Team LoliRock

Written by Madellaine Paxson and storyboarded by Yann Le Gall, cover by Gaëlle “Galou” Autin.

Ok, it’s time to talk about this episode. I guess lot of you are waiting for these behind-the-scenes to show up anyway. ;)

Xeris is one of our favourite episodes of season 1, for so many reason… If you didn’t saw this episode already, warning : spoiler ahead ! 

Ok, ready ? 

Xeris was the 6th episode created. The story is about Talia revealing key events of her past even Auriana wasn’t aware of : about how she was as a child, about her kingdom, and about her big sister Izira… and how Xeris was ultimately destroyed by Gramorr. 

Xeris is the first of what we call our “mythological episodes”. 

The structure of this episode is quite different from our “normal” episodes, as it starts with a fight, instead of some daily life activities. A fight, where the princesses are basically losing, for a change… until Talia’s doing her secret trick !…

When you break the “format” of what you built, your audience can be a little lost, but also intrigued. And that’s what we’re looking for here :  

If one of your character is doing something new or extremely badass right at the beginning, it should raise the following question : “How can she do that ?!” And then, we’d spend the rest of the episode giving you the answer. 

Which lead us to Talia’s past. 

The flashback part on Xeris was a big challenge, because we basically had no idea how Xeris or the rest of Ephedia should look like. We had the castle, and the throne room, and that’s it. 

It’s here, on this episode, that we raised and solved most of questions regarding Ephedia, such as “How are people dressed ?”, “What’s the architectural style for other places ? ” or “What should be the color of hair for people on Ephedia ? and For Talia as a kid ?”

As it’s a question that I got a lot (and I’ve answered previously here), here’s a quick reminder of what’s been decided : 

- On Ephedia, people’s hair color gradually change while being filled with magic. As baby, Talia had brown hair, Iris was blonde, and Auriana had red hair. When they grew up, as they develop magic powers, the hair color changes, and after one year or two, the color is fully magical : bright orange for Auriana, light blue for Talia… and if Iris stayed on Ephedia, no doubt she would have had pink hair by this point.

- On Earth, as there is no magic, this color fades away after some time (a few months at least), unless it’s been sustained by repeated use of magic. It’s possible to quicken the process if wanted however : that’s what Talia and Auriana did to blend more easily in human society. And that’s what Mephisto and Praxina didn’t do, ‘cause they don’t care and would probably never stop using magic no matter what. 

Now, let’s talk about our new best princess : Izira, Princess of Xeris. 

She’s Talia’s genius, responsible, big sister. It was interesting and fun to show a very different Talia, as a kid, as we know her, and to tell why she’s now serious and determined (sometimes to the extreme). As for her age, we’ve stated in a previous post that Izira is 9 years older than Talia, and that Talia was 7 during the events of this episode. 

At present time, as Talia is now 16, Izira is now 25 too. She didn’t change much, but well, she was already very mature and adult at that time. 

Izira’s design was easy to create : we used Talia as a reference, and imagined how she would age, and grow even more beautiful, and that’s basically it. As for the color, to differentiate the two sisters, we increased the contrast between skin and hair, giving Izira a slightly darker tone for the skin, and lighter for the hair. Truth is, that’s how a lot of us pictures our “ideal Talia” :) (You often have more freedom for the design of your secondary characters than your main cast)

And then, Gramorr comes and destroy Xeris, captures Izira, and Talia has to flee…

And we got one recurring question about this event : “Gramorr should be to be trapped in the throne room since he stole the throne, when Iris was a baby, shouldn’t he ?”. 

Yes. Indeed, he was trapped : the Oracle gem were scattered, and Gramorr was trapped, not knowing about Iris and the Gem being on earth. 

However, who said Gramorr was powerless ? When you’re an evil and powerful wizard, trapped in a small room, you try to escape ! One way or another… and Gramorr found one… It allowed him to roam free into Ephedia, looking for the oracle gems, and eliminating the other royal families. Then, at some point, he was trapped again and from this point, he had to rely on his servants, including Mephisto and Praxina, do act on the field in his stead. 

All these event, including how Gramorr and the twins met, have yet to be told. And don’t worry, they will. At some point. Not today. ;) 

At the end of this episode, the twins surprisingly wins : they prevent Talia from recovering Izira’s medallion, and keep it for themselves, while Talia is only able to recover the central gem (that fell at the beginning of the episode). 

It’s enough for Talia, since she’s able to discover that Izira is still alive though, transforming a defeat into something positive for the future.

Now, what about the medallion ? Will we see it again ? From the beginning we intended to finish this story. 

We couldn’t in season 1, but Izira’s Medallion will be back on season 2 ! And we bet most of you will like it. ;)