Queen Janai is a major character in Netflix's The Dragon Prince franchise.

She is a Sunfire Elf who formerly served as a Sunfire Knight, but following her sister Khessa's demise, she became the new queen of the Sunfire Elves. Although she began as an antagonist in Season 2, she becomes far heroic in Season 3, leading to her redemption, and becoming a close friend of Amaya and later her wife.

She is voiced by Rena Anakwe.

Biography

Janai was born in the royal family of sunfire elves as the grandaughter of Aditi and the sister of Khessa of Lux Aurea, and became a knight of her kingdom. Her sister and queen Khessa would have arguments with Janai due to the former's more cold and misanthropic side.

One day, she bacame the leader of a group of Sunfire soldiers, with the mission of attacking the border of the Human Kingdoms, which was protected by General Amaya. During the mission, she tried to trap Amaya, but she defeats her and leaves her alive.

Understanding that she couldn't defeat her directly, Janai holded a human soldier hostage and forced him to talk to Amaya and convince her to bring her to a trap and make it look like it was fine, and attempted to kill her human hostage after this was made, but Amaya notices and saves her soldier.

Her soldiers and Amaya's then have a fight, with Amaya and her army having to retreat to avoid getting killed. After realizing that the border was in danger, Amaya decided to destroy the border and block the Sunfire soldiers in the other side of it, but Janai notices this and tries to stop her from destroying the border.

Amaya then decided to give her life to stop her and her soldiers from advancing and to protect her soldiers and friends, and while she does destroy the border, Amaya and Janai are able to survive. When Janai was at Amaya's mercy, she decided to suprisingly spare her life, but she would then get arrested by Sunfire elves.

She would have Amaya interrogated with the help of Kazi to translate Amaya since she was deaf and communicated through sign language. When Amaya refused to talk about what she asked and insulted her, she decided to bring her to her sister and queen Khessa.

After Amaya also refused to talk with Khessa when she was interrogating her, so Khessa decided to use the light of the sun to "reveal" the truth, or in other words, force Amaya look into sun light until she spoke. However, Janai told her to look into the light to protect her, with Khessa sparing Amaya because she was of pure heart and thus the effect of the sun light would be meaningless, and told Janai that Amaya was her new "pet" and that she could enjoy having time with her.

Janai would then try to convince her sister that Amaya is useful, but Khessa refuses to listen to her sister's ideas. She would later talk to her again about how Viren was found in Lux Aurea, so Khessa decided to interrogate him personaly after finding out Viren was a human king.

During her interrogation, Khessa decided to force Viren into looking into the light of the sun, and after understanding that Viren is a dark magic user, Khessa decided to have Viren "purified" and force him to have his dark magic removed from his body.

Janai would then talk to Amaya about Viren, but she tells her that Viren was dangerous and needed to be stopped, but it was too late as Viren freed himself and Aaravos killed Khessa. Janai, angry over her sister's death, tried to attack Aaravos in a fit of rage, but Amaya stops her and injures herself to protect her, causing Janai to stop and cry over her sister's death.

Janai would then go to the Storm Spire with Amaya so the latter could meat with her nephews again. Janai would then help in the battle of the Storm Spire against Viren's army, even having her soldiers defend the Storm Spire.

During the battle, she protected Amaya from a magma Kasef and fought against him before other magma soldiers distracted her and she was forced to focus on defending them. After the battle, Janai would have her soldier look over the battlefield to look for Viren and imprison him, and is later seen smiling when Zubeia awoke and saw her son Azymondias again and there would finaly be peace between elves, humans, and dragons.

After this, Janai would meet with her brother Karim, to mourn their sister after Janai became the new queen of the Sunfire elves. Janai would make a ceremony for Khessa, with her performing her favourite, and in the end, Janai accepted her role as the queen and her duty to take care of her people, accepting the death of her sister.

Months later, Janai would eat with Amaya, where they have fun and Janai apologized for hurting Amaya when she was angry over her sister's death, with Amaya accepting her apology, they then eat a Sunfire elf ceremonial dish that was made for people who were close to each other, and Amaya and Janai say that they are now friends.

Two years, Janai sent a group of dancers due to it being a ritual for Sunfire elves to ask for someone to marry them through it while she left with Gren to do something while Amaya stayed to take care of the horses. Amaya, however, misunderstood that the elves were trying to attack her with whips and knocked them out, and after Janai saw what happened, she explained about how the elves where just dancers, and told her that it was an engagement dance, causing Amaya to accept it and kiss Janai.

Because of the proposal and their plans to marry each other, Janai's brother Karim told Janai to not make their marriage official, as it would turn it into a symbol because was afraid that it would prove that humans' time with elves was permanent, but Janai tells him that it wasn't bad.

That night, a woman named Lucia put down the flame of a ceremony that a Sunfire Elf was using to honor her mother who died that day, as they had a ceremony where they would light a candle at night so the souls of the loved ones who died would pass to the sun, which caused the elf to go berserk and burn Lucia's hands.

They would then have a trial to decide what would be the punishment for Lucia as the normal punishment of putting down the flame of that ceremony would be death. Amaya would defend Lucia, but notes that she isn't innocent, as she refused to listen to the Sunfire Elf's pleads not to put down the fire. However, Amaya tells them that it doesn't mean that her punishment should be death, as she should be given the chance to apologize and understand that her actions.

Janai would then ask to Amaya if she should give the crown to Karim and live her life with Amaya or create a new Lux Aurea where humans and elves could coexist, but Amaya told her to do what she thought was right.

While the other members of generals named the Six Horns decided that Lucia should be killed, Janai decides to spare her as she calls killing someone over what they were unaware was a crime unfair. Karim would then start a conspiracy to usurp her sister by killing her in a duel, as he believed that Janai would destroy their culture by allowing humans and elves to coexist, but Janai wins the fight and has Karim arrested for his crimes, and thanks to Amaya, Janai decided that is a chance to grow and create a permanent union between humans and elves.

A few days later, Janai started having nightmares of Aaravos killing her sister, so Amaya brought her to decide the flowers for her wedding. Janai was having difficulty in making the decision. During this, Callum and Rayla appeared and congratulated Janai and Amaya for their engagement, before telling them that the world might be in danger due to Viren and Claudia trying to free Aaravos from his prison, and needed to get to the Bookery of Lux Aurea to find a way to kill Aaravos.

Janai refused, as she didn't want to get anyone else killed in Lux Aurea, as she still remembered the countless people who died in an attempt to take over Lux Aurea. However, after some convincing from Amaya, she allowed Callum and Rayla, alongside Amaya, Gren and Kazi, to go to Lux Aurea, but decided to stay to protect her camp, although she still gave Amaya her sword, with it having a flower, which Janai told was the one she decided for their wedding.

Later, the Bloodmoon Huntress Kim'dael attacked the camp to steal the Sun Seed for Karim, and finding out about it, she trusted Miyana with the Sun Seed. Janai then fought against Kim'dael, but she was able to win against her through a brief distraction. When went to the place where the Sun Seed was guarded, Kim noticed that the Sun Seed was missing, and Janai told her that if she wanted to know where the Sun Seed was, she would need her alive, so Kim'dael decided to take her as a hostage and get her to Karim.

Karim would later decide to send Pharos to explain that they should give the Sun Seed to Miyana so she would give it to Karim in order for them to free Janai. Amaya refused, and decided to bring Pharos with her while disguised as Miyana so she could trick him, but when she was about to kill him, Kim'dael held Janai to force Amaya to stop. Karim then told her to kill Janai, but Kim'dael refused to out of fear she would die, as her biding would kill her if she hurt a member of the royal family of Sunfire elves.

Because of this, Karim tried to free her, but it failed due to him not being the official ruler of Lux Aurea. Karim then told Kim'dael to kill Janai, and after she refused, he decided to kill Janai himself, but is stopped by Amaya. Janai then tells Kim'dael that if she kills her, Amaya will kill her brother and their bloodline would end, which would result in her death as well. Knowing she couldn't turn the situation in her favour, Kim'dael freed Janai, telling her that she hoped their next meeting would be more "favourable", before leaving.

Amaya would then hug Janai, but while this was happening, Pharos would escape with Karim. At the camp Janai finds out she was betrayed by Miyana, who gave the Sun Seed to Karim as well as dozens of her soldiers. That night, she remembers the death of her sister from Khessa's prespective, where Aaravos tells her that she swallowed her grandmother. She would then wake up and start crying while Amaya hugged her.

After this, Janai's paranoia over Miyana's betrayal grew, and when talking with the other members of the Six Horns, she made one of them take off his mask, saying that if he didn't, it proved he was more loyal to tradition than his queen like Karim was. However, seeing that the man was scared of her, he dismissed the Six Horns. Later, Janai went to the Sun Tree, and angry over what happened with Karim and Miyana, Janai started to burn it.

At that moment, though, Amaya and Gren appeared and the former calmed her down while Gren put down the fire. Amaya then told Janai of the story of the King with One Thousand Eyes, a human ruler who due to being betrayed by his close advisor, grew with such paranoia that he ended up alone with everyone in his kingdom either leaving or being banished by him.

A few hours later, Janai went to look for the book of the tale and read it, discovering something that Amaya had omitted, that being the king had banished his wife who had previously been the only person to have stayed by his side. At this moment Janai understood that if she ended up with such fear of betrayal that she would go against Amaya, she would have truly lost herself, and decided to make a meeting with her subjects and the people at the camp, apologizing for what she did to the member of the Six Horns, while motivating her people to follow her so they could achieve an era of peace.

Janai and Amaya would then decide to do her wedding, with Ezran and Aanya coming to the camp to witness it. During the wedding, while Kazi attempted to do the Sunfire wedding vows, the clouds always covered the sun, preventing her from continuing. However, after a few hours, they decided to do it without sunlight, saying that just because there were clouds covering it, doesn't mean the sun wasn't shinning. After Kazi was finished and Gren began doing his vows to represent the human side of the wedding, a Sunfire soldier appeared and revealed Karim was outside the camp with an army, seemingly prepared to attack them.

While Janai and Amaya planned on fighting against the army, Ezran convinced them to send him as an emissary to try to talk Karim out of attacking the camp, although Janai told Ezran that she would attack Karim's army once the wedding was over, and that Ezran should convince Karim before that happened. Once the wedding was over, Janai brought her army outside of the camp and prepared to face Karim's, and not seeing Ezran, Janai ordered the attack.

This ends with Karim and his army getting easily defeated, as Sol Regem, whom he was planning to use to wipe out Janai and her army, ended up being manipulated by Aaravos who took Karim's ally Pharos so the dragon would attack Katolis. They would then go back to the wedding room, and while that was happening, Ezran found out the castle of Katolis was destroyed by Sol Regem through a message Gren had received, leading him to break down crying over the loss of his home.

Personality

Janai is an honorable warrior who has respect for her enemies, and treating merciful opponents as people that should be treated with mercy in return, this is seen with her initial relationship with Amaya, with her believing that her sister shouldn't use torture as a way of interrogating her, and protecting and saving Amaya from the looking into the sun light and be killed.

Due to her respectful nature, Janai would have arguments with her sister, who, despite the former loving her deeply, the latter disagreed with many of her ideals and beliefs and treated humans as inferior to her. She would learn to love Amaya, and would refuse to hurt her on purpose or by accident, and helping her in protecting Azymondias during the battle of the Storm Spire.

Janai also has a strong sense of forgiveness, refusing to kill Lucia even after her brother Karim and the other members of the Six Horns told her to. Despite this, her forgiving and understanding nature caused Karim to plot in murdering her sister and usurp her because he thought she would destroy the culture of Lux Aurea due to her deciding to create a new place for Sunfire Elves to live with the help of humans.

Due to the deaths of countless people during their attempt to take back Lux Aurea, Janai decided to call the city forbidden ground, and refused to allow Rayla and Callum to go there even after she found out it was to find a weapon capable of killing Aaravos, although she ended being convinced by Amaya to let them go, with Janai commenting that Callum was just as brave as Amaya.

After Miyana's betrayal, Janai fell deep into paranoia, to the point of making one of the members of the Six Horns take off his mask. However, after understanding the consequences that could be caused through her fear of betrayal, Janai decided to instead build trust back to her allies and subjects in hope they would follow her in her attempt to build an era of peace and prosperity for her people. Janai has also become annoyed by her brother's attempts to usurp her, to the point of nearly insisting on attacking him and his army rather than try to make another attempt to convince him to stop his plans.

Gallery

Janai being saved by Amaya.

Janai knows firsthand that Amaya fights "like a beast"

Janai being held down by Amaya.

Janai in the Mystery of Aaravos Poster.

Janai in the Season 4 Promotional Art.

Janai giving Amaya her sword with a crimson orchid.

Janai waking up from a nightmare.

Trivia

• Janai's name means God has answered in Hebrew.
• Though she loves and plans to marry Amaya, Janai would still need a male consort to continue her family bloodline with a single child at least. Karim was banished and disinherited; so child of his could not take the throne.
• Janai was a warrior most of her life before having take the role of queen, so it makes sense part of the reason she loves Amaya is her combat prowess.
• By the timeskip, Janai has learned sign language. However, she can make some small errors. When she attempted "Will you marry me?", it came out as "will you wrestle me?"; though Amaya understood the intention.

External Links

• Janai on the The Dragon Prince Wiki

Navigation

Heroes

Team Zym Callum | Ezran | Rayla | Azymondias | Soren | Bait | Stella Humans Viren | Amaya | King Harrow | Claudia | Queen Sarai | Corvus | Opeli | Gren | Aanya | Barius | Ellis | Villads | Annika and Neha | Marcos | Fen | Allen | Otti | Doctor | The Jailer | Orphan Queen | Tijana | Tondir Elves Janai | Runaan | Terry | Lujanne | Ethari | Tiadrin | Lain | Ibis | Suroh | N'than | Queen Aditi | Kazi | Kosmo | Astrid | The Elder | Mukho | Leola | Akiyu | Osato | Ravna Dragons Avizandum | Domina Profundis | Pyrrah | Zubeia Others Phoe-Phoe | Ava | Nimei | The Baitlings | Ethari's Shadowpaw