The Antagonists of The Dragon Prince, Part 1 — Viren

New video out now on TimeCapsule!

Shain Slepian
2 min readApr 13, 2024

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I have discovered that I ship Viravos. And I’m just as disappointed as you are.

This video is going to be the start of three videos dissecting the big three antagonists of The Dragon Prince: “It is everything to me, to know that I mean something to you, to know that I matter. It’s all I ever wanted.”

It’s interesting… And I don’t know what it means, exactly.

It feels thematically out of left field. We’ve had this strong working system of motivations going. Love creates fear; fear sparks a will to power; and the will to power leads to violence. Makes sense to me.

This introduction of something more — maybe recognition, a need to be seen or desired or important — it’s not something I was expecting.

Of course, “Mystery of Aaravos” can’t just reiterate the themes of the first three seasons. This is a heavily theme-based series. To justify the need for more story, we need more exploration of the theme: it needs to be more tangled and complex.

So, seasons 4 and 5 do that, I think. The motif of sky and the freedom it represents is replaced with the motif of ocean, which we’re told exemplify bonds and trust.

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Shain Slepian

Shain is a screenwriter and screenplay editor. For more content, follow their blog and check out their YouTube channel, TimeCapsule. shainslepian.com/