re: Rayla-Zym-Ram pipeline parallels
Rayla and Ezran are foils, yes (which will be a whole meta on its own eventually) in the assassination mission. They are children prepared to be sacrificed on the mission; Ezran literally, Rayla symbolically. To be an assassin is to not see yourself or your target as people. Instead, you are both already dead. This fits with Rayla's worldview and mission, as it is also as far as she knows Zym's state, since she believes he was murdered.
Zym and Rayla have a lot of interesting narrative interplay, since Rayla's parents gave up raising and protecting her in order to protect him, both in years of their lives and in sacrificing them full stop. There is also the fact that saving Zym also saves Rayla in 1x09 (something that is only possible because Ezran saves Zym in 1x06, and then through her binding, Rayla is able to know and save Ez — and Zym — in turn, because TDP interplay must always be the most crunchy thing in the goddamn world).
So we end the assassination mission with Zym alive, plus Ezran and Rayla subsequently spared from their deaths as a result. Except, in many ways, Ezran is still pushed into the role of king (though he does choose it, there is obligation and a loss of childhood there) and Rayla is still symbolically murdered, just by her own community. The children were children, and are no longer. Zym, alone, makes it out of S3 unscathed.
Then you have s7, which puts Ezran in an interesting spot in comparison to Rayla (and Callum) particularly given their season four arcs, but on topic: Rayla comes back to the Silvergrove as the Symbolically Murdered Child, and meets the unknown actually Murdered One: Ram. Ram's pledge, unlike the other assassins, was unfulfilled because real justice wasn't achieved, only vengeance. As a result, Ram arguably died in the place of Zym, Rayla, and Ezran: failed by his community, far away from his father, too driven to redirect, too inundated with what it meant to be an assassin to imagine his conception of justice could be wrong. "You must face the five elves you wronged" / "One who has been wronged by the Silvergrove" / "Oh Rayla, you only have yourself to forgive now" / "I'm not going to beg you to forgive me." Killing Rayla by making her a Ghost will not revive Ram, just as killing Ezran would not have revived Zym even if the dragonling had actually died... but Rayla, Ezran, and Zym's continual survival and mercy towards themselves and others does fulfil Ram's pledge, and therefore justice is given to all four of them, and they're able to give it to others as a result. And it's really fucking neat
