"I am the parent--you do understand that, correct? I keep him safe, so he can get better and stronger and achieve great things. When I found him he was nothing, just a scared little boy in the corner of an alley. It's my job to protect him. I protect him. He's my boy, and he'll be a great man someday."
Fascinating that they kept Nott's parent speech from the campaign. It's almost verbatim, but where they've placed it in the events of the episode recontextualizes it.
Nott insists that he was a "scared little boy" while the audience is being shown that he is a full adult with incredible power and agency. He may have even been holding back during their friendship. Caleb's backstory in the animation also feels more brutal than I remember, with active missions instead of just trauma tests.
The new speech does more to reframe what we know about Nott, rather than Caleb. She needs to be a parent, and needs to see him as helpless and in want of a caretaker.
This crystallizes the relationship as something both characters need right now but will eventually have to change. Nott will someday have to admit that he's not her child, and more importantly that's not how she wants him to see her. Likewise, Caleb will lean into having a caretaker for now, but he'll eventually chafe against that and probably want the chance to protect and care for Nott in return. In the campaign, they grew out of that dynamic gradually over about 50 episodes, but didn't address the shift.
How the writers placed this moment in the story sets us up to have a more direct arc for their relationship. We the audience can see already that Nott means well but that her view of Caleb is more about her own needs than she's willing to admit. It also seems shockingly rushed for such an early friendship--Nott got SUPER attached to Caleb super quickly. It's been, what, a week? Two weeks they've known each other? Nott, you're in trouble girl. ((Edit: maybe several weeks per Beau's comment))
I'm quite happy; this feels like an intelligent adaptation choice that still keeps a beloved moment from the original show.
I do really like how well Molly is set up as an unreliable narrator (and he certainly is doing a lot of narrating, even diegetically), and how quickly we can see where that unreliability tests the limits of his narration.
We see before the carnival how he acts when he wants to make others feel good, generally in the hopes that they will perform well, in which he is certainly not an unbiased observer. He has stake in how his carnival performers do, and he needs them to do well! His livelihood—his life—depends on it, as do theirs. That's understandable and doesn't negate the fact that he considers them friends and even family, but it's also a fairly transactional exchange.
And now we see him with Jester. At this point in the show, we cannot know whether or not the Traveler is in fact a real entity let alone a real god. Jester could very much be simply a sorcerer with an imaginary friend. Molly seems to believe something of that sort, suggesting that she should abandon a one-sided relationship with her god and embrace the fact that her power comes from her alone.
And why wouldn't he? He has powers and a past that he can't explain, and he doesn't want to. Even more than that, he wants to claim the powers without the past. His advice to Jester is, as much as it's intended for her, primarily a maxim of his own. But it's a statement that takes nothing of Jester's agency or wishes into account—in fact, whether or not it was his intent, it's incredibly condescending towards her, because it denies that he's believes her capable of adequately or accurately describing her own reality, and it denies that she might know what she needs best.
But even on top of that, this strange team he's thrown his lot in is powerful and has potential, but volatile. Like his past, the Nein as they are now are a set of wildcards, and they already seem to be rapidly stumbling out of their own league. Molly doesn't have the circus anymore; instead these are the monkeys he's left with, and he needs them to perform, and this is the only way he knows how to push them to do it. In his mind, their lives, and his, might depend on it.
Essek blowing his chance to save his mom to save his friend and then perma-killing his friend to keep his cover and then having to perma-kill his mom to keep his cover and not getting anything out of any of this
I am truly enamored by how economical and how GOOD Essek's plotline is. In the campaign we see him well into his plots and schemes, exhausted by everything he's done and has to keep doing, and so isolated that he's both deeply untrusting and desperate for allies. Here we can see how his intelligence and eagerness and even good—or important—intentions have been manipulated, as was suspected, given both Trent and Ludinus's general penchants for manipulation, and especially Trent's longtime experience with manipulating young wizards exactly like Essek. We can also see how he recognizes in real time that what he has done thus far already makes it extremely difficult to backpedal: he can't reveal himself as knowing exactly where the beacon is, because he would be outed as the one who sold it and executed; he can't take it back, because he's already extremely outnumbered; he can't refuse to give Trent the information, or he'll be boxed out and it will all be for nothing. We can even see the beginnings of what he may do later, to keep information in the Dynasty under wraps, selling out friends, allies, and simply others in the dens to maintain his own survival.
But that also happens, in the campaign, over a far longer period of time, and he is not a focal point there as he is here, so we can assume this is happening far more rapidly and drastically, likely spurring larger motives and aims. Certainly he already has very distinct reasons to loathe Trent, for immediately stabbing him in the back and more than likely refusing to give Essek what he wants—the means to save his mother. I'll be curious to see if, by the time he meets the Nein, Essek will have far more acute hatred for Trent than he necessarily harbors in the campaign, even in light of his clear distaste for the man then.
In the campaign, Essek only learns that Caleb was a Volstrucker-in-training when he starts asking about interrogating their prisoner, but I think it would be interesting if this is setting up to essentially give Essek another reason to court Caleb's interests and loyalties—to get revenge on Trent for putting the nail in the coffin (or perhaps the torch to the pyre) of his ambitions of curing his mother. It would, like many of the other changes we've seen thus far, would hone and increase Essek's interest and investment in the Nein as a whole, while really solidifying the connection between him and Caleb, essentially laying the groundwork for the shared path they both take to the end of the story—and their ability to see reason only by seeing each other, and ultimately allowing that reason to guide them off that path.
I love beau and caleb as "empire siblings" because sure as a coastal urban elite I'll make fun of a rural Pennsylvania guy who grew up mennonite and talks with a funny accent, but if you put me on a train with a bunch of Europeans then it's me & the hick 🤞 ride or die go merica. (i'm beau in this example)
Okay but Jess Lackey's notes on Caleb's expression upon seeing Essek made me think of something, which is that it's not totally clear whether Caleb actually believes Trent when he says that the beacon is the key to everything, that it can achieve anything he's dreamed of, that genuinely anything is possible. He may want to believe it, he may be inclined to believe it, but deep down he still knows viscerally that Trent will say whatever he needs to to convince his audience. But of course Caleb needs to believe this in order to motivate his actions and his goals going forward. When this terrifying figure shows up like some kind of futuristic avenging angel, who has supposedly been granted the power of this artifact that Trent has stolen? I think that's when Caleb wholly believes it.
It's just very fun to imagine that seeing Essek is what makes him believe that everything he wants is possible, given that Essek will also be the one asking, in the end, when what he wants is not only possible but right in front of him, if he's going to take it, and will also be the one walking away from that with him in favor of what they've both found more worthwhile in the interim.
One thing that is suggested in the campaign but is difficult to show on a ludic level is the fact that, as they have a form of magic that no one else does and is extremely powerful, and they also have the benefit of centuries of experience*, much of it engaged in fights for survival against Lolth, during the Calamity, or simply against an incredibly inhospitable landscape, the Dynasty does genuinely have quite the leg up on the Empire. Because D&D is generally scaled relative to the party's level and abilities, this is challenging to portray, even if we get a sense of it based on how rapidly the Dynasty is said to have taken the Ashguard Garrison. The dunamancy that the party does acquire is of course placed within the confines of mechanical conventions, and as such does not seem notable in contrast to other spells. The most we really understand of dunamancy within the world, on a direct level, is that it's extremely distinctive and will raise questions if seen being cast in the Empire, but even then, this only bears out so far. Of course we do see Gravity Fissure giving Caleb—and by extension Essek—away at the Sanatorium, but we don't see much indication of the fact that dunamancy is virtually unknown in the Empire.
Essek is an extremely well-trained dunamancer within the context of a cold war. He was likely a child when the initial conflict between the two nations began to spark, and he holds a court position that works in military and espionage contexts when appropriate and necessary. On a mechanical level, he was built to be a decent fight for the Nein, a very well-built party with two clerics, at the top of the middle level range. It was always the case that he was very powerful, and his general lack of concern for collateral damage tracked well with a wizard trained for combat scenarios where his first and foremost responsibility was to cause as much damage as possible. His overall effectivity is low in Aeor for Doylist reasons—namely Matt's aversion to taking the spotlight from his players as well as the DM dice curse if you believe in such things—but it's also easy to slot this performance in with this context: Essek in Aeor is experiencing, for the first time, both guilt regarding the harmful by-products of his actions and immediate fear and concern for the well-being of his friends, and is also in a context where high level magic is a liability and most of his spells will do more damage in friendly fire than they will to an enemy. And overall he adjusts quite well to these limitations by shifting to a support caster role! This is, ultimately, a showcase of strong tactical ability even if it does weaken his overall combat output.
The fight for the beacon in the show does a great job of showcasing both of these incredibly formidable powers in a way that wasn't really visible in the context of the game's mechanics, when Essek is leading a team of Kryn combatants in the context of a military engagement. It tracks also with certain limitations that come from Essek's strong tactical skill; for instance, the fact that he is caught off guard in Trent's lab—because he is, to his mind, in a research setting. This should be a civilized space, so he is not initially concerned with protecting himself outright—and why would he be? These environments, from his experience, are controlled and tightly-maintained. Once he becomes accustomed to the recognition that that is not quite the case in Trent's lab, he becomes much quicker to protect himself and react accordingly. The environments in which he's capable, on the other hand, make sense when you consider where you would want to deploy a wizard—from above, over large contingents of enemy combatants where friendly fire is a non-issue and structural damage is irrelevant. This is a far cry from a supposedly innocuous laboratory or even, as we'll find later, an unstable underground cavern.
Essek's casting in this engagement, and even in other contexts through the show thus far, is much cleaner and more efficient than Trent's, which is a very neat way of showing off the more technologically advanced dunamancy. The motions are precise and simple and move into each other cleanly, and the movement itself is not as sweeping—and therefore require less exertion—than Trent's, which often have his arm's reaching farther in different directions to cast. Trent looks genuinely fearful twice during the battle: once when he is nearly sucked into the Dark Star, which does end up taking at least one of the Kryn agents, and once when Essek drops him in one quick motion out of the sky. Trent does counter both of these, but it takes him far longer to recover in both cases, demonstrating a lack of practice with countering dunamancy than other forms of magic. And Essek is, we know, a relatively inexperienced dunamancer in comparison to others in the Dynasty.
This is just the casting alone. The other element of the battle is the Kryn tactics. First is, of course, the iconic chitinous armor, which is used to great effect. The agents that Trent initially fights do indeed seem to be a swarm. Nearly all of the armor is identical, an effect that compounds when considering introducing echoes to the equation. The physique of the armor is even uniform, likely by design, regardless of what the individual underneath looks like. It becomes nearly impossible to track all of the combatants, determine their identities, or even identify how many there are. Though overall his armor maintains that identical silhouette, Essek has a notable difference: the cape, which evokes a similar insectoid effect, but does distinguish him just enough to identify. Given that he does not appear among the initial onslaught, I'd guess that, on a tactical level, this is because they are assaulting a wizard's tower, and he is the wizard—Nein interference notwithstanding, one can assume that he was prepared to need to dispel the wards himself. (Thanks, Caleb!) He would need time and coverage to do that, which the other agents would provide.
In the process of doing so, he lands in front of Caleb for a solid four seconds before crossing the room to retrieve the beacon. Though it is funny to joke about him posing for his (currently extremely bemused) future boyfriend, it is most likely to consider that he is sizing up the situation, which is much different from that which he would've assumed he'd find. There are no wards and there are unfamiliar individuals who may or may not be a threat. The time he takes to evaluate the room and Caleb means that he has identified that there are no wards to contend with and that Caleb himself is not a threat to him. Once that has been determined, he walks over to the beacon. (Note here that he is walking, not floating—which further serves to make him harder to identify for anyone who might be familiar with him.**)
Only when the beacon has been retrieved does he engage with Trent himself, passing off the beacon, whether intentionally or not, to another agent, who can blend more with the group than Essek can, while Essek uses his far more considerable firepower to coalesce Trent's focus on him. The winged distinction in Essek's armor is subtle enough to be missed at first, which gives the other agents the ability to make sure he alone makes it to the tower, but becomes a liability once an enemy has caught onto it unless it's used to his advantage. Essek is, without a doubt, still very much a glass cannon—but all he really needs to do is to hit hard enough to outlast his opponent. Interestingly, in the end, he doesn't move to reconnect with the other agents, who are on the ground; as Trent is recovering in the bubble Essek stuck him in, Essek flies up again, which results in his capture by Trent—but it may have been the difference in where Trent's attention was that allowed the other two agents to make a ground-level getaway into the sewers.
There's a lot going on in this battle, both magically and tactically, that demonstrates the Kryn's disproportionate level of advancement on both fronts that was not really possible to show in the campaign. This makes clear that Essek—who will certainly not be on our party's side for the time being, particularly now that they hold what he wants—and the Kryn Dynasty as a whole are extremely formidable enemies, which serves to both validate the idea that the Kryn have been treating the Empire quite gently prior to more direct provocation, and make the possibility of Essek snapping at the Nein's heels far more terrifying, giving them urgent reason to go to ground and get the hell out of dodge.
* I understand why this is not the case, but goddamn, I wish being consecuted conferred a mechanical advantage in game. UGH. My biggest pet peeve.
** On that note, given the interesting trade-off in the Kryn helmet design with regard to the ears being out, I wonder if that design was an intentional choice for this scenario in particular—so that the audience can follow Essek in battle without ruining the verisimilitude of the otherwise intentional uniformity of the Kryn armor.
Essek was always extremely doomed by the narrative, but the animated show really just amps his story up to terminal levels of classical tragedy. This story can only ever start before he's done what he's done, because he cannot in this stage make a different choice.
And we can see the barest hint of why, now: for all he claims he doesn't care for his mother's religion, he is fundamentally angry that a promise—or, from his perspective, as I'm sure he would not see it in such terms, a truth—has been broken. The dogma that he's grown up with claims to give its faithful as much time as they need in order to bring themselves back to the Luxon, and the existence of typhros, particularly when impressed upon his mother, ostensibly one of the most faithful, proves that isn't true. Whether Essek believed in it at all as a child is immaterial, because he has always been profoundly aligned with its core beliefs; he feels that all knowledge exists if one looks long and hard enough, that those striving for it will be rewarded, that anything is possible for those who do so—including turning back time or preventing death altogether.
But dogma, in its certainly, will always be contradictory. Firm tenets do not stand up against the complexities of the world, even well-intentioned ones, even as they become ingrained into cultural mindsets. Wise, experienced worshippers, like Deirta, know that those contradictions must be lived with. Essek, who is neither of these things in comparison to his mother, cannot live with them.
What is so distinctly tragic about this is that he has already gambled away the future that he wants—along with the lives of countless others, of course, which is really the aspect that takes it from tragic to villainous—in an effort to prove these ideas true. If Trent and he can uncover the information that he seeks, at the very least his mother will know that this did not come from the ether, and though I wouldn't necessarily assume she would turn him in outright, she isn't aware of the theft, an ignorance I'm sure Essek would prefer to maintain. There's a high likelihood that even some tangential suspicion of involvement would doom him in the end, given that is what causes him to flee regardless of anything he has gained from his devil's bargain.
While the villainy of this story is the collateral damage left in its wake, the tragedy of the matter is that from the start it was inevitable that there is no best case scenario, and I suspect Essek knows this, whether he's conscious of it or not. When his mother hits him—in response to something that he knows is a provocation, though the nature of the response, as others have discussed, is almost certainly characteristic and exemplary of her current state—the only thing he says is, "I'm not ready to lose you." By her very actions in this moment, he knows she's already lost, unless he can deliver her a miracle.
Given what we know about Trent, and the outcome of the war, and Essek's eventual ending, we can already presume that he cannot. But even if he could, it would not give him what he wants—a future where his family is happy and once again whole. His mother's salvation would almost certainly spell his demise. The tragedy lies therein: this gamble is already lost. She will lose him even if he doesn't lose her first.
