The Flames of Love and War/Tropes


 * An Aesop:
 * Racism and prejudice are destructive forces that, if left unchecked, will result in the destruction of all parties involved.
 * Sometimes, love is all it takes to change the world.
 * There's nothing wrong with being curious and embracing what's new.
 * Awesome Art: The film's hand-drawn animation is a beautiful splash of art and color that feels reminiscent of the Disney Renaissance.
 * Awesome Music: Melissa Hestridge truly rocks it in this soundtrack.
 * Darker And Edgier: The film is one of Disney's darkest love stories in animation, with Grey-and-Gray Morality and War Is Hell being both promenient aspects in addition to its exploration of racism.
 * Heartwarming Moments:
 * Aqua and Phoenix' entire relationship is this. While Phoenix at first hates her and Aqua is indifferent towards Phoenix, the two develop a bond upon getting to know each other more deeply and discpver an emotional connection. They also help each other with their issues, with Phoenix helping Aqua embrace her curiosity and Aqua in turn helping her heal from her battle scars and subsequent guilt. That bond blossoms into a love that manages to end their people's war without bloodshed. By the end of the film, they even get married.
 * The looks Aqua and Phoenix give each other as thry go to theur honeymoon. Awwww.
 * Jerkass Woobie: Phoenix can be racist abd quite rude, but its hard to not to feel bad for her upon seeing she suffers from PTSD.
 * Narm Charm: Aqua's comeback to her father's assertion that she dosen't know how to use a sword is a simple "She taught me". This out-of-context seems like a Lame Comeback. However, since Basileus has been telling her to avoid learning anything new in her life, it instead comes off as her rejecting her evil father's teachings.
 * Realism-Induced Horror: Arguably one of the scariest part of the film is how realistic both war and its psychological effects are potrayed.
 * Salvaged Story: The film having LGBTQ+ leads is a great relief following Disnry's poor attempts in cinema to potray queer characters. The fact that most of the film's writers are queer certainly helped.
 * Shout-Out: Phoenix at one point describes Aqua as "the incredibly annoying girl in frobt of [her] with the staring problem", calling back to episode 2 of The Falcon and the Winter Soldier.
 * They Also Did:
 * Director Dana Terrace and co-writers Rachel Vine and Molly Ostertag were the showrunner and writers, respectively, for Disney's The Owl House.
 * ND Stevenson, showrunner of She-Ra and the Princesses of Power also co-wrote the script, in addition to voicing a character himself.
 * War Is Hell: Surprisingly for a Disney animated movie, the film goes deep in exploring this. Phoenix even developed PTSD thanks to her experiences as a soldier.
 * What Do You Mean Its For Kids?!: Being a love story by Disney may make people think this is good family-friendly fun. But its potrayal of war is eerily realistic and one of the lead characters explicitly suffers from PTSD. Safe to say, this isn't one for little kids.