#kal rants.

[kal-rants]

Lots of talk about diamonds and spell slots and for funsies/curiosity, I looked up how tapped out Fearne was at that moment. In this long, no good, pretty rotten day, she used:

2nd lvl heat metal on FCG when he went robocop

3rd (?) lvl cure wounds on FCG to revive him after going robocop (level uncertain. rewatching the scene, Ashley grabbed two dice and then rerolled another, so it looks like a 3rd level, but this is also speculation.)

1st lvl detect magic when they were planning how to extract Treshi

3rd lvl hold person at the beginning of the fight with Otohan

1st (?) lvl cure wounds on Orym to pick him up in the fight (again uncertain, but the roll was low enough that if it was a 2nd lvl she rolled really bad)

3rd lvl revivify for Orym

Fearne would have had two 1st level slots and two 2nd lvls. 

Either way, I prefer how everything played out. Not everything needs to be done optimally and in this case, regardless of whether it was spell slots or diamonds, I like the repercussions of this PC death. It doesn’t feel permanent given that they have a lot of options for them to use to bring her back but it does give weight. 

Edit: No 4th lvl because I forgot she multiclassed.

[kal-rants]

The initials for the characters in Exandria Unlimited are (d)doof:

and I think that sums up this group perfectly. 

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John Murphy going from the psycho who wanted to kill a little girl to the guy who puts his own life on the line to protect a kid is the definition of character development.

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There’s a lot of shit going around about Matt pulling out initiative too early and people giving shit to Marisha because they always do when she makes the tiniest of mistakes. But from a pure story telling/rp stand point, Marisha made the right call for her character.

Jester and the ghost creature were talking to each other in infernal. In game, all the MN know at that point is that Jester is talking to this creature and then they’re surrounded. There’s no clear indication in game that whatever Jester said to him was successful. And knowing their history with ghosts, one of which they fought like a day ago and knocked Beau unconscious with one hit, it’s not surprising that she would attack. 

Yes there are some things ooc that could have changed how the entire confrontation went down, but for the situation that Beau was in, her response tracks with her character. And honestly, that’s all we as viewers can ask for from the players.

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I’ve watched so much Critical Role and yet I was today years old when I realized Mollymauk’s initials are M.T.

MT as in empty. As in Molly felt empty and gave himself a name that matched those initials.

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If I had a nickle for every time Bellamy Blake’s character was assassinated by him joining the bad guys for no good reason other than plot, I’d have two nickles. Which isn’t a lot but it’s weird that this has happened twice. 

[kal-rants]

Okay but consider this:

Wanda had literally nothing to do with the Hex. 

Since we know Agnes is behind everything, what if she made the Hex around Westview way before Wanda even came into the picture. Because everyone outside of Westview forgot about Westview, it hard to tell when the Hex ever even established itself. It was assumed that the Hex was there for a few weeks because it was under the insinuation the Wanda was controlling everything and since she was last seen a few weeks ago, it could only be a few weeks old, but if Agnes created it with her own powers, the town very well could have been like that for months maybe years (perhaps even five years... as a way to protect herself and everyone inside from the blip). 

So here’s my theory: Wanda escapes SWORD with Vision’s body and runs off. She decides to lie low. She doesn’t try to go to Westview, but when she notices a town on the road that she didn’t even realize existed, what better place to lie low? But when Wanda goes through the Hex, the Hex doesn’t know what to do with her. She is too powerful to be controlled by it so the only way it can maintain itself is to give her the reigns, lest she sees the Hex for what it is and attempts to take it down.

What no one realizes is that when Wanda took Vision’s body, SWORD proclaimed that she broke the Sakovian Accords. And who do we know tracks down fugitives that break the Accords? Agent Woo. Wanda was his original “witness” that he lost inside of Westview, he just forgot he was tracking her specifically because, like with everyone else inside, the memory of her is erased from everyone outside. Thing is, Wanda is an Avenger, everyone knows her. And erasing some thousand family members minds is one thing but the whole world? A bit too large I’m sure. So it just takes the memory of the people who would look for her. Someone like Agent Woo. Except Agent Woo is too smart and he still managed to track down his missing person.

[kal-rants]

Surprising no one, I have issues with Raven’s arc so far in the season. I mentioned last week that the entire radiation reactor plot line seemed to be a weak attempt at addressing criticism from last season and it more or less rang hollow to me, but that isn’t my problem when it comes to this episode. I am perfectly capable of not liking a plot, but still appreciating what it does for the character in the long run. But that is my issue for this episode because the show is having Raven feel guilty for killing people instead of having her feel guilty for using people which resulted in their death. 

“Why does this distinction matter?” you may ask. It matters because Raven has already killed people. She’s killed Grounders in the explosion of the bridge in season one. She killed the workers at Mount Weather when she went to explode the dam. Hell, her introduction in season two is literally her using a shotgun to kill a Grounder. So having her feel guilty just because the Eligius people died doesn’t seem right because why are they any different from the other people she’s killed in the past? Why are their deaths elevated above all the others? 

They are different because she manipulated them into giving their life. She used them as pawns to get the job done. That is something that someone would and should feel guilty for. The realization that leading up to that moment, she thought they were expendable and was willing to let them die to save everyone else. It’s not that fact that they died that should make her feel that guilt, but that she was manipulating them. That matters because it goes under the assumption that she still would have felt guilty even if one or all of them survived. Not only that but it addresses the main cause of the situation and not just the outcome.

For her to say at the end of the episode “I just killed 8 people. None of that is okay” doesn’t seem right when she killed more than that on Earth. Not only that but those people were very much willing to kill her friends and she knew that, that’s why she went there. A case could be made that she is viewing killing and death in general under a new light after what happened, but that’s not what this feels like. It feels like the writers forgot that Raven has been killing people since season one and decided to give her a guilt story line seven seasons late.