oh...I didn't hear anything about that king/molly question before the panel was posted today--
"A celebration of the ephemeral." "Gather ye rosebuds." "Live now, get it done. You've get a very short time to do this..." "Having that character come back was always gonna be--kind of a fresh start, and very specifically kinda just take the very base notes of where he had been before."
That hurts, but. I can at least have, "take the very base notes" of that character and carry them on. Not the same, but. The most intrinsic parts of him are what stay. And it means a lot to me that he keeps the same feelings for the Nein he had before, and he eventually regains some of his memories in those dreams Taliesin and Matt mentioned.
Still going to always think of it as Molly's soul, just reborn or given a new start. Like a Consecution. If there was really nothing left of him for the ritual to grasp, if this isn't the same soul shard, I don't think the spell would have worked at all, or he wouldn't have felt anything for the Nein.
There's also the phrasing of, "Whoever it was, put it back. I think they've earned it. Put it back." Which seems...really strange, if there's truly nothing of Molly left. On some intrinsic level, that was the core of Molly's soul, even if he can never be the same again. It's heartbreaking, that Molly always felt like he was on borrowed time, seemed to know whatever he had to do, or wanted to do--he didn't have long.
"Live now, get it done. You've got a very short time to do this," just makes me think of how Gustav told him, "Mollymauk, I hope you find what you're looking for." And his only response was, "I think I will." When Jester asks him what it is he's looking for, he just says, "Hmm...I'm not quite done with this one. We'll see."
A life he isn't done with just yet. Something he's still looking for. And he gets another chance at that, whatever it is he wants to find. That shard of his soul still lives on, is still made to feel whole, still looks at this little family and is enough of Mollymauk that his first word to them is Love. "There's nothing wrong with living your life. You only get one of them--or...mostly..." Sometimes there's a miracle.