Not quite as blatant, but "Game of Phones" isn't exactly subtle either about video games (and smartphones in general) being addictive.
Crack Ship: Piper the elf and old human Nova Terron. In "How to Train a Mysticon" she tells him to sleep tight and when he grunts and walks off, she giggles and says he is cute. Potential for May–December Romance.
A short scene at the end of episode 10 hints Tazma and Dreadbane.
Cult Classic: Although the show has had polarized reception with a not-insignificant number of people, Mysticons has nonetheless developed a very devoted fanbase who love its story, characters, and setting, considering it one of Nelvana's greatest original series and eagerly awaiting for a potential revival.
Evil Is Cool: Necrafa has a quite awesome and genuinely creepy design, and single-handedly turns the army of comical skeleton Mooks into genuinely cool-looking specters.
Arkayna is fairly close to Emerald, even when she was just the royal griffin wrangler.
Zarya and Tazma, given that Zarya immediately brings her up when Piper moons over Nova. Although both Em and Piper agree Tazma is the best. Arkayna, however, does not agree. They take back everything about her after it is revealed that she's evil.
Arkayna/Zarya is another common pairing. While the two of them have clashing personalities in many ways, they also share a lot of similarities, particularly how fierce and determined they both are. Arkayna even mentions in her diary in episode 5 that she's sad that Zarya doesn't seem to like her. There's also a moment at the end of that episode where Arkayna throws up and Zarya runs off to hold her hair back. And then it is revealed that they are actually long lost twin sisters.
Ho Yay: In "All Hail Necrafa!", there's a montage of Ship Tease between the canon romantic couples....and Kitty wrapping her blanket around a sleeping Zarya before kissing her on the forehead.
Jerkass Woobie: Dreadbane, of all people. Yes, he is an undead and unrependantly cruel general who turned Arkayna's parents to bones, but the poor guy is desperately in love with Necrafa, and serves her with genuine devotion even though she clearly sees him as little more than a poor excuse for a henchman and has no problem betraying him even though he actually succeeded in bringing her back. Even after suffering Easy Amnesia, he subconciously cannot let his love of her go, nursed an entire garden in the shape of her face, and suffers a breakdown when reminded of her rejecting him. By the end of the second arc, where he tries in vain to get a sincere declaration of love from her- which she can't even give convincingly even though he just brought her the one thing that could stop her, you can't help but feel sorry for the poor guy. Next season then more it into full Alas, Poor Villain territory by revealing he was once a noble knight who loved Drake City and joined Necrafa because she fooled him into thinking she was a Well-Intentioned Extremist trying to bring peace. The Mysticons then find him having fully crossed the Despair Event Horizon, being reduced to a wreck living in the sewers. He is finally reminded of his heroism and does a Heel–Face Turn, only to then be mortally wounded by Mallory while protecting the Mysticons. He dies performing a Heroic Sacrifice to bring Arkayna's parents back to life, after making her promise she will do everything to save this city he once loved.
Moral Event Horizon: Mallory, Kasha and Willa of the Vexicons cross this in the episode "Heart of Stone". They abandon Eartha, and they only bother to come back for her because Proxima orders them to. What worse was Eartha almost reform and turn to good but Mallory manipulates Eartha by using her misplaced loyalty to her sisters into rejecting the heart and rejoining her sisters. And the fact that they were indifferent to the fact that she could die without the heart and lie to her that they did not abandon her.
Narm: Captain Kaos wants vengeance on Kitty Boone for abandoning him on an island... for three years. Sure, in realityhe would've died in a shorter time frame, but the fact that not only was his ship stolen (and he was outsmarted) by 12 year olds, adding the mythical context of the show (i.e. main characters who are over 100 years old) makes him seem quite petty.
Never Live It Down: Arkayna's behavior in the final episode. With her being childishly jealous that her recently restored mother was paying more attention to the daughter she never knew she had and her mother apologizing for ignoring her instead of scolding her for such immature behavior, she quickly went from being a beloved character to a reviled one, with her line to Zarya, "Mom? Why don't you start calling her that when you actually know her?!" being considered as her crossing the Moral Event Horizon.
Gawayne doesn't care that his father and step-mother are petrified, only caring to be King. He also treats his butler poorly (as seen in "The Coronation"), and in "A Girl and Her Gumlump" when asked about helping others, he immediately dismisses them. His voice is also annoying.
The rest of the episode doesn't help his character, either. The only reason he becomes a hero is for attention, and to be seen as better than the Mysticons. Made even worse when he refuses to sacrifice his armor to save the Realm.
Gawayne's girlfriend, Lateensia, is a completely self-centered brat, just like Gawayne.
Take That, Scrappy!: Following "Gems of the Past", Gawayne's girlfriend, Lateensia, breaks up with him, simply because he's Gawayne. He spends the next episode broken by the break-up.
They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character: Series creator Sean Jara implied that some of this was meant to be explored and would have been had Nickelodeon picked up the series for longer than its original 40-episode run.
Doug, though shown to be both Big Fun comic relief and prepared for Astromancer duties, is shafted immediately and so far has not demonstrated any Astromancer Powers. It would have been interesting to see him use his powers sometime after his introduction.
Tazma is revealed as the traitor immediately. A nice episode to show how she became evil could explain a lot for her turn to the dark side.
There's nothing in the prophecy about royal twins. Nova Terron seems to have interpreted "twin stars" that way all on his own. This seems to be setting us up for it to be Malvoron and Tazma — "twin stars" being a good fit for "Astromancer siblings." It would also have been a perfect opportunity for Necrafa to get around to betraying Tazma (as has been repeatedly foreshadowed) by using her and her brother to fulfill the prophecy. But no one even raises the possibility.
The original Mysticons make zero appearances outside of very brief flashbacks. It's easy to forget they even existed.
While they get plenty of focus and screentime as a group, the Vexicons individually come out as rather flat, one-dimensional characters, with only Eartha actually getting something resembling Character Development while all her sisters, Mallory, Kasha and Willa behave like stereotypical shallow bullies with very little characterizations to distinguish them from each other (though it can be somewhat justified by all of them being Really Was Born Yesterday)
Unintentionally Unsympathetic: Arkayna in the final episode "Age of Dragons". When Queen Goodfey is finally restored to human flesh, she has the memory of her second daughter, Zarya, restored (offscreen) and starts praising and paying more attention to her, making Arkayna jealous. So jealous, that she acts snide towards Zarya and even tells her to call Queen Goodfey "mom" when she actuallyknowsher. To clarify, Arkayna was jealous that her mother was paying more attention to the daughter she had been made to forget about and had just met for the first time in 15 years. Arkayna's lack of perspective, skewed priorities, and the cruel line she gave to Zarya soured her in the eyes of some of the fandom, especially when Queen Goodfey apologized to Arkayna for ignoring her which many felt was completely unnecessary.
What Do You Mean, It's for Kids?: While it is considered a kids show (at least by Canadian standards) it had a lot of dark elements along fairly mature messages and situations that might be difficult for some kids to understand.
. While it has a techno feel to it, it really sets the mood for the series nicely.
