him using vocabulary and turns of phrase that seem "outdated" or "pretentious" that feels so painfully genuine to me. When people say he talks like that just to "try to sound smart" I wish I could explain what it's like to be so ostracized from your peers growing up that you spend all your time reading instead, to the point where you pick up your way of speaking from books instead of from people. And then what it's like for people to call you out for "talking weird" over and over again, not able to wrap their heads around why the fuck you would choose more archaic or technical or formal words than the simpler ones that surely come to everyone's minds first. What it's like to have to dedicate a sizable chunk of attention to filtering through every single word you say out loud in real time before you say it, to make absolutely sure that it isn't a word people will judge you for using or make fun of you for using, just so you'll have a chance of being taken seriously. Learning through trial and error how to filter out the words that other people don't think are normal or casual enough for the conversation, even though for you, the word choice that's "natural-sounding" enough for them is the third or fourth word you came up with when searching for the right way to phrase something in your head. I wish I could explain just how long it takes to say fucking anything after spending a lifetime doing that during every single conversation, and how repetitive and long-winded you end up being when you spend so long coming up with alternative ways of saying every little thing you ever think. And I wish people realized that, at the very least for autistic people and autistic-coded characters, speech that's seen as pretentious is really just the way they talk when they're not putting in the extra effort to filter through every word they say just so others will take the time to listen.

the lack of "show, don't tell" in the pjo show is truly frustrating. i LOVED the scenes in the love tunnel, with percy sitting in the chair and annabeth defending him to hephaestus, and i mean tears were streaming down my face bc those kids are so talented and they were making me Feel Emotions!! but annabeth's lines about the gods being one way and percy not being that way and then following it up with the comment about how "maybe [she] was like that once" but she's not/doesn't want to be anymore,,,, that line didn't feel earned because we haven't had a chance to really see annabeth's commitment to that initial ideological position (and the consequential change). like, percy challenging that perspective for her (i.e. one of hatred and constant fighting and instead putting forth an emphasis on loyalty and kindness and earned/deserved respect) is indescribably crucial to the story and thus im very happy they're hitting that beat in the show, but they're just telling us that change has happened for annabeth. i want to see it, see that shift in her beliefs, and it's hard to buy into the proclamation when the show has given us so little that demonstrates how initially committed she was to her prior perspective

I'm bringing all of you to the capoeira practice

Why is it that literal teenagers (ages 13-16) in this fandom are more capable of critical thinking skills and have actual decency than the adults like mf your brain is fully developed, and your still shipping minors with adults, and hating on any other character that isnt Cedric at your GROWN ASS PREHISTORIC AGE. Like girllll go pay ur bills and go to work rather than making everyone else uncomfortable. Like I have absolutely no problem with the 18+ watchers of this fandom, but if you’re gonna get called out by kids almost 10 years or more younger than you when you can’t even see what the problem is, then there is clearly something wrong with you. 😭😭🙏🙏‼️🗣️

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unintended side effect of watching 00s-early 10s cartoons from my childhood is i have the desire to fit myself into the unobtainable idea of what teenage-hood should have been like, like going to the mall or learning how to drive.

Modern book readers when their characters aren't literally a clone of Jesus Christ Himself starting at Chapter 1

having a "former gifted kid" type mental spiral

Bullying still happens in Ajin school

people who still think james hurley is boring and annoying after seeing the way he interacted w laura in fwwm. i respect you but i do not understand you

My therapist needs to stop to almost make me cry, how dare she makes me show emotions in front of people😭 Also thanks for the realization that school apparently has fucked up the view I have of myself more than I thought it has, maybe it hasn’t been a good decision to place me in a special project class for “smart kids” after all.