Malefor. This guy's been interpreted in practically every way possible with the fandom, some of which include; him bullshitting through his teeth when he delivers his speech to Spyro note mainly because he claims to have had control over stuff and manipulated Spyro and Cynder to such a degree that it would make LightYagami jealous, him not actually believing it's the Purple Dragon's fate to destroy the world, and has a different motive for wanting to go through with it, him just being batcrap crazy, him being batcrap crazy because his elders put so much pressure on him to explore his powers as the first Purple Dragon that he finally snapped note which makes his "Not So Different" Remark speech to Spyro all the more chilling considering the amount of pressure the Guardians put on Spyro himself, and him wanting to destroy the world so he could recreate it in his own image... And that's not even going into some Draco in Leather Pants theories...
Some feel that Spyro and Cynder's relationship isn't based so much on love so much as they view each other as living emotional crutches thanks to the fact that up until the final battle they don't really show any signs of deeper feelings beyond a possible friendship, with Cynder being quite snappy with Spyro at points throughout Dawn of the Dragon. Factor in all the trauma Cynder has and how Spyro claims that he has nothing left to fight for when Malefor turns Cynder against him despite having Sparx, Terrador, Cyril, Volteer, and several others counting on him...
Base-Breaking Character: Cynder, ironically because of how popular she was with the fandom initially. Even disregarding Classic series fans or Shipping Wars regarding her and Ember, her fans tend to grate on people who didn't like her, were originally neutral on her, or even liked her originally due to them playing up her past to Wangsty levels, and for the fact that the number of Fan Works focusing on Cynder and/or her pastvastly out number the amount of Fan Works that focus on any other Spyro series character, including Spyro himself, to the point he ends up being Demoted to Extra frequently. There's also a third camp that insists she has potential as a character as well, if people would just stop focusing on her Dark and Troubled Past and more on her growth as a character, pointing out how even Dawn of the Dragon had her as a bit short tempered and snappy with those around her.
Fans either thought the dark tone fitted Spyro, or hated it and wanted to go back to the lighthearted days.
Within the TLoS fandom, there's whether or not the statements by Jared Pullen, the lead artist of the trilogy, on what they never got to put into the trilogy proper should be accepted as hard canon or not, especially after years and years of popular Fanon concepts being smashed in the process of this. The fact that Jared Pullen more or less said it's up to people whether they want to treat his words as canon or not hasn't helped matter, either.
After game developer Mike Stout revealed that the games were made on a near shoe-string budget compared to most games at the time, the Celebrity Voice Actors became this over time. A large amount of more game dev savvy fans are quick to point out how astronomically a waste of the minuscule budget it likely was, with the decision to spend money on that coming off as incredibly tone-deaf towards how game development works, as such resources could have been much better allocated to actively improving the gameplay and environments. Those in defense of the decision, however, say that the Celebrity Voice Actors ended up bringing much more life to the characters and helped give them identities of their own, and cite it as one of the reasons why the games are still so beloved by its fans despite being contentious amongst Classic Spyro fans.
Critical Dissonance: Review scores from critics for the series were middling to bad. However, while it's divisive among classic fans, it has a significant following and a pretty active community.
Diagnosed by the Audience: It's common to see fans portray both Spyro and Cynder as suffering from PTSD after the events of the trilogy due to everything they went through; with some arguing they already start showing signs of it in Dawn of the Dragon. Some take it either further, by saying they are completely co-dependent on each other in order to function due to being the only positive spot in their darkest times.
Draco in Leather Pants: Malefor could give the trope's poster boy Sephiroth a run for his money. There is nothing remotely sympathetic to him, the description of his fall towards evil is absolute Nightmare Fuel, he is death incarnate that brings destruction and misery to everything he sees and enjoys every second of it.
Epileptic Trees: The song "This Broken Soul" represents Spyro's relationship with Ignitus, but some fans commonly use this song for videos on Spyro and Cynder's love for one another.
Enjoy the Story, Skip the Game: What the general consensus of the trilogy seems to have become over time. Most fans will admit that the gameplay (especially that of The Eternal Night) is rather subpar and not up to snuff with action games it tries to ride the coattails of, but the story and characters are what keeps fans coming back to these games. The fact that all of the cutscenes have been uploaded to the internet in movie format have also allowed for newcomers to fully appreciate the story without needing to play the games themselves.
There's such a specific Fandom-Specific Plot that occurs so regularly in the fanfic community that there's even a Fan Nickname for lampshading it. Called "the Post-DotD template," it goes a little like this: a new ancient evil emerges, and Spyro, Cynder, and a ton of OCs (one of them possibly a human-turned-dragon) must stop it. Along the way, they encounter Flame and Ember who somehow managed to survive the temple raid at the start of the first game, and nine times out of ten Ember is given a Ron the Death Eater to make Cynder seem more likable. While all this is going on, Spyro and Cynder are struggling with their Super-Powered Evil Sides while also trying to admit their feelings for one another despite Cynder already admitting her love for Spyro at the end of Dawn of the Dragon, with some contrived situation (usually caused by Ember) breaking them up, only to get back together a few chapters later with little to no problem. Also, double points if Malefor shows up and pulls a Dr. Wily by hijacking the plot. It's impossible to count the number of fics that give Spyro a brother/sister who is also a purple dragon (despite the fact that only one purple dragon is born every ten generations) on both hands. While some of these kinds of fics can turn out to be really good if handled with care, in general, the "Post-DotD template" has become widely hated in the fandom. Yet despite that, it still refuses to die.
Trapped in TV LandSelf-Insert fics have all but taken over the Spyro FanFiction.Net archive. Notably, a large number of these involve a character who was in the army/police force/otherwise had special self-defense training getting sucked into the Legend of Spyro setting, as some form of 'justification' as to why they're able to handle themselves in the world. Commonly, the human protagonist is turned into a dragon in upon arriving in the dragon realms.
Rewriting the Legend of Spyro storyline with a different character taking Spyro's place as the hero is also very common, be it an Original Character or a different canon character, with Cynder being a frequent choice.
An OC dragon is of a special or unique kind of dragon born with incredible powers of some kind that is born only once every so many years or so and must fulfill a prophecy of some sort in order to and go on an epic quest to save the world from a powerful threat. Essentially, copying Spyro's archetype of being a rare breed of powerful dragon born once every few generations, destined to save the world. Sometimes said OC is actually the son or daughter of Spyro and Cynder, coincidently being born to parents who already were special kinds of dragons.
Bizarrely, plots that mix the above premises have been done so many times that mixing the above tropes has become a plot in itself. Sometimes a Trapped in TV Land fic has the human transferred to the Legend of Spyro world in order to combat a new ancient evil. Alternatively it's because of some important prophecy and the OC protagonist is a chosen one or a special hero of some kind, akin to what Spyro is. Then the story often plays out akin to how the "Post Do TD Template" does. Bonus points if they are turned into a dragon upon arrival in dragon realm world. The list of mixtures of the above plots could go on for a while.
Hype Backlash: If you listen to only the fans who adore the trilogy to pieces, you'll probably be disappointed. On the other hand, if you listen to only the haters, you'll probably be pleasantly surprised. So both this trope and Critical Backlash can be seen.
Pyra is now canon / Pyra > DerpyExplanationAfter the lead artist of LoS went into how the young dragon next to Ignitus in one of the cutscenes was intended to be a side character in the series, his back story and being one of the few dragons relatively close to Spyro and Cynder's age immediately made him explode in popularity with the fandom, despite never appearing in the trilogy proper. This also drew something of a comparison to the Ensemble Dark Horse character of Derpy Hooves from My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic.
Spyro stahp ExplanationCynder's halfhearted attempt to break Spyro out of his dark form. The line is now commonly used in the fandom as a way to sarcastically tell people to stop.
Calling/renaming Volteer "the Amazing el-Zappo", based on an off-handed comment about Jared Pullen's opinions of Volteer's canon name.
Misblamed: Most of Cynder's detractors often point towards her Wangstiness about her past as a major reason for disliking her. In actuality, though, Cynder doesn't do too much angsting about her past in the games proper. The only times she does angst about it are when she leaves the temple in The Eternal Night and a few times when characters bring it up against her in Dawn of the Dragon. Her Wangsty image actually comes from a lot of low-quality Fan Works, which tend to play up her past to the point where it's almost heronly character trait. note Despite the fact that Dawn of the Dragon shows she has quite the temper around others, even Spyro.
Popular with Furries: The Legend of Spyro is more popular with scalies than the Classic series — even after being remade — or Skylanders, with the more common reasons being its more realistic-looking dragons and focus on story. Cynder herself is easily the most popular out of all the characters in the reboot trilogy.
Scrappy Mechanic: Let's just say that thanks to the block/evade system, some people with the Wii version of DoTD demand to know why support for the classic controller wasn't implemented. To elaborate: in order to block you have to hold the Wii nunchuk vertical, and dodging requires you to point the analog stick in any direction and flicking the nunchuk in the direction you want to dodge. As you may expect with orientation-based controls, it has a habit of activating at the worst times, or failing to do so when it's needed. And the fighting system relies heavily on effective use of this mechanic...the classic controller has the same amount of buttons in the same orientation as the PS3 controller.
Strangled by the Red String: Even though it's a large portion of the fanbase's One True Pairing, and many are vicious about those who criticize it... Spyro and Cynder's relationship has little in-game development. Over the course of the series, they didn't show any interest in each other outside of a friendship, and Cynder was quite snappy with Spyro throughout DotD. As such, The Power of Love rescuing Cynder after she fell under Malefor's control again in that gamemay have come completely out of the left field for some, to the point it borders on narm for both hardcore fans and people who like the pairing. According to Jared Pullen, the lead artist of the trilogy, this was because Spyro and Cynderweren't intended to get together originally. However, the very vocal fans on that subject eventually made them decide to Throw It In! late in development, which explains why it feels so sudden in-game. Unfortunately, this has led to some seeing the relationship in a rather unflattering light...
Dark Spyro. Despite being Spyro's Superpowered Evil Side, he barely, if at all, affects the plot. The only noticeable thing he does is kill Gaul and that's it — his only other appearance, in Dawn of the Dragon, lasts only a few seconds, is quickly dealt with, and has no impact on the story afterwards.
Evil!Cynder. More than a few found her overall more interesting and enjoyable than non-corrupted Cynder, with a few wishing she had remained a villain for the entire trilogy rather than pulling a Heel–Face Turn after it was revealed she was Brain Washed And Crazy.
Even fans of the sub-series are willing to admit that the plot to the sub-series can be... patchy at best. As Mike revealed, the games were made on what was essentially a shoe-string budget in video game development terms. The plans for the series were much more grandious in development, but a lot of things had to be knuckled under or go unexplained because of the budget. That said, fans still like the themes enough to still consider it having potential; not to mention there's scant amount of fantasy media that actually stars dragons as opposed to them at best playing second fiddle to a human protagonist.
Vindicated by History: Granted, there's still quite a bit of a Broken Base when it comes to this and the Classic series, but in general, a lot of the debate and arguments over this series have died down since Skylanders became a thing, with even quite a few Classic only fans willing to admit this trilogy is at least better than it, if only because it actually stars Spyro instead of him being a side character in his own series (outside of the animated spinoff).
The Woobie: Both Spyro and Cynder, although Cynder arguably has it worse than Spyro. Spyro no doubt suffers greatly throughout everything and ultimately is pushed across the Despair Event Horizon by Malefor, but Cynder's life in general has been one long living nightmare. She was Brainwashed and Crazy for most of her life into doing unspeakable things to her own kind and when she's finally free, she remembers every horrible thing she did during that time and feels guilty about it all (and she's a 12 year old kid at this point!) to the point she runs away from her friends and home because she can't stand it anymore. Not to mention Sparx being a pretty big Jerkass to her. And in the third game people repeatedly continue to blame her for what she did under Malefor's control, including the Hermit scene which seems to exist only to show the fate of the Apes and make Cynder suffer. Finally, she ends up getting sent over the Despair Event Horizon by Malefor as well and gets Brainwashed and Crazy all over again, forcing her to attack her own love interest! At least Spyro had a loving adopted family to help him through it all!
, on what they never got to put into the trilogy proper should be accepted as hard canon or not, especially after years and years of popular Fanon concepts being smashed in the process of this. The fact that Jared Pullen more or less said it's up to people whether they want to treat his words as canon or not hasn't helped matter, either.