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raayllum · 1 year

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Something I’ve been mulling over bc it also stuck out to me when I first watched the season, took the symbolic reasoning, and then didn’t think too much over it. However, I think I do know the in-character / story reasoning after some time & reflection, so let’s talk about it. Or rather, let’s try to answer

Why didn’t Callum figure out the mirror?

Simply put: because he didn’t, Narratively, need to.

Let me explain.

What’s the Point, really, of Callum being interested in the mirror? We know it’s in character because he’s always in curious about magic. We know it’s in character because he already has a tendency to fixate and attach meaning to objects. And we know it’s doubly sound in-universe given that Callum knows from Rayla’s binding and the Storm Spire archway that elven stuff is hardly ever meaningless or without a deeper meaning underneath.

From a symbolic standpoint, of course it’s meant to show his parallels to Viren, even if his and Viren’s personalities and circumstances are wildly different. However, Callum has even less context for the mirror than Viren did. All he knows is that it’s something Viren has had and is seemingly elvish in design. He doesn’t know it was in the lair of the Dragon monarchy or any hint at all that it’s connected to the archmage mentioned in his father’s letter / that he has a somehow related Key.

One of the main reasons I thought Callum might go after Rayla into Xadia from a storytelling structure was because 1) we need humans in Xadia as an audience surrogate (hi all the kiddos just going into Xadia with Zubeia and Rayla to provide just that) and 2) I always thought they wouldn’t have the time for Callum to have a full fledged arc with mirror Aaravos the same way Viren had and that it could end being too similar to what had come before. (Turns out I was right because the plot didn’t have time lmao! But I digress)

Don’t get me wrong, Aaravos manipulating Callum through the mirror in terms of conversations could have worked (and I’ve written a few here and here pre season release) but that always felt like it might infringe a bit on Callum’s character for two main reasons

1) Besides Rayla being gone, he has virtually everything he ever wanted; helping his brother, a powerful mage, getting to pursue more magical resources etc. Viren only went to Aaravos out of outright desperation because he believed that had “nothing left to lose” and because he had goals he was chasing. Until Aaravos possesses Callum, Callum is a hot mess, sure, but he’s not particularly desperate. There’s no tangible way in - Callum was offered unlimited power back in 2x08 and still turned down being a dark mage. Just something nondescript wouldn’t really work this time either

2) Callum is skeptical as hell and is accordingly slow to trust, and even barring Rayla’s absence, he still had a support system of people who cared about him at the castle, particularly Ezran and Soren (and even Bait) who would keep an eye on him. Callum can be reckless and let his curiosity get the better of him, but he still listens to his instincts (2x03 with Soren and Claudia) and the people around him.

The main information Callum could’ve gotten from Aaravos, if the Startouch elf had been 1) willing and 2) truthful would’ve been details of his backstory - well before his imprisonment, as everything else (the fact that he is imprisoned, the lack of knowledge about where he is, who put him there, etc.) are all things we really knew. So it’d require more of a switch from Aaravos than Callum in a lot of ways too - elongating and stretching things out, and not necessarily giving Callum a segue into an arc where he’s actually able to start processing his feelings. And again, no desperation as a way in

But with all that out of the way, why have Callum be more obsessed with the mirror beyond the initial scene in 4x01? Why not have him investigating the cube because it’s also related to Aaravos and could communicate the same purpose? Why have it be the arguable C-plot of 4x02 at all if he’s just going to be interrupted?

Like I said, there’s the very blatant symbolic reason of Rayla’s entrance being what deters Callum from getting too close to the mirror, her halo’d by the moon figure representing the other path he’s going to choose away from the more blatant visible path of darkness (black dark magic eyes, gazing upon a fallen star, “what if i’m on a path of darkness” etc etc) in the end. I do think that’s the Surface Level reading we’re meant to have as a takeaway, kind of similar to when Rayla spares Marcos in the forest in a moment of emotional illumination. Another path.

However, I think it actually goes deeper than that:

Which is to say, step out of the narrative / audience mindset, and look at it from Callum’s perspective.

You see the six primal sources Rayla has drawn after the craziest night of your life and think of something exciting and familiar. The cube in the Banther Lodge. Conveniently on the way and free of humans. You have to go get it.

You give up on having it when shit hits the fan. You just want to make sure everyone, especially Rayla, gets out safely. You completely give up on the cube. And even though she’s pissed at you, she tosses it into your lap anyway.

It turns out that, of all the possible things and secrets your stepfather could’ve given you that you might have missed out on, he intended and left the Key of Aaravos to you. It soothes the ache in your chest. It feels like destiny, especially after a week of being lost and magic-less

You bury yourself in your work to soothe another heart break. You hate the bulk of what you’ve inherited from your predecessor. You learn how to translate runes. But no matter how much you learn, you can’t translate the mirror. The gleam routinely catches your eye. You hate a riddle you can’t solve

You have a feeling the mirror is related to the evil returning to the world due to Ibis mentioning the Fallen Star; the same way you had a feeling that the cube could help you. (A feeling that Rayla couldn’t be trusted, a feeling that the storm made you feel like it did when you cast fulminus.)

Then you cannot feel anything except numbness as your limbs and mouth move beyond your control and it’s worse. It’s so much worse.

You worry you’re on a path of darkness, that you will inevitably, accidentally, play into his hands because you almost have three times before without even realizing.

You cannot let go of the cube.

In every adjacent encounter, Callum has had a step of separation from Aaravos. He thinks and behests they make a heartfelt detour so he can go get the cube, but Rayla is the one who finds it. Before he can even know the cube is more special than it seems (although he already thinks it’s more special than Rayla does and certainly not worthless), Harrow is granting him key ;) information. He didn’t find the mirror, Viren having already stolen and hauled it back into Katolis, as the last thing Runaan ever saw. By the time Zubeia tells him what it is, it is too late.

In so many ways this exemplifies how even before Callum knew it in 1x01 for a decent chunk of the episode, the events that would radically transform and destroy his life had already taken place in more ways than one: assassins spotted, egg stolen. Harrow dead just as the narrative truly begins.

The cube is his part of the puzzle to decipher, not anyone else’s. Claudia, Viren, and Callum are all needed as equal parts of Aaravos’ plan for his pawns. For Viren, it was the staff and the mirror; for Claudia, it is the quest; and for Callum, it will likely be the cube. This is shown even in 4x01 when the two times Callum is talking about the mirror, he is Interrupted by either the guard coming to fetch him on his brother’s behalf or by Soren messing with the cube, and Callum is interrupted again by the cube glowing and then Rayla’s arrival, literally turning away from the mirror for each.

The point of the mirror and Callum’s obsession with it wasn’t to solely highlight how he’s like Viren, necessarily (otherwise they could’ve just kept throwing in the same parallels they have from the very beginning), but to show how his agency has been undermined from the very beginning and will be to the end (of S6 at least), that he and Viren are tethered by the same thing that is Worse than Death, and that while more cognizant of it, by the time Viren realized Aaravos was using his Power and that Callum was entangled, it was already, as Harrow says

If Callum had figured out the mirror and that it was a prison or even communicated to Aaravos on his own, he would be able to look back and see and know all the places he could’ve stopped, all the places he actively chose to wander down. But even that is taken away from him. Even with delays, even with self-preservation, even by both repeating and rejecting Viren’s mistakes, it adds to Callum feeling like his destiny is already written, that this path as a pawn is inevitable. That no matter how different or similar he is to Viren, there’s only one way this can end, that there are no divergences, there are no other choices - there are no safe choices except to take him out. That he will continually come back to Aaravos regardless of if he knows it or not, that his own wishes will hook him right back in, that his fate is already sealed. That it’s written in stone.

Callum has chased agency (magic) his whole arc, wanting to be able to protect his loved ones and make something of himself. However, he’s also had more agency than he was giving himself credit for even in S1, stopping Claudia from going after them, having the final say about going up to the tower or not. Thus S1-S3 is largely Callum deciding who he wants to be with the agency he has and recognizing his strengths, building his confidence. He hasn’t struggled with concepts of agency more than he has since S2, which is one of the reasons S4 mirrors S2 so heavily in how its emotionally structured for the main cast in particular. Realizing that the ability to fully commit to the choices he wants has been within him all along; that’s why he narratively gets the Sky arcanum. So of course an external factor reaching inside him and taking control is the most bone-chilling inversion of that possible.

If he went the Viren arc as a slowburn in S4, we would get the Viren S4 resolution, of Callum unknowingly giving away his agency until he has basically nothing left. If he was driven to figure out the mirror for it or his own sake, we would see him being having Claudia’s arc, falling further and deeper in with a devastating relentlessness.

Instead, we get that lack of agency on speed run to give Callum the opposite arc of having agency brutally ripped away from him, only to open up a path for him to take it back stronger than ever before. In many ways, Callum has more to lose and more at stake, the fact that he can be possessed an even greater blow now than it would’ve been in Arc 1.

Arc 1 for him was about acclimating and adjusting to Power. and believing in his own Potential .This first portion Arc 2 is about how much of a say does he have in how he uses that power, now that he’s no longer a child; now that he’s no longer free.

Callum doesn’t typically worry about making the wrong choice, however. Most of his anxiety tends to stem when he feels like he has no choice. Thus, it sets Callum up to have a really interesting arc of reconciling these dualities rather than just retreading old steps. Viren had full agency when chasing after Aaravos; as Soren says to Claudia, “Dad is dead; you don’t have to do what he wants anymore,” believing that Claudia is merely picking up where Viren left off, not that she’s steamrolling their own father into it in order to save his life.

It’s one of the reasons that of all characters, Callum arguably also parallels Zym a great deal as well. Like Zym, he’s being treated like a thing and a weapon more than a person. Like Viren believed of Zym, Callum worries he may be forced into a terrible destiny. That:

Callum being possessed is still a form of manipulation, if not also a misdirect, forcing him into a desperate position that makes him even more vulnerable to Aaravos than he ever could’ve been otherwise. But it’s a different form of manipulation than how Aaravos lured in Viren, and a different form than how he’s manipulated Claudia the past two years. Aaravos is terrifying because he knows what strings to pull, not because he’s pulling the same strings every time. For a character with such a strong breath / mouth / freedom motif, being choked / being robbed of his voice / and of his freedom is the absolute biggest smack in the face. I’ve long mandated that the worst possible thing that would rattle Callum the most would be feeling like his mind was unsafe because of Aaravos, not his body.

Callum seeking Aaravos out in S4 of his own accord is thematically / narratively opposed to the possession plot line. The possession plot line is the ‘replacement’/subversion chosen, but it’s not a bug; it’s the feature.

It also sets Callum up to have a really interesting arc of battling for control, eventually winning it (S5 and/or S6) but still losing to Aaravos, making the wrong choice or call or being forced into something anyway while he’s cognizant enough to make a choice at all, anyway. It’d be empowering and demoralizing all at once.

But still not without any hope, since, after all:

Nothing is truly inevitable. Nothing is written in stone. It is never wholly too late, not for anyone. Aaravos just doesn’t know it yet - but Callum will be sure to show him, by S7 at the very least if not sooner.

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