#mage prince

👑 Callum ✨

There he is! The "step prince" of Katolis. Another redesign of Callum ❤️. His outfit was also Celtic or Medieval themes ✨.

Story:

"He's the oldest brother of Ezran when his own biological mother Sarai was married to King Harrow who become his stepfather. He's interested with magic of Xadia, become Ibis' successor & also Claudia was his own ex girlfriend because of her doing dark magic. Callum & Rayla are childhood friends but he's very interesting with her. At least he's becoming a high mage."

Link:

You know, when the Art of the Dragon Prince first came out, I was pretty excited at the idea. Now that I’ve had several months to think it over, I think it might be a bit of a letdown, and lemme tell you why.

Across three seasons, Callum’s character arc hinged on the idea that he himself gets to choose what he becomes regardless of what people around him expect or think is possible. And when he gets a chance to do things in his own way, magic or otherwise, he not only improves but even excels at things he initially thought he was terrible at. There was always something exciting about watching him be a trailblazer and forging his own path forward.

So, with that in mind, it feels a little hollow if he just winds up following in the footsteps of Ibis or some generic Sky mage. Even if Callum were to master all six Primal Sources, it would be great if he doesn’t become just a younger, less experienced copy of Aaravos. Especially since we know he would lose any confrontation with the Startouch elf at that point.

Instead, what I’d like to see is Callum become someone unique. Rather than just being a mage and that’s it, I would love to see Callum become both a mage and a prince in equal measure, using magic to enhance his ability at princely skills and vice versa.

Take, for instance, battle tactics, which according to Callum, he’s always been terrible at. Yet with mage wings, he can scout from the skies, seeing the various mountain ranges, rivers, forests, passes, etc. Combine this literal birds-eye-view with his photographic memory, and Callum could figure out the best pathways to march troops through, excellent places to create an ambush, defensive positions, and the like. With his magic, it’s possible for Callum to become one of the best tacticians and strategists in Katolis.

Likewise, his martial prowess would improve immeasurably. We’ve seen from Viren that mages can be quite versatile at using their staff as a melee weapon. We also know that Sky mages can enhance their movements, giving them superior speed and agility (hence where the acrobatics comes from). So, if Callum continues his martial training along with learning magic, he would probably wind up becoming a similar kind of fighter as his mother. Heck, it wouldn’t be a surprise if he even surpasses her, as his magic lets him push his abilities past what is humanly possible.

All of this would be compounded even further with each Arcanum and form of magic that Callum would learn. By the end, he’d not only be an excellent mage, but one of the best princes of Katolis in generations.

I think this would make the most sense, story-wise. We know from Callum that in Katolis, princes are duty-bound to become warriors and commanders, and by the end of the third season, those obligations haven’t changed. I also think this is sliiiightly supported by Through the Moon—we see that Callum didn’t wind up staying in Xadia to study magic, or even decide to carry a book full of runes or a spellbook around like Claudia would. Instead, we see him return to being a prince in Katolis, perhaps a little wiser and with a lot more magic under his belt, but still committed to the path his stepfather had wanted for him.

Just so we’re clear, it’s not just me speculating, but Callum himself who suggests “maybe [Harrow] knew I was a mage before I did.” So, it’s the narrative itself that draws attention to this, and that’s why I think there’s some truth to this.

I suspect that Harrow’s original plan was to have Callum become a trained prince/warrior and then, perhaps when he was practically an adult, introduce him to the Rune Cube, Aaravos, and magic. But with the Moonshadow assassins coming, Harrow had to improvise and speed up his plan.

Much of this happened anyway, but I think Harrow envisioned Callum would become a “Magic Knight,” a seasoned fighter with a bit of magic as support. Instead, Callum might have training as a prince and as a mage in equal measure, and thus be more like a “Kung-Fu Wizard.”

“My tip to anyone trying to learn something hard: Sometimes there can be so much that it feels overwhelming,

Frustrating,

And impossible.

My advice is to try to be patient,

And breathe,

And trust that eventually

You will get it!”

I think you’ve sorta answered your own question--Harrow wanted Callum to learn all these princely skills because Harrow wants Callum to become a prince. At no point does he suggest this was a mistake, or that Callum doesn’t have it in him to excel at these skills too.

If you think that Harrow knew about Callum’s potential with magic (and I do), there’s no contradiction between this and Harrow having Callum trained to be a prince. Harrow only revealed the Key of Aaravos to Callum when he knew his death was imminent, so this suggests he wasn’t going to reveal the Key until a later time. That is, after years of training in sword-fighting, leadership, strategy, archery, and horseback riding, Harrow would have introduced the Key to him, and Callum’s journey with magic would have begun when he was already a trained prince.

I’m always amused (and not in a bad way) that people think Callum’s issue with training to be a prince was that he was lacking in the athletics department, and thus couldn’t live up to the expectations of a physically gifted warrior.

Which ignores the fact that Callum himself mentions how bad he is at the intellectual, abstract stuff as well.

Callum: Look...Rayla. Princes are supposed to be good at things. Swordfighting, leadership, riding horses. But I’ve always been kind of bad at, well, everything.

Callum: Growing up, I was supposed to learn horseback riding, swordfighting, archery, battle tactics, but I was so bad at everything.

And in the book, we have:

“Now Callum had obligations. Responsibilities. Being a prince meant horseback riding, training with swords, strategic thinking, and learning the history of Katolis. Callum had struggled with all these subjects.”

And Callum goes into detail as to how bad he is at just memorizing the names of old battles. My point is, Callum wasn’t just struggling with physical activities, but with the so-called intellectual/abstract stuff as well. 

I’m not trying to be obtuse here, but the kind of person a prince--or really, any member of the royal family--is supposed to be involves some combination of brains and brawn. Harrow, Sarai, and Amaya were/are all great warriors. But Amaya is also “known across the land for her brilliant battlefield strategy and improvisation.” Sarai was Harrow’s closest advisor. And Harrow himself was clearly wiser than most of those around him.

Callum might be bad at all of this at the beginning of s1, but as the story progresses, we actually see him improve in most of these areas.

He starts to come up with battle tactics.

We see his strategic thinking elsewhere in the story.

He also shows signs of being a competent leader. Like, consider this: Rayla, Claudia, and Soren are all deadly opponents fighting each other, and then they basically stop because Callum told them to.

Callum: Listen. It’s late. Let’s all just get some rest and cool off. If, in the morning, I can’t convince you that we’re all on the same side here, you can fight each other then. Agreed?

He improves at horseback riding, no easy task while riding a Moonstrider.

The only areas we haven’t really seen Callum improve in are archery and sword fighting. But when you can use a sword to scale an incredibly tall tree, using one to fight doesn’t seem so challenging!

I mean, she was obviously just teasing him, dude. Callum realizes this himself (”Callum shrugged, still glad just to be called a mage, even if it meant extra teasing”).

Like, look at what she’s calling dangerous: “such as gathering fruits and berries.” Not exactly as life-threatening as, say, scaling a tall Xadian tree, riding a hard-to-tame Moonstrider, or climbing up the leg of an Ambler, all of which Callum does at Rayla’s behest.

(I believe this is a follow-up question from this one).

I think that’s closer to the truth, although he definitely has a lot of room for improvement when it comes to swordfighting, horseback riding, and scaling trees/absurdly large magical creatures. But the difference is that now he knows he can learn to do these things.

We know that because, well, he says so himself in Callum’s Spellbook:

“My tip to anyone trying to learn something hard: Sometimes there can be so much that it feels overwhelming, frustrating, and impossible. My advice is to try to be patient, and breathe, and trust that eventually you will get it!”

I think this whole misunderstanding as to what Callum’s arc is comes from a confusion as to what an “arc” is. For me, I find KM Weiland’s definition of a change arc useful. Here, an arc is all about the “Lie the Character Believes,” a falsehood the character believes about themselves, the world, or both, and one which the character will spend the entire arc unlearning.

Understanding Callum’s Lie helps us understand his arc. And his Lie is best summarised as:

What this means is that Callum thinks he will always be a failure at everything until he figures out who he’s supposed to be. 

Initially, it seems like magic is his thing. It comes naturally for him, and he’s bestowed with the title of “mage” without really having to struggle for it. It’s the antithesis of his life as a prince, where it seemed like no matter how hard he tried, he always felt he wasn’t a “real” prince.

Until it becomes clear to him that magic won’t come easy to him either.

But Callum doesn’t give up. He keeps trying to learn the Sky Arcanum, and ends up learning something else too--that he doesn’t have to be concerned with who he’s supposed to be, only who he chooses to be.

And that leads him to his most significant revelation of the series: