DOTA Season 2 Review: Dragon's Blood. When more is not always better
Yuriy SheremetOn January 18, Netflix released the second season of the animated series DOTA: Dragon's Blood. The 8-episode show continues the story of the dragon knight Davion. The creators of the original author Ashley Miller, and the production was responsible for Studio Mir. The scale has grown, but whether this has benefited the show is a rhetorical question, the answer to which everyone will find on their own.
Introduction to the course
Photo: Netflix
The debut of DOTA: Dragon's Blood took place on March 25, 2020. Since then, a lot of water has flowed under the bridge, and events could be lost in memory. Quickly get things up and running.
The start of the second season originates from the place where the first chapter of the animated series ended: after the battle with the elves, the Davion enclave is taken away by the knights of the dragon order, led by the protagonist's mentor Cayden. The guy is taken to the fortress of the order in order to eradicate the ancient dragon Slyrak sitting in it.
The fallen goddess Selemine is defeated, but not killed: after a fight with Terrorblade, she is exhausted and is held captive by Invoker.
Fimrim pursues Davion on his way to the dragon fortress. Mirana and Luna, exhausted from their fight with the enclave's elves, make their way into the Silverwood.
Next, we will move on to a more substantive introduction to the second season of DOTA: Dragon's Blood. Spoilers ahead, so continue reading at your own risk and peril.
Bigger is not always better
Photo: Netflix
Right off the bat, we get into the second season. And then immediately a problem is revealed that the creators did not solve during the year of work on the sequel - a torn narrative with an unreasonably high pace.
The authors failed to fix the problem, moreover, they aggravated it. Additional characters and storylines were introduced into the story, thereby shifting the focus to third-party characters. Well, they would have been interesting, then such an undertaking can only be praised, but in the case of the second season, everything turned out exactly the opposite.
In addition to the already existing arcs of Davion, Mirana, Luna, Invoker, Selemine, Fimrim, and other prequel characters, the show's creators are throwing in Lina, Rylai, Hieronimo, Iperium Helio, Kashurra, and so on. Instead of revealing the characters of the original, we are offered to follow the new arcs, and not bothering to add exposition where necessary.
With this, “DOTA Dragon's Blood: Book 2” has problems: most of the heroes of the second season are driven only by the desire of the authors to advance the plot. Sisters Lina and Rylai are a prime example of this. The first, needed only to reveal the new main villain, the mistress of Aysrak prepared a much smaller role - she, like a Chekhov gun, fires at the right moment and quickly leaves the stage, giving way to another minor character - Wyntern Wyvern.
Photo: Netflix
Auros (aka Wyntern Wyvern) is one of the few new heroes that evokes sympathy and interest. Unlike the same Rylai, the highest dragon received adequate development in the course of the plot and quite harmoniously fit into what is happening. Unfortunately, you can’t say that about others, but they take up the lion’s share of screen time:
- Kashurra is a new antagonist with no motivation at all. Only exists to advance the Mirana Arc;
- Shabara - the "under-emperor" of the Helio Imperium, who fell victim to the ambitions of the show's authors to make their own "Game of Thrones";
- Hieronimo is a gag that acts as a "funny guy". To be fair, he is sympathetic.
The new characters are not only weak at holding attention and tautly fit into the plot, they drag the old characters to the bottom. In Season 2 of DOTA: Blood of the Dragon, Season 1's protagonists Invoker, Selemina, and Terrorblade are given unfairly little time. We're literally getting a few scenes featuring the aforementioned trinity, which are just for a little cliffhanger next season. And I don’t mention the Father, the mentor of the dragon knights, who merged as lightning fast as he appeared.
Mess in the overall picture is brought not only by new characters, but also by the expansion of the lore. In the second season, we are introducing a bunch of new variables: World Dragon, Dragon Eye, ancient Crystals. The authors of the show were able to add all these constants, but they did not bother to explain their mechanics.
Why Crystals affect dragons, how the Eye of the World Dragon works and why we learn about it only in the second season, although Slyrak must have known about the existence of such an artifact for a long time. Naturally, he does all this with a reserve for the future, but with this approach, the authors of the show run the risk of completely confusing the viewer, killing interest in continuing.
The desire to create a "wow effect" out of nothing led the creators of DOTA: Dragon's Blood to a dead end and the authors were unable to come up with an explanation for their own mechanics. The situation is similar with the technical component.
Driven by your own ambitions
Photo: Netflix
The total running time of the second season of DOTA: Dragon's Blood is 204 minutes. It's easy to add two and two to understand that 3 hours and 40 minutes will not be enough for a competent "packaging" of everything you need.
The authors of the show should be praised: compared to the first season, the second book added to the entertainment. The action scenes look good: the attack of the dragonflight on the dragon fortress, the scene of the killing of Shabarra, the final battle of Kashurra. The action is cleverly diluted with "moments of calm": Mirana's flashbacks, flower fields near Invoker's fortress and Davion's mind chambers, where he communicates with Slyrak.
The action scenes are short and the gaps between them are filled with empty dialogue and static footage. You can also add here the “clip” manner of editing by Studio Mir - gluing is chaotic, and jumps between storylines at the climax cause irritation.
What remains on top is the sound design. The music has not changed since the first season - Dino Menegin is responsible for it, and this is more of a plus than a minus. What is missing from the second book is a new opening. In animated series, he sets the tone, and in the new season we wanted to get an original opening.
When discussing the technical side of DOTA: Dragon's Blood Season 2, we can't help but mention the show's budgets and time to create a sequel. The abundance of static scenes and truncated action scenes suggest that the authors of the show were limited in funds.
Reverent attitude towards the fans of the original
Despite the show's shortcomings, DOTA: Dragon's Blood Season 2 has some positives. One of the strongest aspects of the second chapter of the series is the fan service and easter eggs.
In addition to the obvious flirtations with fans in the face of characters familiar from the universe, the authors of the show managed to put deeper references into it. Their main supplier is Invoker.
In the scene of killing Wardrak, the Dragon of Chaos, Invoker uses the spell known to all Dota 2 players - Sunstrike. You might think that the authors did not give a damn about this episode, since the standard Sunstrike formula in Dota 2 is Exort, Exort, Exort, while in the series the character uses a combination of Wex, Quas, Exort. This is not a blooper.
Photo: Netflix
In early versions of Defense of the Ancients, Invoker had 27 spells. One of them was Soul Blast - a solar energy strike that formed during the sequence of Wex, Quas, Exort, this is exactly the magic that Invoker uses in the above episode. Invoker also uses teleportation spells, which he does not possess in the modern version of Dota 2, and according to the same principle, he teleports Fimrim to himself in the scene where he asks her to kill Selemine.
Another moment with Invokers and references occurs in the scene of their conversation with Terrorblade. The demon shows the magician his versions from parallel worlds, several of them are taken straight from Dota 2. So we can see the canonical appearance of Invoker without cosmetic items and the character in the Dark Artistry set.
Photo: Netflix
Another reference that will play a role in the development of the plot in the future is the crystals in the collection of Kashur. It is easy to guess that they are fragments of the Mad Moon, the prototypes of Radiant and Dire participating in the Battle of the Ancients. It is noteworthy that they are held by Arc Warden, who did not appear in the series, but according to the Dota 2 lore, he acts as a “unifying force”, the progenitor of Light and Darkness.
Another nice detail is the Auros poems. According to the lore of the Wyntern game, Wyvern loves poetry, which is nicely beaten in the second season.
What is the result
Photo: Netflix
The second season of the animated series "DOTA: Dragon's Blood" came out torn, but was created with love for the original: the creators of the show wanted to show more than they could fit in a modest runtime, but managed to pay tribute to the fans of the game. Compared to the first season, the show has added a lot of action, but the balance in the pace of the story is annoying in places.
"DOTA: Dragon's Blood" tries to sit on several chairs: there are love lines, and political intrigues, and showdowns of deities. It's hard for the show to contain the heat of the moment, telling the stories of the main characters and revealing subplots in a condensed setting.
The second season of DOTA: Dragon's Blood will appeal to fans of the original Valve game due to the abundance of references to Dota 2. It will be difficult for a viewer who is not familiar with the universe to keep their attention and follow the many parallel developing lines.
Yuriy Sheremet – Expert in mobile gaming and esports among shooters and MOBA games.
At EGamersWorld, Yuriy, as in 2020 when he joined the portal, works with content, albeit with adjustments to his area of responsibility.