#i feel like rayla has enough self awareness to realize her pattern isn't Great for the people around her

[raayllum]

i feel like a way Rayla could realise her self sacrifice issue was bad was if she put herself in danger to save someone and it was all in vain and she ended up injured for nothing and callum’s yelling at her is a wake up call

thoughts?

The tricky thing about Rayla - and indeed why I think her issues are so like, persistent - is because it wouldn't surprise if the scenario you've laid out above is exactly what happened to her during the timeskip to evoke the "We can't save everyone, there's too much at stake" reaction to the drake, and if anything it just made her Worse off, instead

Cause I feel like in a situation like that, Rayla would just internalize it as "I failed to protect them because I'm not good enough," and not necessarily "I need to stop biting off more than I can chew and let people help me" / that she's worthy of that sort of help. Cause self worth issues like Rayla tends to rest on an inherent belief that there's something Wrong with her. Not just with what she does, but inherently with what she is, that she's fundamentally flawed in a way that other people just Aren't. It's not a belief based on reality and is far from fair, but it is an exceedingly common one

We actually kind of see this perfectly illustrated in 1x08, in which both the boys 'mess up' to a degree, and Rayla reassures them back to back

Callum: Ugh. I'm sorry my plan was a mess! Rayla: Nah, your plan was fine! Our execution was a little off. Ezran: I'm so sorry I messed up the plan. Rayla: Ah, you should cut yourself a break. Everyone messes up sometimes.

And then later that very same episode, when Ezran tries to offer Rayla some reassurance/leeway, and Callum in 1x09 reiterates that it's not her fault, Rayla initially steamrolls over both of them and fully over Callum trying to assuage her guilt: "That shouldn't have mattered. I had a job to do" / "No, I should have trusted you. Things only went wrong because we kept fighting." "I let you both down. I let the world down."

Because, according to Rayla, she messes up all the time, and kinda believes she always will. She doesn't really think she can free the dragon and make it out alive, which is probably what it would take for a mission to be deemed 'successful' (and is very Runaan "sacrifice" of her). She doesn't really think she's going to come back after leaving in TTM, either ("I wish I could say that we'll see each other again, but I don't know. I hope so").

She's the assassin and the protector who can't successfully protect anyone. She's the one who spent two years searching for Viren and Claudia and got defeated enough to eventually come home, only to realize they really were out there and she just couldn't find them. She couldn't catch the pouch containing her parents' coins; she couldn't keep Callum safe. She's the defect. The traitor, the liar. The Ghost. The mistake.

So like, what does Rayla need to realize then?

That she can succeed and won't inevitably fail (may be achieved by successfully saving Callum, emotionally/physically, from Aaravos' brainwashing)

That even if she does fail, it's okay and it's okay for her to make a mistake (arguably the more important one) and that she doesn't have to Punish herself for them (or anyone else's mistakes) either

That not everything, even her failures, are universally her fault, and learning to distinguish between her failures, mistakes, and things that couldn't be helped either way

That it is okay, if anything better, for her to accept help and to lean on other people, and that it's okay (even if it's not ideal) for them to want to protect her

Tying into that, regardless of whether she succeeds or fails, she has worth and is worthy of love - that she doesn't have to and shouldn't have to do everything alone

That it is okay to stay and want things for herself

She's got a long road ahead, clearly, but I am confident that she can get there. I always have been, ever since S1 began to show the fractures, and S3 blew them wide open, and I cannot wait to get to see her start healing