22o9L & The Awesomest Man
LEAVE ME BE, I'M TRYING TO BE LAZY HERE!
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Castle, meet dragon.
Across the storied history of Sputnik Studios, there have been many dragons. If you happen to encounter a dragon that likes the following:
- Treasure
- Villainy
- Her own reflection
- Power
Chances are you're dealing with one of the many incarnations of the "Dragoness". Whether they want to rule the world, claim a partner, or simply expand her treasure hoard, the Dragoness's ego and greed know few bounds. Some might call her "pompous", "arrogant", or "gluttonous", but they would be mistaken. The Dragoness is simply a superior being, and superior beings automatically own these things that others might foolishly claim are "stolen". It's not as if there are many willing to challenge the Dragoness' views; fire, sheer size, and proficiency in magic tend to be rather convincing arguments.
"This is what you call a chronicle of my deeds!? Positively despicable! Not unlike me…."
—The Dragoness, Tale as Dumb as Bricks
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Table of Contents
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Fiction
Preface
"The Dragoness" is a fan-coined term, given to a collective group of Dragon characters created for various projects by Sputnik Studios showrunner and animator Vance. While these characters vary in appearance and their exact role in any given storyline, they share essentially the same characterization and storytelling function between them. This page is dedicated to the conceptual history of the Dragoness over several "eras" based on Sputnik's general stylistic approach to her. Information on individual incarnations of the Dragoness can be found in their own respective pages.
The Early Dragoness
D'aww, she looks so prec-(gets incinerated).
In her earliest appearances, the Dragoness' character was defined by a meta nature. No matter the setting or her portrayal, you could count on the Dragoness breaking the tension by
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providing constructive criticism.
I am a placeholder sentence.
From 19XX to 19XX, you could bet on The Dragoness completely wrecking every single plot line she was put in. It was not enough for the villain to comment on her own place in the narrative and clichê roles, she had to make sure all characters and events were as unique as possible. This turned very basic heroic and seemingly cliché adventures onto more experimental directions. Such as in Against the Cult of the Whale God, that initially presented itself as a sword and sorcery quest, only to unfold in a theological geopolitical dispute between The Dragoness, representing the deity known as the Winged Whale, and the heroes.
The Dragoness served as a narrative device by Vance’s team to subvert and comment on narrative conventions. Gender roles, stereotypes, etc. were, besides the plot itself, the most relevant uses for The Dragoness. From a narrative perspective, the villain as written as ignorant about many consequences by her liberal application of plot bending magic. The early era archetype was vastly more concerned with what would make her look evil, powerful and epic. This forced the other characters to adapt, creating unexpected heroes and villains, alongside forcing the narrative to take other shapes.
Our favorite plot bender sometimes addressed her creators by name, arguing loudly about decisions and plot directions. It was not unusual for The Dragoness to get angry, as the invisible (to the audience) hand of the animators moved and polished some aspects of the plot. The Dragoness vs. Vence recurring gag/plot line was most notable on the finale of Blood, the Adventurer. After the premature end of the cartoon, and extra 5 minute episode, consisting solely on The Dragoness complaining about unsolved plot lines and how her defeat was boring and tasteless was released.
“The Boring Era”
I swear, my material is hardly worthy of coal anymore!
From 19XX to 19XX, The Dragoness was taken in a new direction. When asked about the chances, Marissa Vance commented: “You see, I think we finally were able to reach a compromise. Always though I couldn't please this character I had created. Maybe it's a bit pathetic, but I don't think it is. Sometimes we have characters or ideas that demand things from us. They come knocking and saying they want this and that. I always thought you needed to give up things that your characters asked for. Well, me and The Dragoness figured things out.”
This moment of The Dragoness’ appearances is called “The Boring Era” by fans of sputnik for being boring. Maybe it's not the most creative name, what is actually fitting, since a large portion of Sputnik fans tends to criticize the lack of creativity by Vance’s team.
Wandering Knight (19XX - 19XX) is the Vance work that best summarises this era. The series is not necessary bad, but The Dragoness is not her usual self. Somehow, Sputnik decided it would be a great idea to remove the metanarrative interventions of the villain as a narrative device. Not only that, but all signs of awareness about being in a story vanished from the character entirely, she didn't feel like herself, but just another character by the same name.
In next works, due to massive fan backlash, Sputnik came back with The Dragoness’ meta commentary. Later, her powers of nudging the story would come back, but still very mild compared to the earlier era. This moment of The Dragoness has appreciators, but is its not very Dragoness-like.
The Renaissance
The peace times did not last long, and after 19XX, The Dragoness' reckless plot altering became, again, her most prevalent element. Seems like the villain was tired of being pushed around by Vance. Actually, its hard to know what happened, since ceased the bit about her and The Dragoness alleged fight behind the production line. Marissa said she was done with entertaining this ideas.
The Dragoness now was back to her former self. The so called Boring Era abruptly came to an end with the release of Sea of Monsters (19XX - 19XX), featuring The Dragoness as the main villain. Her metanarrative comments and plot changes came back at full force, this time, frequently addressing the animation team itself.
Our meta-villain went overboard on her gimmick, or that is what the animators say to save face. The application of her as a plot device was not always implemented in the best way. But when they lended, it was great. All late appearances of The Dragoness were highly experimental, surrealist and often dadaist. Some of Sputnik strangest came to be made in this context.
This era of The Dragoness is extremely divisive. Some fans really enjoyed it, some hated, and some were pseudo-intelectals trying to seem smart.
Appearances
The Dragoness has appeared in a variety of Sputnik Studios projects, originally created by Marissa as the primary villain in Return of the Wizards (19XX). All works by Marissa Vance, independent of setting, have had at least a cameo appearance of The Dragoness in minor villainous roles. In other works, she has appeared as the main antagonist or a major antagonist. Since her debut, The Dragoness has been included in multiple forms and different characterizations across her different appearances.
However, a few traits always remain consistent across Dragoness’ appearances, like her draconic nature and perfection driven mindset. Although not as prevalent,indirect meta-commentary on her circumstances and roles in media is a common theme in most of her characterization across multiple installments. This typically comes as a manifestation of her perfection driven mindset, typically in remarks about story decisions made by the writers and other staff, such as pre and post production.
Although not a rule, The Dragoness' objectives in Sputnik media are commonly motivated by treasure, jealousy and spite. Late appearances have considerably deviated from this pattern, giving the character more nuanced goals and interactions with other characters. Later works have The Dragoness’ evil machinations be motivated by completely different ideals across each installment, such as revenge, a desire to change the world to be a better place and even cloning herself in order to take over the world more efficiently as a twin queen of terror.
Powers
The primary ability of The Dragoness is to be aware she is a cartoon character, displaying multiple times knowledge about Sputnik staff. However, this power is mostly never used to benefit the villain herself, being mostly used for fourth wall gags, usually as commentary regarding her scenes, and while being self-aware, The Dragoness will attempt to be the best villain she can. The animators and her tend to not agree on what makes a “good villain” in many cases.
In multiple incarnations, particularly her first appearances, such as in Return of the Wizards, Against the Cult of the Whale God (19XX) and Blood, The Adventurer (19XX - 19XX), The Dragoness was able to alter large plot elements in her scenes, notably leading to entirely new story developments, with this ability serving as a driving plot device across the narrative. Infamously in RotW, The Dragoness is introduced as a great evil and main villain, being a source of chaos and destruction, initially stated as mindless and then midway across the cartoon the villainess appears not only as an intelligent dragon, but also nudges and alters things in the movie to match her liking, directly stating that “nobody will like this, they have seen this a million times!”.
After the release of RotW, Ms. Vance jokingly declared in an interview: “The Dragoness is very hard to please, and almost impossible to reach an agreement with. There was a whole week spent arguing about some of her changes.” The villainous dragon would keep drastically subverting the public's expectations until toning down after her fourth appearance. Some speculate this was due to a series of staff changes that removed many previous key writers and artists from Dragoness related projects. During this era of more mild Dragoness meta narratives, her displayed meta powers are rarely used as a plot device.
Other powers and special abilities displayed by The Dragoness tend to vary wildly across her appearances. She has been able to spellcast, dimensionhop, breath fire and many other elements, travel across time, teleport, and many other things. A full non-comprehensive list of The Dragoness across all her versions can be found here, we wish you luck trying to finish it in one sitting. The most consistent powers displayed by her across all Sputnik media are her iconic electricity breath and the use of sorcery.
Notes
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