Sweet F.A.
@Thanotos Omega
Interesting analysis.
Avatar sort of did that with Aang and Katara and later Zuko and Mai, with all of them being fleshed out characters before the respective ships even happened (though they still managed to screw up both romances in the comics). Part of what is interesting about
TDP is that romance was never a part of the original plan;
Rayla and Callum were only originally intended to become great friends, and it wasn’t until season two when the creators decided to change things around a bit, so they still had that great development on both their parts.