The malevolent power that we are told shattered Kumandra’s paradise was no demon, though it’s vaguely suggestive of an inchoate Balrog: a mindless, raging maelstrom of smoke and lilac-colored energy called the Druun that is able to reproduce, horrifyingly, by sweeping over human beings and turning them into stone.Įven the dragons were helpless against this menace - until the last dragon, Sisudatu, banished them (apparently extinguishing herself in the process) with a burst of the very last dragon-magic concentrated in a gemstone of power.
Given the Asian milieu, it’s no surprise that the dragons we find in this paradise (via a rather dense prologue, animated in a flat style evocative of cutout paper puppetry) are not the malicious, fiery monsters of Western mythology, but benevolent beings associated with water and peace. Raya opens with a myth of paradise lost, set in the fantasy land of Kumandra. In both films the balance is upset and old hostilities between demographics are renewed, and the heroine must find a way to restore what was lost.
While Zootopia is populated by anthropomorphic animals, its heroine, like Raya, inhabits a world of diverse realms and populations uneasily coexisting in the shadow of a dream of utopian harmony. Just as notable, though, are ties to Zootopia. The lesson may be the same progressive pro-diversity theme at work in Zootopia and other recent Disney cartoons, but it’s a welcome surprise to find the young protagonist naively expressing narrow views and the tolerant parent gently prodding her in a more broad-minded direction - a pointed subversion of the overused Junior Knows Best dynamic dominating recent US animation.