#like i do think eventually callum would leave (esp with how things are now) but

[raayllum]

i'm gonna get my broyals angst / ezran feels abandoned arc aren't i?

[arcadianmoonshadowjedi]

Hey so. I'm not up to date, still watching. Didn't see any fandom reactions so far. What do we think about Callum choosing Rayla over Ezran?

Right now, I'm torn. Part of me is super happy that Callum and Rayla pledged themselves to one another, for it to then immediately be tried, tested, and won. (I'm happy that their relationship won.) I love that the situation has them suddenly face a loyalty conflict that they didn't think they'd have to solve. I'm happy that it comes unexpected, catches them off guard, and that they have to decide on the spot. It's messy, puts them on edge, and I love it.

Callum also seems to initially give a really smart answer by differentiating between his role as High Mage and his role as a brother. However, depriving Katolis of its High Mage in a time of great need such as the one they're in?? really is a special kind of treason, and the King's brother abandoning the King NEVER looks good either, especially in that time of need! The show treats it like a private conflict, but Callum has a function in the royal court. He just signaled to all of Katolis that the King's family quit supporting Ezran. So although Ezran isn't in a good personal place in that episode, if he chose to interpret Callum's actions as high treason, I'd be with him.

I think the scene lacked certain tensions of unspoken things though. It still happened all too quickly. Ezran didn't know that Rayllum swore to never get separated again. Callum should have forced a different kind of magical time-out than the ice thingy (which directly attacked Ezran and his personal bodyguards), he should have played for time to explain. I'd have made him send Rayla and Runaan away, stay behind to explain to Ezran, then catch back up with the elves.

Then, if there was still some hurt between the brothers, at least Ezran would know the full story and would know where to place his priorities. The brothers could work to at least stay out of each other's way, instead of clashing again like when Callum sent the letter to suggest imprisoning Aaravos again. That wasn't Callum's place, he was out of touch with Ezran's warfare strategy by this point, and he was endangering his little bro's kingship by messing with his authority.

I wouldn't say it was out of character, but it certainly was more messy than necessary and lacked one of Callum's better ideas to resolve it.

I'm at the third-to-last episode rn, Ezran and Callum haven't yet met again, but Ezran did receive Callum's letter. No spoilers pls, but I'd love to hear your genuine reaction!

Hey so I personally think this situation was a lot more complicated than Callum just choosing Rayla over Ezran for loves sake. The way I saw it, Callum was torn between two people he loves. On one hand he was trying to tell Rayla to be patient and kept trying to tell her Ezran will eventually come around, to which Rayla after clashing with Ezran at the council meeting, she no longer felt she can wait. On the other hand, he did try to talk to Ezran esp about how he shouldn’t keep blaming Runaan for the kingdom being destroyed and how he’s playing into the cycle of violence he pledges to stop. While Ezran’s hurt and anger towards Runaan were completely justified, I felt like his actions came more from a place of vengeance rather than being right. Callum even called out Ezran for forgiving Zubeia who was the one who sent the assassins in the first place.

Callum only fully took Rayla’s side once Ezran showed up with an entire army to confront Rayla and Runaan which then resulted in Callum taking action against them to prevent Rayla and Runaan from being harmed. He did end up leaving with them not only because he ended up committing treason but also because he felt like Ezran was too vengeful and angry to listen even after trying to talk to him earlier.

As for the letter, unlike Ezran, Callum knew that Aaravos couldn’t be permanently killed which was why he was proposing the prison plan, which could’ve been a more permanent solution if no one were to find the prison again. The problem with Ezran was that he was falling into Aaravos’s trap not knowing that using the novablade to kill him would bring him back the next time the stars align and even potentially kill everyone around them.

While I do think that arc 2 shows some complications between the two brothers esp because both Callum is the older brother but Ezran is the king, which does cause a power imbalance between them, at the end of the day they’re still brothers first and foremost. I won’t spoil the last few eps, but I will tell you I loved and was very satisfied by how things went, including with Callum and Ezran. 😍😊

Hope this answered your question 🙌🏽

[hirazuki]

Can't say I'm a fan of tdp s3's pacing, it felt way too quick (and ngl, the pacing has me rooting for Callum and Rayla to break up by the end like call me cynical but these two haven't even known each other a month.) Also I don't like the direction they took Viren in :/ he was actually starting to seem really sympathetic thanks to s2, until he gaslit Soren in s3.

Under a cut because salt and spoilers! :D

Yeah, exactly :/ The pacing was really weird, the humor was off (idk if it was just me, but most of the jokes or things that were played for laughs were… just not funny), Callum/Rayla was way too quick (I think that most fans would have been fine with them going in this direction but maybe only like 1/3 of the way by the end of the season?), and the discrepancy between what was going on with their easy-going fun little romantic adventure vs. the crisis the rest of the world was having and Viren’s body horror galore situation was just really jarring.

I have no idea what they’re trying to do with Viren and tbh I don’t think they do either – he started as a very pragmatic villain in S1, then became sympathetic antagonist in S2 with clear and understandable motivations, and now it feels like they went “oh shit we made him too sympathetic BETTER PUT THIS WHOLE SHINDIG IN REVERSE AND SPRINKLE SOME EVULZ FOR GOOD MEASURE,” which had me going 😑Not to mention his perceived horror at Claudia bringing him back from the dead -- if he was really that evil of a person, I feel like he wouldn’t be horrified? But from his expression, it looks like he thinks that maybe his daughter went too far??? Which makes no sense given how they’ve been building him up??? Are they setting Claudia up to be the next big bad? Is it because Aaravos is no longer in his mind/did dying release him from some star elf magic shenanigans? Wtf? Adding that to what we know about him being named after Ehasz’s close friend and that he’s a staff favorite (and remembering that Lotor was also based off of one of JDS’s close friends and was, supposedly, a staff favorite), I’m just not too hopeful about even things as basic as keeping character consistency.

It just felt like the whole show suddenly gave up any nuance it had built up in S2. The animation has gotten a lot smoother, to the point where I can actually watch without getting dizzy, and even though I’m not a fan of the visual world building as a whole (I can’t tell if they’re going for a medieval society, or renaissance, or enlightenment or what with their setting, there are too many conflicting elements for me to not find it distracting), the individual character designs are super cool, so I was really hoping this could be a series I eventually managed to settle into. I’d much rather genuinely enjoy a show than salt-watch it :/ 

I think what bugged me the most is that it professes itself to be a super progressive show, with representation and sense of morality, etc., except that it continues to glorify really archaic ideals without providing any kind of solid proof as to why these are good things. Like child monarchs or divine right to rule, etc. – I know Opeli said kings are chosen by vote, but there’s been nothing but proof to the contrary for that. Whereas Viren, who has been the only non-royal main character (along with his kids) and essentially the voice/perspective of a more common type of person, esp in S2, keeps offering some of the most forward-thinking and pragmatic courses of action, but which always keep being undermined as “dark magic = evil lolz.” I just… don’t get where they’re trying to go with this, I guess.

The dynamic between Aaravos, Claudia, and Viren was super enjoyable though. Kinda makes me wish the show was about them lmao. It feels like, once again, the writing surrounding the villains is more compelling than that of the protags, and I think that it’s, again, because of the fact that villains don’t have to be “cinammon rolls uwu” and can be real people, whereas the heroes have to be P E R F E C T. I just wish people would write characters as just people, regardless of where they fall on the archetype/moral scale X_X

(I’m not even gonna touch Kasef lol, someone better qualified than me can do that XD).

If anything, I feel like it’s super obvious there was Stuff™ going on behind the scenes, and if we didn’t know about it from the tweets, I would have def wondered what the hell was going on with the writing team. I read some reviews that chalked the pacing up to the show runners not knowing if the series will be renewed and wanting to provide closure should this be the end of the show, but also leave it open enough so that they could continue it if they got the chance, but like… supposedly this season was done some time ago and there was never any risk of it being cancelled, so there should have been no need to make it so rushed? 

 Idk man ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ I feel like my biggest takeaway from this season is that either the whole AtLA team had one single braincell between them so that when they split to do their own projects, all those projects went dismally, or that the stars were in alignment for some kind of magic to birth AtLA. or it was actually ghostwritten by some third party lmao bc I literally have no other explanation for it.