A touching episode. It focuses on the relationship between Iris and Aunt Ellen, her adoptive mother.
Ellen, while being a secondary character for most of the show, is really important for Iris. The princess really thinks of Ellen as a mother, and is often torn between her feeeling for her, and for her true parents she never met. We could’t explore this relationship as much as we wanted, but this episode is a first step anyway. Fortunately for us, we’ll have another occasion to dig more into this topic in season 2.
It’s also the first encounter between Iris and Gramorr, and as such, it was something we were very careful with. We wanted Iris to show no fear toward him, ready to face him whenever needed, with courage. We also wanted to show that Gramorr wasn’t only a powerful dark wizard : he’s also a manipulative being that can’t be trusted no matter what. Deep down, Iris knows that, but the problem is : Gramorr is the only one who know the truth about Iris’ parents, it’s one of Iris main weaknesses. (A weakness Gramorr will try to exploit again during the event of the final season)
This episode was quite a nightmare to produce, and we changed and reworked it a lot from the script to the final animatic. :) Being subtle and genuine when we’re talking about relationships proves to be a challenge… The twin’s plot also, to trick Iris using fake dreams, was messy and we weren’t really happy with it. Honestly, if we could we have changed things more deeply, we would’ve done it… but there is only so much you can do within budget and schedule, and we had to make quick choices, then move to the next episode. :)
