What I say: I’m done writing Veth meta no one wants to hear now.
What I mean: until recently, Veth has always asserted herself as a protector of TM9, especially Caleb - but in ep128, she saw the thing which frightened him the most and which before now, she would have done anything to protect him from, and used him as her shield from that threat. She’s moving away from Caleb and the nein, and I’m not okay with that.
It’s somehow always the players and never Matt who ratchet the emotional tension up to 9 (thousand) towards the end of the campaign. Like I feel as emotionally drained after the last 3 episodes as I did going into the endgame of campaign 1 knowing about Vax’s pact with the Raven Queen. And they don’t even know what they’re supposed to do yet.
While I would have like to see Caleb’s Bisexual Maelstrom, it’s pretty clear from a DM perspective why Matt got in the way of it. A lot of characters in campaign 2 are a complete 180 from Vox Machina, because their relationship problems aren’t insular.
Matt had to force external ties on most of VM in campaign 1, but Veth, Caduceus, Caleb, and Jester all have extremely important relationships maintained (in some form) with living people who are NPCs, who have been engaged with the plot in the last 5 episodes. That’s a lot of the core emotional roleplay which would be directed by a PC at Matt, rather than at another PC. By excluding all the different NPC interaction options from occurring at once, the DM can try and redirect players to focus on relationships and RP between PCs.
Like I know it’s been said already that the Real Villain Of This Brennan-DM’d Campagin Is Late Stage Capitalism Yet Again but I am genuinely BOWLED OVER by how poorly thought out the Astral Leywright Interdimensional Funtimes plan is.
I mean
Leaving off the fact that we the audience know the apocalypse is kicking off in like two hours, just imagineif Vespin Chloras and the Calamity hadn’t/weren’t going to happen and this unhinged scheme actually got to play out.
It’s bad enough that the “heroes” of this miniseries are a literal oligarchy of six privileged dickheads running an entire government with no public oversight or accountability, but this plan was cooked up by literally threeof them. Three people! On their own! Have decided it’s a great idea to shift their entire city-state to other planes of reality!
I know they said the purpose of Avalir was exploration and research and knowledge but! This is not a research station! This is a city! You know! A place where civilians and kids live! Even if the world wasn’t about to end, what were they going to do when people started objecting to relocating their kids and families to other dimensions that may or may not even be HOSPITABLE to life from the Prime Material Plane!
They have no idea what’s out there! They’re doing this BECAUSE they have no idea what’s out there! And they’re just going to shift their floating mountain city-state full of kids and civilians into literal parts unknown!
It’s like if the Royal Society circa 1800 pointed to the city of London and said “guess what everybody, every single one of you is relocating to an exotic foreign locale! which exotic foreign locale? fuck if i know, we just spun a globe and picked at random! here’s hoping we don’t wind up at the bottom of the ocean!”
Jesus H fucking Christ the hubris on these people is glorious and even without Betrayer Gods gunning for humanity’s ass it’s still so clear that this could only ever end in tragedy.
I’m crying. I’m laughing. These people are fundamentally awful and selfish. i love them so much. I’m going to fiddle while they burn.
something something learning to trust and love and find peace and forgiveness and home and family. happy c2e141 anniversary, miss you every day m9 you funky lil guys.
the idea of some magic being so powerful that, if you access it before you’re ready, it devours your body and turns you to devoted cancerous nothing……… damn brennan go off????
ok but the TRAUMA of becoming a god. the literal dehumanization. sure, the old god of death had their name stricken from history, but the raven queen? she is what nobody was ever meant to be. she had a life, a name, a career, a friend. she was a person, with intricacies and flaws.
a thousand years from now, no one will remember her as she was. godhood is as much a prison as it is a privilege. it’s a job you can never leave. a concept you can never not embody. imagine what it does to a person, to go from being a mortal individual to a fundamental piece of the laws of reality.
Just because Zerxus doesn’t care that he’s being manipulated, doesn’t mean he doesn’t realize it.
I don’t think he was walking into that room with blind faith in his ability to save the devil, I think he went in ready to fall on his sword like the good Paladin he is. From what we know he was having that dream for weeks, and now everything is going to shit around him and he’s coming to realize that his friends are lying to him. I think he’s starting to see the fall of Avalir as inevitable, so he made a desperate plea to the only god that has ever reached out to him.
“The other gods screwed you over, I get that they screw us over all the time. When the time comes remember me, remember that I healed you. “We’re your children too.” Yes you chose the primordials but we’re still a part of you and you’re a part of us. My son isn’t biologically mine but he’s my son and we’re your children too. I will help you, I will aid you if only you will remember me. If what you’re saying is true I’ll help you return to a state of neutrality. Oh you stopped me, okay. You’re the Lord of Lies and I’m too trusting. Still, remember me. Come find me.”
When giants fight and the city falls it’s the people on the ground who will suffer the most. I don’t think Zerxus is trying to stop the apocalypse, I think he is trying to save his son. He’ll fall on his sword, he’ll destroy himself, he’ll show the Lord of Hells mercy if only to gain mercy for the mortals he cares about. He won’t let anything bad happen to his son.
The Paladin with no faith in the gods has thrown himself on the mercy of the fallen god with no faithful followers because really what else could he do?
[ID: a digital half-body drawing of Essek from Critical Role. His head is turned towards the left side of the picture and he’s smiling slightly as he’s holding a pastel pink parasol. The background is pastel purple. End ID]
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