beau and caleb: campaign vs cartoon
I still have 2 eps left but I gotta ramble about'em, I gotta.
I went into the cartoon with low expectations: even if I didn't care for adaptational choices, I would at minimum get footage of Beauregard kicking ass.
I'm also getting the delightful revelation that the cartoon agrees with me that the relationship between Beauregard and Caleb relationship is fundamental to the story of The Mighty Nein. More impressively, the show pulls off depicting that relationship even as it rearranges the building blocks.
Caleb's backstory stays the same. Maybe it's a few weeks with Nott before he meets the others instead of six months, but they are bonded quick and that is enough. However: he loses the protection amulet, gets identified by a Volstrucker, and tells all of the Nein who he is. Cartoon!Caleb is in a weaker position when the Nein arrive in Zadash than Campaign!Caleb, who's hidden his past well, telling only Nott and Beau. There's an overlap in the telling, a bias towards dramatics that both Calebs share — in neither scenario was he forced to give as much detail as he does, but this is a story that he has been telling himself in his head over and over again. Now he gets to say it aloud. (Which does make the lack of an immediate aftermath scene in the cartoon a tad disappointing, because the campaign scene is such fantastic character work for all three of them and how they see the world and each other. )
Beau has more differences. When we meet Beau in the campaign, she's ditched the Cobalt Soul and she's just done a job with Fjord and Jester. She's purposeless. A hungry mind with little to chew on. Dairon hooks her back into the Cobalt Soul, yes, but even as Beau grabs onto that it is not at the forefront of her mind at the time of Zadash — instead, Beau is constantly curious about the rest of the Nein and the world, and not entirely out of suspicion. She doesn't know anything about Volstruckers or Empire secrets.
Cartoon!Beau has been a member of the Cobalt Soul for a while, long enough to investigate a Krynn attack, not long enough to have her suspicions openly listened to. Long enough to be invested in it as an institution and be disappointed in it, and to transfer that investment over to Dairon, who gives her more knowledge before she meets the others. We see this most clearly play out in Cartoon!Beau telling Dairon that she's traveling with a former Volstrucker, something I don't believe Campaign!Beau divulged to Dairon even by the time they reunited in Xhorhas.
So this version of Beau starts off with a focus the other one lacks, and consequently is less friendly? needy about? interested in? the others, or at least more repressed about it. When Caleb kept calling her a lone wolf in episode 6 of the cartoon I found it jarring at first, because even early campaign Beau, as abrasive as she was, was more likely to try to talking to one of the others than sneak off to do her own thing. But Caleb's correct in this universe. The one character to see Beau truly vulnerable this season isn't any of the Nein, it's Dairon.
Anyway, this shift means the cartoon depicts two people who are laser locked on each other from the start doing threat assessments, as opposed to the campaign's occasional grating on each other till a blow-up. (Ofc their cartoon selves still find each other a bit grating in personality). Caleb has a dire need to verify who this random woman with her secret mission is, a woman who stands out among the aimlessness of the rest of the group. If Beau could do magic, he would probably be going fuck fuck fuck is she a Volstrucker? Beau has no prior connection or bonding moments with Fjord or Jester, no Yasha to idly flirt with, and is traveling with a former Volstrucker when she learned about Volstruckers three weeks ago! Of course they keep ending up in standoffs against each other and Caleb almost sends her leaping to her death.
All of it is such a delight, and I look forward to watching more of their cartoon dynamic.
