This Saturday, on TDP's six year anniversary of season one premiering, I'll get to drop the interview I did with Aaron Ehasz! We talked over things such as:
What can be teased about Terry and Karim's arcs going into S7?
Complicated parent child relationships (here's looking at you Viren and Claudia) and their relationship to hope and sacrifice
Was anything changed in S1 to reflect the shift to Callum and Rayla being a couple, as developed in S2?
An episode title revealed from S7!
Has Aaravos been changed by his more recent experiences? Or ones beyond Leola in the past?
What is Ezran going to be dealing with in S7?
And more!
The interview clocks around 40 minutes, and I hope to release timestamps for the questions as well day of, so people can skip around to the ones they're most interested in if they so choose!
Our first Cartoon Collage episode, where I talk all things about other cartoons I adore. First up, and rightfully so, is Avatar: The Last Airbender, which has been my favourite show since 2009 - and the episode is accordingly long (and full of Aang love). As always, thank you for listening and I hope you enjoy!
Behold at least 70% of my ATLA thoughts and opinions all in one place with the first Cartoon Collage podcast episode, with me as my usual rambling self, and featuring all the other cartoons I love. The majority of my current podcast content is all The Dragon Prince, but I’ve wanted to talk about other shows like Tales of Arcadia, Infinity Train, Over the Garden Wall, and many more for a while now, so here’s a place to do that! Feel free to leave your thoughts down below in replies / tags, and thank you for listening <3
@raayllum mentioned the beautiful animation and scenery in this scene in their new podcast, wordswithdragons, and honestly, mood. So enjoy these gifs! It’s a super fun listen if you haven’t already and enjoy listening about and/or discussing tdp!
first of potentially 4ish Viren AMVs that will get steadily rolled out over time. This has been one of His Songs to me for a few years now, so I hope you enjoy, and thank you for watching
Listen along here / full transcription is provided down below for anyone who needs and/or prefers it to audio. at 50 minutes it's decently long
R: Alright, welcome back to the WordswithDragons podcast. Today I am joined again by Dragon Prince co-creator Aaron Ehasz, as well as for the first time his fellow co-creator Justin Richmond. It’s lovely to have you both, thank you being here.
A: Thank you for having us. I just waved—we’re not on video—
R: I do that all the time.
A: We’re recording this—
J: Oh yeah. It’s audio, we’re an audio meeting.
A: Okay, cool. I just waved [Justin laughs]. Hello. [R laughs]
J: Hi.
R: Alright, so I guess I thought — cause I feel like we’re going to be looking back at some of the stuff season seven did, but also arc 2 in general, as the previous leg of the show. So season seven has a lot of pay off, was there anything that you guys were really excited to write this season, like “finally! We get to do this” for scenes, characters, plotlines?
A: Justin?
J: You want me to go? Okay. Let’s see. Uh, a lot of it [laughs] guessing, we’d been building towards you know, season seven for a long time, so it felt — finally getting to put all the stuff down, y’know, put all the stuff in the show we’d been planning for was pretty cool. We sort of knew a long time ago what was gonna happen with Aaravos and dragons and all that kind of stuff, so it was pretty cool to actually go in and get it into the show, and also just — I’m trying to think of any specific moments, but — no, it was a culmination of working on the show for so long, so getting it put in and done and down and rendered was was like, was really cool to finally get to a place where it was like, “Oh my God! Season seven! Here we go!” So yeah.
R: Yeah. I thought you were going to say the bird for sure. [Wheezes]
J: [Laughs] Oh, the bird payoff. Spoilers: if you have not watched the show, there’s some bird shenanigans that you might be able to guess. I guess statue of limitations, right? Like we can spoil stuff.
R: Oh, it’s been months, you guys can spoil away.
J: Yeah. So yeah, we’re — it’s fun to pay off some of the stuff like that. There’s more of those kinds of things coming, hopefully. But that was one of the good ones.
R: I thought it was also just really cool seeing more of like, um, Aaravos and Claudia’s dynamic, or like Rayla going home, the Ruthari reunion. All that stuff.
J: Oh yeah. The — that’s a good specific one. I know Devon had been on us for like four years [R chuckles] about the Ethari reunion. [Laughs] So getting to finally do that was fun.
R: Yeah.
A: How come no one ever asks if Pip is dead?
R: I’m kinda writing a fic about it, so don’t worry. [Laughs]
A: Okay. Just curious.
J: Yeah. Where’s the love for bird sentience? [Laughs]
R: I learned not to count my chickens — my eggs before they hatch, because I was like “Lain and Tiadrin, all of the parents are totally getting out of the coins,” and they didn’t, so until Harrow’s out of that bird, I’m not fully gonna be like, “Whoo!” but... [J laughs] But exciting, exciting either way.
R: Um, I think it was like an interview a while ago or maybe on Twitter, where I think Aaron mentioned there was a fan-favourite character whose fate got changed, they were gonna get killed off and then they were revived and somebody else died.
A: Yes.
R: Do you want to reveal who that is?
A: Sure. Well, there’s at least two instances. There was one universe where Viren died after season 5 and then he didn’t wake up. That was that, and — Claudia didn’t do the spell, he didn’t do the spell, he went to bed going “Aaravos lied to me” and then that was it. But there was something kind of like, not [clutches chest for ‘not right’] — anyway, we worked out obviously finding a different path. But yeah: Lujanne.
R: Okay. I-I thought.
A: Lujanne was gonna — we were gonna lose Lujanne and Akiyu, all these great, you know, elven mages, and uh — I can’t remember who pushed back or how it got [laughs] how she got saved. But someone was like, “No, Lujanne, we gotta keep Lujanne around, for Allen’s sake,” so...
R: Yeah.
A: That is who we were thinking of, right?
J: Yeah. That was that specific Twitter thought for sure.
R: Okay. I thought it might be her, and then I almost wondered if she got saved — this kind of goes into my next question, of — cause I realized on my like third rewatch of the season, I was like, “Hey, what happened to like, the Moon Nexus? Is it still inverted, is it fixed? Did she fix it?”
J: It’s a nightclub now. [J and A laugh]
R: With a disco ball.
A: Dance the night away.
J: Yeah.
A: Is it still inverted? I’m going to assume they had to go figure out some magic, and I don’t know if they had to go on some kind of quest and find something to fix it up, or — I dunno. Like — there’s some period of time where immediately after the season probably where there are some loose ends where the gang will have to tie up before the third arc really escalates in a significant way, so. But yeah, that’s a good question. What do you think?
R: Um...
A: How do you revert a Moon Nexus?
R: I don’t know. I think that’s for the theories. People are trying — we know more about primal stones.
A: [Overlapping] Yeah.
J: [Overlapping] You right click on it and you say revert file.
R: Yes.
J: That’s a stupid video game joke, so I... [R and J laugh]
R: I mean, I thought it was good, so.
J: [Laughs] Well thank you.
R: Okay, the next question is a bit of a geeky one, but I’ve always loved the poem “Ozymandias,” King of Kings, and it seems that’s where Zym’s name came from. Was that conscious, was that like a — oh, you guys were like “Oh, we want to invoke that poem?” at all, because it’s about power...
J: It’s definitely informed by it, and then it seemed fitting, but then it was like, “Well, it shouldn’t be exactly that,” and what would be the — I don’t remember how it got to Avizandum, Aaron, do you remember?
A: How it got to Azymondias?
J: How it got to Azymondias, I mean, sorry yeah.
A: We knew we wanted something that had like a cute nickname, but also a longer name—
J: Yeah.
A: And I don’t remember when we landed on Azymondias Ozymandias, but we did agree upon like yes, let’s do this, let’s make him Azymondias.
J: Yeah, at some point it was informed by, I just can’t remember exactly how we ended up with Zym / Azymondias.
A: Somewhere, we probably have a document of pitched names that we went through, like twenty different ideas.
J: Nate. Steven.
A: Pete.
R: Yeah. [Laughs] I mean it kind of sounds like Avizandum, you know, and Zubeia, so they all fit.
J: Yeah, it definitely has a familial ring to it, which is nice also, for sure.
A: Was Avizandum, was that a bookstore in Scotland, is that where that name — was it Avizandum books—? I feel like it might’ve been, but I don’t know for sure now. Anyway.
J: We have a Scottish writer Iain Hendry. You know, yeah you’re right, Avizandum Law Bookshop in Edinburgh, yeah.
R: Yeah. Cause I read the poem and did it in undergrad, and I remember reading it after season 3 and thinking “Huh, interesting,” and then I reread it after season seven, I feel like I got so much more out of applying it to the show with everything about power and permanence, or lack thereof, so it felt...
J: It’s funny, “Uncharted 3” also had not direct references to that poem, but we read — that was one of the poems that informed some of the stuff cause they’re similar — similar thematic stuff going on there. It’s interesting.
A: Yeah, and I like the idea that Zym is a little—
R: Oh no. We lost Aaron.
J: We lost ‘im. [R laughs] Hold on, I’m gonna message him on slack. He may have lost power.
R: Oh no.
J: Oh he’s back, okay.
R: Okay.
A: I clicked the wrong thing! I like that Zym is a little bit of a twist, right, it’s not Ozymandias, it’s Azymondias, and there’s more of a sense of optimism and creation than destruction and dismantling, right, so.
R: Yeah. Yeah. Okay, so for my next question, uh, what was it like getting to explore new sides to characters like Terry and Ezran? Cause I feel like they were big standouts to me in season seven.
J: You wanna go, Aaron, or do you want me to go?
A: Um. I always go to the performers on some of these things, which is to say like, you know, Ben and Sasha are amazing actors with a huge amount of heart and range and depth, and that as a writer, you find that well that’s an opportunity, right, to like — we can push these characters, we can do something more nuanced, we can — we can stretch their arcs and play with it more, and you know that the actors will be excited about that, right? So in particular, yes, seeing Ben — Ben has been incredible since the minute we started working with him and we were, we felt like he came into our universe like a whole being who was just like a main character on day one.
R: Oh yeah.
A: We didn’t have to ask. He’s just really — his Terry had been phenomenal and funny and emotional and wonderful. And Sasha’s someone who is so precocious and wonderful, which is perfect for Ezran, you know when we started, but we’ve seen her mature as a performer and her capabilities grow, and so we just felt that opportunity growing. And so we knew we had a chance to push both of those characters.
A: You know, Terry, we’ve also always kind of known there was a ticking bomb in his relationship with Claudia, which is like — and I often think of like Iroh and Zuko, and Terry and Claudia, as having a similar thing of which is that you have someone who has a really stronger moral core in some ways, a clearer compass pointed towards moral north, if that’s a thing, who fully unconditionally love this other person and is hoping to — to bring them toward that path, but knows you can’t force someone, you have to be by their side, you have to support them, you have to do what you can. The difference here became Terry seeing himself be used in the relationship, and having the strength and I think wisdom to say you know, like, “I can’t say in this in this way, and I love you” — I think he loves her and will always love her, but she kind of broke the core of a romantic relationship together, right? So I dunno, that’s kind of what I saw as where Terry needed to find the strength to move forward.
A: And then Ezran, I mean Ezran honestly like we’re just seeing... You know, season four, was meant to show like he’s this very idealistic king, which is wonderful. He’s challenging these notions that the world says you have to act a certain way and lead with power, not with love, and those sorts of things. He’s very idealistic and young people are very idealistic, and they get tested, right? And he’s being tested, and in season four there’s that speech he gives where he was gonna give that speech, and then it changes because of the vandalism that’s happened, and he’s starting to understand that there’s pain and flaws and things like that. He’s figuring out how to incorporate that into his optimism and idealism, right, but at the same time, it’s not getting easier, right? The challenges to the world, to his kingdom, to everything is getting harder. So he has this balance where he’s both growing his ability to create hope and optimism and idealism, but also incorporating more realism and a sense of jeopardy and reality into who he is. You know, you can look at a smaller version of this in the scene where he’s being asked to forgive Runaan, right? An easier Ezran would be like “Great, it’s done,” where he gets to is “I don’t know how I’m going to forgive you, but I’m gonna have to try”. It’s complicated, it’s still a little complicated. You know, he’s starting — he helps to found Evrkynd, right, this great city with hope and a future, but also I mean like, the thing you probably don’t see is that he’s sleeping next to the Nova Blade now, you know?
R: Yeah.
A: He’s — there’s seeds of an obsession that are planted for what’s coming next. Anyway, I’ve gone off quite a bit—
R: No, that was awesome.
A: I love those characters, I love those performers, and uh, there’s more, there’s more for both of them.
R: That was — it felt like in arc 2, you could see Terry and Ezran kind of doing a lot of damage control in their relationships or their choices and trying to fix things, and then realizing “Oh, I can’t actually fix this stuff” and season seven is then the fallout. And I was also always hoping that he’d get the Nova Blade, so I was thrilled... Okay, I asked the Moon Nexus question, okay, this was kind of a clarification one just cause I thought it was interesting, so early in the season Janai says to Karim to be pardoned he’d have to relinquish his name, and he’s like “oh I’ve already given up all my titles and stuff like that,” so I was just curious as to what would’ve meant to relinquish his name? If you can answer. Cause maybe it’s a spoiler.
A: I-I think she’s cutting off his heirs.
R: Okay.
A: I think she’s—
J: Cutting him out of the family is what we sort of talked about. It’s a little bit of the Prince Harry thing on a bigger scale. [Laughs] Like Prince Harry chose to leave obviously, but I think it’s a similar thing where he’s totally out of the royal line of succession and all of that stuff.
R: Yeah.
A: I mean, I think she’s anticipating challenge in the future to the path that she’s trying to create from his potential family, right, I think. I-I can’t remember now, I think she asks for that, she already knows—?
R: She knows that Miyana’s pregnant, and then he figures out she is because of the request.
A: That’s right.
R: Which that also makes sense, cause I had it in my head of maybe it’s a magical Xadian thing of almost like erasing Aaravos’ name, maybe you know, overthinking it. But that makes sense.
A: Yup.
R: Okay, cool. Okay, then kind of moving into a little bit of the setup in this season, in season seven, um, Kpp’Ar and Laurelion stood out to me in like every time I learn something about them, they just get more interesting and setting up interesting stuff for the future. Is there anything you can comment there or another character that we hear about, like I think it’s Shiruakh?
J: I don’t know, should we — I’m trying to think if there’s anything we can say that’s not — I don’t know. [Laughs]
A: Well this had not occurred to me, but it’s interesting that Shiruakh’s scale is the armour that — is the magical armour that Claudia has, and and Shiruakh’s tooth is the freaking Nova Blade.
R: Yeah.
A: Right? There’s something interesting about the defense — I mean, I just hadn’t...
R: Mmhm. Like a matched set almost.
A: That’s interesting.
J: Take all my stuff! Make some things out of it. [R and J laugh] I’ll give you a tooth, a scale, and a pair of my boots.
A: Um, we will — there is more to know about what Kpp’Ar was doing, which was self-eating, and there will be some followup to that, which is a dark magic path to immortality, basically, or some version of immortality, so we’ll have some followup on that. Um. Can — can I hint about something, Justin, or no?
J: I don’t think we should.
A: No? Okay.
J: [Quietly] Should just leave it—
A: Let me just say [R laughs] he’s not the first self-eater, right? Which is a horrible term when you think about it, but like the idea that there’s dark magic where you can self-cannibalize and extend your life, you know. We may meet someone out there who’s been doing that, who’s quite ancient and strange.
R: Awesome. Um... So, what was the thought process behind giving Callum a white streak? Cause obviously that’s a big change to his character design.
J: I mean it, you know, obviously what he did [laughs]. Right? But I think it’s a reminder that every time he looks in the mirror, like “Oh my God, this is how far I went to do a thing, and to protect my family and to protect the people that I love, and I—” it’s a very slippery slope, and so I think it’s helpful for him to keep that. It’s a hint that like, you know, we saw what happened with Claudia, right? It got bigger and worse, so I think it’s interesting for him to be contemplating that anytime he — anytime he literally looks at himself, he’ll be reminded of what happened and what he did, and to not go down that path again, y’know? It’s dangerous, it’s — dark magic is easier and faster, right?
R: Yeah.
J: And so — but also just, it looks cool as hell. [Laughs]
R: It does! It — even the little wave.
J: Yeah! [Overlapping] Rule of cool a little bit.
R: [Overlapping] Cause he has the streak.
J: But no, it’s definitely — he did a big ass dark magic spell, right?
A: Well, did he? I mean he did.
J: Yes, he did. So.
A: Which, it’s also a signal of his vulnerability, right? I mean, he accepted some measure of significant vulnerability moving forward.
J & R: Yes.
R: Cause I was like, he has the streak, he has the Staff [of Ziard]. I’m intrigued for his arc in arc three. Especially cause Kosmo had said “Oh, if you ever do dark magic again, you’d be completely corrupted,” and it doesn’t seem like that happened, but maybe, you know, there’s multiple meanings or another way to look at it.
J: Also, it’s a little bit hyperbolic.
R: Yes.
A: Callum’s going to get more and more powerful, by significant measures.
R: Which is great, cause then it puts him in a place of like, okay you have this power, kind of like Ezran with the Nova Blade or any of them, what do you do with it, you know? You’re not kids anymore. The white streak also made me think about him and Claudia being like almost inverted, character design wise, and she has quite the arc this season. What was it like getting to write her in season seven as she continues with her choices?
J: You want me to go, or you wanna go?
A: You go.
J: Oh alright. Uh, it was awesome. [Laughs]
R: Yeah.
J: No, I super — she’s a super fun character to write and like Aaron was talking about before, Racquel is so good that she always brings something even more interesting than we put on the page, and so — so yeah, it was awesome to finally get the chance to put down all the things we had been talking about in the writer’s room and at coffees and breakfast and all that stuff, her vulnerability and especially the end when she’s like, “I’m nice,” that’s sort of a very strong ending statement by Claudia given what we’ve seen happen and what she’s done, of course, and so getting that done. And Claudia’s not done yet, there’s still a lot of really interesting stuff coming for Claudia. She’s a fascinating character and so like the more we kind of get to play with her and put her and push her to the limit, the more interesting she becomes, I think, given her family circumstances and what happened and you know, her brother’s still out there and on the other side of this, and now that Viren is gone, it’s interesting. There’s a lot I’m trying not to step on for the future, but there’s a lot of really cool developments coming for Claudia that you’ll see.
R: Even...
A: Do you think she’s already exceeded Viren’s power?
R: For me or Justin? [Chuckles]
A: You.
J: I know. [Laughs]
R: [Laughs] Uh, I would say yeah, I think you see even aspects of that even in season one, when it’s like she thinks of the soul switching plan, and she doesn’t understand Harrow’s reservation about it, but Viren can kind of be like “Oh yeah I can see that he won’t—”
A: That’s true.
R: “—really like it,” so it feels like she’s always steadily surpassed him, even in season four when she was taking on more animalistic forms, I was like “Huh, interesting.”
A: Yeah.
R: And then season seven she’s basically a human dragon at this point.
A: Yeah.
R: And that’s just so rich for her in terms of how much she hates dragons, and how dragons are so much of a villain in Dragon Prince with like Sol Regem, and the Archdragons’ decisions, but also like saviours, so I dunno, really interesting stuff with in particular. I always look forward to her.
A: Yeah. And not only with character, but in terms of power level, she’s got a lot more room to grow and she will, so yeah. There’s exciting stuff for Claudia.
R: So I loved getting to see more of Aanya in season six season seven, especially season seven of her being again good and bad influence on Ezran in some ways—
A: Right.
R: So she gets to be more complicated. Um, will we ever see the new kings and queens of the Pentarchy potentially again? Or figures like King Ahling, or I think years ago it was tossed out that Kasef has a younger sibling...?
J: Will we see them again?
R: Yeah. I guess more like Pentarchy leaders or politics in hypothetical — well not hypothetical, but in arc 3.
A: Yeah. I-I think so, and I think one of the curious questions is where does Evrkynd stand in respect to all of the kind of older order, right? Does it upset that order, does it just kind of live independently, like the Vatican, you know?
R: Who’s actually in charge?
J: Yeah! Yeah, I mean, like the whole order’s been flipped over, right? So it’ll be interesting to see the fallout of that for sure.
A: Has it been — what do you mean the whole order has been flipped around?
J: Oh just like the world has changed significantly in the sense that Aaravos came back and killed a bunch of stuff, and a lot of horrible bad thing magic happened, and so it’s just a lot of open questions about — all of the structures still exist, but what do they mean in a world is coming, and all of those things.
R: Who fills the power vacuums? Like I was even thinking of what is a Xadia without Archdragons? Other than Zym, like what does that mean, and what’s that going to do to everyone there, and—?
J: Yeah.
A: I mean, do you think humans want to move east? To Xadia?
R: Maybe!
A: What does that mean? I mean like, I would assume they’re allowed but what does that mean? Well they have, they’re in the [Sunfire camp], but like — I dunno, what does that mean? Humans are weird, right?
R: Humans are so weird.
A: That’s our high level theme, ultimately. What this boils down to is humans are weird.
J: Humans are weird, bro. [Laughs]
A: That’s The Dragon Prince.
R: Well I remember, I was trying to develop a theory for something, and then I was counting the fingers in the flashbacks, like oh, humans made the Nova Blade. And I was like, why are they making the Nova Blade, so humans are weird absolutely is a theme. [Chuckles] Okay, that also kind of follows into my next question, with Zubeia gone, obviously Zym is young and now voiced by Dante Basco—
A: Right. [Laughs]
R: Is he the future Dragon King? Kind of being like an almost child ruler?
A: Makes sense to me. I dunno, like... let me think. Can I say there is another? There may be another? Can I say that?
J: Yeah.
A: Okay.
R: Potential succession crisis?
A: Er, I dunno about that, but uh — it’s certainly... There’s some, there’s some other — we have mentioned it. Some of these things, you’ll know more before the end of the year about some of this stuff. Nothing is just from Comic Con stuff, we’re — I’m not announcing any releases. Just like we’re gonna talk about more of this stuff at Comic Con in July. That’s all.
R: Okay, cool. Awesome.
A: Sorry. Little too [R laughs]...
R: No, no, you’re good. That’s, I was even gonna — one of my questions is if there are any graphic novels you can tease for the future, so I was even thinking maybe it’s gonna be [in there] or the book three, the fabled book three novelization.
J: We definitely want to do more OGNs for sure. We don’t have anything to announce, but we definitely have plans for more of those, for sure.
R: Okay, awesome. Cause all the graphic novels have been so good and it’s very fun to like peel back like “oh, how’s this going to apply?” or you know, different stuff.
J: Yeah, and just getting to work with all the people on those things is awesome, like Peter, and Nicole, and Felia, and all those people are awesome.
R: Um, so — I did have some backup questions as well — so I thought Runaan’s speech to Ezran in the end about violence, and the belief in necessary violence, and like if there even can be such a thing? Was really interesting. What sort of things were you hoping to explore about those concepts or in that discussion? Like for them as characters, obviously Ezran kind of becomes a little bit of an assassin by the end, of wanting to kill Aaravos as well, but even just looking back at arc 2 or other characters as well.
A: Would you ask the question a little more pointedly, maybe?
R: What was it like getting to explore the idea of quote unquote “necessary” violence?
A: Right. So first of all, we don’t purport to know an answer, like [chuckles] but we understand that people do make those justifications and ideas that like, you know, and certainly Runaan would have. Like this was surgical, this is saving lives, ultimately by going and being assassins we’re going to save lives. He believes he is good, or part of some machinery that leans toward the good. But the thing we all know is like violence isn’t just the violence that’s done, it’s also the trauma and the seeds of pain and future violence that get planted, and how what happens with that. And one thing that I believe, I saw a wonderful speech by the Dalai Lama years ago. The whole speech was wonderful, but for some reason the thing that stayed with me is he was talking about — I don’t remember if he was saying karma, but he was saying like, it’s good to do good and when you do good and put positive energy into the world in some way, there’s an instant karma. It comes back to you. It’s like the psychics of when you throw a ball on a boat, equal and opposite, that energy comes back to you immediately, that’s instant karma. But there’s one magical thing — I don’t remember him saying magical — which is a kindness to a child plants a tree of kindness. Right? It grows a thousandfold, that energy.
A: And so that was a very positive way of saying it, the same idea, but I’ve always thought about that. I’ve always thought about the energy and ideas and positivity; if you can give it to, so... The — the reverse of that here is, you know, the potential for greater pain and furtherance of those cycles of violence that are created when Runaan engages in his, you know, surgical violence, is only stopped because Ezran is such a strong character and is able to kind of internalize and carry it and process it and can still lead with hope and kindness and those things. So, um, so that’s kind of what we thought about. Again, I don’t know — there wasn’t intended to be an answer, just an understanding of who Runaan was and why, but for him to also have a deeper understanding of why it’s not just as simple as “I killed one person to save many,” like... He understands there’s a more complicated long term impact of his violence as well, and that he understands it now. I dunno if that helps or answers the question a little bit.
R: No, it does. Justin, is there anything you want to add?
J: No. [Laughs]
R: You’re like ditto.
J: No, that was pretty good.
R: Yeah, I thought — I thought season seven was a really great illustration of how the cycle is so much about collateral damage and how even if Ezran is thinking, “Oh I can have Runaan be shot,” it’s like well that’s gonna hurt Rayla, and that’s going to maybe physically hurt Callum who’s now using himself as a shield, there is no way to just hurt the singular person who hurt you and not hurt anybody else, because everybody has people who love them, right? Or even you know, Claudia and Aaravos, if Aaravos died and he did, what does that do to Claudia now? And there’s no like one definitive answer, but I think the show has continued to do a great job at exploring the ins and outs of all the nuances, so.
A: Yeah. And it’s interesting, I think about characters trying to process the complications of their lives and you know, the injustices or evils that have been done to them, and maybe the things they’ve done as well, and I think about Ezran carrying so much and processing it, and figuring out how to process it. I think about, you know, Viren where he comes out as well, right, and like which is to say his point of revelation when he wakes up in the beginning of season six, which is a little like, “I can’t make up for the things I’ve done all the way, but I can be on a different path. I can stop creating whatever negative energy I’m creating,” and so we have — he has this distinction of what he can do and what he deserves, and it’s not necessarily the same, and he... You know, his goodbye to Claudia and he knows he’s causing her pain, but he loves her, he tells her he loves her, but he has to leave. And then in the end, his identification as a servant, right, which obviously reflects back on his conversations with Harrow but also about his whole life’s ego journey, which is to exceed that, to somehow aspire to be a leader or a king or high mage, right? Those things that he aspired to, and in the end, he really dies, I think content to have been a servant, to be a servant, and to me there’s something really interesting about his path and where he lands and how he’s processed everything to get to that point. Anyway, just went off on a side note.
R: No, well it’s funny, cause watching season seven obviously Viren’s not there for the first time, and it’s both very strange and I was well Aaravos is here so we’re acclimating, but I could like feel him haunting the narrative.
A: Mmhm.
R: Because I felt like so much of what [A chuckles] the main trio were wrestling with were their Viren-esque choices, you know? Of Ezran being like we have to be strong enough so they’ll never attack us like ohh, that’s so Viren; or Rayla having to again do the homecoming and be judged, and she can’t maybe make amends for everything that was like the fallout of her actions; or Callum with his dark magic, so I was like [Viren] still felt very present to me in a way that I thought was really fun and interesting, even if I do miss him, so. Um... So this is the last of my official questions. Obviously the fandom was very saddened when “Xadia” was pulled suddenly, are there any hopes or plans of finding the game a new home?
J: Never say never [chuckles] is what I will say. We don’t have anything, like we don’t have anything immediately, but we do still control it and control the rights, and all of those things, so hopefully someday fingers crossed. But there’s nothing like in the immediate future.
R: Yeah. Yeah, okay, that’s — I mean, that was my fingers crossed answer, I was like “they probably still own the IP, so maybe—?”
J: We do! So we own all the stuff [laughs] and we’re really proud of the game and so there might — God willing the video game industry recovers a little bit [laughs] comes back to what it was before someone, and there’s more spaces for it. But yeah, at some point we’d love to get it out there. Also, you know, who knows in the future maybe we’ll do other games or other experiences set in-universe, so.
R: That sounds awesome. Is there anything from the season or from arc 2 in general that we haven’t talked about already that you guys would really want to talk about? Of “nobody ever asks about this”, or?
J: Oh man, that’s a good question.
A: Probably, I’m just trying to think through, um...
R: There’s a lot that happened in arc 2, so [laughs].
A: I mean, there’s the — we meet the Crowlord finally at the end of the season for just a glimpse, an instant. [Overlapping] You know what, we had written a speech for the Crowlord.
J: Yes!
A: But we had to cut it for time. He had a speech in Evrkynd like, “Hello everyone!” We were trying to get — we were trying to cast Conan O’Brien as the Crowlord.
J: Yeah. Yes.
A: Which was like ridiculous, there’s no way, but we were like what if it was Conan, that would be great.
J: Aaron had run into Conan on an airplane—
A: It’s true. He’s a very nice man.
J: Very nice man.
A: Incredibly nice man.
J: But yeah, there was like a whole run of Crowlord’s been on vacation [laughs]. “What did I miss?”
A: What? I can’t—
J: The end of the day.
A: Oh he’s retiring!
J: He’s retiring.
A: He was going to retire, he’s announcing his retirement.
R: He’s like my job here is done and I didn’t do anything.
A: Anyway, I can’t remember but uh, that was fun. What else? Um... What else happened during the — the arc that we didn’t talk about? I don’t know.
R: We got Ezran’s nukes, for lack of a better term with Project Sunfire Ruby, um, Kim’Dael, Finnegrin, um, I thought all of Janai’s stuff with her brother was fantastic as well as like the betrayal — brother betrayal parallels.
A: Yeah.
J: I — oh sorry, go ahead.
A: You go, I was going to shout out Michal a little bit on...
J: No go for it, I’ll go after that.
A: Just a quick shout out to Michal Schick, one of our writers, who like on the arc for Karim, we were all getting to the end and were like “Does he redeem himself? How is his redemption?” and Michal was like “No! Have you listened to this guy? He’s not going to redeem himself! He’s gonna screw everyone in the end and hopefully get what he deserves!” And we were just like yeah, you’re right. He can’t do it. He just can’t bring himself to do it. Anyway: Michal’s great, Karim’s arc ended as it should’ve [laughs] I guess? I don’t wanna laugh, but kind of...
R: I loved — Karim’s actually one of my favourite characters in the whole show, precisely because he sucks so much, um, and I thought he was a great — you know Aaravos hates arrogance, and I feel like Karim was very Cosmic Order-esque of like, you know — and again, just not — in a show where like almost everyone’s a murderer, there’s not a lot that’s like irredeemable in Dragon Prince.
A: Yeah. Right.
R: But Karim forsaking his family, and not being able to come back from that, and that he’s the one who just doesn’t get anything, I was like yeah, that’s deserved. Cause even Viren is pulled back from that point, right, and then is able to grow and change, so I thought that was a really good, interesting facet of — of the themes and arcs.
J: I was going to tag onto that, what I was going to say was that Karim is one of my favourite characters in “Xadia” the game, and we built him pretty early because he’s a fire mage and he’s very cool, and then by the time we got to when the game was coming out, like “Oh no, he’s an asshole [laughs] are people going to want to play him as him?” They did, but it was funny, it was like — it was definitely a funny moment where it was like oh this guy’s awesome to play as but he’s kind of a jerk, which was fun.
A: Um. We see Miyana with the twins in the end.
R: Yeah. Very intrigued.
A: We’ll meet them, someday. We — we had versions where Miyana didn’t — died during childbirth, and the twins got adopted by their aunt. But then we had Miyana there at the end, so I dunno. Writing is funny. Like you have all these parallel universes where you made a different decision and you followed through a certain way, so I dunno. We try to do what’s right.
R: That’s why — I think that’s what’s fun about fandom is you can explore all the various ins and outs in as many different ways as you want, and then canon is the one that the writers picked, and it’s—
A: Right.
R: And it’s very good, but you can also get to explore all the other stuff, so I think that leaves us a lot of fun stuff to play with, I think.
A: Soren, we haven’t talked much about Soren.
R: Yeah. I thought he had a great arc. It was really interesting watching him in season three find this like certainty, and then over the course of arc 2 he just loses all of that [chuckles].
A: Yeah, we really did enjoy in season six him and Viren’s kind of crossing paths and what that meant, and what that felt like, and where they were able to get to. Funny that the flashback episode where Viren is writing the letter was not in our original plan. What happened, Justin, how did we end up having room to do that? Oh, I know how we had room! Because there was a universe where we were doing six and seven all in season six.
J: Yeah. That’s right.
A: And season seven was going to be the third arc. And then part way, for different reasons, we were like we didn’t have enough real estate in that seventh season to properly tell the third arc, and also some of the writers were advocating we didn’t have real estate in six to finish the second arc, that there was stuff we needed to do. And so there were things that were happening in the last episodes in season six that ended up becoming in the end of season seven, we had to move them forward. Then there was an episode, I can’t remember if it was split in two, it sort of grew, that was the — but one of the things that we ended up adding was the episode where Viren writes the letter with the story of... We thought this would be — would give some greater depth to. ‘Cause if you look at it, you could look at the episode right prior to that and go that’s some measure of closure on Viren and Soren. Done. Check. But it was nice that we were able to go one even deeper, so — but yeah. Process is funny, you know, and I know that fandom has reacted to some of that as well, like... At different times, we thought our ability to tell the arcs over different sets of episodes was — were different, and it’s evolved, we’ve let it evolve and we’ve tried to make the best choices we could to be able to tell the story right, but, you know, I know some people feel like “Why didn’t I get my like ending-ending? I thought I was banking on that,” and so hopefully that will be — that’s yet to come, and we’ll be satisfying when it does come.
R: I will say, after season six cause I’ve, uh, I’ve lost sleep the cube of Aaravos, the Key of Aaravos [A laughs] trying to figure it all out, and so I remember it was after season seven you guys released an interview of being like “Oh yeah, it’s a huge part of arc 3,” and I was just like “Of course it is [A laughs] of course it is!” I wasn’t gonna get it yet [laughing] but that’s okay. But I did have it in my head of I dunno, that’s so attached to Callum, that’s so attached to Aaravos, I was like I feel like that’s kind of a finale arc, you know? So I feel like it was a good way of like, arc 2, especially when we knew that oh no there is a planned arc 3 with season six and season seven, you can kind of think “Okay, as the second part of the story, this makes a lot of sense,” and I think season seven had to walk that balance of growing the characters, also have not quite like regression but things were getting more complicated, and you’re both resolving and leaving things for the future, which is not an easy line to walk whatsoever.
A: Yeah.
R: But I thought to your point on Viren’s letter episode, I thought that set up even Terry’s arc in season seven so well of you, you used me, you know? Of like “I would’ve helped you, but I got scared, or whatever, and then you treated me like a thing” you know, and so Lissa walks away, and Terry walks away, and I think Claudia even says the same line about both of them of “Well they had to leave for themselves” and I just thought that was so well done from a thematic standpoint of dehumanization and, yeah. Are there any — I think that’s everything, yeah, um — was, is there anything you want the fandom to ponder?
J: Uh, San Diego. Ponder San Diego. We’re going to be there, it’s going to be exciting, there is information coming, we can’t talk about it directly, but San Diego will be fun.
R: Okay. Okay, very cool.
A: Will you be there at any of these coming conventions? What’s your plan in the future?
R: Me?
A: Yeah. I know they’re expensive.
R: I’d like to go. I’d like to go eventually, just not — it’s not in the cards for me this year, but hopefully in the future I’d love to go. Maybe if we have an official arc 3 panel, I’ll be like “Okay, I got like two years of hiatus to save up and prepare and [laughs] I can be there.” So I think that’s everything, thank you so much for being—
A: Great!
J: Yeah.
R: For joining me, this was awesome.
J: It was nice to meet you in person. Or in video I guess.
R: Yeah.
A: I just wanna say like, first of all, you — I’ve said this before, you’re one of our — we love all the fans, you’re one of my favourite fans. [R gasps] You dig so deep, and you push so hard, and you — that’s, we want the writing and the story to be worth that, you know? So we work really hard to make sure that it has some depth and whatever, but I also want to add that even just in our conversation, you ask such great questions, that I feel like — it actually comes back and it’s going to affect the writing in arc 3 [R gasps louder].
R: [Softly, in disbelief] Oh my gosh.
A: That’s not to say you’re changing it, but there are questions that have occurred to me during our conversation that hadn’t occurred to me before this conversation that are worth exploring and diving into, so I think it’s so valuable talking with you, and I’m really grateful for our relationship with you as an uber-fan — a super fan, I guess not an uber-fan cause somehow uber versus lyft [R laughs] now that word is ruined, but anyway, just wanna say we’re grateful.
R: Oh! Thank you, that’s — that’s incredibly kind. I was even thinking about how grateful I was for our first interview, because there were parts of season seven I was watching where you guys had talked about sacrifice and all that stuff, and it was really coming back to mind in season seven, so I feel like it also makes the show — the show is so worth the deep dive, sometimes I feel like I’m still barely scratching the surface, um, so thank you guys so much for creating something that — you and everyone at Wonderstorm for making something that brings people together, and is such a source of joy and contemplation, I think for a lot of people so thank you, and yeah, I guess we can —
A: Amazing.
R: I guess we can sign off.
J: Thank you so much.
A: Thank you. And thank you for shouting out all of Wonderstorm cause yes, this is a—
J: A team effort.
A: The greatness of this show has been the creative effort of such an amazing team.
Podcast link here. Transcript down below with bulk under a read more.
R: Alright so welcome back to the Wordswithdragons podcast, and today I’m joined by a very special guest, the co-creator of The Dragon Prince, Aaron Ehasz.
A: Hello, thank you for having me today. Glad to be here.
R: Thank you so much for being here. Um, yeah, so, as we semi touched on, it is the 6 year anniversary of The Dragon Prince this September 14th.
A: Yeah.
R: Do you have any thoughts, reflections, feelings about the show having gone on for this long and being such a big part of people’s lives?
A: I mean for starters, it’s really hard to believe it’s been on for six years. Like that seems insane to me. Cause it seemed like we had — Justin and I had been working on it for so long before it finally came out because we had worked on the story and then gotten feedback, and help in improving that pitch and bringing it out and we had it set up at Netflix, and we had to — we wrote the pilot obviously, and we didn’t know where we were gonna produce it, and found Bardel. So there was so much time between even just starting to think about it and when it came out.
R: Yeah, cause that was like 2015, right?
A: Yeah, I guess we started the journey in 2015 and we got with Bardel by the end of 2016, and it got released evidently in 2018, so... Yeah, yeah, cause I remember even we were writing kind of the end of season 3 when we had that panel with Marco and named the character after Marco.
R: Oh yeah.
A: The character [chuckles] from the first episode, we only had an opportunity for him to say his name out loud in that last episode because we were writing the ending while we were showing the episodes for first time, so. Anyway, that’s my reflection, it’s great it’s been six years.
R: Yeah. I know The Dragon Prince has been a really like — both life changing and I think, like, life affirming experience for a lot of people, myself included. So we just really appreciate everybody’s hard work on the show and are very excited for season 7 and hopefully beyond as well. As well for any future projects that Wonderstorm comes out with, like Bonders sounds amazing.
A: I feel — well first of all, thank you for saying that it’s life affirming, that’s such a nice thing to hear about something you’ve worked on, but I also agree that Justin and I feel a ton of gratitude for the whole team and the work and heart that everyone put into making this. I think people wanted it to be meaningful and special and that takes a certain kind of energy and vulnerability to build something like that, that you share, and our whole team really did give that in building the show.
R: Yeah. I think for sure. I think that’s like, um, I was even — I was rewatching some of the show earlier for — for a parallel, and it was the scene between Avizandum and Zubeia when she goes to him in like her kind of corruption dream semi-nightmare, and obviously that’s such a heartfelt, touching scene, and it’s always so strange. Because on the one hand, you should hate Avizandum, he killed Sarai and Rex Igneous has rightful criticism of him, but then you watch that scene of him and he really did love his family, so I think the show being able to draw out those strong, conflicting emotions for so many of the characters is one of the reasons why it connects with people to the degree that it does.
A: And that’s one of the themes you probably see in the show — just gonna make a quick —
R: Yeah, yeah for sure.
A: Avizandum, which is that being a good dad can make up for awful lot of [R laughs] monstrosities, as long as you’re doing it in the name of being a good dad. I’m joking, uh. Of course, yeah, Avizandum was always meant to be a complicated figure like many of our characters.
R: You mentioned that you guys have been working on — I think season three during this panel with Marco, or Marcos, and I remember, I think you’ve said before that the seasons get worked on concurrently, that there’s a decent amount of overlap.
A: Yeah.
R: I’ve always wondered, because we know — obviously, I’m a big Rayllum fan — but I’ve always wondered, cause I know they weren’t originally planned, and then you guys were boarding season two when you were like, “Hey, maybe this should be a thing,” and then probably like shifted and tweaked things or changed things to write more towards that in the future... Um, I’ve always wondered, if there was time, like at that time, to go back and change anything in season one for them, or the season one that we see was just like that?
A: I don’t recall there was time to change season 1 — that does happen because we are working on things in parallel because we are working on something in the script and then some time later we are working on the later stage of production, like an animatic, and we’ll be able to kind of give notes or even make changes with the knowledge of what’s coming, so that has happened. But in the case of Rayllum, I don’t think so. I mean, I think — again, I remember...
R: It was a while ago, yeah.
A: We were rekindling, or when we were realizing that something was being kindled between them, it was watching an animatic so that shouldn’t have informed our writing of season one, but our later stage stuff. But we weren’t trying to force anything so it got in there naturally and I don’t think we went back and changed anything.
R: Yeah, that’s what I’ve always — they had those kind of vibes to me from like episode two and three, obviously season two brought a lot more people on board, but I was always curious. Cause in season one, like, I think, it feels so natural, it feels so organic, and like I’ve shown — one of the things I love about Dragon Prince is it’s a great way to connect with friends and family and you kind of catch up with each other like through the show, of “oh have you seen the new season yet?” and that sort of stuff. And so when I’ve shown the show to like my brother-in-law, who is not plugged in at all, he also kind of picked up on it in season one, so I’ve always been curious.
A: You know, what else, I’ll even say, I think we initially, intentionally planned they weren’t going to be a couple. We were like “Oh yeah, no, they’re—”
R: Friends, yeah.
A: Friends, with different views of the world and they journey together, and we don’t want them to be a couple. We’re not — we’re definitely not targeting it. I think we were intentionally not targeting it, and then it was “too bad creators! [R laughs] We’re going to fall in love despite everything you’re planning.”
R: Well, that very much I think even fits what they represent to each other, of like you don’t have to do this path that you think you have to do...
A: Yeah.
R: You can be something new. I always kind of felt like Ezran and Zym were — felt very kind of like designed as foils, as like a pair, of like through Zym, Ezran learns more so like how to grow up, and they’re both like the princes who will be king, and then Callum and Rayla also kind of felt sort of like developed as a pair, in terms of like — he needs to gain more confidence, she’s pretty confident on the surface.
A: Yeah.
R: She needs to learn how to open up, he’s really good at being open especially in the beginning.
A: Right.
R: So I was always like...
A: He needs to be murdered, she needs to learn how to murder someone.
R: Yeah! They complete each other, yeah. Uh... Some other questions that I had [rapid typing]. So I guess, maybe, I have some questions that are more season specific, in respect to time, but I also had like more general questions.
A: Okay.
R: So, one of the things I’ve always love in general and really love about The Dragon Prince is its like use of philosophy and like its deeply interested in ethical and moral questions, and presenting some answers for some of them, but like are those the right answers? We don’t know.
A: Right.
R: So I know King Harrow’s choosing of Lady Justice’s blindfold is a pretty apt comparison to John Rawls’ Veil of Ignorance—
A: Yes.
R: Of, you know, you strip away everything that you could have, like advantages, disadvantages, and think, would the system work for me? Which has been useful when I’ve like, had to tutor students in philosophy actually, but I was curious, were there any like philosophical concepts or ideas that people really, or you really, wanted to work into the series? ‘Cause we have a lot of trolley problems.
A: Right. Um, probably. I mean like, I should say, I was a philosophy concentrator in college so I absorbed a lot. Things like Rawls, I had a class with John Rawls, and thought that was a really interesting concept and I liked including it, and I thought we can include it in a fun way, the idea of justice. So other philosophy probably makes its way in, it can makes its way in accidentally or subconsciously, so nothing specific right now comes to mind. I will say, as with kind of Avatar before this, I don’t like to have — I’m not trying to have a right answer, ever. I’m trying to have the characters have a deeper understanding of what they’re struggling with, and y’know, move in a direction of deeper understanding, so if anything, it’s more interesting to me to see conflicts between maybe philosophical approaches that are different and see how — Oh well, this has these kinds of results, and positives and negatives, and this has... so that the audience can have a chance to say, “Oh well okay, I have some thoughts on that,” or “here’s what I feel,” and that’s why sometimes I think we see the fandom actually kind of go back and forth—
R: Yeah.
A: On — around characters and people’s choices, and things like dark magic or Viren, which are controversial, are things where like, I do not have a strong point of view on... the kind of binary right or wrong of... Viren in the long term. He’s made a lot of wrong choices and he’s made a lot of choices for good.
R: Yeah.
A: He is an arrogant and power hungry person and he’s also a caring and loving father and someone who wants to have a positive impact on the world, right, like?
R: Yeah.
A: So those conflicts play out in him. But similarly, I think with maybe most of the philosophical ideas I can think of, I’d rather get to like a place where everyone just has a chance to entertain those thoughts and ideas and struggle with them, or hold them in an authentic way, and then can come to their own conclusions and feelings. I mean, I have some deep feelings about like, the world, and how can people be optimistic or not pessimistic or—y’know, what it means to hold onto hope or what it means to try to move past conflict, and I have beliefs that there are conflicts that get so you know, kind of sewn in, that they feel they are impossible to untangle, and especially if the game you’re playing is who started it, or who did the worst thing, where you can’t just ever untangle it. You can’t ever find a right or wrong, so how do you get past that? That’s one of the questions I was hoping Rayla, Callum, and Ezran would try to—
R: Figure it out.
A: Struggle with. Anyway, I’m giving a very long winded answer—
R: No, no.
A: That’s the philosophy that comes to mind. If something comes to mind for you, you can bring it up and I can go, “Oh yeah, that was probably influenced by so-and-so.” [R laughs] Or maybe not.
R: Well, one of the things I loved about season six was kind of — you see, even... One of the things I thought was really interesting was we see, not quite like that return to trolley problems, but we see Aaravos at the end of season 5 is telling Viren you have to make the sacrifice so that you can live, and then we see Rayla tell Callum, “Hey, if the choice ever happens, you also have to sacrifice me,” for — so Callum can live, but also for like the greater good and that sort of stuff. And then you have Kpp’Ar, who — I love Kpp’Ar, I think he’s terrible and interesting and I love him.
A: Awesome. He is — we’ll learn a little more about him in the future, but yes.
R: And obviously when Viren’s like, “A child will die,” and this is a kid that Kpp’Ar would’ve known, and we see in The Puzzle House that he loved these kids, and whatever is up with the Staff is bad enough that Kpp’Ar’s like, “Okay. I’ll make that sacrifice.” Which feels very much in a way like he’s given up on dark magic, and to a certain degree he’s both given up on the mindset of dark magic, and maybe also hasn’t given it up in the same way. Like I love that — Claudia, you know, obviously, puts Viren above all else, is she always right to do so? Maybe not, but we get why she’s doing it, that’s a hard thing to say. And then we have Callum, who also seems inclined to put Rayla above all else, and because we like Rayla more, we’re like “Yeah, he can do that, it’s okay for him to do dark magic for her, that’s fine,” even if there’s also like, consequences. Cause most characters in the show, like you said, everybody kind of wants the same thing, they wanna have a positive impact on the world, they want to protect their loved ones, but what constitutes that world, what they think is a positive impact, or who they want — how they protect those people, that’s all very malleable and can fluctuate. Viren says “Claudia, you’re on the wrong path,” and we’re like yeah, he’s right, and Karim says the same thing about Janai, like the exact same thing, and we’re like, well he’s wrong.
A: Yeah. I mean a lot of things come to mind when you’re talking through that, but one is there’s often a conflict between rigidity and rules and some kind of compassion, or emotional decision, and those decisions are hard, right? Like I dunno, maybe Kpp’Ar should’ve said, “Okay just this once, it’s Soren,” or not, I don’t know. I mean obviously Kpp’Ar had taken himself to some deep horrible place and he really had, actually. And was like, “Okay, dark magic is just corruption when you start and keep going down this path, but this Viren’s kid so I don’t know.” One of the things here, I think there’s a relationship between — you know, sacrifice plays a role here. Sacrifice and thinking about generations and generational conflict and thinking you know maybe in a way I think is interesting. I think about the beginning of season 6 when Claudia has done all of this and sacrificed another life but also sacrifices some of her soul or whatever to save her dad and he’s like “No no! This is not the way! A parent is supposed to do this for a child but never the other way around,” right? And there’s something to that I find interesting which is — it’s almost the inverse of children having the opportunity to start anew and break cycles, parents potentially have the opportunity to make sacrifices that don’t pass by burdens onto their kids, but sort of like that’s the mirror I see a little bit, in terms of how do you have generational change and evolution? It’s somewhere in younger generations being able to not get stuck on conflicts and burdens, but also the older generations recognizing that they may have to be the one to take the — and this is I think a natural... I dunno, it’s something I think about a little bit and came to mind when you were talking. So we’ll see more about what is the meaning of sacrifice and when — when do you... trade? Yeah.
R: Yeah.
A: Side note on sacrifice. You’re familiar with Game of Thrones? You’ve watched all of Game of Thrones?
R: I’m decently familiar, yeah.
A: Okay.
R: And if not, I can have Kuno explain it to me later, so.
A: One of the things I love about the sacrifice Ned made, that we didn’t realize he’d made until I think the very end of the series, we realize — a sacrifice to his kind of reputation, right? And I’m talking about him representing Jon Snow as his bastard to protect him, right? Think about that, that’s a sacrifice, he had to go through the anger — he didn’t tell his wife the truth, he didn’t tell anyone, because it was the only way to protect the child, and as a result he lived with — even though the truth is that he was a really honest, good, or evidently he didn’t go cheat on his wife, he sacrificed that part of his reputation to protect Jon, at least how I see it. I think things like that are kind of interesting. I dunno.
R: Yeah. Yeah, I think it speaks to that idea of — one of the things I love about Dragon Prince is it’s so much about choices.
A: Yeah.
R: Like one of the things I really really liked about season 6 was that, you know, Callum is like, “Okay, I’m going to get myself purified, healed of dark magic,” and Rayla was his light, which was very validating, cause I had noticed in season two there was like some framing so I was like well “Maybe, maybe” you know? And then slowburn buildup but it was — I think that was a great moment that really paid off. And he’s told “if you ever do this again, it’ll corrupt you completely.” And whether he will or won’t — I personally think that he will, but spoilers, you know — but whether he will or won’t, I think it’s really nice because now whatever choice he makes, he’s making with the full context, of what this would do to him.
A: Yeah.
R: Whereas in season two, yes he was making his choice to do dark magic then, and I don’t necessarily think he would make a fundamentally different one if he had known what it would lead to, but there’s a different kind of awareness. Like I always of it would’ve been so easy to have Harrow not know that Viren was going to kill Zym, cause that’s such an easy way to kind of let Harrow off the hook of well Viren went off and did this on his own, and Harrow had no idea, and blah blah blah, right? Cause we like Harrow, he’s a — again, he’s a good dad, we’ll forgive a lot. And instead, it’s not his idea but he’s fully aware, he signs off on it. And I think constantly pushing characters to make hard choices — kind of like what Ezran says, “these aren’t dreams, these are choices.”
A: Yeah.
R: You can choose love, you can choose to make... It’s something that makes all the characters feel so fully developed and interesting, so I always appreciate that you guys push them to make the hard choice.
A: Yeah. Cool. Thank you.
R: One question I did have is, uh, Karim is one of my favourite characters.
A: Okay. Unusual person. A lot of people hate — or love to hate...? I love him too.
R: I also love Kasef, so I think I just kind of love everyone, because I’m like well, they’re really interesting. I feel like [Karim’s] arc was one of the things I loved most about season 4 because you can see him really wrestling with his choices and I love watching him fail, cause that’s kind of all he does, so that’s always fun. But I am really curious obviously now he’s been betrayed by Sol Regem, Katolis is in ashes and maybe they’ll blame Karim for that cause Sol Regem is like — dead, and now, presumably his only hope is going to be that his sister doesn’t execute him on the spot?
A: Yeah.
R: So is there anything you can tease about Karim’s arc in season 7?
A: Yeah, so — so it’s not just Karim, there’s an army of people who betrayed Janai, and — and...
R: What do we do?
A: Yeah, what do we do? That will be something we’ll have to see them grapple with pretty much right away in the season. Especially cause [Karim’s army] showed up for this battle where they were never even — they were just planning to sweep up the ashes afterwards, so when they didn’t get the dragon support they needed, I suspect they lost really quickly.
R: Yes, yeah.
A: So uh... Yeah, but basically as of the start of season 7 — all of them are prisoners of Queen Janai and the question is — what do you do with that? What do you do when you have an entire army and your own brother who betrayed you? And so that’s — we’ll find out.
R: Yeah. [Laughs]
A: But yeah.
R: Yeah. Another question I had going forward was Terry and Claudia obviously I thought had a really beautiful relationship arc, particularly in season 6, and we saw in season 4 the lengths he’s willing to go to for her, and how Terry, I think, is a great example of how there’s a lot of character traits where we think “oh, if you’re a selfless, helpful, accepting person, you’re a good person,” and I feel like Dragon Prince does a really good job of how, Rayla’s selflessness can be great but it can also be kinda bad, or, um, Terry can be super accepting, maybe a little too—
A: Yeah.
R: —accepting sometimes, right? So I feel like at the end of season 6, it will presumably be him, Claudia, and Aaravos for a little bit now that he’s out of the prison. And it feels like maybe Terry might hit a breaking point?
A: Here’s what I will say — Terry is a really special character and if you watched him, he’s so good, and what we’ll find out is, he is — there is an episode called TRUE HEART and he is someone who has a true heart.
R: Oh that’s so sweet.
A: It’s very impossibly rare and special — but also we all understand what a true heart is in some way and we’ll learn a little more about that. But yeah, the question of what will Terry do, what can he do, is difficult because he has a very strong sense of right and wrong, but he has a very deep capacity for love and he loves Claudia with all of his heart. Where does that present an impossible conflict, it may... we’ll see a challenge.
R: Yeah. Yeah, for sure.
A: I’ll also throw in like I sometimes see some parallels between Terry and Uncle Iroh—
R: Yes.
A: Though Uncle Iroh I think has a very different journey. Iroh is kind of a recovered problematic person who now has some wisdom and enlightenment, so in terms of the difference between the purity of a true heart versus where Iroh is more of a later stage enlightenment, the love that they have for the kind of complicated person that they are with is similar to me. And the way that they both sometimes have to, or don’t have to but...
R: Choose to?
A: You have to give that person the space — you can’t force them to choose right or wrong, you can be there with them, you can try to guide them, you can — but ultimately you have to give them the space to fail, and eventually, you may have to turn your back on them.
R: Yeah.
A: At some point. I don’t know. But um yeah — I still see them as connected characters in my mind.
R: I think I can even see some of that with even the way Callum is with Rayla, like season five onwards, of like “I’ve hit my turning point, I’m not mad at you anymore, and you can steal my key, you can lie to me, and I’m not going to have you open up to me out of guilt or obligation, I want you to tell me what’s going on when you want to tell me what’s going on, and I’m going to give you the space for that.” So I think it speaks to that unconditional love that I think—
A: Yeah.
R: —a lot of the characters are blessed to have. But I do see the Terry Iroh connection. So another thing that I thought was really interesting was — obviously next season is dark magic, and I’m very hopeful that maybe we’ll learn more about the origins of dark magic or Elarion, even.
A: Great.
R: Because I know when I was watching Sol Regem burn down Katolis, it made me think of what might’ve either happened or almost happened to Elarion in the past, you know?
A: Yeah.
R: Even down to Ziard and Viren both die, kind of deflecting and trying to save people, with the same staff, you know, and how the cycle continues to just always repeat itself over and over again. And if there was like — yeah, cause burning down Katolis was a massive shakeup, you know?
A: Yup.
R: And what maybe the process was there, with the — Aaravos seems like he’s trying to repeat the cycle of like “Oh I’m going to take down the dragon monarchy or I’m gonna use that vacancy to my advantage, and mess with the Sunfire elves.”
A: He has a specific vendetta against Sol Regem, obviously, but it’s one where he has played it out in... What’s certainly meant to be implied, even though we’ll find out more later, is that one of the great mysteries of Sol Regem’s life is that his mate disappeared and he never found her. He’s the freaking Dragon King, and she disappeared. And though we don’t know how or what happened, while she was buried alive. He killed her. He didn’t even realize it, somehow. Somehow, Aaravos manipulated him into killing her, and he doesn’t — I dunno, I assume Sol Regem does understand when it must have happened, but that moment, it’s like an impossible — it’s meant to be just...
R: Awful.
A: He’s tortured him for 1000 years or whatever, without him knowing he was being tortured by Aaravos, and now he’s given him the mercy/cruelty of knowing the resolution to the mystery was that he killed her. And one of the things that worked well with that was that, we had sort of said Sol Regem can smell the truth from a lie, so he has the horrible curse of being able to know this is the deep dark truth. So I dunno, I think um, are we going to find out more about that? So, if we can eventually get the Book Three novel out [R laughs], we will find out more about that.
R: I did wonder, I was like “Maybe this is something that was gonna be in the book three novelization.”
A: Yes, we will find out more in the book three novel, it may be a year or so before unfortunately. And then I don’t think we’re gonna get too deep into that in season seven, that’s part of — it is involved in what we’re thinking about as the third arc, understanding and resolving the third arc, is gonna go a little deeper into...
R: Some of the history, yeah.
A: Some of the stuff that happened with Sol Regem. But yeah, no, I — it’s enjoyable to have these figures like Aaravos and Sol Regem who are ancient and operate over the course of centuries and are incredibly powerful, yet they can’t — or at least Aaravos, they can’t conflict directly as easily, and so Aaravos has played this really complicated game. Anyway, but yes Sol Regem is part of that, but there’s — there’s more, there’s more people who — beings that took from him. He feels that Leola was unfairly punished and that that was — you know, he sees a future and he has something... All this time, a burning — it’s the twisted form of his love, in which he’s full of hate right now to the beings who brought this about. Obviously, Sol Regem played a role because he’s a rules dragon.
R: Yeah, yeah.
A: He is the one who betrayed her to the Cosmic Council ultimately — but how do you punish the Cosmic Council? That’s a bit more complicated.
R: Yeah. No, I remember finishing season six and just being so impressed with the story. Like, taking that direction, and almost doing a lot of recontextualization, because it’s one thing to have like your worldbuilding where “magic in the story works like this” and it’s just very kind of like hand of God, you know? Like oh — cause the magic system has always been unfair, that’s why we have Callum, you know? It’s another thing to say we’re going to have characters in the story who are responsible for it being unfair. And now we’re just going to have that in terms of conflict and themes of destiny. We have about seven, ten-ish minutes left I think.
A: Probably seven, if that’s okay?
R: Yeah. Of course.
A: I’ll throw one other thing in there, which is that — cause characters experience things that change them: has Aaravos experienced — I’ll phrase it as a question, even though probably the answer is here, has Aaravos experienced much that has changed him in the last — since the death of Leola? I mean certainly some things, and is what’s happening now changing him in any way? Is it satisfaction, is it the relationship with Claudia, and what does that mean to someone? That’s a question that I think we’ll have to watch play out a little bit.
R: [Intrigued] Okay. Yeah. One thing that I really liked about Leola’s character was I felt like she had pieces of each of the main trio in her? Of this very helpful innocent well meaning child, kind of like Ezran — and I have also always seen Ezran as autistic as well cause I know that Leola canonically is — and then you also kind of have the whole oh she gave / helped humans have primal magic, which obviously Callum has. And even just being this young elven girl punished for her compassion and mercy, that felt a lot like Rayla. And when making the choice for Leola to be Leola, was that something intentional or like the choice for it to be a child rather than another loved one?
A: It was very intentional that it was a child... And we talked through other versions of Leola that could’ve been, in other ages, genders, relationships with Aaravos that an important person was lost. Some of the things I liked about the way, Leola both as a child, children are the cycle breakers.
R: Yes, yeah. I think it was the strongest choice.
A: And in particular also, the idea of coding her autistic was a little bit like not as cued to kind of accept the social order and the order of things, but actually more open in a way to in what some people see as like — something that’s broken which is not taking those cues, something else about that — not being bound by it that allowed her to have compassion that crossed the line in terms of the perceptions of what the Cosmic Order needed to be in it — but it made her more, both as a child and an autistic person, to make that choice and do what she did that changed everything.
R: Makes a lot of sense.
A: [Her being a child] also frames it with some innocence obviously right? It’s not calculated, it’s kind.
R: Yeah.
A: So I dunno.
R: Yeah. Yeah, I’ve been curious about how Ezran might be challenged now that Runaan is back in the picture.
A: That’s a great question. That’s a great question. I mean, it’s so weird, it’s like no one even asks that, it’s like “Cool,” Rayla’s like “I’m gonna go get him. Awesome! Runaan’s back.”
R: Yeah I’m like either — either Callum is like “Ezran will be totally fine with it,” and Ezran is probably not going to be fine with it, or maybe Callum knew that maybe it wouldn’t be great, and kept it under wraps. Yeah, I’m so excited for that like trio, potential broyals conflict, so...
A: Well, I mean, Ezran is a very special kid and he’s very positive and kind and forgiving and all of this. But we’re talking about, Runaan is back.
R: Castle’s destroyed.
A: Katolis is rubble. Where does that leave him?
R: Yeah.
A: You know? I mean — so I’m excited about that part of Ezran.
R: I know the fandom is really, really excited for Ezran to get to be — not that he hasn’t always been complex, but to get to be like messier, of letting his emotions maybe get the better of him and that sort of thing. So people are definitely hype for that, for — cause I feel like season six really brought home a lot of things for Soren, and it seems like season seven is going to do a similar thing for Ezran, so that’s — that’s really exciting. Um, with our final couple minutes, I wanted to see — do you have any questions that you want fans to ponder or to be thinking about?
A: Um... Gosh. I don’t think I have anything specific that we haven’t talked about, but you know. On some level, like, you know how do you take the tragedies and conflicts that we all inevitably face repetitively and relentlessly and kind of learn to move forward in hope and optimism? I think that’s more of a question of like how do you personally learn to process — all the kind of bullshit in the world, and process it, and still move forward as a kind, connected—
R: Measured person.
A: —hopeful person? That’s a challenge we all face in our lives, so that’s like...
R: Yeah. Well, I think the show does a good — really good job at asking and challenging that — that question. Uh, yeah, I think — I think that’s our time for today, uh. Thank you so much, this was...
A: It was my pleasure.
R: This was a lot of fun.
A: It’s always my pleasure reading your theories and your—
R: [Gasps] Oh my gosh.
A: Honestly, I came on today and to tell the truth [R laughs] a little bit intimidated.
R: Oh my God.
A: You’re so—
R: I also felt intimidated [laughing] so don’t worry.
A: You’re so insightful and articulate, that I almost am like [R laughs] what if they catch me that there’s something not as smart in the show as I thought it was?
R: Oh my gosh, no, you’re fine.
A: [Overlapping] So anyway, I really enjoy what you write—
R: [Overlapping] I’m also a writer so I know what it’s like to be like “I did this subconsciously,” it’s — yeah.
A: I love what you instigate in the fandom and the kind of conversations you support and engage in. I’m a huge fan of yours, so.
R: Oh! Thank you so much, that’s so sweet. Um. And I am a huge fan of yours.
A: Yay. That’s a great way to end a podcast.
R: That is a great way. Okay. Alright, well thank you so much, hope you have a great day, great week, uh, and — yeah. Okay.
A: Alright, and I’ll see you soon, we’ll do this again sometime, I hope.
Question: Cause I know they weren’t originally planned, and then you guys were boarding season two when you were like, “Hey, maybe this should be a thing,” and then probably like shifted and tweaked things or changed things to write more towards that in the future... Um, I’ve always wondered, if there was time, like at that time, to go back and change anything in season one for them, or the season one that we see was just like that?
Aaron: I don’t recall there was time to change season 1 — that does happen because we are working on things in parallel because we are working on something in the script and then some time later we are working on the later stage of production, like an animatic, and we’ll be able to kind of give notes or even make changes with the knowledge of what’s coming, so that has happened. But in the case of Rayllum, I don’t think so. I mean, I think — again, I remember...
We were rekindling, or when we were realizing that something was being kindled between them, it was watching an animatic so that shouldn’t have informed our writing of season one, but our later stage stuff. But we weren’t trying to force anything so it got in there naturally and I don’t think we went back and changed anything. [...] You know, what else, I’ll even say, I think we initially, intentionally planned they weren’t going to be a couple. We were like “Oh yeah, no, they’re friends," with different views of the world and they journey together, and we don’t want them to be a couple. We’re not — we’re definitely not targeting it. I think we were intentionally not targeting it, and then it was “Too bad creators! We’re going to fall in love despite everything you’re planning.”
Interview with Aaron Ehasz and proper full transcript to follow! Secondary link here for people without spotify. In the meantime, here is the question / focus rundown with timestamps:
0:25 — Do you have any thoughts, reflections, feelings, on this Sept 14th being the 6 year anniversary of the Dragon Prince?
3:00 — Big conflicting emotions about a lot of the characters like Avizandum
4:09 — In developing the seasons concurrently, did realizing Rayllum would be a thing in S2 make you go back and change anything in S1?
7:30 — Ezran and Zym, and Callum and Rayla designed as pairs
8:22 — Were there any philosophical ideas you wanted to explore in the series, like trolley problems?
19:00 — The emphasis on choices in the show and Callum’s choices with dark magic / Harrow and Viren
21:06 — What about Karim’s arc in season 7?
23:18 — Terry and Claudia / Terry going forward and Season 7 episode title
27:14 — Potential parallels between Sol Regem burning down Katolis, and the city of Elarion? Details on Sol Regem and his mate / book 3 novelization and Aaravos repeating the cycle / some hints for Arc 3
31:16 — Aaravos’ twisted love and long game and the Cosmic Council / how do you punish the Cosmic Council?
33:08 — Has or could Aaravos’ experience since Leola change him, like his relationship with Claudia?
33:50 — Creating Leola has a character and her possible reflections in the main trio
36:30 — How might Ezran be challenged in S7, now that Runaan is back?
38:00 — Are there any questions you want fans to ponder, or think about?
