#theredhairedmonkey

[theredhairedmonkey]

Damn, not much Aaravos but he really made his one scene stand out.

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

Me: Well what about Callum? You missed him.

Aaravos: Oh he’s mine. Not even going to hide the ball on this one. He’s my absolute favorite.

[kazisgirlfriend]

Callum - Surrendering Control

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 :)

[mandaloriandragontrainer]

But actually, what if Callum, ever the Sky mage, helps Soren with breathing exercises and Soren sees yet another uncomfortable parallel between the two High Mages?

[raayllum]

i'm not gonna say i've never made a post or even a proper meta that's a light rebuttal to shit i've seen floating around (usually nothing more than someone bringing an opinion in my askbox or a response on a post i made that i disagree with, and even then those are minor) but it is always fascinating when people do spend all their time online / on their blogs making posts trying to argue against my meta. maybe you'd have more success and more fun if you focused or actually developed your own ideas, cause with 300+ metas to my name i've certainly never needed to borrow any of yours

[cocoacatnip]

Okay..giving my thoughts on Callum’s “one truth”.

In the episode “moment of truth” Callum is told to find the star inside him, the one truth that will fill the darkness. This of course healing the dark corrupted hole in his soul.

This star manifests as Rayla and Callum is successfully able to purify himself. This star manifesting as Rayla makes sense, and not just because he’s in love with her. She was the first to call him a mage, because of her he learned that everything he knew about elves was wrong. She’s a catalyst for his growth as a person. Rayla is also one of his biggest heartbreaks. One that he still wasn’t over even after two years, leaving an emptiness where she left. Rayla being this bright star that heals his darkness can also symbolize him finally healing from the hurt, and being ready to fully love again.

At SDCC it was reported that Callum’s deepest truth was love, this causing some to interpret the moment in season 6 slightly differently. Some say his “one truth” is love in general, others say it’s Rayla and only Rayla. I personally don’t really see why it can’t be both? The show runners also said in a recent interview,

“Callum comes to the realization that Rayla is his center and guiding star”.

So his one truth has been said to be “love” and it’s also said that “Rayla is his center and guiding star”. Does this mean that his one truth is only Rayla? I personally think things have a little room for interpretation. I think it’s totally okay to be like “Hey maybe Rayla is his guiding light that leads him to realize his deeper truth, his love for her and also his love for family life, magic etc.” I personally don’t see how that interpretation takes away from anything. I think @theredhairedmonkey has some really good metas on this very idea as well. Obviously there are gonna be people who try to act like Rayla has no significance at all in this, and those people clearly weren’t paying attention and should just be ignored.

At the end of the day people are allowed to interpret things differently, and if you disagree that’s okay. I really think this fandom as a whole needs to be more open to people having differing opinions though. Some people get really nasty about it..and then people are scared to share their takes that might go against what’s popular. Anyway those are just my thoughts…

[kilfeur]

Enfin je sais ce qu'il y a sous la tenue grise de Rayla, je vais pour l'utiliser pour des futures références ! Et ouais Rayla qui dit au début que c'est un cauchemar pour calmer Callum. Je veux dire Callum débarque en plein milieu de la nuit et du coup il lui raconte tout ça. Moi perso, je saurai pas quoi dire ! Mais du coup on a l'idée de Callum qui est de créer une couverture anti sort et Barius qui a crée un leurre @theredhairedmonkey t'avais raison pour le leurre. Reste à savoir si il marche vraiment pour la suite

Finally I know what's under Rayla's gray outfit, I'm going to use it for future references! And yeah, Rayla saying at the beginning that it's a nightmare to calm Callum down. I mean, Callum shows up in the middle of the night and tells her all about it. Personally, I wouldn't know what to say! But then we have Callum's idea of creating an anti-spell blanket and Barius' creation of a decoy. Red ! you were right about the decoy. It remains to be seen whether it really works for the next step

[kuno-chan]

Hopefully One Time Vent about the Morally Dubious Callum Discourse Thing

I've been seeing a lot of weird discourse in the main TDP tags since I posted my thing yesterday and...

@theredhairedmonkey I'm not talking about you even if you are one of the people against morally dubious Callum. And I see you vagueblogging me. I know you're going to deny it, but you've been posting and commenting on this since yesterday and putting your little rants and pointed posts in the tags since I made that post yeesterday. (And tumblr's for you tag keeps showing me your posts)

I see the argument sometimes in the main tdp discord because I mod there and get to see a lot of the takes. It isn't always about you. If you wanna hash it out you can just message me.

I don't normally call out people, but I'm also not afraid to if you wanna be sneaky about it. If you wanna come and directly tell me "Hey, I think you're wrong and and you're an idiot and Rayla is your wish fulfillment character (which she's not because she does nothing I actually aspire to tbh)" do it. I can Respect that, at least.

Call me out.

Say my name publicly.

Or come into my dms and we can talk about it privately. Don't be a coward who keeps vagueblogging me because I said it feels like a lot of incels project onto Callum then hypocritically directly right after that start complaining people use Rayla as a wish fulfillment character because you automatically think I was talking Specifically only about you and not a wider group that maybe has the same take.

I don't wanna make the tags toxic and I am sure you'll take this post and break it down paragraph by paragraph with your response instead of responding like a cordial person but you're being a jerk and I don't appreciate it. Like, I barely talk in this fandom anymore.

So, call me out, talk to me or leave me alone.

Okay I'm done and I'll try not to do this again

[chimpukampu]

Rayla blowing on Callum in the show would just give away the game because there’s no way that’s NOT flirting XD

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?"

Imagine the horror when he realized that Zym, a baby who doesn't know anything in this world even the concept of goodbye, will first learn the basic etiquette between humans and elves from them

[beautifulterriblequeen]

Who do you think the Moon Druids were/are? I had my own theory, but I wanted to hear what you thought! :)

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: 

[uneryx]

I wonder if Runaan’s binding stops growing tighter while in the coin, or if his arm is basically already gone by now.

I’m sure either way it is an incredibly humbling and awful experience for him! I mean the real reason he doesn’t remove it even though he totally could is because he’s stubborn and honor/pride-bound and removing it would be dishonorable but y’know.

[thethiefandtheairbender]

Which villain from LOK would Aang have the most trouble defeating?

i think either zaheer / the red lotus or kuvira. aang dealt with yakone and amon wasn’t much more powerful. aang invented energy bending and he’s already so spiritual i don’t think unalaq would be too difficult. i think hurting another airbender would be hard for aang / in a four-on-one fight, especially since zaheer is more willing to use air in brutal non pacifist ways that aang wouldn’t be familiar with. i say kuvira only because aang can’t metal bend, so he’d have to get creative in deflecting her shots

[theredhairedmonkey]

Like Aunt, Like Nephew

Lol, one of the songs from the s5 soundtrack is literally called “Like Aunt, Like Nephew.” Gee, I wonder what that might be about?

[arcadialedger]

Just saw this email and smiled so hard! Thanks, @theredhairedmonkey— I really admire your analysis skills and blog content!

Truly a favorite— if you’re in the @dragonprinceofficial fandom I highly recommend!

[huntress-of-stories-and-dreams]

Headcanon #63

While learning Sky magic, Callum realizes he needs a weapon - a real weapon he can use to protect himself on a daily basis and in case he can’t use magic. He decides (quite confidently actually) to adapt his mother’s spear into mage’s battle staff as he no longer has to train sword fighting and had already tried some weapons before making the choice.

It takes a while to convince Janai to perform a purification rite, but the effect is worth it. Sarai’s spear leaves the Sun Forge unaffected and good as new, so Callum, the moment he crafts his first primal stone and after consulting Ethari and Ibis (reluctant at first), merges it into the spike.

With Callum forging other arcanums the staff gets upgraded with other primal stones, eventually becoming one of the most powerful weapons on the continent - especially in Callum’s hands.

[raayllum]

under a read more bc it's salty as hell

ah yes telling an afab person with a degree in english that they don't know what a foil is isn't misogynistic at all, taking screencaps of my parallel posts to then make your own disproving them, repeatedly answering asks or making posts diminishing or being flat out mean regarding my specific theories by name, side-eying me having a "predictions achieved" tag (which has existed since before you joined the fandom), having leanings into casual anti-asian racism on multiple occasions, ignoring numerous people when they spoke out about a fandom troll / harasser and dismissing them all, accusing me baselessly of harassing you on anonymous (which considering i've been harassed twice in the fandom and have documented it is particularly rich), saying that myself and people who enjoyed my theories were "gimmicky hacks" and that if those theories came true it would ruin the show, and more but no - i'm the bad guy for making *checks notes* these two posts (X, X) and saying maybe don't put shit in ezran's tag that isn't related to ezran when it wasn't even about you, but sure. pop off king

[cocoacatnip]

Okay soooo.. @theredhairedmonkey pointed this out, (and I’ve seen a few others notice as well at this point) but the dark callum image from the new trailer is definitely taking place on Finnegrin’s ship. The same room Callum was chained up in and did dark magic a second time. So this is pretty clearly some sort of dream sequence. I’m thinking it could be some sort of moment where Callum is confronted with that moment, and truly comes face to face with his potential for darkness. (Obviously that doesn’t mean he has to give in) It looks like there’s blood on his hand, and while I’ve seen people say it’s from the thing used for the dark magic snake chain spell. Ummm the item he squashed for that spell is an embalmed snake rattle…so there wouldn’t be blood. It’s a dream so the blood could just be symbolic of his guilt over doing dark magic again. We’ve seen a clip of him flying blindfolded and free falling so this could be some sort of vision he has in that moment to reach some form of enlightenment? Cause I do think the flying free fall is some sort of test.

Another thought is this is Aaravos getting into his head and taunting him over that moment. I mean it’s pretty obvious Aaravos will try to use Callum as a puppet again. I even think he’ll possibly succeed to an extent..but I’m obv of the callum overcomes it mindset…eventually anyway. 😂 Callum is gonna have lots of “fun” this season I can tell.