Have you been watching Netflix’s Original The Dragon Prince lately? No? Then you should start immediately because this show is the best I ever saw since Avatar.
This unique animation is created by one of the head writers of the popular show Avatar: The Last Airbender. From the Wonderstorm studio, created by Aaron Ehasz and combined with Justin Richmond best known for his work directing Uncharted 3. The Dragon Prince follows the journey of two siblings Callum and Ezran, who are princes of the kingdom Katolis. After discovering the legendarily lost dragon egg, they form an unlikely alliance with the elf assassin Rayla who was sent to kill them. Each episode delves deeper into their adventures to deliver the dragon egg back to its mother to restore the peace between the nations.
One major character I was surprised about and very delighted to watch is General Amaya. She is first introduced in episode 4 titled “BloodThristy”, she is Queen Sarai’s sister and aunt to Callum and Ezran, she is fiercely protected by her family and loyal to her kingdom. She is also a disabled character, she is a deaf woman of color who uses American Sign Language to communicate. Even though she is deaf the show does not make a big deal about it, she is a great example for all other disabilities people. She leads the Standing Battalion, one of Katolis most powerful armies and on the battlefield, she uses her shield as a battering ram to deliver blunt attacks to her enemies.
While in reality, many disabled people couldn’t read lips General Amaya is skilled at reading lips. Gren, her close friend, and lieutenant serve as her sign language interpreter. Even though she is only support and secondary character, her character is memorable. Nowadays, in the media, there are rarely any disabled characters present and if they are the portrayals are often downplayed or not related to the story. General Amaya is essential to the story and fierce in her own way, she uses sign language and most of her soldiers understand her. To make the character more relatable, the showrunners used two ASL interpreters to make sure the sign language is accurate. Fans on Twitter loves General Amaya and some even want to start learning sign language. Television is a form of escape and seeing yourself represented, this is very refreshing watching so many diversities appearing on the screen and portray as strong amazing characters. The Dragon Prince portrays many subjects beautifully aside from disabled characters, they showed queens as rulers, some mental trauma dealing with parenting manipulation and racism. If you are sleeping on The Dragon Prince wake up and start watching! You won’t regret it!
JessieClexaFlash 