Rayla - Tumblr Posts
Rayla - Breaking the Cycle
I believe Rayla is a well written character and this season really hit that home for me. Rayla is a character that is burdened by the past. We get to see just how deeply she is affected by her parents “betrayal” and the sacrifices she has, however inadvertently, caused on her quest to right her parents wrongs and do what she believes is right. This causes Rayla great personal suffering. It gets to the point where she believes she deserves all the bad things that have happened to her because she wasn’t/isn’t good enough. All of the pressure and self esteem issues put Rayla’s self sacrificial nature in a different light. It isn’t just because of the moonshadow elf culture and their dedication to duty. She believes she has to redeem herself and her parents no matter what.
When they make it to the lair of the dragon queen and it’s stay and fight a losing battle or run with Zym she decided to stay, while the others run, and face what will be her death. We see the utter desperation to not make the same mistake her parents did. She had already become a “ghost” to her people. Banished from her village because they believed she ran from her responsibilities when in reality she took on a task possibly even more perilous. They wouldn’t know of her sacrifice and the only ones who could wouldn’t be able to tell them, so this was clearly a personal choice to Rayla. A chance to possibly redeem herself and her parents in her own eyes, even if just for a few seconds. The show’s core theme is about the next generation stepping up and breaking the cycles the last generation create, but with Rayla it is shown how that can also become negative and self destructive when taken to the extreme. She is 100% willing to sacrifice her own life and possible happiness to redeem her parents and her own mistakes. She feels she can’t continue to go on if she doesn’t give everything she has to this endeavor. It almost becomes its own tragic cycle of service and sacrifice.
When Callum reveals what happened the day Viren came from the dragon prince it was the push she needed to accept that she couldn’t face this alone and that she should make a decision with everyone else. She wouldn’t have to carry the burden alone, at least not fully. Their decision to stay and fight solidified to Rayla that this was what she was meant to do. Being named the “last dragonguard” was an important step because, while now knowing her parents didn’t run away, the wounds that were created over all those years of believing and being told they did haven’t just disappeared. She still needed to be the “last dragonguard” to heal them. Rayla’s final confrontation with Viren mirrors that of her parents down to being frozen while Viren goes after the dragon prince. Rayla manages to free herself, with the help of Bait, and stop Viren from killing Zym in a final blow that takes both of them over the edge. This perfectly symbolizes the cyclical nature of history. Viren did this with Rayla’s parents and now Rayla herself, both times it is Viren’s lust for strength that blinds him to what Rayla and her parents are doing/coercing him into doing, both Rayla and her parents save Zym, but in moves that cost (or potentially cost) them their futures with the people they care about. The thing that breaks the cycle is Callum. He has been what has tempered Rayla this whole time, supported her when she did something reckless, and convincing her that she has worth. He doesn’t prevent her from tackling Viren, but prevents her from falling to her death afterwards. This is the difference that saved the cycle from continuing. While the others abandoned Rayla’s parents and they were left to protect the egg themselves, Rayla’s support system stayed no matter what.
Rayla had both helped break the cycle and been stuck in her own cycle throughout the show. In an ironic twist of fate that is contrary to moonshadow elf culture it was through opening up and showing “weakness” to others that the cycle she was stuck in was broken. “To break that cycle, someone has to take a stand when no one else will.” Taking a stand isn’t based in fighting or resistance, but love and compassion. It was Rayla’s compassion that lead to the entire journey of the show and the possibility of breaking the cycle of war and revenge. It was Ezran and Callum’s acceptance and support that helped Rayla break her own cycle. It was like King Harrow said “I now believe true strength is found in vulnerability. In forgiveness. In love. There is a beautiful, upside-down truth, which is that these moments of purest strength appear as weakness to those who don’t know better. For a long time, I didn’t know better. I ask you and your brother to reject history as a narrative of strength, and instead, have faith that it can be a narrative of love.”
deetheteadrinkingdragon: This parallel wounded me deeply. Okay I’ve been wanting to talk about this since season 3 dropped. Rayla in the first set of pictures looks determined and is smirking at the very real possibility she could die. It doesn’t phase her. She thinks that if she dies right then and there she would redeem herself and make up for her parent’s mistakes. And in the bottom photos she looks so sad. Rayla doesn’t want to die in the second set of photos, but can’t break away from the mistakes her parents made to live her own life. It’s tragic.
This parallel wounded me deeply.
Me: There is definitely not a pattern to the characters I project onto.
The characters I project onto:
OKAY SO T H A T WASNT SUPPOSE TO FUCKING POST BUT MY TUMBLR GLITCHED AND YKNOW WHAT? IMMA JUST LEAVE IT
Hot take but I do not enjoy Rayllum. I still think it’s relatively important story wise and I don’t at all mind it being a canonical relationship, but I dislike how they frequently forego personal character development or depth, specifically for Callum, to hammer in details of a relationship we already knew was inevitably going to be canon.
(SPOILERS FOR SEASON 6)
Like that moment when Callum had to find “his one truth” or whatever. I thought it was going to be Sarai but when it turned out to be Rayla I was kinda disappointed. I feel like there’s so many other avenues that could be explored with Callum’s character that never really get utilized which is ultimately a huge let down.
I want to explore Callum’s grief with being an orphan. The potential jealousy of seeing his partner be reunited with her father, but also the man that made him an orphan. The dilemma he could feel between sympathizing with Aaravos’ story or facing the fact that he is a bad person.
We’re on the second to last season and I’m pretty sure my guy has only mastered two arcanums which is still a feat but also so much less than what I expected. In Avatar: The Last Airbender they did a very good job with balancing the development of everyone’s character, the storyline of Aang mastering the elements, AND showing us the relationship between Aang and Katara to a point that it was solidified it would become canon without it getting in the way of the story.
By the time Dragon Prince is done they would have more episodes than Avatar, but the reason why they could not balance these 3 components despite a writer for Avatar being a writer for tdp is because they paid way too much attention on unnecessary fan service for a ship that, again, we all know will be canon, instead of putting any serious focus on literally anything else of significance.
I love Rayla and Callum individually, I hate the shallowness of their characters as a result of showing a relationship that ultimately is also kind of shallow.
Six Character Challenge:
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Hope this turned out okay! I will add the Captain Marvel and Zane from lego Ninjago later together as the bonuses.
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If anyone wants to know where the characters are from: Gentle Criminal from My Hero Academia, Desmond Sycamore from Professor Layton, Rayla from The Dragon Prince, Alix from Miraculous Ladybug, Katia from Professor Layton and Glimmer from She-ra.
I'm actually extremely excited for the last one since it spells out "THE RED WEDDING" when reading the first letter from bottom to top
And I assume it's Amaya and Janai's wedding lol!!!
ohohoho because this is the moon fam season. this is the ruthari season. this is the luna tenebris season. this is kim'dael's season. this is the assassins' season. this is rayla's time to get absolutely ravaged.
and apart from that last one, count me excited.
no brain cells at the moment. Have Rayla being a gremlin.
Rayla, the moonshadow Elf! 😊
Rayla, elfa da Lua 😊
Some very kind and friendly people invited me to try Tumblr (looking among others at @zuppizup here~ ), so here we go, let's try giving it a chance! :) (To the people who already knew my pictures from somewhere else by chance, sorry, you have to bear with me a bit till I uload older works too.)
I am an artist who draws mostly TDP stuff, with too many hobbies and too little freetime on her hands. You might or might not see other projects than tdp art in here sometimes.
Just Rayllum chilling in the shade :) I really wanted to add Stela to this picture, but ran out of patience at the end... sorry (maybe one day I will go back and add her). :<
His Light... his One Truth. ✨
Full picture + a closeup of one of my favorite moments in S6. :)
✨ STARS ✨
I made this picture way before S6 came out, when theories about Callum and the possession was still a huge thing, and I still like some angst from time to time (as long everyone survives). (I still don't believe in the theories about S7 and Callum using Dark Magic again, since we had a really nice resolution to that problem in S6, which is not worth to be destroyed in my opinion, just to start all over again. If the word describing S7 is really "sacrifice", then I would rather think of Terry and Claudia - I have a feeling that Terry has still a role to play in stopping Claudia. But who knows.)
🌸 Spring 🌸
Here, have a gif version :) (Give it some time to load completely, if you don't see the petals moving right away.)
full version:
"a field of grass so blue and green a field of flowers never seen spirits surrounded in colors and hues and music singing at the joyous views" … (C.S. Keskuela)
Since Callum's dad wrote poems, this felt kinda fitting for this picture. :)
✨ Dragonguard Rayla ✨
What if Rayla would have joined the Dragon Guard, just like her parents? In another timeline perhaps? What would Callum think when he first sees her?
This picture was inspired by @zuppizup 's work Out of Time.
Now please go and check out her amazing stories. :)
"One day... One day we will meet again... on the other side."
(My thought behind this picture are at the end of this post.)
For me, this was the most heartbreaking moment of S6... Rayla had to say goodbye to her parents when she was only 6 years old, she though they died, then got back hope years later, only for a few weeks... just to have to face the decision to let them pass on and loosing them again, but this time for forever...
They never saw her growing up, they will never meet Callum, they will never see their children, they will never see the new world they to helped create.
And if this not enough... Unless Ethari meets Runaan outside of their home, she will not see their happy faces when they meet again, because she is... Ghosted.
She can not be part of the family she saved and made whole again because she can't return home...
My heart is broken. 💔
Sidenote: I love to choose music for the mood, so don't forget to check this picture on my Instagram!