filthy viren apologist

Ruthari Week Day 7: Jewelry

Chibi hubbies! 

In the middle of the season, the main characters rush to find a cure for the sacred dragon egg (which had been dropped in icy water). They come across a young girl with a pet wolf, who tells the story of how she found the pup in a trap and how the local veterinarian had to amputate her leg:

Her father responds to this with typical eugenics-based ‘advice’:

So she runs away to keep the village from killing her pet and meets an elf:

One magical spell later, we see that the wolf now has four legs:

So you’ve got this whole tragedy model of disability going, you’ve got the eugenics, you’ve got the magical cure, you’ve got the happy villagers, you’ve got the main characters saying, “Hooray, magical healer, let’s go!”

And it takes several episodes, all of which feature the wolf walking around, running, jumping, etc. for them to finally find this elf, only to reveal:

The whole show threw out an UNO reverse card and revealed that the only magic that needed to be done was an illusion to convince everyone that she was no longer ‘broken’ and thus was worthy of life. Incredible! I mean, the story comes at the worst time because the egg that contains the dragon prince is about to die so they need a healer, but what a story!

Incidentally, The Dragon Prince also features the love of my life:

(The show actually hired ASL interpreters to help with the accuracy.)

As someone with physical disabilities, this kind of bothered me. It’s exactly the trope of “curing the crippled character” that they managed to avoid so well with the Ava storyline, and it left me wondering how they managed to fall into such a cheap resolution for Soren’s injury. I honestly think they would have been better off leaving that plot point out altogether.

What do you think?

OP here! Not sure if you were asking me or the person you tagged but as a writer in a wheelchair who loves representation and obviously loves The Dragon Prince, enough to make the above super long post, here’s my two cents:

I can definitely see why other people would hate it but I think that it was a perfect example of how morally twisted Claudia’s become. Soren’s initially excited over the idea of being able to move/feel/etc. but 0.2 seconds later, he realizes that something’s not right about the whole ordeal:

To me, seeing how corrupt Claudia’s become in this act is what starts his character development that kicks off in Book Three. Every time Claudia talks, Soren looks away or looks doubtful or looks thoughtful. His whole arc is about how he could genuinely benefit from following the other members in his family (remember how Viren tries to manipulate him by saying he could be the king) but that he knows their actions are questionable, at best, and immoral at worst.

Every time Claudia tries to make excuses for the thing’s Viren does (and, as an extension, the things she’s done), Soren becomes more and more detached from the family, until he’s finally willing to leave the toxic dynamic. As he’s leaving, he points out just how much Claudia has changed, and has made it obvious that the changes she’s made aren’t for the better.

And I think it’s really telling that he uses a crutch at the beginning of the season and that, even at the end, he’s walking only a little better than I can:

Because Claudia’s spell didn’t completely work. I think that’s the whole point. She didn’t heal him, not really, not as much as she thought she could, not as much as the sacrifice was worth. Remember what Harrow said about dark magic being just a short-cut to a half-solution? That’s exactly what happened. Claudia made an impulsive decision, murdered and/or sacrificed a bit of her soul, used that magic to partially heal Soren without thinking it through, and now Soren is basically like, “None of this is right, and it shouldn’t be this way, and even though I can’t change what happened, I’m going to make the best of it and go through a character arc that would make Zuko proud.”

Why nine years? Why does Harrow wait nine whole years before he takes his revenge on Thunder for Sarai’s death?

I think it’s because that’s when Viren heard that Thunder had an egg.

Okay, here we go: Viren saw Thunder smack three queens to death like it was nothing. The Sky Archdragon also zapped his way out of Viren’s Aspiro Frigis spell in less than a minute. Viren was trying to help Katolis, and he’d brought his biggest magics. But he got slapped down by a dragon with almost no effort at all.

Viren needs power. He may not love it. But he doesn’t feel useful without it. And to see all his efforts to save Katolis so easily endangered by a single dragon? Viren would never forget that feeling.

But how do you combat a nearly ageless dragon? How do you possibly fight for Katolis’s safety, for the equality of humanity, against something like that?

The solution is simple. You get a Sky Archdragon of your own.

Viren bided his time, making his plans and doing his research, until one day he heard about the existence of the egg of the Dragon Prince–and how he did that, I really want to know. Only then did he begin to urge Harrow to strike. The banners that the humans flew on the Eve of Winter’s Turn were Sarai’s–their symbol is her crown. But that was only part of the reason they were there.

Yes, Viren probably wanted to avenge Sarai. Maybe because he was loyal to her. Maybe because Harrow loved her so much. Maybe because she was human and Thunder wasn’t. Maybe all of the above, and more. But Viren was absolutely after that dragon egg the whole time. 

He never told Harrow his plans to take the egg. Harrow really did think it had been destroyed. 

That egg was always going to be Viren’s ultimate prize. His way of making sure that no one–no dragons, no elves, no one–could mess with the safety and security of Katolis ever again.

That’s why he called the egg a powerful weapon, and why he taught Claudia the same idea. Not only had Viren seen Thunder in action, but he fully intended to turn Zym into a similiarly powerful weapon to defend Katolis.

He’d been working on hatching large eggs in his dungeon oven, trying to get Zym out so he could begin training him and earning his loyalty. Thunder had been killed, after all. Viren’s a smart guy. He had to know that Xadia would retaliate sooner or later.

Do you think Viren knew that storm dragons can only be born in the heart of a storm? Because he very well may have. Yet, he really didn’t want to sacrifice his Sky primal stone, not when Xadia could attack at any moment. Perhaps his eggy research was to seek yet another shortcut, where he could get Zym hatched and also keep his primal stone.

If Viren had broken the primal stone and hatched the egg of the Dragon Prince, he’d already have himself a loyal, adorable, pragmatic, teleporting baby dragon by the time the assassins arrived at the castle.

Oh, how the tables turn…

June’s Patreon fanart is Aaravos from the Dragon Prince.