the silt verses treats all of its characters with so much respect and love it's actually genuinely surprising to listen to. even when faulkner's death feels horribly unfair and cruel, it still feels like the only way for him to end. anything else would have been a disservice to his character. carpenter and paige's fates being left ambiguous feels so correct too, because carpenter is a survivor but she deserves her rest, and paige is a revolutionary but she deserves to see her people walk forward without her. hayward taking back his autonomy with his last words, declaring that his death is not a sacrifice to a god or a cause, it's for him and him only.
carson and val, both antagonists actively harming the main cast, would have been so easy to just kill off quickly, the fans would have been satisfied with that. but no. they get their moment too. we're forced to consider their humanity too. she wanted to be a ballerina. he wanted to be a milkman. they die telling each other beautiful lies about lives that were kinder to them, lives where they were kinder to others. it's a beautiful moment, and i genuinely do not think any other podcast has ever given its antagonists this kind of grace and love.
the children of the woundtree leave a memorial for adjudicator shrue, because even though they never got the chance to become a true part of their cause, they died holding tightly onto the same values, and they deserve to be remembered as one of them. in the end, they did find a god that describes them as a candidate after all.
no other podcast, hell, no other piece of media truly and thoroughly loves each and every single one of its characters as much as the silt verses does.
