The Legend of Vox Machina Parents Guide: Should Your Kids Watch It?

The Legend of Vox Machina animated series finally premiered on January 28, 2022 on Amazon Prime. Based on a successful web series, this story from the world of Dungeons and Dragons has received critical acclaim and is lauded by fans of the original series, but also new fans who tuned in just for the show. But, is The Legend of Vox Machina appropriate for all ages? In our parents guide, we are going to tell you whether your kids should watch The Legend of Vox Machina or not.

The Legend of Vox Machina is categorized as TV-MA in the United States; Amazon Prime lists the show as 18+. And while The Legend of Vox Machina is certainly not the most mature show you’ll see, it has a moderate amount of nudity, and a severe amount of violence, gore, and profanities, which is why it is not suitable for younger children.

In the paragraphs that follow, we are going to elaborate on this answer and give you some additional information on the show’s content. You’re going to find out whether The Legend of Vox Machina is appropriate for children, how scary and gory it is, whether there is sex, nudity, and profanities, as well as what age it is appropriate for. This is going to be your ultimate parents guide for The Legend of Vox Machina.

What age is The Legend of Vox Machina appropriate for?

As per the official ratings, The Legend of Vox Machina is rated as “MA”, which means mature. That standard is defined as follows: This program is specifically designed to be viewed by adults and therefore may be unsuitable for children under 17. Amazon Prime lists the show as being 18+. Other countries have also applied the same rating for The Legend of Vox Machina. What does this mean?

This means that The Legend of Vox Machina is a show that should be viewed exclusively by adults and not children. Children under the age of 18 (or 17) shouldn’t watch this show as the censors have deemed it inappropriate for their age. This is the official rating for the show and we are now going to observe how things stand in several different categories.

The Legend of Vox Machina: Sex & Nudity

As we could have seen, there is a moderate amount of nudity in the series; as for the sex scenes, there haven’t been any thus far (save for a very suggestive painting). This category is relatively fine when compared when to the other categories. Here is an example of some scenes involving nudity:

• A naked woman is seen on a bed. Breasts are visible. Later, her bare legs are sticking up out of a bed and she squeals as another character apparently gives her oral sex. The scene is short but very suggestive.
• A character’s pants fall down and we see his bare buttocks. In a close-up shot from behind, we see the vague outlines of his testicles as well.
• A character wears a codpiece and sings and dances a song with very sexually suggestive lyrics. Some people look confused, others disgusted, and some aroused.
• A painting is shown of a humanoid creature in a lewd pose. A male character ogles her bare buttocks and touches that part of the painting excitedly.
• Use of terms like “goat-groper,” “chicken-humper,” and other crass terms. The male gnome character Scanlan in general makes many sexual jokes.
• Some suggestive flirting between characters, some more overt than others.

As you can see, this is really not much, but it might be suggestive for younger viewers.

The Legend of Vox Machina: Violence & Gore

The violence and gore of The Legend of Vox Machina has been described as severe by some fans, although you have to wonder how severe animated violence actually is. There is a lot of gore and death shown throughout the series, although sometimes, it is purely for comedic effect, which makes it certainly less severe than originally interpreted.

Limbs are chopped off, people are bisected and bifurcated, and decapitated regularly, but that is something you’d expect from such a show, right?. There are also monsters and zombies that get cut up often but that doesn’t mean much in such a show. In our opinion, the level of violence and gore is mile, leaning toward something more severe, but it’s certainly not gruesome.

The Legend of Vox Machina: Profanity

Now, this is something where The Legend of Vox Machina certainly does itself justice! The words “fuck” & “shit” are common lingo in most episodes, while words like “bitch”, “dick”, “ass”, “damn” and “hell” are also used, albeit more sporadically. Now, this might bother some viewers and it is something that children shouldn’t really repeat, but it adds to the realism of the show, doesn’t it?

First of all, Vox Machina is not a group of French academics that had gathered to discuss the influence of Victor Hugo’s prose on French realism – they’re a group of outlaws and mercenaries who banded together for a common goal that includes a lot of violence and gore. It would be silly if they didn’t curse, wouldn’t it? Secondly, this is a Dungeons and Dragons story and such stories are often spontaneous and in order to portray the characters realistically, the voice actors had to use everyday lingo.

So, profanities are certainly present in the show but we don’t think it’s something bad. It simply adds to the show’s realism and it helps the viewers to better understand the characters, the world, and the complete setting. Anything else would be completely out-of-character, which is why we can only praise the authenticity of the show.

Should you allow your kids to watch The Legend of Vox Machina?

The Legend of Vox Machina is nothing overly disturbing. The ambiance of the show is violent and the authors haven’t really tried to tone down on adults subjects, which makes sense when you know what the show is based on. Now, while the focus of the show certainly isn’t on its profanities, it’s world is simply like that, full of violence and blood. So, in order to achieve its own, inherent realism, the world of The Legend of Vox Machina had to be brutal, as it was the only way to realistically portray the whole idea.

Such fantasy worlds are actually based on real-life medieval stories, and we all know that medieval battles and wars weren’t really fought with much consideration for bystanders and viewers. So, why should such a fantasy show have such considerations? We actually applaud the realism that The Legend of Vox Machina aimed to achieve because it fully succeeded in doing so. So, should you allow your children to watch The Legend of Vox Machina?

Well, the official ratings do suggest that you should not but it all comes down to your parental approach. We at Fiction Horizon honestly don’t think that there is anything bad in watching such animated shows (yours truly has personally grown up with watching Dragon Ball, where he was exposed to a fully naked kid Goku, blood, characters piercing other characters’ bodies, and whatnot), and The Legend of Vox Machina doesn’t really cross any borders which would make it overly inappropriate for children (for example, there is no cannibalism involved, no mutilations, no torture, no sexual violence, etc.).

Children under the age of 13 might be a tad confused, but we don’t think that those older than 13 or 14 will have any problems with the show. It’s not like they’re going to grab a large ax and go on an adventure with their friends to slay the neighborhood dragon, right? So, in our opinion, The Legend of Vox Machina doesn’t contain anything overly inappropriate for children, but you should ultimately decide for yourselves whether to allow your kids to watch the show or not.