I do infinitely prefer the direction they took Zane's personality in DRs4 (some personality beats no personality) but it's weird that his growth was all off-screen.
Also I don't like how he comes back as this kind of chill surfer dude and then he's talking like his usual DR self for the rest of the season. The Zane who says "surprise surprise!" and "when my powers got all janky" shouldn't be mentioning his calculations and his scans and all that other boring junk.
Sorry this is probably going to be an unhinged rant 😅
To me personally it just felt like almost forced. Like the writers went “here damn” after we begged them to fix his awful characterisation. I want to see one well handled Zane character arc on screen at this rate, it’s been years and it feels like every character except Zane (yes even including Cole) has had something interesting.
I always find it so funny as a major Zane fan because in constantly make new storylines for him in my head just fine because there’s so much potential but then the show brings me out of my delusions at how much they don’t care about his character and he’s barely relevant anymore. Yes the cast is big now but the show focuses too much on the older original ninja who had a lot of screentime unlike him or Cole. Dragons rising is not balanced enough with how they treat their original cast. Zane’s already been erased from half a season a sprinkle of focus would be appreciated
I’ve used the Never Realm excuse in my head but I fear when it gets talked about in a future DR season the writers will even fail to mention Zane’s trauma/guilt again, gloss over it or give him a poorly done character arc.
TLDR it still sucks being a Zane fan while watching Dragons Rising















