'The Dragon Prince' Is a Wonderful High Fantasy TV Show

The new Netflix original animated series The Dragon Prince is co-created by Aaron Ehasz, the director and head writer of Avatar: The Last Airbender.  And it shows.  Its brand of narrative beats, humor, and character dynamics is reminiscent of Avatar.  Moreover, the power system in place is themed like Avatar’s.  In The Dragon Prince’s world, magic exists and it’s predicated on six sources: the Sun, the Moon, the Stars, the Earth, the Sky, and the Ocean.  This is parallel to the four elemental “bending” martial arts – Fire, Earth, Water, and Air – of Avatar.  In short, in a sense, The Dragon Prince is the high fantasy version of Avatar.  But it’s nevertheless uniquely its own thing.

As I’ve mentioned already, in the world of The Dragon Prince – a continent named “Xadia” – there are naturally six Primal Sources of magic.  However, a millennium before the time of the story proper, a human mage discovered a new Source: Dark Magic.  Disgusted, the various races of elves (presumably, there are six of them – one for each Primal Source) and the dragons exiled all of mankind to the West.  Thus, the land of Xadia – in which all races used to live together in harmony – was divided into two: the magical lands in the East, and the human kingdoms in the West.  For centuries afterwards, the two sides have been at conflict.

The Dragon King himself has assumed the responsibility of protecting the border from human armies.  However, on the “eve of last winter’s turn” (whenever that is), the humans used Dark Magic to slay the dragon and destroy his egg, which contains his only heir: the Dragon Prince.

With an all-out war looming in the horizon serving as background, the main storyline starts.

A squad of Mooshadow Elves are sent to assassinate King Harrow, of the human kingdom Katolis, and his young heir, Prince Ezren, as retaliation for destroying the Dragon Egg.  One of the assassins, Rayla, bumps into Callum, Prince Ezren’s older half-brother; Ezren himself; and his pet glow toad, Bait.  The princes flee to the secret tunnels of the castle, and she gives chase.  However, she changes her mind about killing them when they stumble upon a secret room that hides the Dragon Egg.  Apparently, it wasn’t destroyed; just stolen.  So the three of them (four, counting Bait) decide to team up instead, and embark on a journey to return the Egg to the dragons, that war may be prevented.  Meanwhile, Viren – King Harrow’s advisor and a dabbler in Dark Magic – is keen of going to war.  And when the king is killed during the night of assassination, the mage seizes power of Katolis, and sends his children – the mage Claudia and the knight Soren – after Callum’s party to take back the Egg.

The 9-episode first season has been utterly enjoyable.  Not only has it told a compelling Book One (yep, another Avatar-similar touch), but it has effectively laid the groundwork for the levels of epicness the show is seemingly going.  So far, through terrific storytelling and worldbuilding, it has set up intriguing mysteries, lore, and plot devices that will potentially pay off tremendously, story-wise.

The characterizations are pretty good.  Though the main protagonists – Callum, Rayla, and Ezren – are mostly two-dimensional at this point, they have enough substance to be likable and engaging.  In addition, Bait serves as an adorable mascot for their party as well as the show itself (the studio behind it, Wonderstorm, also has Bait in its intro credits sequence).

Meanwhile, some of the supporting cast initially showed promising complexity.  There appeared to be some depth about King Harrow, but it wasn’t explored as he was soon killed off.  Of course, it’s still possible for the character to be fleshed out in the future via flashbacks.  Or – this is just my theory – he could still be alive after all.  It was shown in the story that Viren has access to a magic that lets people swap bodies.  Maybe he used it to transfer Harrow’s consciousness to his bird.

Speaking of Viren, he wasn’t depicted as evil at first.  Even when it was revealed that he uses Dark Magic, he came off as someone who was misguided but had his heart in the right place.  But later on, he became a straight-up villain.  I was somewhat baffled because, to me, there was no smooth transition.  It’s as if the Viren at the start was not the same Viren in the second half.  Now, here’s another theory: could it be that Viren is possessed by someone else?  Like, by that mage that discovered Dark Magic a thousand years ago?  Or could it be – based on the magical butterflies he’s keeping – that Viren is that very same mage?

Anyway, presenting mysteries that incite theorizing has always been a huge factor in making TV shows addicting and riveting, and The Dragon Prince has a good amount of it.  Hopefully, the revelations would prove rewarding in the end.

I can’t think of anything of note that I dislike about this show – save for, maybe, its “innovative” animation style.  Now, it isn’t distracting or awful, but it does look choppy, cold, and limited at times.  I feel that it’s the type of animation in which, when watched at a future time, will come across as “dated” rather than “innovative.”  However, I didn’t really dislike it in the strictest sense at any point.  I just think the animation could have been done better, and that given a choice between the style it went for and a more traditional hand-drawn style, I would prefer the latter for it.

In the end, The Dragon Prince is a wonderful new show.  I could say that it’s the kid-friendly version of Game of Thrones, but I like to believe that it’s more than that.