The Dragon Prince Season 3 - Vague Rambly/Ranty Thoughts (Spoilers Following)

Subject: The Dragon Prince Season 3 - Vague Rambly/Ranty Thoughts (Spoilers Following)
Author: Granz the Ice Cream Monarch
Posted on: 2019-12-06 00:19:51 UTC

(CW: Violence, Death, Dismemberment, Mentions of Suicide)

So, I was finally able to get around to watching Season 3 of Netflix's The Dragon Prince, and I figured I might as well share my thoughts here.

So, I suppose I'll start at the beginning - well, around the beginning. I'll admit, my memory's a bit scattered as to events. So, firstly, a minor note - am I the only one who misheard Aaravos' name? Because this is the first season I've watched with subtitles on, and his name sounded a lot like Erebos to me before. But that's a minor point. I will say that I like how they worked their way around Sol Regem, and Xadia is a wonderfully charming land and does not resemble the nightmarish demonland I feared might await them - the worst thing they found there were the fart flowers, which just smell bad instead of trying to eat people like I expected, and the adoraburrs are, well, adorable.

One minor thing that I'm not quite sure on is why the shade assassins Viren created with Aaravos' help actually did their jobs. I was under the impression he wanted to scare the old kings and queen into action rather than replace them, and while he ended up getting what he wanted, it seems like it was a little much given what he was after.

I rather liked the fact that there was a solid commitment to peace set up while also acknowledging that doing so was going to be difficult. However, this, I think, is a decent place to one of my main two grumbles about this season, that being that I was actually hoping to see Ezran be pushed to a point where he has to learn, very quickly, about how to be a king and how to deal with political shenanigans, and instead.... he abdicates. While not entirely an incomprehensible decision - he is, after all, a child - it is still not one that I think was particularly well thought-out, nor do I understand why him choosing to abdicate gets him thrown in the dungeon, or how this allows Viren to be pardoned. After all, I'm pretty sure you're not found innocent of treason just because the person who was president when you did so left office (insert series of qualifiers acknowledging that you should be found innocent if your 'treason' was revealing or preventing the sort of acts that would cause a president to be forced out of office if they would not choose to leave), and I'm not sure why Ezran would pardon Viren as he's leaving the throne, particularly since it is very obvious that, once he has the chance, he'll try to take the crown and then go to war, which Ezran has specifically said he doesn't want to happen. Also, while I'm willing to concede that this is something someone might just not think of, why didn't Ezran just call Kasef on his ultimatum? After all, if a war is going to happen either way, it'd be better to have his forces be in the defensive position since they'd be much more able to use the terrain to their advantage, particularly given that I don't exactly recall any siege weapons being among those possessed by the combined armies of the other three kingdoms. Not only that, but even if Kasef managed to defeat the forces of Katolis in battle, the cost would probably be so high that marching on Xadia would become virtually impossible. Beyond this, he has a second, not-yet-a-traitor Dark Magician on his hands who he could bluff Kasef into thinking he would ask to rain fire and brimstone down upon the three armies, and with those kind of modifiers on Ezran's side and the aftermath to think of, trying to go against Katolis without your own magicians (which we can be sure that the three armies don't have from later in the season) is tantamount to suicide.

But, grumbles about what else could have been done aside, I'm not sure it works thematically. It sets up that peace requires strength and sacrifice, and then... Ezran leaves. He leaves, which, given the information at his disposal, will lead to the humans attacking right after the Zym returns, making it seem like giving him back was just an act used to get the Xadians to let their guard down, causing the war to flare up again and resulting in far more casualties than would have occurred if he'd stayed. Peace requires strength, requires sacrifice, but is ultimately worth it - now let's have our characters get it, or at least get a lot closer to having it, while walking away from the decision that would have really suited this idea and in the process come out just as well off, if not better, than they would have if they'd made that decision.

But, let's see... I rather liked the thing about Ghost-ing, it felt like it really fit, especially since Moon magic uses illusions and plays with the senses, and I continue to appreciate the casual gay. I also noticed that evidently, the people locked inside the coins aren't dead yet, which I like, though now that I think about it, there are probably numerous magical uses for elves which makes it feel a little like Viren is wasting resources by leaving them alive. It also makes me wonder if, perhaps, Thunder's petrification could be reversed, given that the spear inside of him isn't stone, perhaps by its removal by the hands of someone who loved the Queen.

Let's see... ah, I have to say, it is refreshing to see a winged humanoid design which doesn't place the wings on the back. Not that I mind that kind of design, per se, but it is rather nice to see different ones now and again. I'm quite glad that Soren got away and is now on the side of the good guys, and I am also fairly sure that what Viren did in the dungeon scene is gaslighting and wow was watching that not fun. On an actually fun note - Aaravos. I don't know about anyone else, but I find him to be, while clearly evil, also... actually kind of fun and funny to watch, especially given how he floats around however he cares to, but also being scarily powerful because he took one of the Sunfire elves and incinerated her. And I really think that the last battle was really cool and I absolutely enjoyed watching it (even if I'm not sure how the armies of Duren got there so fast since, as memory serves, the closest thing to a detour the four armies took was when they stopped by Lux Aurea, and as I recall, that wasn't a detour, and in fact, going around it would have been one). But - overall? I liked it.

However, there is a second grumble I have with this series, and this is something of a personal one - not so much in that it's something which affects me, personally, but it's a way of portraying things that I'm tired of, and that is with Dark Magic being always evil regardless of context. Now, at the beginning of the season, I actually had hope that there'd be some nuance introduced to it (foolish, given the ending of the last season, I know, but it's been a while). Generally, when somebody says, "You are lesser beings," and then tries to blackmail you by threatening to incinerate a town, he doesn't turn out to be right about much of anything. However... there really doesn't seem to be that much. From this season, take a look at what happens in Lux Aurea. While you could attribute this to the way the elves think, there is the implication that "Does Not Use Dark Magic" = "Pure Of Heart". That any bad person is going to use Dark Magic, and that no good person would. Or, if a good person does, its nature is inherently corruptive - see the previous season when some of Claudia's hair turned white because of how she used Dark Magic to heal Soren. But... the way Dark Magic is built in this series? I just don't buy it. A lot of it seems to be usable just by doing things like squishing bugs or just waiting for a creature to die and harvesting the ingredients then. The big, horrible price that Claudia paid for healing Soren, who was completely paralyzed from the neck down, as I recall, was... killing a deer. That's it. She didn't murder anyone, and I'm fairly sure it wasn't implied she had to torture it, she just killed a deer - which a lot of people do anyway because they need to put food on the table and deer are the best source available to them, particularly in the era in which this is set. Yet this appears to be painted as a flat-out bad thing for her to do. In fact, now that I think about it, the two times her hair turns more white, it's because she performed some kind of healing magic - the first time on Soren, and while the second time is contextually a lot worse, it was to bring her beloved father back from the dead, and evidently these are her most corrupt and evil acts. Granted, we don't know yet what the price for the second act was, but unless it was a sentient life, does it even matter (context aside, given that it's Viren, any price could be considered too much, but that's not the point)? In this series, there appears to be no situation in which making a sacrifice is justifiable, even if it is clearly the better choice and will either help a lot of people or drastically improve one person's situation without harming any other sentient being, and this idea bleeds into its magic in a way that is, frankly, disappointing.

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The Dragon Prince Season 3 - Vague Rambly/Ranty Thoughts (Spoilers Following) by Granz the Ice Cream Monarch on 2019-12-06 00:19:51 UTC

doctorlit reviews the 2019 film adaptation of Cats by doctorlit on 2019-12-26 13:42:03 UTC Reply

Tacking on another unrelated review. Sorry, Granz!

Mom is the Andrew Lloyd Webber fan of the family, but she never really got into Cats. So actually, my only real pop cultural osmosis exposure to Cats comes from Ekwy’s PPC missions. It’s been several years since I read those, too, so I went into this film adaptation without any idea of what it was about. (Other than, you know. Cats.)

Spoilers for Cats. (At least the 2019 film. Not sure what all is changed from the stage productions.) Also, I’m probably going to screw some of these names up, so . . . mini-Pollicle cats don’t count here, 10-4?

For all the internet’s reaction to the appearance of the actors in this film, I thought it worked well in the movie. Despite the obviously human faces and proportions, the actors themselves moved and reacted and behaved so recognizably feline that I found it quite easy to accept them as cats. Even the way Grizzabella is ostracized and threatened didn’t bother me as much as it would in another, human-led movie, because it’s just cats being territorial towards one another. Also, the integration of the human actors’ faces with the CGI cat body was good enough that I generally couldn’t recognize the actors in a way that detracted from the immersion, with the exception of Ian McKellan and Judi Dench, who I feel didn’t get as many effects applied to their faces. Mom also pointed out that the motions of the cat ears were very realistic, though I don’t think I was paying much attention the ears myself while watching.

I’ll admit it took me a while to get into the story, purely because it has such a unique narrative structure compared to most fiction. I’m used to stories that set up most of a setting’s world-building at the forefront, but Cats forces us to discover the culture of the cats throughout the musical. The most unexpected thing is the fact that magic just sort of . . . exists in this universe, and some of the cats can randomly do magic. (Why only two of them? Also, Does this mean Cats is technically urban fantasy?) I honestly don’t think I can say I enjoyed it very much, but it interested me, and I did get into the conflict by the end. Idris Elba did a fantastic job as the villain; he was quite spooky and intimidating, though I wish he had gotten to sing more. The villain song about him is quite cool, and definitely the high point of the movie for me.

I am still perplexed about this “Heavyside Layer” that seems to be the main goal of this group of cats. I’m itching to finish this review just so I can look it up! It seems like a heaven metaphor in some way, but if it is an afterlife, why are so many of the cats excited to achieve it (aka die)? Macavity obviously sees it as something to be obtained, and most of the cats who are after it are fairly young, and not close to natural death by age. I just . . . I just don’t understand what the metaphor is.

—doctorlit, a cat lover, but a Cats liker

♪It’s so easy to leave me all alone with the spoilers of a time long ago♪ ♪It’s so easy to leave me all alone with the spoilers of a time long ago♪ ♪It’s so easy to leave me all alone with the spoilers of a time long ago♪
Neshomeh Has Feelings About Torchwood: Children of Earth. (spoilers) by Neshomeh on 2019-12-11 04:20:59 UTC Reply

(Not commenting on the original post only because I haven't yet finished season three of Dragon Prince. So far it's been as brilliant as the preceding two seasons, though!)

Non-spoilery comments about Children of Earth: It's bloody brilliant, but it doesn't half tie your brain in knots and tear your heart to shreds. {= (

Increasingly spoilery comments follow.

So, CoE is basically "Small Worlds" again, only on a much bigger scale and with a far less comfortable resolution. If you remember what happens in "Small Worlds" (and that I had Strong Feelings about it), you know that's saying something.

Look, Torchwood writers, what is it with you people forcing Jack into these situations over and over again, huh? I'm with Gwen: it wasn't his fault. It was yours. It's you people who seem to think we live in a crapsack universe where there's never a way out of any situation that doesn't involve moral compromise. ("Compromise" is not a strong enough word for this, I know, shut up.) And I don't get it! Doctor Who doesn't work that way, does it? I'm pretty sure the Doctor almost always manages to pull some kind of Crazy Eddie solution out of his back pocket and save the world without having to deliberately and knowingly do something evil. So, WTF?

*deep breath*

Okay. So. CoE presents us with a series of simple yet impossible questions.

If you could save the world, but you had to give up twelve children to a group of unknown aliens do it, would you? The aliens say the kids won't be harmed, and they'll give us the cure for the next Spanish flu in exchange. The cure works, too. Does that sound like a pretty good deal?

In 1965, the government of Great Britain decides on the world's behalf that the answer is yes. Twelve orphans no one will miss. No problem. We even have a guy who's enough of a ruthless bastard to make the delivery for us!

Cut to 2009 or whenever CoE is set. The question now is this: if you could save the world, but you had to give up ten percent of the world's children to do it, would you?

Let's be clear about this: the world is at stake. The show is a little slow to establish this fact to my satisfaction, but establish it they do. These aliens can wipe us out with the superplague any time they feel like it. And no, we can't fight back. We can't even find whatever vessel they arrived on, let alone shoot at it. Maybe they don't even have one; their spokesbeing(s) arrived in a very impressive blaze of light. Who knows how far away that can reach?

(Why is this so important to them? Why do they want children in the first place? So glad you asked! Turns out the aliens get high on them. Something about the chemical balance of a prepubescent kid's physiology. Growth hormone? I dunno. It doesn't really matter, does it?)

This time, it's not just Great Britain making the decision. America and the United Nations are in on it. They decide the same thing. Ten percent of each country's population of children in exchange for billions of other lives. What choice do we have? Take a stand on principle and get wiped out as a species? No.

But which ten percent do we give up? The people making the decision are quick to establish it won't be any of their kids, so any pretense of random selection is thrown out the window right off the bat. How about the ones from the lowest-performing schools? It's not like they're going on to be productive members of society anyway. (Please read my deepest and most cutting sarcasm here, because frell that dren. But I digress.)

So that happens. The governments of the world commence to round up their tithe. It's happening, right now. At any minute, they'll be beamed up.

But wait. What if you could save them? What if you, Jack Harkness, could save every single one... and all you had to do was torment your own grandson unto death, in front of your own daughter, to do it?

Look, you tried standing up to them. You did. All that accomplished was the deaths of a bunch of unlucky bystanders and your lover, Ianto Jones, who was way too young and too good to die like that. You tried looking for another way to send this killer sound frequency back to those bastards, but even if it's possible, there's no time to make it happen. You have precisely one choice, and it's garbage.

What price humanity? One child's life. One man's soul. (Well, whatever's left of it by now.)

So where does that leave us? Jack's a ruthless bastard and always has been; this is not in question. Is he more of a ruthless bastard than the men and women who decided to give up the disadvantaged kids they deemed expendable while sparing their own? Between the two, whose decision was more evil: saving your loved ones at the expense of millions, or saving millions at the expense of your own blood? Would it be better to be the guy who killed his kids, his wife, and himself, saving no one, rather than give them up when ordered? Would it be better to choose humanity's total extinction over the blackening of its collective soul?

CoE doesn't try to answer these questions for us. They don't explicitly judge any of the parties involved more favorably than the others, merely present them as they are and leave it up to us to decide.

I don't know the answers, folks. I don't think there are any good ones, and I think that's the point. I guess all I can do is forgive everyone.

I hated Jack for a few minutes, until I started thinking the thoughts that added up to this post, but whatever else he is, he's brave. He takes action when it matters. He doesn't wring his hands, rationalize, or make excuses. He doesn't hide from the consequences, and he'll live with those forever. I respect that. I forgive him.

I hated all the politicians while they were callously deciding to throw away lives their biases find less valuable, and discussing how to cover it up so they could remain in power in the aftermath. I think they're a bunch of cowards—but I can't fault anyone wanting to protect the ones they love. It's normal. I don't know that I wouldn't do the same or, which might be worse, choose indecision and inaction instead, and pass the buck to someone else. At the very least, they acted to save as many as they could, and were loyal to those they loved. I can't respect them, but I do forgive them.

I pray to whatever higher power there might be that we don't live in a universe where bad choices are the only ones we have, so that I never have to make a call like that myself.

Again, I think Children of Earth is a great story. The plot is air-tight, which allows it to ask these really tough, thought-provoking questions in a meaningful way. It's just absolutely sodding miserable. After all, this is Torchwood, and we still can't have nice things.

Here's the only question I really want answered: Whovians, what is up with Torchwood being so awful compared to Doctor Who when they ostensibly take place in the same universe—on the same planet in the same universe, often enough? Or, am I imagining it, and is Who overall darker than I remember? I'd like to blame a lot of what happens in Torchwood on the cruel and capricious gods of its creative team and cut the characters some slack. Is that fair, or am I dreaming?

~Neshomeh

I've not seen Children of Earth... by Huinesoron on 2019-12-11 11:33:49 UTC Reply

... but I have my own answer to your final question, and it goes back to the... second episode of Torchwood, I think? That's the one where they took 'alien vampire draining the life out of humans' and turned it into 'alien SEX vampire SEX draining the SEX life out of humans with SEX'.

Because Torchwood, when it came out, was sold as 'Doctor Who for adults'. That was what we understood going in (I think we watched Series 1 live, or live-ish), and to be fair, they absolutely committed to it.

Only... when RTD said 'show for adults', apparently what he meant was 'sex, death, horror, and downer endings'. I never got the impression he tried to work in deeper themes; just that when your go-to ending is 'Torchwood win But At What Cost??', you'll end up looking like you're asking hard questions even if you aren't.

Source: Memory. Like I say, I watched Series 1 approximately live, and Series 2... on DVD, maybe? I don't think I got that one all in a row. I've not gone anywhere near Children of Earth or Miracle Day.

hS

My sense is... by Neshomeh on 2019-12-11 16:46:16 UTC Reply

That RTD is basically a fifteen-year-old boy, giggling to himself about all the naughty things he's getting away with. Half the time, that "lol because I can" energy dominates, and things happen just because the script says so. (See my previous gripes about the bits I didn't like in S2.)

It sucks because the other half of the time, I think the show is really good. They had a great cast of characters, and when they focus on that—the tiny group of (mostly) normal people struggling with the extraordinary—it works. They're not the Doctor. They don't have the resources, or the power, or the knowledge. They have to do the best they can with what they've got, and sometimes their best won't be good enough, and it will all take a toll eventually. They're only human. Even Jack.

So, I don't mind dark, and I don't mind edgy, and I definitely don't mind it being leavened with goofy antics (sexual or otherwise) from time to time. The problem is just when it's arbitrary. There is an unfortunate amount of that in S1 and S2. I forgive a lot of it in S1, because it's pretty normal for a show to have a few weird episodes in its first season, while it's still figuring out who it is and what it can actually get away with. It's... not too surprising they didn't get another full season after S2, though. There's a lot of good stuff in there, but it also has the only episode I can totally do without.

I don't think CoE is arbitrary, though, at least not in the way that, e.g., the ending to "Adrift" is. They may not have been happy about being limited to five episodes, but it does seem to have forced them to refine their ideas and make sure the story hung together without any obvious, gaping plotholes. It's doing the thing right. I just don't get why they wanted to do the thing at all, I guess. {= P

~Neshomeh

Honestly, that's probably the best imagery you could have come up with. by Iximaz on 2019-12-11 16:55:11 UTC Reply

I love seasons one and two for the scant handful of actually good episodes they produced, but they're... sadly too few and far between. The episodes, for the most part, rely on sex and violence to carry the... I'm being generous, calling it a "plot", but there you are.

The rest of the time, all you can really do is play some drinking games with friends who know how absurd the majority of the first two seasons are. It's actually great fun and you're definitely never left wanting for the amount of nonsense you get. So at least there's that?

(Funnily enough, "Adrift" was probably one of my more favorite episodes of season 2—it really hammered home the impact the Rift and just alien activity in general has on the people left behind. It was painful to watch, and it didn't really have a proper resolution because, well, what resolution is there? Just a son left trapped in the confines of his insane mind, and a grieving mother who didn't get the closure Gwen thought she would. It's sad, and it's unsatisfying, because you want to imagine the heroes [uh, "heroes"?] could fix it, but they... can't. Considering it was a one-off, I'm okay with this. Nobody wins, everybody loses, all anyone can do is try to accept this and move on. It hits uncomfortably close to real life in this instance.)

Oh, I liked "Adrift" a lot. Right up till the end. by Neshomeh on 2019-12-12 20:51:50 UTC Reply

I agree with everything you said, I just don't accept the show's judgement that Nikki's resolution is a failure and that Gwen is right to give up. See, Nikki does get closure. She's not happy, and that's absolutely fair, but she's still shown moving on. This is a good thing! Remember that, before, she was sleeping in her son's bed and spending countless hours searching CCTV footage for a glimpse of his face. Packing up his room and crying a lot is the first step of accepting that the child she remembers is gone and returning to a normal life.

At least, that's how I understand these things.

Who knows, maybe when official first contact finally happens, Nikki will be on the front lines of the movement to help society come up with ways to deal with this stuff. She knows some of what can happen. She has the motivation and the personality type to organize people to do something about it, and maybe eventually we'll find a better solution. That's the kind of world I believe in. Progress doesn't happen without pain and setbacks, but eventually, we find ways to do, and to be, better.

(The only episode I have absolutely no use for is "From Out of the Rain," the circus one. Just, WTF. How. Why. Who cares. Should've been about Ianto instead.)

~Neshomeh

It’s not just you. (CW: suicide) by Iximaz on 2019-12-11 10:01:10 UTC Reply

(Apologies for any typos, I’m sneaking in a reply on my phone before a field trip.)

Doctor Who is... dark. Obviously not on the level of Torchwood, but we’re talking a show where Amy committed suicide not knowing if she was in a dream or not, the Time Lords deliberately drove a child to murderous insanity, the Doctor thought he had committed double genocide, the Doctor deliberately setting off the Vesuvius eruption to preserve the timeline, that whole situation in Midnight where that group of humans was willing to throw an innocent victim to whatever the hell that thing was because they thought it would save them, the Time Lords trapping the Doctor for four and a half billion years in a neverending loop of terror, grief, guilt, and suicide...

But they usually don’t get shown on-screen. The Doctor saves the day or someone else saves the Doctor, or the Doctor finds a clever way out, or the really dark moments are brushed under the rug because hey, it’s a family show—we’ll let the adults stew in the horror while the kids are entertained (or pants-wettingly terrified).

In Torchwood, we don’t have the luxury to ignore and forget. We’re presented with it right in front of us, and the camera lingers, the story lingers, and we have to watch these characters every step of the way as they have to live with the consequences of their decisions.

(Side note, Jack, how stupid were you, just waltzing in and telling the 456 to GTFO without a backup plan? It is 100% your fault Ianto died.)

I think that’s partly why I love Torchwood so much when it’s actually written well. ~~when it’s not that’s when we get the flaming dumpster fire that is Cyberwoman but that’s neither here nor there...~~

Also, do let me know when you’ve seen Miracle Day! It’s not as tightly written as CoE, but it’s my favourite season of Torchwood for, uh, several of the reasons I listed above.

Some things are definitely Jack's fault. by Neshomeh on 2019-12-11 17:06:47 UTC Reply

Usually it involves him being so secretive that nobody has all the information they'd need to make good decisions. Some of the time I get it; some of the time I could just smack him. This time, the scenario itself prevented him from realizing he had the information, and then he was dead for a while. >.> Props to them for avoiding that over-utilized plot device.

Calling the 456's bluff without a backup plan in case they weren't bluffing was pretty dumb. I think this is one of the mistakes that I get, though, because a) they were on countdown and didn't have much time to think it through, and b) it's consistent with Jack's theme of trying to be a better man. Jack says, "What was I supposed to do?" Ianto says, "Stand up to them." Jack thinks to himself, "Oh. Right, that is what a good man would do. That's what a man worthy of being loved by you would do." So he says, "Okay, let's go stand up to them." And the two of them have a really great scene of doing that together, united in purpose.

And. Well. In most other universes, that would work, but it's Torchwood, so.

I think most of the blame in this story falls on the British government, though. When your first instinct is to kill off potential assets because you're worried about your image, that does not bode well.

(Re. Cyberwoman, I forgive it for being an early S1 episode; as I said above, S1 episodes are often a bit clunky. In that case, I can see through the clunk to what they wanted it to be. I wish they'd explained how the hell Ianto snuck her into the Hub, though. That's the one plothole I can't overlook. {= / )

Re. "when it's actually written well," I think I responded to that sentiment above, and I totally agree.

~Neshomeh