I really enjoyed ‘Horn of Libris’.

The dialogue was the best it has been yet, as was the storyline. Kitt was back to her original episodes 1-2 coolness, Parm is cute when he’s awe-struck, Lance got to behave like a ten year old, and Artha didn’t have some major personality kink for once.

I liked the Horn of Libris tournament thing, it was actually very easy to understand how the track worked. There were no ‘Wonderful Hero saves Cute/Pretty but Otherwise Useless Sidekick’ moments, the animation looked really good, and the eyes in the giant Moordryd head was a great visual gag, I got a real kick out of it.

Also, for some reason, I really, really liked the Libris' mouth. Yeah, anyway. :)

Moordryd behaved like a sixteen year old that gets bossed around by his dad and told to do the crappy jobs would do, without going so far as rebelling. He had one or two weak moments character wise, but that pales in comparison with the weirdnesses that Artha's been prone to in order to give the episodes a moral.

All up, 'Libris' was a great pick up after the mess of story that was 'The Stand'.

Yeah and Beau trying to be secertive and knocking Artha, Parm, Lance and Kitt down then being grabbed by Artha had me in stitches..

That was the first episode that I've watched, but it was really cool!

I'm glad you liked it! 'Horn of Libris' is my favourite so far.

Greetings!
Yeah, best ep so far I would say. Libris's mouth was cool and it actually looked like it was made of bone (obviously the point, but was pulled off well). Also had people falling over alot, which for some strange reason I absolutely adore. I love in anime when people fall over, but the half 3D animation made it even better. And Parm did something sortof brave. Yay Parm!

That was a funny episode!!!!!! I think it was Lance that had the best lines in that episode "You do know that I'm ten," I was in stitches at that point :lol:

I loved the way Libris looked skeletal, that was one awesome dragon alright, not to mention downright enormous, I found it comical that Boa looked so small in comparision.

I liked the way Moordryd was portrayed, the way he did put down his weapon, where as in most shows the evil guys tend to be damn stubborn which is usually their downfall. I think that Moordryd will end up potraying his father, either for the good of man and dragon kind or to become even more powerfull and evil. Moordryd has a cool purple aura...just felt I had to mention that.

I'm guessing that the coloured aura's were ment to represent the colour of each characters' clan or something like that, but it could be something more profound plotwise.

And Parm!!! :wub: SQUEEEEEEE!!!!!!!! :wub:

I think it was something to do with the colour gear they were using...

Hey, now that you mention it you're right, I didn't notice that, I really should be more perceptive :) Doesn't their gear relate to their clans though? It seemed as though they felt it being sucked from them or some other bizzare experience.

They never really explain this well in the series, but it's in bits and pieces on the Dragon Booster Web Site. In a nutshell, each different type of dragon has a different color of dacronium in their bones. The bone color in turn determines the color of the draconium energy the dragon has. Beau is a gold dragon with gold draconium in his bones and he has gold energy. Cyranno is green, Wyldfyr is red, Lance's dragon Fracshun is blue, and Moordryd's dragon Decepshun is black (which they represent throughout the series as a purple aura since it's kind of hard to show a black aura).

The riders apparently pick the gear they wear to be the same color draconium as their dragons for maximum compatibility. For example, Artha's Dragon Booster armor is stated to made out of gold draconium. Also, the mythology section of the web site seems to imply that the dragon's draconium energy rubs off a bit onto their riders from close association. So each human has some amount of draconium energy that matches their own dragons.

They're pretty vague about what the gray bone dragons are about, but apparently they're trying to say that gray is a neutral color relative to the other colors of draconium in the sense that it contains equal amounts of the other colors. For example, a gray piece of paper appears gray because it equally reflects light of all colors. So a gray bone dragon's energy should be an equal mix of the other colors of draconium energy. In "Misjudged" it's stated that gray draconium is highly compatibilty with any of the other colors of draconium which is apparently why Libris could draw whatever color energy he wanted from the others.

Also, given how the writers like to change vowels in names, I'm pretty sure the name Libris is derived from Libra, the zodiac sign represented by the scales, to indicate balance or evenness of energy in this case.

Apparently, as Parmon says, Libris' energy is out of balance for some unstated reason (a plot hole) and for some further unexplained reason, this is making him highly combative. The imbalance seems to cause him to be drawn like a magnet to whoever is fighting, perhaps because the fighting emphasizes their draconium energy and his own imbalance pulls him towards that. That's the best I can figure anyway.

Beau fixes the situation by drawing the various colors of draconium energy from the humans present, which is similar to what he did in "Fanning the Flames" where he drew energy from the other dragons present to get enough power to break loose the bonemark of the Furox on Phorrj. He gets gold energy from Artha, red from Kitt, and so on, and applies it all to re-balance Libris' own energy. You'll notice that the last aura that appears around Libris is grayish-white apparently to say all the colors are now in balance.

Well, this didn't really turn out to be a nutshell explanation, did it. :) But I'm fairly sure this is what we're supposed to get from what happened in the episode.

I was impressed by how well they did that, too. I like the fact that they never need to bother to explain the rules for any of the games. I think it's animation/cinematography at its best when they can communicate everything you need to know through the visuals without having to have the characters standing around and reciting the rules of the game in what would no doubt be a boring scene.

I think it works so well here for two main reasons. First is just the excellent cinematography. When the race begins, they gives us the nice wide establishing shot of the pyramid structure so we can see the levels of the track. Then we're shown how the targets open the ramps to the next level. Then after a few of these where we see the racers progressing higher, they pull back again and zoom in to show us the goal point. It's all becomes so obvious without anyone having to utter a single line of dialogue.

The second reason I think it works so well is that the Horn of Libris challenge basically works according to video game logic. The writers know they can safely assume that just about everyone in the target audience for the show has played a video game and knows all about hitting targets, throwing switches, etc., to open doors to advance to higher levels, so they don't need to dwell on any of that. In many ways, the race we're shown is shot just like demo mode of a video game would be. To me, this has always been a mark of good writing when the writers can hit the mark as to what they can assume the audience already knows and skip forward to the chase.

Anyway, I really appreciate cinematography as an art form since it can make something that would otherwise be bland (like standing around and explaining the rules to a game) and turn it into something that's visually exciting.

And there's another new game coming up in "Misjudged." Instead of a race, this time it's a full contact team sport called Drag Ball with two humans and two dragons on each team. And again, they just show us a couple of plays and it's obvious what the rules are. The cinematography this time is just like anyone has seen at any televised sporting event, with instant replays from different camera angles and so on. Very well done, plus it looks like a fun game to play!

Such a COINCIDENCE that all the main characters in the HeroicGang © have all the main draconium colours (red, blue, green, and that OMGSPESHUL gold), isn't it?

It's probably some ancient prophecy. Or something.

Why should they trust all the ancient legends any more than people trust legends on our own world? Plot. Hole.

Moordryd is like canon!Draco. He's black which is OMGEVUL of course (because, you know, there's no way anyone who's intelligent/ambitious/cunning could actually be GOOD), and he's tied to Daddy's apronstrings. And he tries so hard and him and Word are actually competent, and they LOSE, because of something which really comes down to Authorial Contrivance: the OMGSPESHULNESS of Artha Penn, Heir to the Gold Draconium Powers Of Legend. (Excuse me. I'll be over there, throwing up.)

Now, while I like my villains competent, I don't like them losing fo no good reason. SHOW the heroes winning by something more than a moral lesson along the cliched lines of "Friends Are Good"; something more than TheChosenDragonHeir; something more than contrivance. Because it's heartbreaking to see characters lose simply because their opponents have more power than them as a result of some Destiny or the other, and really makes one feel sorrier for the bad guys than one should. (See also, Draco Malfoy, popularity of.)

(Sorry about the ramble.)

Lol! Yes it does have quite a few plot holes, but I'm happy watching it. It more than makes up for it in the humour department.

We haven't talked about the Libris-sized plot hole in this episode yet, so let me throw this out for discussion:

Khatah has known all along about the Horn and how dangerous it is for the wrong person to get their hands on it. So why does he keep giving the horn back every year? He could instead conveniently "lose" it, destroy it or substitute a replica. That way he wouldn't need to keep winning it back year after year.

One might argue that this would dishonor the Inner Order crew if anyone found out what they did and their sense of honor would be a motivation not to do such a thing. But one could counter argue that bearing this relatively small amount of dishonor is nothing compared to the greater good of the world. After all, as far as everyone else is concerned, the horn is just some old trophy as Moordryd says, so it wouldn't be that big a deal if he "lost" it. That little bit of shame would be nothing and he'd have the greater honor of knowing he protected the world. (Funny how subjective honor can be depending on how you look at it.)

There doesn't seem to be a plausible way for the writers to argue their way out of this one. Anyone see one?

*nods* You're absolutely correct. I especially like the 'replica' idea. Unless there's some sort of mag-tech enabling the distributors of the trophy to be able to tell the difference between a fake and a real Horn, or some sort of device which summons the real one in case of loss, (and why would there be if it's so forgotten) that artefact should have been dealt with by Khatah or one of his ancestors a long time ago.

I missed the end of that ep, so I'm not sure if the Horn was permanently destroyed or lost or what. Maybe some sort of mag-tech as mentioned above meant that Khatah's crew were unable to destroy it? (Of course, the explanation of exotic mag-tech is like the ultimate plot-hole papering equiment in this world.)

It's virtually a maxim that honor = stupidity. Or rather, classically understood notions of honor/chivalry/etc tend to be stupid. Characters should recognise that the end can justify the means, sometimes. Then you get Shades of Grey and lots of yummy ambiguity and sheer cleverness on the part of the characters.

Khatah recovered it. Moordryd was not seen on screen again once Beau borrowed some of his draconium energy, so I guess we're to assume he beat a hasty retreat and wasn't around to stop him. In the epilogue scene, Artha suggests turning the horn over to Dragon City Security and Khatah agrees. Of course, the competence of Dragon City Security is unknown, especially since we were told in episode 1 that there are parts of the city they won't venture into. And it begs the question as to why Khatah didn't turn it over a long time ago, unless he was convinced that no one would believe him and they might try to use the horn just to see what would happen. At least now, Khatah's got witnesses as to what happens when you use the horn, so perhaps it's easier to argue now that the horn be placed in a very safe vault.

Thank you very much. :)

My goodness, that's another plothole. Word's a Very Important Man, isn't he? How much of a hold would he have over Dragon City security? Why couldn't he steal it again? Of course, I don't EXPECT the horn to come back up--it would be too repetitive in terms of story structure--but IMO that's not a very good way to leave such a potentially destructive item, and Word is silly to not think of another way to get it. And of course Khatah was silly all along. Maybe something to do with ancient tradition/honor? Some of those are pretty stupid, and one can drag in real-world religious people who hold some seemingly illogical beliefs.

Interesting you should mention that because that was the other topic I was going to bring up about this episode. Is Libris likely to show up again in a future episode?

We know the writers are setting various things up for future episodes. For example, I think it's a certainty they're going to do something with Conner/Mortis. I think it's very likely the friction between Word and Moordryd will grow and take a turn at some point. We know Moordryd got hold of the bone mark of the Furox in "Fanning the Flames" and he's going to do something with it sooner or later (more sooner than later, actually). So I've been wondering what else they might be setting up. One possibility is bringing back characters that have been introduced so far for a second appearance.

In the first 12 episodes, there are four characters that have the potential of coming back as allies to Artha and Beau in future episodes. Actually, one is a certainty because it says so in the episode guide and another is a virtual certainty because of what's said in the dialog. So it seems likely there could be other returning characters. This is pure speculation on my part, but Libris seems like a possible returning character, but this time as an ally.

It's just the way they wrapped up the episode that made me stop and wonder what they might do. In particular, after Beau cures Libris' bipolar disorder, Beau and Libris have this back and forth conversation in dragon-speak. This is the first time we've ever been shown a two way conversation between dragons. Without subtitles, we don't know what they said, but the inflection they put in Libris' voice and the body language the animators used looked to me like Libris was asking Beau a question or two. It seemed to go on way too long if Libris just wanted to say "thanks for fixing my energy imbalance." Then Libris bows to Beau (out of respect, gratitude or both) and trots off. Maybe this episode just came up 30 seconds short and they needed to throw in some more animation to pad it out, but the other possibility is they put this in for a reason, namely to tie in to a future episode. We are also shown Artha placing the horn in a location where he could get at it if need be. We know from "Three Times the Hero" that Dragon City Security is willing to work with the Dragon Booster similar to how the Gotham City police cooperate with Batman, so it's believable that he could get the horn from them if he asked, which means he could call in Libris for help if need be at some point. Given how they wrapped up things between Beau and Libris, it appears Libris would be inclined to help if called. Like I said, this is pure speculation on my part and I could be completely wrong, but it just seems like too much stuff to all happen at once for it to be a coincidence, which makes me think the writers are setting something up.

So what do others think? Do you think we might see Libris again in season 2 or 3?

Actually, I've changed my mind now. (Damn missing out on the end of that episode!)

If Libris is now on the side of the White Hats, I can see him being summoned back and participating in some great battle (especially if a dragon-human war actually starts). I just thought that it'd be repetitive to bring him back and have the whole "big crazy dragon problem" fixed for a second time. So that's my new theory: that he'll be brought back after some big quest to recover the Horn from Word/Security and save the good guys. That, or they leave him out rather than repeat his role. Perhaps the conversation between Beau and Libris was merely intended to show a sentient dragon as an example? After all, to remain internally consistent they HAVE to stop making the dragons into pretty horses. (I think a riderless dragon would be the perfect example of this, as we see humans acting without their dragons yet not dragons acting without their riders, but aside from Libris-the-supernatural-creature there hasn't been one and probably won't be.)

I think there will be some sort of split between Moordryd and Word. While my fondest dream would be for a completely!redeemed!Moordryd (and Artha/Moordryd would, I think, automatically make the show very interesting and Revolutionary-with-a-capital-letter), which would thematically illustrate the possibility of redemption and break the "black = evil" thing which I see building up, I'd place my bets on a Moordryd who doesn't like Word or Artha and is still rather evil, but will cooperate with whatever suits him at the time. The Furox will reappear, I'll bet. And, of course, the Connor/Mortis thing is going to be dealt with, and maybe even some details on the Word/Connor past.

Of the "two groups" you mentioned, would they be the Keepers and the Prophets? Phistis?

That's one thing I'm mildly disappointed about is that they don't seem to bring the other dragons into the character dynamics at all. Aside from Beau who we see interact with Artha and actually has a personality, all the other dragons just seem to be pretty horses.
What I would like to see is some of the other dragons actually having a personality, interacting with other dragons and interacting with thier riders/other humans.

I've said before (elsewhere) how much I want to see the dragons with personalities, but maybe the writers fear that they'll steal the lime light from Beau. (NOT a reasonable excuse.)

I would like to see the Furox return in a future episode, it would make sense for the charas to use contacts and allies they make, especially ones as powerful as Libris.

It would be a good move to have Moordryd 'reform'. Not only would it develop plot in new and exciting ways, but it would give Word a better motive than 'I vant to rule the vorld! Mwa ha!'.

And I like black, and am not evil. :P

Yay for black :ph43r: Though I'm not sure if I'm evil or not...

If Moordryd 'reforms' it could only be to a certain extent. Turning him fully good guy would just squash his character.

Ah, but he'd still be the Moordryd we all know and love, he'd just be a threat to Artha in an entirely different way. Becoming good wouldn't squish his character, it would develop it, which is what a show should be all about, or at least to an extent.

I cannot see Moordryd being fully good. Good for his own purposes perhaps. Plus I like him being evil. But I would like him even better being 'stuff you dad, I'm going to help the good guys because a dragon/human war is *really* a bad idea, ok, mostly because I'm tired of sucking up to you'. I would probably not like him as 'O no, dragon/human war EVIL, therefore I must be GOOD'.

If he went good, that'd most likely be the reason. Of course he's not going to develop a conscience overnight. But get pushed too far by Word? That's already happening.

Ok, am in agreement with you. Just don't want him becoming another sterotype good guy.

Me neither! I can't think of a single thing worse! *shudder*

I wanna see him snap, that'll be good. :D

I'm completely new to this board, but I think i might have a new point here, a point of interest...

I watched Horn of Libris from a character creator's point of view. i LOVE Dragon Booster becasue it's so everything you're not supposed to do in a cartoon... And man, i create the things...

On the Moordryd good guy thing. Big no no, never happens in anything but fan fiction, I don't actually know where Moordryd will go, but he will never be good...
But...
A convention is to feed your audience small snippits of the gradually building future, hello, our five main colours were all represented, (The website lists all the colours, but in a shadowy corner it also states there are five main colours overall...) Red, Green blue gold and black... When Beau sucked the energy out of the riders, my internal cartoon fututre plot meter when psycho. It grabbed me and screamed in my ear "HERE ARE THE FIVE CHARACTERS USED TO STOP THE WAAAAR!" Predictably it was Artha, Parm, Lance and Kitt, already a mighty strong team of hero types... but Moordryd floored me. I'm blinking in startlement and surprise, he'll never be a hero, he's wearing too many dark colours, and if he does you eliminate your man antagonist... but... but...

I was so sadly over excited by this... *shame*

Welcome to the board!

Of course he'll never be a hero type, but yeah, he's clearly needed for his energy. As leader of the Dragon Eyes, maybe his black energy is stronger, or something.

And he'll have to help out at some point, when it becomes evident that a war puts him in danger, maybe?

Yes, exactly! Bringing Libris back and have them repeat what they've already done would be an awful story. That's why it looked to me like they're setting him up to be a future ally which would be a new and welcome direction to go in.

That's what I'm hoping as well. Though Libris could also be brought in at the beginning of a quest. In mythic hero stories, it's not uncommon for the hero to gather allies in act 1 before setting out on the quest (e.g., Lord of the Rings). Let's say for example, that Artha had to penetrate some fortress of Word's to accomplish some task in order to foil Word's latest evil plan. But the fortress was guarded by a horde of wraith dragons. We learn in the first 11 episodes that neither Artha nor Beau are yet capable of fighting off multiple wraith dragons at this point, so recruiting Libris as an ally to run interference with the wraith dragons while Artha and Beau accomplish their task would work well. There's even a number of little plot turns you could throw in to such a story (Word has someone else steal the Horn in order to keep it away from Artha, so part of the group splits off on a mini quest to recover the Horn and arrives at the fortress just in time to summon Libris for the act 3 battle, so on and so forth). Could make a great two part episode.

That's very possible as well.

Stay tuned for "Three Times the Hero" and "The Track of Doom". I won't spoil the details, but Wyldfyr takes his first (but too brief in my opinion) action independent of Kitt. In "Track of Doom" we see that perhaps Cyranno has a personalty after all as well. Plus we also meet the crew of the Prophets which are quite different from other crews.

That's my bet as well. I posted some of this over on the tvtome.com forum already, but my thought is that Moordryd will split from Word and form his own third camp with his own agenda and oppose both his father and Artha. I could also see the possibility of Moordryd and Artha forming temporary alliances (for the duration of an episode, say) to jointly oppose Word when it's in their mutual best interest. It seems like the type of thing the writers would want to do. Without conflict, there's nothing to write about, so having Moordryd suddenly becoming a good guy takes too much conflict out of the story line. Better to keep him opposing Artha on some level since it allows for more story possibilities. In any event, try not to miss "Pride of the Hero."

Good bets!

Yep. Those are the ones. Ranking them in order of liklihood to actually come back as allies in future episodes, I'd put them down as Stewardd/Keepers Crew for certain, then Phistus/Grip of the Dragon Crew, Libris, and Phopheci/Phophets Crew. That's my call anyway.

Me, too!

There is some of this coming up in episodes you will see shortly, though not enough to really suit me. The writers do have the difficulty that it takes a lot of screen time to develop a personality for a non-speaking character and they've apparently decided to give all that time to Beau at the moment. My hope is they'll start shifting to the other dragons now that Beau's personality is pretty well established. Though then again, they may have decided to keep the focus on Artha and Beau since they're the stars of the show.

The way I'd like to see it done is to have more episodes like "Fanning the Flames" that focuses a good deal of time on one rider and their dragon. That gives them some time to show interaction between the two and develop the dragon's personality a bit more. Unfortunately, they missed several opportunities in that episode to get some reaction shots from Wyldfyr regarding what was going on. Its too bad they didn't think to do that since we could have gotten an idea about what Wyldfyr thinks.

An example of a good sequence for doing this type of thing is at the start of "Misjudged". As I mentioned in an earlier posting here, this episode introduces the game of Drag Ball, which is a team sport with two humans and two dragons on each team. Not surprisingly, Artha and Beau are the main players, so we don't get to see the other dragons play, but it works well since the game requires that Artha and Beau to interact even more than they do when they're racing. We see Beau assist Artha in scoring one of the goals and Beau scores one goal on his own. It's a nice little plot device to show the dragons thinking and acting a bit on their own.

Hopefully we'll see more of this in season 2.

Perhaps by season two the writers will be satisfied that we've got a good enough understanding of Beau's personality, and dish some out to the other dragons.

It doesn't make sense for the other dragons to be dumb animals, because then the show's main plot is pointless.

Good! It seems that they have barely given the other dragons any screen time. So far you can barely seem to even get a good look at them, which I find increadibly annoying seeing as the animation for them looks sooo good and I really want to see them long enough to check it out properly.

I hope they do develop the dragon characters more. Beau's personallity and everything has been pretty well established I think they can do some of the others without subtracting from him and Artha.

i think they're easing us through the introductions, I mean, it's aimed at younger viewers so only a few characters are dribbled in at a time. The humans will be related tot he kid's own mindset more so we'll go throguh them then start adding dragons

True. As long as they get around to it, I'm happy. The show is still halariously funny. :D

And so unexpectedly! I love the humour side of it!

I know! I actually like Horn of Libris so much because everyone fell over so many times. Which for some reason I find insanely funny... :lol:

You know I didn't quite pick up on that at the time, but I think you may be right. There's more coming up soon in the story that further foreshadows this, so I think you may be on to something.

Well then, good news! The next episode up for you folks is "Three Times the Hero" which is a more light hearted episode with more comic relief.

Our next episode here is "Chromatic Dragon" which airs this weekend. It's the first new episode they've shown in a month, and it's out of order from the episode guide on the web site. Apparently, there's a production delay at Nerd Corps on episode 13 (and who knows, maybe others as well). I'm hoping that means episode 13 is an effects laden extravaganza (but it could also be due to something as mundane as them having relocated to a new office or something during that time).

A lot of people have been saying that 'Three Times a Hero' is funny, so I guess they can't all be wrong. :)

Just so long as the 'Spunky!Girl!Sidekick gets kidnapped' thing isn't done in a despicable way. <_<

I think the thing I love about the humour is it's unpredictable. After spending a good chunk of my life analysing cartoons and character development, you get to know when the jokes are coming and what they are, but Dragon Booster never ceases to take me by surprise. Horn of Libris, got me three times, the peering over the edge, the "you DO know I'm ten" and the eyes int he background. Which is amazing, most series can't even get me once during a whole SEASON!