Season 4 Aaravos Spoilers
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Spoiler: Short pseudo-review
I was incredibly...underwhelmed by this season. I gotta be honest.
I expected something entirely different.
It almost felt like a filler season. When it comes to Aaravos we learned next to nothing new. We mainly got a couple of quickly served confirmations for things we already suspected (has been pulling the strings of Xadiaās fate throughout history and orchestrated his plans in secret, has given human dark magic, was imprisoned because the elves and dragons thought he was too dangerous, Ezranās ancestor helped to stop him).
But the confirmations were delivered in a lackluster way at best. We merely got a really fast summary by Zubeia (beautifully drawn but still very brief) and that was it.
It also felt very disappointing that Claudia just knew all of a sudden that Aaravos gave humans magic. As far as I remember there was never even any speculation on him being involved in this within the show before?
Perhaps Iām misremembering (was there anything alluding to that in season 3? I really donāt recall anything). But as far as I am aware the theories around him giving humans dark magic all stemmed from the analysis of the Elarion poem that was translated outside of the show. In the show the poem was only ever shown in Arabic, and in passing at that, never to be mentioned again (I think? Again, am I forgetting anything from season 3 here?). Viewers who have not followed the franchise on social media probably didnāt even know what was written in there.
Perhaps it was mentioned in one of the novels but not everyone has read those. It really shouldnāt be expected that viewers know this really really important theory/piece of information. Humans getting magic is one of the pillars that the story is built on. This plot line should definitely be handled within the show itself.
So it felt really weird and way too sudden when Claudia just dropped this really important revelation out of nowhere, with no further explanation except for āshe just knows it in her bonesā. Like, this information is a huge deal. And it was not explored further by the show in any way, either. They just moved on after that one quick conversation. And even as a viewer who knew the theory I just sat there and thought...what?
The only really new information that was alluded to was that Aaravos probably removed Luna Tenebris and Aditi.
The rest of the Dragang arc felt mostly like a video game quest focused on gameplay and very little story. The mood was a lot more playful, not really as if they were on a journey to stop the most dangerous being in history.
Iād rather have less running around in the forest and get at least a little more back story on Aaravos?
We didnāt get to know anything on how he and Claudia interacted. What he told her, what she did. How he influenced her and changed her. She just told Viren he helped her and with that the topic was closed. Instead we got minutes of fart jokes.
The Viren gang didnāt even discuss Aaravos much after Virenās revival.
He was almost entirely out of the picture.
I was really hoping that a season called the mystery of Aaravos would actually focus at least a subplot on him and not make him almost irrelevant.
If I wanted to be cynical Iād say almost half of his screentime and dialogue he had in the whole season were already in the trailer.
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The whole season really lacked suspense because of this quest-like character for me. The stakes never really *felt* high because many serious situations often ended in jokes or were solved with āfunnyā turns (chocolate tarts for the dreadful, powerful earth dragon...ok).
Even when Claudia got hands on the freaking map they tried to āsprinkleā jokes throughout the scenes, breaking the suspense, which made said jokes feel misplaced (stinky feet, goofy goo...).
I know itās a childrenās show but it just didnāt strike a good balance for me. (Obligatory Avatar comparison because hey, they referenced it themselves (yip yip): Avatar had a better approach on how to balance jokes and serious scenes.)
In general, a lot of the humour felt very forced, almost shoehorned into many scenes, which really defined the overall vibe of the season for me.
After all the intense trailers, the dramatic music and the epic title screen with the falling star I expected the season to feel like that as well but it didnāt do so at all. It felt almost anticlimatic instead of epic. To me it was less exciting and suspenseful than season 2 and a lot more like season 1.
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(I generally appreciated the whole sub-plot in the sunfire kingdom. The basic premise of the overall conflict felt believable and realistic. Janai was fleshed out incredibly well. She is probably my favourite character in season 4. Very nuanced and complex. And her interactions with Amaya were beautiful.
But I was not a fan of casting that architect as āguiltyā and ācruelā in the way Amaya did. That was way too black and white for me. She did do it to protect the tangible safety of everyone in the camp. Janai even confirmed the architectās argument that fire was a danger in the end, when she said they wanted to build a shrine where worship and rites can happen safely. Also, the architect most certainly knows a lot about security and safety, so casting her has the cruel one when she was fulfilling her duty to remove a fire hazard that could have endangered the whole camp - and at worst would have destroyed the sunfire elvesā (temporary) home a second time after their first big trauma of Lux Aureaās fall - felt misplaced.
The emotional perspectives of both parties (architect, mourning man) could have been handled differently, without placing the charge of guilt or cruelty on either side: the architect could have been more respectful of his understandable serious sadness after a loved oneās death. The man could have been more reasonable and less violent (he DID endager the camp and the othersā safety after all but his role and his responsibility were pretty much neglected, even after him burning the architectās hand - was he ever even reprimanded for that?).
Also, calling for the death penalty in the first place after not respecting a sacred rite borders on extremism. Itās literally faith-based killing of someone who did not share their belief system and therefore had a different view on their rituals. Yes, disrespecting people in mourning is very insensitive but cannot justify their killing under any circumstances. I know the show criticised it of couse, but it felt quite weak and half-baked. It still had Amaya politely ask for compassion and understanding, conceding that the primary problem was the architect (āguiltyā, ācruelā), while merely making the point that the sunfire elvesā answer was not the best one to end the cycle of violence. It felt a bit more like āan eye for an eye still continues the cycle of violence and thatās why the architect should not be killedā. Instead, she should have been furious that death penalty is even an option and that the sunfire elvesā pain about the mourning rituals did in no way warrant such an inhumane response, not even if their faith dictates it.)
