[post made by someone who's seen the first 25? episodes and probably won't watch more for a while] setting aside all matters of execution and narrative structure, i gotta say guys. i LOVE, at the very least, the potential of hal and bolaire's dynamic. im obsessed with the idea of it. listen.
first of all: at the very beginning of the campaign, i think it's an extremely lopsided relationship. i believe that at minute one of episode one, bolaire cares about hal a LOT more than hal cares about bolaire. hal does still care about him a good amount, obviously, but bolaire is just one of his many friends. i think at this point in the story bolaire serves a very specific function in hal's life: book club buddy, someone i can count on for somewhat bizarre but original takes on plays i also have thoughts on, someone willing to lend me certain props and whom i can consult for historical accuracy. honestly, i don't think bolaire is even his best friend (yet).
hal, however, is also not exactly bolaire's best friend, but only because saying so is incredibly reductive. halandil, from the very start, is bolaire's EVERYTHING. he's his ONLY friend, he's his intellectual partner, he's his psychosexual obsession, he's his idol, he's his pet, he's his rpf crush, he's his teacher and pupil both, he's his director and his favorite actor and his favorite character in his favorite play. i think that some time ago, bolaire came to dol makjar aimless, disillusioned, uncertain of his own existence and desperately looking for something to build his life around, and what he found was halandil fang.
i think bolaire's relationship with hal is, however funny it is to say, parasocial. he has a very specific idea of hal in his mind that hal mostly manages to live up to, since what bolaire idolizes is not anything godlike but instead the very idea of 'mundane personhood', which hal embodies well while also managing, in bolaire's mind, to set himself apart from other mere mortals via his art and his ability to self-reflect; and because bolaire's idea of hal and the actual hal never seriously clash, bolaire's never had any reason to reevaluate this view. but it is, at it's core, inaccurate -- hal is not a paragon of morality, nor of mundane life (he's rich and powerful and has always been protected from the worst of the world by his older brother [who bolaire conveniently hates and, im sure, is jealous of in measure], he lives in a big house in one of the best areas of the city and calls it 'humble'. hal, for all his kindness and good nature, does not represent the masses, but bolaire sure thinks he does, because he's never not been wealthy), and he probably isn't quite the visionary playwright bolaire considers him to be.
we have to be real guys, hal's probably just really good at what he does, which is putting on mass appeal historical plays in a city where every ruling family has their own strong ideas about what constitutes as 'true history'. he's good, probably even great, but i doubt he's the one voice of truth and beauty in a city devoid of both that bolaire sees in him. but bolaire is, to put it mildly, extremely biased. he thinks he fell in love with the acting first and the actor second, but, honestly, i'm not so sure.
anyway, my favorite part of all this is that if you really think about it, bolaire's idea of halandil actively contradicts the existence of their friendship. he wants hal to be moral, truthseeking, unafraid to stand up for what he thinks is right, a man that lives for and protects the people of the city.
he also wants hal to remain his best friend. all while bolaire kills a person [someone he thinks won't be missed, i.e. lonely and poor] every three days.
i think this conflict is ultimately at the crux of their dynamic. if halandil really is the person bolaire thinks he is, hal won't want to be friends with him anymore after he finds out the truth of bolaire's existence. if halandil isn't who bolaire thinks he is, bolaire will be dissappointed and have to face the fact that the person he's built his life around might not have been worth it.
it's a lose-lose, and bolaire, on some level, knows it. he might not exactly register what he's doing as evil, but he knows that hal will probably think so. that's why he didn't tell him about it until he felt he absolutely had to, despite allegedly dedicating his entire being to this man. he knows that as soon as he does, their friendship is a ticking time bomb. he's gonna be walking on a tightrope to maintain it for the rest of his life, and maybe it'll be fine, as long as no wind blows ever.
unfortunately for bolaire, the wind is blowing strong as fuck. so now he's scrambling in a perpetual panic to try and maintain the status quo while at the same time adjusting to the new circumstance of hal-watches-me-kill-people-and-cant-ignore-it. he lets hal stab him in a grand tragi-romantic gesture because he hopes that hal will focus more on his pain and how much it hurts him than on the people he's routinely killing. he's trying to convince hal that he really truly isn't hiding anything from him anymore, because in bolaire's mind hal is first and foremost truthseeking, and this will be a gesture of trust and understanding. he makes it so dramatic because that's all he knows, it's the one thing that's been proven to work for him, it's the thing that connects them, and in distress all bolaire can think to do is fall back on doing the one thing he was made for, which is distract via performance.
[side note, i think that's why bolaire isn't making any move to discuss possible consensual routes of existence with hal. he knows that if they start thinking it over and come to the conclusion that it's not possible, that people have to die, then hal will HAVE to make that moral decision. for now he can still just about look away. and if it IS possible, it's probably significantly more uncomfortable for bolaire, but to keep hal's friendship he'll have to agree. bolaire is very selfless as long as everything goes exactly his way]
hal, on the other hand, is having kinda a rough time. bolaire's problems (before termina) all mostly concern either hal or his job (which would suck to give up, but he'd be able to pick himself back up eventually and the parts he won't get back all wrap back around to hal). but hal has like. kids. he's got a LOT of other people he's invested in. he's been seperated from thaisha again, which in itself isn't so bad but this time he really can't be sure she'll come back. from what we know of thaisha, we can assume she might be something of a grounding presence for him, while also being able to snap him out of more scattered states of mind. and hal can't talk to his daughters about thjazi, because they're grieving just as much as he is and he's supposed to be a guiding figure. he can't talk to them about any of his political schemes, because that puts them at enormous risk. and he definitely can't talk to them about bolaire, because that would mean admitting that for the past (?) years he's been inviting a murderous inanimate object over for dinner. i assume a lot of these same reasons apply to elodie. oh, and thjazi's dead.
so he's been pretty much disconnected from his family, which sucks for family-man-hal. he has friends and colleagues, but like, what can he really tell them? the show opens next week. they need to be locked in. the only people he can really talk to about this are murray and azune. murray seems to be getting along well enough with bolaire but also has no problem expressing her opinion, and i think hal would be worried that anything he whispered to her she would immediately repeat in a louder voice [i don't think this is true, but hal's biased and stressed]. and not only does he see azune kind of like his kid, but i imagine there's something very uncomfortable about the idea of telling someone like azune your struggles over condoning your friend who's probably committed half the murders azune's supposed to investigate.
i think hal is embarrassed. he knows people always thought of him as thjazi's-little-brother, and now that thjazi's gone he thinks everyone's looking at him for what to do, so if he shows any weakness or reveals that he's not nearly as cunning/observant as thjazi was, that he didn't notice his friend was an object that killed people, people will lose faith in him and in the cause thjazi fought so hard to protect. once again, i don't think this is true. bolaire knows this isn't true. bolaire knows that if all their cards were laid on the table, literally everyone is gonna be on hal's side. but then those people are gonna try to push them apart, because they think that bolaire wants to hurt him, but bolaire knows better! he can protect hal! nevermind that he has no idea whats going on and hal probably doesn't want his protection, bolaire's been around for a while, he knows better.
so hal is trying to weigh over the moral implications of bolaire in his mind, while NOT talking to anyone about it, and also speedwalking around the entire city trying to get shit done. he doesn't have time for this shit, but it's always on his mind. the thing is, i don't think hal is nearly as truthseeking as bolaire thinks he is. he's very comfortable sitting in pretty lies until they become so obvious he can't ignore them anymore, and then he feels he has to act. i feel like he's constantly walking around wishing that he could just not think about it for a second, but he can't, because now that he knows the truth he can't un-know it. so his second best option is to sit down and really think it over, but he can't, because bolaire is ALWAYS right there. due to a series of completely insane events, bolaire is now one of three people hal 1) sees every day and 2) can openly discuss things with. and murray and azune are great, but they're mostly hanging out with each other.
also, worst of all: hal likes him. he genuinely likes bolaire. he enjoys his company. he thinks he's funny and he finds a weird sort of comfort in his presence. he's met so many people throughout his life that it's such a relief to meet someone new, unlike anything you've talked to. us-against-the-world with the world's weirdest fucking thing. and he can't distance himself from bolaire to try and get over it. they're spending more time together by necessity. hal's trying to walk backwards on a ramp that's sliding forward, and all he achieves is maintaining the status quo.
so, tldr: hal and bolaire are two parts of an extremely unstable dynamic, the connecting tissue of which got blown apart within the first four episodes of the campaign, but which has still somehow managed to survive by virtue of both participants playing desperate mind games all so they can continue to stand very still and hold hands. the second one of them lets go they're going to fly apart to opposite sides of the room, and the longer they wait the worst it gets, but, like, it's honestly impressive they got this far.
i love thinking about campaign four. maybe ill actually watch it some day
