Aresis?unmask

Ares is the God of war, but you would be forgiven for mistaking him as the God of losing wars. His rival, Athena flattens him with a rock she picks up off the ground. Two giants stuff him in a bronze jar for thirteen months. A mortal wounds him and he runs home screaming. Hephaestus catches him naked in a net and invites everyone to look.

Just as Ares, the god of war, is overshadowed by Athena, the god of war but better in every way, we are looking for the other princess of war, whom people vaguely remember after blurting out Mulan's name.

It's Raya from Raya and the Last Dragon.

War defines the entire story of Raya and the Last Dragon. How are things going when the show opens? Not so good, the tribes are at war. Why is Raya an orphan? Because of war. Why is Sisu the last dragon? War again. Why are the 5 tribes of Kumandra even at war in the first place? You guessed it. War.

The Kumandran war is itself the direct consequence of a frozen conflict between the Dragons and the Druun. And it's been going on for 500 years. A cosy setting for the God of war.

Raya's headgear, the Salakot, is the tell. She's the only princess portrayed with full-coverage headgear, and the film uses it three ways at once: weather protection, disguise, and emotional armour. Ares' single most consistent attribute across all iconography is his helmet. And unlike Mulan, Raya keeps her helmet on.

Next, the head to head matchup. Mulan received a few months of boot camp training targeted at conscripts. Raya was trained from toddlerhood by a master martial artist specifically to guard the Dragon Gem. Mulan fights well. Raya fights like a comic-book superhero. And yet, all the smart money is on Mulan should the two come to blows — just as Athena beats Ares, it is a foregone conclusion that Mulan will pull some environmental trickery to win the day.

But how can a movie that ends in peace be a movie about Ares? Sound objection, but as it turns out, Raya and the Last Dragon is a retelling of perhaps the only myth where Ares plays a central role and still comes out ahead — the founding of Thebes:

• Cadmus comes to Boeotia and finds a spring guarded by a water-dragon, a son of Ares.
• Cadmus kills the dragon.
• Cadmus sows its teeth in the ground and from the furrows rise the Spartoi — the Sown Men. Cadmus throws a stone among them and each blames his neighbour. They fight until five are left standing. Echion, Udaeus, Chthonius, Hyperenor, Pelorus.
• Cadmus serves the god for eight years in penance. And at the end of it, Ares gives him Harmonia — his daughter by Aphrodite — as a wife. Harmony, taken into the house, ends the strife. Thebes is founded.

The plain Thebes sits on, the most valuable ground in central Greece and therefore the most fought-over was known as "the dancing-floor of Ares."

Now connect the dots in Raya's story.

• The land of Kumandra is defined by dragons. It's literally dragon shaped. The last dragon, Sisu, is a water dragon found at the tail of the Kumandra river.
• The dragons are lost.
• Five factions spring from the divided body of a dragon: Fang, Tail, Spine, Talon and Heart. The factions fight over the dragon gem for 500 years and each blames the others.
• Raya searches for six years. And at the movie's end the tribes unite and Kumandra is made whole again.

The outcome isn't a departure from Ares — it's his myth's own ending. The final clue to Raya's identity comes at the movie's climax. Raya gives up her piece of the Dragon Gem and allows the Druun to petrify her, leaving the others to unite and reassemble the gem. Which makes sense because peace is only achieved when the God of War lets go.

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Extra-diegetic. Raya and the Last Dragon took around $163M in inflation adjusted revenue worldwide — the lowest of any film in the Disney Princess canon.¹ No song, no Oscar win. It is the least-seen princess film ever made. Which is the most Ares thing in this entire project. He is the god with no temples, no hymns, and no festivals. His only monument is a bare rock: Areopagus — the Hill of Ares.

Footnotes

1. Released during the pandemic as a simultaneous cinema and Disney+ Premier Access title, Raya took only about $130M at the worldwide box office. See Raya and the Last Dragon. ↩