"Hold on to each other". After so long living in grief and regret, Domina died selflessly.
This is a character that I needed to put some thought on before properly discussing, since I wasn't sure where she would go. Won't lie, I was between three different moral scalings for her over an entire month, but in the end, decided to do her here.
Ironically, am more confident about her counting here than I did with Akiyu, as admirability is unquestionable, and also beats every other character in the series being the weakest IA not for almost failing the standards, but because I think if it weren't for how the narrative treats her negative traits and how much focus they were on them she could have been Near Pure Good.
With that said, I am going to begin with her proposal.
What's the work?[]
The Dragon Prince is a Netflix animated series that started on 2018, which followed a group made up of two human princes and an elven assassin in trying to get the egg of the Dragon Prince back to his mother to bring an end to the conflict between the Human Kingdoms and the land of Xadia. A second arc follows the team two years later in stopping another threat to their world, an evil Startouch Elf named Aaravos, who plans to bring eternal night to the world and destroy the cosmic order.
Who is she/What has she done?[]
Domina Profundis is the Archdragon of the Ocean, and Zubeia's former best friend. In the past, she used to look after Xadia, from the highest mountains to the deepest places in the ocean, and while she was on the former, her close friend, the Empress of the Deep, did the latter in her stead. One day, when the Queen of the Dragons, Luna Tenebris died, all the archdragons, including Domina, fought bitterly over who would ascend to take the world as rulers of their kind. Seeing how this would lead to violence, the Queen of the Sunfire Elves, Aditi, prevented the fighting by offering to choose who would become king/queen, with the archdragons agreeing to allow her to do so.
However, before she could make a decision, Queen Aditi was mysteriously killed, causing the elves to believe that the dragons were the ones who murdered her. Before a war between the two species could happen, though, a human who would be named the Orphan Queen, discovered the true mastermind behind the recent events, a Startouch Elf named Aaravos.
With the help of the Orphan Queen, a human mage nicknamed the Jailer, and the Tidebound mage Akiyu, Avizandum and Zubeia were able to imprison Aaravos in a magical pearl, with the two archdragons becoming king and queen of their kind. Like all the archdragons, the Jailer gave Domina a clue to where to find Aaravos, being implied to be the knowledge of Akiyu knowing where Aaravos was imprisoned. Years later, a group consisted of thousands of humans and elves attacked the Empress of the Deep, having been filled with greed over the rumour that the Tidebound Elf possessed treasures.
While the Empress fought back, they were too many and she ended up getting killed. Domina, finding out that her friend had been murdered, fell into despair, and in rage, drowned the hundred ships of the people who killed the Empress.
After this, Domina decided to stay protecting the oceans out of guilt over not having been able to save her friend, refusing to listen to Zubeia when she asked Domina not to do so. Since then, Domina stopped talking with Zubeia, with the latter still having a siren stone capable of calling her but not doing so for centuries due to how much Domina leaving hurt her. Around 300 years later, Domina discovered the killings of the Tidebound pirate Finnegrin and his crab ship Shelley on sea leviathans and krakens, and tried to prevent them from continuing.
Finnegrin, wanting to control the ocean, challanged Domina, with their fight ending with Domina killing Shelley and threatening to drown Finnegrin if he ever left his shore. Finnegrin, fearing for his life, agreed to do so, but with the plan of one day getting revenge on Domina and taking over her rule. One day, Zubeia, along with Ezran, Soren and Corvus, went to talk with Domina, using her siren stone to do so. While Ezran tried to explain why they needed her help, she initially refused to listen, hiting Ezran and his friends with a wave that knocked them to their feet.
However, after seeing how Zubeia respected Ezran and called him a king, Domina decided to listen, and finding out that they needed her help to stop Claudia and Viren from freeing Aaravos, who already knew where he was imprisoned, she revealed to them about how the Archmage Akiyu knew of the location of Aaravos' prison. The group finds out about the location from Akiyu, but while they initially stopped Claudia from getting it and tried to guard the prison, Aaravos was able to free himself with the help of Claudia, with him planning to bring eternal night.
Finding out about this from Rayla, Domina went to Lux Aurea to stop Aaravos, helping Zubeia in fighting him and Avizandum, who had been brought back to life and brainwashed by Aaravos. However, the former dragon king was brought back to his senses after being reminded of how he died protecting his son and seeing how much he loved Azymondias and Zubeia, and after doing so, the three archdragons take down Aaravos. While Zubeia and Avizandum brought Aaravos to the air to prevent the destruction of his physical body from causing an explosion that went beyond Lux Aurea, Domina protected Team Zym and their allies between her wings in order to protect them from the blast.
After Avizandum bit Aaravos' neck, the explosion occoured, destroying Lux Aurea alongside Zubeia, Avizandum and Domina, although everyone else managed to survive. After this, a memorial was made in Katolis to honor of the archdragons' sacrifice.
Admirable Standards[]
So, without a doubt Domina is one of the more admirable characters in the series, and ironically, I initially felt she didn't do enough to pass the standards, as while she outclipses most of the other characters, she still has to compete with Zubeia and Avizandum, who not only were the ones who imprisoned Aaravos for 300 years and sacrificed themselves to end his plan to bring eternal night, they also have other standalone acts such as Avizandum protecting the Xadian border from human invaders for centuries, bringing an end to the Order of the Blood Moon, a cult that killed people and drank their blood in order to maintain their youth, and is mentioned to have ended a drought in the Far Reaches and stopping a shadow-eater from continuing to torment the Sourthern Moonshadow Elf tribes, and Zubeia playing a big role in bringing an end to the conflict between Xadia and the Human Kingdoms, and bringing Avizandum back to his senses, allowing them to defeat Aaravos.
With this, however, Domina still does a significant amount of heroic acts that, in retrospect, I think are enough to make her pass. While she doesn't sacrifice herself to destroy Aaravos' physical form, she still played a big role in his defeat, as it was the three archdragons fighting against him altogheter that brought an end to his attempt to bring eternal night. Not only that, she was mentioned to have looked after all of Xadia in the past, and after the death of the Empress of the Deep, she still kept protecting the oceans from threats. The biggest one being Finnegrin, as she stopped him from conquering the ocean and killing more sea creatures. She also the one who told Team Zym about Akiyu, allowing Team Zym to temporarily stop Aaravos from being freed, and sacrificed herself to protect Team Zym and their friends from the blast caused by the destruction of Aaravos' physical form.
Overall, given her still important role in stopping Aaravos and her other notable acts, I think she does enough to stand out even when taking Zubeia and Avizandum into account.
What Makes Her Inconsistent?[]
This is odd as her preventions don't sound that bad on paper, but I feel she lands here due to how the show presents it. Let's start with the big reason why I think she doesn't fit any higher moral scaling, Domina is very lethal, vengeful and ruthless, so much that, imo, is too much for her to be Near Pure Good. She drowned over a hundred ships with the people who killed the Empress of the Deep, out of revenge for the murder of her friend. This is portrayed as her moment of loss to grief, as after doing this she lost all interest in anything else other than protecting the oceans out of guilt due to thinking her spending her time protecting all of Xadia left the Empress unprotected and that's what got her killed.
The show goes out of its way to portray acts done by revenge as a negative, and in the same short story her past is revealed, she is deliberately compared to Ezran, who had lost his father and was filled with hate over his death, and would later become so angry over the one who seemingly killed him that he was willing to go against his friends' wishes, and even considered having his brother shot for defending his father's killer. They obviously want to portray Domina's killing as a tragic event, as the loss of someone she cared about left her filled with grief and she was consumed by hatred. Ezran, whom she was compared to in the short story, ends up feeling remorse for his actions and comes to realize how his anger caused him to be filled with darkness and nearly lose his sense of morality, something which Domina, however, never is shown letting go or regreting even if she dies in a heroic light. In addition to this, she also has another lethal moment where she killed Finnegrin's crab ship Shelley and threatened to drown Finnegrin if he dared to leave shore again, although this I don't hold too much against Domina given how awful of a person Finnegrin was.
Outside of lethality, Domina can be quite cold, an example of this is when Ezran goes to her and tries to ask for her help. The first thing she did was not listen and hit Ezran, Soren and Corvus, with the wave that knocked them to their feet, and she only begins to listen when Zubeia tells her Ezran is a king and shows how much she respects him.
She also is shown to have once fought bitterly with the other archdragons to become queen after Luna Tenebris' death, although she does accept Avizandum and Zubeia becoming the rulers of their people and agrees to Aditi's proposal to allow her to choose who would become the leader of the dragons without any fighting, so this isn't a strong prevention.
Final Verdict?[]
I think she is a yes, although I can see why some would think she may not be admirable enough or her corrupting factors not being too strong. Your choice.