I am massively behind on writing this because the Friday night church thing took longer than I’d like (though I kind of expected it to take a while?). I should have started writing this days beforehand.
Presently watching The Residence on Netflix, which is kind of like if Shonda Rhimes tried doing her own Knives Out? Entertaining so far. Book right now is O’Connor’s final Dracopedia. There’s an article about the behind-the-scenes drama behind the development of Dragon Age: Veilguard out by Schreier on Bloomberg, if you’re into that sort of thing (and know how to bypass paywalls).
And UGH laptop updated again this week. Of course, the shower rod, also being a fiend from Hell, also decided to fall down of its own accord again….
The Dragon Prince and Forgiveness
For Reasons that are roundabout (a fossil discovery in Mongolia, mostly), I fell down a Dragon Prince rabbit hole this past week. I was about to do a Saturday Note about how stories need to have limits/ends, but then I recalled that I already did that Note this year, so you can go read that. So! Forgiveness is the topic of the day.
If you don’t know, The Dragon Prince is an animated fantasy series on Netflix created by the guy who was head writer on Avatar: The Last Airbender. There are human kingdoms in the west and the magic kingdom in the east they were kicked out of, Xadia. Animosity between the two sides has been high for centuries. Somewhat recently, the monarch of one of the human kingdoms, King Harrow of Katolis, killed the Dragon King and supposedly smashed the egg of his son. Xadia wants revenge, so the story begins with elven assassins infiltrating Katolis so they can kill Harrow. Harrow’s son and stepson, along with one of the assassins, Rayla, discover that the egg wasn’t destroyed, so they embark on a quest to stop war between the kingdoms by returning the egg, the Dragon Prince, to his mother in Xadia.
I’m skipping some stuff, but that’s the gist of it.
As you can probably guess, forgiveness is a big theme of the series. King Harrow laments at the beginning that he killed the Dragon King, because he knows that he’s continuing a cycle of revenge that’s been going on for centuries and knows it’s going to end badly for him and his family–he doesn’t even blame the elves for trying to murder him. Many of the problems in the series are because of grudges, and if people could move past them, and work towards a better future, it’ll all get better. This is exemplified by the main quest: to stop war between kingdoms, our young heroes are taking the egg through dangerous territory back to his mother, to prove that there can be goodwill between nations.
In the first three seasons, this theme really works. Because forgiveness is good! Ending feuds is good! Especially when those feuds hurt people. And they’re not just walking up and apologizing, they’re actively trying to undo the harm that was caused in that feud, showing that they’re willing to do what it takes to help someone who, historically, has been an enemy to their people. It’s good stuff!
I don’t know if it carries through the entire series, though.
See, the Plot to get the Dragon Prince to his mom lasts the first three seasons; not knowing if they’d get more after that, they wrapped up that Plot well enough. After that, though, the story spins its wheels in odd attempts to keep the show going. This theme is still present, but it’s messier. There’s a lot of, “Well, we need to move past those pains of the past if we want to fix things”, but, uh… not always a lot of effort. The last season in particular has one character depicted as stiff and unreasonable because he’s not okay with someone who killed a family member walking free.
Look, I don’t think I need to tell you why that seems a bit silly. I’m not saying forgiveness isn’t possible, but there needs to be work. That’s what the main Plot of the first three seasons understood. There’s a reason that a good Redemption Arc isn’t just ‘Oh, that guy? He’s not evil now. He’s good. We’re all friends.’ For forgiveness to feel genuine and rewarding in fiction, it needs to come with effort on the side of the party that has done something wrong, and that side needs to realize and try to atone for the pain caused.
I’m tempted to bring up Pamela, the old timey novel, but that will just make me mad so let’s skip past it.
It is entirely reasonable to still being upset at someone who has actively, willingly tried to physically hurt your family years after the fact, especially if everyone around you acts like it’s all fine. And that’s honestly not the weirdest example in the show. Everyone’s willing to give Claudia, a character slowly corrupted more and more into a villain, a chance in the show, even when she’s shown herself time and again to be going full speed ahead on her Crazy Train. With her family, it makes sense; with everyone else, it’s a little less understandable.
Now I strongly suspect that part of this is that the show is a bit muddled in the morals it’s trying to convey, through its worldbuilding and characterization? The dark magic we’re shown tends to look bad and is apparently addictive, but some of it just doesn’t seem particularly harmful when you analyze it, as, uh, killing animals for parts is just a thing people do, you know. And plenty of the elves and dragons seem to hate humans on principle rather than anything silly like, a reason, apparently deciding that we don’t deserve to be able to defend ourselves. The archdragon Sol Regem’s reaction to humans learning dark magic was to burn down an entire city of innocent people because, uh… he sucks.
The whole ‘feud is both of our fault’ doesn’t work as well when it seems like just one side irrationally hates the other, and the other side is just angry about getting the short stick in this treatment.
Forgiveness is a good theme, though! And in today’s world, where so many use past grievances as convenient excuses for why they’re being jerks, it’s a good thing to try to teach people, and a good lesson for a children’s show. It doesn’t work though when you muddle it all up by not showing that you need to work for forgiveness if you’ve honestly done wrong, or that you haven’t actually done much wrong but you’re being oppressed by the other side anyway. The Dragon Prince could have handled this a lot better past its third season–instead it sort of flounders about in its handling through its messy worldbuilding and plotlines. And that’s a darn shame.
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