A Tail of Two Dragons

What does it mean to have binged two shows with the word Dragon in their name over the last two days?

Perhaps some obsession with the winged beasts.

Probably just highlights the surfeit of fantasy content ever since Game of Thrones became an international phenomenon.

While few have benefited more than I have over the excess of fantasy content, the reason for following up my 8-episode binge of Dragon's Blood with a 7-episode binge of Dragon's Dogma was simple.

I craved more.

That's not to say that Dragon's Blood was a masterpiece of storytelling and writing, which had me begging for more of its inconsistent dialogue and ill-defined character elements. It had torn my heart apart with its action-driven finale. I was left empty by the intensity of the final few episodes, and its cliffhanger ending had me begging for more. I needed closure. I needed answers.

And I needed more.

SPOILER WARNING FOR DRAGON'S BLOOD AND DRAGON'S DOGMA

Dragon's Blood

Maybe Dragon's Blood doesn't do everything right, and some of what it doesn't do right, it does very wrong. However, the way the show subverts expectations, without abusing the rules they set for the world, is something that fantasy storytellers need to emulate more often. Dota 2 Dragon's Blood is a masterpiece in plot twists and creating complicated characters but its missteps muddy a plot that I wish was better served.

It is one of the few shows in which I repeatedly felt that they would say too much, and also too little. Most conversations feel overexplained, to the point of the dialogue feeling inauthentic on multiple occasions. This detracts from otherwise well-developed and complicated characters. On the flip side, when the plot needs to be unclear for its convenience, it will casually underexplain situations. When Mirana walks away from Davion for siding with Lina, it feels out of character considering Mirana had been a deeply understanding character throughout the plot. Most notably displayed through her relationship with Luna. Mirana giving Davion the cold shoulder in that situation does not seem in character. It comes off as either a forced emotional moment with no true backing to it or to conveniently move the plot along. Both are representative of bad writing. Even if this moment was supposed to show that she is acting out of character because of her disappointment, the conversation does not represent this in a cogent fashion. These issues with the dialogue are infuriating and lead to the plot becoming confusing and inconsistent. For a character-driven story like Dragon's Blood, those character moments need to be just right. However, just like the first season, it delivers all its build-up in well-designed plot twists that take advantage of the viewer, their preconceived notions and bring it all together in an emotionally charged finale.

It feels important to state that I was an avid Dota 2 player, and the characters from the game all hold importance and meaning for me. The death of Lina, a character from the game, was more than just a shock to me.

The cutaway from the final fight has you believe that Lina would get away, as all protagonists always do. The shot of her dead on her throne later was a brilliant decision, made to play on those who believed she would escape.

Years of storytelling had led us to believe she would.

Just episodes previously, they had another major character Mirana put in a similar situation. She had been shot by an arrow that had seemingly killed her, but it is unlikely that any audience member thought she was dead.

Because they never kill characters from the game.

Season 1 of Dragon's blood did no such thing. Its rival, Arcane did no such thing.

But Season 2 did.

Plot twists can fall flat when they attempt to surprise the audience without regard for the rest of the story. This was not just some twist made to be surprising. It was surprising, yet it still fit in the rules of the story we were being told. It's hard for plot twists to still surprise nowadays, but this one got me. It was unexpected, intelligent and drove the rest of the season to its emotional finale.

Most of all, it left me craving more.

Dragon's Dogma. Luckily, Netflix had another Dark Fantasy with Dragon in its name. I've had my eye on this show for a while, and it finally felt like an appropriate time to immerse myself in its world. I haven't played its video game for more than an hour so I was not as familiar with its adaptation as I was with Dragon's Blood. I anyway hoped it would fill the hole that Dragon's Blood left.

And fill that hole it did.

I didn't go into Dragon's Dogma with high expectations, and the dialogue in the very first episode still disappointed me. The characters in the first episode who are supposed to be the main character's wife and adopted son talk like they're NPCs from an early 2000s video game. Which is a strange way to pay homage to the source material. Their conversation was so jarring it was difficult to feel anything for them, even when the dragon that attacks their home kills them both, setting Ethan off on his vengeance quest.

The story that Dragon's Dogma attempts to tell is simple, but intriguing, nonetheless. The Dragon killed Ethan's family to drive Ethan to rage. Ethan's journey to the Dragon takes him through the worst of humankind, and each episode is named after the seven deadly sins that Ethan will experience and become increasingly detached from his humanity. Culminating in a battle with the dragon in which the Dragon admonishes Ethan for coming after him. Claiming that Ethan's family was gone, and there would be no gain from the vengeance. Yet, Ethan went through with killing the dragon, likening Ethan's actions to all actions that had made Ethan lose faith in humanity. Ethan's vengeance quest was based on pride and was no better than all the other failures of humanity. The story seems to say what most revenge stories say, that vengeance causes no good but instead of going through the usual theme of vengeance leaving us empty after it is completed, Dragon's Dogma claims that vengeance is driven by Pride, therefore making vengeance a sin in itself. It's a captivating idea, and I'm glad I watched the plotline unfold as the larger story is a fantastic arc. However, the execution of the smaller details to sell the weight and impact on Ethan are insufficient.

While Ethan does originally react appropriately to the loss of his family, it seems to have no impact on his personality. We do not see an impact on his personality until the end of episode 3 when he believes the companion he was traveling with got killed. Then he gets overcome with rage and has pretty much an overnight shift in personality, even when he finds out his companion survived. From there on out the progression of his character is smooth and well done, but the original swing from kind to cold-hearted is sudden.

The show tends to suffer from these big swing moments, and the most egregious of these comes in Episode 4, when a seemingly honourable soldier, Balthazar swings to an antagonist too quickly. While there is some precedence for the switch, the moment in which it happens is so sudden it's almost comical. It is made worse by him swinging back to his original personality five minutes later.

While I do think Dragon's Dogma has an intriguing idea for its plot. For a story built around a character's internal journey, that plot has to be smoothed out and near perfectly told for the story to be impactful. The bigger issue with this show is the dialogue. The dialogue could be awful, and the first episode is the biggest culprit of this. It's really hard to feel the way you're supposed to about characters when their dialogue is near robotic. The story Dragon's Dogma was supposed to tell, was tough to tell. I wish they told it well but I do not believe they accomplished that.

Wrap up

What did I learn from my double Dragon binge? The most epic arc in the world means nothing if the character moments along the way do not feel authentic and consistent. I also learnt that sometimes, the best way to fill a craving for fantasy is to just dive headfirst into the next fantasy world, and hope it says just enough interestingly enough, for you to forget about the first one.

I'm glad I watched both of these shows. The characters and overarching plot in Dragon's Blood are masterful even if some of the details are not up to par. Dragon's Dogma did effectively get my mind off of the emotional turmoil that Dragon's Blood had sent me through. Mostly because of my internal monologue about the morality of vengeance. Is vengeance always based on pride? Or can vengeance be just? Or even if it is just, perhaps the idea of that justice is based on pride anyway. I don't know the answer to any of these questions, but I am grateful that Dragon's Dogma has me asking them.