Love amongst the Dragons is a popular Fire Nation play about the Dragon Emperor who is cursed by the Dark Water Spirit to live in mortal human form.
Plot[]
The play features the Dragon Emperor, bound to mortal form by the Dark Water Spirit, and forced to adopt the alias of Noren. The humble experience results in Noren falling in love with a mortal, and through this love he is able to break free of his curse. The play concludes with Noren defeating the Dark Water Spirit and embracing his mortal girlfriend, revealed to be the Dragon Empress.[1]
Characters[]
- Dragon Emperor/Noren
- Dragon Empress
- Dark Water Spirit
Trivia[]
- In the comics, the title is consistently written as Love amongst Dragons.
- Ikem, after gaining a new face, adopted the name of Noren, the alias of the Dragon Emperor, for himself.[2]
- Love amongst the Dragons was Ursa's favorite play, and she took her children to see the Ember Island Players perform it every year during the summer.
- Zuko, however, claimed that the Ember Island Players always "butchered" the play.[3]
- Afterward, Zuko and Azula usually re-enacted the final duel of the play at the beach. To his frustration, Zuko normally had to take the role of the Dark Water Spirit, while Azula was the Dragon Emperor.[1]
- As princess, Ursa secretly acquired a set of masks which the Hira'a Acting Troupe had used to perform Love amongst the Dragons.[4] She kept them hidden in her quarters behind a painting of her and Ozai to remind her of her old life, the Hira'a Acting Troupe, and particularly Ikem with the Dragon Emperor mask.[5]
- Love amongst the Dragons was highly popular with the Ember Island Players and the Hira'a Acting Troupe.
- The play has been performed for at least several centuries, as the Water Tribesman Tayagum referenced it in conversation during the era of Yangchen.[6]
- The Dark Water Spirit mask was later used by Zuko to adopt the Blue Spirit alias.[7]
- The Dark Water Spirit or a character with the same face/mask also appears in an Earth Kingdom opera.[8]
- The masks used for the play are based on those worn in Southeast Asia.[9]
- In the first episode of Aaron Ehasz's The Dragon Prince, the character Claudia can be seen reading a book entitled Love Amongst The Dragons.[10]