#it always comes back to choice for keyleth doesnt it agency
sprigg saying “is there value in saving the world? or should you just let it all go away?” has got me thinking about the differences between keyleth and wonder woman (2017). as you do
i think it’s interesting that they’re both about a woman who has incredible untapped potential, power, and influence, who grew up in an extremely sheltered society, who leaves that society for the first time and has to learn the harshness of the world, and ultimately finds herself in a position of being the only one who can save it
but by the end of it for diana it’s more about choosing to save humanity in all of its complexities, right? like the reason she leaves is specifically because she learns of a war that she thinks she can stop. she leaves with the intent of saving the world, and then later sees how shitty it is and wonders if her intent is meaningless. is humanity inherently doomed because of its flaws, or are those flaws (and people having the power to rise above them) part of what makes them beautiful and interesting and deserving of love? and she chooses the latter, she makes a conscious choice to say you know what i think they’re worth saving regardless of their corruption, and then she saves them.
i find keyleth a little harder to put into words because this is not a condensed 2-hour movie it’s fucking 400 hours of rpg content but anyway, the difference with her is that keyleth is constantly plagued by responsibility that was pushed onto her. she didn’t make the choice to leave zephrah, she had no intent to do anything noble or heroic. she was born into this position that forced her to explore some of the absolute worst parts of the world and she has spent the last several in-game years trying to figure out, how can i have my own agency and follow my heart when the world is constantly trying to rip that away from me and the very reason that i’m here is because of something that was forced on me? if i had it my way wouldn’t i be back at home living a normal life with the people i love? (the latter is in and of itself kind of an interesting keyleth question and i don’t think the answer is as simple as she would like it to be but i digress)
and i don’t necessarily think keyleth is questioning the value of humanity in the way diana was. keyleth has explicitly said and demonstrated time and time again that one of her biggest priorities is helping and protecting innocent people, so i think for keyleth it’s an easy answer of yes, the world is worth saving because people are worth saving, of course they are. but for her the question becomes like…why am i the one who has to do it? how is it fair that i am the one who is constantly finding myself in the position of having to sacrifice myself and the people that i love to save the rest of the world? and then grappling with those more self-hateful thoughts of like how dare you think that your sacrifice of a few friends isn’t worth the rest of civilization, how dare you think that just for a second you’d rather stop and go on vacation when you’re the only ones who can do this. for keyleth there has never been a choice and the struggle comes from finding a way to carve out her own sense of agency within those constraints, and being okay with the things she can’t control
tl;dr wonder woman is a story about choice and deciding whether or not to save the world after seeing its flaws brutally played out in front of you; critical role keyleth of the ashari is a story about navigating a world that has never let you choose anything in your goddamn life.
