Following the ending of ThreeBelow, Merlin’s apprentice Hisyridoux and his familiar Archie summon Palchcuck, Toby and Aargh to fight off ancient supernatural creatures called the Arcane Order. Then Merlin transports Douxie, Claire, Palchuck and a wounded Jim back in time to King Arthur’s Camelot. There they seek to return home without first destroying the timeline and witness the Origin Story of the villainous Morgana from Trollhunters. (There will be major spoilers after this point).
One thing I criticized about Trollhunters was that every villain with a backstory ends up undergoing a Heel–Face Turn. And I praised how it subverted that trend with Morgana. This undoes that subversion.
In this one, Morgana objects to King Arthur hunting down all trolls due to violent Fantastic Racism and by defending the innocent trolls against whom he wages war she incurs Arthur’s wrath leading to him cutting off her arm and seemingly killing her but she survives due to being rescued from drowning by Angor Rot, whom she enslaved in Trollhunters and being transformed into a champion of nature spirits calling themselves the Arcane Order whose goal is to punish Arthur. She then forms an alliance with Gunmar offering to summon Eternal Night so that he can become powerful enough to realize his goal of killing all humans. And when Arthur throws down his sword and reveals his desire to make amends with her at Kilahead, Gunmar’s mooks kill him and Morgana responds by blaming Merlin and seeking to kill him for it resulting in her defeat and vow of vengeance.
Once the characters return to the present, the Arcane Order resuscitates Morgana who has no desire of being resuscitated and does a Heel–Face Turn. So it’s official, every Trollhunters villain with a backstory gets a Heel–Face Turn.
Fortunately, Wizards2020 averts this trend by having King Arthur be the villain. In this version Arthur always feared the magical creatures of the Forest and his Fantastic Racism got worse when his sister Morgana convinced his wife Queen Guinevere to enter the magic forest leading to Guinevere to be killed by a Troll. And Arthur’s response was to wage war against all magical creatures except the wizards whose magic he needs to kill Trolls. So he burns down forests to drive trolls out of there and imprisons all the trolls who dare tread upon the land he conquered. And Arthur justifies his persecution of the Trolls by citing the threat of Gunmar. Arthur even commissions Merlin to create the Amulet of Daylight in an effort to hunt all trolls (not just Gumm Gumms).
Arthur is rightly called out for his behaviour by Morgana who is disgusted by it while the protagonists of the former shows begrudgingly go along with the In-UniverseDesignated Hero. Arthur seems a complete monster up until Morgana’s apparent death which he instantly regrets becoming an Antagonist in Mourning. And that leads to a heel realization as he comments “Morgana was never evil, I was”. And he needs Douxie to snap him out of his Heroic BSoD. Then Arthur humbles himself before Vendel, acknowledges his wrongs and asks for their allegiance against the Greater-Scope Villain Gunmar. Upon Morgana’s appearance, he refuses to fight in favour of doing what he can to make peace with her. As a result he throws down his sword and is killed by Gunmar’s trolls (while his repentance seemed to be working).
When they return to the present they discover that the champion of the Arcane Order is actually a resuscitated Arthur. And unlike Jim, he doesn’t serve them because of mind control because he has truly come to believe that Humans Are the Real Monsters and fights for them to atone for his misdeeds.
So it resolved one of my major problems with the Tales of Arcadia franchise.
While Douxie is a likeable character he’s somewhat of a Vanilla Protagonist die to Jim, Claire, Castilla, Merlin, the Galadrigals, General Aargh and Arthur being more interesting.
I find it weird that Douxie meets Past Douxie and then leaves but seems to have no memory of having met his future self. I know The Familiar suggested the spells he used on Past Douxie could have a memory erasing effect but based on Past Douxie saying “Bye Future Me” at the end it doesn’t appear to have happened. Which is a plothole.
That said, I do like Douxie. I like how the prequel provides the origin stories of Trollhunters characters I like new character Castilla. I like how we see the Battle of Kilahead play out.
That said, the Arcane Order aren’t particularly compelling villains though Arthur is their saving grace. And I like like Merlin’s Heroic Sacrifice. I’m not sure how permanent Douxie’s defeat was of the Arcane Order is supposed to be though.
And I don’t like how it has Jim become human again after Trollhunters established his original transformation as permanent.
So the prequel part of this show is significantly better than the continuation part. All in all, it’s good though not as good as Trollhunters. (Though I do think it’s better than ThreeBelow.
For the Glory of Merlin, Review is Mine To Command
Ok. So nominally this show is set after ThreeBelow, but more than anything else it’s a prequel to Trollhunters.
Following the ending of ThreeBelow, Merlin’s apprentice Hisyridoux and his familiar Archie summon Palchcuck, Toby and Aargh to fight off ancient supernatural creatures called the Arcane Order. Then Merlin transports Douxie, Claire, Palchuck and a wounded Jim back in time to King Arthur’s Camelot. There they seek to return home without first destroying the timeline and witness the Origin Story of the villainous Morgana from Trollhunters. (There will be major spoilers after this point).
One thing I criticized about Trollhunters was that every villain with a backstory ends up undergoing a Heel–Face Turn. And I praised how it subverted that trend with Morgana. This undoes that subversion.
In this one, Morgana objects to King Arthur hunting down all trolls due to violent Fantastic Racism and by defending the innocent trolls against whom he wages war she incurs Arthur’s wrath leading to him cutting off her arm and seemingly killing her but she survives due to being rescued from drowning by Angor Rot, whom she enslaved in Trollhunters and being transformed into a champion of nature spirits calling themselves the Arcane Order whose goal is to punish Arthur. She then forms an alliance with Gunmar offering to summon Eternal Night so that he can become powerful enough to realize his goal of killing all humans. And when Arthur throws down his sword and reveals his desire to make amends with her at Kilahead, Gunmar’s mooks kill him and Morgana responds by blaming Merlin and seeking to kill him for it resulting in her defeat and vow of vengeance.
Once the characters return to the present, the Arcane Order resuscitates Morgana who has no desire of being resuscitated and does a Heel–Face Turn. So it’s official, every Trollhunters villain with a backstory gets a Heel–Face Turn.
Fortunately, Wizards2020 averts this trend by having King Arthur be the villain. In this version Arthur always feared the magical creatures of the Forest and his Fantastic Racism got worse when his sister Morgana convinced his wife Queen Guinevere to enter the magic forest leading to Guinevere to be killed by a Troll. And Arthur’s response was to wage war against all magical creatures except the wizards whose magic he needs to kill Trolls. So he burns down forests to drive trolls out of there and imprisons all the trolls who dare tread upon the land he conquered. And Arthur justifies his persecution of the Trolls by citing the threat of Gunmar. Arthur even commissions Merlin to create the Amulet of Daylight in an effort to hunt all trolls (not just Gumm Gumms).
Arthur is rightly called out for his behaviour by Morgana who is disgusted by it while the protagonists of the former shows begrudgingly go along with the In-Universe Designated Hero. Arthur seems a complete monster up until Morgana’s apparent death which he instantly regrets becoming an Antagonist in Mourning. And that leads to a heel realization as he comments “Morgana was never evil, I was”. And he needs Douxie to snap him out of his Heroic BSoD. Then Arthur humbles himself before Vendel, acknowledges his wrongs and asks for their allegiance against the Greater-Scope Villain Gunmar. Upon Morgana’s appearance, he refuses to fight in favour of doing what he can to make peace with her. As a result he throws down his sword and is killed by Gunmar’s trolls (while his repentance seemed to be working).
When they return to the present they discover that the champion of the Arcane Order is actually a resuscitated Arthur. And unlike Jim, he doesn’t serve them because of mind control because he has truly come to believe that Humans Are the Real Monsters and fights for them to atone for his misdeeds.
So it resolved one of my major problems with the Tales of Arcadia franchise.
While Douxie is a likeable character he’s somewhat of a Vanilla Protagonist die to Jim, Claire, Castilla, Merlin, the Galadrigals, General Aargh and Arthur being more interesting.
I find it weird that Douxie meets Past Douxie and then leaves but seems to have no memory of having met his future self. I know The Familiar suggested the spells he used on Past Douxie could have a memory erasing effect but based on Past Douxie saying “Bye Future Me” at the end it doesn’t appear to have happened. Which is a plothole.
That said, I do like Douxie. I like how the prequel provides the origin stories of Trollhunters characters I like new character Castilla. I like how we see the Battle of Kilahead play out.
That said, the Arcane Order aren’t particularly compelling villains though Arthur is their saving grace. And I like like Merlin’s Heroic Sacrifice. I’m not sure how permanent Douxie’s defeat was of the Arcane Order is supposed to be though.
And I don’t like how it has Jim become human again after Trollhunters established his original transformation as permanent.
So the prequel part of this show is significantly better than the continuation part. All in all, it’s good though not as good as Trollhunters. (Though I do think it’s better than ThreeBelow.