Reading analysis about Cal while screaming into the void known as an empty room and here to publish my unneeded thoughts about my blorbo.
Cal deserved more screen time, he deserved more chapters of his POV and honestly VA did him so dirty 😔
Because our dear RQ characters are definitely unreliable narrators, the reader’s perception of characters is based on their own POVs and how other characters perceive them. Unfortunately, every character describes Cal as a lovesick puppy, a mopey matchstick, a dense moron and everything in between. It's not that these are wrong, they're part of his character, but these are incredibly surface level traits which leads to the general perception of Cal’s character being superficial, bland and boring. It seems like his only purpose in the story is to be Mare’s love interest because Maven betrayed her.
However, he has a whole lot of untapped potential. My man did not get betrayed by Mare, betrayed by his brother, find out his mother was murdered buy Elara, get forced to kill his own father, lose everything he had and got sentenced to execution all in 1 day for people to call him boring. Honestly, when I listed it out like that, I truly realised how crazy the whole situation was. Within the span of a day he lost any form of stability he had even known in his life, and found out that one if not the closest person to him (maven) was a lie. If that isn't traumatic, I really wouldn't like to hear whatever other definition of trauma there is out there. I think the only reason we very much overlook Cal's trauma is because 1. It happened in real time, 2. He's no longer a child, 3. We didn't see it from his POV and 4. In this scene he and his father are technically the "bad guys".
Here's the thing though, he has never talked about it. Not once. Never. The closest we ever saw this man to losing his mind was when he was planning the Corros prison break. He'd never mentioned this trauma from any POV, not even his own. Maven told Mare about how Elara messed up everything in his brain, and how he never recovered from it. For Cal, we never found out how he dealt with it and how close to the brink of insanity he was. If he ever just felt like exploding and destroying everything. Nobody except Mare ever asked him if he was ok. He had every right to go mad. But he didn't. Some miraculous way, Cal managed to maintain some semblance of sanity and that is unimaginable mental strength like holy shit.
Another way too glossed over plot point was why he chose the crown over mare in the epilogue of KC. This one I get genuinely frustrated over sometimes because there were so many reasons for him to make that decision. I know many people have talked about this before but I'm just going to repeat it 1. It's the best political move in the situation. Cal isn't stupid, no matter how many people seem to think he is. He knows better than to let the place of King open for anyone to snatch up and that it was the only way the Silvers and the Scarlet Guard would ever work together. 2. To him it's his moral obligation. Cal's loyalty and sense of duty is a huge part of his character. All his life he's been told it's his responsibility, his destiny to become king and serve the people. Not only that, the crown is his family's legacy and considering the fact that he was the one to behead his own father Cal likely feels even more morally obligated to become king. The words he said to Mare, "I love you and I want you more than anything else in this world". He uses the word "want", but how can a want, a desire ever compare to what he believes is a need, an obligation? It's not that he didn't love mare enough like Evangeline suggested, or that he fell prey to the power's lure like Mare insinuated in the epilogue. He did what he full heartedly believed was right, and unfortunately this was barely touched upon in war storm which made me want to tear my hair out.
This yap session is nearly done, just hold on a bit longer. The last thing that DEFINITELY should have gotten more words was his ultimate decision to abdicate. All we got was him reading Coriane's diary, Evangeline telling him "if it's not too late for me, it's not too late for you" and then the decision. WHERE'S THE IN-BETWEEN THOUGHT PROCESS? He read through Coriane's diary and realised that she wanted her son to have a different life, and of course he probably had some thoughts about it. Considering how he knew the Scarlet Guard and Montfort weren't with him, how he still loved Mare, perhaps realizing what his life could have been with an alive mother was what tipped him over the edge. Perhaps it was loyalty to his mother he never had the chance to know, loyalty to the little of her forever bound in a gold-covered book, buried in the graveyard known as time. Maybe he asked Julian who seemed to want him to reconsider his decision as king, but we'll never know because it wasn't written 😭😭😭
Cal is incredibly kind, loyal, warm, passionate, motivated, and indecisive, and I love that about him. His story could have been a tragedy, a prodigy put on a pedestal that had everything and was forced to be everything, reduced to nothing in an instant. But it wasn't. He found love in a girl that took everything from him, and rebuilt himself a far better life from the ashes of nothing. Normally the circle between characters I like and characters I respect rarely overlap, but somehow this 6'3 adorable ass dork stuck himself straight in both and this is why I will defend what his character is and could have been. Thank you for attending my Tedtalk, it's literally all my thoughts about this man exploding into text and falling onto a Tumblr post.
This is me getting distracted from writing Fated god send help I just can't stay on track
Funny story I wanted to copy this essay into a document for fun just to see how many words and guess who highlighted a portion of it and clicked space by accident. Hahaha (that whole thing was 1000 words btw I need to learn to shut up)
Yes yes yes this! I love cal and while I love the lovesick himbo version of him too, let’s not forget this man is smart! We know he studies history and war strategies like a good lil prince but also he does mechanics/engineering as a little hobby! And his struggle with his devotion to honor and duty and trying to figure out what that means? *chefs kiss* tbh I think there’s a lot of depth to cal if you’re willing to see it!
(Also I will die on the hill that at *multiple* points it is in the best interest of Norta, the Scarlet Guard, and Cal himself for Cal to accept the crown)
