Almost Everything

A reasonable question. I have been thinking about this.

Now that I know she is not trying to kill Callum, it helps!

The truth is, I’m proud of him for recognizing a relationship that makes him stronger and more himself. He’s not trying to be anyone else for Rayla, he just is, and she seems to love him for it. 

From what I have seen, they both make each other stronger, and they make each other feel safe. I can’t fault that.

Rayla brings out a confidence in Callum that I have never seen. I think that’s the part I love the most. Seeing his excitement over having his “zap-hand”.

I’m less excited about him flinging himself off mountaintops to save her, but how can I be surprised that my nephew and Sarai’s son would sacrifice himself for someone he loves?

Sarai would be so proud of him for challenging what he thought was the truth, for seeing Rayla as a person, for recognizing her as a hero, for understanding her heart. And so am I. I hold all of that for myself and Sarai.

I know they will face challenges for their choice to be together, but who am I to have a problem with that? I’ll fight for them rather than tell them the rest of the world will have trouble with them.

I do, however, need to sit Callum down and discuss the more …let’s call it physical aspects of a relationship. I’m sure he’ll enjoy that conversation. He won’t be at all self-conscious.

I hope you have a good day and a happy new year as well!

“Because Rayla is a hero.”

According to Callum, Rayla is a hero because she is selfless, strong, and caring. For these reasons, she will always do what is right.

Rayla is incredibly decisive. When it comes to doing the right thing, she never hesitates.

She comes to Katolis with Runaan and his team of assassins, resolved to kill the King and the Crown Prince to avenge the Dragon Prince.

But when she discovers that the Dragon Prince is alive, she immediately switches sides.

Even defending the princes from her own father figure. Even though she knew he’d probably kill her.

Rayla also doesn’t hesitate to save people, even when it’s clear she’d rather not.

(Yes, Bait’s a person. You can’t change my mind.)

But most of the time, she doesn’t even recognize these acts as heroic and is surprised when others (read: Callum) do.

Rayla also suffers from deep-seated insecurities about her self-worth.

Much of this comes from her anger and guilt over her parents:

“My parents aren’t dead, but I wish they were. They’re cowards.”

“They ran away. I’m so ashamed.”

So, it’s interesting to me that, when Rayla finds out her parents weren’t cowards.

When she finds out that they didn’t run, and were in fact heroes who fought to the very end.

When she finds out that the reason they even have a Dragon Prince to return home was because of her mother’s quick thinking…

…Rayla doesn’t know what to do next.

“What does this mean? What should I do?”

I always found this moment really interesting, as though Rayla finding out her parents were heroic wasn’t inspirational, but confusing.

Up to that point, much of Rayla’s decisiveness was driven by her good-naturedness as well as a reaction to her parents’ perceived wrongdoing.

So, when that wrongdoing turned out to never had happened, it shakes up what had been motivating her up to that point.

She doesn’t see her actions as heroic because she doesn’t see herself as a hero. She sees herself as someone looking for redemption.

Or making up for her parents’ alleged betrayal.

As a result, when Rayla succeeds in saving others or generally doing the right thing, she just thinks she’s doing what she’s supposed to be doing.

When she doesn’t, she thinks it’s because she’s worthless, or a failure.

She’s still heroic regardless of what’s motivating her, but her actions have a touch of tragedy to them—she doesn’t think she has a choice in any of this. Rayla feels like she’s being driven by external forces beyond her control. She can’t take back her parents’ actions, so she’s constantly trying to make up for them.

In this way, when Callum says that she’s letting her parents drag her down, while he’s being an asshole about it, he’s pretty much spot on. Rayla has to keep risking her life for others because of this misplaced sense of guilt that she can’t quite shake.

So when it turns out that her parents were actually never traitors to begin with, she’s at a loss as to what she should do.

And all Callum tells her is:

And this is where she becomes even more spectacular, because everything after this moment is a choice Rayla knowingly makes of her own free will.

She decides to stay in the Spire and protect Zym.

Not because she’s making up for past mistakes. Not because it’s what her parents would want her to do. But because she’s choosing to do what’s right and protect the Dragon Prince.

This probably isn’t a choice she would have made in the past. In all three seasons, we see that Rayla is the one who goes and fights while Callum and/or Ezran stay to watch over Zym.

She prefers to be in the middle of the action. But here, the roles are reversed. Rayla will stay and watch over Zym while Callum and Ezran fight at the Battle of the Storm Spire. The reason she chooses to be Zym’s protector is because, after three seasons, she realizes that this is what feels right for her.

When all the external factors pushing her along are taken away, Rayla’s true nature is revealed by the choices she makes. And she chooses to be a protector.

Unlike the Guard members who fled, Rayla decides to stand her ground and protect Zym. Even if she’s not as experienced as the original Dragon Guard members, and Viren is far superior to her in power, she’s not going to flee.

She will fight.

And she will save Zym, even if she has to potentially sacrifice herself to do it.

Because of this, she earns her title as “the Last Dragon Guard.” She didn’t choose to run away, like the other Dragon Guard members.

She made these choices, not because she felt guilty or needing redemption, but:

“Because Rayla is a hero.”

Callum always seems to gravitate towards people who share the same values and traits as him.

This was clear even back in S1—when he saw Rayla stand up to Runaan to do the right thing,

He decides to stand with her.

So, it’s no wonder that he ends up having traits that line up pretty closely to the girls he ends up falling for. First Claudia, then Rayla.

Initially, I thought that was just some neat attention to detail—Callum isn’t superficial about who he loves or cares about, so he has to feel some kind of connection or “affinity” to that person.

But now, I think there’s more to it than that. I think that, in many ways, Callum’s transition from pining on Claudia to loving Rayla also reflects and parallels his character development. From awkward sheltered prince to powerful mage.

Lemme break it down.

When we first see Claudia, she is so engrossed in her book that she was about to walk into a tree.

She’s described as always having her spellbook nearby (much like Callum has his sketchbook).

Claudia is a magic nerd, adorable awkwardness and all.

Much like a certain step-prince we all know and love, Claudia is pretty eccentric.

When it comes to fighting, Claudia prefers to keep her distance; her spells are long-ranged, and she’ll usually be on the sidelines while Soren does the physical fighting.

She loves magic, mainly for casting spells.

But she’s also capable of having an appreciation of magical things for their own sake.

However, for the most part, she keeps her feelings about magic at an arms-length. Claudia sees magic as largely an academic pursuit, a tool, or an outside resource that you can tap into (provided you know the spells).

For Claudia, magic is about what you can get out of it. Either a spell, or a ritual, or some kind of power just waiting to be unlocked.

Lastly, Claudia is ruthless. Like, really ruthless, willing to do almost anything to achieve a goal, even going through unethical means.

Particularly, she’ll “save” her family members through any means and regardless of how they might feel about what she did.

As a result, it leads her to justify all sorts of terrible actions that she probably would never have considered herself.

Claudia is ruthless pragmatism personified.

During the time that he crushes on Claudia, in S1 and S2, Callum has a lot of traits in common with Claudia.

For starters, he’s fairly bookish himself—the first time we see him, he’s drawing in his sketchbook.

We see him draw many times in the first two seasons, mostly for fun.

Or to calm down.

But even if he has only a few moments, you might see him sketching something—even here, on the Cursed Caldera when Rayla’s gone not five minutes just to check on a sound they heard.

He’s a nerd, just like Claudia—he’s eccentric, awkward, and adorkable (and thankfully, some things never change).

He’s also not action-oriented either, fighting from a safe distance or watching from the sidelines.

But most of all, he shares Claudia’s fascination with magic. Like her, this fascination is primarily with spells and not necessarily with magic as a phenomenon.

Here, while talking with Lujanne, she tells him all sorts of wonderful things about Primal Magic, focusing on how Primal Sources function as part of nature, but he steers the conversation back to what matters to him.

So, while he has an appreciation for magic as a natural marvel, and even though he has a distaste for Claudia’s brand of Dark Magic, he mainly sees Primal Magic as a means to an end.

For him, magic gives him something he can be good at. A way he can feel secure about himself. A way for him to feel right.

But as he learns about the Sky Primal, as he grows to understand the Sky Arcanum, he begins to move away from this.

By the time he wakes up from his coma and connects to the Sky, he no longer sees Primal Magic as just a source of spells and way to discover his self-worth—it becomes something much, much deeper to him.

It’s an experience, an intimate connection he now shares. His Primal Source is no longer an extension of his abilities as a mage, one that he can tap into for a wind or lightning spell. Now, he is an extension of it.

Callum expresses this change with just one line of dialogue.

I thought I had to find my wings, but that’s just it! I am the Wing!

It just so happens that this change in his way of thinking happened around the time he began to align himself more closely with Rayla. Ultimately, while Callum had already fallen out of love with Claudia by this point, it’s when the Sky Arcanum finally clicks with him that he starts to associate more with Rayla’s traits and values rather than Caludia’s.

The main difference between how Claudia and Rayla see magic is as follows:

For Claudia, magic is a tool, a resource.

But for Rayla, magic is an ambience, a part of everything around them.

Even though she doesn’t have much of the technical understanding of magic that Claudia and Lujanne have, she still knows enough to express how she and the other elves view magic.

Now, it’s not a stretch to say that this isn’t the only thing that Claudia and Rayla don’t see eye to eye on.

Unlike Claudia, Rayla is very action-oriented, using her physical abilities for just about everything.

That’s not even limited to just fighting; here, she gracefully slides across the ice just to catch up with Callum.

Or she’ll climb up a tree to ride one of the giant helicopter seeds down the valley.

Or she’ll lay out some rope and jump off an Ambler.

Claudia has a plan for everything—her bag has a seemingly endless supply of problem-solvers.

But Rayla, instead, relies on her can-do attitude—she won’t second-guess whether she can do something, instead jumping right into the middle of things and figuring out the details on the way down.

Rayla also prefers to be right in the thick of things; if there’s a fight, or someone’s in danger, she’s there.

However, Rayla also places a high value on morals. Even though she’s not above using underhanded means or trickery when necessary (such as tricking Soren and Claudia in 2x03), she very much believes in doing things the right way.

This is why, for instance, Rayla is very angry with Callum when he uses Dark Magic, and it takes quite a bit for her to be able to look past it.

Like, Callum has a spell, one spell, that will save both Rayla and the dragon, literally solving all their problems in one fell swoop, and this is the look she gives him:

Oof.

So, needless to say, in the first two seasons Callum resembles Claudia more than Rayla. He prefers to take a back seat on the action, isn’t all that confident in his physical abilities, and spends most of the time avoiding fights, especially when he doesn’t have a plan.

And, even when he understood that Dark Magic was wrong, he was nevertheless willing to do something unethical to save Rayla regardless of how she felt about it. He shares that ruthless pragmatism with Claudia that Rayla doesn’t.

But once Season 3 rolls around, we see Callum start to move away from Claudia’s way of thinking as he begins to gravitate more toward Rayla’s.

Early on, Rayla shows Callum magic in Xadia. He begins to see magic and the world it inhabits the way Rayla does.

I’ve heard people wonder why Callum doesn’t learn that much magic in S3, and that’s because he’s learning magic less as spells and more as an experience.

And through that experience, not only does Callum learn a great deal about magic in Xadia, he learns about what the elves are fighting to protect. He learns why this kind of world is worth protecting.

And the more he spends in this world, the more we see him come around to Rayla’s way of thinking.

For starters, he’s much more action-oriented in S3—we see him follow Rayla up a tree, ride a difficult-to-tame mount, or climb a 70-foot Ambler’s leg while it’s walking.

I mean, he’s not as good as Rayla at these things…but baby steps.

Even though he may hesitate, he’s much less sure in his abilities than in S1 and S2. He doesn’t insist on taking an easier route. When Rayla gives him her sword, he simply follows her up the tree. He’s showing signs of that similar can-do attitude that Rayla wears on her sleeve.

As a side note, there may even be hints that his connection to the Sky Primal may be subtly affecting his range of physical abilities. We already know that the Moon Primal can increase the physical strength of the creatures connected to it (Viren notes that Moonshadow elves’ power increase depending on the phase of the moon, while Ez mentions that Phoe-Phoe drew her strength from the Moon Nexus). And it’s doubtful that he would have been able to scale trees or Amblers earlier in the series. Right now, that’s just a guess, but who knows?

He also comes around to Rayla’s values—there’s a right way to do things, and the ends do not justify the means.

Unlike in S2, where Callum was willing to use Dark Magic to save Rayla in spite knowing it’s something he shouldn’t be messing with, this season he takes a bit more principled approach.

After they fight over whether Rayla should stay, Callum uses a spell to discover that Rayla’s parents did not abandon the Dragon Egg, and in fact fought till the very end.

And the thing is…that actually gives him a solid argument for why this means Rayla should leave with them. They sacrificed themselves to protect the Dragon Prince, he could say. You should honor their memory by finishing what they started and protect Zym.

He could, just as he did with Dark Magic, use his powers to help save her life, and it wouldn’t even really be that unethical this time.

And yet he doesn’t, because this time he realizes it’s whether he can use magic to fix a problem. He’s not going to use magic to get Rayla to agree with him, or to support his argument for leaving.

Instead, he uses magic entirely for her. He does it to give Rayla the closure she needs, letting see her parents and showing her that they were in fact heroes.

And when she’s at a loss as to what to do next, Callum just gently reminds her it’s ultimately her choice. And he’ll respect that choice, provided she’s making it willingly.

He empowers her, reminding her that she gets to choose who she wants to be, much like he discovered for himself:

This is diametrically opposed to what Claudia would do in this situation. We’ve seen her take the Primal Energy from a living creature to cure her brother, even when he’s accepted his situation. She does something similar, or perhaps even worse, to save her father.

Claudia would use magic to save people through any means, even if those people might disapprove.

Callum used to think this way, but now he doesn’t, using his magic instead to empower the people around him, such as Rayla.

All of this shows just how much he’s changed. How much she has changed him.

As a last point, I’ve noticed something else that had changed in Callum, though it’s a lot more subtle. Before I mentioned that Callum would always draw in his sketchbook, largely for his own enjoyment.

Yet in S3, we don’t see any of that.

Sure, he carries his sketchbook around with him at all times, even during the Battle of the Storm Spire for some reason!

(like, did you think you’d have time to sketch while people are fighting and dying, Callum what are you even—)

But even when keeping the sketchbook around, we don’t see Callum drawing recreationally anymore—the one time he draws in it, he does it specifically for Rayla, both proving that he saw them in his spell, and giving her a change to see her parents’ faces again.

The reason for this is because he’s become far more preoccupied with the world that Rayla introduced him too. He’s not sitting down to draw what he sees in Xadia. He’s going to experience it himself.

This all culminates in one final moment in S3:

Callum lays down his sketchbook one final time.

And leaps off the pinnacle to save Rayla.

After this moment, we never see the sketchbook around him again.

I mean, sure, I definitely think we’ll see him drawing again in S4, but the sketchbook is no longer inseparable from Callum. The symbolism here is clear—Callum has been transformed.

And just to drive the symbolism even further, his blue jacket is torn to shreds, leaving Callum with just his sleeveless red shirt, scarf, and fingerless gloves. Not to get too bogged down into color motifs here, but this change was big, since red is typically more associated with “action” while blue with “calmness.”

But symbolism aside, he looks less like a young Merlin and more like a young Goku.

He’s no longer someone who will wait on the sidelines hoping everything works out. Callum is now someone who will jump right into thick of things, against all odds and with a determination to save the day himself.

This last decade has shown such amazing growth in the field of animated television! It will be sad to see the era that had so many loveable series come to an end.

By the way, I think I earned us some SOUL FOOD on Twitter soon.

And I will tell you, there was s storyboard that came back for episode 4, and it’s after they’ve pulled [Captain] Villads’ ship over to the island in the storm, and Callum and Rayla are sitting on the edge of the boat, and there’s flash of lightning. And in that storyboard, in that flash, there was something about the way Rayla’s looking at him where we all went, “Ohhhhhh!” Everyone in the room saw it.

And some zoom-ins: