“We kill one monster to save 100,000 people,” Harrow tells his queen, Sarai (Kazumi Evans), as they spar with sword and spear. The same flashback sequence again questions the nature of fantasy’s emphasis on heroic quests, as Viren and Harrow agree to lead an expedition into Xadia to slay a magma titan whose heart can be used to prevent famine. Viren has done indisputably terrible things with his dark magic, but he’s also used it as a practical solution to prevent tragedy. In season 1, Viren tasked his son, the good-natured, mildly dim knight Soren (Jesse Inocalla) with murdering King Harrow’s sons, but an extended flashback in season 2 shows Viren’s genuine love for Harrow. That conflict also brings depth to the show’s villains. While so much fantasy is based around characters with great destinies, Harrow urges Callum to ignore any imagined constraints on his fate and forge his own path. In an extremely powerful speech, King Harrow describes his desire to build a kingdom according to the philosophical principle of the veil of ignorance, where the laws are fair for everyone, regardless of their class, race, or gender. The writers have placed a huge emphasis on diverse representation in this series, with major plot arcs revolving around a deaf general who communicates with sign language, a kingdom ruled by an interracial lesbian couple, and a blind sea captain who navigates through his understanding of the wind, with the help of a seeing-eye parrot. The same idea extends to a lot of fantasy stories involving hereditary power, from Game of Thrones to The Lion King to the Star Wars franchise - too often in this genre, power is tied to the circumstances of a character’s birth, or to some inborn special power that isn’t available to most people.īut like many of Dragon Prince’s characters, Callum refuses to accept his apparent limitations. That’s a fascinating conflict, and it touches on the plot of the first season of the Avatar spinoff The Legend of Korra, where the villain tries to foment rebellion against “benders,” people with the innate ability to manipulate the elements. Meanwhile, Claudia tempts him to try dark magic, by pointing out its egalitarian nature. He wants to use magic again without the crutch of a magical device, but a powerful elf tells him that his humanity makes that impossible. Callum stole one of the latter in the show’s first season, allowing him to use sky magic, but he had to give it up to save the life of the show’s title character. Humans like Claudia and her father Viren (Jason Simpson) can only cast spells by stealing power from magical creatures, or using special magic items. This is a world divided between the human kingdoms and the magical realm of Xadia, where elves and dragons wield elemental magic.
In its new season, The Dragon Prince becomes both a deeply satisfying fantasy story and a deconstruction of fantasy tropes, including the ones Avatar: The Last Airbender was guilty of itself. It’s clear now that season was burdened by the weight of an immense amount of setup, introducing the world, its magic systems, and its characters. The first season of the show from Avatar: The Last Airbender head writer Aaron Ehasz and veteran video game developer Justin Richmond showed promise, but was underwhelming compared to Ehasz’s previous work. The Dragon Prince’s second season is filled with these kinds of wonderful surprises. When Callum goes to talk to Ezran about growing up and facing hard truths, a monologue with an emotional significance that deepens through later reveals, Callum realizes he doesn’t have the courage to tell the truth, either. Instead, he only thinks about how he’ll share the grim news with his young animal-loving half-brother Ezran (Sasha Rojen). There would be plenty of drama in a conflict that hurts their relationship and drives Callum further toward Claudia.īut that isn’t what happens. The predictable outcome would be for Callum and Rayla to have a huge fight over the way she hid the information from him. She resolves to finally break the bad news, but Callum’s crush, the dark mage Claudia (Racquel Belmonte) beats her to it. The elf assassin Rayla (Paula Burrows) has a crush on the bookish prince Callum (Jack De Sena), and hasn’t told him that she knows his stepfather, King Harrow (Luc Roderique), is dead. In “Half Moon Lies,” the second episode of season 2 of Netflix’s animated fantasy show The Dragon Prince, the writers set up a pretty classic rom-com conflict. Warning: some spoilers ahead for season 1 of The Dragon Prince.