#campaign one spoilers

My thoughts on Keyleth and Vex in episode 11/12…

(Short and sweet this time, and again, spoilers for the campaign…)

I thought it was interesting that they decided to have Keyleth take Delilah’s finger of death for Vex. I mean, there are a lot of reasons why I feel like it works. It’s kind of poignant for her life to risk ending just after something as epic as that sunbeam, and putting her in danger instead of Vex makes the outcome feel a lot more uncertain after Pike’s disappearance, because we saw her bring Cass back from the brink, and if it were anyone else in danger we’d have that in mind.

Still, I might be wrong, but, I think they might have done it this way because otherwise the scene coming later when Vex goes down in “The Sunken Tomb” would feel too similar.This way everyone gets their chance to panic, and have this moment of fear despite otherwise having won…  But later, when Vex’s life is on the line, not near death but dead, and perhaps beyond saving, it will be so much more dramatic and heart-wrenching if it’s the first time we get to see Vax face the thought of losing his sister in such a real way.

It’ll frame the level of desperation that ends in his oath to the Raven Queen in a really impactful way.

(Also, I love Vex and Keyleth’s scene at the Sun Tree. Vex letting go of her defensiveness, and giving her the recognition she’s always honestly known Kiki deserved because they almost lost her, and life’s too short for petty shit…)

So there’s a strange bit of Crit Role/LoVM AU fodder that ambushed me out of nowhere recently. I can’t take credit, because it was born of one of the many reaction videos I’ve been watching of the series (I’ve been watching so many…), and one reactor’s speculations regarding some of the imagery in “A Silver Tongue” in particular put some thoughts in my head…

This is really just a lot of out there “what if” without any real substance, a fun idea for a fanfiction perhaps, but I needed to get it out of my brain.

(Below cut, because spoilers for campaign 1 events…)

Specifically, it was house of k’s reaction to episode 8 that put this idea in my head. He’s got some really good insights in his reactions, he takes notes on things and theorizes and it’s been fun to watch. Check him out maybe if you like reactions.

But there are a few reactors that have commented that the Everlight’s silhouette against the sun-disk looks a bit like an eye, and also a few who have noticed the eye flash when Percy shoots Anders. In house of k’s reaction, he commented on both, but also that the two almost looked like negatives of one another (black-on-fire, fire-on-black), and speculated that the two might be connected, that whatever was going on with Percy might be a sort of dark reflection or counterpart of the Everlight.

Which, sure, those of us who have watched the campaign know that’s not what’s going on. But…but…

The Everlight is the goddess of redemption, and if an inverse existed, wouldn’t it make sense for it to be a god of vengeance?

We know in the setting of Exandria, that godhood can be a bit…fluid. There are gods that have been ousted, killed, forgotten, replaced. New gods can happen. Gods that are gone can come back. The Everlight herself is an example. She was forgotten save by a few followers, and only in recent years as of the first campaign is she making a comeback.

We also know that, at least in typical D&D lore, shadow demons like Orthax, aren’t like most other demons. They aren’t created in the Abyss from damned souls like other demons. Not at first, anyway. They’re what’s left when some bigger, nastier entity is destroyed, and some small part of it survives to recollect itself in the Lower Planes.

And that they typically trade souls to other entities rather than feed off of them directly. But Matt seemed to hint in describing Orthax as being bigger and nastier than the average shadow demon, and by suggesting that it was because the demon had been feeding (presumably on the souls claimed by the List). And that’s definitely what he seems to be doing to Percy after Glintshore.

The idea of Orthax as a forming or remnant god isn’t new, there were a couple of very interesting fics around the concept back in the day, but the idea of a connection to the Everlight could be interesting. The idea of twin gods separated on either side of the divide between the Prime Deities and the Betrayer Gods is interesting (and the parallel motif of twins separated is interesting to think about in general). The idea of twin gods, one nearly forgotten, the other destroyed and lost to mortal memory entirely…

TL;DR - What if Orthax was the remnant of a god of vengeance destroyed in the world’s ancient history, a god that was the Everlight’s twin and opposite? That’d be pretty wild, right?

A bit of a ramble of my thoughts on episode 8, “A Silver Tongue”, and it’s potential impact on later episodes… Mostly de Rolo sibling thoughts.

(Gonna talk about later campaign stuff, so don’t read if you don’t want the streams or the series spoiled. And I don’t know what tags people are using for spoilers, so I’m just going to put it all under a cut…)

I really, really liked this episode the most out of the three we got this week, and I’d like to ramble a bit on what it feels like it’s setting up for later events concerning Cassandra, Orthax and the List.

In the campaign, at least to my memory, when Cassandra’s name appears on the gun, it feels like a moment played for drama against the context of Cassandra’s betrayal. But this episode feels like it’s establishing a different motive.

As early as episode 6, we see how quickly the news that she’s alive cuts through the tide of rage following his revenge on Stonefell. How much “I have a sister.” says in so few words about what that means to Percy, that he finally has something in Whitestone to fight for, something to hopefor.

In episode 6, Percy abandons the group’s plans the minute he sees Stonefell. He was the one Percy was least looking forward to. Stonefell is a murderer and a sadist, but he’s always been the Briarwood’s stooge. But in episode 7, he’s willing to negotiate with Anders, because he has Cassandra hostage. Anders who betrayed their trust, the face he saw when murder entered his heart. His revenge is taking a backseat in that moment, because of course Cassandra is what matters. And then episode 8 gives us that long, tense scene where Keyleth is working to save her, and Percy is watching despite Anders standing there, pouring a drink and gloating. It takes a lot to break Percy away from that moment, for the fear he holds for his sister’s life to go after Anders, and even then it’s when she’s in the best hands available in that moment.

And after Anders is dead, we get that beautiful, clear shot through the lenses of the mask when she says his name. We see his eyes are clear, that the minute he hears her voice, his rage and any other influence are washed away. He drops the gun and the mask to run to her.

Later, Orthax will demand Cassandra’s life, and he will use her betrayal to justify it to Percy, but I feel like the real reason they’ve given us is that Orthax sees Cassandra is a threat. She’s a threat to the pact that he’s made with Percy. A hope for his future against the despair he’s lived with, the emptiness that losing his family left that Orthax crawled into to spur his quest for vengeance. She’s threatening his very promising meal ticket of an endless all-you-can-eat soul buffet at the end of Percy’s gun, and his only hope to defend his interest is for Cassandra to die. Cassandra has to die, because her forgiveness represents a future, both for Percy and for Whitestone. A life that isn’t just rage and pain, and the violence that was supposed to keep Orthax fed.

Because if Percy can forgive Cassandra, he can one day learn to forgive himself and believe he deserves that life. He’ll have something to live for, something to fight for against the demon’s influence, and if that happens Orthax loses everything.

He’s been biding his time for years, subtly enough that Percy didn’t know he was there. When he demands Cassandra’s life, it’s an act of desperation, and when he emerges to attack the party, it’s because he’s already lost.

(P.S. I’m really hoping they keep the gold-iris-black-sclera look around for later seasons, to indicate Percy is using Hex. They’ve shown him use it outside of Orthax-murder-mode, and in a situation where I thinkhe used Hex in the game, so the precedent is there for down the line. It’s there in the canon that his struggle with Orthax left its scars on him, and that some fragment of the demon’s power is still at his disposal. And it’s such a look. Those are the eyes I want to see staring down Craven Edge, demanding it give his big dumb older brother back. I want thoseeyes when he says “I will find an abyss so deep and so far, you will never taste a drop of blood again.”

Look, found family Vox Machina feels are the best feels, and it didn’t have a lot of screen time, but Grog and Percy’s unlikely sibling-esque dynamic was one of my favorite things in the campaign.)