Just happens that I missed a large chunk of the beginning (up to after Brutaris was stolen). Does anyone want to transcript it for me? *Big, shiney eyes*

I liked the for once competent!sidekicks, and what little of I saw of the Army of the Dragon.

Ummm, yeah. I can't really say much more, until I know how it all started. <_<

In a nut shell. Word enlists the help of the Army crew, who are reknowned for their hunting and tracking prowess, to "aquire" dragon representatives of all the colors of draconium. Episode opens with the army crew stealing a dragon from a member of the Dragon fish crew( Dorsul). It is determined that Brutaris, Phistus' dragon, is the last color that hasn't been appropriated. They attempt to warn Phistus but he tells them he can take care of himself. Our gang stakes out Phistus and Brutaris in an attempt to capture Wulph, leader of the Army of the Dragon. Due to some bad decisions by Dragon Booster, Brutaris is captured. Back at the Dragon Temple Mortis and the crew go over what happened and Artha feels that he is blamed. He leaves in a teeny type fit to gather his thoughts in the Wasteland. I think that brings you up to speed.

Thanks. :)

Wish I could have seen it, but I guess it'll be back on next year.

Sounds like it will be a good ep.

I liked it better than certain other eps, but I thought the ending gag was--typically--stupid. Dung is overdone.

And Artha had no reason to angst. He's been given near-absolute power by the writers--an extremely stupid, Mary-Sueish move--and it's been adequately shown that as Dragon Booster he's capable of handling anything. In fact, most of his difficulties are caused by his own stupidity and personality flaws--which leads once again to the whole question of "why did the stupid prophecy choose him anyway and isn't it just authorial contrivance that he has all these uber amazing powers for no good reason", which I'll ignore here as Artha's canon-Sue-ness has already been discussed.

Suffice it to say, my opinion of Artha in this episode was extremely low. Absolute power = absolute responsibility. Absolute power != angsting about it. Absolute power = EARNING it. Really, Lance, Parm, and Kitt are far braver and nobler characters. They don't have Speshul Powers Of Destiny, and they actually EARNED what skills they do possess, but they fight anyway. (Though of course Kitt grates, Parm's a walking plot device, Lance is annoying, and not one of them have personalities beyond their cliches.)

That being said, erm...Marianis had a sexy voice. And yay for Word-ness.

The actual story didn't do so much for me as normal, didn't find anything wrong with it, I just didn't enjoy it as much as usual. That being said it had some great visual stuff. The chromatic dragon looked awesome, I like how its colours changed sorta in waves up its body. Also looked good how they made it all mutated with different shaped lets and stuff. I also noticed when it was running it clipped a corner while it turned, which you would expect if its legs were all wierd and didn't really belong with its body. The purple dragons looked good too, 'specially when they jumped up on Lance. Thought that looked good.

O! And Artha didn't say 'release the dragon!' or do his whole transformation scene when he turned into Dragon Booster! Which was nice for a change :)

I liked this episode myself. It had a darker, more serious mood than most; almost the stellar opposite of "Three Times a Hero." It was literally darker too, with most of the action taking place at night. And Artha being out of the picture for a fair portion of the time I think made it a littler darker and gave more screen time to develop the other characters a bit which I liked. I also liked that the comic relief was sparingly used. That is, of course until the end where I wish they had thought of something else to do besides the poop gag. I know body function humor is guaranteed to make the 10 year olds laugh but come on, would Beau really take a dump in a dragon temple of all places? You'd think he'd have a little respect which puts the gag out of context.

I liked the animation overall, and I like the Army of the Dragon. Would have been nice to see more than two of them (two doesn't make much of an "army"), but I'll assume that was a budget limitation and let it go. The opening sequence was very well done. I hope we get to see more of them.

One has wonder how come Word hasn't figured out that Artha is the Dragon Booster by now. He should have been able to see Lance tossing the armband to Artha on his monitor and then the Dragon Booster appearing where Artha was just moments ago. I'm guessing Word doesn't know what the armband is, especially since Artha walks around in public with it all the time. And Word apparently didn't have his chromatic dragon wired for sound either to pick up what Parmon was saying just then. Still, you'd think Word could put 2 and 2 together, especially since the Dragon Booster keeps appearing when the Artha's friends are around. But then again, Lois Lane could never figure out Clark Kent was Superman.

Minor plot hole again where characters do things the hard way: when Artha misses the toss of the armband from Lance, why doesn't Beau just grab it with a mag energy stream and pull it back to Artha? Weight and range can't be an issue this time. Though I must say I loved the eye roll and expression on Beau's face when he realizes he's going to have to dive for it. Little touches like that are the type of comic relief I like in an episode like this.

Still, I like this episode. Doesn't top "Horn of Libris" but it's one of my own favorities none the less.

"Wish I could have seen it, but I guess it'll be back on next year."

I'm sorry to hear that you folks in Australia and Tasmania will have to wait for so long to resume watching the show. It just gets better and more intriguing in the next 13.

I was involved in a show called " AAArgh! It's the Mr. Hell Show" and it too took it's sweet time being aired in Australia and we would receive letters of complaint from diehard fans. In N.America a cartoon season is usually 26 eps, and they run them constantly trying to squeeze as many viewers as they can out of every singal episode.

In reply to why Word didn't see what was happening - where Artha and Beau fall off the cliff is out of the range of his camera. You can see that quite clearly when you see his screen. Why he doesn't see Lance throw the armband - most likely because Lance is beneath his notice and he was more interested in seeing who his chromatic dragon would kill next. It's a typical villian thing - they are not interested in underlings unless there is a grudge.

the reason that Artha doesn't have the do the entire 'release the dragon' bit is because the armband already has the amulet on it, which means that step has been bypassed.

with the reason that Beau doesn't mag the armband back - as you have already said, there was a chance that Word could be watching them - a small chance, but a chance. so it easier to make Artha disappear completely before you bring Dragon Booster into it. Also, Word wouldn't have realised because that is the only entrance into the place where they are all trapped. Also, you have to remember that Word attacked Penn Racing first, so of course Dragon Booster is going to appear where they are - so he can't count this time as a moment when they are around Dragon Booster. And there would be perfectly reasonable explanations as to why they are around the Dragon Booster other times.

The one I reckon he really should have guessed from is with the psychic dragon where they turned up completely at random.

Clearly Word can't see the transformation so I agree with you there, but my point was that the Dragon Booster appears where Artha was blasted through the wall less than minute ago. That should be suspicious to Word. Plus the gold dragon of legend just happens to be the same shape and size as Artha's red and blue dragon. That should be even more suspicious. Also, in "Pride of the Hero," Artha as Dragon Booster is calling out Beau's name repeatedly in front Word during act 3. It should be really suspicious that the gold dragon and Artha's red and blue dragon happen to have the same name as well. My point was that Word should be putting these clues together by now, that's all.

Of course the same thing could be said about Artha: from Word's point of view, Artha is just an underling as well. The only reason Word has to dislike Artha is that he's Connor's son, since Word obviously doesn't know Artha is the Dragon Booster. Since Lance is also Connor's son, the family feud should extend to both.

But Artha clearly intended to catch the armband whether Word was watching or not. His hand only missed it by mere inches. There's no logical reason for Beau not to help out at that point. My opinion is that that they were safely out of camera range at that point, but if Artha was worried Word was watching, he could have waited before actually putting it on to make sure they couldn't be seen (unless merely touching the armband at that point would have caused the transformation since the amulet was already in place). Diving off the ledge to try and overcome Galileo's law regarding falling bodies and catch up to the armband that would be undergoing random trajectory changes due to air drag makes for a cool looking sequence and adds excitement to the moment, but isn't very logical when Beau could have simply "handed" the armband to Artha.

It was a dead end street to be sure (actually it looked like the same dead end street used in "All is Not Lost" to save on designing a new set) but the Dragon Booster could have arrived from behind the Chromatic Dragon or above. So the hole in the wall wasn't quite the only way in. Strategically, it's always better to attack an enemy from behind, so if Word was expecting the Dragon Booster to show up at all, coming in from behind or above would have made more sense.

Clearly, they scripted it this way because it adds action and looks kind of cool even though it's a bit of a plot hole. Honestly, I find it fun to watch as well, though I'd like it even more if there was a good reason to do it the hard way. That was the only point I was trying to make.

I still reckon Word would have thought that the busted in wall was a good way to get in for the Dragon Booster - especially when he could have been on that side of the city. I agree, it is a plot hole - but when you're attacking the hero's alter ego, you're always going to generate plot holes. There's no way around it.

And unless your villian knows who the hero really is, there is going to have to be some judicious villian looking the other way at some really obvious stuff. My favourite one is how Beau looks the same in both takes - as the red dragon and as the gold dragon. If you have a look at how they have set it up, no dragon unless it is of the same species or crew (like the Army of the Dragon dragons), look in any way the same - so it's rather obvious that Beau is the gold dragon, because his body shape doesn't change between the colours.

I agree with you there: Word appears to be suffering from "Lois Lane Syndrome" and is unable to deduce who the Dragon Booster is. Moordryd appears to be suffering from this as well since he sees Artha suddenly appear at the race track in episode 2 with a red and blue dragon that's the same shape and size as the gold dragon he tried to steal just a short time before. Apparently a dragon changing color is supposed to be so utterly unheard of that no one in the Dragon Booster world would ever think of it, even though it could theoretically just be paint as far as they know. (And I'm still wondering if Lance spray painted that design on the side of his dragon or if it's supposed to be a birth mark that remarkably just happens to look like a 10 year old's drawing of a dragon. :) )

Also in "Three Times a Hero," Word finds out about the Dragon Booster's association with Kitt by spying on him with a wraith dragon. If Word was thinking, he'd have a cloaked wraith dragon follow the Dragon Booster and find out where he goes. Eventually he'd see it's Artha or at least that the Dragon Booster always heads back to Penn Stables. Typical villain blind side I guess.

Not to mention that he knows Kitt is a friend of the Dragon Booster. He refers to her as a friend of Artha's in this ep, yet it doesn't click?

it's a villian thing - unless Artha changes into Dragon Booster in front of them, they are never going to realise that it's him. it's just not something that they do!

No, it's something the writers won't allow, because then the situation becomes complicated, difficult, and interesting.

It's a conflict, really. Either Word is smart, or he isn't.

I find it curious that dragons don't seem to mind helping to abduct and attack other dragons. That comes up in this episode and was also in episode 1 where Decepshun was perfectly willing to help Moordyrd abduct Beau and was all set to drag him back to Word's citadel (at least that's where I assume they were going to head). Of course, there are always humans around who would gleefully do things like this, but would dragons?

What do people think: are we supposed to interpret the dragons in the Army of the Dragon as mindlessly doing what their riders tell them to like horses, or are they like the Prophets where they truly believe that they and their crew know better and will put humans and dragons in harms way out of their conviction to their own goals and ideals?

Once again, it's the 'Pretty Horses' question. Are they, or are they not? They aren't supposed to be, but appart from Beau and the Prophets, pretty Horses are all we see. (Or is Beau the only dragon with a conscience? Being special, and re-born and such.)

Yeah, they're not supposed to be merely horses and I hope that's something that gets brought out better as the series goes on. More episodes like "Track of Doom" would be nice where in addition to clearly intelligent dragons like Propheci, we get to see at least a glimmer of personality from Cyrano, Wyldfyr and Fracshun.

In this episode, it would have been nice if they had showed the purple dragons acting independently a little. There were a couple of places where the riders could have gotten off their dragons to do something and the riders could have given hand signals back to their dragons who could have responded and showed understanding of what was going on. The final scene where Wulph shows up to help Artha is one such place. When everyone provides a diversion so Artha can break the artificial bone mark, they could have had all the riders get off their dragons to add to the confusion of the diversion and the dragons could have been shown acting independently to help out at that point. The attributes of the purple dragons listed on the web site are supposed to be communication, tracking and intelligence and I would have liked to have seen that more in this episode.

I'm going to hope there are some stories coming up that will develop the personalities for the other dragons along the lines of how they've shown Beau so they don't continue to look like mindless horses. Say a story where Artha and friends get separated from their dragons for some reason and each group has to work out a way to get back with the other in order to resolve the conflict of the story, or maybe a story like "Three Times a Hero" where there are separate tasks that need to be accomplished in parallel and it makes sense for the humans and dragons to split up and work independently. I'd like to see something like that.

Perhaps the writers aim to represent dragons and humans needing each other in order to be effective. I mean, conversely, no human's ever achieved anything significant so far in the series without using a dragon, right? They seem to be driving home a point that EVEN IF dragons are completely sentient and enslaved and abused, emancipated dragons...won't quite be. We've never seen a dragon without a rider, though we HAVE seen lone humans managing to act. Even Propheci needed Reepyr.

So even if dragons are freed, they'll still need humans. And there'll always be human-with-dragon, with no lone dragons (and only slightly more lone humans).

Which still is a sort of slavery.

I think you're right about the writers having humans and dragons working together. The value of teamwork is probably the most prevalent theme in the series and I'm sure that will continue to be the case. I think they could still show that point and have the humans and dragons splitting up in some stories when needed to accomplish some goal since that's still teamwork. It would give them a chance to develop some sort of personalities for the other dragons which would be nice to see.

Naturally of all the characters, Word is only one that doesn't regularly make use of a cooperative partnership with a dragon. In 13 episodes, he's only seen working with Abandonn once. He enslaves dragons as wraiths and gets other people and their dragons to do his bidding, but he doesn't choose to use teamwork with a dragon himself. I'm sure this was set up to show the counter point.

If the series has an actual conclusion as we hope it does, my guess is that the world will end up with dragons and humans back in the symbiotic partnership that's alluded to in the mythology that describes the "Atlantean" era. The mythology talks about dragons and humans each being a part of the whole, a sort of yin and yang relationship, and if I've interpreted that correctly, it would mean that both would need each other to be truly effective. That doesn't seem too far fetched to me given that the two species evolved together and that's how symbiotic relationships form. The mythology says that draconium produces energy when in the presence of a life force and that the mere presence of a human would add to the power. That would give a dragon a pretty strong motivation to want to hang out with humans, especially since the weight of a human rider would be insignificant to them. (Well, except maybe for race marshall Budge. His dragon may be a little unhappy...) That would offer an explanation as to why the Prophets, for example, still want to have humans around. Plus I would imagine a dragon would find it handy to have someone around with fingers and thumbs from time to time. :) Even my dog is able to comprehend and appreciate that fact whenever he's got a thorn or something stuck in one of his feet.

The whole human culture of this world is centered around having dragons, so if the dragons were to walk out on them, the whole human society would probably collapse. Given how dependent the culture is on dragons minimally for transportation and all the heavy lifting, I'd say virtually everyone would want to continue having dragons around. So I think the human motivation for wanting dragons around is pretty clear.

I think the logical end point for the story (assuming it ever gets there) would be for the dragons and humans to be back in the mutually cooperative partnership talked about in the mythology, even to the point where all dragons get to choose which humans they want to hang out with just as Beau did. That's pretty much the way it would have to be to shed all the elements of slavery with neither side dominating or controlling the other.

One thing I find interesting is that the selective breeding to diversify bone colour is presented as an entirely (so far as we've seen) bad thing. "And over time they bred the pure gold draconium bones of the dragon into more deadly energies--red, black, and worse." I can see them doing something like 'undoing' all that breeding and transforming all dragons into the Perfect Gold Draconium bone colour. It's also hinted at, by the Union Of Our Heroes (plus Moordryd) possessing all of the main colours of draconium influence, that union of the different bone colours is going to be the point. Yet, of course, the breeding of dragons also led to a certain individuality. How can they condemn that?

It will be interesting to see if they will avoid/stop the war by turning all dragons back to gold again as was done in the first war. I kind of hope not since they already told us how the first war was stopped so it's like giving away the ending this time around. So I'm hoping they have something else in mind. Whatever it is, I'm pretty sure it will involve some sort of team effort to combine energy from the major draconium colors along with Beau's special gold dragon of legend powers as you pointed out. Whether all dragons will be turned back to gold again, I don't know.

You're also right about the selective breeding being presented as a bad thing. I'm just taking a wild guess here, but possibly the creators of the show were thinking along the lines that the selective breeding itself was an ill-conceived form of control over dragons and that makes it bad. There is a small element of truth to this if we look at dogs. There a number of diseases that are by-products of selective breeding that don't seem to occur in wild canids. Hip Dysplasia common in German Shepherds and Gastric Dilation (commonly known as "bloat") which occurs mainly in large breeds are two examples. Though I sincerely doubt the creators were considering things like this. But they may have been thinking in terms of the control aspect.

(And yeah, my 200th posting. I get my Academy badge now. :) )

Forcibly breeding sentient creatures doesn't sound like much fun. You're right about the diseases point, though as I doubt the writers had that in mind I'll ignore that.

Turning dragons back to gold, to me, sounds extremely anti-individualist. The different bone colours seem to suggest different personality types, and the gold a more homogenous society. And is there a message in there that specialisation and diversity are implicitly wrong? From where I'm standing, it seems very much that way.

(OT: I wonder if orange dragons are used beyond the Prophets crew? In 'The Chromatic Dragon', Word presumably used orange dragons, yet we may take it that he can't know about the Prophects crew, because he would have to fight with them. I haven't seen any orange dragons other than from that Crew, though of course due to bad video quality I may have missed this. And if orange dragons are not widely used beyond the Prophets, did Word not have to use them? Because the colour has special properties?)

Yeah, and if he had to use ALL the colours, how could he get lihgt green. (In "If it Ain't Broke" he said he didn't know where the Keepers crew was. :blink:

maybe word found some bones of a dead light green bone dragon...
parm did say that word must have been gathering bones of dragons of all the colors...

gather the dragon rainbow... <<

Nice theory, but I'm pretty sure it was shown in the ep that Word had actual dragons of all colours, hence the need to take Brutaris and Dorsul alive...

He did. I counted them and he had all 12, including an orange dragon that's clearly visible. Whether that dragon is from the Prophets crew or somewhere else is unknown. Other than here and in "Track of Doom," we never see any other orange dragons, so we know they aren't commonly running around if nothing else. Of course, we never saw purple dragons until this episode, so it's hard to draw conclusions.

Other tidbits from this scene: the black dragon looks like Coershun, the brown dragon looks like Rumbull (that's how it's spelled over at tvtome.com) and the blue dragon looks like Khatah's. Whether they are supposed to be those characters or just similar looking dragons is unknown (especially since all the purple dragons and all the orange dragons except Propheci look alike).

Yes, if you look at the site there are some definite qualities of the different bone colours--for example, Wyldfyr and Phorrj can both run on their hind legs and have three claws per foot, Cyrano and Brutaris both have the cloven hoof-like feet, Coershun and Decepshun have four claws on front legs, three on back, and huge ears, Shock-Ra and Fracshun both have a very distinctive claw-design and similarly shaped heads, etcetera. I think dragons with the same bone-colour are meant to look reasonably similar, but I don't think it really matters whether the dragons Word got were Khatah's and Kawake's or not since the dragons escaped and both those characters distrust him now anyway. But since the orange dragons are part of a legend, a real legend with teeth that would surely bite Word, and the light green dragons also don't seem to be generally around in the city and would also be an interesting find for him, it strikes me as most odd that he was presumably able to obtain these dragons without the accompanying obvious plot fodder.

If the black dragon was Coershun, then that's interesting...how far would Cain go for Moordryd/Word?

Yeah, and they said Word was collecting the most powerful of each colour... why wouldn't he use Abandonn?

That, I can buy. There was a chance, however slight, that Word's experiment would fail. Word's a smart guy. He's not going to use and risk his powerful Abandonn when he can simply use another black boned dragon to produce results nearly as good, and certainly powerful enough for the needs of most.

yeah, I guess you're right

It's possible that Abandonn isn't a straight black draconium dragon, he might be a chimera/hybrid. Kinda like the Murhorta sounded when it was introduced.

So he wouldn't have been able to use Abandonn without some sort of weird unexpected side effect that he really wouldn't want to happen.

Yeah, we don't really know much about Abandonn. When Artha first sees Abandonn in "All is Not Lost," he doesn't even seem to recognize him as a dragon. Artha's line of dialogue upon seeing Abandonn is something like "... with whatever that is!"

I think it's pretty safe to say that dragons like Abandonn are extremely rare since, among other things, none of the road ways in the city are big enough. He might be one of a kind, perhaps the product of Word's own selective breeding program.

Those like abandonn yeah but not his size, the grey dragon (which brings up how got one of THOSE for his chromatic dragon) and the two huge orange dragons that Propheci sicked on artha and company.
When I saw them I got the impression that they might be very old to be that large. Some creatures grow throughout their life, and legend hints that dragons don't leave their prime even in extreme age.

As my book dragons for dummies say dragons live up to be 5000 years old or more, they can start to breed when 100 years old, and the females are the rarest

so my guess it that abandonn, the grey dragon, and two huge orange dragons maybe from the dragon humen war that was over 3,000 years ago...

but hey what would i know i'm reading a book for dummies :huh:

Yeah, you gotta wonder about those extra large dragons. Since they went out of their to say that Beau is the same age as Artha in episode 1, I get the impression that dragon life spans and growth rates are supposed to be about the same as humans in general. After all, Fracshun seems like Lance's age, for example. However, those king size dragons might be older as you say. The closest thing we could look at in the real world would be the largest dinosaurs, but no one really knows how long they lived. The general guess I've read is that the large dinosaurs probably lived 30 to 100 years. Assuming that's correct, then a creature could theoretically get that large within a human life span. Or, since this is a fantasy world, they could be really, really old. :D

Hi, I'm new. but you know that already.
Actually, considering how the show sometimes focusses on the bond between rider and dragon wouldn't it be reasonable to assume that the jumbo-sizes are un-bonded and not constricted to the life-span of a human?
I think that when the draconium energies of human and dragon are compatable, a lifebond is formed. Abandonn doesn't seem to follow any specific class of dragon. It's a safe bet his draconium is black, but he's huge and covered with muscles. He doesn't have the long arched neck or slim, almost emaciated look of Decepshun, Coershun, or any other of the class that the Dragon-Eye crew seems to ride. So Abandonn most likely is a product of Word's selective breeding.
Remember in 'The Horn of Libris' how it occasionally showed the scene from Libris's view, and the aura of energy that surrounded the humans he looked at. Parmons energy is green, and he rides Cyrano, a green Bull-class. Khata's was blue, Kitt's is red, Artha's is gold, Lance's was blue, and Moordryd's was a darkish purple.

That's the idea around a story I'm thinking up at the moment. When they turn the dragons back to gold, the energy expenditure is too great for Beau and Artha (which prevents them appearing, as they both die because of that). But rather than grateful and all 'Yay let's go back to Atlantean world weeee' the newly Gold dragons are pretty confused as to what just happened. They only thing they do know is that the humans havn't been as good as they said they were in the past (If YOU were ridden around and routinly smashed into signs and the like, what would be your feelings towards the responsible?). So the Prophets (Propheci in particular) step in, rally the dragons (except the few which side with humans, which unfortunatly leads to Kitt's demise when she tries to protect Wyldfyr from the Prophets), and kick off a dragon-human war.

In fanning the flames I saw an orange non-brain-exposed dragon, it got trapped in the bottle neck. But he might have gotten a propheci. They are actually a recognized down city crew (also in fanning the flames I saw their banner in the council hall) Which is scary because it implies that the propheci have a hand in down city (their humans are serving them willingly mostly) And would probably be riding a 'lesser breed' with a covered brain.

Also, as to the Propheci having humans, well they are useful for grooming, splinter removeal, and of course, talking.

but I think it's the most telling reason why Dragons are constantly used. Think about it. Dragons have no way to pass on their history besides 'word of mouth.' And in Beau's case (or gold dragons in general) some weird sort of memory thing going on.

And that's why they are subdugated. They don't have any history, and without history there is no socity.

As to Libris seeing draconium energy around people, well the suits are made of draconium.

I'm confused, I've noticed that, when they try and stop the Army of the Dragon from getting Brutaris, Kitt obtains Ferryt's marking gear after hitting him, and she used it and marked Pursoot. But later on when they're trying to find the missing dragons, they look at the wrist thingy and there's two dots.
Why is that?

And also when Artha, Parmon, Lance and Kitt are at the deadend facing the chromatic dragon, when Artha says "that's the ugliest dragon I ever seen, guess Word couldn't decide on a colour". Lance comments "that's Brutaris?" as a question, but he saw that it was Brutaris, so why did he say it like that?