Thursday, July 7, 2022

Netflix Retrospective - The Dragon Prince Season 3 Episodes 7-9

We’re back with the final episodes of the Dragon Prince. Though the show was renewed for 4 more seasons none of them have surfaced yet and it’s possible the recent slashing of animation budgets may have hindered matters further. But I digress, enough theorising, let’s get to the meat of the matter.


Chapter 7 – Hearts of Cinder

With the army now in Xadia, Claudia is collecting new creatures for her spells and Soren is beginning to wonder what the plan is, or if Viren has one at all. Aaravos convinces Viren that his plan requires the conquering of all of Xadia, the key being to kill the Dragon Queen and recapture the Prince. To accomplish this, they need something in the citadel of the sunfire elves. Viren is unsure about risking his troops before the main battle so Aaravos has a plan involving him going in alone.

Meanwhile, Ezran, Rayla and Callum being their ascension of the Stormfire peak. Part way up they see a warning written in elvan ‘prepare to draw your last breath.’ Not unsurprising as the air gets thinner, making

Viren gets an audience with the sunfire queen who uses her light staff to reveal his true nature and sentences him to be purified, Amaya is informed of this and warns that he is no king and they’re likely playing into his trap. And that is soon confirmed as Aaravos’ bug takes over a guard’s body, steals the sun-staff and kills the sun queen, the general, who I believe is her sister is upset over all of this and Amaya has to restrain her.

Ezran passes out from the thin air briefly, when he comes to a dragon he’d met back in I think season 1 is there to greet him, drawing a symbol in the ground.

Viren returns to the army, Aavaros’ bug now having grown to the size of a snake. He promises to upgrade his army with the sun-staff to make them immune to both elvan and dragon fire. He offers it to Soren who turns it down but Prince Kasef is the first to receive the gift. Soren uses the transformation to leave as Viren then uses the magic on everyone else at one. Claudia follows briefly, trying to persuade him to turn around but fails

Turns out the symbol the dragon drew was a spell, draw your last breath meant draw it as a spell. With that help, they make it to the top of the mountain, but it could all be for nothing the Dragon Queen is reportedly dead.

It’s a good episode, ramping up the stakes and actually giving purpose to some of the stuff with Amaya that felt like it was padding for a while

Rating 8/10

Chapter 8 – Dragonguard

Dead may have been exaggerating it a bit, she’s had her eyes closed for 10 days and hasn’t gotten up. Seeing her child might help bring an end to her suffering but Zym isn’t ready, especially hearing her in a bad shape. Ezran approaches the sleeping dragon and tries to get her to awaken but its no good.

Being here also opens up bad memories for Rayla, it’s where her parents supposedly ran away from the dragonguard. Soren is racing toward the storm spire, having grown a full goatee in the last few hours. He begins his ascent of the storm spire but of course the thin air without a spell to help him means he’s close to passing out when he meets the dragon, thankfully Ezran was riding him or he would have been toast there and then.

Time to get caught up with current events, and basically Soren says they’re doomed. And the sky elf around doesn’t have much more to say than get the dragon prince as far away from the battle as possible, and Callum thinks he might be right. Rayla does too, but she can’t go with them, leading to redeem her parents’ mistakes, even if she dies in the process. She gives Callum her necklace to remember her by, a moon opal with some connection to the moon archanum. Callum remembers Lujanne’s spell from an earlier episode, one that gave people an insight into history.

He enters the dragon queen’s lair and casts that spell, seeing what really happened with Rayla’s parents. We don’t see the spell directly but Ezran narrates what he saw to Rayla. Most of the Dragonguard did flee but not Rayla’s parents. They fought but with his magic, Viren is able to defeat them however Rayla’s mother suggests that the egg might be a valuable source for Viren, and persuades him to take it alive, though they both end up dead because of it.

They decide to work out what to do together but it’s Soren who has the final word, Viren is evil and the more powerful he gets the harder it will be to stop him and protect Zym. Whatever the odds, they need to stop him here and now. And some help comes in the form of Amaya and the sunfire general, I think this is the first time we find out her name, Jamai. And they’ve come with remaining sunfire elves. And whilst their combined power is formidable, it may not be enough. Ezran and the Skywing elf head off to get more re-enforcements

They’ve certainly set the stage for an epic showdown, pity we’ve only got one more episode to show it off.

Rating 8.5/10

The Final Battle

Still, this final episode is significantly longer than the others so that help. Callum has painted his arms with symbols in an attempt to recreate a sky elf spell to grow wings. It’s not happening. Soren officially apologises for his earlier bullying.

Aaravos’ plan for Viren is simple, capture the prince and Aaravos will teach him how to absorb its power and become nigh unstoppable. War meeting and the job is simple, hold the line, protect the Dragon Prince at all costs, they have the high ground, providing them with a few advantages, thinning the lines for Callum to use his lightning spell. Still, even with Sun elves’ support they’re badly outnumbered.

Rayla promises to be the last one standing, protecting the dragon prince at any cost. The battle begins and the sun elves start off strong but Claudia breaks through their defensive shields, Viren has given her command of the staff. Ezran arrives with some dragon re-enforcements but the dragons’ fire only makes these enhanced soldiers stronger and they begin using their weapons to take the dragons down as they try and attack on the land.

Zym decides he’s ready to see his mother. Rayla helps her take the steps, but of course she’s still sleeping and very weak. Zym latches onto her, feeding her a few lightning zaps but she still doesn’t awaken, Zym merely lies at her side, right where his egg once was. Callum faces off against Prince Kasev, who is fast enough to get to him before he can perform his spells, but help arrives with human re-enforcements, lead by young queen Aanya and featuring just about every friendly human face we’ve seen.

With that number of re-enforcements, the battle is ultimately won. However as they begin clearing the wounded and I suspect probably dead also, Viren is nowhere to be found. Ezran spots Claudia and ends up tripping on a tarped body, Viren’s to be exactly, only he isn’t dead, or even close. Soren has to come to his aid, facing his father for the first time. When Viren refuses to lay down his arms, Soren stabs him through the stomach. It shocks and pains him to have done so though.

But Claudia seems relatively unscathed for someone who should be grieving, and that’s because he was just an illusion. Ezran can see, because he can do that now apparently, that Zym is in danger, Viren had used the battle as a distraction to get to the top of the mountain. He freezes Rayla in place but thanks to a bait flash it manages to run, but Viren and Aaravos soon have him cornered again.

Thanks to Bait, again, Rayla manages to escape the ice, but she’s soon disarmed and her only choice to save Zym is to charge Viren off the cliff, she does so. But Callum is not far behind, he dives off the cliff after and finally manages the spell to grow wings and save them both as Viren plummets to the ground.

Armies, both human and elvan have saved the Dragon Prince, a great step on the road to peace. As the episode’s conclusion nears we see Zym’s mother awaken and the two finally unite. Zubeia couldn’t be happier to see what has happened.

Unfortunately, it’s not all over, Claudia used Dark Magic to revive Viren, and Aaravos’ bug is undergoing some kind of metamorphosis.

It’s a pretty interesting finale that honestly, I wish had had more time to it. I know action, even in animation, is expensive so I respect why they decided to limit the battle to the final episode. Still, I’m left wanting more and we will get more… eventually.

Rating 9/10

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