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Halandil Fang. The story of Axe and Vine and this is the beginning.

Rewatching Episode 1, I think Liam told us Hal's entire arc in one sentence:

"Trying... to hold on to the spirit that has buoyed him through his life."

Hal's inner conflict isn't just trauma. It's the constant fight between the man he rebuilt himself to be after the war—a father, an artist, a storyteller, a protector—and the soldier the war forced him to become. He's not trying to become someone new; he's desperately trying not to lose the person he fought so hard to become.

#halandil fang #critical role #liam o'brien #campaign 4 #cr 4 #cr4 #araman #campaign four #cr c4 #cr campaign 4 #cr 4 rewatch #cr spoilers #critical role spoilers

ariadne-mouse

"I cast Time Stop" HOT hot hot hot

"I cast Fire Shield" thematic AND hot

"I cast Crown of Stars" hot hot hot

"I cast two portals" hot and ominous

"I cast Grease" lol you're a level 20 wizard and you're buttering the floor

"I cast Wish and advance Veth through her pregnancy" okay Caleb what the actual FUCK lmao

I miss Halandil Fang so much that's not normal.

#critical role #liam o'brien #halandil fang #campaign 4 #cr 4 #cr4 #araman #campaign four #cr c4 #cr campaign 4

SHADOWGAST

Caleb's new art from the Berlin Liveshow is absolutely insane. And so hot.

#critical role #liam o'brien #caleb widogast #project funball #projekt funball #berlin liveshow #cr art #mighty nein #the mighty nein

I'm obsessed with this dark Caleb costume and Liam O'Brien

#critical role #liam o'brien #berlin #project funball #projekt funball #cr2 #mighty nein #the mighty nein #caleb widogast #berlin liveshow #beacon spoilers #hello beacon

I'm absolutely obsessed with Liams outfit.

#critical role #liam o'brien #caleb widogast #cr spoilers #critical role spoilers #cr cast #critical role cast #edinburgh liveshow

Liam as pirate Caleb is so hot

#critical role #liam o'brien #caleb widogast #cr spoilers #critical role spoilers #edinburgh liveshow #edinburgh #mighty nein #the mighty nein #cr2 #c2 #critical role campaign 2 #campaign 2

Critical Role cast in Edinburgh

#critical role #liam o'brien #alexander ward #laura bailey #taliesin jaffe #travis willingham #marisha ray #sam riegel #cr cast #edinburgh liveshow #edinburgh #critical role c1

Creepy O'Brien

Thanks Sam for this pic

#liam o'brien #critical role #cr cast #echos of exandria #edinburgh liveshow #edinburgh #sam riegel

ashesofwidogast

Husbands are so real

ashesofwidogast

I need to!!! They're making me crazy! Damn Liam stop it!!!

#the mighty nein

Liam in a spooky cryptid - Love him so much!

#liam o'brien #critical role #cr cast #critical role cast #edinburgh #cryptid #sightseeing #edinburgh liveshow #echos of exandria

Husbands are so real

#critical role #liam o'brien #dnd husbands #sam riegel #edinburgh

Projekt Funball poster is there!

#critical role #project funball #cr liveshow #cr liveshows #the mighty nein #campaign 2 #critical role campaign 2 #critical role oneshot #critical role cast #critical role art #mighty nein #caleb widogast #essek thelyss #shadowgast #projekt funball

I can't help but wonder if Hal's reluctance to fully accept or confront Thjazi's abusive or violent behavior is about more than just grief.

I wonder if it's a trauma response.

Hal grew up with a soldier for a father. Whatever happened within that family, we know violence and war shaped his childhood long before he ever stepped onto a battlefield himself. Then, while he was still little more than a child, he and Thjazi were thrown into Axe and Vine together. They saw horrors no child should ever witness, and Liam has already told us that Hal once pulled Thjazi from mud and blood on a battlefield.

War changed both of them.

So when people talk about Thjazi's violence, I wonder if Hal instinctively shuts down because acknowledging it would force him to confront something much bigger: that the war didn't just take his brother—it transformed him. And maybe it transformed their father long before that.

Accepting that would mean admitting that the people he loved were shaped, damaged, and in some ways consumed by the same cycle of violence.

Perhaps that's why Hal keeps trying to remember the brother he loved instead of the man everyone else is describing.

Not because he believes they're lying, but because hearing those stories tears open wounds that go all the way back to his childhood.

To his father.

To the battlefield.

To the little boy who couldn't save his family from becoming casualties of war long before any of them actually died.

Maybe that's why Hal shields himself from those conversations.

Because every time someone describes the darkness in Thjazi, Hal is forced to look at the darkness that war left in his entire family—including himself.

#critical role #liam o'brien #halandil fang #campaign 4 #cr 4 #cr4 #araman #campaign four #cr c4 #cr campaign 4 #cr thjazi #thjazi fang #cr speculation #cr spoilers

I can't shake the feeling that one of Hal's greatest tragedies is that he no longer knows who Hal is.

For years he's survived by becoming whoever others needed: the father, the host, the actor, the theater director, the protector. And now, the face of the resistance.

Every role is real, but each one hides another part of himself.

Maybe the war didn't just take his childhood.

Maybe it took Halandil Fang, too.

And maybe that's the story we're about to watch: not just Hal fighting for a free city, but fighting to find himself again beneath all the roles he's had to play.

#critical role #liam o'brien #halandil fang #campaign 4 #cr 4 #cr4 #araman #campaign four #cr c4 #cr campaign 4 #cr thoughts

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