The Dragon Prince Season 4 Review: An Introduction to a Changed Xadia

It’s been three years since The Dragon Prince hit Netflix with its third season, and the world inside and outside of Xadia has changed significantly in many ways since then. Following the end of the third season, it was announced by Wonderstorm that Netflix would be picking the series up for four more seasons. This would allow The Dragon Prince to tell a full seven-saga-long story over the course of its run, and that has made the wait for each new season all the more interesting as now we are going to get to see the planned saga unfold in full. 

The end of the third season also brought with it a lot of questions about how things could shape up for the future. The Dragon Prince surprised fans even further when it was revealed that the fourth season would be carrying the “Mystery of Aaravos” subtitle, but that’s just the first of many significant shifts that are taking place within the series. The fourth season itself acts as an almost reintroduction to the series as not only does it need to kick off a whole new status quo, but it’s got to set the stage for everything intense coming in the second half of the series. 

If there’s a single word that could potentially quantify what is happening in the fourth season of the series, it would be “change.” Mystery of Aaravos takes place two years after the events of the Battle of the Storm Spire in the third season, and there have been both larger and small changes for the cast. Not only has Ezran fully risen to prominence as the king, but Callum has made some great strides of his own as a mage in that time. Ezran is doing his best to keep the current hope and peace alive, but it’s clear that it wouldn’t last. Meanwhile, there are other dark things brewing as Claudia is diving deeper into darker magic in order to save her father and that’s playing right into Aaravos’ hands. 

Following the foe making some whisper-led moves in the third season, much like the title suggests, Aaravos has come into the spotlight for the foe’s grand plan. This is all moving forward in an intense direction for the series, and things are going to get much darker from here on out. Animated series making their characters older following a time jump usually signals a darker tone for the rest of the story, and that’s the same case here. But for those worried that these intense events would overshadow everything else, thankfully, that’s not really happening too much. 

The Dragon Prince has been adept at balancing its heavier themes like death, pain, and turmoil with the more humorous characters and moments, and that’s no different here. Like previous seasons, not everything will land all the time (as there might be a few too many jokes during very serious moments), but the humor present is fit for the tone of the world itself. For as many shifts as the fourth season begins with for our characters, the fact that the jokes can stay within this evolving tone is admirable, especially with some of the topics it broaches this time around. 

The Dragon Prince is changing. As the characters become older, the stakes are higher, and the overall magical world of Xadia is evolving as a result. The fourth season marks a turning point that leads into what is increasingly seeming like a much darker second half of the saga, but it’s not like the series gave up any of the charm that got it to this point, either. There’s still plenty of time to highlight elements like its jelly tarts, and still very much the ray of hope that fueled the first three seasons of the series.

Importantly, that’s also the key driving thesis behind Mystery of Aaravos as well. It’s the idea that one can carry both these darker feelings and have the desire for a bright future. For an animated series with such a variety of ages in its audience, it’s incredible to see. The Dragon Prince has become even more adept at making sure that fun spirit is still alive while threading the needle on some huge conflicts looming in the future. It’s a season of changes, and one that will be ultimately rewarding for fans who have been eagerly waiting on its comeback. 

Rating: 4 out of 5

The Dragon Prince: Mystery of Aaravos releases on Netflix on November 3rd