The Dragon Prince Rewatch 1.7, "The Dagger and the Wolf"

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Sad news spurs more action, and an ongoing hunt intensifies.

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1.7, "The Dagger and the Wolf"

Written by Devon Giehl and Iain Hendry
Directed by Villads Spangsberg

Synopsis

Seems cool.
Image taken from the episode, used for commentary.

Ezran, Callum, and Rayla make camp in a mountain cave, trying to recover from their exertions in the cold and wet. The princes confer, and Rayla provides supplies; talk turns to concern about the egg, and they purpose to find help.

Soren and Claudia lead a search for the princes. Tracking is somewhat complicated, but it is frustrated by the princes' earlier recourse to water travel.

Ta daa!
Image taken from the episode, used for commentary.

The princes and Rayla continue, finding a town. They make to recruit assistance there, Rayla giving a terrible impersonation of a human to to disguise herself among them. It somehow holds up under casual scrutiny, and Rayla spies an item she hopes to be able to use to free her hand from its still tightening bond. A melee ensues around the item, occasioning no small degree of gambling; Rayla explains the significance of the item, a sun-forged weapon able to cut most anything. She purposes to retrieve it while the princes seek help for the egg.

Soren and Claudia ponder their next actions. The complications of their mission tell on Soren until he finds a lost braid of Rayla's; Claudia purposes to use it to cast a spell to track Rayla.

This does look like a helper, yeah.
Image taken from the episode, used for commentary.

The princes find a veterinarian and ask if he can help them. They learn a bit about the local area and get a dire prognosis about the egg--although a slim hope emerges in a local girl and her dog, Ellis and Ava. Ellis reports that a healer lives high up on the mountain overlooking the town, noting that the healer might be able to help the egg.

Can you smell what's cooking?
Image taken from the episode, used for commentary.

Meanwhile, Rayla seeks out the blade, sneaking after its owner and confronting him. He is persuaded to help her, but the attempt reveals her as an elf, and a fracas ensues. It does not relieve her of the bond, however.

The party reunites and exchanges information, laying out their next steps. They are interrupted by an attack from the townsfolk, and they flee towards the nearby mountain to evade their pursuers.

Soren and Claudia proceed to acquire the remaining components for her spell. It is a struggle, but they get what they need.

Discussion

Early in the episode, Rayla provides supplies to the princes. Among them are "boogie-berries," a cold remedy to be taken nasally. While Ezran does not balk at the presentation or explanation, though, a member of the audience might well do so; sticking berries up the nose does not seem as doable as Ezran asserts, nor as likely to be effective as Rayla does. That said, there is ample attestation regarding the effectiveness of plant-based remedies for various symptoms of numerous illnesses, and of the conditions themselves. Aspirin, after all, is based on willow-bark, and is still used to treat no few things. Too, medicine in the medieval Europe the series evokes did make use of nasally-administered remedies, as Munday follows Wallis in reporting, and, as delighted medievalists, medieval remedies have been (at least on occasion) demonstrated to be efficacious. So, perhaps inadvertently, the present episode gets a bit of the medieval right on the nose.