Why I Love Disenchantment
Tejas GK| (1d ago)
I don’t think Disenchantment gets talked about enough.
Whenever people mention Matt Groening, obviously everyone immediately goes:
The Simpsons.
Then maybe Futurama.
But for me, Disenchantment has this very specific charm that I absolutely love.
It’s weird.
Dark.
Stupid.
Sometimes surprisingly emotional.
Half the characters are horrible people.
The kingdom is constantly falling apart.
Nobody really seems qualified for anything.
And somehow that makes Dreamland feel extremely alive.
I liked it enough that I literally named one of my own chat applications Penderghast.
So yeah.
I was definitely into it 😭
Dreamland is such a good setting
I think this is one of the biggest reasons I liked the show.
Fantasy usually gives you these giant beautiful kingdoms.
Wise kings.
Legendary warriors.
Majestic castles.
Ancient prophecies.
Everything feels important.
Then there’s Dreamland.
The king is screaming.
Someone is drunk.
The castle staff clearly don’t get paid enough.
Someone has probably died in an incredibly stupid way.
Elfo is doing something embarrassing.
Luci is encouraging the worst possible decision.
Bean is somewhere she absolutely should not be.
It feels like a fantasy world where everyone is just trying to get through the day.
And I love that.
Bean is probably what makes the show work
Bean is such a weird protagonist.
She’s a princess.
But she absolutely does not behave like the kind of princess fantasy stories usually give you.
She drinks.
She gets bored.
She hates being told what to do.
She makes stupid decisions.
She’s impulsive.
She can be selfish.
She gets angry.
She fucks things up constantly.
But she also genuinely cares about people.
That combination makes her way more interesting to me than some perfectly heroic main character.
She doesn’t feel like someone who was born knowing exactly what she wants.
A lot of the show is basically Bean trying to figure out:
Who the hell am I supposed to be?
Princess?
Queen?
Adventurer?
Daughter?
Hero?
Just some woman who wants everyone to stop telling her what to do?
And honestly that works.
Luci is fucking great
Probably one of my favorite characters.
Luci is supposed to be Bean’s personal demon.
Which initially sounds like:
okay, evil magical companion.
But he slowly becomes one of the most loyal people in her life.
He spends half the show encouraging chaos.
Drink more.
Do the stupid thing.
Make the bad decision.
Excellent influence 😭
And then somehow when things actually matter, Luci is there.
That contrast makes him way more lovable than he has any right to be.
He’s basically:
“I support all your worst decisions, but nobody else is allowed to hurt you.”
Incredible friend.
Elfo is... Elfo
Elfo is simultaneously lovable and unbelievably annoying.
Which I think is intentional.
He starts out so innocent.
Leaves the elf world because everything is too happy.
Immediately discovers that the outside world is considerably worse.
Great decision bro.
Then he falls for Bean.
And spends an unreasonable amount of time being awkward about it.
Sometimes I wanted to hug him.
Sometimes I wanted someone to throw him out of the castle window.
Which probably means the character worked.
The friendship between the three is the actual heart of the show
Bean.
Luci.
Elfo.
That’s the show for me.
Take away all the kingdoms, magic, secret societies, prophecy stuff and weird creatures and I’d still watch these three idiots walking around getting themselves into problems.
Because they genuinely feel like friends.
Not perfect friends.
They argue.
They get jealous.
They annoy each other.
They make selfish decisions.
But when everything goes wrong, they keep coming back.
That’s what makes the emotional parts actually work.
I love that the show looks silly and then randomly gets DARK
This is probably one of my favorite things about it.
You’re watching some stupid joke.
Someone gets launched out of a window.
King Zøg is screaming.
Luci makes some horrible comment.
Then five minutes later:
childhood trauma.
death.
betrayal.
family issues.
political manipulation.
Bro what 😭
The show can switch tone incredibly quickly.
Sometimes too quickly, honestly.
But when it works, it works really well.
There’s this weird sadness underneath the whole thing.
Dreamland looks colorful and ridiculous.
But almost every major character is dealing with something pretty fucked up.
King Zøg grew on me a LOT
Initially he’s basically just:
LOUD KING.
That’s the joke.
He’s angry.
He yells.
He doesn’t understand Bean.
He wants political marriages.
Classic incompetent fantasy dad.
But the more time you spend with him, the more human he becomes.
He genuinely loves Bean.
He just has absolutely no idea how to express it properly.
He has his own trauma.
His own loneliness.
His own insecurities.
And some of his later breakdowns are actually sad as hell.
I didn’t expect to care about Zøg nearly as much as I eventually did.
Oona deserved more appreciation
Oona is another character I ended up liking much more than I expected.
Initially you’re basically introduced to her as:
weird fish wife.
That’s it.
Then she becomes one of the coolest people in the show.
Independent.
Competent.
Doesn’t really care about behaving the way everyone expects her to.
Eventually becomes a fucking pirate.
Perfect.
And her weird way of speaking never stops being funny.
And then there’s Penderghast
My guy.
Sir Penderghast.
This dude is honestly such a side character compared with Bean, Luci, Elfo, Zøg etc.
But I liked him enough that when I was building a chat application...
I named it Penderghast.
😭
Why?
Honestly, I just liked the name.
There’s something ridiculously good about it.
Penderghast.
Sounds like some ancient cursed protocol.
Or a distributed database.
Or a medieval messaging system.
So naturally:
chat app.
I still find it funny that someone can look at one of my projects and think:
“Why the fuck is this called Penderghast?”
And the actual answer is:
because I liked a knight from Disenchantment.
That’s exactly the kind of stupid personal reference I like putting into things I build.
Penderghast was also genuinely loyal
That’s probably why I liked him beyond the name.
He’s one of those characters who seems relatively straightforward.
Knight.
Serves the king.
Does knight things.
But he actually comes across as one of the more dependable people in Dreamland.
Which is impressive considering basically nobody in Dreamland should be trusted with anything.
His fate also pissed me off.
I’ll leave it at that.
Penderghast deserved better.
The worldbuilding is way bigger than it first looks
This is something I really enjoyed.
At first:
Kingdom.
Princess.
Elf.
Demon.
Fairy-tale parody.
Cool.
Then suddenly you have:
Steamland.
Magic.
Science.
Hell.
Heaven.
Ancient history.
Secret societies.
Elves.
Trog stuff.
Dagmar.
Dreams.
Prophecies.
Different kingdoms.
Technology.
And the whole thing starts becoming this weird fantasy + steampunk + mythology mixture.
Steamland especially was such a cool contrast.
Dreamland is:
magic, swords, castles, stupidity.
Steamland is:
industry, machines, electricity, different stupidity.
I really liked that.
Magic vs technology was an interesting direction
I wish the show explored this even more.
You have Dreamland representing this old magical world.
Then Steamland comes along with machines, science, guns, electricity and industrialization.
Suddenly fantasy people are looking at technology like:
what the fuck is that?
And technologically advanced people look at magic the same way.
There’s so much you could do with that.
What happens when a society based on magic encounters industrial technology?
Does magic remain useful?
Can you industrialize magic?
Can science explain it?
Can both systems combine?
That was probably one of the coolest ideas the show introduced.
Dagmar is fucking terrifying
Another thing Disenchantment does surprisingly well.
Bean’s mother isn’t just:
evil queen because story needs villain.
Dagmar is personally connected to Bean in a way that makes everything much worse.
There’s always that tiny part of Bean that wants:
maybe my mother actually loves me.
And Dagmar is extremely good at exploiting that.
That’s much more interesting than a random villain attacking Dreamland.
The threat comes directly from Bean’s family.
Which also makes the whole story around identity way more personal.
The show is basically about fucked-up families
The more I think about it, this might actually be one of its main themes.
Bean and Zøg.
Bean and Dagmar.
Zøg and his own history.
The royal family.
Elves.
Other kingdoms.
Everyone has some kind of family bullshit.
And Bean is basically trying to decide which parts of her family define her and which parts she wants to reject.
That’s a pretty serious theme hiding underneath a show where an elf repeatedly gets slapped around.
The jokes are very hit or miss
I’ll admit this.
Not every joke lands.
Sometimes Disenchantment feels like:
joke → pause → okay anyway
There are definitely episodes where the humor isn’t as sharp as Futurama.
But I don’t really watch it purely as a comedy.
That’s probably why I enjoy it more than some people.
If you go in expecting The Simpsons but fantasy, I can understand being disappointed.
I see it more as a weird serialized fantasy adventure that happens to constantly make jokes.
That works better for me.
I actually liked that it became serialized
Some people prefer episodic shows where everything resets.
I’m the opposite here.
I liked that things mattered.
Characters remembered things.
Relationships changed.
Mysteries continued.
Decisions had consequences.
The story slowly expanded.
You could actually theorize about what was going on.
That made me much more invested.
Although sometimes the plot got TOO tangled
This is probably my biggest criticism.
At some point there are so many mysteries and groups and prophecies and reveals that you start going:
wait who wanted what again?
😭
There are times where the show introduces something huge and then leaves it sitting around for ages.
Or answers one mystery by creating three more.
That can be fun.
But it can also make the story feel like it’s constantly promising a massive explanation that may or may not be worth the wait.
I think the show was at its best when the complicated lore stayed anchored around Bean, Luci and Elfo.
Once the lore itself became the main thing, I sometimes cared less.
I liked the show most when they were just exploring
Some of my favorite episodes aren’t necessarily the giant lore episodes.
Sometimes it’s just:
The trio goes somewhere.
Discovers weird people.
Gets into trouble.
Someone betrays them.
Luci encourages violence.
Elfo falls in love with something he absolutely shouldn’t.
Bean gets drunk.
Return home.
Perfect.
😭
The world is interesting enough that simply wandering through it is fun.
I also like how ugly everything can be
Not visually.
The animation is obviously very polished.
I mean morally.
A lot of fantasy worlds try to make medieval kingdoms feel romantic.
Dreamland absolutely does not.
People are drunk.
Dirty.
Violent.
Stupid.
Public executions are entertainment.
Healthcare basically doesn’t exist.
Kings are incompetent.
Everyone is probably illiterate.
It’s still cartoon fantasy.
But Dreamland never feels like:
wow I wish I lived there.
You absolutely do not.
The ending was... fine
I wouldn’t say Disenchantment had some perfect legendary ending.
There were things I would've liked explored more.
Some things felt rushed.
Some mysteries probably deserved more room.
But I was happy that the characters actually got conclusions.
And honestly, by that point I cared more about where Bean, Luci and Elfo ended up than whether every single piece of lore received a perfect explanation.
Sometimes the emotional ending matters more than the wiki ending.
I think that’s why the show stuck with me
It isn’t the funniest show I’ve ever watched.
It isn’t the best fantasy story I’ve ever seen.
It isn't perfectly written.
But it has personality.
Dreamland feels like Dreamland.
Bean feels like Bean.
Luci feels like Luci.
Elfo definitely feels like Elfo.
You can show me a random screenshot and I immediately know what kind of world I’m looking at.
That’s valuable.
There are technically "better" shows that I remember far less.
And apparently it entered my programming too
This is probably the best proof that I liked it.
Years later I needed a name for a chat application.
Could've called it:
ChatFlow.
Connectly.
MessageHub.
Ping.
Some AI-generated SaaS bullshit.
No.
Penderghast.
😭
And honestly?
Still a better name.
That’s one of my favorite things about building personal projects.
They don’t need names optimized for investors.
I can reference random things I like.
Someone asks why.
Now there’s a story.
So yeah, I love Disenchantment
Not because it’s perfect.
It definitely isn't.
But because it’s weird enough to have its own identity.
A drunk princess.
An optimistic elf.
A demon who somehow becomes an amazing friend.
An emotionally unstable king.
An absolutely terrifying mother.
Pirates.
Magic.
Industrial cities.
Talking animals.
Ancient conspiracies.
And one knight with such a good name that I stole it for a chat app.
What else do you need?
If The Simpsons is Matt Groening looking at normal society and Futurama is him looking at the future...
Disenchantment feels like him looking at fantasy and asking:
what if everyone living there was kind of a disaster?
And apparently that was exactly my kind of show.
