In fact, the title I thought of was: In the face of interests, trust between humans is worthless.
But considering that this is a cartoon for children, the title should not be so dark.
Let's talk about the conclusion first!
People can build trust only on the basis of common interests.
The only way to bridge ethnic conflicts is for everyone to face the same huge threat.
This Disney movie was shot against the background of tearing American society. The movie naturally points to the proposition of ethnic conflict.
The Legend of Dragon Hunting is rare in Disney, a film that is closer to political reality. Although the film is very obscure, the main characters' demands and motivations are logical.
Before the advent of black magic, the world was prosperous and peaceful. After the black magic appeared inexplicably, the Longyou Federation collapsed.
Black magic will turn people into stone statues, bringing drought and desolation. The crystal brings the water source and restores the original appearance of the person who was turned into a stone statue through the rain.
In other words, crystal actually represents water, and black magic represents fire. I don’t know if it’s because there are volcanoes in Southeast Asia or wildfires in the United States, so I set it this way.
Crystals can suppress black magic, and whoever owns crystals has prosperity.
The crystal led to the division of the Longyou Federation into five countries: Dragon Tooth Valley, Dragon Heart City, Longji Mountain, Dragon Claw Bay and Dragon Tail Beach (from left to right on the map). The five tribes are constantly fighting for the crystal.
This paragraph shows that people can live in harmony when there is no need to compete for survival resources.
But once there is a situation like the scarcity of black magic raging and scarce resources, fighting and fighting between ethnic groups under different races and cultural backgrounds is completely inevitable.
And the whole film basically started around the competition for crystals.
At the beginning, Dragon Heart City convened the remaining four tribal alliances to discuss the reconstruction of the Longyou Federation.
In this process, because the heroine Raya mistakenly trusted Namali, the princess of the Dragon Tooth Valley, the position of the crystal was exposed and eventually black magic was released.
The film tells us that Dragon Heart City owns the crystal, and the four major city states know that the crystal is now in Dragon Heart City.
This is very interesting!
The purpose of the patriarch of Dragonheart City, Pengga, was probably not just to rebuild the Longyou Federation.
This is why everyone was very nervous when they first met.
As the most important crystal to suppress black magic, holding it represents the legitimacy of power. The water source made of crystal can also bring prosperity and prosperity.
Black magic hasn't appeared in 500 years, and now the world is peaceful. Dragon Heart City is blessed by the two auras of orthodoxy and prosperity. Once the Longyou Federation is rebuilt, who do you think the entire Federation listens to?
This is why the Ponga patriarch summoned them, and everyone was afraid to come, but they were very upset when they came. This seemingly guild alliance is actually a ritual for Dragon Heart City to recentralize power. The purpose of the guild alliance is to allow the four major city states to recognize the dominance of Dragon Heart City. Once the Longyou Federation is rebuilt, the Ponga Patriarch will be the only speaker in the entire Federation. The remaining four city-states will have to hand over power to Dragon Heart City and follow the dispatch of Dragon Heart City.
I didn't talk about it before, but now the prosperity of the entire Dragon Heart City is based on crystals. The four major cities know this well.
The crystal falling into Dragon Heart City must be the result of a game. In other words, when the alliance is held in the film, everyone is actually in a truce with each other.
This is why the Ponga patriarch tried every possible means to hide the crystal, and wanted his daughter to become the guardian of the crystal.
There is also a very vague mention of this in the film. After Namali exposed the location of the crystal, people from the four major city-states rushed to the scene, but the people in Dragon Heart City did not appear in time.
The crystal is secretly hidden. The place where the crystal was hidden was not guarded by guards, only the patriarch and his successors knew about it, and even the people in Dragonheart City didn’t know where the crystal was placed.
This also shows from the side that the position of the Ponga patriarch in the Longyou Federation is not stable. As long as the Union League is not completed, the four major city-states have not publicly acknowledged the achievements of the Ponga Patriarch in rebuilding the Longyou Federation. The Punga patriarch will only be regarded as the holder of the crystal, rather than the recognized crystal owner.
So the crystal needs to be concealed, which is why the Punga patriarch did not hesitate to fight after the crystal was exposed. Crystals can only appear after the alliance, and now once they appear, everyone will grab them.
After the crystal was accidentally broken, the suppressed black magic reappeared. Each of the five tribes took one piece and scattered and fled.
The following story basically revolves around Princess Raya taking crystals from various tribes and putting them together.
In this process, the film is very realistic.
When the crystal is complete, it is a symbol of wealth and power. The five tribes cannot coexist in harmony in order to compete for it.
When black magic appeared, everyone's first reaction was to protect themselves. Since it is self-protection, there is no reason to hand over the crystal.
That's why you can only see in the film that even if the patriarch of Longweitan died, he would leave the people who came to fetch the crystals in the cave. Longji Mountain is annihilated, and the crystal will not be handed over. Dragon Claw Bay is even more exaggerated, making a round to fool the whereabouts of the remaining crystals.
In the film, I don’t know if you have noticed a detail. In the section where the old lady in Longzaw Bay lied to Xisu, she first said that Xisu was an outsider who had just come to Longzaw Bay. After leading her to the door, asked her if she knew where the crystal was. There are many stone statues outside the door.
This means that Sisu is not the first person to be asked this way. The stone statues should have been left by outsiders who had been tortured before the whereabouts of the crystal.
You will find that any city-state that has the ability to protect itself is unwilling to hand over the crystal. Not only is he unwilling to hand it over, but he also hopes to collect as many crystals as possible to maximize his own interests. Raya's goal is to resurrect his relatives, but for the patriarchs of Dragon Claw Bay and Dragon Tooth Valley, they only need to protect their clan from being disturbed, and they have no intention to resurrect others. As for the current patriarch of Longclaw Bay, the resurrection of the former patriarch is even more taboo, so the forced Raya can only use the method of stealing and grabbing to gather the pieces.
The legend of seeking dragons is about trust between people.
But in fact, the five major ethnic groups have never had a better impression of each other, let alone trust.
Dragon Claw Bay cheats, Dragon Tooth Valley is despicable, Dragon Heart City is hypocritical, Dragon Tail Beach is tricky, Dragon's Back Mountain is barbaric.
But from the beginning, he was reluctant to work with Raya with them. Why did you choose to join forces with the other four groups?
Or because of the common interest appeal!
Let's take a look at the helper that Princess Raya appeared in the process of collecting crystals. Apo in Longwei Beach, Xiaonuo in Longclaw Bay, and Old Vine in Longji Mountain. They have one thing in common with Raya, they all want to resurrect their relatives with the magic of crystal and Xisu. In other words, they are the same in terms of common interests. The reason why Namali was still reluctant to help Raya when she had met Shenlong Xisu was also because she had no need in this regard.
It was not until the end, after her own mother and her people became stone, that she chose to trust Raya and finally left the crystal in the cave.
Let us be blunt. People trust each other only when they have the same interests.
In the later stage of the film, the words of Patriarch Weina, who guessed what Raya did, were very pleasantly surprised. I didn't expect Disney to be so politically realistic.
The reason she opposes handing over the crystal is not because she is unwilling to suppress the black magic, but because this matter can only be done by their Dragon Tooth Valley. Otherwise, after the matter is completed, Dragon Tooth Valley will definitely be liquidated by the other four clans.
They provoked the matter, and after the accident, their clan ran the fastest and hid the best. If it is not for them to clean up in the end, it will definitely not end well. This is also the real reason why Patriarch Wei Na is willing to let Namali lead the army of Dragon Tooth Valley and snatch the crystal at any cost.
For Patriarch Weina, it is the best choice for them to synthesize crystals from Dragon Tooth Valley and restore order in the end. In this way, not only can the anger of the other four races be calmed, she can also use this to aspire to the supreme power of the Longyou Federation.
Namali did not follow her mother's suggestion and tricked the Raya Princess team into the palace because she hesitated between her mother's ambition and the welfare of the people, not because she trusted Raya.
In the end, it is normal for Raya to choose to trust Namali. It doesn't really matter whether there is trust between the two people. As long as they have a common goal, Namali will naturally make the right choice.
This is essentially a political game and has nothing to do with trust.
There is a very sad reality in the film.
The conflicts between ethnic groups will always exist and cannot be bridged unless there is a huge crisis that can threaten everyone.
The Dragon Blessing Federation was finally established because Princess Raya, who represented Dragon Heart City, resolved the crisis and resurrected the Dragon Clan with her own strength, and won the common recognition of the five major ethnic groups. Dragon Heart City has won the legal legitimacy of the dominant federation by virtue of such great achievements.
I don’t know if the five major ethnic groups imply the five permanent members of the United Nations; Dragon Heart City dominates the Longyou Federation, and does it imply the post-war world order led by the United States.
In connection with reality, in the context of the tearing of ethnic groups in the United States, the director should want to use unity and trust to guide everyone to bridge the tearing problem of ethnic groups. However, it was accidentally exposed that the problem of consistent goals can only be achieved if there is a threat to everyone.
This is also the reason why all people from Trump to Biden attacked China frantically.
They need to set up a target that makes everyone feel threatened, so that they can unite groups with different interests and aspirations to achieve their goals. Such as becoming the supreme agent of federal rights.
But the problem is that China has never been an enemy of the United States, nor has it threatened everyone's interests.
Considering that the film was produced during Trump's administration, the Ponga Patriarch's goal of rebuilding the Longyou Federation is very intriguing.
But now it seems that the Dragon Heart City family wants to realize the dream of aspiring federal power through Princess Raya, it can only be realized in the movie...
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