The Dragon Prince / Image by Netflix
Netflix’s The Dragon Prince, which dropped today, has a promising first season, but it may not be the Avatar successor you were looking for.
To start, it should be acknowledged that Netflix’s The Dragon Prince is its own show and should, on the one hand, be regarded as such. On the other hand, watching The Dragon Prince partially through the lens Avatar: The Last Airbender is kind of unavoidable.
Imagine reading a new YA fantasy series by J.K. Rowling and not thinking about Harry Potter. You would fail immediately. But Aaron Ehasz, co-creator of The Dragon Prince and co-executive producer of Avatar, must have known that. And the show’s set-ups are inherently similar. (Warning: Some spoilers)
There’s no bending, but there is magic.
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Instead of four elements, there are six primal sources of magic: the moon, sun, stars, earth, ocean, and sky. The Dragon Prince‘s first season is called “Book One: Moon.”
Long ago, humans, elves, and dragons lived together in harmony in Xadia, a magical land. Then, everything changed when a human mage, aka wizard, discovered the seventh primal source: dark magic, which involves taking the life force of magical creatures.
To protect themselves, the elves and dragons forced all the humans to stay on the western side of the continent while they holed up in the east. The dragon king, Thunder, guarded the border until humans killed him using dark magic.
And his was not the only life lost. His heir, the dragon prince, was also slain, before he was even hatched, bringing the continent to the brink of war.
A trio, two siblings and a stranger, go on a quest to bring peace to the world
Turns out the dragon prince isn’t dead, after all. Predictably, the humans stole the egg to use in the coming war. The egg is discovered by 14-year-old Callum (Jack De Sena) and his younger brother Ezran (Sasha Rojen), the princes of Katolis, a human kingdom, and by Rayla (Paula Burrows), a seemingly teenaged eleven assassin.
Rayla and her fellow Moonshadow Elves had entered Katolis to kill King Harrow (Jason Simpson) and his heir, Ezran. (Callum is Harrow’s stepson.) However, as soon she sees the egg, Rayla tries to get the assassin squad’s leader Runaan (Jonathon Holmes) to stand down when she realizes they are seeking vengeance for a crime that never happened.
Unfortunately, Runaan, already furious with Rayla for sparing the life of a human guard and thereby warning King Harrow of their plot, is determined to go through with the mission.
Additionally, all the elves, including Rayla, are literally bound by duty. Enchanted bands on their wrists will only release once both Harrow and Ezran are dead. If the royals remain alive, the bands will continue to tighten until they literally sever the elves’ hands.
Callum, meanwhile, tries to tell Harrow the egg is alive but is stopped by the king’s advisor, Lord Viren (Jason Simpson), a mage. Viren questions why Callum would assume his father doesn’t already know but also refuses to let Callum see him.
Out of options, Callum, Ezran, and Rayla set out to return the egg to Xadia to prevent a war.
Photo Credit: Netflix
Callum
In yet another callback to Avatar, Callum is voiced by the same actor who voiced Sokka. It’s is a bit unfortunate, especially since Callum is inherently similar to Sokka.
When we meet Callum, he has yet to find his calling and thus feels insecure about himself and his abilities. He’s also protective of his younger sibling. However, unlike Sokka, Callum doesn’t get the chance to evolve and grow. He kind of just rapidly changes.
Callum sees his crush Claudia (Racquel Belmonte), who is a mage like her father Viren, do a spell once. Later, as he tries to fight off another one of Claudia’s spells that were meant to kill Rayla, Callum does the first spell — and he does it perfectly. He’s a natural, apparently, which is pretty boring.
In the entire season, Callum has one minor issue performing a different spell. Granted, by the end of the season, he can still only do those two spells, so he still has a lot to learn. (See what I did there?)
But to make another comparison, Katara (Mae Whitman) building her confidence and teaching herself water bending over the course of Avatar’s first season was much more interesting and compelling.
Rayla
Rayla has the best character arc of the season. She’s desperate to prove herself and defend her people because her parents abandoned their mission to protect the dragon prince at the border. Seeking to erase that shame and adept at fighting, she has all the makings of an assassin, except in one critical aspect. She can’t bring herself to kill people.
Over the course of the season, she manages to find a new family in Callum and Ezran, who come to trust her. Although she is still guarding one terrible secret she can’t bring herself to tell, which will definitely threaten to tear the trio apart in a potential second season: Despite her efforts, the elves’ mission succeeded. King Harrow is dead.
Side notes: Rayla has some of the best lines of any of the characters, which Burrows delivers quite well. Rayla also has a Scottish accent because apparently, Moonshadow Elves have Scottish accents, except for Runaan who inexplicably has a British accent. And Rayla runs Naruto-style.
Ezran
Ezran is probably the most like Aang (Zach Tyler Eisen) of any character, bringing the wonder and optimism of youth to the group. While his age isn’t unspecified, he seems to be 8-10. Ezran is also able to see the best in people, so he bonds with Rayla and helps her overcome her shame at being “an assassin who’s never killed anyone.” (She views herself as a failure.)
Ezran is also the animal guy. He has a “glow toad” named Bait, who can shine brightly and momentarily blind people or other animals. I’m definitely biased, but Bait was not as fun as Appa or Momo.
Ezran is fun, though, and not just a sidekick to his older companions. He comes in a clutch, literally, during a fateful moment on a frozen lake and later during a spider attack.
Photo Credit: Netflix
Viren
Though we don’t see him die, King Harrow’s demise is implied at the end of episode three. We see one of Runaan’s bindings release. He sends off a special arrow to alert the elves of Xandia that mission succeeded before he is captured.
What we as the audience don’t know is whether Viren actually killed Harrow. He is the last person seen with Harrow, and he immediately tries to appoint himself Lord Protector of the Realm after Harrow’s death, claiming the princes were also killed.
His plan goes awry when General Amaya, Harrow’s sister-in-law, reveals that the princes are, in fact, alive. But he has a plan B. He sends his children, Claudia and Soren (Jesse Inocalla), off on a mission. He tasks Claudia with recovering the egg and Soren with killing the princes.
Viren makes a decent villain. He’s certainly sociopathic and goes to extremes that propel the plot, but he can be predictable.
Claudia and Soren
Sadly, neither of them is Zuko (Dante Basco) and neither of them is Azula (Grey DeLisle), by any stretch. Yes, they should be their own characters, but they are much more boring. Soren is a stereotypical jock, except he seems to have a conscience. He isn’t forced to wrestle with it very much, though, at least in season one.
Claudia is much more her father’s daughter as a fellow mage with a screwed-up moral compass. I was worried she would just be Callum’s crush, but she definitely has a storyline of her own. It’s just not that interesting. Without the wit and edge that made Azula so weirdly lovable, Claudia falls flat.
General Amaya
Amaya is rather a minor character, only appearing in two episodes, but she is immediately she through Viren, so props to her. She is also deaf, which is incredibly rare to see on television and so important.
Like Toph (Jessie Flower), while Amaya is differently-abled, she is quite powerful. She serves as the commander at the border with Xadia. She uses sign language and can read lips. One of her soldiers, Gren (Adrian Petigrew), serves as her translator since most people can’t read signs.
Unfortunately, Amaya is quite prejudiced toward elves, but hopefully, she will come to see the error of her ways in time.
Photo Credit: Netflix
The animation
From the day the teaser trailer dropped, viewers have been decrying The Dragon Prince‘s use of 3D computer-animation versus the more traditional, drawing-based 2D animation seen in Avatar. I definitely don’t prefer it, and it’s hard to get used to at first. Overall, though, the animation style is not a reason to write off The Dragon Prince.
Narrative pacing
If this show weren’t on Netflix, I would say its retention rate over the course of the season would be in trouble. The basic plot points I outlined on the first slide make up the show’s first three episodes. For a while, I was worried those would be the show’s only plot points. Each episode ends a decent cliffhanger, but the overall momentum is just not there early on.
By episode four, the show begins to fall into a better rhythm, more similar to Avatar. The kids get caught up in various adventures, and they begin bonding and sharing backstories. But the season is only nine episodes long. So, essentially, it takes half the season for viewers to get know to the characters well enough to invest them.
The premise
On its own, The Dragon Prince has an interesting enough set-up: magic, dragons, elves, kids trying to save the world from prejudice and an evil tyrant. It has its share of more juvenile jokes that viewers 12 and under will probably appreciate and adults may find annoying. Overall, it’s a perfectly fine kids show.
It’s just not especially groundbreaking. Avatar allegorized World War II in an incredibly imaginative and compelling way that both kids and adults could appreciate. Dragon Prince, with its messages about prejudice and the danger of division, is rather timely for our current political climate, but those messages are not explored as significantly as they could be.
Additionally, perhaps most significantly, while Avatar took an inspiration from martial arts, element bending was an entirely new concept to the YA fantasy world. Magic is not.
Bottom line: The Dragon Prince is an entertaining show, but it’s not the next Avatar — at least, not yet. Check it out on Netflix by clicking here.