The liberated Rungjani blood (souls?) being used to paint murals of rebel orcs in a liberated theater by a young Rungjani artist is sick as fuck actually.
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@tavella
The liberated Rungjani blood (souls?) being used to paint murals of rebel orcs in a liberated theater by a young Rungjani artist is sick as fuck actually.
Also can I just say how happy I was that Thaisha was in that scene with Yanessa. Because that challenge loud and clear from the Lloy in the campaign about "Redemption from what" was so needed. It's such a corrosive idea coming from the Candescent creed that we have all inherently done something wrong, but it's specially heinous to ask for penitence from a people who have been treated as inferior for so long. You will not take the energy of the rebellion, turn it inward into self-hatred and use it for your own good without pushback in Dol-Makjar while Thaisha Lloy is standing right there.
This is also very interestingly in conversation with Tyranny's scene with Tsul'rekshi where it seems like Tyranny has internalized this belief of the creed, that her inherent nature is sinful and evil. Sure Tsul'rekshi might agree that their nature is inherently one of destruction, and I think the situation with the knife proves that this is something beyond Tyranny's complete control, but this doesn't mean that it should be done in evil. If anything Tsul'rekshi's nature to "in every age tear down the highest tower" is a noble cause. After all, there are many things in this world worth destroying and nobody should apologize for doing just that.
I realise I’m late to the party, but I still want to sit for a minute with Hal and Bolaire and what happened at the end of Episode 22: The Point of No Return. Because that. That was a lot.
Okay. First impressions?
That was so … so calculating of Bolaire. So … So cruel and hopeful and twisted. I don’t think it was intended, necessarily, as a cruelty. But I think it was intended as an opportunity.
Bolaire’s actions towards Hal have been so. Desperate. And manipulative. And hopeful. And scared.
And I don’t mean manipulative in the sense of … uncaringly trying to steer Hal towards a goal. I mean manipulative in the sense of desperately trying to steer this new chapter of their relationship in a way that ends with Bolaire both still free and also still friends with this man who means so much to him.
I just. I really think that he never wanted Hal to know. At least on a practical level. That was the threat that Thjazi held over him, the idea of Hal knowing what a monster he is, because the realistic end result of that is Hal never having anything to do with him again. Bolaire never wanted Hal to know.
He also did want Hal to know, as a fantasy, as a hope, as the idea that maybe, maybe this person, this one person, might eventually know him for who and what he truly is, and still care for him. Even though he is an object and a monster and a parasite who literally cannot live except by possessing and killing people. He hoped, hopes, so desperately, that there is some fantasy ending where Hal knows him truly for who he is and does not despise him for what he is.
But that hope was a … a fantasy, a story to tell himself, and realistically he knew, was terrified, that if Hal ever truly knew, he would rightly hate Bolaire and at minimum cut him from his life.
And then Thjazi died, and left a letter, supposedly for Murray, and suddenly it’s not hypothetical anymore, in either direction, it’s neither fantasy or nightmare, it’s real, Hal does know, and now …
Now he has to steer this, guide this, so that everything he fears does not come to pass.
And this moment, this thing here. It was …
Hal is so vulnerable. Hal is not a fighter, Hal is not an adventurer. Not anymore. And this episode has made such a point of that. Hal’s hesitance. Shell-shock. He is losing his life, his normal life, his family, the safety of his family and his theatre, and the dreams he has spent so long fighting for. It’s all slipping away, he can feel it slipping away. Every step he takes deeper into this sewer, into this fight, is a step away from safety and further into war. The war he has spent so long trying to leave behind him. Hal is trying so desperately to wrap himself in cushioning shock and disbelief, trying to walk the steps without actually letting them touch him, without letting himself really realise that this is it, that this is something he cannot come back from. He focuses on rescuing the kid while the others fight, and likely for that reason. This, protecting a young person, is something he can do, would do anyway, that doesn’t make it a war. But killing …
I just want us to look at the moment Bolaire chose.
Hal, in deep shock, saying numbly that he hasn’t taken a man’s life in almost thirty years.
Bolaire, two minutes later: I’m going to need to die. Do you want to do the honours?
Like. He knew he needed a new body. He saw an opportunity as a result of the fight. He knew … He knew he had to do it at least somewhat openly. Trust is so fragile right now. If he tried to keep it secret, it would only damage that. But he saw … He saw Hal so vulnerable.
I think … I think he saw an opportunity. While Hal is still so vulnerable. While Hal is still wrapped in that comforting numb cushion of shock. While Hal might not feel, at least not acutely, not yet, the true horror of what Bolaire is and what Bolaire is asking him to do, to be part of, whether actively or not. But he will still know. Still see. Still …
Maybe, hopefully, get used to it? The idea of it?
Especially, as vicious and cruel a thought as it is, if he’s now complicit in it.
And I don’t mean that … It’s not cruelty. It’s not malice. It’s not driven by a desire to manipulate Hal, not in the sense of the emotionless use of a tool. It just.
He went to Hal. And Hal, despite all the mistrust of the last few days, was so badly in shock, so badly shaken, that he just leaned on Bolaire. Let himself. Slumped on Bolaire’s shoulder. And Bolaire did try to comfort him. Genuinely. He offered what comfort he could for Hal’s loss of safety, comfort, soul. That was genuinely meant. He was honest about it, about how he’s not there, was never there, has always lived this darker life, but he is, really and truly, sorry for Hal’s loss of safety. His descent into this darkness where they, he and Azune and Murray, already lived, or at least ventured regularly. He is sorry.
But then he immediately, deliberately, somewhat cruelly, also moved to pull Hal deeper. To ask him to commit another horror, immediately on top of the one he just bore. To be part of Bolaire’s horror.
Because, I think, the desperate hope is, if Hal is part of Bolaire’s horror, at least a little bit, then maybe he won’t flinch from it.
But he is … It’s not done cruelly. It’s not cold or callous. He does still try to soften it. To offer Hal ways out of it, make it so it doesn’t have to be him. But just … the immediacy of it. ‘I haven’t taken a man’s life in almost thirty years’. And then five minutes later: ‘Would you like to do the honours?’
And it also … He’s not lying. It is terrifying for Bolaire too. He is, quite literally, putting his life in Hal’s hands, in Hal’s keeping, in Hal’s judgement. Not in the sense that he will die if Hal doesn’t put him on the new body, but in the sense that he will not live. Cannot live. He has no life if Hal does not let him kill someone. He is taking what must be one of the most terrifying risks of his life. He is not just telling Hal but showing Hal what he is. What he must do to survive. He is asking Hal to be complicit in it. And Hal could say no.
He's also … asking Hal to kill him. Directly. Only his body, yes, not himself, but still. And it is … I wonder is it meant as a partial apology? Hurt for hurt?
Because Hal takes it. Hal … Hal takes the sword, and Hal hesitates, and then Hal fucking butchers Bolaire. Making the wound as vicious and as messy as possible. Kicking Bolaire away from him.
Which. Yeah. That, ah. That’s.
Some of that could have been that Bolaire deliberately requested that the body had to look like it died in a battle. But some of that could also have been Hal. Being so angry. So angry at Bolaire. Possibly because … because Hal realises he’s being manipulated. He knows. He’s good at people. He knows. He knows what this is. He came to Bolaire with his vulnerability, his shock, let himself trust and take comfort for just a moment, and Bolaire immediately took advantage. Immediately requested this horror of him. Hal
Bolaire asked that the body die hard. And Hal decisively obliges.
Because. For all Bolaire (and Murray, and Azune) talk a good game about how sorry they are that they’re dragging Hal further into this, that they always thought Thjazi was right to try and shield him, that they’re sorry he has to see this, they’re still doing it. Still asking. Still expecting. Still leaving him to feel all his hopes and dreams and safety trickling away between his clutching hands. They all lied to him, for years, for the sake of protecting him, and they fucking failed. They failed. He’s not protected. He’s not safe. His children are not safe. All those lies, and they didn’t even fucking work, and now he’s here, down in the horror, and he has to do it anyway.
Which is, naturally, not a fair thing to think, to feel, but feelings are like that? They’re not fair. They never are. They’re just what we feel.
I think there was just a bit, in that moment, of Hal taking that anger out on Bolaire. Because Bolaire asked for it, and there’s a bit of Hal, an angry, broken, knowing bit, that was absolutely ready to take him up on that offer. Because Bolaire has just betrayed him, manipulated him … trusted him, put his life in his hands, asked him to kill him …
He’s angry at Bolaire. Mistrustful of Bolaire. Fascinated by Bolaire. Resentful of Bolaire. Friends with Bolaire. Even still, even now.
Because … Because the thing is. He didn’t want to step down here, but he did. He chose to. He didn’t want the war. But in the end, he did choose to fight it. He chose to come down here with them. He chose to take up arms when fatally pressed. And he chose to take Bolaire’s sword, the sword Bolaire offered him, and he chose …
He chose to be part of Bolaire’s horror. Just a little bit.
He was tempted, so tempted, just for that moment with the mask. With Bolaire in his hands. He killed Bolaire because Bolaire asked it of him, because he was angry with Bolaire, but also because he just wanted to know. What this creature, being, friend, really is. What it’s like to hold him in his hands. What’s written here? What made this being? What would it be like to …
And it’s so perfect that what the mask, Bolaire, his magic, used to lure Hal was … applause. The sound of the stage. And the sound of a stage that broke the world. Living proof, embodied in the creature in his hands, that Hal’s craft, Hal’s art, has more than just the metaphorical power to change the world, but the entirely literal power as well. The stage that broke the world. The stage that killed the gods. Or one of them, at least. Because that, that is what Hal’s art has the power to do. He’s always believed it. But here, in his hands, in his friend, in his truth, is the proof.
Bolaire’s monstrosity is a horror. But it’s also a temptation like nothing anyone else could have offered. Art can change the world. And art can help end it, too. If Hal has to endure horror … why not take a little grim satisfaction in that too?
It’s so messy. The thing they have, the thing between them. It’s so … monstrous and angry and hopeful and manipulative and desperate and poisonously gentle and quietly wonderous and hideously wounding. Hal is everything Bolaire wants, everything he’s afraid to taint, everything he has to taint if he’s to have any hope of ever being accepted. And Hal, Hal, deep down, is angry. At the world, at what it asks of him, at what his family has asked of him. Hal is twice as afraid of Bolaire, what he is, what he means, because Hal knows that he could be that monstrous too. Because, sometimes, just sometimes, he wants to.
And here, in this moment, this horrible, twisted, desperate moment, they both get a glimpse of that. Of what the other is, what they could do. And …
They come out of it again. Still safe in each other’s hands. Sort of. Wounded, hurt, betrayed. But still safe. Hal does not abandon Bolaire, doesn’t lock him away, strip him down to an object. And Bolaire was gentle. Was truthful. Gave, as much as he could, what he thought he could to soften the blow. He’s manipulating Hal, but not out of malice. He’s just … trying to show what he is, what he has to do, how monstrous he is, in ways and places that mean Hal won’t run from him.
And he risked his life, and surrendered his entire being, into Hal’s hands to do it. Which. Even if he’s doing his best to manipulate Hal’s impressions of him, even if he’s deliberately using Hal’s vulnerability and shell-shock to coax him into some degree of complicity with Bolaire’s horror, he still risked his life to do it. He still gave Hal everything. Hal could have done anything once Bolaire was helpless, and no amount of manipulation can change the sheer vulnerability of what Bolaire offered him. Vulnerability for vulnerability. Hurt for hurt.
Oh, gods, it’s unhealthy. It’s so unhealthy. But, well. What do you expect between a god-killing weapon of war with such a tentative grasp on his own personhood, and a man whose art and career and entire life has been a series of lies, both professional and unwilling?
And. Also. Just one final little note?
Azune and Murray. Interspersed with this scene, interleaved with it. In their own little world of lies and pain and desperate need for trust.
Azune: I like this, Murray, I like – Sometimes you look at me, and I think that you … put on me a little bit of the disdain that you have for the institution that I work for, and I makes me feel like I might be losing you. Because of … the position I’m in. But, moments like this remind me that that’s probably just in my head, and … I really, ah …
Murray: It is absolutely in your head, I could never hate you Azune. You’re a good egg.
Azune, the monster, the liar, the beautiful nightmare, not by choice but forced by circumstance, hoping that this moment of trust and vulnerability is the truth, that it means Murray is still his friend, that she doesn’t hate him for what he’s had to do, to be. And Murray, instinctively, openly responding. Giving grace immediately. He’s a good egg. She could never hate him.
Azune, towards Murray. And Bolaire, towards Hal.
But Hal … can’t give it back as openly. He’s too shocked, too broken, too angry, too betrayed. Not yet. Not just yet. He can’t give the easy forgiveness that Murray can.
But he also didn’t betray Bolaire. And he also didn’t leave.
I love that Azune’s reflexive, immediately response to this grace is, I will kill someone for you. (Which. Also not healthy, my boy, my poor broken monstrous boy). With Bolaire that’s not a question. We all know he’ll kill and likely a lot worse for Hal. But Murray also promises that right back at Azune, and I believe her, to my core. And Hal …
Hal does kill someone for Bolaire. Two someones. Right then and there. Of course, he also kills Bolaire, as messily and gruesomely as possible. But still.
Let’s all go down into the dark together, huh?
Past the point of no return. No backwards glances. Our dreams of make believe are at an end …
I am going to say. One final final note? The title of this episode does stand alone, as Hal’s emotional point of no return, but if that title is also a deliberate reference to that scene from Phantom of the Opera? That’s, ah. That’s not at all loaded either, huh? A masked man trying to lure a supposed innocent into darkness, while she stands on a stage betraying him back, before they both plunge into a pit of darkness while the stage (city) burns around them. That’s. Hopefully not prophetic over here.
I would not put it past them, either. Heh.
A nicely balanced deconstruction of that scene in the sewers.
"I look at a version of me that I would have been if he [Thjazi] were my father. And then I turn around and I lie in bed and go to sleep."
Jesus Christ. Luis Carazo keeps murdering me.
Something something Thjazi was more story than person, more an ideal and idea (a thing?)... he WAS the rebellion in many people's eyes.
How could the child of a Thing be anything but? What chance did he ever have to be a Person?
It’s just that Liam is the reason Critical Role exists and he’s expressed so many times about how the game became a way for his friends to support him during a hard time even when he didn’t think he needed it and Matt has poured so much in building the world that thousands of people love watching and build their own home games within but also the world he made for his friends that supported Liam and everyone and their business and their TV show and changed their lives and no matter what happens in the next chapters of Critical Role his love and care will be sustained and I’m so emotional about the ending of Critical Role Divergence and the two players it focused on.
The Mighty Nein have exactly three ways of dealing with enemies, and that is so fascinating to me.
Befriend. Between Essek and Isharnai, this has been pretty front-and-center lately, but it’s not actually a recent development. The M9 have been cozying up to potential threats and making nice as far back as Zadash, when they first discovered the Gentleman’s operations and then promptly decided to go to work for him. It happens in Hupperdook, when they spend all day swearing bloody murder and hunting down the pickpockets who robbed them, and then promptly adopt four more children and nearly die getting their parents out of prison. It happens in the Bright Queen’s throne room, when they walk into the innermost heart of the nation they’ve been told for fifty sessions is their enemy, and become heroes of the Dynasty. There’s a tribe of giants who owe them their home and their gratitude and a band of no-longer-bandits who owe them their lives and their pants-wetting terror, because sometimes that is just how the M9 roll. There are so few people this party actually has a stake in killing. Monsters, whatever, needs must, but like–who the hell are they to judge? (The first monsters and enemies they ever made friends with, after all, were each other.)
All-out slaughter. When the Nein do decide they really want to kill someone, they fucking go for the jugular. True, murder is pretty standard in D&D, but the Nein often throw both caution and reason out the window when something hits their kill button. This is almost everything about the pirate arc, starting that day in Nicodranas where they tried to talk threateningly to two guys and ended up committing domestic terrorism and then also murdering their way into ownership of a ship, ending that time they got kicked off Pirate Island in less than 24 hours because they decided to rend Avantika asunder the first instant they had the chance. It’s their entire brief enmity with Lorenzo–they would not wait, they would not plan, they would not stop, and they would not under any circumstances, no matter what Matt wanted of planned, let him go. Hell, this is how ‘prank call Essek in the middle of a dinner party’ turned into ‘paralyze, kidnap, and interrogate’ in the first place. This group does not do long games if they can possibly help it.
Absolute avoidance. There are, sometimes, enemies the Nein dislike too much to befriend and aren’t strong enough to kill. U’kotoa. Trent Ikithon. These opponents are relatively rare, because the Nein do absolutely everything player-ly possible to distance themselves from them at every opportunity. Don’t want to unleash an immense immortal sea serpent? Fuck just saying ‘no’, we’re headed to the opposite side of the continent from the ocean, and then we’re going to yeet that magic sword directly into a volcano for good measure. You can’t threaten or blackmail me. This party is very, very good at avoidance on both a personal and collective level. So much of the early game was built around getting the fuck away from the entire concept of war and law in general, once upon a time. They have all of them stayed away from their own families, steering clear around Felderwin and Kamordah until they couldn’t any more, putting off visiting the Menagerie, sleeping on the boat instead of going back to Marion’s for one more night. They run away from their own pasts and selves and inner demons. They are not all entirely fond of mirrors.
The thing is, I’m always so fascinated by the moments when the party seems to surprise or vex Matt by derailing his plans, and while he’s generally so proud of them for it, what I’m thinking about tonight is his endless, futile attempts to give them a fucking nemesis already. I’m thinking about why it just keeps not working. And I think it’s this!
This three-pronged approach to dealing with enemies, avoid-befriend-destroy, is basically a three-step guide to making sure you don’t have enemies any more. In fact, I would say not-having-enemies-anymore is one of the highest priorities the M9 hold, and it has been, almost accidentally, since before the game even started. The M9 have since the very beginning played what I can only describe as an extraordinarily defensive game. They don’t go looking for trouble unless it’s specifically connected to some immediate threat to themselves or someone else. The handful of mercenary contracts they’ve taken have almost universally been about, “hey, let’s do this thing for the Gentleman so he doesn’t decide to mistrust and kill us,” or, “let’s do this thing for the Gentleman so we can get the fuck out of town before they start conscripting to fight the Krynn Dynasty,” or, “hey, let’s do this thing for the Krynn Dynasty so they don’t decide to mistrust and kill us.”
And it’s not about trying to thwart Matt! It’s about a party of characters who are all extremely defensive and avoidant in their own ways. Some of it’s about the sheer trauma of everything to do with Molly, and some of it’s probably about the sheer trauma of everything to do with Vax and Raishan and Anna Ripley and every C1 mistake or villain that ever came back to haunt them, and some of it’s just baked into these new characters. Everyone in this party is so fucking hurt and defensive before they even start. The only thing that’s changed so far is the bit-by-bit careful broadening of their circle of ‘who to protect’ to include each other, and their friends, and maybe more or less half the world.
The one exception here is, of course, Obann, who has them on the ropes for almost 20 episodes–who they could not kill, and tried, and he had Yasha and they could not possibly join or befriend him, and he had Yasha and they could never forgive or ignore him, and he had Yasha and they could not kill him. And the thing is, all I can remember right now is how painful so much of that arc was. Everybody was so desperate. Everybody was so miserable. And still, and still, they could not think how to go around this problem any back way, could not recruit allies or head it off. They could only just distract themselves with brief side quests in hopes that it might help them next time they hurled themselves head-first into trying all-out slaughter again, and again, and again. It wasn’t like the Chroma Conclave. They didn’t back out of the first desperate battle and decide to take the long way around on purpose, to measure and trick and evaluate and gather specific resources and plan. They were so utterly lost. They were so desperate.
I think that probably, Matt’s hope for Essek was indeed that he’d become the party’s long-term nemesis that Lorenzo and Avantika didn’t have the chance to be. I think he was hoping the other night for Essek to get away and leave them all feeling suspicious and betrayed. I think he was hoping a month or two ago that the M9 would head off away from the peace talks and never even find out about Essek until he tried to call in some of those favors for increasingly suspicious things or it all came back around to bite them in the ass. I think he hoped for a very long time, maybe even a year ago when they met Essek in the first place, that this traitorous mole would become their Anna Ripley–the cold dark super-intelligent mirror to their own broken super-intelligent knifeblade of a friend, someone they could loathe and fear and despise and eventually, eventually destroy.
But the M9 don’t do nemeses if they have any way whatsoever to help it. Good luck, Matt. Pretty sure for this crew it is Trent Ikithon and U’kotoa and Tharizdun himself, and absolutely nobody else is big or bad enough for them to actually run up against for more than a single rematch, unless you get real fucking creative.
Which makes Mercer's choice of the final (more or less) big bad a really clever way to get around this tendency.
The most recent absolute fucking drama of Critical Role episode 2-56 has me thinking about some of the differences about Vox Machina and the Mighty Nein that I’ve been pondering over for a while now. It’s not a question of morals, exactly, not really. I’m thinking about it as a question of legitimacy.
(Spoilers for most recent episode under the cut.)
Keep reading
An old, but very interesting, analysis of the Mighty Nein vs Vox Machina.
thjazi fang, eight years old: when I die, they're going to bury me under the Guardian Wall with the other heroes!! :)))
thjazi fang, catatonic teenage soldier after receiving a near fatal blow to the head: I'm never going to die.
thjazi fang, happily newlywed twenty something: Aranessa and I are going to die at the same time and be buried under a beautiful tree and our souls will go to Faerie together foreverrrr~
thjazi fang, forty-something failed revolutionary and wanted criminal: idk, Hal. near Dad.
Trying to catch up on Critical Role campaign 4 and here are my impressions of the character's so far.
Tyranny and Wicander Halovar: Imagine a devil and an angel, but they are both pretty f****d up, but also trying their very best. They are best friends and share one brain cell.
Thaisha Lloy: You mean we get to have a character who is a mom and at the same time as complex and flawed as the average dad character. Is that allowed?
Vaelus: Deadly immortal warrior who forever mourns a dead god. She's the sweetest.
Murray Mag'nesson: A whole lot of rightfully pissed off women in STEM.
Halandil Fang: 🎶You are everyones dad! You're everyones dad! Boogie woogie oogie!🎶
Sir Julien Davinos: So daddy issues and you partially caused the death of the male wife haunting the narrative. What happened to you?
Bolaire Lathalia: I'm sorry honey but you're in the wrong podcast. The Magnus Archives is down the creepily illogical corridor to the right.
Kattigan Vale: Who is a good boy? Yes you are! Who deserves more hugs and love? Yes you do! (Not talking to the wolf)
Azune Nayar: Play Army Dreamers by Kate Bush.
Thimble: Imagine if Tinkerbell was best friends with Robin Hood instead Peter Pan. Also not the cartoon version but some version where they kill people.
Teor Pridesire: Part-time furry wasn't enough I see.
Occtis Tachonis: Brennan Lee Mulligan if you dare to hurt my awkward chronically ill goth nerd son again... 😡
To be clear, I adored this episode! But I do have a nagging annoyance that really featured in a major way tonight, and I want to get it off my chest. I understand why the players are skeptical. And there is, of course, plenty of time for me to be proven wrong. But I admit that I find our PCs more than once (it happened at the Seekers table too) suggesting Thjazi might have been unknowingly (or even knowingly) working for the Tachonises pretty frustrating.
Part of "haunting the narrative" means that Thjazi is, structurally speaking, more literary device than character. Which doesn't mean he's not nuanced and complicated. But he's not going to have an arc, he's not going to contribute to the movement of the plot, he has no agency over the story, he is functionally a part of the setting. He very much exists to represent what it means to be a rebel fighter. His memory exists for our characters to run up against as they encounter the moral [exploiting resources], practical [keeping secrets], and emotional [the potential for loss] costs of participating in this fight. While also being a source of inspiration for why the fight is worth participating in. That's not to say he should always be interpreted as morally right about everything, but if he's a dupe of the Tachonis's or the Halovar's or, even worse, a fake, he loses his potency as a device. I'm not going to be so speculative as to say doubting him is a narrative dead end, because I'm not interested in predicting what will actually happen in the text. I will go so far as to say that doubts about him being proven correct would be a narrative mistake. It would significantly weaken his power as a tool for the sake of a cheap shock. Which makes it a frustrating rabbit hole to watch people go down. Even if I'm sympathetic to how an environment of paranoia might cause a player to go there
"My whole, entire mortal life..."
I've seen some posts about Hal's frustration with Thjazi (I added one to my "meta i like" queue even) that suggest a personal hypocrisy in Hal being mad about Thjazi keeping secrets from him while also having opted out of the Falconer's Rebellion. I don't disagree with many of those posts. But I do think there's an interesting difference between Thjazi's mode of operation and how the Schemers have been trying to work so far that adds nuance to that frustration. How ever Thjazi might have interpreted it, Hal opting not to go to war is not actually opting out of all revolutionary activity. And it certainly isn't opting out of information that directly pertains to him. The Schemers have theoretically tried, thus far, to allow people to get involved at the level they are comfortable with, and recognized that they are lucky to have allies at all levels. I suspect that Thjazi was not as black and white, you're all in or you're all out, as his treatment of Hal suggests, it wouldn't be practical. They encourage Romina to put her own safety above acquiring information, they respect Makmaz as solely a sideline ally, and they are taken aback but understanding when Orus points out that his business comes first. What Elodie did in this episode is technically revolutionary activity. Hal gave her some cover, but she knew that the danger he was talking about came from Sundered Houses, and she knows what "the people willing to draw a line in the sand" means too. No one is asking her to pick up a sword and go into the sewers. There is, in Hal's current experience, a vast gulf between knowing information and charging into battle.
However, I don't just think this is interesting because it lends Hal's anger more nuance. I also think the schemers are very early days, and their attempt to walk a line between working with people and using them, between only asking them to do what they are comfortable with and demanding what they need, is a precarious one. And they have already fallen off it in ways obvious and subtle. Taliesin saying "I have not felt that I've manipulated anyone into anything yet" was wild to me. Hal straight up lied to Romina's face about who he was going to share her information and identity with. And even if Taliesin was referring only to Bolaire, there are lots of young archivists and curators under his employ that he directed to take direct action against the Cormarays with very little context. (Never mind the bodies he's using and the manipulation of his enemies.) They were probably safe doing that little without knowing much more. But Lady Cormaray wasn't unprepared to kill when she showed up at the Archanade to find someone messing with "her" stuff. Thjazi having a "you're either in or you're out" mentality, might have been what prepared him to watch former allies hanged because he was more willing to see the truth of what he was asking in exchange for even very little involvement.
Today I realized that episode 27 solves a mystery about Tyranny that I've been contemplating for months.
Up until this episode, what we knew about Tyranny was that she was an archetype in the Pit that got manifested into a body on this plane. As her father said, "You will have many faces, but the soul remains the same." She represents an archetype of suffering. We can see that at work with her sisters: Cruelty is cruel, Enmity seems to hate everyone, Agony is always in pain.
But what about Tyranny? She's never embodied tyranny as an archetype at all. She doesn't care about power or status. There was some theorizing early on that she was encouraging Wick to be a tyrant, but by now it's very clear that's not the case. She wants him to be a fair and just leader. She's never showed any curiosity or interest in the halls of the mighty. What she has shown a great deal of interest in... is love.
Then, in episode 27, when Tyranny introduced herself to fellow demon Tsul'rekshi, she was confused. Araq and Tsul'rekshi have names in Na'ahavri, the language of demons. Tyranny's name is in Kahadi. Tsul'rekshi wondered why her father gave her such a name.
I get it now. Tyranny isn't her true name, not like Araq or Tsul'rekshi. Tyranny and her sisters have names drawn up and supplied by the Candescent Creed. They wanted the optics of demons with names the Kahadi-speaking public would understand, Tyranny and Cruelty, Agony and Enmity, all redeemed and brought into the Light. It's all Creed PR. Tyranny's true nature never had anything to do with tyranny. Probably her sisters are all misnamed, too, but they decided to play along with their CC-given names for whatever reason.
Tyranny's true nature was that she was forged to destroy those who harm people who love them. That's been her true nature all along. That's why she was so curious about Thaisha's relationship with Hal, Ulbid's relationship with Jasavi, Kat's relationship with Teor. Unconsciously, she was trying to learn about love so she could fulfill what she was created to do.
i would die for a tiny little piece of content from hal's daughters perspective where they just kinda gossip about everything that's happening
because a) they are cool i want to be friends with them but they are way above my league and also not real and b) well they are old and smart enough to know for sure that something's up and to have their own thoughts about it
imagine your dad picking up the sword of his dead brother and leaving you both to live together with one of your moms for a while right after the funeral ceremony. and then he comes late for the burial itself, bringing with him a not-so-close-to-the-family-itself friend and the smell of sewers. and then, for one of you, your professor (the friend in question btw) just kinda forces you to an internship program without asking and you just go with it. AND THEN there's a fucking assassination attempt right at the gala originally organized just to celebrate the theater and your dad ofc sends you all home immediately and after that never explains what went wrong. and also your dad is clearly constantly worried about something, everything, no matter how hard he hides it behind his work and smiles and other stuff. oh yeah and then everything concerning the museum, the theater itself, the bunch of weird people your dad now is apparently talking with etc. (hello angel in halovar's basement information)
boy i would be TALKING. and speculating A LOT. and these girls are not the type who would be scared, they more likely are curious . this is like the potential for a late night dialogue, a very good one. with the discussion about how stupid adults are sometimes
i honestly would write something like that if i knew how to write because it's my favorite trope and i want it badly. i mean maybe some day, i don't have enough info about everything that's happening currently anyway. but. yeah. gimme.
we're doing this every single week, but every week it remains true, but god Thjazi was so hot (art from Meet the Characters of Campaign 4 | Eps 1-4 Recap)
Liam and Luis acting as Hal and Azune makes me sobbing so much. This moment broke me