Firstly, she shows remarkable capacity to learn from her own experiences, and from others’ experiences as well. While battling the Wisps and the spirit of Siff Duthar, she notes to Fjord that she’s trying to be better with her money. She took what she learned from her unintentional insult to Caleb and his reaction (both the frustrated and angry initial response, followed by his more compassionate and understanding turnaround in the sewers following the battle with the Phase Spider), and showed serious thought about the future for herself and the rest of the party.
Granted, the other characters were right, she should take care of herself first, for her sake and for theirs, but it was wonderful to see her approaching the problem with more maturity than before.
In the Victory Pit in episode 17, she was strategic about her spell use in a way we’ve never seen before. She didn’t run around healing people for bumps and scratches (not that that’s a bad thing necessarily, just a slight development from what we’ve seen in previous battles), and is conserving her spell slots for powerful spells of both combat and healing. I was so proud of her her higher-level healing spells and how and when she chose to apply them. She seems to be diversifying her attacks to be both magical and with her physical weapons, which is a fun development. I particularly liked her going after the ice wolf with her handaxe, and just fucking it the fuck up.
It’s so interesting to me, the way we’ve seen Jester grow over the last several episodes. She demonstrates a clear ability to learn and adapt from previous in-game events and interactions, something I’m not sure I can say about other members of the M9 (much as I love them all). I’m so excited for what her personal storyline has in store: finding her father, getting rid of the price on her head, reconciling with her mother and possibly confronting her for her stifled and lonely childhood. Hopefully, it’ll end with Jester leading a revolution for religious freedom in the Dwendalian empire, including a return of the so-called small gods to Wildemount, and maybe all of Exandria while she’s at it.
She’s going to be so powerful by the end of this campaign.
