The Dragon Prince - Series Content Review

The Dragon Prince: Mystery of Aaravos is an animated fantasy TV-Y7 show on Netflix.  It follows the adventures of human princes Ezran and Callum, Elf assassin Rayla, and dragon prince Azymondias (aka Zim) as they seek to bring peace between the warring human and magical Xadia kingdoms.  This review will cover the first four seasons of the show.

This content review will contain spoilers when they are relevant.

This page contains affiliate links that earn me a small commission. They don't cost you anything. Their presence/absence doesn't effect the quality of this Content Review. Please see the Disclosures Page to learn more.

Overview

In retaliation for the humans killing their dragon king and prince years prior, a group of Elves are sent to assassinate prince Ezran and his father the king.  But when Rayla shows up to kill Ezran and Callum, Ezran shows her the dragon prince egg that he discovered hidden in the castle.  With the dragon prince alive, Rayla and the princes decide to team up and return the egg to its home in Xadia, with the hopes that their two kingdoms will finally be at peace.  Their efforts are constantly threatened by Viren (a human who wields powerful dark magic and takes control of the human kingdom after the king is assasinated) and his two children Claudia (a dark magic user herself) and Soren (the head of the king's guards).  Seasons 1-3 cover this journey which features the hatching of the dragon prince, Viren's alliance with a strong and mysterious magician named Aaravos, and culminates in a massive battle between Viren's allies and the prince's allies.

Season 4 jumps ahead in time 2 years and focuses on a new story (spanning Seasons 4-7) where everyone is trying to find Aaravos's secret prison; Viren wants to free Aaravos, while everyone else is trying to get there first and stop him.

Message

The Dragon Prince's main goal is showcasing diversity and inclusion.  In Seasons 1-3 diverse characters are used seamlessly; there's no calling attention to a character's differences, they simply appear as part of the story.  Over the four seasons there's many examples of diversity of skin colors and race, plus a recurring deaf character (the prince's aunt) and a pet that lost a leg.  Unfortunately the writers have also chosen to include sexual diversity, which will be covered in detail in the Other Content: LGBT section below.

Season 4 brings the messaging into the foreground and makes it a focus of the story, with large chunks of dialog now dedicated to pushing a message.  This change is quite jarring.

Content

Language

There's no swearing in this show.

Fears

There's no clowns in The Dragon Prince.

A lot of the dark magic spells are intense and scary, including the ones related to monsters.

There's several instances of scary storms, particularly with lightning, but they aren't as scary as the dark magic.

While fire and lava are in the show, it's typically used thematically rather than scarily.

There's countless scenes that take place in darkness, and sometimes that darkness contributes to scary circumstances.  For example, the Elves intentionally assassinate the king during a full moon because their moon magic makes them nearly invisible.

The Elves break into the human castle and assassinate the king.  The humans break into the dragon's home and steal the dragon prince.

Multiple characters are captured and imprisoned in various different episodes.  Several of these characters are shown multiple times while imprisoned.  Imprisonment includes being behind bars, in shackles, bound by rope, magically banished, magically having their soul bound into a coin, and being possessed by a magician.

Viren is the main antagonist.  As chief advisor to the human king, he participated in the chain of events that eventually led to the king being assassinated.  After the king dies he spends his time trying to assume the throne and wipe out Xadia by any means necessary.  This leads down a dark path of embracing more and more dark magic, to the point that he's following the advice of the evil banished magician Aaravos, who manifests himself as a centipede-like creature.  The creature hangs out on his ear (and neck when it gets larger), hides in his ear and mouth, and weaves a web like structure on his eye.  Later it turns into a Gollum-esque (Lord of the Rings) creature.  Viren's daughter Claudia follows in his dark magic ways, including embracing the weirdness of Aaravos's creature, and by the start of Season 4 she has become powerful enough to resurrect her dad from the dead.

Family & Relationships

Callum, the older prince, is aware of the near certain death his father the king faces.  But many episodes pass before he's told his father has died, so he spends a lot of time wondering if his father is alive or not.  He can't bring himself to tell his brother Ezran that their dad is dead, so he hides his grief from him.  Later in a separate episode, Ezran's learns what has happened and grieves too.  In addition to the constant topic of their father (both when hopefully alive and when known to be dead) coming up often, the princes often discuss their deceased mother.  The viewer learns via a flashback that the death of their mother was part of the chain of events leading to the king's assassination.  Additionally, on several occasions Rayla mourns the loss of her parents (who were also branded as cowards), and the loss of her adoptive parent who was killed during the assassination of the king.  The death of Zim's dad and separation from his mother are also recurring topics in the first 3 seasons.

The princes willingly sneak out of their kingdom and run away to Xadia with the help of Rayla.  Many characters either run away from their problems, or change their minds and escape to join the opposing side.

Soren lightly bullies Callum and eventually apologizes once he realizes it was wrong.

There's many kissing scenes including straight, lesbian, and gay characters.  Rayla and Callum navigate becoming a couple in Season 3.  At the end of Season 3 Rayla had abruptly left and it broke Callum's heart, so when she surprisingly returns in Season 4 wanting to pick up where they left off, there's a lot of awkwardness while Callum ponders his feelings.  One character in Season 4 describes needing to change his pants after seeing a beautiful bird made him ejaculate; while this isn't directly stated, it is heavily implied and a very awkward scene.

There's no divorce.

Other Content

In The Dragon Prince magic is part of all creatures, and each creature is attributed to a specific primal source: Sky, Moon, Sun, Earth, Stars, or Ocean.  Humans don't have magic, so they created dark magic, which is essentially killing magical creatures and using the released magic for a spell.  Using dark magic wrinkles and drains the color from the user's face, turns their eyes black (or the color of the spell), can be physically draining, and tempts the user with a lust for power.  The citizens of Xadia despise dark magic because it requires a magical being to be killed, while the human kingdoms feel its use is necessary to remain as powerful as Xadia.

Season 1 has a lower frame rate than the other seasons, which means the episodes look slightly choppy.  This made me motion sick if I watched more than one episode at a time; but I'm also very sensitive to things that trigger motion sickness.  Season 4 caused me minor motion sickness and I'm not sure why; I felt like the art was slightly different in some way.

There's different realms or perhaps planes of existence that characters sometimes experience.  It's not time travel, it's not an alternate reality, it's not necessarily a dream, and it's not an entirely a spiritual experience either... but it is weird and probably confusing for kids to understand.

Xadia has plenty of magical creatures and I don't recall a time that evolution was mentioned.

The Dragon Prince has a ton of fighting with swords, shields, magic, and monsters.  While there's no gore connected to the fighting, blood is shown when a character intentionally slices their hand for a dark magic spell that requires blood.

Scenes that invoke intense feelings are frequent.  Fear, typically associated with the use of dark magic, is common.  Sadness due to the loss of a loved one is also a recurring topic, and the show doesn't shy away from strongly invoking other emotions when they are relevant to the story.

Each race has their own religious beliefs and practices, which don't seem to correlate to specific real world religions.  Christians will find a lot of the dark magic disturbing as it draws many parallels to the demonic, including a character briefly being possessed.  Additionally, in one scene dark magic is used to part a lava river, which may be drawing a parallel to the parting of the Red Sea.  A character's spirit is a topic that's discussed many times and represented by a transparent blue model of the character.

Season 4 takes on a political feel as the show's messages become more aggressively pushed.  There's now speeches and even entire chunks of episodes dedicated to it, plus an ongoing lesbian relationship side story and a character coming out as trans. 

LGBT

As previously stated, The Dragon Prince took their inclusion message too far and have included LGBT material in this TV-Y7 show made for children.  Sexuality isn't an appropriate topic for children and it is a parent's job to explain sexuality to their children when they are old enough.  The only reason to include sexuality in a children's show is to intentionally expose impressionable children to the topic too early.

The prince's deaf aunt (a recurring character from the earliest episodes) is a lesbian, but it's very subtle until Season 4 where her engagement becomes a multi-episode side story that includes several kissing scenes.  

In season 3 we learn that Rayla's adoptive parents are gay, and they are shown kissing.  

During a two episode long flashback in Season 2, it's revealed that a child ruler's deceased parents were lesbians.  They also kiss.  

At the start of Season 4 Claudia introduces Viren to her "boyfriend", Terry.  Near the end of the season Terry tells Viren that she was a "doe" growing up but always knew she was a "buck", so she chose to start calling herself Terry.  Terry is voiced by a transgender voice actor who said that the character is in transition.

When I asked why gay and lesbian couples were included in a young kid's show, the show's lead writer and producer told me that "Gay and lesbian couples exist in the real world and many of them even have kids.  It's not that deep".  According to the interviews I've read, they are open to adding additional LGBT characters as the show progresses.

Finally, based on what I've seen, the online community following this show seems to be almost entirely LGBT adults, plus a few teens mixed in.  Additionally, there's also a lot of fan artists, including many that generate LGBT and sexual art related to the show.

Conclusion

The Dragon Prince is what happens when today's diversity and inclusion activists make a children's show: it's an emotional roller coaster, very dark at times, full of LGBT, and rated TV-Y7 so that parents will assume it's fine for young children to watch.