[pretend this post is being made months ago] i’m honestly not sure if i like the idea of having molly stumble upon some sinister runes regarding his backstory. i understand why they did it in the show—the whole point of a switch in format like this is the new opportunities you get for things like proper foreshadowing, set up and pay off you can control. but i think the charm and horror of molly was that he genuinely didn’t know, didn’t want to know, and never found out. giving him even a small sense of truth lessens the feeling that he’s someone completely disconnected, by his own volition, from the reality he lives in. the way the characters describe him even an episode after his death sounds more like they’re telling a folk tale or praying to a patron saint - it’s hard to conceive of him as real when he isn’t standing in front of you. he’s a ticking time bomb, his very existence is unstable. it becomes obvious immediately that he could never have survived the narrative, that he was destined to collapse in on himself, because he represents the willful ignorance the rest of the group can no longer allow themselves to have, and the sheer life they’re fighting to save. but all those themes are there because of his death, not the other way around.
in the campaign, the reason molly’s death hits so hard is that it wasn’t supposed to happen. this is a trait very unique to liveplays, where no one can be sure of how something is going to go until it’s over. the lead up to 26 wasn’t particularly sinister, other than for half the group being missing, but the players and audience understood that necessity on a doyalist level. there was no impending sense of doom because the fight wasn’t meant to be deadly, or maybe it wasn’t supposed to happen at all. and i think that’s what makes it so impactful- you’re put in the mind of the characters and experience for yourself how shocking and off-beat a death like that is. and then you spend another hundred episodes coming to terms with it, not only because you miss the character, but because you understand that there was a version of the story where molly was with them during all of these arcs. molly could’ve been a pirate. he could’ve gotten a new xhorhas outfit. he could’ve met essek. and it’s that frustration at sheer bad luck that gets you. but when you introduce foreshadowing into the mix, as you have to do with a tv show, it takes away that aspect of the character that i’ve always found wholly unique to this specific campaign, because you understand that molly’s death is imperative for the narrative. but in the campaign, it wasn’t imperative right up until it happened, and then it became the most important, all-encompassing event of the story. his death genuinely alters the narrative- it changes the direction of character arcs, it gives it a new villain, it gives it overarching themes that weren’t there before, it gives them caduceus, who shifts the tone of it all by himself. there’s a version of the story where molly doesn’t die, but that version is completely unrecognizable from the one we know. and you can’t say that about the show, because he’s going to die from the very beginning, and so when it happens it’ll only cement everything that’s already been set up. it works, sure, in terms of general story beats, but i don’t think it works well, or at least, as well as it does in the campaign.
jacobvanloon
germansingergirl
dailybridgerton
janainaart
tangentwithtanner
kaledo-art
yousharknotpass
