I think about Bolaire and Azune’s dynamic so much, they make me insane. Everyone in this campaign makes me insane, why did they have to make 13 whole characters designed to make me insane.
Just thinking about the two of them and how they were both made into tools of war. Azune is the way of being a child soldier, and though Bolaire was originally made for the action of killing, I don’t believe the Halfings intended any of the Panto to be used for anything other than the killing of Rauwyn. Both Azune and Bolaire were used for warfare they shouldn’t have been a part of, and treated like tools instead of their own beings.
Bolaire, seeing the play that initially made him gain his independence, realized that the purpose he was made for was already over. His job was complete, and he was left to find something else to do in the aftermath, and he decided to build his own life out of it. Azune is still coming to terms with his independence and life. He defined himself around being useful to Thjazi and others, and now Thjazi is dead Azune is realizing that purpose that propelled him force (the purpose that had him be an Arcane Marshall in the first place) is gone. He needs to find his own purpose outside of other people, just like Bolaire did in the past.
Speaking of Thjazi, it’s so interesting how Bolaire and Azune are on the complete opposite ends of opinion about him. And kinda for similar reasons. Azune loved Thjazi because he was kind to him and treated him like a human. Thjazi saw a kid who shouldn’t be fighting in a war and treated him with humanity. Though at the same time, Thjazi did use Azune to accomplish goals (Azune morphing himself into whatever Thjazi needed him to do). Azune, loosing that ‘usefulness’, is desperately trying to cope with the grief.
Bolaire, on the other hand, hates Thjazi because he treated him like a tool. He didn’t regard him as a full autonomous being, and used what he was as blackmail for him to serve Thjazi. (All these facts are things that Bolaire has told us, btw, so there could be details we are missing, since this party has basically no reliable narrators).
Maybe it has something to do with how Bolaire already found self fulfillment before meeting Thjazi, and Azune was looking for someone to lean on. Azune was easily okay, even desperate, to be used by him. Bolaire had been used before, realized his own self worth, and despised Thjazi for treating him like the past soldiers did.
Bolaire hates disguising himself with magic, and told Azune about how he wants to wear his face and name fully and normally because it’s part of who he is, and he’d never give it up. Azune had a whole scene looking at himself in the mirror shifting to seeing himself through the lens of everyone he cares about, and he doesn’t know who he is outside of those people.
Then there’s both of their dynamics with Hal. Hal, who is someone who (before all of this plot happened) treated them with full humanity and respect. Unlike his brother, he treated neither of them like tools; he treated Azune like a nephew/son he took care of, and Bolaire as he close friend he could talk about the arts with.
And the sister thing. It is really funny how both of them have long lost big sis plot twists, but it also reinforces my thoughts on these parallels. Both are trying to develop past who they were and the purpose they were forced to serve. And then they briefly meet their sister again. Mayali, who was presumed likely dead by Azune, who has seemingly been forced to work in horrible mercenary and assassination work and pushed to the limits, just being a weapon who can barely smile. Termina, who Bolaire thought was long dead, who seems to be wrapped up into this sacrilegious Frankenstein’s monster of all of these artifacts, and whom is broken and trapped inside a coffin centered around a celestial of the shaper the Panto were built to destroy.
Both sisters being reminders of the past and how its effects are still very present in their lives.
I don’t even need to talk about the ‘are you a person or a thing’ and ‘I’m not a thing, I’m not a thing, I’m a person’ notes. A lot of others have pointed it out made increased my insanity about this topic. Ughhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh, these guys 😭
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