I thought it was a pretty good ep. I think it was interesting that they had a disabled character, because that isn't usually done in kids' shows.

I liked this episode, too. I put it in the "fun to watch" category. While the story is a bit shallow and this episode doesn't contribute the overall story arc of the series or any of the character arcs, I still enjoy watching it. The Drag Ball game at the start is very well done and just plain fun to watch. Including the instant replays was a great idea to give you the feel for being at a televised sporting event. And it doesn't even cost them anything since it's just the same animation rendered a second or third time from a different camera location. Even the opening Drag Ball titles were just the same animation from the game but with the lighting on the characters turned off to give them the silhouette look. Very nicely done.

I do have to give them points for introducing new games at the right intervals. Just when the regular dragon races were getting a little routine, they introduce the Horn of Libris challenge. Then as things were getting a little routine again, they introduce Drag Ball. It impresses me that they could anticipate that and add new games at the right intervals. I imagine we'll be seeing more new games in season 2.

And of course, Beau looked way cool when he used the power of the Furox. I was happy to see this as I originally wasn't quite sure what they meant when Beau "absorbed" the bone mark in the previous episode. I wasn't sure if they meant absorbed in the sense of adding it to his own set of powers or absorbed it in the sense of neutralizing it completely. So now we know it's the former: he's got all the strength and power of the Furox on call when he needs it but without the bad attitude. It's nice that Beau gets a power this time that actually follows on from something in a previous episode. I find that much more satisfying from a story perspective than when he gets a new power out of nowhere. And I like the design they came up for Beau in this episode, too. It's different than the one they used in "Pride of the Hero" and I like it even better.

Even though the fall down the fissure is beyond believable (how deep and how wide must that fissure be for them to fall for so long without hitting the bottom or sides?), I still enjoy watching that sequence. The animation on Beau when he was climbing out with the others in tow looked really good. The way his shoulders and legs moved really gave the illusion he was hauling a lot of weight.

Of course, it doesn't really seem to make sense for Word to have to con Kawake into digging for him. Even if Kawake does have the strongest earth-class dragon, it seems that Word could more easily just hire a bunch of guys with shovels to do the work, especially since the black draconium was so close to the surface. And surely someone would have noticed the black draconium when that support pillar was originally installed. And since Kawake recognized it as being dangerous, wouldn't he have turned right around and buried it again? Also, if black draconium is so rare that Word has to use a plan like this to get a relatively small amount (enough to make 100 wraith dragons doesn't seem like a lot when he's trying to take over the entire planet), then where has he been getting his previous supply from?

Oh well. As long as I look away from these issues while I'm watching, I actually enjoy this episode quite a bit.

By the way, could anyone catch the name of Kawake's dragon? All the crowd noises tend to wash out what Parmon is saying right then and I can't quite make out the name.

I thought it was pretty good too. I'm glad they used another character to get this ep's particular moral across instead of twisting Artha's personality in order for him to show it. While he does do something wrong (getting mad at Kawake for not scoring the goal) it's understandable and not out of character.

The Drag Ball was really exciting. I think they even managed to get some pinball into it. And, yeah, how they made it look like a televised sports event was really well done.

Of course, Beau's Furox claws got used. Which look so cool :D

Fave funny bits: Moordryd grabbing Cain's head, shaking it and yelling "Do something!!!" Plus when they were falling down the crack, and Artha tells Lance to use the rappel gear. And Lance says: "Why?" *Zoom out* "Oh... this is why." :lol:

This is the second time I've seen them use the device of "long fall comes to sudden stop", which, of course, tends to snap necks (a la comicverse Mary Jane). I'm no physicist, but I at least know that little fact.

I enjoyed the ep. Lance and Kitt were useless yet again (and I really don't think Kitt's attitude problem is at all endearing), and the gag at the end was eyerollingly predictable. But I was interested to see Word turn on the charm for Kawake (ah yes, Word Paynn the man-whore strikes again), and overall it was quite well done despite several moments of falling into cliche (Word's Mwa ha ha, the Kawake/Artha scene at the end, etc.).

It was interesting that Kawake was represented as being from a different culture. I wonder if Dragon City is the whole world? It seems that some of the Crews such as the Inner Order and the Will of the Dragon have separate cultures to Dragon City in general. Maybe that's just because of the ancient-draconium-empire thing, or maybe it's because of some immigration to Dragon City...yet, no mentions have been made of other cities as far as I know.

I agree with you on the last joke, Sarah. If they don't have a good joke they should just not put it in. It annoyed me more because Lance shooting out the rappel gear into them should've just ended up with him swinging between the two dragons, not fling them up 15 feet to hang off some convinient outcrop.

Slightly off topic, but was anybody from the OF reminded of a scene similar to the one where Word was trying to convince Kawake to help him?

Rumble. Don't be asking me for the spelling!

Have yet to see more than the first five minutes of the ep, so can't say much more.

I'd say Dragon City is the whole world, because otherwise why doesn't Arth have to do any hero work anywhere else? Or is the rest of the world perfect?

Yeah, some of the episode didn't make sense, but I was still curled up and squealing happily at it. Dragball = Good, bleedin' heck it was wonderful to see the mismatched team work between Moordryd and Cain. 'Specially loved the last part where it was Cain that scored. It was a surprise for me, because normally MainBadguy takes credit for all, in some way or form. Instead it's the lackey character...hooray...!

I loved the whole disabled angle. I was not expecting that, I thought he was afraid of heights or something like that...but no. He's disabled. It was one of the few times I'm not able to predict an outcome, and it surprised me greatly - as ShadowCat said. So not normal for a kid's show.

YES! WORD THE MANWHORE! He is a bad man. Pictures I want to draw :P 'Nuff said. Though cue the wtf look on my face for the grey draconium mining and the obviousness of the situation about the support, the town and how digging underneath it may make the sandcastle fall...it didn't seem right. Buuuut I pushed that aside and squealed much like everyone else here at the eyecandy, the kewlsieness and general silliness of supporting characters.

Filler episode, true. But without the bad, how would we truly enjoy the good?

Umm, on the last question, I think the city is just that - a city. Word is in that city right now, so it makes sense the Booster is in the city as well. I mean, Connor knew that his old study-buddy (cue stares from everyone) would joyously kick up merry hell so figured he'd set up shop there as well. Most of the world seems so far to be a wasteland, so what we're probably seeing is a post apocolyptic world that has started to get back on it's feet agan.

Or it's just in a desert. If it was a massive city, then how in the world would Artha be able to get everywhere (no pun intended)? How would they get out side to see the struts? I think there are a number of different towns close to sustainable sources and slowly growing and cultivating after the original war that probably devestated everything. Remember that draconic energy was the primary source of fuel for the world they live on. Thus; with virtually no energy due to some prat saying the wrong thing and everyone deciding to take out their anger on their neighbours...you get smaller cities...where the original factions settled down, and probably then moved from settlement to settlement until you got today's world.

I have to admit that when I found out that Kawake was disabled, I was worried about how they would portray disabled people. They did a good job.

I liked Drag Ball as well. It's good to see them doing something besides racing!

Ah, thank you. That sounds right now that I know what to listen for.

It was good, wasn't it. The game appears to be part polo, part Rollerball (for those who have seen the movie) with a little bit of pinball thrown in as you say. Looks incredibly fun to play. And I think they did new music for that sequence as well. Love watching it.

It is pretty rare. Disney had a few disabled characters in Gargoyles. There was one recurring character who was in a wheelchair, a blind character who was in two episodes and also one of the main characters was blind in one eye. This series premiered in 1994, so they were pretty forward thinking. The others I can think of are in series aimed at older audiences such as "Family Guy," "Dilbert" and of course, "South Park."

I wonder if Kawake will turn up again in a future episode. They developed his character pretty well (more so than say Pyrrah) which tends to say yes, but on the other hand he's not included in the list of characters on the web site which suggests possibly a one time appearance. I guess we'll have to wait and see.

And we might be waiting a while yet. Still no word here on when season 2 might begin. There's nothing but re-runs in the schedule through May 19th at least. I hope they're not going to wait until September. That would suck.

Well, I've finally been able to watch it, and I have to say I enjoyed most of it. That closing gag was spork-worthy, but them's the breaks.

I, like everyone else, really liked the drag ball.

I'm wondering why the crowds always boo Moordryd? They don't know he's out to start a war, his Crew is supposed to be powerful, and he's the son of one of the city's richest. Most racers would want a sponsorship from Word, so why ruin their chances by alienating his son?

I liked that bit of past that they gave Word, more possible incentive? He was shunned despite his greatness, and even though his wonderful gears and manuvers are being used today, he still seems to be despised by his peers.

You would NOT like TV in Australia, then Furox. Things don't get repeated!

I wonder if Moordryd getting booed is simply because he's not known for being the cleanest street racer. So far, he's the only one we see using the energy draining whip on opponents during a race, plus he launches those strange gear eating creatures at Artha in episode 2, and uses the disrupter flash and other stun gear. While all this is apparently within the rules, perhaps the fans are just reacting to his style.

One other thing I wanted to mention about the Drag Ball game: I was glad to see they portrayed the dragons as being active participants in the game instead of just dumb polo ponies. Even Coershun looked to Moordryd when he was telling Cain to mag-blast Artha at the start of the first round, so Cain's dragon is paying attention to the strategy especially since he's the one that's going to be doing the mag-blasting. And of course, Beau scores a point himself so he's obviously into the game. They really need to show the dragons acting with intelligence and purpose more often (like Propheci) otherwise a dragon-human war couldn't really happen since the dragons could never organize themselves sufficiently. At least they scripted a little bit of this for us here.

And yeah, re-runs are a funny thing. Most people, including myself, generally greet re-runs with disappointment since you're not getting a new episode of something. But on the other hand, they are really handy to have around if you miss an episode either due to travel or because you didn't discover a show you liked until mid-season (as happened with me when I found Dragon Booster). I rarely ever watch a re-run (I can tell in the program guide they're coming up and just ignore them), but it's really nice to know they're there in case I need to catch up on something I missed.

Call me naive, but I seriously doubt that Moordryd is the only 'dirty' racer on the track. What about all that ramming, mag-blast fighting and those stick things?

Oh, indeed, darling innocent Artha only fights in self defence, but we see most of the other racers bashing it out amongst themselves (except for Kitt. Even though she's the bestest racer on teh stweet, she's apparently not worth trying to knock out of the competition.

So, all those racers that bash and fight and squabble 'boo' Moordryd because he bashes and fights and squabbles? Artha fought right through the mall with him, why don't they 'boo' him, too?

And Kawake's comment "Nothing good." in response to Moordryd's question of "And perhaps you've heard of me, too?". Um, hello? Does he keep his head in the dirt with his dragon's? Moordryd just got an award for bravery or whatever, and saved the city from 'wraith dragon attacks'. Nothing good?

You score a point by bringing up Moordryd's hero-ness, but I think that overall he IS dirtier than the other races. (And this is also actually TRUE. See also, wraith dragons). Perhaps Kawake didn't trust the news reports' bootlicking of Moordryd Paynn?

I didn't mean to imply that no other racers ever fight or pull tricks on the race course. It's a matter of degree. Some crews are known to race cleanly, like the Inner Order, and others are known for using more tricks. Each crew has their own style. The crew description on the web site says "The deceptive and tricky Dragon Eye Crew is one of the most powerful and feared Down City crews" and if that's the way the fans feel about it, then it seems to me that it would generate some boos.

Though I think the real reason the boos are there is to quickly communicate to the younger viewers who the "bad guy" is supposed to be, especially for people who are watching their first episode in the series. It also sets up that Moordryd isn't supposed to win the game (since "bad guys" aren't supposed to be able to beat the "good guy"), but he wins anyway. It could be the writer was just trying to highlight that little twist as well since Moordryd's victory is what propels things into the rest of the story.

I agree with you.

On that note, I thoguht it rather interesting that the /Boo-ed villian/ not only won the match, but played cleanly. Okay, both Moordryd and Cain were more agressive and violent then Artha and Kwake, but it really wasn't that bad...

I guess you're right, Furox, but it seems to me that 'boo'ing is an odd way to show fear and 'respect' for power.

You ARE Right about it being for the benefit of kids, who apparently can't tell that Moordryd's the bad guy from the pale skin, scowl, monobrow, black clothes, and 'evil' voice. *Sigh*

Yeah, I thought it was cool that they won, without using wraith dragons. :D

The drag-ball game takes place in Squires End, which is a blue-collar area of the city. The crowd was booing Moordryd because he's a rich kid and in their opinion has been given an unfair leg-up by his father.

One interesting thing about the start locations of all of the races and competitions is that it is always Budge's Starting area. ( Sometimes re-configured to allow for the mechanics of the event, such as the jousting tournament in EPS 04) Budge's start platform was designed to move vertically up thru the levels of the city and rotate to connect to other streets above and below.

Budge is a racing promoter and entrepeneur, so it makes sense from a business standpoint to be able to bring the races to the public, as well as all his refreshment stands and merchandizing kiosks.

Squire's End? Blue collar? Dragon City security won't go to Squire's End because it's the gungiest part of the city.

And it's fairly evident that Moordryd doesn't feed of his father's wealth. He's worked far harder to get to where he is than Artha 'The Chosen One' Penn.

Yes, but do the crowd know that?

Me, I think it's better that they have the crowd showing a bit more recognition of ImportantMan Word Paynn than they did in 'Pride of the Hero'. While I think Moordryd does actually work harder than Artha, it's an easy assumption to make that Daddy bought him everything. (And let's face it. He wins nearly nothing without help from wraith dragons.)

But the crowd doesn't know that.

I just like that they gave Word more motive. Even if it's shaky, it's there.

There are grungier areas. Squires end is supposed to be South Central LA. Alot of gang activity but still a place where wage workers can afford to live. Kitt lives there.

Yes, so I read. I find it difficult to believe that it's both the scungier part of town, and a perfectly respectable area to live.

Why would wage workers chose to live in a place that the city security won't even patrol? Doesn't sound like the best place to raise a family.

You sound like you work on the show? Well, as a viewer, I didn't get a sense of South Central LA, but that's most probably because I'm Australian. I got a sense of Melbourne's Ganglands, or of a place where you go when you can't afford to go anywhere else, ie average Joe doesn't move there by choice.

I didn't get any sense of it being patterned after South Central LA either, though it's worth pointing out that "South Central" covers a number of communities in a large area and it isn't all bad. Among other things, the University of Southern California is located there and someone I knew lived in the area while attending USC and said he never had any problems walking on the street alone at night in the section he was in. There are safer and less safe sections to be in.

Well, they haven't shown us the 'nice parts' of Squires End, they haven't mentioned it on the website, or the episodes. This is the first I've heard of it being respectable in some areas.

Agreed. If that's what we were supposed to get, it's not coming across.

People live where they can afford to...respectable or not. Squires end was a community before the gangs took over.

That would be more effective if we were told/shown. The writers may know every useful thing, but we don't.

i guess it makes sense that people would hate the Paynns based on their weath, i mean you really don't have to look past how we treat the rich of our era. It's pretty unsurprising that people would instantly assume Moordryd lives just as luxuriously as his father, though it's obvious they've never been to the Dragon Eye compound ^^, but then again, wealth or not, I've never yet seen (though i won't say it doesn't exist) A group of teen males who've been able to keep a living area tidy to save themselves.

I didn't even consider Budge having a NAME let alone a concept, admittedly, I'm rather interested every time he pops up, I just forget afterwards ^^

"That would be more effective if we were told/shown. The writers may know every useful thing, but we don't. "

The South Central / Squires End comparison is valid in the sense that they represent home turf to most of the gangs. ( Pyrah's home base may be the exception, but originally her fire cave was supposed to be accessed through Squires End).

I think that the writers have tried to make it clear that Squires end was gang turf. They may have been lax in explaining that regular folks still live, work, shop in that area as well.

Yeah, that's about it. We got the gang turf bit loud and clear, but not the other.

Because a cg production is quite expensive, production companies like NerdCorps, have to limit the scope of the stories as far as sets, fx, and characters are concerned. An area of the city, like Squires End, will become more populated during the course of a series as new characters and generic crowds are designed and built for important story points in subsequent episodes. The key phrase is
" important story points" as that usually determines if a street gets designed or crowds get built etc.

Yeah, it's kind of unknown how big Dragon City is and whether there's much population elsewhere. The impression I always got was that Dragon City is to the world what New York City is to the rest of New York state. Namely New York City is the biggest city in the state by an enormous margin and totally dominates the political and all other aspects in the state to the point where it eclipses everything else. I get the feeling that Dragon City is the same way. It's huge and probably makes the rest of the world look insignificant, but there are other cities in the world and maybe even down right rural areas. There's no information in the show to tell us this, so this is just the feeling I get from watching. I grew up in the suburbs right outside New York City and then went to college in upstate New York, so I know the feeling of how New York City relates to the rest of the state and Dragon City gives me the same feeling.

Drag ball reminds me of a cross betwen netball, pinball and rugby for some reason. It is still Drak.

I was bored during physics today so I crunched the numbers on this one while I was supposed to be doing work. (My teacher shook his head when he walked by and saw things like "Dragon fall vector" and "Avg. Dragon mass" written on my paper.) This involved a lot of unit conversion, since Imperial is used more in the show, but all the physics formulas are metric. (I don't do metric too well, so feel free to check my work on those all you non-Americans.) I timed the sequence from the start of the fall to Beau catching them using the timebar on youtube. 75 seconds. (Yeah, I was like 0.o when I saw that too.)

Assuming that the DB world has roughly eqivalent gravity to Earth, the dragons would've fallen a total of 28.125 Kilometers (17.4 Mi). Their total speed at the bottom would've been 750 m/s (1,677 MPH or Mach 2.2 :eep: ) I pegged the total mass of the three Dragons at 30 tons (Thanks to the stated average weight of 10) And it took Beau a staggering total of four seconds to stop them from the time he grabbed the cable. This means that Beau would've had to exert an impulse of 30,618,000 Newton-seconds, with his teeth. For a frame of reference there, think of five tractor-trailers going at standard dragon velocity, (200MPH, ~300KPH) those trucks would have to stop dead in less than an inch of braking distance to have the same stopping power.

As for Parmon's assertion that it would take too long to pull them all out, you'd better believe he's right! Eyeballing it from known character heights and Dragon proportions, it appeared that Beau's stride length while pulling them was about 1 meter (3.2 feet) with 2 strides per second. At that rate, it would've takenBeau almost four hours to pull them out.

Oh yeah, and to displace enough air to propel them upward for the few yards that he did, Beau's wings would each have to be the size of a football (soccer) field.

Sooo... What did I learn?
-Beau's wingflaps are apparently somewhat larger than they appear
-Beau's teeth are roughly Seven times harder than diamonds.
-One of the powers of the Dragon of Legend is the defiance of the rational laws of motion.
-Lance's white rappel gear cables are stronger than those that hold up the Golden Gate Bridge.

Yet still, as you said, fun to watch.

*Rolls on floor laughing*

I'm sorry, but I just got to do this because of the above.

Mmm, your math looks pretty solid. However on the lift and Beau's wings and strength there of (of everything actually) you neglect the fairly unknown forces of Mag Energy.

Not sure on the teeth, but on Beau's wings I have my own therory.

We know about Mag energy and it comes from Dragons, generated by the Draconium in their bones. It's how they run so fast, and, I bet, how they manage to stay upright and not sink into the ground. (Dragon city is one thing, but on the plain old ground? More than footprints)

Full Mag inversion, reversing gravity, is apprently really hard to do--for humans--in a sphear shape. However, we see dragons doing that all the time in a sort of polevaulting sort of way. See Wraith Beau doing his mag jump.

Look at Beau's wing fins, he has these stiff spars in them giving them their shape. I suspect that this changes the shape of his mag feild, 'projecting' it outwards much further than his physical body due to the orientation of the rods. So he's flying around on energy/magnetic wings. That very well may be the size soccer feilds.

I propose he'd suck in flight in low draconium areas.

On the teeth thing. I used to have braces. I was told on good athority that they used the same glue to stick the braces on to teeth that they used to stick tiles onto the space shuttle.

They popped off. All. The. Damn. Time.

Teeth, or at least jaws, are pretty damn strong, even on beasties like us. but that doesn't explain the extent.

I hadn't considered Beau's other abilities, mainly because ancient draconic is so hard to plug into motion formulas. As for the braces thing, yes, jaw muscles do tend to be very strong in general so I don't doubt that Beau could hold his grip, however I do doubt that his teeth and skull could take the strain. However, his bones do contain Gold Draconium, and I am unaware of its metallurgical properties, so perhaps that explains this conspicuous strength.

I also had braces once. I never really had trouble with them coming off. And I was told on good authority that they used glue designed to stick braces to teeth.

I got a very doubting question i watched again this episode but my question is when beau gets a grip is it the spirit of furox he kinda look alike

I personally feel that it's unlikely that Beau tapped into the power of the Furox to gain the claws and such to climb the wall. His attributes looked more similar to Earth-class dragons, it's probably another one of his hidden 'release the dragon' powers, a great many of which remain unknown, and few of those that have been used have official names.

Other examples of these include: The vortex barrier he uses to go >200 MPH, (Always makes me think of DBZs "it's over NINE THOWZAAAAAAAND!") his red and blue disguise, the strange merging ability he used against the Prophets, the mag linking he and Artha defeated Drakkus with and used to break out of the wraith gear in the Stand, among others.

However, to avoid crushing the dreams of Furox fans, (Namely Furox himself...)I'm forced to admit that there has been no official word one way or the other on the question of whether or not the Misjudged transformation had anything to do with the Furox Bonemark absorbtion earlier on. So let the specualtion continue.