#heppyhenry

[raayllum]

@heppyhenry​​ Honestly I know anon wasn’t meaning you and neither was I (there’s a troll on Reddit who has some very weird takes on characters and will make a lot of sock accounts to prop up his points that I think you may have come across) on reddit after taking a peek at said actual posts. 

Honestly the main reason I gravitated to CHET wasn’t because of any external factors, but because of how central the theme of Exchange itself is in the series. It’s the entire basis for S1-S3 in terms of conflict (exchange is the foundation of dark magic) and resolution (Zym for peace). Freedom is also another central theme of the series, to the point that many heroes and villains (Aaravos included) are seeking freedom from either literal or metaphorical Chains. 

The main conflict of S4 between Callum and Rayla, in my opinion, is never going to be CHET. The conflict is going to be the emotional fallout from Through the Moon and dealing with their unresolved feelings/grief. CHET exists to (somewhat) be the resolution. Callum fulfils his connection to Aaravos that’s been set up since S2 and has an active hand in shaping the destiny of the world, even if this time it’s for the worse (Callum has always had a selfish reckless streak too, where the things he wants indadvertedly puts people in danger, like Rayla in 1x04 and Zym in 2x04). Rayla, after taking “I am already dead” to the extreme, can finally get it through her own head that she has self worth and that nothing she can do can ever get rid of Callum for good. 

And this might just be me but? TDP has been fairly predictable. I figured since S1 that Soren would get a redemption arc while Claudia would only get worse. Most of us noticed that Sarai was dead in S1 and thought perhaps Harrow had done some avenging-business, which S2 and then S3 confirmed. I thought after S3 that perhaps Rayla’s paranoid nature would make her feel restless and put the main group on the path to discovering Viren and/or that she’d want a rematch of some kind. Is it truly predictable, or does the fandom’s predictions just have a higher chance of coming true because know the characters well, or pay a lot of attention?

Seeing these things coming, or speculating, didn’t make it any less interesting to watch it play out in real time. TDP has always fallen back on tried and true fantasy tropes in a lot of ways, and they know it’s the execution that makes it compelling and interesting. 

Cause the thing is, when I pitched the theory back in October 2020 (which feels like a lifetime ago holy shit), no one was talking about it. I’d say maybe since SDCC this year, if not the last couple weeks, have I seen more people really bring it up. And part of the reason I thought it would fit well is because it would progress their emotional arcs in a dramatic way and the plot in a big way, being both a difficult yet understandable decision to the audience.

It was lines like Aaravos’ “Those who fail tests of love are simple animals. They deserve to be motivated by fear” and the way I noticed the Cube being consistently framed as part of a game (“It’s a children’s toy” “You practicing magic or are you losing to a game of rolly-cubes”) that mirrored Viren’s singular demand of “What game are you playing at?” to Aaravos just a few episodes later.

It’s the dramatic irony (which the writers’ clearly love, writing stuff like Soren and Rayla’s foils relationship of inverted roles, and “A child is freer than a king” leading to a child king in chains) of Rayla risking her life for the cube in 1x04, only for that Cube to then be exchanged in order to save her life. 

So like, by all means, disagree! A theory is just a theory and I’ve been in fandom for a long time. Whether it comes true or not, I and others have had a lot of fun with it in fanon and that’ll always be really special to me. But one thing I haven’t seen that I have been on the lookout for are...

What are the ‘rival’ theories?

Rayla didn’t leave because she didn’t think Callum was capable or out of any sense of misplaced pride; she was just relying on him to get out of the portal and she knew it. But grief and trauma have warped her to the point of prioritizing Callum being alive over his (or her) happiness. So say she gets into deep shit and manages to escape... if it’s so dangerous she thinks she absolutely cannot fix it on her own, is she really going to crawl back to the boys and drag them into something Dangerous, when that was the whole point of leaving Callum behind in the first place? And Rayla can’t succeed in her mission, for either the plot (there’s 3+ seasons to go) or for her own development (she needs to learn to stop throwing her life away and that there is no price to pay).

Either she high tails it out with information and somehow runs across the boys, or she’s taken captive. I don’t think she’d be willing to turn back ‘empty handed’ as the last time she failed to kill a human properly, it killed the rest of her troupe/destroyed her family, and Viren’s survival is absolutely something Rayla feels responsible for. And again, I don’t think she’d be willing to drag them into something dangerous on purpose - but that might be more travelling than the show has time for, since she’s in Xadia when S4 starts. She’d have to go back to Katolis, work that through, and then they’d all have to travel all the way back across Xadia (or close to) in order to reach Drakewood. 

Again, I’m not saying I’m right by any means, and whatever S4 does will be amazing, but with the pieces of information (or playing board, haha?) that we currently have, I’ve thought through the other angles, and CHET seems like the most straightforward one, with a decent amount of its execution halfway through. And concerning Callum’s choice in all this, didn’t Rayla warn him all the way back in 1x05 that...

Anyway if you are interested in seeing more of the evidence for the theory (because somehow, this all only scratched the surface) please check out the tag here, and happy reading if you choose to! 

if you have time/want to could you go on a righteous tirade about how the cube hostage exchange theory doesn’t reduce Rayla to just a “plot device” in Callum’s story or make her a nothing but a damsel in distress… getting real tired of That One Person saying stuff like that on reddit

Honestly I stay off reddit as much as possible for a lot of reasons but bc I'm literally always down to talk about my beloved theory:

1) In regards to the "damsel in distress" argument... Thus far, Callum has saved Rayla every single time she's been backed into a corner. Who saved her from the smoke wolves, from the giant fish, from the slug, from Soren Claudia and co. in 2x07? Who saved her after she jumped off the Pinnacle and when she went into the Moon Nexus portal? Rayla is still exercising agency in those scenes, trying or successfully saving someone, but from the start, her and Callum's dynamic has very often been "You save everyone and I save you."

This ties into Rayla's bigger character arc about learning how to rely on other people and that she doesn't have to do everything alone. She's gone from relying on the boys because she had to, choosing to rely on Callum, and is now fearful she'll rely on him too much (and get him killed). She left in TTM because she was determined, specifically, to do things 'alone' - she can't succeed without having that belief reaffirmed. Literally, her only two options are either to see shit going down and somehow book it back to safety, or to get captured. It's not crazy to explore the other half of a 50-50 split.

2) So a "plot device" is something that only exists to propel one character's arc. The thing about Rayla is that while a character hasn't used her against Callum before, the narrative absolutely has. The metaphor arc of Callum getting his wings that's set up carefully in S2 is only fulfilled in S3 because of his love for Rayla.

They literally used the Power of Love trope for it, and Callum says as much: how could he do something so miraculous? "Because I love you, Rayla. I really do."

And Callum is only put on the path of accessing the Sky Arcanum because he does dark magic to protect Rayla in the first place. While Rayla's arc development has typically existed a little bit more separately from Callum (aka her mini arc in 3x09 and some of TTM) which again, reflects her character, Callum is far more relational, which also reflects his character. This has been the case since season freaking one, with Rayla choosing the egg and Ezran choosing her, and Callum choosing her because Ezran did so first. None of this should be surprise.

Cube Hostage Exchange Theory, in what it would cause both of them to choose and/or to learn is really no different than 2x07, but the order would change. In 2x07, Rayla decides to take Callum's worldview (concerning the cycle) as her own and puts her life in danger. Callum follows and does something morally and magically dubious, unwilling to lose her. In Cube Hostage Exchange Theory, Callum would do the dubious thing first (risking potentially the world by passing over the cube or something else important) and then Rayla would take his worldview (that she has worth, in this case, that she cannot erase nor deter him from seeing no matter what she does) as her own, thus completing her character arc, setting her up for a new one, and working to evolve his before they likewise resolve it together.

Just like Ezran&Zym's relationship, Callum&Rayla's is one half of the narrative's heart, so to speak. It's clear from a narrative standpoint they were each designed as pairs, and part of the reason why Callum and Rayla foil each other so fiercely, their arcs constantly working in interlocking circles with each other. This is already shown in arc 2, where Rayla existed in a painful emotional limbo concerning her family in TTM, but by leaving, she has now left that space to be occupied by Callum in S4. In some ways, Rayla kinda has to lose her agency a little, in order for (narratively) circle back around to her realizing what she denied Callum by leaving him behind.

At the end of the day, cube hostage exchange theory is just that: a theory. I think it has real merit, and I'll be extremely curious what route they'll take if it's not this one, as it seems the most straight forward with what's been set up, but no less delighted and pleased by whatever S4 deigns to do in its stead.

And on a closing note, because I know The One Person Troll loves to reference Star Wars, and the creators have used Empire Strikes Back as a comparison time and time again... you know, the film where the hero famously dips on training and prioritizes saving his friends above all else, and loses the battle horribly? (Which ATLA also did with a trope so famous it's called Always Save The Girl?) The movie where in the actual romance plot line, one love interest is taken captive and has to be later rescued? That movie?

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