The Creators Of ‘The Dragon Prince’ Talk Season 4 Time-Jumps, Complicated Villains And The Importance Of New Hairstyles

The Dragon Prince Season 4 has finally arrived. Book 4: Earth landed on Netflix today, dropping another 9 episodes in the popular animated fantasy series. It’s the first time in three years since we had any new Dragon Prince content, and marks the start of the new “Mystery Of Aaravos” story arc.

You can read my review of Season 4 right here.

I had the chance to talk with Wonderstorm co-founders and Dragon Prince creators Aaron Ehasz and Justin Richmond recently and we discussed the new season, the big time-jump and the crazy new hairdos many of the aged-up characters have.

You can watch the whole interview below. Here are some highlights.

“When we released the character posters, I think people were going bananas about the haircuts,” Richmond says when I ask if the time-jump or the new hairdos have been a bigger deal for fans.

“Humanity measures time-jumps in hairstyles,” Ehasz chimes in, which is a very good point. Perhaps the two are really just one and the same.

“In animation it’s a big deal,” Richmond says. “Getting to do the models again, and having new haircuts and new clothes and stuff is something you don’t get to do too often because you’re sort of locked in to the assets you’ve got. So it was exciting to go back to the drawing board.”

Ehasz, who was lead writer on Avatar: The Last Airbender, brings up the character Zuko’s evolving hair as an example of how changing hairstyles can evoke an evolving character and the passage of time. “On Avatar it was kind of a big deal that we were evolving Zuko’s hair, that we cut off his ponytail between Season 1 and Season 2 and then his hair grows out in Season 3.”

“There’s something about seeing the hair change that really clearly tells you hey, time is passing, characters are changing, growth is happening. It’s a visual cue that this is not the kind of show where everyone stays the same from episode to episode. I think for us, on some level the time-jump is that same visual cue that everyone’s grown, everyone’s changed, everyone’s matured. The story itself has matured. Plus it’s cool.”

On the mysterious Startouch Elf, Aaravos, Ehasz pushes back when I refer to him as a “deceiver.”

“Do you think he’s a deceiver?” Ehasz asks me. (I thought I was the one asking the questions!) I point out that Aaravos isn’t showing his full hand, and that whatever he’s up to with Viren he’s clearly not revealing the totality of his plans.

“He says he never lies,” Aaron points out. “To my knowledge there’s no lie that we’ve seen in the show. Zubeia [the Dragon Queen] calls him a deceiver, but a lot of times one of the things I think we do on The Dragon Prince is someone tells a legend and a history but you have to remember it’s through a lens of their version of a narrative.”

Ehasz says he sees a lot of people jumping to the conclusion that Aaravos is evil and deceitful, but hints that he’s more complicated than that. “Certainly he’s manipulative and has a plan that is very counter to what our characters want…I don’t know. Why am I defending Aaravos? We’re going to learn a lot more about Aaravos.”

Watch the full conversation with Justin Richmond and Aaron Ehasz in the video below. We don’t spoil Season 4 so you don’t have to worry about getting spoiled before you dive in.

Read my review of The Dragon Prince Season 4 right here.