Haha. Reading through the Art of the Dragon Prince and I found the most outrageously funny thing.
When they wondered about what the war would be like, in early development, they exclaimed "Dragons attacking border towns. Fire raining down from the sky. Like Grave of the Fireflies". That idea later became, as they explain, the season 2 episode "Fire and Fury"
And, well. An American watching Grave of the Fireflies, the most tear-jerking movie, solely depicting two children trying and failing to survive in the months following the destruction of their city and family, and somehow thinking "Poor guy who dropped the bomb let's help him out and apologize to him".
Ya ever wonder how Zym would grapple with the fact that every dragon monarch before him was basically varying degrees of "genocidal maniac?" I mean we have Sol Regem who is... Sol Regem, no real explanation required here, then we have Luna Tenebris who wanted to kill all humans but was convinced to ethnically cleanse them instead which is... an... improvement? if we're talking in the very literal very technical sense but like... I hesitate to even call it that because it's still not even remotely acceptable and is a form of genocide.
Then there's Avizandum who... never did a big undertale dust sans run but enforced the negative consequences of such a thing, and as we learn from Zubeia and Rex, enjoyed killing humans to the extent that he probably wouldn't have a problem killing all of humanity if he was "forced to."
Zubeia was... better... I think. At least from what we see on screen, but she was really only a ruling monarch for like two years, because it seemed like Avizandum was calling all the shots before his death, and she seemed at least complicit in it (even if she didn't entirely approve).
So Zym must be like, looking at history going like "WHAT THE FUCK?" You know? Like "HOLY SHIT! Everyone was an asshole!" I wonder what that would do to him in the long run. '
Would he form some disdain or frustration over the previous rulers? Would he begin to question the validity of the dragon monarchy in the first place if all it seems to have brought recently is pain? Would this fuel his efforts to rewrite the system of Xadia to ensure this never happens again? How would he convince the descendants of those or those who have been hurt by the dragon monarchy that things were going to be different for real now?
It could be an extremely interesting character struggle for Zym going forward to know that the monarchy he takes place in comes from a long line of blood....
personally i think acknowledging how fucking messed up it is to be buried in the corpse of your young daughter would be important in a season that is supposed to be about aaravos but ig seeing Rayllum lock lips every 5 seconds was more important
The only reason we love Viren and Claudia is because everyone else is stupid as shit.
Viren Claudia Aaravos and Kasef are the only ones with sense in this entire show. I think Viren and Claudia would be considered boring if the other characters were given the same writing grace.
Disclaimer: I do not think Rayla's character was completely nuked in arc 2. I like her growth, but I also acknowledge that, upon deeper inspection, you can see how some of her coolness was taken away in favour of rayllum. The episode im analysing is a prime example of that.
I decided to write this analysis as a twitter thread to explain why I believe this episode is badly written and harmful to Rayla.
First of all, here's the meaning of women in refrigerators according to Wikipedia. The scenes involving Rayla in this episode are a prime example of fridging. Allow me to elaborate on that
The whole episode's plot A goal is to have Callum unlock the Ocean arcanum and let Soren have his moment with Elmer. I don't see an issue with Soren's plot as it doesn't specifically use Rayla for its development, unlike Callum's. Now, there's two scenes that are the problem.
First one is when Finnegrin drags Callum to force him to pick whose arm he'll be cutting off, and finally tries to force him to use dark magic. Upon that moment, Rayla panics and uses a bit of wood she bit off of Elmer to free herself. This seems like it could be a cool moment... But she's not allowed to do anything of substance. She doesn't even touch Finnegrin- as soon as she grabs weapons, her blood is frozen. The spell spreads quickly and she's in agonizing pain for multiple seconds, screaming all this time.
The purpose of this is to show callum the spell for his future use of it, and to get him angry so that he punches Finnegrin and ends up knocked out by Elmer. Notice how the focus of this is HIS feelings, as in the next scene Finnegrin points out how he lost his mind at the sight.
Now, the next, worse scene, where Finnegrin wants to use Rayla as bait for the sea leviathan. Rayla is once again put into a dangerous, traumatising situation. She's terrified of water, and here she is being pulled down to it, fully immobilised, about to be KILLED
But we dont focus on her feelings, and how terrified she must be, reliving her childhood trauma. The central piece here is Callum, who swoops in, saving her with his sky magic. Rayla is pushed back onto the ship, into Soren's arms, where she's only ungagged, but still bound. Callum then gets attacked with Venus frigoris, and now let's compare his reaction to Rayla's- unlike her, he's very quiet, and the spell spreads slowly. Rayla, an assassin trained to never fear death, can't stop screaming. Callum stays quiet and calm before using his first Ocean spell. Rayla was helpless, Callum gets to be cool. Then he gets attacked by Elmer and Soren's plot takes place. Finnegrin dies. Everyone is happy. Rayla comforts Callum by hugging him. We don't focus on her, we completely ignore the horrors she had gone through Just minutes prior, while focusing on Callum feeling guilty about using dark magic. No one asks if Rayla's okay, because her suffering doesn't matter- it was just a motor to drive Callum's plot forward. Could this have been handled differently? yes. Yes it could.
Finnegrin could've used literally any other character on the ship. Callum never showed that he had any bias towards Rayla, he didnt want any of his friends hurt. He could've used EZRAN, Callum's literal brother! But yeah, the brothers' relationship isn't as expanded on In arc 2 as it was in arc 1. Hell, Finnegrin could've used Callum himself! There are multiple ways it could've been handled. At the very least, there could've been shown a scene of Rayla processing the events and getting comforted by Callum instead of the other way round.
that moment when your complex antagonist is starting to make too much sense so you twist the narrative or make them do something truly vile out of nowhere, so that the audience doesn't begin questioning your morals.
Hey. I want to ask is it weird to create a oc just for the sake to make someone who love Izuku so much they take his responsibility from him as being all might successor. There is a whole plot reason why OC is doing it not just for love but I am a huge sucker for hero being saved metaphorically and literally by their love interest.
Nothing makes me happy to see a self sacrificing hero being saved by one person who love them so much they rather change the fate of the world themselves if it mean to let the hero be return to bliss.
Like I say, it is your rewrite, so do what you want with it!!!
I don't think it's a bad thing to create a character for another character. I mean, horikoshi did it with Toga and ochako, didn't he?
However, it very much depends on your execution.
For example, I think the execution of toga and ochako in this sense is okay. It had some problems like how the ship itself revolved around a male character or other aspects of the two characters really lacking a lot of parallels between each other.
I have talked about my opinions on this pairing, and honestly, it could have worked had it been executed differently.
Honestly it's such a shame she really was one of my favourite villains but was done absolutely dirty by the plot.
I have a few problems wit
Ps : this is my opinion!!!
Ochako is one of those characters that I tend to just have a love/hate relationship with. In my opinion she had
Another example of a writer creating a character for another character is the dragon prince. This, in my opinion, can be seen with claudia and Terry.
This is definitely my opinion, but from what I have seen and heard, the dragon prince writers were thinking of giving claudia a romantic partner early on in the series. Some speculate that it was supposed to be the protagonist callum, but it ended up being a character introduced in season 4 called Terry.
A few minority of people hold onto the belief that callum was supposed to initially be Claudia's love interest for a huge number of reasons, one of them being Terry being quite similar to arc 1 callum especially in mannerisms.
An example is the "trees to meet you" line.
Now, the problem isn't that Terry may have been created for this reason but how his character was used.
Terry, for the most part in the series, is literally just Claudia's boyfriend. That's exactly what he is in the series. He kills for claudia. He watches claudia kill for her father, and he is the comedic relief in his group.
He is a one-note character, and while I don't think it was intentional, it is true. Due to the lack of information and arc for Terry as a character, he ends up being a plot device type of character.
From what we know of Terry, which is implied in season 4, the earth blood elves didn't accept him for being trans so it does explain why he isn't connected to them or why he doesn't mention them much as that must of been scaring for him.
I would assume that the earthblood elves abandoned Terry and some time during the two years that viren was dead and Terry was stranded alone without anyone claudia and Terry found each other. Both alone and desperate for some source of interaction and companionship, they quickly became boyfriend and girlfriend.
For Terry, claudia is everything he has. She is his only companion, and in a way, she became something he depended on during the dark (his light in the darkness, who knows 🤷♀️). The same thing barely applies to claudia herself as her mission was focused mainly on viren and resurrecting her father no matter what it took.
Claudia DOES love Terry, yet their relationship is toxic at that. From what we see in season 4, claudia is seen to hold the type of belief that all elves are bad and that Terry is "one of the good ones."
Now obviously mixed with Claudia's own experiences pre season 4 with an elf being the one that is responsible for her father's death or an elf being responsible for king harrows death, that combined with what she previously was told about elves and what aaravos told her about elves and dragons it is understandable that she would develop the idea that "ALL elves and dragons are evil until proven otherwise."
While I did say it and will say it again claudia does love Terry yet due to the way she was taught how to love which in season 6 she claims that it was her father viren who taught her how to love (not a good look)we can come to understand that her love can have quite the toxic nature to it.
It is after all her feelings of helplessness that caused her to abandon Terry because she didn't want anyone she loved to abandon her again, so he chose to abandon him.
Now, enough talking about claudia going back to Terry, he is someone who is seen to have quite the optimistic outlook in things. While his love for claudia and overdependence on her (to a certain extent) is toxic that it's caused him to do actions such as killing ibis and watching sir sparklespuff be killed which he is seen to actively show signs of remorse about. Terry still seems to love claudia. He accepts her for who she is, and a part of this can definitely be linked to his trauma surrounding rejection from the earthblood elves (which I wish was explored more, we need a Terry backstory!!)
Now, in season 6, we see Terry actively oppose aaravos, which is definitely going to cause a strain on both his and Claudia's relationship. I definitely see Terry leaving, which would be a huge moment for his character, but due to the lack of information and backstory for him pre season 4, I fear that it may be underwhelming.
I guess what I wanted to say from this huge ramble is if you are going to make a character to be the other half or to be there primarily for another character please give both characters equal level of nuance and don't make them one noted.
probably a hot take but i don't really like ezran. i don't dislike him, he just feels like such a 2d character. maybe it's his voice acting (i'm sorry but it's so.. soulless?) or maybe it's the fact that his personality has no depth. like i get it, he's a child but i've seen a lot more interesting characters who were around the same age as him.
