#jester meta

[sparring-spirals]

JESTER MASS HEAL AS A CRITICAL MOVE IN THE BATTLE sorry off my rocker again about Jester love and optimism as its own brand of offense and love that sunders enemies in half and boosts her friends in all forms and all the jokes about Jester THE cleric and clerics and healers not always being one and the same, but- Jester did heal, and she healed plenty through the campaign. But sometimes being a protector of the group needed the direct offense. It was, it is, always about- action economy and balancing what will protect her friends, what will save them, what will be enough.

Jester blowing the high level spell on healing, and it working. Beautifully.

It was always about protecting everyone with what she had and all its furious love, and this time, healing her friends was more than enough to rip the enemy apart.

[britcision]

Okay this thought has been percolating for a while so let’s piss off people who can’t read

Beau and Fjord were the closest things to villains in Jester’s story

Because Laura very specifically did not create a villain

Lord Sharpe was an afterthought if they happened to be passing through town that Jester hid from for 30 seconds then locked on a second balcony, and he was the closest she ever had

Jester’s story was about growth and reconnecting, neither of which actually came from a beat down fight the way traditional dnd does

So what the fuck does that have to do with Beau and Fjord? Well, that comes back to how each of they interpreted Jester’s arc

Cuz both Marisha and Travis did a good bit of pushing to have Jester go down one of their storylines, even if for the players it was all pre-negotiated fun

Because who were the two potential villains of Jester’s arc, if Laura had wanted to go that way?

Artagan, her cleric patron

The Gentleman, her dad

I believe y’all may now see the two storylines of which I speak?

The Gentleman’s storyline pretty much slipped under the radar until the Nein went back to Zadash and didn’t bother to visit him

After that, Jester admitted she’d been lying about her Sendings to the party, he wasn’t welcoming her with open arms, and he told her he wasn’t her father

Beau, who has Personal Experience with shitty fathers who need to be thoroughly rejected and maybe a beat down, gave Jester some beautiful gentle cuddles and consolation and “well if he doesn’t want you (like my dad didn’t want me) he can go fuck himself he doesn’t deserve you”

But that was not the story Laura wanted to tell

So that’s not the story we got

And oh boy that made the next part where we went back to meet BEAU’S dad extra fucking spicy because she just got to see for the first time that some bad dads really do care

And then Thoreau was still Thoreau and gaslighting ensued but Beau remembered what she’d told Jester, even if Jester didn’t need it

Basically no pushing there cuz Matt didn’t much hesitate to make it clear that the Gentleman was not going to be Thoreau. He was a deadbeat, awkward, and negligent, but not for the same reasons

ARTAGAN THOUGH

Well

Fjord has Opinions and Personal Experience around accepting magical powers from entities you don’t know or trust

And Beau has Opinions and Personal Experience with shady people in positions of power using them against innocent young souls

And neither of them spent 30 seconds to consider Jester might know her childhood bestie better than they do because they were right that he wasn’t a god

So as soon as Matt began dropping archfey hints we got like 40 episodes of “the Traveler’s shady and isn’t a proper god” and “hey Jester we can just kill him for you”

Because they can’t just go kill Uk’otoa, they’re not levelled enough and he’s pretty inconvenient to get to all locked up

But Fjord burned his pact weapon and walked straight into the Wildmother’s arms, and oh boy a lot of people who don’t think about personality types wanted Jester to do just that on the ol’ bird app

(Even Laura agreed Jester’d be more likely to go to the Moonweaver in Talks, either because of the Travelercon thing or the trickery/Mollymauk aspect)

But Laura didn’t want to tell that story either, even if Travis did make off with her warlock class

So Artagan made it explicitly clear, in every interaction, that he knew Jester was incredible without him (that’s why he chose her at all), that he valued far more than just what she could do, that he never even told her he was a god, he just never corrected the assumption

Cuz he’s an archfey and he also has a minor personal history of starting cults (not to himself the first time but bad habits escalate)

Artagan was the one who talked Jester down from just tossing people into the volcano

He was the only one who never joked about her being a bad cleric, but the Nein ain’t ready for that

And he explicitly chose her safety over his own, which for the uninitiated is A Big Fucking Deal for an archfey

Like, the Moonweaver’s response was entirely proportional, because as Fearne has shown, fey aren’t great at the “some things belong to other people and that is okay”, including personal health and wellness

(Laura also mentioned in Talks that if Fjord hadn’t grabbed her while she was holding Artagan Jester wouldn’t have hesitated to go with him but Matt knew exactly what she wanted and they were Never going to go down the “evil Artie” track)

So since we know The Gentleman was never going to be Jester’s villain, and Artagan was never going to be Jester’s villain, what’s left?

Well, just about all you’ve got is the two people who repeatedly challenged her faith and tried to force her into conflict with her first and oldest friend

And maybe “antagonist” is a better word than villain, but I did say I wanted to piss off people who can’t read

Cuz unlike with the Gentleman, the Artagan question wasn’t dropped until the night after Travelercon, where Jester very gently told them to go fuck themselves of course Artagan was there to stay

And of course if Laura wasn’t down with it, none of the pushing woulda happened

But until that point literally all of Jester’s conflict was internal, and nobody really talked to her about it

And Beau and Fjord’s responses make perfect sense for the characters, just like it makes perfect sense that Jester wasn’t gonna willingly confide in people who kept pushing for murder

Jester needed to be pushed enough to break the happy facade and let some of her struggles and thoughts be external, because some people still somehow refuse to believe there’s any depth behind a bubbly smile and dick jokes

For Jester’s growth to be evident and external in the story, she needed something to fight against, and in this case?

It was her new friends hating her old friend

The friend who gave her the power to save their lives

Two of the people she was the closest to whose opinions meant the most

Her original two road companions vs her original friend

And boy did that make for some compelling conflict when Artagan blatantly refused to get involved even in his own defence

In a way Jester kinda did follow Beau’s story; I’ve made the link between Artagan and Dairon before as older, more powerful mentors with unknown intentions

Beau chose to trust Dairon and follow in their footsteps and let Dairon make her more powerful

Jester sort of wound up leading Artagan as much as he led her, which is a fun callback to Beau calling out Dairon’s anti-Krynn racism in Xhorhas

But yeah, tl;dr?

Beau and Fjord were the closest thing Jester got to an antagonist because Laura explicitly refused to make her own and Matt let her have the story she wanted

[mysticalspiders]

Jester Lavorre: Courtesan’s Daughter

I can’t believe how little meta there is out there about how Jester’s upbringing as a courtesan’s daughter affects her outlook on life. I would go so far to say that her being a courtesan’s daughter had its influence on every single unique aspect of her character. Additionally, I think her sheltered childhood enhances this. The perspective of a courtesan was one of the two most omnipresent perspectives of her childhood. Its such a rich and unique perspective that there feels like there is the potential for so much meta here!  I’ve strangely never felt qualified to write on it? But I’m going to give it a shot. 

- The most obvious place to start is her view on sex. Jester has such a beautiful and unique view on sex. She recognizes its inherent value and the connection it represents - Marion is specifically a courtesan, someone who does not just “has sex for money” but creates a deep connection for money. Jester also sees it as a ripe source for trickery and mischief. This makes sense too - while she clearly would understand the value of sex, sex was also not something divine to Jester but part of her daily life and upbringing. In other words, something that can have mischief made. I also think she is aware and takes advantage of the fact that sex makes other people unconformable and since it does not make her uncomfortable she is able to have a little fun and be a little trickery cleric with the subject. 

- I think Jester has a real knack for understanding people. I don’t think she’s perfect at it but her wisdom comes out in having an intuitive grasp of people quickly. One moment that particularly comes to mind for me is Nott saying “Fjord, you have a thing or two to learn from Jester about talking to people and engaging them on a personal level. She has what I would call the expert touch. She gets people. She sees into their hearts and souls.” And as much as this moment is Nott needling Fjord I think she is right. And I think part of this comes from being a courtesan daughter. Again, a courtesan is someone who creates connection with others for a living, listens and understands. 

- Building off the last point, Jester builds on her understanding of people to try and make people happy and create a real connection with them. Jester’s greatest joy in life is brining joy and happiness to others. Jester’s way of doing this is different to Marions but I think the courtesan upbringing is here too. Jester also understands the inherent value in connection with others. Both because Marion’s work is connecting with people but also because she lacked tons of connection with others as a child. 

- Similar to the last two points but Jester’s charm! Jester is such a charming person and a lot of that must come from Marion - professional charmer! She knows how to make people like her and love her, and want to be around her. How to twist people around her finger. Not only is Jester charming but she is able to make other’s feel at ease around her. People feel at ease and are vulnerable with Jester in ways their aren’t with others. This is such an important skill of a courtesan. 

- I know Laura played around with warlock for Jester in the beginning (and I absolutely love to imagine how it would have played out that way) but cleric is such a perfect class for the courtesan’s daughter! A courtesan is, in a way, a healer of sorts and Jester is that same type of healer - a healer to the soul.

- I really do believe Jester’s courtesan upbringing influenced how relentlessly she sees the good in people and their power to become better. A courtesan doesn’t always have choice in their clients. A courtesan is someone who brings hope and light and salvation and life to their clients regardless of whether they deserve it or are good people. A courtesan is someone there to see the good in you and maybe show you the way to becoming a better person. And being a courtesan is not only seeing the good in others relentlessly but being emotionally intimate with many types of people. All of this together bleeds into Jester who knows how to work and find slivers of friendship and good and connection in people who everyone else might see as bastards. 

- Jester’s value of pleasure. Jester never has any qualms about finding joy and pleasure in life. She seeks out sweets whenever possible. She finds whimsy wherever she goes. She makes her own fun. Pleasure, and the value of it, is the very root of Marion’s profession. Jester understands that finding joy is an integral and core part of life and she never drops any opportunity to seek it. And she tries to help others find their own joy and pleasure and see the value of it. 

- Jester’s artistic pursuits! We learn almost as soon as we learn about Marion that her real talent is her voice. Music is clearly an important form of artistic expression to Marion and Marion clearly values art and beauty in all its forms. It makes sense that Jester would have sought her own form of artistic expression and that it would have been encouraged and supported. 

- Jester is a character that embodies love. Everyone falls in love with Jester. Jester faces the world with love. A courtesan is at its a profession based in love. 

I know there is much more to talk about here and I desperately want more people to add onto this (and I might add some later) but these were the ones I could come up with right off the bat. 

[deepcookie]

I didnt realise this until this episode, but it really seems as if Marisha's portrayal of Beau at the moment is one of real jealousy, and its interesting when you look at the whole Artagan situation like that.

Everytime Artagan is mentioned or does anything, most of the responses are negative, but the people who generally speak the loudest and are the most against the idea, are Beau and Fjord, two people who have canonically overtly expressed that they have feelings for Jester. the next person down that list seems to be Caleb which makes sense, as he seems to have feelings for her, I just can't remember if they have been stated in the show or not. but look at those three and their reactions to Artagan and their own abilities.

Beau is a physical fighter, she's good at rooting out secrets and information, so when confronted with Artagan, someone she is predisposed not to like due to competing interest for Jester, she gets jealous and defensive and falls back on everything she knows to use against him. all of the "ill beat him up" and "how do you know he's not hiding a secret" are ways Beau can prove that a) Artagan is a bad guy and b) Beau is useful to Jester. Her need to be aggressive and assertive in this also reflects how any fight between her and Artagan would go, were it to come to blows. Because Beau isn't particularly useful against magic, so if it comes to a one on one fight, she has to be in his face and hitting first, so shes prepared at all times.

Compare this to Fjord. He is less jealous as he doesnt know his own feelings, but he is very protective, and coming from a guy who unwilling made a deal with a leviathan that didn't turn out super well for him, thats fair enough. All of the reassurance and checks he makes scream that Fjord is trying to make sure Jester isn't in a weird warlock deal with Artagan. His half in half out style of dealing with Artagan and warning Jester about him also mimic any potential conflict with Artagan, Fjord wants to protect Jester and wants to fight, but he is also aware of how powerful Artagan is, so you get this weird dichotomy of knowing he would fight if he had to, but not knowing if he could actually fight Artagan and win.

and then there's Caleb, who hasn't said anything about his feelings for Jester, and who has said that he doesnt super trust Artagan but fully supports Jester in her trust. Caleb never seems to be negative of Artagan in a direct way, its always in the sense of has he checked to make sure nothing will go wrong, is he being safe, the sort of thing that Caleb does and sometimes doesn't do. Caleb is comparing his way of doing things to Artagan's and assessing that if he's doing what Caleb would do, then he is fine. And that too is somewhat reflected in any potential combat, because Caleb is potentially the only one who could fight Artagan one on one and stand a chance, well without any surprise or always being on edge like Beau is. And his actions reflect that, he is supportive of Jester and actively uses his power to help her and show reverence for Artagan, and that lil competition scene between the two when Jester was on the stage was Artagan's way of seemingly saying "youre good but im still better" and Caleb took it in stride.

and ultimately its a really interesting revelation, to see how these three people who all are crushing on Jester feel about the person who isnt her boyfriend or her crush but is treated that way.

[nebulaahh]

Four deals

or What They Were Willing to Give Away

Nott’s deal: she wants her body back so severely, so desperately, that she can’t even see the blood in her eyes. The promise of a body that was ripped away from her, a life that was crushed out of her throat. A war for better skin, she says. A world where her son and husband and allshe’s worked for could crumble into pieces. But she could be free again. She is so close to shaking that hand. She can only see the promise.

Yasha’s deal: she held on to that scrap book like it was all she had left. It was all that kept her grounded, tethered to reason, to sanity. Now, she hands it over, all that’s left of the woman she loved and the man she saved. It’s worth it, she thinks, to lose one family. At least she can save another.

Beau’s deal: she’s finally found happiness. But she’s used to sadness. She’s used to nothing, to lonely, to being cast aside. She was never good enough, never strong enough, never polite enough, never worth it, never fucking worth it. So what’s one more time? What’s one more loss? What does it matter if it all gets ripped away again? Someone else will be happy, at least. Someone who deserves it more.

Jester’s deal: she knows how they see her- naive, weak, innocent. And she knows who they are. They are people who will throw themselves into the flames with no hesitation, who will cut themselves apart and scatter their bodies across the abyss if it grants them that salvation. That punishment. That release. She knows what happens if she fails, alone in a room, the door closed, long fingers pulling life out of her like an unspooling of string. She takes out a cupcake and wipes back a tear. They are worth it. They are so so worth it.

[hi-bees]

ive said it before, jesters version of being a cleric often means taking damage instead of her friends and that's how she keeps them safe. we see it time and time again with her penchant for melee and inflict wounds, making her equally likely to be a target of the attacks as much as people like beau or yasha.

it presents itself here in the witch hut in a similar way. jester saw that everyone went in there and was willing to condemn themselves to enternal suffering in life or even wage war. and jester said fuck this i need to protect what's mine. so she did.

she took a goddamn cupcake into the lair of a creature powerful enough to curse someone to live as their greatest fear and said now you have to deal with me. and she did it in the most jester way possible, with laughter and as much kindness as the situation could bear. but the flip side of that interaction is so different,, so many things could have gone wrong. her persuasion check could have failed and then she just loses her hands. or modify memory fails and then what? this intensely powerful, all seeing woman just lets her go? i doubt it, i think jester instantly becomes #1 on this woman's most wanted list and i don't think people stay there long before they are exterminated. but jester did it anyway.

jester will go for the hail mary every time, because when they work, everyone she loves stays safe. and if they fail then then only thing she's bet is herself. and she has proven since day one that is a gamble she is willing to take. because she's a cleric and she has to make sure her friends are okay.

[fiovske]

I wasn't intending to sound rude/antagonistic sorry if it came out that way! It was genuinely more of a comment that some people are taking that scenes words as final when we don't know Jes' feelings 100%, in the end she might not have romantic feelings for anyone, or she might have for Fjord etc and that's fine it's Lauras decision and I do very much agree w/ you on that Jester's journey is one of self-discovery, you don't have to if you don't want to but I am kind of interested in that essay

aah sorry! my bad for taking it that way, tone gets lost in translation and I get a lot of hostile asks that I don't often answer, I'm sorry I misinterpreted your tone!

and I do have Thoughts on why Jester initially had feelings for fjord in the first place hang on, if you're up for reading Too Many Words, buckle up pal:

FJ came more from the point of laura being all "I will romance my husband!!" as a bit of a running joke and thats no secret, but narratively it also plays into how jester, who lover her mother dearly and wants to find her father, in the hopes that it will make her mother happy and her too... she was raised on the stories of her father (babenon) being a sailor. she spent a majority, if not all, of her childhood inside the Lavish Chateau, with no real experience of the world or how relationships work, holding this ideal image of how romantic it must've been when mama fell in love and wanting the same type of fairytale romance for herself too. so, when she met fjord for the first time, fjord being charismatic and all that with that Texan accent and all, she started projecting onto him, she got instantly infatuated w the first sailor man she met, a sailor, like her father. a romance for her, like her mother's had been... like.. its easy transference.

jester's crush on fjord is a cases of expectations put on the other bc of the person you WANT them to be, not the person they really are. and refusing to see how they fall short of those expectations bc those aren't.. real expectations.. its transference. that's how transference works, psychoanalytically speaking. and I think jester, on some level, as she experienced th world and grew because of it, became aware of how her feelings for fjord had started to fade after she realized, "that's not at all how love works, whoa? like... in the porn books we read things are so different and in real life, LOVE is different." and she came to this conclusion that first night in xhorhas.

after she had witnessed veth's reunion with yeza. she got an example of what love is like in front of her own eyes, instead of the idealization that she had held close to her chest from the stories she heard from her mom and the romance books she read. witnessing yeza and veth's reunion helped her understand and become more self-aware of the idea of love....and turn, the crush she has on fjord and how... unfulfilling it felt, from both of their ends. I think that event had a major impact on her falling "out of love" with fjord when she realized... that she had never been in love with him at all in the first place. just the idea of him she had built and it... disappointed her on some level, I think. but also felt liberating from her side. Helped her feel more aware of the world around her and of the concept of love altogether, whatever it's form may be.

and as time went on, she also realized that the fjord she knows now is far removed from the fjord she initially met, and their relationship moved to a more genuineness from there once that mask came off (from Fjord's end as he struggled w toxic masculinity, realised the m9 truly loved him, that he was not going to be left behind when Beau went back for him to save him from The Laughing Hand... and when he undoubtedly, found acceptance in the Wildmother). I think Fjord and Jester's relationship became more genuine from there on, because he stopped trying to pretend to be someone he was not. And Jester stopped pursuing him as a romance novel hero and started to just... let their friendship happen, wherever it might take them.

that's just my take on it tbh. of course, this is all speculation frm my end bc as a creature of overthinking and over-analysing everything, I love to speculate. Once again, idk where actually they will proceed with the fjord jester dynamic. This is just my take on why Jester developed feelings for Fjord at all, and why it abated the way it did. What happens to them in the future... is up to the players as to how they choose to proceed with these characters. Personally, I love Fjord and Jester's friendship as they are. And as Jester grows and discovers more of herself, I wouldn't be surprised if Jester ends the campaign happily single, realising the hero she had been looking for in those romance novels had been herself all along. But I also wouldn't be surprised if her feelings grow and come back, now that fjord and jester know each other better... I wouldn't be surprised if in the end of the campaign, she ends up in a romance with Fjord. that's just my take on it.

[angelsndragons]

Let's talk Jester.

Let's talk about how she copes with high pressure situations. Let's talk about how she vents.

Let's talk about the last time she desecrated a temple. 

Then. After Molly, after a week in captivity, after the Traveler refused to speak with her, Jester decided that her best course of action was to desecrate a temple by painting the god's statue with the colors of the god’s enemy. We the audience had no connection to the Temple of Bahamut but this "prank" was seen as religious terrorism by Bahamut's believers. We forgave her because we love her and it's just paint, right? She's had a rough few days. 

Now. After saving Yasha, after dealing with high pressure politics which don’t even affect her, after Beau's family situation, after Isharnai, 24 hours after learning her God wasn't a God at all, Jester pranks and desecrates the Stone Menagerie, temple of the Wildmother. Some of us forgive her, some of us don't. It's just rearranging the furniture or pouring water on people, right? She has had a rough few days. 

Let's talk about how Jester lashes out at other beliefs and believers when she is stressed to the breaking point. Let's remember that she disses the Wildmother and Her believers to her God in one fell swoop. Let's talk about how she nodded along with Essek's assessment of the Luxon and the religion surrounding it. 

Let's talk about how in spite of all of that, Jester doesn't see herself as a model or ideal cleric. Let's talk about how much she looks to Caduceus, even though she tells the Traveler she has a low opinion of his relationship with the Wildmother, as the model cleric and ideal to strive for. It's thinking about what Caduceus would do that leads her to heal Beau in the remorhaz fight. She builds her first permanent shrine to the Traveler while Caduceus builds the shrines for the other gods. Let's talk about how relieved she is that there is someone else on the team who can heal the others, one who is arguably far better suited to it than she ever felt she was. She's an agent of chaos, being the responsible one has always fit her ill. 

Let's talk about how, for all her sneering about the Wildmother to the Traveler, it's to Caduceus and his relationship with the Wildmother that she turns when constructing her own religion and rituals. Let's talk about her seal, how the first thing she does for this fledgling religion is create an official Traveler seal, its design her own but at the same time echoing the seal that Caduceus gave Fjord. Let's talk about how she creates this seal using her limited paint supply. Let's talk about how those paints are the nearest things to sacred ritual objects she has, instruments of chaos and world altering change.

Let's talk about how she bestows this new seal first on Nott then Beau in an eerie parallel of Caduceus handing the Wildmother's seal, specially created with sacred tools at a sacred site and specifically forged, to Fjord. Let’s talk about how she has one-upped the traditional cleric. He converted one of their friends, she has now converted two (and so what if Beau’s uncomfortable with it).

Let's talk about the fact that Jester craves the legitimacy she thinks Caduceus has. Let's talk about how her friends mostly have denied her said legitimacy. Let’s talk about how no one badmouths or side eyes Caduceus and his beliefs, despite Jester and Caduceus’ near identical upbringings isolated from the world at large with only their religious figures to turn to for company and support.

Let's talk about how much Jester wants to be accepted in and a part of the larger world. Let's talk about the fact that so long as the Traveler is just her special friend, the world will never accept all of who she is. Let's talk about a little girl who so badly wants to be special, one of a kind, the only follower that matters to the Traveler. Let's talk about the woman that she grows into who only wants to be accepted and loved by others.

Let's talk about how Jester's model for a religion is Caduceus, whose family is one of the oldest and most beloved of their Goddess. Caduceus, who is raised above even the Clays, Dusts, and Stones in the Wildmother’s esteem. 

Let's talk about how it's not a cult, you guys.