Elena of Avalor S3 E22

## Plot

It's Sweetheart's Day in Avalor, which is basically their equivalent of Valentine's Day, but instead of cards, hearts, roses, and chocolates, they give the person they like an orchid. This is a musical episode, so almost all of the dialogue rhymes and is sung. Props to everyone for rising to the challenge. However, I am a little upset that this episode wasn't used to give further ship tease/confirmation to Gabe and Naomi, who don't even appear in the episode. And Elena's right arm is *still* in a cast! I swear it's healing in real time. She hurt it three months ago! Elena and Flo walk in on Armando rehearsing a song for Marlena, but he's a terrible singer. Elena gives him advice and tells him to just be himself. However, Flo gets him to see if Mateo has a spell that can make him a better singer. He's not in his workshop, but Flo tells Armando to make a potion that makes him sing better. Wait, wasn't it a plot point in season 2, episode 7, that only someone who had the key to the workshop could get in? You'd think after what happened in that episode, Mateo would've added new security measures, or at least not leave the door open, even if he was coming right back; so people can't just walk in and cause chaos, like right now. Armando uses all of the ingredients, including a lock of his own hair, and drinks the potion, but it doesn't make him a better singer. Instead, it causes pink birds to fly around and make everyone else sing and dance. Flo and Armando tell Elena. Mateo can make a reversal potion, but because Armando used the full amount of the ingredients to make the original potion, he has to buy more at Doña Paloma's store, and then she won't let him leave because she wants him to buy more stuff, so he and Armando are forced to run to save their wallets. Mateo makes the potion, but in order for it to work, Armando has to sing, since he's the one who cast the spell. He sings his song for Marlena, and it works. However, Marlena heard the whole thing and runs away. Luisa thinks that Francisco has forgotten their special Sweetheart's Day tradition, but he just wanted to plan something extra special this year. He tried to bake a cake, but that didn't go very well, so he decorated the garden with orchids instead. At the palace, Elena and Armando hear Marlena outside singing Armando's song for him. She likes him too, even if he can't sing, and asks him to be her sweetheart. She ran away earlier to get her guitar. She loves how sweet and brave he is. Armando accepts her orchid, and they leave to get some food together. Also, there was a lesbian couple off to the side in this episode. Still nowhere near the LGBT+ representation that *Andi Mack*, *HSM:TM:TS*, or *The Owl House* had, but whatever. I still wish Riley and Maya would've ended up together on *Girl Meets World* so that stupid love triangle with Lucas never happened. It was contrived, and it dragged on forever. Anyways, it seems like live action shows, at least the ones associated with Disney, have more freedom with representation, at least in terms of sexual orientation, than their animated shows, especially compared to literally any of their movies in any of the numerous franchises and companies they now own. And don't even get me started on the lack of religious representation. What's up with that? It got so bad at Pixar that the employees sent an open letter about it in 2022. I know Elena won't develop a romantic relationship with anyone, and I don't ship her with Naomi, but even I can see the potential romantic subtext in some of their interactions.

## Review

**Content Warning:** Mentions of PTSD, racism, and police brutality, severe curse words are used. Sorry to just bring this up in a random episode description, but all of the ones where this would've been appropriate were already really long, and let's be honest, this isn't exactly my best or longest work by far, so I may as well try to add to it. Plus, with the delays in episodes from the pandemic, I need to do *something* to keep busy, and I've always loved to write. Some fans of the show have hated the direction that season 3 is heading in. They're actively rooting for Esteban to win, even though he's an antagonist now. They're basically really big and crazy Este-fans of his and some are most likely applying the Draco in Leather Pants trope to him (meaning that they're willing to excuse or rationalize whatever he does because they think he's hot). Um, he's a fictional character, and even if he wasn't, I did the math, and he's either 60 or 61 at this point, even if his character model has never made him look that old, especially after his magic makeover. Even the creator of the show and his voice actor have said that what he did was selfish and he should be punished. I went through the same thing with the more vocal part of the RWBY FNDM during volume 7 a few months ago, and going through it again with this fandom feels exhausting, not to mention repetitive. Spoilers for *RWBY*, but a character that was previously good also became an antagonist to the heroes there too, and some fans sided with him and his strategy to basically act like a coward and run away from the rest of the world's problems if it meant he and his people could live and keep two incredibly powerful objects of great importance out of the Big Bad's hands. And this guy was *a general*. One that was most likely suffering from PTSD and an ungodly amount of pain, stress, paranoia, and exhaustion, but still. See the similarities to Esteban? Basically, my main point here is the same as my main point in that argument. Why do we have to take sides? We didn't have the full context yet. The volume wasn't even over. Only some of the people who work on the show know how it's going to end. Sure, speculation can be fun, but sometimes we take it too far or we take it too seriously. I don't think Esteban is going to die, and even if he does, there's no way it'll be by Elena's hand, at least not intentionally. Still, there's a big difference between "I'm not going to kill this person" to "I forgive you for every horrible thing you ever did, before and after X." The fact that Shuriki broke her promise to Esteban not to harm anyone *doesn't matter* in this context, at least not to me. He still committed high treason, and the fact that he was a minor when he did so also doesn't matter. Instead of being punished for his actions, he was rewarded by Shuriki, and he kept that reward after Elena freed the kingdom because he lied to her and everyone else for years afterward. Yes, he helped retake the kingdom, but only at the last second, and he was against helping Elena right after she came back because he didn't want to lose. And even when she became crown princess, he was still trying to undermine or usurp her authority and even manipulate and lie to her, just like Shuriki had done and Ash would later do to him. In his own words, he wanted to be "the real power behind the throne." Based on that and other comments made in seasons 1 and 3, one can make the argument that Esteban wanted to be king, but he wasn't as evil as Scar and didn't want to hurt his family, even if he felt like they didn't really love, care about, or listen to him, so he sided with Shuriki instead to gain power. Also, if you're put in jail for committing a crime, and you escape instead of trying to prove that you've been wrongfully convicted and imprisoned, then guess what? If you're ever caught, you'll be sent straight back to jail, because escaping from prison is also a crime. Not to mention that Esteban actually *was* guilty, and he also freed three dangerous individuals, which he didn't have to do, and shouldn't have done! He even refused at first before Ash manipulated him, but our heroes have no way of knowing that. Okay, they have Elena's truth vision, but she hasn't used it since the special, which is honestly a little disappointing. Plus, at least in Captain Mateo, it's pretty clear that Elena was blinded by her anger and was convinced that everything Esteban ever told her was a lie, including the broken promise by Shuriki. After that episode, she didn't actively pursue him again for eleven episodes, and that time Gabe, Mateo, Naomi, and the jaquins came with her, and when they didn't find Ash or Esteban and it was clear that Kizin was the bigger threat at hand, she dealt with him, unlike Naomi, who accidentally ruined the trap they set for Kizin because she wanted to catch Tziloco for her own reasons. And while Elena has learned to control her emotion magic, that doesn't mean that she's suddenly calm enough to have a civil discussion at length with an active criminal who's working with other criminals to defeat her. Not to mention that releasing the Delgados during Carnaval put the rest of her family in even more danger than they were already in. And if Esteban hadn't escaped, then there would've been no danger at all. Basically, Esteban has been stuck in a brutal cycle of abuse and revenge for much of his life, and just like in real life, it's incredibly hard to break that cycle. I want him to break it, but I don't know if he can, or if he should even be forgiven and allowed to move on. I think he should be punished, but I don't know what a suitable punishment would be. This situation reminds me of the Sofia the First episode "The Amulet and the Anthem". Sofia is cursed by Elena for bragging to her friends, but when she apologizes to them and they forgive her, the curse doesn't break. Belle shows up and basically tells her that actions speak louder than words. She had to do something that showed her friends that she was sorry. It's sort of the same thing here. It's not enough for Esteban to *say* that he's sorry and that he never meant for any of this to happen. He has to do something that *shows* Elena and the others that he's sorry. A lot of people think that his years of service to the kingdom and him showing genuine remorse is enough, but I disagree, especially since most of those years of "service" was him enforcing Shuriki's rule. We the audience may know that Esteban's feelings and words are true, but his actions are telling the protagonists exactly the opposite. He escaped to avoid being punished, he broke the Delgados out, and he became an antagonist. Does that sound like the actions of someone who's remorseful and ready to take responsibility for his actions? Why do we even care so much about this? These are still fictional characters after all. Meanwhile, the real world is *actually* suffering from the aforementioned pandemic, fires, and droughts in recent years and months that have ravaged Australia, California, and the Amazon rainforest, and those are just the big places. Pro-democracy protests have been going on for awhile, and were really only put on hold by the pandemic; and for over a week now there have been massive protests all around the world after yet another African-American man was murdered by a police officer on camera, and three others didn't even try to stop him. In fact, they actively played a part in the murder by keeping citizens back. This occurred not long after three racist white bastards with guns actively chased down and murdered yet *another* unarmed African-American man who was simply going on a jog. And don't even get me started on mass shootings, or suppressing the rights of women. The real world is not a cartoon, or a fairy tale. Not everything can be fixed or solved so easily, if it even can be in the first place. We all need to work together. We need to do everything we can. We cannot become desensitized to this. We cannot afford to get used to it. We should not just sigh and move on because this happened *yet again*! We should **not** expect this kind of behavior from the people who are supposed to protect all of us, not just some of us! Okay, I know I said that I wanted to make this longer, but in this case, I might've overdone it. That's been happening a lot recently whenever I'm given a minimum word count. Odds are good that I'll write almost double the amount that's required. Maybe it's because of the pandemic, or maybe I've just been giving people too much personal information about myself, because even someone like me, with zero real world friends who is an antisocial, anxious, socially awkward, and extremely shy loner/introvert/homebody, desperately craves human interaction from someone other than my family after almost three months in quarantine/in isolation/in lockdown, or whatever phrase you want to use. It's also about 2:00 in the morning and I've been working on this for an hour, maybe longer, so that could have something to do with it too. Anyways, see you next time, stay safe, and make sure your voice is heard!