#theredhairedmonkey

Aaravos: All these kids are trash. *Proceeds to dress the first three down individually*

Me: Well what about Callum? You missed him.

Something I'm positively giddy about with this image below is that it plays into the consistent theme I mentioned here about Callum learning to "surrender" control in order to learn and reach new heights with magic.

The fact that Callum is wearing a blindfold and retracted his wings (something that mages can do on command) shows that he is intentionally placing himself in a vulnerable position. And so it echoes other moments when Callum has had to "let go" and open himself to previously unattainable wisdom.

In many ways, he's pulling a reverse-Icarus here. TDP always had a pretty unique take on the Icarus tale (the opening to the s2 novel has an "Icarus" who doesn't fall by flying too close to the sun), but here it's Callum's willingness to not grasp for control, to remove his restraints and preconditions, that lets him reach new heights. To let, as Sarai told him, his spirit and body catch up with his mind and help out.

And it's this willingness to forgo control and power that separates him from the other human mages we've seen like Viren, Ziard, and Claudia. Dark mages pursue magic through force of will and domineering control over magical creatures and forces. The logic of dark magic is centered around dominance, on using coercion to attain power.

But in contrast, Callum's approach confounds this logic. It's Callum's receptiveness and open-mindedness, not his knowledge or research, that best help him attain new forms of magic. It's what separate him not only from Viren and Claudia, but even fellow primal mages like Finnegrin and Aaravos.

In many ways, this evokes the Taoist idea of wu-wei or effortless action - he accomplishes powerful magic by surrendering to natural forces rather than imposing his will. By relinquishing control, he accomplishes what other mages cannot through force of will alone.

I don't know what will end up happening here, but knowing Callum, it's going to be good :)

But it's funnier if they actually put this in the show that by S3 when Ez found out their relationship, everything will just click and he'll be like "You've been flirting all this time?! And you've been doing it in front of the minors?"

Oooo, I haven't refined this theory in a while, but it's a favorite! *rubs hands gleefully*

We’ve recently learned that the humans were spared by a combination of two things: The Merciful Compromise suggested by the daughter of the Moonshadow leader, and the Judgment Under the Half Moon, enacted by Queen Luna Tenebris, which did spare them but also booted them all to the western half of the continent, where the Moon Nexus (and possibly other nexuses) lay.

The Moon Druids were shown living at the Moonhenge, which seems to interact with the Moon Nexus and power or control it. When they tore down the henge, it disabled the magical abilities of the nexus to some large degree, but there is still enough there to protect that a Guardian has remained there ever since. 

But is that all the druids did? Just run the Nexus?

In a conservative culture like the Moonshadows have, power is often tightly protected at the top, and authority is very hard to disobey without severe consequences (as we’ve seen with Rayla’s failure on Runaan’s mission). So it’s likely that the Moon Druids held quite a bit of power in the old days and were the leaders of their culture, guiding it with the knowledge and power that the nexus gave them. Alternately, they could have advised the leaders and been a separate source of authority, but it’s a little simpler to let them be in charge for story purposes.

What I’m really curious about is the evolution of the druids when the Moonshadows had to leave Katolis. I’m currently embracing a fun headcanon that the Moonshadow assassins didn’t exist before the land was divided, and that policing the humans’ future was the Moonshadow elves’ burden to bear for asking to spare them from genocide. Luna Tenebris, in all her moonly wisdom, could have said, “Okay, sure, the humans can live, but not with anyone they can turn into spell fuel. And since this is your idea, you get to give up your homeland to them. Oh, I’m not done yet. Every time they mess around with dark magic and break the border treaty, that’s on you, and I expect you to make an example of them, swiftly and permanently. By my royal decree, Moonshadow assassins are now a thing. You’re bound to the ruler of the dragons, since we oversee all of Right Xadia now, so you jump when I say so.”

Yay, angsty fun, amirite? Ahahaa, yeesh.

Who were these first assassins? These takers of lives, these punishers of men? If the druids were leading the Moonshadows, then the daughter of the leader would most likely have been a druid as well. Her deep connection to life and death would’ve prompted her to speak out against killing an entire people. That’s a disaster and a tragedy, and should never be the answer to anything. Good for her. But Moonshadows are also deeply connected to death. If anyone knows how to take a life efficiently, it’s them. And yet, even now, after a thousand years of division and killing, Runaan teaches Rayla that hesitation is torture. Speed is a mercy, and there is no purpose to suffering and pain. Because life is precious, even unto its very last moment, and its loss is never a reason to gloat or celebrate.

That sounds like the deep kind of philosophy a druid holds dear, right? I think the Moon Druids are still very active in Moonshadow culture, serving as rulers and possibly mages. And some of them have trained to act as its assassins. That was the pact they made, and it has become their dark and sacred duty, to which they have held ever since.

If the Moonshadow leader is a Moon Druid

even after all this time

then Runaan probably is, too.

Also:

It’s a very distinctive pose. yes that was an Eliot Spencer reference

If assassins and mages are both (at least partly made up of) Moon Druids, it would also explain Lujanne’s and Runaan’s accents matching each other’s and no one else’s, as well as the handful of other things they have in common.

tl;dr: