Speaking of Tyrest. A lot of people forget that he treated Pharma with absolute disdain, not only using him as a test subject for a clearly painful mass murder machine, but talking to Pharma like he saw him as nothing but some henchman to order around that was nothing more than a 'diseased cripple' if Tyrest hadn't come to rescue him.
Like it really is an interesting background dynamic with some curious implications, but when you look at fandom posts from around that issue/the years after, for some reason people just saw "Pharma worked with Tyrest" and concluded Pharma is a card carrying bigot ksjfnskxkd. Like yeah Pharma didn't do anything to stop Tyrest but it seems his main beef with the Autobots was with Ratchet in particular and maybe a general disdain for his ex-comrades. As well as continuing to hate Decepticons which like, not even the "good Autobots" are immune to (even in Pharma's introduction, First Aid says in his journal something like "yeah we all hate Decepticons, but Pharma REALLY hates them"). And despite what fandom likes to construe there's really no evidence in IDW1 that Autobots and Decepticons are different "races" or "types" of Cybertronians, so Pharma hating Decepticons really isn't a bigotry/robot racism thing. And instead probably has something to do with, idk, the 4 million year long galaxy-spanning blood feud war, or maybe being blackmailed and tortured into insanity by the Biggest and Most Decepticon-y of Decepticons.
Tyrest treated Pharma like trash, the other Decepticons working for Tyrest (how come no one ever brings that up btw) also hated him, so if anything it seems that Pharma was more of a rogue element only staying with Tyrest bc he was his best option and probably had no way to even escape.
I'm glad that at least in recent years the fandom has acquired a keen reading eye and good taste to finally recognize Pharma as the (accidentally) complex character he is instead of making him some posh, racist Starscream clone SHSJDGSGDH
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I think some folks MAY have gotten the wrong idea about how I feel about Circe with some of my posts. So, to clear the air...
Homies, I love that fucked up sorceress.
I love how we're never given a reason why she turns people into animals. That's so funny and so awful. And another potion-making magic gal?!?! I love that she's just basically vibing on an island doing whatever she wants. I even love the fact that she scares Odysseus shitless! She's morally gray and that's why she's FUN.
I just sincerely hate when people try to girlboss her or have her be a victim of SA when she never was Looking at you, Miller. Especially when she was actually the one who coerced Odysseus in exchange for his men being transformed back into humans. And even then, while he was clearly afraid of her, (it's in the language of the Odyssey) she likely meant him no harm after a certain point. He just didn't know that.
Why does she need a reason to do awful things? Why can't she just be a goddess who does whatever she wants? That's the reason why I love her!!! She's fucked up!!! :D
I hate what the Telegony did to her as well! >:( You're telling me, this sorceress goddess, who makes potions (!!!) wouldn't have magic contraceptives??? Would WANT CHILDREN?!?! WITH THE PATHETIC WIFEMAN?! No. Fuck no. Eugammon of Cyrene, I have beef with you 🤬
Anyways!!! Understand all the "#anti circe" I have is simply Anti "Girlboss Circe" or the book. I genuinely think she's neat af as her morally gray, fucked up sorceress self and just get frustrated with...everything :'D
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I think what gets lost amid the Viren-Callum and Callum-Claudia parallels is while sometimes you have characters foil each other primarily because of narrative placement (Rayla and Soren in some ways, switching roles as sworn killer to protector and then back again), you can also have characters that parallel each other primarily personality wise (Ezran and Claudia for example), and characters that parallel each other morality wise (Rayla and Harrow) and then you can also have characters that parallel each other in all of the above. Narrative placement, roles, personality, morality, flaws, etc. All of it.
And that is what I’m talking about when I talk about how Callum’s morality differs from his friends. Ezran does not have the capacity to be a dark mage. At most, he could be like Terry, and even then, that’s a stretch. He does not crave power. Opportunity and justice, which are adjacent to power, but not power itself. It is out of character for Ezran to revel the destruction and upper hand that power gives him. It is not for Callum.
Rayla, although she has personality similarities with Viren (paranoia, gruffness, repression, etc) and narrative similarities with Claudia (daughter given dark task by father, wandering Xadia for two years on account of Viren, etc) does not have the capacity to be a dark mage. It’s not in her; she doesn’t have the incentive or personality for it (or for magic generally). She craves protection, which is of course adjacent to power, but not power itself. It was out of character for Rayla to walk away from the dragon in 4x05, indicating a massive character change for her from 2x07; Callum’s choice in each situation would remain the same.
In 4x06, upon finding Soren’s armour, everyone else is focused on Soren. Rayla is beating herself up for letting something happen to him. N’than is being brutally honest. Ezran is trying to mitigate harm and look on the bright side for their friend. Callum does not take his eyes off of, and is entirely focused on, Rayla. Yes, he’s optimistic about what may have happened to Soren, but that’s specifically presented in him reassuring Rayla (and then again in 4x07 as well).
Callum craves power (and freedom). He craves magic. He has a strong heart and a strong mind just like his friends, but he’s also a mage in ways that even Claudia is not. Claudia can look at ancient ruins and never wonder how to use them. She’s brutal out of perceived necessity. Callum is brutal even when he doesn’t need to be. Callum learns about moon magic and, like every magical object he’s encountered, he wants to learn how to use it. Just knowing is not enough.
Viren and Callum are both people willing to do “anything” to protect their family, even if Viren’s more complicated because he’s also more willing to sacrifice them, and Callum is not (with perhaps the sole exception of letting Ez be under the ice for a dangerously long time). This is especially highlighted in S4, textually. Ezran and Rayla are both willing to sacrifice precious items connected to their fathers. Callum (at least for now) is not.
Callum is genuinely tempted down the path of being a dark mage when he thinks he has no other magical options. He rejects it still holding onto hope, perhaps, that he can be a primal mage. And like I’ve already said, Rayla and Ezran would not have been tempted into it at all. Claudia isn’t either because she doesn’t see anything wrong with dark magic in the first place. But Callum does. In this way, Callum’s pursuit of magic has the most in common with Viren’s, where he knows it’s dangerous, and knows it may not always end well (“I have nothing left to lose”) and yet he chooses it and Aaravos anyway. Callum also has a self-preservation streak that Viren, Rayla, and Ezran do not (at least marginally). He rarely throws himself into anything in which he has zero hope for survival; even when he takes Ez’s spot in 1x02, he still argues with Rayla on behalf on his own life; he easily is talked down by one word from Rayla when it comes to letting Sol Regem burn him to a crisp in 3x01. (Compare and contrast with how Rayla argues with him for her own death in 3x08, or how Viren places his life in Aaravos’ hands in Lux Aurea.)
And yet in spite of how much the show emphasizes just how much he loves magic, and loves using magic (“figure out how he could use the cube” and what he could “achieve” with it, S2 novelization), it also shows us time and time again that the people he loves - namely Rayla and Ezran - are even more important to him than magic.
[Cue Callum dropping his staff - “It means a lot” - to pick up Rayla’s sword only to then throw that away, too, when he sees her hand to run right at her]
And even over his freedom and well-being:
C: I was his puppet. I felt so weak and out of control. I’m not afraid that he’ll hurt me. I’m afraid that he’ll use me to do awful things. Or hurt people I care about. That’s why all I’m asking is that if he takes control of me again, you have to kill me. I need you to promise.
Among the trio, Callum is the one with a more skewed morality and greater capacity for remorseless violence. He’s the one with a raging and then ice cold temper. He’s the one who has the most in common personality and morality wise with Viren and Claudia and even Terry. Not entirely the same, of course - there’s a reason he’s not on their side - but the most similar, I think.
And I think that’s why 1) Callum is such a fascinating character, especially for a protagonist and 2) disappointing sometimes, when people take away his claws and teeth. Because he absolutely has them, and I hope we can only continue to see them play out even further as we go along.
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