I will never understand why Widobrave isn't a massive ship. Is it really because Nott said she was like Caleb's mother once?? That was before they'd had time to fully develop the dynamic! It came from Sam's mouth, just like the times he talked about how attractive Nott found Caleb, and how she had a crush on him... Before I watched the campaign, I saw so much Molly/Caleb I thought they were canon. Imagine my surprise when I found out how little screentime Molly had, and how the most important dynamic in the group for Caleb was with Nott! I really feel like Nott only said she was the parent in their dynamic because she was tired of being infantilised and patronised by people her own age/even younger than her. Not because she actually felt like Caleb's mother! I saw a comment under fanart of Veth kissing Caleb on the mouth (a canon scene) complaining about how gross it was because Veth was Caleb's mom. A CANON SCENE. I cannot deal with this fandom, I swear.
Oh boy do I agree with your frustration. There are some more pieces to the whole thing going on, and the full context of the situation is like. so frustrating but also kind of academically interesting, so here goes.
The reason it's not a big ship is not predominantly because of the projected familial association. At least, not originally. The origin point for its unpopularity was people thinking Nott was a literal child. I am led to believe, by those I've spoken to who were contemporary, and also evidence I've seen in the wild on posts or in AO3 comments, that there was some contention on the topic of whether Sam meant Nott was an actual literal child or not. This was exacerbated by Sam not being clear about her age, because Nott, for now-obvious reasons, was uncertain how to calculate her age at all--she was 25 when she died, but that's the full lifespan of a goblin. So she just hedged around, and also once Sam made a 69 joke about it ("I'm full-grown. Between 6-9"). People took this as either she was a child or she was "child-aged." As in, even if 6-9 is full-grown for a goblin, it's still only ~7 years old, which makes her a child in human years, and is therefore gross. Yes, that is a real argument that was made and will show up in some old AO3 comments (shoutout to guest commenter "A Concerned Citizen" for bringing that one up).
I suspect episode 13 provided an easy alternate reason to deny any aspect of their dynamic that might read as romantic--she's his mom! she said so herself! (*narrator* that is not what she fucking said). But on the other hand, I don't want to deny that aspects of the way she interacted with Caleb were maternal--Sam says this himself on Talks Machina, but also emphasizes that the dynamic is hardly purely maternal and that it was subject to change since they were so early in the campaign when this happened. This is a perfectly reasonable statement that many people have never ever listened to, not even once.
I think there's a lot of real discomfort with the idea of either Nott or Veth being with Caleb or holding romantic feelings for him (and I separate them here because the reasons are somewhat distinct between her forms). Nott is immediately denied the ability to be viewed in a sexual or romantic light, and specifically denied that in relation to the fandom's hot sad white boy of the campaign (we can joke about her bouncing on the Sunbreaker, but god forbid we treat her romantic and sexual feelings seriously). This is not an accident. It's because she's short and a monster and has a croaky voice and describes herself as ugly. You can make a joke about someone like that, but you can't take them seriously. Broadly, people are not going to ship some ugly little weird person with their favorite The Character of the campaign. They want someone hotter and cooler and taller, and preferably their other available The Character of the campaign (generally: Molly). "Mom" was an easy box to stick Nott into that meant she could have an emotionally significant relationship to Caleb, but not gross them out by having to consider the possibility of the hot guy being with that ugly girl. That sounds a bit harsh, but it feels accurate to my experience in the campaign.
Veth is a whole other ballgame, too, isn't she? Once we introduce her backstory, we introduce another hurdle: The Husband. Not that most people needed another reason not to ship it--they'd already decided she was his mom--but this becomes another argument against it toward those who do ship it. She's married. It's cheating. And cheating is a terrible, terrible offense that we can't touch in fiction. When Veth gets her body back, we're met with some interesting other reasons, too: she's brown and she's fat. Still short, also. This is, again, not the kind of person that people are going to broadly want to ship with their hot white guy The Character. "Mom" is an easy pigeonhole to avoid considering it and "married" only makes it easier. "Mom" to an actual little boy? We're really cooked now, because people can't view her sexually or romantically outside the context of a joke. Again.
And the thing that makes me suspicious of the reaction as it pertains to her appearance specifically (whether that be as a goblin or as a halfling) is that the reaction is often one of disgust. You can especially see this on Twitter, if you wanted to take a wee jaunt down memory lane, most commentary about Veth's crush, and her playlist admitting to her feelings, was met with genuine disgust. "That's gross, she's his mom" sounds a lot better than "that's gross, I don't want to see someone like HER with someone like HIM," but the thing is she's not his mom and she never was. It's a lie, it's a false interpretation, and it's perpetuated often to make the person doing it feel more comfortable. "I don't like the idea of them being romantic--I prefer Nott being his mom." This begs the question: why? Because of the fake incest you just imagined because you didn't listen to a single sentence Veth said after episode 13? Because of the sanctity of Veth's marriage to a guy you don't care about? What is the real reason people feel disguised at the idea of Nott/Veth kissing Caleb on the mouth and meaning it? And it has always, always had unpleasant implications that people will hide behind an interpretation so long in the ground that it is nothing more than piece of poorly-imagined, widely proliferated fanon. I could give you a 100 page folder of evidence about Veth's romantic feelings for Caleb, how real they were, how significantly they impacted her story, I can show you Sam Riegel in-game and out saying that Veth has feelings for Caleb multiple times and people won't listen to it because it's too uncomfortable for them. Why?
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