The Dragon Prince Rewatch 2.1, "A Secret and a Spark"

Read the previous entry here.
Read the next entry here.

As the second season of the series starts, it becomes clear that war is coming.

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2.1, "A Secret and a Spark"

Written by Aaron Ehasz and Justin Richmond
Directed by Villads Spangsberg

Synopsis

Hospitable, yes?
Image taken from the episode, used for commentary.

General Amaya scouts across the Breach, a dangerous passage through the boundary between Xadia and the human kingdoms. She encounters a small party of Sunfire Elves, and a melee ensues; she repels them at some material cost, making an enemy of their leader and withdrawing.

Callum briefly recapitulates the events of the first season, as if in a letter to Harrow. He, Ezran, Rayla, Bait, Ellis, and Ava are at the magical nexus at the top of Cursed Caldera with Lujanne.

Fancy people saying fancy things.
Image taken from the episode, used for commentary.

In council at the castle of Katolis, Viren warns of draconic encroachments as presaging war. He presses for a retaliatory strike, one involving all the human kingdoms; the council resists the idea, partly on procedural grounds, calling for retrieval of Ezran and Callum.

There are worse things, though the time is not opportune.
Image taken from the episode, used for commentary.

The group at the magical nexus confers regarding next steps to take. Rayla exults in her restored dexterity before pressing to depart in haste; Lujanne confirms that they are pursued. Some delay is approved, and Rayla makes to reconnoiter the area. Lujanne takes the opportunity to teasingly instruct Callum in some arcane information--although not practice, given his disconnectedness from prevailing magical forces. Ezran works with Azymondias to develop the latter's ability to fly; it does not go well.

Viren muses over the death of Harrow as he returns to the royal suite. It remains in disarray, and Viren retrieves the royal seal, illicitly. He uses it to forge messages which he sends to the other kingdoms.

Danger, Will Robinson...
Image taken from the episode, used for commentary.

Rayla frets as she patrols. She encounters one of Lujanne's illusions on her first patrol; on her second, she runs into Soren and Claudia.

Discussion

For example...
Image taken from the episode, used for commentary.

The Orientalism identified earlier as at work in the series's depictions of elves remains at work in the present episode; the exoticized Sunfire Elf leader whom Amaya fights wears armor and bears weapons with markings reminiscent of Arabic and Chinese styles and ideograms. As in earlier instances, there seem to be some essentialization and reduction at work, even as the motion to be more inclusive is more commendable. (That it speaks to concerns eloquently addressed in a piece on The Public Medievalist, Christina Warmbrunn's "Dear Tolkien Fans: Black People Exist," also helps.) At present, though, the issue is and remains problematic, particularly given the orientation of the series at children--for reasons Paul Sturtevant discusses (attested here and here, among others)--even as there is overt movement towards the idea of stereotypes being wrong.

Such Orientalism is not wholly out of keeping with ideas typically attributed to the people of the European Middle Ages, however. Nor is the reference to the Pentarchy Viren makes, the explicit naming of the construct foreshadowed in the second episode of the series. As before, the name evokes the Early English Heptarchy, calling back once again to the medieval/ist underpinnings of the series. And the Pentarchy seems quite concerned with matters of precedence and protocol--quite in line with common medievalist understandings, although perhaps less so in practice.

A river doesn't run through it, though...
Image taken from the episode, used for commentary.

And, as is perhaps unavoidable, there is a fairly open visual reference to Peter Jackson's Middle-earth movies. The warding statues at the magical nexus clearly call to mind Tolkien's Argonath. Given the prevalence of Tolkienian reference in fantasy fiction and medieval/ist work, more generally, it is not to be wondered at--nor yet because of the series's presumed primary audience of children whose parents grew up around Jackson's films and reading their literary antecedents. But it does mark the series, once again, as being more medievalist than medieval, as does the crow-messaging introduced in the episode, which rings of Martin. The series's underpinnings are more in what is built upon the medieval than in the medieval itself, as such, though the foundations remain in place.