(Picture: Netflix; Rex)
*Warning: This article contains spoilers for The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance on Netflix.
Daenerys Targaryen’s fall into villainy was one of the most shocking and contested moments of Game of Throne’s final season, but Netflix’s prequel to 1982 movie The Dark Crystal shows us all how you can believably turn a character to the dark side.
Few would have expected Game of Thrones to be out-done by a bunch of puppets, but that’s exactly what happened when Netflix dropped The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance, a prequel to the cult film. Just like Thrones, it’s a sprawling epic fantasy, with a fully realised world and an ever-expanding cast of characters. Yet where Game of Thrones stumbled in its final season, in its inaugural one Age of Resistance seems to fly.
Set in the mystical world of Thra, the series concerns the battle against two races – the Gelfling and the evil Skeksis – for control over the mighty Crystal of Truth, which in their quest for immortality, the Skeksis have tainted into the titular Dark Crystal. It falls up to three Gelfling –the warrior Rian (Taron Egerton), the gentle Deet (Nathalie Emmanuel) and the Princess Brea (Anya Taylor-Joy) to unite the seven clans and stop the Skeksis once and for all.
It’s Brea that is our window one of The Dark Crystal’s most fascinating and complex characters; her eldest sister Seladon (Gugu Mbatha-Raw), heir to the title of All-Maudra, essentially the de-facto leader of the Gelfling tribes.
Much like Daenerys herself, Seladon is a woman who covets a position of power. For Daenerys, it’s re-taking the Iron Throne, for Seladon it’s to become All-Maudra and win the approval of her mother (Helena Bonham-Carter).
Seladon’s most contentious relationship is with Brea, her flighty and unpredictable younger sister. Given Seladon’s stature, she could never indulge herself in the trouble Brea gets into; disobeying orders and running away from her responsibilities. Brea quickly becomes involved in the fight against the Skeksis, yet Seladon refuses to join the resistance. The Skeksis have ruled over the Gelfling for 1,000 years, and they tell the All-Maudra herself: ‘You are only All-Maudra because we allow you to be.’
The breaking point comes quite literally half way into the Age of Resistance’s first 10 episodes. Brea has helped to expose the Skeksis crimes to her mother; they have been draining and killing Gelflings through the power of the Dark Crystal to harness immortality. The All-Maudra, outraged, declares rebellion but is killed by the Skeksis General (Benedict Wong).
All eyes fall upon Seladon, who refuses to join the rebellion and is crowned by the Skeksis as All-Maudra, finally getting her only wish.
Visually, is it as epic as Daenerys basically committing genocide and unleashing Drogon on King’s Landing? Of course not, but Game of Thrones’ major crime throughout its last outing was letting the visual extravaganza drown out all the character development and emotion.
For the Age of Resistance, the emotional stakes have to outweigh the visuals because…well…we’re watching puppets on the screen. Beautiful and sometimes terrifying puppets, yes, but still puppets nonetheless.
Daenerys emerging into the ruin of King’s Landing victories, dressed in Nazi-like regalia and giving a Rivers of Blood speech represented her final, irrevocable turn to villainy. Seladon’s comes when she struts into a meeting of the seven Gelfling tribes dressed all in black, donning a massive black metal crown and wearing blood-red lipstick (yes, puppets can wear lipstick too). It should, as an image, be almost laughable, but watching it, you couldn’t but help get a shiver down your spine.
Was it because the outfit itself was particularly striking? Not really. It was, more than anything, a potent visual manifestation of the emotional stakes Seladon had been fighting against for the past few episodes, really ever since we had first set eyes on her.
It’s a testament to the writing, direction and design of the Age of Resistance that Seladon’s transformation carries such resonance – much more, this writer would argue, than Daenerys’ arc.
Game of Thrones had eight seasons to stitch Daenerys’ conclusion into its narrative. Some will argue it did, but most will say that if it did the threads were so small and spread apart that when Daenerys really does become the Mad Queen, it doesn’t feel earned, just rushed. Eight seasons and 72 episodes of character development ruined in one fell swoop.
The Age of Resistance manages to condense this arc into five episodes, and still makes a more meaningful dramatic moment out of it. Watching it all unfold, it was hard not to feel a little bit breathless, especially given Mbatha-Raw’s inspired vocal performance as Seladon.
Give Emilia Clarke her dues, but it doesn’t take an educated eye to sense that she lost her passion for Daenerys in Thrones’ last few episodes, mainly because her actions were so out of character for the woman that had played her, lived with her for a decade.
There’s a lesson to take from this and it’s not how to write strong women in television, or even how to develop a character’s arc; it’s that if you really, truly know your character as a writer their path will develop naturally. In the end, it turns out D.B. Weiss and David Benioff did not know Daenerys as well as The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance knows Seladon – and, ultimately, that was all that mattered.
The Dark Crystal: The Age of Resistance is available to stream on Netflix now while Game of Thrones seasons one to eight are still on NOW TV.
Got a showbiz story?
If you’ve got a story, video or pictures get in touch with the Metro.co.uk Entertainment team by emailing us celebtips@metro.co.uk, calling 020 3615 2145 or by visiting our Submit Stuff page – we’d love to hear from you.
MORE: The Dark Crystal Age of Resistance: How Netflix managed to reconstruct Thra for trippy masterpiece
