The Dragon Prince just dropped its sixth and most impactful season on Netflix and just launched their long-awaited cooperative RPG video game, The Dragon Prince: Xadia on iOS and Android. To celebrate at San Diego Comic-Con (SDCC), they streamed the entire season six on the second day of the con with fans, and in their panel the following day, announced season seven would be titled Dark and complete the Mystery or Aaravos arc. They also teased the potential for another three additional mini-seasons in the works to finish off the entire saga of the animated series.
So much happened this season and assuming you’ve already binged it – whether it was on day two of SDCC, or at the comfort of your home – you’re probably ready to talk about it. You should have had some time to walk away from the rubble of Katolis, dust yourself off and have some thoughts of the season. AIPT has the exclusive post-mortem sit down with series creators Aaron Ehasz and Justin Richmond to discuss some of the bigger moments of season six.
AIPT: This was such a satisfying season, so many surprises and also some things that have been building in anticipation over the last few seasons, finally boiled over. I didn’t expect Viren to be alive, I didn’t expect Sol Regem to have an arc, and Soren too. Talk about some of these big sweeping arcs in season six.
Justin Richmond: Thank you! I’m glad you liked it. Jason (Simpson) is incredible who plays Viren. Aaron has said this in the past but part of what drove us to write this way was that was an amazing performer. We wanted to make sure the story could live up to what he could do and he took it even further than anyone thought was possible. So that arc was fun to do, we knew it was coming, we’ve been planning for it for a while, and we hoped it would catch people off guard, and I think it did!
Soren is obviously an important piece of the Viren story, having them come together was interesting and Jesse (Inocalla) killed it obviously. We’re building up to the end game, to finally take the pieces we’ve put together in the last few seasons and put them into place to make stuff happen is awesome. Getting that payoff and heading towards season seven, there’s still a lot left to go.
AIPT: I realize you’ve been in the writing rooms since the start, but are you at least a little surprised that there haven’t been more deaths?
Richmond: We debated, there were other outcomes, and potential outcomes but the story took us where it took us.
Aaron Ehasz: Viren would have died if Claudia had not intervened. There was a version we knew that Viren wasn’t going to make the choice he did at the end of season five. And there was a version where that was it, Viren was dead. Some of the conversation was around what would Claudia do? Some of it was, does Viren still have more to do in the story? And do these make sense? But there was definitely a universe where we lost Viren at the end of season five, with everyone dealing with the ramifications in season six. But in terms of more deaths? There’s more coming [smiles].
AIPT: Each season, it has been getting darker so I didn’t know if consequences would begin playing more of a part, and many characters have come real close.
Ehasz: Not enough bloodshed for you, Ernie?
Richmond: [Laughing]
AIPT: I always want more!
Ehasz: More carnage!
AIPT: Let’s talk a little more about Sol Regem. He was a big surprise this season with passing up the ability to see again, Karim nearly successful in using him against his sister Janai and Ezran and to his ultimate demise and used by Aaravos.
Ehasz: Sol Regem has been the iconic symbol of The Dragon Prince saga and Xadia since the beginning. He’s certainly the first dragon you see in the opening in the flashback. When we finally meet him in the present, he’s old and bitter. He hates humans and is guarding the border. He has sort of a rebirth and gets active in the story but he relives his tragic pattern, which is that he’s full of hate and bitterness and it manifests into violence.
We also learn how he connects to Aaravos and his past. We saw hints of it when he had this conversation with Ziard (the first human mage who practiced dark magic) in the beginning of season three, and he says, “Where did you get the staff?!” He’s demanding to know. Something’s happening and he doesn’t quite understand it. There’s an intervention with the Great Ones (The Star Touch Elves) and now some of that is starting to make more sense.
That scene and also some of the scenes here, hint at what drove him to bitterness, why he is no longer King of the Dragons, the things that drove him crazy and some of those deeper stories. The first round in Sol Regem’s tragedy are stories we were hoping to tell in coming seasons, but it was good to have a chance to see him come to life and take such an active role in the story and meet his destiny.
One thing I’m proud of about our storytelling is that we don’t always tell things in a linear way. A great but simple example is in that episode, Aaravos tells Sol Regem (Adrian Hough), “Sometimes the line between mercy and cruelty can be thin.” We learn one episode later in a flashback that goes back thousands of years, in a defining moment, he was saying it ironically.
But those were words said to him as some sort of f***ing cold comfort. He was using it to wish such bitter irony in the scene but what I love is that the timelines don’t matter. Once you know it all, the story exists at once, in your heart, and you understand why Aaravos said it, and what it meant for him to say it to this enemy, to this figure he’s hated for so long, in this moment of finality.
AIPT: You’re right, a lot of those moments make repeat viewings and marathons really satisfying. Now, It’s hard not to watch the last three episodes of season six as a father. We’ve talked in previous chats about this story coming to a head, where Soren has to deal with his father nearly murdering him and there would be this great payoff, which wound up being Viren trying to make a last connection with Soren. But he burns the confession letter. That was a bold choice, could you explain why he burned it?
Ehasz: The confession was a nice way to understand what happened and why it happened. In the previous episode, Viren doesn’t exactly try to redeem himself or make amends with Soren but he expresses his desire to. He expresses his desire to and expresses a very important idea which is, “None of it this is your fault. I want you to know that one day.” He feels a terrible sense of guilt. He feels guilt about what he’s passed on to Claudia and the tragedy and trauma she’s dealing with, unwittingly but still, it’s his fault.
But I think he’s also proud that Soren has broken free and has become his own man and his own person and chosen a truer path from much earlier. In the confession episode, he writes what happened. In the end he struggles with the idea, am I doing this for Soren, or am I doing this for me. Is this a selfish confession? Does this free him? Does this give him something that lets him be better? And I think he comes to the conclusion, right or wrong, that it’s more selfish to give it to Soren because maybe what he’s doing is explaining away why treated him a certain way.
Maybe Soren doesn’t need it. Soren’s found the truth without it. You could certainly argue against it, that Soren could finally understand – and that’s a valid point of view, but the reason he doesn’t pass it on is because he concludes it is a selfish confession. It’s not to give Soren a greater strength, it’s to give Viren a cleaner conscience so in a somewhat selfless act, he destroys it. We don’t say if it’s right or wrong, but that’s what he’s struggling with when he doesn’t pass it on. Viren is trying to figure out how to be a better father, a better man and serve the people he loves in a way that is less driven by his own ego and his own needs.
AIPT: On a lighter note… [All laughing] going back to “The Frozen Ship” episode 603, Rayla and Callum’s relationship moves forward but Janai and Amaya get married. We didn’t dance around it this year, relationships evolved.
Richmond: It was finally the time to do it. There were a lot of things that were going on in all the love arcs. Of course you have Callum and Rayla but Janai and Amaya had things to work through. If we danced around any more, it would have been a tease, and at some point you have to move forward and make decisions. Either people break up or stay together.
There might be a cycle of that, but I think it was the time to show Callum and Rayla and what they go through. It’s interesting that the ship was drawn into the map of Xadia, way back when, oh there’s a ship there! We knew we were going to the Frozen North. As we got into it, we made a great metaphor for what was going on in their relationship. In the end, I don’t know if you caught it, but the name of the ship was called “Ray of Illumination.”
Ehasz: Then if you freeze-frame near the end of the episode Ray of Illumination burns and collapses and all you see is “RAY LLUM” as it’s burning and sinking into the depths. Shout out to our writer Eugene Ramos who came up with the name, Ray of Illumination for that puzzle.
Richmond: Both relationships have been really fun and we knew we were going to do the wedding from the very beginning when we got them together. We knew we wanted to have the wedding on the show, just needed to figure out how to make it fun, emotional, but also have a bunch of cool payoff to it. So obviously we have them fight, which seems like the appropriate wedding for these two warrior queens.
AIPT: Are we going to merchandise mushroom hats next? [All laughing]
Richmond: The one we really want to get out there is the Adoraburrs and the Bait-ling Glow Toads.
Ehasz: But yes, the Mushrooms, I wish. [Yells out for Comic-Con to hear him] Attention Plush Makers, please get in touch with us immediately. Let’s make the cute mushroom guys from season six.
AIPT: Did we know that Aaravos was always going to be that f***ing big?
Richmond: Yes. There are hints in the seasons. There’s the bones at the bottom of the ocean and they’re enormous. Those are Leola’s. That’s a hint. In season three, Aaravos is leaning against the Storm Spire when he’s protecting himself in the distance, which means he’s enormous. Even in the show intro he’s picking up the statues and the scale of his hand is huge.
Ehasz: We refer to them as the Great Ones. When we reveal the fate of Aditi, he swallows her.
Richmond: He ate her.
Ehasz: He’s a titan, a Star Touch Titan.
AIPT: All this time I thought it was a metaphorical play on scale because of how big a threat he was. What did Erik Dellums say when he saw how big Aaravos is?
Ehasz: I don’t know, but Erik did an amazing job this season, as always. In particular, being able to lead into his talent as a performer. Not only this person who has this godly voice but someone who can bring a range of powerful emotions. He is loving, sweet, kind and funny and horrifying and vengeful, and all powerful all at once. This season showed how amazing Erik is, a character that can be both a god and have the depth of humanity in Aaravos.
AIPT: I was surprised to see the story with Leola. It almost resets what you feel for him before his arrival. How long was this in the works?
Ehasz: From the minute we said there was a Sea of Castouts, we knew who the castout was. It’s Leola. It’s a sea formed in the mythic history of the world of Xadia. I think we’ve known versions of it, there may have been versions where the castout was a lover or a different connection and then by season four, we said, no, it’s his daughter, but some version of that has been in our minds for a while.
AIPT: Viewers are going to be stuck on season six for a few weeks but looking on the horizon for season seven, it’s not going to be all battles, right?
JR: No. There are battles, but we pack a lot in those next nine episodes.
AIPT: Will there be any themes for season seven?
Richmond: Sacrifice.
Stream episodes of The Dragon Prince on Netflix.
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