So the scene where they cast zone of truth to interrogate Molly after their first run in with Cree is a fantastic lore drop for Molly, but that’s not what stuck out to me on this rewatch.
Nott is so stuck on the fact that Molly has no interest in returning to who he was before, or even knowing about who that person was, and on first watch, it’s easy to brush it off as just a different perspective and an obsessive character. We’ve seen Nott get stuck on certain things before, so the repetitive topic isn’t a red flag in and of itself. Interesting line of questions and we do learn a lot about Molly by the way he answers, but not particularly notable in the grand scheme of things.
But Sam is laying the groundwork for Nott’s story in everything she does. He’s setting up this incredible contrast to Molly, who only wants to live in the moment, with Nott, who clings to her past as her solid ground, the thing she lives for and is actively working to get back to.
Nott asks “what if his life was really wonderful?” because hers was. Because for her “before” was the life worth living and now is the nightmare. Because her reason to go forward is inextricably linked to her memories of what was. It’s so fundamental to her that to even imagine someone might not want that is a stretch.
It’s a testament to the way Sam tells her story that even in the most innocuous scenes, he’s tugging at heartstrings we didn’t know we had. It’s the kind of thing that only pays off with the benefit of hindsight, but with context it tells us so much about where Nott is at mentally and emotionally. He’s showing us what she cares about and pointing to a past that matters. At this moment in the story, she’s a little goblin girl and it’s easy to not look any deeper but Sam is using this moment to point backwards and say “there’s something there that matters to her” without drawing any focus from the main point of the scene.
And I know this isn’t how the spell works, but I’ve watched enough of Sam’s play style to think it might matter anyway. Nott failed the saving throw against zone of truth and not only did she fail, she rolled a one. Sam likes to play into the stories the dice tell so I think it’s deliberate. I think the spell pulls out a bit more of the truth than Nott intended to share at this point and he’s giving us a glimpse of the cards she holds so close to her chest.
