#campaign 4

[fortis-non-feroxx]

oh, Thimble. How do you go on, knowing that, after decades of friendship, the only embrace you could ever give to Teor Pridesire was to his corpse? Had he lived just a little longer--had you gone back for him sooner--maybe--

But wishing doesn't win wars. Still, you think, laying his body to rest at Hal's, that Teor probably gave really good hugs.

[screechfoxes]

CRITICAL ROLE 4.26 Council of Heroes

[justsomeone76]

So, to stay sane over the break, I've decided to write like twenty-pages worth of different metas glazing the themes of campaign 4. No, I'm not repentant. Welcome to Part 1:

How do you balance your duty to your family versus your duty to the world?

(ft. Hal, Murray, Azune, and NPCS)

Cr4 does a great job showing that while revolution and adventure is heroic and good, it is not always good for the people that you love. We can see this in the pairs of loved ones who are divided between choosing the world over family and vice versa. Ultimatley, though, once you decide the world is more important than your family, your family will inevitably be endangered until they too are forced to choose the world, too.

This domino affect of people choosing World over Family begins, as always, with Thjazi Fang, and his decision to leave Aranessa (Family) for the Falconers' Rebellion (World). This move fundamentally discredits House Royce in the eyes of the Sundered Houses. Further exacerbating the damage is when Thjazi chooses the Cloak (World) over Aranessa again, and accidentally closes the Doors to Fairy. This severely weakens Royce and ultimately leads to rest of the Sundered Houses violently or tacitly destroying Royce. This gravely endangers Aranessa, is puts her on the path of having to choose the World over Family, if only because there is so little Family left.

Before the campaign starts, Thjazi is pretty adamant about keeping the Fangs safe while still choosing the World. He is eventually forced to choose one or the other when he is on the gallows, and he, of course chooses World. He tells Hal a snippet of his plans, and this causes Hal, for the first time, to choose the World over Family.

Hal then enters the impossible game of choosing the World without hurting his family. This breakdowns by the end of the Schemers arc when his theater troupe becomes complicit in lying to the Halovars (I don't think it was an accident it was his literal daughter, Shadia, who put up the banned fairy door), Hero becomes complicit in planning the Spy-Birdwatching-Theatre trifecta and healing Cyd, and Elodie becomes complicit in funding the Magpies. I think Elodie put it best, when she chooses World over Family by giving Hal the money, when she said that there was no place outside of the Sundered Houses' reach; if you are going to fight, there is no place your family can run and be safe. There is no saving the world without risking the innocents you care about.

The reason for this is shown in the Azune and Murray's fight over whether or not Demodus should testify. Azune (world) finally convinces Murray (family) by appealing to her sense of family: if Azune doesn't back up his claims with enough evidence, his life could be in danger. Suddenly, helping family paradoxically means either sacrificing the family who has chosen the world, or putting the whole family in danger. Similarly, for the Seekers, saving Alogar (who has chosen the world) means also choosing the world and fighting with him.

So what's the moral here? Once one person in your family chooses the world, then everyone who loves that person must make a choice. Except it's a false choice. Because choosing World means joining the mission, and choosing Family means protecting that person, which requires joining the mission. The only way to keep the World at bay is to do the Maya Davinos Strategy: divorce Thjazi, marry Otto, let Raimond be un-avenged and dishonored, let Alba die. It means sacrifice everyone to keep the chaos from touching you.

And, if sacrifice everyone so that the powers that be will not bother you sounds familiar, it's because that's what Casimir Gavendale did. And look at how well it turned out for him.

Part 2 (tbd) ->

[ludleaf]

Little something something I did of Tyranny 🤍

[sweet-jelly-tart]

idk if anyone here knows ball but david from sellsword art but taller is exactly how i imagine sir julien davinos btw

[warrioreowynofrohan]

On my previous Azune post, someone asked why Thjazi didn’t send him to Hal during the Falconer’s Rebellion rather than after it. And from what we’ve got, I think it was geography.

In episode 19 – in the flashback where Thjazi sees the 12-year-old Azune insisting he can use a sword, and assigns him to help moving baggage and food, away from the fighting, amd says “you should not be here” – Brennan says that the Gallows Choir “left [Azune] abandoned at the first large place they took a contract…This happened quickly. You were still 12.”

To my understanding, Azune’s hometown was far from Dol-Makjar, and thus the same was probably true of the place they left him. Thjazi was fighting in a guerilla war. He didn’t have the resources to get a 12-year-old safely across hostile country to Dol-Makjar. Sure, there’s a chance it could have worked, but there’s also a good chance it could have gotten Azune and anyone sent with him killed.

The context in which Thjazi asked Hal to look out for Azune, help him get on his feet, and care for him like family, was one in which they were all in Dol-Makjar and neither Hal or Azune were rebels or fugitives.

So to me the mystery here isn’t why Thjazi didn’t send him to Do-Makjar and Hal during the rebellion. The mystery is what happened after the rebellion that left people like Azune and Teor and Kattigan and Loza Blade and (for at least a while) Thjazi himself not being wanted fugitives. How did we go from the Falconer’s Rebellion ending with Thjazi captured and taken to the Golden Orchard for trial (and then escaping) to a world where the rebellion had failed but its participants were in the clear? That’s a question that I fully expect we’ll see answered in the rest of the campaign.

[ashesofwidogast]

Rewatching Episode 1, I think Liam told us Hal's entire arc in one sentence:

"Trying... to hold on to the spirit that has buoyed him through his life."

Hal's inner conflict isn't just trauma. It's the constant fight between the man he rebuilt himself to be after the war—a father, an artist, a storyteller, a protector—and the soldier the war forced him to become. He's not trying to become someone new; he's desperately trying not to lose the person he fought so hard to become.