Was originally going to do a screencaps post but then it was getting a little unwieldy so here’s a short meta post about Callum’s story to Ezran in 7x09, specifically how it pertains to Callum’s broader character arc in arc 2 and the show’s narrative as a whole.

So we start out with an easily accessible, likely drawn from life sibling scenario. (I too, for example, had a beloved toy accidentally adjacently broken by a sibling.) This also ties us into 4 important things, however:

1. The game and toy motif, primarily present surrounding Aaravos and the key, as well as other objects of note this season (i.e. Ezran holding onto the elf toy from 1x04 at his angriest in 7x03 and 7x09).
2. Reaffirmation of Callum’s tendency to get fixated on / emotionally attached to objects (old meta on it here).
3. In the scenario, while we don’t whether Ezran was ‘at fault’ (he was a Baby lmao) the harm caused was. This parallels Rayla’s absence and return in S4, as Callum states, “And she messed [things] up” with himself being the party not at fault (“I was so mad” in 4x05 & 7x09)
4. The concept / theme, to varying literal degrees, of something being broken, whether in people, relationships, or the continent itself (bigger meta on that here):

This is reaffirmed further in what Aanya says to Ezran on the bridge in 7x03:

I know it hurts right now, Ezran. But you need to know that you and Callum are not broken. The both of you will heal one day. You’re brothers. It’s okay to be angry, and it’s okay to be sad.

However, the toy isn’t really a metaphor for their relationship. Callum doesn’t say that it was mended, or if it even could be. He moves on instead to what their mother told him, which likewise echoes what Aanya says:

Again, there’s a reaffirmation of needing to feel, and letting yourself feel, the bad emotions. Anger is not inherently bad and sometimes we need to be angry, even or especially at our siblings. Like Aanya, Callum, and Sarai say, it’s okay to be angry and to be sad. But — as we see Karim and Janai are unable to come back from (“all you do is look at me with contempt!”) — you can’t let the feelings stick. You have to let them go.

Harrow’s heart burned with anger (3x06); Ezran has fire in his eyes as he hears Runaan out; and Aaravos wants to set the world on fire. But anger cannot — or should not — last forever… because what is left for you afterwards?

The other implicit message is Callum and Sarai knowing, and now communicating to Ezran, that however much he loved that toy “more than anything in the world,” it ultimately meant nothing in comparison to his brother.

CALLUM: You’re my brother, and you mean everything to me. (2x06)

CALLUM: I’m sorry, Ezran. I can’t be your High Mage anymore… but I’ll always be your brother. (7x02)

This is also, in many ways, how Callum frames his relationship with Rayla once he learns to forgive her as well. He knows that he needs her (implicitly) and that they’re a team; he reaffirms “it was always her” much the same way he knows he will “always be [Ezran’s] brother”. His bonds of love are strong and can weather any storm; he still wants them in his life, and will always want them and need them.

This raises an interesting concept to Aaravos, who is deeply hurt and angry at his family (the other First Elves), referring to himself as “their dark brother” (TDP shorts, Patience). He wants them to suffer, and he wants them to hurt… but is there any other way forward? Is there any hope of forgiveness, or reconciliation? He clearly believes that they can never change unless through force… but what if they could? What if they could be brothers again, the same way that Callum (“there is great affinity between your brother and I […] he understands the need for compromise”) and Ezran are?

It’d also tie into Claudia and Soren’s sibling dynamic, as their mother counselled a similar message to Sarai: “that my brother and I needed each other.”

If Callum and Ezran coming together can represent the continent, and Aaravos + the Cosmic Council, and Soren and Claudia one day coming back together, too.

the TDP wikia isn’t always good but it DOES have pictures of every major and minor spell rune in the series and for that i must salute them and thank them for my sanity

Again deserves a meta of its own but something about Callum assigning himself a part in / a general prophecy to himself not once but Twice only for it to not be About him, actually, is funnier and more tragic to me than it should be. It’s such a reminder as to why to reject anything arrogance adjacent (why assume that you’re the saviour / special one) in addition to setting up for a couple of interesting avenues: either a prophecy that is 100% about Callum but he rejects it OR he’s the centre of another prophecy and fulfils it (to good ends).

thinking about how every elf callum meets from now on, each being that gives him a quick once over, will immediately identify him as a dark mage regardless of how true or Not true it is

thinking about Claudia’s heart eyes and cooing over Zym in 2x02 vs her nearly killing the dragon and revelling it in being afraid of her in 5x06

That’s a good question! I have more speculative thoughts on arc 3 here and here which isn’t Super relevant but help highlight a specific thing, which is: the trio all make the Wrong Choices in 7x09, and they can’t make those choices again in arc 3’s finale (s10).

Like, arc 1 ended with Rayla being willing to sacrifice herself, and being subsequently saved by Callum. Arc 2 ended with Rayla being willing to sacrifice Callum, with it being avoided because of the archdragons. In some ways, all the trio are making the Arc 1 Viren choices in S7, and that can’t be where their story ends.

I actually wrote a bigger meta post-S6 about where I thought Rayllum’s arcs may go, and overestimated by cramming more into S7 than they reasonably had time for. However, I stand by like, 90% of that meta specifically:

So long as she’s Rayla — brave, selfless, loving — he can be Callum, and so long as he’s Callum — resourceful, persistent, loving — she can be Rayla. Not a dark mage forcing her to be an assassin, but two people who bring out the best in one another. And in doing so, in choosing to save rather than sacrifice each other, they get to likewise save, love, and preserve themselves.

So Callum throwing away being ‘Callum’ in 7x09, First, and Rayla following suit with him (as she always does) by doing the same is like, spectacularly on brand.

The other parts of the meta I think have a good shot moving forward is Callum having an arc of prioritizing love > mystery/knowledge (again, more on the meta) and Rayla finally, finitely, choosing love over duty.

She tends to go back and forth on it, and it’s not as simple as “in order to be a protector she cannot be an assassin” (circa 3x09) but there is a Reason that Rayla has to literally abandon being an assassin™ in order to bring Zym home in arc 1.

When Runaan is brought back in S6/S7, we get a good look at how Rayla still views being an assassin:

I know I’ve talked about this before in a past meta but forget where, but a core part of being an assassin is dehumanizing others (your target, or targets by proxy) as well as yourself. You, like your targets, are not a person; you are a weapon, a tool, and you are “already dead”. Your wants, needs, life, family, etc. doesn’t matter. This is pushed even further by the three times we see Rayla take up the assassin mantle explicitly across the series:

1. In 3x09, wherein she is put into a situation where she cannot kill Viren without literally also killing herself, and is saved/spared only because of Callum.
2. In 4x05, wherein she abandons the drake vs 2x07 “This is where I’m meant to be,” showing that she’s continuing to siphon off Core pieces of herself (“Rayla’s brave, she saves people […] That’s what makes her a hero. That’s what makes her Rayla”).
3. In 7x09, where she’s prepared to murder Callum (“I almost risked losing the best thing I ever had” / “My heart for Xadia”), condemning herself to a life without her partner (which neither sets of her parents nor herself were willing to enforce for Lain/Tiadrin or Runaan/Ethari, as she fights to keep them together throughout all of arc 2). This, as Ezran states, would’ve meant “sacrificing everything we are”; if she’d killed Callum, she would’ve killed herself (symbolically), too, and she was willing to do it.

Moreover, sacrificing your loved ones is seen as a Big Bad Viren thing to do (“We must be ready to sacrifice, even the things we love” / everything with Lissa, and later Soren; even Runaan with Rayla in 1x03). This is further entangled by, to Rayla, a person just IS a dark mage, but being an assassin is a Separate Job that isn’t who they are. And this isn’t necessarily truly challenged until AFTER she’s picking up her assassin father’s bow (the Symbolism) and Runaan has realized maybe he was always wrong, each time, to ben an assassin, because each time he thought the violence was Necessary (Harrow, Callum), he was ultimately wrong (Harrow was a good man who wanted to change; the Archdragons could defeat Aaravos with others’ help).

This is especially important because for Runaan, there is no separation of “Runaan as himself” and “Runaan the assassin (his job)”. They’re the same thing to him, I think, because he’s operating under different cognitive dissonances / ways of thinking than his daughter.

And I knew she was right: I had become a monster. / I’m a monster!

So like, being an assassin — doing assassin-y things; dehumanizing yourself and others — is Bad. Every time, it’s bad for Rayla from a physical or emotional standpoint, it’s bad for her relationships, it’s bad from a narrative perspective, etc etc. When Terry says in 7x02, “There’s another way with less darkness and sacrifice,” he isn’t just talking (narratively) about dark magic.

Sacrifice is the cornerstone of being an an assassin and of Rayla’s character arc, and always has been, being both a good thing, and a bad thing.

Rayla can be so selfless that it rounds back into being selfish because she doesn’t consider how her actions or her going missing/dying will affect the people around her, and in arc 2, she makes a lot of progress, mostly in S4 and S5. The former lets her learn about the importance of coming back and second chances; and season 5 is about accepting grace, making good on those second chances, and learning how to ask for help. But S6 and S7 make it plain that her issues have not entirely resolved.

In S5-S6, she routinely puts her family on the back-burner, even if it’s a burden and causes her immense anguish (“It hurts me to know they’re trapped like this. It’s agonizing”). In S7, she’s willing to push, but because she conceptualizes it for being for Runaan and Ethari’s benefit(s), not her own, and instead intends to leave without even reuniting with her second dad.

Hurting Callum is the last thing she wanted (5x04) but she was still willing to do it (s4) and even go so far as killing him (7x09), because her wants and needs and family members don’t fundamentally matter when the fate of the world (or even someone she feels bound/obligated to help) is seemingly at stake. And, finally, S7 goes after this by attacking the sacrificial pillar of Rayla’s identity has been scaffolded upon: Runaan.

Runaan goes I was wrong. He is also fundamentally changed by returning to Katolis and seeing the eyes of the person he hurt through his actions. He acknowledges that his precision violence, his quest for murder, wasn’t necessary.

That he sacrificed his family, and he will not do so again (vs Rayla’s assessment of “I can’t help you yet […] I think this is what you would want me to do” in 5x01, of course). Because Runaan has changed, and is not who he once was / does not have the same priorities he once did.

This, more than anything, is Rayla’s way in, but as stated, it only happens at the end of S7, not Before.

After S6 aired, I remember still leaning towards Rayla being unwilling to kill him in S7 (as this was a kids’ show, and they’re not going to kill their central protagonist, particularly with Callum’s importance as a mage) but being unsure of how they were going to get her there in just 9 episodes. After all, she was still wiling to sacrifice her parents time and time again (5x01, 5x04, 6x01, 6x05) and it didn’t sit quite right with me that she’d Suddenly do a 180 when it was her boyfriend, alternatively, on the line. The fact that Callum, who has routinely encouraged Rayla to not make sacrifices, was also the one encouraging her to make this one, made it doubly complicated; of course she was going to waver, as she’s always borrowed from Callum’s (and others’) viewpoint for her own:

VILLADS: Look at yourself, Rayla. Who are you? What do you stand for? Once you know that, you’ll end up where you were always meant to be. (2x06)

RAYLA: I’ve been thinking about something someone once told me. About how when one person hurts another, and that person hurts them back, it becomes a cycle that never ends.

CALLUM: Who told you that?

RAYLA: You did. […] Protecting that dragon doesn’t just feel like the thing to do; it feels like the right thing for me to do. It’s where I’m meant to be. (2x07)

DARK!CALLUM: Even if that means giving up your sense of right and wrong. (7x06)

RAYLA: An assassin doesn’t decide right or wrong. Only life and death. (1x02)

Like, they can’t have Rayla try to be an Assassin again after 7x09. That plot arc has been carried through. Therefore, the only one left is the Alternative: not an assassin, but a Hero™ who saves people, especially the people she loves.

Therefore, main reason to leave Callum open to possession as of the end of S7 (as similar drama could’ve been achieved or staged without him beginning the corruption spell) is for Rayla to un-make her 7x09 choice. She’ll fight for him, and save him. She’ll chase what she wants, for herself.

I have a few ideas of what could get her to that turning point, i.e.

• 7 years of a happy relationship with Callum and having a real support system (her family, her village, Callum + Ez, Soren, etc) and she finally feels like she doesn’t have anything to atone for
• Her and Runaan talking about his past choices and how/why he was wrong, and doesn’t want Rayla to make the same mistakes
• Rayla realizing/seeing that Callum Will Not sacrifice her, even for the greater good, and while she may be immensely angry/upset at first, she realizes that he was right and she’ll do the same/whatever it takes to bring him back from the possession (theory on this that’s been going for 3 long ass years + its 5 year old big sister)

Like, 7x09 ended with the heroes trying to kill Aaravos and trap him with dark magic. Both those options are now, seemingly, out of the question, or either imprisoning him with primal/deep magic (which would be very Iffy story wise) or changing his mind is like… some of our only paths through, and that applies to Rayla.

Aaravos wants the Cosmic Council to suffer forever, but Rayla asks how much suffering is enough to pay for the mistakes we’ve made? In 2x08, she cited that Callum’s dark magic coma (the harm/toll it took on him) was him paying the price (cue him trying to trap Aaravos in a Literal Coin even if that means paying with his life). She quickly unlearns that (2x09) and is learning to stand by it (7x09) but still hasn’t brought it to fruition; I look forward to seeing her do so.