The Dragon Prince

I'm writing this very short review based on memory in order to offset the "ZOMG I SEE COMPETENT FEEEEMAILS ON SCREEN AND MY BRAIN IS MELTING!" drivel that passes for reviews on this website. Seasons 1 to 3 are good. It wasn't on the level of Arcane season 1 but it was good enough to earn my high rating and "favorite" star. I cannot fully remember why but season 4 was so much trash it made me lose all interest in it. So much so that I didn't even notice season 5 released until literally the time of writing this. I'll watch season 5 at some point and update this review. For now the high rating will remain, but The Dragon Prince reminds me of RWBY - it started off strong then dropped the ball so bad that I can't be bothered to keep up with it anymore. I see also that a season 6 is planned. I am neither excited nor dismayed. This series exists and so do I.

**SPOILERS AHEAD** It is hard to review a show which has an incredible first saga (seasons 1 to 3) and such a poor second saga (seasons 4 to 7). If you want to watch the show, just watch the first saga. It is worth the watch even with the slight cliffhanger. Compared to the cliffhanger that we have at the end of season 7, which is just so bad I still don't believe it. **Saga 1 - The Dragon Prince** While I never fell in love with the show, I did truly enjoy these 3 seasons to the fullest. The story was really engaging, and it kept me on the edge of my seat. While you can feel the lack of time that the show has, I feel like the creators made the most of it. **Characters:** The characters I think suffered the most because of the lack of time. It is pretty evident that we follow every single moment that our main characters share, which overall made for slower character progression, but it was quite worth it in the end. Rayla was one of my favorite characters, she was very funny and also had enough of her own struggles to separate her from the team. I would have maybe liked to see Rayla be wrong, she often says or does stuff which is right. However, it makes for poor drama but it is really just a nitpick. Callum, while interesting, by the end of the show I had more questions about him rather than answers. This goes even more so for Ezran. While I did like our main cast's dynamic, some of their elements lacked depth. We never learn how Callum even made a connection to the arcanum, or how Ezran talks to animals. However, they still made for a good trio to follow. The villains of the character roster really steal the show. You can really feel for Viren and why he did the things he did. He truly had his heart in the right place, but his actions led him to a very dark path. That journey was my favorite in the show. Seeing him struggle with his decision, but in a way being forced to make them, either by other people or Aaravos. Viren's character easily shows just how beautiful morally grey characters truly are. Aaravos was also really intimidating, he holds this power over so many people. We also see just how powerful and vile he truly is. He really creeped me out in the best possible way. **World Building and Animation:** The world building while being fantastic for Xadia, truly missed the mark with the human realm. We barely got to see one more kingdom. When our main cast was traveling through it, we spent so much time just looking at the same forest scenery. I was slightly disappointed by that, but once we got to Xadia the show felt so much more alive. The animation while quite poor in season 1, does improve throughout the other two seasons. The style also wasn't my favorite, but I did really end up liking it by the time I finished the show. **Overall:** While there were some missed opportunities, and at times lack of depth, I still really enjoyed watching this saga. The ending was slightly underwhelming, but I ended up not having that much of a problem with it. I will give this saga a 7.5/10. **Saga 2 - The Mystery of Aaravos** I truly do not even know where to even begin. The actual story, or rather stories, we follow feel so much less interesting. The main cast is still on the hunt for Aaravos which honestly does have some good moments. However, I never felt at the edge of my seat. We had moments which were so good and then so bad, which just resulted in horrible pacing. The Sunfire Elf story is so boring that I can't believe it either. Karim is just not an interesting villain, especially as the seasons went on. He mostly got predictable and annoying even. When Aaravos crushed him like a bug, it was truly the best part of his story. The journey that Claudia, Viren and Terry took was okay. It also had some good moments, but generally I was left confused with the characters. The more I watched them the less they felt like their characters. Once Aaravos got into the picture, this part of the story took a nosedive. Which is really sad, because there was so much potential here. Also the worst story told here is when Aaravos talks about his daughter being killed. This happened because she shared magic with the humans, the other star touched elves did not like that. However, Aaravos is doing a lot worse things than his daughter and they do nothing. **Characters:** The downfall of this show, the characters. Callum went from a teenager who was trying to find his way, which he does manage in the first saga. On the side we do see a blooming romance between him and Rayla. It felt believable and real. Then she left. I read the graphic novel which takes place in between these two sagas. I must say while I understand the Moonshadow Elf culture, there should have been an apology. Anything honestly, that acknowledges that Rayla messed up and that she had to make it up to Callum. Remember the nitpick I had about Rayla never being wrong, well it got cranked up to 100. Callum never says anything about it, if anything he blindly starts trusting her. Even after she sort of leaves again in the show. Their whole entire relationship in this saga is based on nothing, and I did not enjoy one scene with them. There was so much missing that their relationship just didn't feel real to me. Which is quite devastating when you realize that neither of them have any character growth. Callum becomes obsessed with Rayla to the point where he betrays his own brother. Those scenes were the most out of character scenes in the whole entire show. Callum gets degraded into a love crazed character, where his truth is just Rayla. He has no more depth. Rayla gets a few minor moments with her parents, but she also had some bad moments, like when she left Soren out in the woods alone. Her character isn't even recognizable. Ezran becomes a pacifist to an annoying degree. He has no growth or anything, except in season 7 when they make him suddenly angry and bitter about everything. This shift came out of nowhere, it would have made sense if there was any buildup to this but there is not. For most of the show he does nothing. When he has this change everybody starts to disagree with him. Nullifying any possible character growth, as he just goes back to normal in the final episodes. Viren, while good in the first half of the saga, becomes really bad after his true revival. He should have stayed dead. After he got revived the only redeeming moments are when he talks to Soren. Which could have been accomplished while he was still alive. They even met but didn't talk. Overall I don't understand the goal here. They made him mute for a very long time, even after we had stopped seeing his dreams or visions. He ended up being just a shell of the morally grey character that we once knew. Claudia, on the other hand, went full on psycho. She was good until she admitted Aaravos was her dad now, I guess? While Claudia was still trying to save her dad, I believed her. I truly felt bad for her. Then she replaced Viren with Aaravos and it didn't work. They needed more time for this to make sense. If anything, she should have followed Terry, which in my head makes more sense, as they had shared a lot of intimate moments. Which in my head made their relationship stronger no matter how toxic it is. Aaravos also took a giant nosedive in quality. He was not the most powerful creature anymore. He was not the master planner and manipulator. He got trapped in chains. He had such a useless plan that my interest in the mystery faded. In the end he will come back again in the possible third saga and the chance of me watching is very low. I am highly disappointed. They had hyped up the fact he is undefeatable. Then he got taken out by a dragon bite, I was shocked. Like, that is it? I will shortly comment on Terry. He came out of nowhere, and I truly do not understand why he does what he does for Claudia. I feel like he did serve his purpose, which was to bring out the little good that was in Claudia. There is a lot more wrong with the characters, but this review would never end. From the top of my head, these are the worst crimes. **The Pacing:** I already mentioned the varying writing quality. There is also the problem with the tone. The show has no idea if it wants to be a kids show or a mature show. It is so jarring going from a very serious moment to a fart joke. The amount of times this happens is staggering. They figured it out in season 7, but by then it was too late. **The Magic:** I have many problems with the magic. I, after watching the show, still do not fully understand why dark magic is bad, when the whole time we are shown how many good things it can do. We are also shown how deadly primal magic can be. Which in turn makes it hard to believe that dark magic is the only bad one. I just never understood the talks between Rayla and Callum, and why he should not use dark magic. I understand the main problem is Aaravos. However, if it is the only way to stop him then I don't see why we are not doing it. Even prior to the show beginning, dark magic was still hated, for the sole reason that they gave humans magic. Which upset the dragons, because they weren't their playthings anymore. Like, this makes no sense. We are supposed to believe that humans are at fault for being abused for centuries and that they protested against that? I had hoped this saga would clear up some of these confusions but it did not. If anything it made me more confused. We had no more human mages appear, but Callum somehow got another arcanum. How is this even possible? **Overall:** I do not recommend this saga. Truly, the ending is one of the worst endings I have seen. It was so unsatisfying and so chaotic that it hurt to watch. The first season of this saga was so bad as well. I want to say there are some redeeming scenes where I really did want this show to be good, but it never continued like that. This was a really bad roller coaster. My final rating for the saga is a 3/10.