Former Avatar writer Aaron Ehasz along with Uncharted director Justin Richmond set up their studio of Wonderstorm. They teamed up with Bardel Entertainment who animated the 2012 TMNT series to create The Dragon Prince for Netflix starting in 2018. This was done in CGI and is largely inspired by anime. There were some issues with the animation frame rate during the first season, but this was improved in later seasons.
The Dragon Prince was planned to be comprised of six seasons, but the show’s success gained them an extra season to conclude the series. Seasons 1-3 made up the unnamed first saga, while Seasons 4-7 made up the second part titled The Mystery Of Aaravos. There was a three-year gap between the release of Seasons 3 and 4, meaning loyal fans had to wait a long time during the intermission. Even though they were given an entire extra season to complete the story, there is still room for a continuation.
The cast is comprised of voice actor veterans while still largely starring newer voices to the field. Jack DeSena plays an almost duplicate version of his Avatar character Sokka as Prince Callum. Erik Dellums who was Avatar’s face-stealing Koh is the overarching villain Aaravos. Paula Burrows pulls double duty as main character Rayla and the reoccurring Opeli. Sasha Rojen continues the anime tradition of having an actress playing a main young male character of Ezra. Jason Thompson who normally does smaller rolls is the set turncoat Viren. Racquel Belmonte that Bronies will know as Kerfuffle expands her repertoire as the hero-turned-villain Claudia, and anime actor Jesse Inocalla is her brother Soren. Benjamin Callins portrays the transgender Terry. Former voice of Goku, Peter Kelmis is a blind sea captain and former Vegeta, Brian Drummond does various important parts. Other My Little Pony royalty includes Nicole Oliver as the dragon Queen Zubeia, Mane 6 singer Kazumi Evans is Queen Sarai, Flash Sentry’s Vincent Tong is the short-tempered Prince Kasef, and Sapphire Shores’ Rena Anakwe as Queen Janai.
The world of The Dragon Prince takes place entirely in a fantasy world on the continent of Xadia. There are six different magical sources: Moon, Sky, Sun, Earth, Sea, and Stars. The connection living beings have to each source is called the arcanum. Mages can use one of these magics at a time. Each arcanum has a tribe of elves that utilize them, usually through a source called a Primal Stone. There is also an Archdragon for each Primal Source, along with a dragon breed for each one. Another source called Dark Magic powered by living creatures is the only kind that humans can use.
Xadia is separated by a lava flow called The Great Divide. The Archdragons cast the humans out of eastern Xadia when they gave into Dark Magic taught to them by a rogue Startouch Elf named Aaravos. Zaird was a human mage that learned from Aaravos, and blinded the Dragon King, so the title was passed to Avizandum who was later killed by King Harrow and his mage Viren. Aaravos was imprisoned by the Archdragons centuries ago that Viren learned about. Harrow leads the land of Katolis, one of the five human kingdoms. Zubeia the Dragon Queen sent Moonshadow elves to assassinate Harrow and his two sons, Princes Callum and Ezran. Rayla is a young assassin elf who discovers Zubeia’s egg when they raid Katolis, and she abandons her mission to help the princes deliver the Dragon Prince back to Zubeia which eventually hatches with the name Azymondias who they call Zym.
The first story arc of The Dragon Prince dealt with Callum, Ezran, and Rayla finally bringing peace between the human kingdoms with the elves and dragons. The second and lengthier arc focused on Viren along with his daughter Claudia using dark magic to find Aaravos’ prison and free him from it, as well as the humans and elves trying to settle their differences. Taking a note from Avatar, this series has every season broken up into Books, each one lasting nine episodes, and all named after the different kinds of magic in Xadia.
The use of magic is the major plot device for The Dragon Prince. It sparks the war between humans and the combined dragon and elf forces. The two magical races think of humans as lesser beings that are not worthy of magic. Since Dark Magic can only work if the mage uses a magical creatures’ essence to be casted, it created great animosity. This led to the humans getting exiled to the western half of Xadia.
Succumbing to darkness is the main theme of the series. Similar to the Dark Side from Star Wars, Dark Magic corrupts the user which makes them treat magical beings as nothing but ingredients used to rise their power. Viren did start out as a well-meaning mage, but in order to save his son Soren’s life he sealed his mentor into a cursed coin and physically abused his wife to gain her tears all to learn a spell. The Dark Magic took its toll on Viren as his wife leaves him with his children growing up misguided. Soren eventually understands that kindness is the answer to this duplicity, although his sister Claudia went through unbelievable lengths to try and support her father’s insane campaigns, even willing to kill innocents to bring Viren back to life.
The key antagonist in The Dragon Prince is Aaravos, an unkillable elf whose daughter was sentenced to death by celestial lords for introducing humans to mage craft. His hatred for the other Startouch Elves drives him to bring the entire world in crisis using his dark sorcery along with his iniquitous nature which he would plant conspiracies and make long-term plans that would take years to unfold. Even when he is imprisoned, Aaravos is able to cause war between nations and tricking humans to falling for his schemes. He might be slightly justified in his crusade to unravel the cosmic order his kind established, but his extreme efforts don’t validate his actions.
Claudia is the one who falls to darkness the hardest. In the beginning she was just an eager young mage, but as the story went on, she became a full-blown Disney villain. She has her dark hair slowly turning white like Cruella, she morphs into a giant snake like Jafar, then into an octopus monster like Ursula, and by the end she is a Heartless straight out of Kingdom Hearts. It’s hard to imagine how she ever developed a romance with an innocent transgender elf like Terry with no explanation during the two-year gap between Seasons 3 and 4.
The other huge factor of this saga is rejecting prejudice. The main trio of Callum, Ezran, and Rayla put aside their differences and realize that unless they are willing leave their hatred in the past that neither the humans or elves will ever achieve anything. Both princes journey with the assassin who was sent to kill them and their father in order to bring peace to their lands, while the elf now allies herself with the very enemies she had sworn to kill. Forgiveness is easier for these characters since they are all still young. It isn’t as much until the second half of the series when the heroes are older that they become subject to being haunted by past anger. Even the ever-optimal Ezran eventually gives into hatred when confronted with the elf who killed his father.
Temptation is the conflict that most of the characters to fight for or against. It becomes easy for old tempers to rise again, even among the self-proclaimed somber elf nations. Despite the fact that the two former enemies of Amaya and Janai not only become the best of friends but the ruling queens of the Sunfire elves after their marriage, this still causes conflict between Janai and her brother feuding for the throne as he still despises humans. Viren and Claudia surrender to their selfish desires aside from them thinking that they are in the right, not realizing how Aaravos is manipulating them. Surprisingly, the simple-minded Soren figures out on his own that his family is wrong for committing acts of terrorism, even though they’ve used Dark Magic to save his life on two separate occasions.
The Dragon Prince is able to reach numerous marks in being an animated fantasy. In most cases, fantasy is inspired by a certain society or geographic location, which is why so many high fantasy stories are somewhere modeled after medieval Europe, this includes the majority of role-playing settings. Xadia takes a lot of hints from traditional sword and sorcery sagas like Camelot, but it varies between different cultures such as Asian and African. Along with the human kingdoms, the elf types are also diverse depending on their elemental powers. Whereas Avatar largely occurred in Asian-themed civilizations, The Dragon Prince expands it borders to allow for a multitude of cultures.
Being animated is a tremendous plus for the show to as it allows the creators to tackle various forms of creatures and otherworldly beings. The series carries the style and character designs originally forged in Avatar, except now it’s all 3D CGI with some hand painted backgrounds. Wonderstorm co-produced this with MWM Universe and Bandai Entertainment to craft a one-of-a-kind ensemble. This makes it one of the most unique fantasy animated series ever made, even among all the recent isekai anime. There is great attention given to the eccentricities of the abundant mythological sources that inspires it blending folklore from all over the world.
Representation is given a strong emphasis in The Dragon Prince. General Amaya, the aunt of Callum and Ezran, is a deaf woman who uses sign language to communicate along with her faithful attendant Gren, but she is still one of the greatest shield-wielders since Captain America. Amaya is also a lesbian who marries Janai the queen of the Sunfire Elves who were her former enemies, but during the two years of peace they both grew to love each other. There was another couple of lesbian royalty who were unfortunately killed off in a flashback. The non-binary elf Kazi and the transgender elf Terry are shining examples of LGBT+ characters, even though its still confusing as to how the elf-hating Claudia hooked up with a sweet cinnamon bun like Terry.
This Emmy Award-winning show is to me the single best fantasy TV series I’ve ever watched, animated or live-action. It was the first franchise I latched onto when I initially got into streaming, which was just after it premiered. The fanbase was small at first but increased significantly as the first half of the series unfolded, especially from the unplanned shipping of Callum and Rayla which showed how two people from completely different cultures can find common ground and eventually love. There are obscure references to pop culture such as The Lion King, Lord Of The Rings, Game Of Thrones, and Twin Peaks, so your average media junkie will find a treasure trove in this rich sprawling epic. The Dragon Prince has a strong enough presence in geek culture, partially due to its graphic novel midquel and prequels which fill in the blanks for some unresolved plots. Even though the series has officially ended, and Netflix is cutting back on its original animation series, it’s hard to say what kind of future there is for the show, especially with so many dangling story threads left begging to be finalized. There is still the threat of Aaravos looming for a return in a number of years making for yet another time skip where we could witness more mature versions of our heroes and villains. Hopefully, there will be enough attention given by fans to guarantee a follow-up of some kind, even if it's just in comic book format like Avatar and The Legend Of Korra did. Plus, you know you want to hear more of Dante Basco as the title character!
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