A lot happens in The Dragon Prince’s third season… probably too much.
The first two seasons of the Dragon Prince are basically nothing but our heroes trekking across the human Kingdoms. In season three, Callum, Rayla, and Zym, not only enter Xadia and cross through a large portion of its territory (while having adventures along the way), they also reunite the Dragon Prince with his mother and have a Lord of the Rings-style epic battle to cap the season off. Meanwhile, over in the human kingdoms, Ezran is crowned, abdicates the throne, and is replaced by Verin–who then raises an army and conquers an elf kingdom and on the way to slay the Dragon Queen and capture Zym.
That’s an awful lot to cover in nine episodes–especially when one of them is basically spent on a flashback.
One unfortunate side effect is that, because of this season’s mad pace, the world feels so much smaller than before. Viren’s army goes from the capitol to Xadia in a pair of episodes. By the next, they’ve conquered an elven kingdom and in the one after that, they sit at the foot of the Dragon Queen’s spire. Even Ezran, who flies directly there, only beats them there by a day or two.
Likewise, because we spent so much time exploring the human territories, Xadia seems radically depopulated by comparison. We see the sun elf city and the moon elf village, but outside of those locations, Callum, Rayla, and Zym meet literally two other people–both sky elves. Even when Viren leads his massive army into Xadia, no one notices–not until Viren himself literally walks up to the gates of the sun elf’s city, anyway.
It makes it hard to believe that the humans would have any trouble conquering the mostly empty lands of Xadia–even without Viren and his magic. With the Dragon King gone, the country seems all but defenseless.
The other side effect of having so much happen so fast in season three is that character development is largely forgotten in order to make room for all the plot points. Things like Callum being the only human able to use magic unaided become little more than a sight gag.
Among the heroes, Rayla is the one to get the most focus. This season, Rayla goes from being a stranger in a strange land to a stranger in her own. Exiled from her village, she literally has no one–no one but Callum anyway. It’s no surprise that she turns to him for comfort–even as her pride forces her to push him away. After all, with his magic and connections to Xadia, he is as much an outcast as she. The difference is that he’s accepted his path. She’s still looking for one.
By the time they reach the Dragon Queen, Rayla has decided her path is to redeem her family honor–by dying to protect the Dragon Queen. She feels she has to do great deeds to prove she’s not like them. But the truth is she’d rather just be with Callum. This has always been Rayla’s downfall: the inner struggle between what she believes she should do and what she feels is right. It’s what got her to party with Callum in the first place.
It’s unfortunate that, instead of deciding to live for herself instead of for ghosts long gone, she’s given an easy way out by Callum. He simply uses magic to look into the past and discovers that Rayla’s parents weren’t irresponsible cowards but were actually the only ones who weren’t. Thus, she is free to do what she truly wants with no personal growth needed.
The rest of the character development, on the other hand, is focused right where it should be: on the villains. After returning to the kingdom and being pardoned by Ezran, Soren and Claudia confront their imprisoned father. But when they bring up Soren’s secret mission to kill the princes, Viiren claims it was all a misunderstanding–something that is obviously not true.
But as we learned last season, Claudia will do anything to keep her family intact–even throw her brother under the bus. She agrees that Soren must be in the wrong just so she can cling to the illusion that her happy family is still together. What she doesn’t understand is that, at that moment, she lost her brother forever.
Upon Ezran’s imprisonment, Soren immediately moves to help the former king–helping both Ezran and those loyal to him escape before the impending purge. From there he stays close to his father and sister, hoping to turn them from their dark path. But once he sees that to be impossible, he joins our heroes, leaving Claudia behind.
The next time they meet is on the battlefield where Soren kills an illusion of his father to save Ezran–showing that he has truly put doing the right thing over his connection to his family. Claudia, on the other hand, escapes, putting her in the perfect place to resurrect her father after he falls from the top of the Dragon Queen’s Spire.
It’s a heartbreaking tale for the siblings. One who is able to accept what is right and the other who isn’t. And all this is even more interesting when you remember it was Soren who chose to stay with their father when their mother left–Claudia had wanted to go with their mother. But she stayed with her brother so the pair could give each other strength. Now, their bond is broken and Claudia has no one but her father to rely on–and he will gladly use that loyalty as a weapon against his foes. The tragic thing is, I think, deep down, Claudia knows this too.
The Dragon Prince can be seen on Netflix.
I just wanted to give out a big thanks to Joshua Ott for sponsoring this review with his Patreon donation. (At the $60 a month tier, you are allowed to pick anything up to an including a 13ish episode series to be reviewed–which is released in addition to the one article a week I normally put out here on BiggestinJapan.com.) So thanks again!
Top image Copyright: © 2019 Wonderstorm, INC.
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