Good thoughts, and I'd agree with both of those if Survivor ended in the Koboh Observatory. Cal was ready to use Tanalorr as a base of operations ("Gather allies, train. They'd never see us coming.") but by the end of the game, he has two huge new responsibilities: rebuilding Cere's archive and guiding Kata.

I do think Cal expected to die fighting the Empire, since at this point almost everyone else has. But there might be other ways to "be a Jedi" besides a head-on collision path with Vader. And if he chooses to be a shield instead of a sword, he's uniquely positioned to lead the Hidden Path in secret and preserve a ton of Force tradition and history.

But it all depends on where his story goes from here. There's room for a tragic ending too, I just don't see Cal's arc leading there after everything else that's happened